Shadow Warriors

by Dick Camp

  Baker Company (Raider) tied its left flank in with Baker Company (Parachute) on the ridge trail, while its right flank abutted the lagoon. Waist-high kunai grass covered the ground all along its front except for the extreme right flank platoon, whose front extended into the jungle. Nickerson had his men chop down the kunai grass as far as they could to clear fields of fire. The company was able to “beg, borrow or steal” enough wire to construct a double apron fence across most of its front. This was a line of pickets with barbed wire running diagonally down to the ground on either side of the fence. Horizontal barbed wire was attached to the diagonals. The platoon in the jungle could not use the fence, so it looped barbed wire from tree to tree. The ninety-man Baker Company (Parachute) occupied the left third of the line. Its position extended from the ridge trail where it tied in with the Raiders, northeast along a spur of the ridge, then several hundred yards on into the jungle. Its left flank was in the air. There was nothing to the east except empty jungle, which Edson attempted to cover with reconnaissance patrols.

  Edson reinforced each of the two Raider companies with four .30-caliber Browning M1919 A4 light machine guns from the weapons company. The extra firepower would prove crucial in the battle. To cover a 1,500 yard front, the three companies could muster only 350 men, too few to effectively stop a massed attack. To provide a defense in depth, Edson echeloned the Parachutists of Capt. Dick Johnson’s Charlie Company and Capt. William McKennan’s Able Company behind their sister company on the left side of the line. Captain William E. Sperling’s understrength Dog Company (Raider) was on the right side of the line and Capt. John A. Antonelli, who replaced the hospitalized Maj. Lew Walt, commanded Able Company (Raider).

  Edson’s headquarters—battalion aid station, communications and battalion reserve (Headquarters Company and Easy Company, minus its machine gun platoons)—was located in a draw on the western slope of Hill 123, which placed it several hundred yards behind the front lines. “It had no overhead cover, wire, or sandbags. A few telephone lines ran out to his front-line units and another snaked its way back to division headquarters, less than a thousand yards to the read,” George W. Smith wrote in The Do-Or-Die Men: The 1st Marine Raider Battalion at Guadalcanal. The 60mm mortar platoon was located about a hundred yards behind Able Company. Edson and a handful of his command group established a forward command post on the crest of Hill 123, where he could better observe and control the battle. The Parachute battalion set up a command post in a draw on the east side of Hill 123. General Vandegrift ordered artillery additional support. “Colonel del Valle moved his 3rd Battalion [11th Marines] with its twelve 105mm howitzer tubes closer to the ridge in direct support,” Captain Sweeney said.

  The men were ordered to dig in, which was easier said than done. kunai grass, roots, and coral rock, just below the surface of the ground, proved frustrating for men who had only small “T-handle” shovels to dig with. Colonel Joe Alexander noted in Edson’s Raiders, The 1st Marine Raider Battalion in World War II that “Tiger Erskine, lacking even an e-tool [shovel], spent much of the day scraping a hole with his helmet and a borrowed bayonet. By twilight his hole measured ten inches deep. Able Company’s Pfc. Henry Neal gave up in frustration. ‘I announced I wasn’t digging any more. Just then Sgt. Tom Pollard came by, reached down, jerked me about a foot off the deck, said one word—“DIG!” I dug.’ As one Raider sweated in the boiling sun, he exclaimed, ‘Rest area, my ass!’ ”

  The men were spurred on by their officers. A report circulated that a large enemy force was approaching. Coastwatcher Martin Clemens wrote in Alone on Guadalcanal: A Coastwatcher’s Story, “My scouts had reported that an enemy force of five thousand men was moving through the jungle … in an arch that would leave it in a commanding position in the hills south of the airfield.”

  The onset of darkness forced the men to stop working. They had made good progress, but much remained to be done before the defenses were strong enough to repel the expected attack. In the meantime, the men settled in for the night—the watch set all along the line, communication checks performed, ammunition and grenades laid out for immediate use—and the listening posts manned. These lonely three or four man outposts were positioned in front of the lines at night to detect enemy movement. It was not a job for the faint of heart—where every noise, every shadow, every foreign smell might be a lurking Japanese infiltrator. Platoon Sergeant Frank Guidone recalled, “Hot chow was served the first evening and we settled in for a relatively quiet night.” The only interruption was the regular nightly Tokyo Express bombardment of the airfield.

