Islands of Destiny: The Solomons Campaign and the Eclipse of the Rising Sun

by John Prados

  Division intelligence officer Lieutenant Colonel Frank B. Goettge did much of this work from Australia. It was Goettge who sent officers to visit Ferdinand and find out what the coastwatchers knew. Commander Feldt forwarded current reporting to Goettge. Yearbooks and standard reference sources were culled for data. The Australian government quietly spread the word among its citizenry, yielding a stream of postcard pictures, letters to and from people who had lived on Guadalcanal, and recollections of civil administrators. Goettge looked for the most informative contacts and had officers interview missionaries, nuns, traders, island clipper sailors, government officials, and planters. Eight former employees of Lever Brothers or Burns-Philp South Sea Traders were given reserve commissions in the Australian Navy and assigned to the 1st Marine Division, where they assembled a sketch map of the Lunga Point area. The cartography was poor—mislocated hills, misplaced and misnamed rivers—but it was all the Marines would have. Their most recent nautical chart dated from 1910. Goettge pressed for a scout mission. A sub could carry him with a team of experts to the ’Canal. Ghormley thought that too dangerous and nixed the idea.

  Two Marine officers flew on a SOWESPAC air mission over Guadalcanal. But their B-17, attacked by Japanese Zeroes, left quickly. SOWESPAC’s overhead photography was converted into a photo mosaic of Lunga Point. Then MacArthur’s air intelligence people sent the mosaic to the wrong address. General Vandegrift’s planners never got the take. Admiral Ghormley has generally received short shrift from historians, and this account will not differ. But on the matter of overhead photography he deserves high marks. In England, Ghormley had seen the miracles the British were accomplishing with aerial spies. He took steps to replicate these skills in the United States. The Navy set up a photographic interpretation school in Washington headed by Lieutenant Commander Robert S. Quackenbush, familiarly known as “Q-bush.” Once he arrived at SOPAC, Ghormley demanded a field unit with Q-bush in charge. The fiasco with the SOWESPAC aerial mosaic confirmed the admiral’s sense that South Pacific Command needed its own photographic interpretation capability.

  Beginning with the Guadalcanal landing, SOPAC would be well served by its photo interpreters. Admiral Ghormley’s estimate of Japanese strength in the Guadalcanal-Tulagi area would be nearly exact. Vandegrift’s headquarters wildly overestimated enemy strength, putting it at 8,400, about two and a half times the actual, while Admiral Turner also produced a huge overestimate (7,100). JNAF aircraft strength was similarly overestimated. But Captain Frederick C. Sherman of the carrier Wasp, which helped support the invasion, later commented that he had received everything he needed from an August 2 photo mission and from radio intelligence.

  Accurate or not, General Vandegrift’s staff took what data they had and incorporated it into the plan. Much as the intelligence was improvised, so was everything else. The last elements of the division were not even scheduled into New Zealand until July 11, and every ship would need to be “combat loaded,” which necessitated docking all their cargo and then reloading it in the order in which it would be used in battle. Not only was this an enormous job; it consumed more space in vessels’ cargo holds. The Marines left behind as much baggage as they could, but it was not enough. Vandegrift made the hard decisions to forfeit some of his artillery and vehicles, then to cut back the scale of supply to sixty days of fuel and food and just ten to fifteen days’ worth of ammunition. Even with that, reloading continued on Aotea Quay until virtually the moment the invasion armada left Wellington.

  Summoned to Ghormley’s headquarters on July 18, General Vandegrift sat down for the first time with amphibious commander Admiral Turner. The Marine general had known Turner as a naval planner in Washington and the two got on well, though Kelly Turner’s abrasive manner rubbed some the wrong way. In any case Vandegrift felt relief, since Turner, just arrived, had no time to craft a plan and perforce had to rely upon the Marine one. The senior officers agreed the schedule just could not be met and applied for a delay until August 7. Higher command accepted that. Ghormley informed the others that he was giving tactical command to Frank Fletcher, absent during all these preparations.