  As Edson’s combined Raider-Parachute force dug in, Maj. Gen. Kiyotake Kawaguchi’s two thousand-man assault force was struggling toward them through the jungle. “General Kawaguchi had his overworked 6th Independent Shipping Engineer Regiment cut, with machetes and swords, a sodden jungle trail that ran from Kawaguchi’s rear assembly point to the outskirts of the ridge, a path well concealed by the thick tropical growth,” Stanley Coleman Jersey wrote. “The muddy, narrow course permitted the men to move only single file, and the march through dense jungle in 110-degree inland heat and no breeze taxed the already exhausted troops.” Three infantry battalions comprised the heart of Kawaguchi’s force—Maj. Yukichi Kokusho’s 1st Battalion, 124th Infantry Regiment; Lt. Col. Kusukichi Watanabe’s 3rd Battalion, 124th Infantry Regiment; and Maj. Masao Tamura’s 2nd Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment—a total of approximately 2,500 men, including attached units and several light artillery pieces: 37mm and 75mm.

  Kawaguchi’s difficult trek through the jungle was complicated by a lack of a good map. The one that he was using did not show the interior of the island and he was forced to rely on a compass, which proved to be extremely difficult in the jungle. His command wasted hours and energy wandering aimlessly through the thick forest before they arrived at their attack position.

  11 September 1942

  At first light the men were up and working. Guidone recalled, “… [O]ur own officers and NCOs [were] constantly pushing us in the laying of barbed wire, digging foxholes, building machine gun emplacements, and cutting fire lanes.” Everyone sensed that something big was about to happen. “It was evident from some of the things that we saw going on, [like] artillery forward observers from the 11th Marines looking for observation post locations and plotting likely target areas, staff officers from division headquarters checking out the situation, and observation planes circling over the jungle and ridge lines [that] enemy activity was suspected.” Major Griffith noted that, “The division artillery commander, Col. Pedro A. del Valle decided he would take a stroll … to the ridge, along with the regimental mapping section.” They gathered data for the artillery fire direction center and, “… sweated through a long night gridding maps and drawing up fire plans.”

  Edson tagged Able Company (Raider) to conduct a combat patrol south of the ridge. It got into a firefight not far from the nose of the ridge almost immediately. “We moved out in column on a trail to Charlie Company’s front line position, passing through its still under-construction barbed wire and on into the unknown jungle. Our forward progress was slow and cautious,” Guidone explained. “Shortly before noon the point halted when the sound of Jap voices was heard along with noises from the chopping of underbrush. As Buntin [Joe, platoon sergeant] and his scouts were sizing up the situation they were taken under fire and a lively firefight quickly developed.…” Before the patrol could break contact, the noontime bombing raid arrived. “Suddenly in the distance we heard the drone of aircraft at high altitude … The enemy formation now appeared to be almost overhead from our position,” Guidone said. “That’s when the WHAM, WHAM of the first bombs could be heard directly ahead of us. As the bombs continued exploding they walked right up to our location and continued on toward our battalion positions on the ridge … Luckily, no one in the patrol was injured. What was good about this raid was that the Japanese ahead of us also got bombed and broke off the firefight.” The sudden devastating air attack left t
wo Marines dead, seven wounded, and the bivouac area shattered … proof positive that the Japanese were coming. The night passed slowly, broken only by the whispered challenges of nervous sentries.

  12 September 1942

  An unknown soldier in Kawaguchi’s force wrote in his diary, “By marching day and night, crossing many steep mountains we neared the enemy position.” First Lieutenant Shotaro Maruo noted, “By the twelfth, we had marched five kilometers during the morning and were four kilometers from the enemy lines. At 1430, we reached a point near the position where preparations for the attack were being made. Second Lieutenant Kobayashi and four men left on a scouting patrol of the enemy lines. Major Kokusho assembled all the company commanders with our attack orders.”