  The morning of July 22—a perfect South Pacific day of bright sun and spotless sky—the fleet sortied from Wellington. They were headed for Fiji, where an invasion rehearsal had been laid on. Arriving on July 26, the force rendezvoused with Fletcher’s carriers, plus flotillas carrying other invasion units. Admiral Fletcher summoned the senior officers to flagship Saratoga for a face-to-face meeting. The destroyer Hull had just arrived, carrying Ghormley’s chief of staff, Rear Admiral Daniel J. Callaghan; SOPAC land-based air chief Rear Admiral John S. McCain; and other officers. Turner and Vandegrift joined them for the ride to the Saratoga. Protocol dictated that the senior officer, in this case “Slew” McCain, board first. Just as the admiral climbed the Jacob’s ladder, some fellow opened a garbage chute and dumped a stream of milk, drenching McCain. He was furious. Worse was to come.

  Admiral Fletcher received the visitors in the Saratoga’s wardroom. Last to arrive was Rear Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, who led the Enterprise battle group in Fletcher’s Task Force 61. With the brass seated, Fletcher opened the meeting. After preliminary remarks he advised his counterparts that Task Force 61 would cover the invasion for seventy-two hours and then withdraw. The others were aghast. Kelly Turner warned that he needed at least four days after the invasion (five in all)—not the three Fletcher offered—to unload his cargomen. General Vandegrift seconded Turner, observing that the era of small landing forces quickly put ashore was over. Even with five days, the 1st Marine Division would have difficulties. Admiral Callaghan of SOPAC also warned against premature withdrawal of air support, adding that land-based aircraft lacked the range to help. Participants differ on whether the conversation amounted to a bitter dispute or simply spirited debate, but the central points are that Frank Jack Fletcher knew that his carriers were critical to the invasion, that the project was critical to the U.S. high command, and that he had been put on notice that his own idea of leaving after three days was deemed dangerous by the key executive commanders.

  There is no gainsaying the importance of this episode. Fletcher’s defenders and Kelly Turner’s biographer try to shift blame onto Admiral Ghormley’s shoulders, and some measure of that is justified. But the evidence conflicts. As theater commander, Ghormley ought to have been present at the only exchange that would take place among his key subordinates, rather than simply sending a representative, however senior. But his general instructions were to run SOPAC and leave fighting to the combat commanders. On the other hand, specific messages from both admirals King and Nimitz instructed Ghormley to “exercise strategic command in person.” One can debate the meaning of “strategic” in the phrase “strategic command” and dispute whether this meant operational control, but it remains clear that Ghormley was to do that personally. His passivity augured against overruling Fletcher’s peremptory dictum. Yet, whatever Robert Ghormley’s sins, they were of omission; Frank Fletcher’s were a different matter. The task force commander brazenly told colleagues he would pull the rug out from under them, and held to that in the face of fair warning.

  The most powerful argument in Fletcher’s favor goes to the question of who held the advantage in the Pacific. Task Force 61 included every flattop the Americans had. Lose those flight decks and Japan might take Midway after all, not to say Pearl Harbor. Fletcher’s caution might preserve those precious warships. At Midway, Nimitz had set a policy of calculated risk, which he interpreted to mean carriers should be put in harm’s way only for results that justified the risk. Nimitz had not rescinded that, and he was aware of Fletcher’s intention to withdraw early. Excusing Fletcher on this basis, however, requires a judgment that CINCPAC’s general operational policy overrode his own specific orders—and those of Washington—to afford this invasion all the support it needed. Moreover, as will be seen, Admiral Fletcher ultimately did not meet his own promises.