  Kawaguchi had prepared a message to inspire his soldiers before the attack. “It’s the time to offer your life for His Majesty the Emperor. The flower of Japanese infantrymen is in the bayonet-charge. This is what the enemy soldiers are most afraid of. The strong point of the enemy is superiority of firepower. But it will be able to do nothing in the night and in the jungle. When all-out-attack begins, break through the enemy’s defenses without delay. Recapture our bitterest airfield. Rout, stab, kill, and exterminate the enemy before daybreak. We are sure of ultimate victory of the Imperial Army!”

  Again, as on the previous day, the ridge swarmed with Marine activity at first light. Working parties continued to work on clearing fire lanes, cutting brush and stringing more barbed wire entanglements. The men knew the wire would not stop the Japanese but it might slow them down long enough for their rifles and machine guns to kill them. Sometime around noon, “Condition Red” sounded, as a large force of Rabaul-based bombers with their fighter escort paid the ridge a return visit. VMF-223, VMF-224, and VF-5 intercepted the formation and shot down sixteen. However, the Japanese still managed to hit the ridge, causing several Marine casualties. “Repeatedly, well-placed sticks walked along the ridge,” Major Griffith wrote. “Quarter-ton high-explosive bombs shattered the bordering jungle; 250-pound ‘daisy cutters’ stripped clinging vegetation off trees and mowed down-six foot kunai grass.” An errant bomb “dropped in the midst of the 1st Company, 124th Infantry, killing one and wounding four,” Lieutenant Maruo noted. Private First Class Joe Rushton recalled, “As the long afternoon was drawing to a close it became apparent to even the dim-witted that we were in for big trouble …”

  Edson called a meeting of his company commanders and staff just before dark to discuss plans for a preemptive attack the next day. He thought it might throw the Japanese off-balance and gain time to strengthen his defenses. Edson planned on leaving only a skeleton force on the ridge and taking everyone else to hit the Japanese, wherever they could be found. The meeting broke up a little after 2130, just as “Louie the Louse” (a cruiser float plane that harassed the Marines) dropped a green flare, the signal for the IJN light cruiser Sendai and destroyers Shikinami, Fubuki, and Suzukaze to bombard the ridge. The shelling was unnerving. “Suddenly,” Raider Irv Reynolds recalled, “I heard a noise like a runaway freight train and at the same time saw a bright blue light illuminating the hills to our front.” The noise was one of five high explosive shells that hit Edson’s command post. Only one exploded but there were no casualties. The blue light was from the cruiser’s search light. “It was so bright,” Captain Sweeney said, “that I knew the ship’s skipper could see me moving on the ridge. I felt naked!” The shelling went on for twenty minutes. Fortunately for the men on the ridge, most of the shells were “overs” that exploded harmlessly in the jungle.

  Kawaguchi’s units were having a devil of a time moving to their attack positions. A unit report noted, “The battalions … lost their sense of direction, almost entirely missed the ridge, and instead drifted into the low, waterlogged swath of jungle between the ridge and the Lunga. Units became lost; lost units became scattered; scattered units became intermingled. Control slipped away from Kawaguchi and his battalion commanders.” After the war Kawaguchi said, “… [D]ue to the devilish jungle, the forces of the Brigade were scattered all over and was completely beyond control. In my whole life, I have never felt so disappointed and helpless.” Despite the confusion and lack of control, “[t]he soldiers advanced toward their objective,” a translated diary noted.

  Private First Class Robert Youngdeer, a machine gunner on Charlie Company’s right flank recalled, “When the enemy shelling stopped [naval bombardment], I distinctly heard splashing in the river, the sound of many people wading and coming in our direction.” The lead elements of Major Kokusho’s 1st Battalion, 124th Infantry, were working their way around the company’s flank. One Japanese soldier wrote, “… [A] long file of men straggled out of the bush and formed squads and then platoons. Finally the attack began.” Enemy flares rose from the jungle in front of Baker and Charlie Companies (Raiders) and a horde of Japanese burst out of the brush firing rifles and throwing grenades. “The Japanese thought they had found a trail, and they followed it virtually to the muzzle of [Warren Morse’s machine] gun,” Private First Class Mielke said. “He began firing incessantly. There were cries of pain.” The Japanese attacked along both sides of the lagoon and across the Lunga River. Charlie Company’s right flank platoon was overrun. Several Raiders were cut off. “I heard someone getting beat up on the left,” Youngdeer recalled, “I can still hear the screams. He was begging for mercy.” The others were able to make their way to safety by hugging the stream bank and using the overhanging growth as concealment.

  The word spread quickly, “Don’t be captured, the Japs will torture and kill you.” Colonel Alexander wrote, “The Japanese captured one or two Raiders alive, interrogated them, then tortured them brutally with their blades. The screams of their dying comrades that night haunted the Marines crouched in their holes along the ridge, waiting for the storm to break against their sector.” Private First Class Thomas D. “T. D.” Smith said glumly, “All night we could hear a Marine evidently being tortured out front.” Another Raider recalled, “We can hear our buddies in the swamps along the line towards the river. It seems as if a few have been overcome and they must be being tortured by the Japs.” A Marine found a Japanese officer’s diary which translated: “26 September—discovered and captured two prisoners who escaped last night in the jungle. … To prevent their escaping a second time, pistols were fired at their feet. … The two prisoners were dissected while still alive by Medical Officer Yamaji and their livers were taken out, and for the first time I saw the internal organs of a human being. It was very informative.”

  A second machine gun position on the right flank was overrun. “We withdrew with them hot after us,” Pfc. Charles Everett said. “We tried to carry the gun [30-pound Browning M1919A light machine gun] but that was impossible so we left it and took off.” Everett got separated from his team and was wounded after grenading a Japanese machine gun crew. “My left hand was hit, it sailed away like I’d thrown it … they fired another burst and hit both my legs pretty bad.” He collapsed, unable to walk, but managed to drag himself into the heavy brush to hide. “I couldn’t move my legs,” he recalled. “I was bleeding awful, and my shoes were filled with blood.” He was all alone in the melee of shot and shell, except for infiltrators who were intent on killing all the Raiders.

  The 1st Battalion, 124th Infantry hit Lt. John “Black Jack” Salmon’s left flank platoon, scattering it and overrunning his position. Sometime around midnight Salmon and a handful of survivors managed to ford the lagoon by walking over the fallen log. His friend Captain Sweeney was surprised to see him leading several men through an opening in Baker Company’s barbed wire fence. Salmon was “visibly shaken, in bad shape, and deeply concerned about several of his men who had been cut off during the withdrawal,” Sweeney recalled. Baker Company bent its flank back in an effort to stop the penetration.

  Charlie Company’s 2nd Platoon manned the center of the line. The Japanese knocked out the two flanking machine gun positions but not before the gun on the right g
ot into action. “[Martin] ‘Jeeper’ Heitz’s machine gun crew opened up on them with one hell of a blast which set them screaming and moaning,” Raider Joseph Rushton remembered. “Then they started coming in all directions—shouting and yelling—and overran Jeeper’s gun.” The platoon was forced to give ground. “Shortly,” Rushton said, “word came to move out and go back across the log. This was very difficult because of the extreme darkness [rainy, pitch black, no moon] and heavy vegetation. … [W]e had to carefully find the comm [communication] wire and follow it along on our hands and knees.” Charlie Company’s lines were shattered. The survivors were forced to pull back under heavy enemy pressure. The Japanese seemed to be gaining the upper hand—but in truth they were a leaderless mob, for many of their officers and NCOs were early casualties. Without leaders, the disorganized Japanese failed to follow up on their success.

  Major Griffith noted, “I was shown a captured map … which showed the Japanese plan of attack. … It was a three-pronged attack. General Kawaguchi had expected to attack, to deliver his major attack … on the 11th, but one of his battalions was not even up yet, it was lost, just hadn’t even showed.” Griffith said that Kawaguchi “was very, very upset about this. Now if he had, nobody would have been there. He could have walked right in, and there would have been terrible fighting around the airport.” As a result, only one battalion attacked on Charlie Company’s relatively narrow front. The adjacent Baker Company (Raider) did not see any action. “Although the night of the 12 September was a tense and sleepless one, not a shot was fired in our sector,” Captain Sweeney recalled. “It was an eerie and exhausting experience—each man in his foxhole fully expecting to see Japanese soldiers charging out of the jungle to his front at any moment.”