  Meanwhile the invasion d
rill at Fiji turned into a fiasco. On the first day some landings were canceled despite calm seas due to worries over damage to the small craft. Coral offshore threatened the boats. Defective boat engines were discovered. Marines reached two planned beaches before the recall. The best aspect would be having the men practice climbing down onto the boats. It also became apparent that ships bearing key units for the Tulagi landing would arrive too late to exercise. About a third of the Marines succeeded in boarding their landing craft. The gunfire support ships and the aircraft from Fletcher’s carriers also rehearsed coordination. Refueling the fleet went slowly, and critically needed tankers failed to arrive. Some destroyers were not full when the Guadalcanal voyage began. During the cruise the amphibious group actually fueled destroyers from invasion transports. Fortunately enemy defenses were nothing like what Marines had predicted.

  Under Marine procedures the division intelligence section was in charge of the care and feeding of the news media. Lieutenant Merillat encountered many of these war correspondents while the 1st Marines were in New Zealand, from Tillman Durdin of the New York Times to Francis McCarthy of the United Press and Douglas Gardner of the Sydney Morning Herald. The press was fed a stylized version of events. On the day of the invasion the New York Times reported on Japanese offensive action in the Solomons, although the paper made the important point that the enemy was bypassing many islands in their quest for victory, leaving these entirely unoccupied. On August 9 in New York—with Marines now ashore for three days—the Times headline read, “Japanese Occupy 3 Island Groups.” It took time for the news to reach home. Americans first learned of Operation Watchtower and the Guadalcanal invasion from a CINCPAC communiqué on August 8, which informed readers that “Forces of the United States Pacific Fleet and Pacific Ocean Areas, assisted by units of the Southwest Pacific Area, launched offensive operations in the Tulagi area of the Solomons Islands on August 7th.” The notice added that “operations are progressing favorably.” That news had already been overtaken by events.

  * To avoid confusion in this text, and because certain forms are more familiar to readers, the narrative will adopt several conventions. In actuality, until late 1942 the JNAF followed a practice of calling its main operating units “air corps” under command of air flotillas, which used that title for administrative purposes but were styled “base air forces” in operational planning and communications. The JNAF used a mixture of numbered and named air corps, but switched to all numbers and restyled the units as “air groups” in November. This text will adopt the air group nomenclature, but the flotilla names, throughout. This avoids confusion between JNAF “base air forces” versus the Imperial Navy’s practice of designating “base forces”—units of sailors manning installations. In addition, the Japanese and Allies had different ways of referring to particular aircraft, with JNAF actually possessing two systems, one based on the year of the reign of the emperor when a design was adopted (e.g., “Type 1” bomber), and the other describing aircraft by type and generation of design (“G4M2” for the same aircraft). Allied forces referred to each JNAF type by a name (“Betty” bomber). The narrative will use the Allied nomenclature except for the Zero fighter (A6M2, Zeke), and where variation is useful. An appendix will identify aircraft types by each of their identifiers. Finally, wherever material permits, each side’s sources will be regarded as authoritative in recording its losses, and assertions for losses by the opposition will be termed “claims.”

  II.

  UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS

  When Marines invaded Guadalcanal, the Japanese responded instantly. Certainly the enemy needed to do something, but what they did astonished everyone. It began at Rabaul early that morning. Staff officer Ohmae knocked on Admiral Mikawa’s door with Tulagi’s first radio message. Mikawa answered quickly. The admiral immediately ordered forces assembled. He then dressed and walked the single block to fleet headquarters. In the time it took to do that, the news had been confirmed: Americans were landing at both Tulagi and Guadalcanal. Emergency!

  What happened next had much to do with Captain Kami Shigenori, Mikawa’s senior staff officer. In the Imperial Navy, Kami had a justified reputation as a hothead. It was rumored he had once done a handstand from a sixteen-inch gun on the battleship Mutsu with her main battery inclined to maximum elevation. Forty years old, Kami expressed himself very emotionally and was a fitness devotee who used off-hours for sumo wrestling and the sword-fighting style known as kendo. After graduating top of his class from the War College, and service at the ministry, Kami had been posted to Germany as assistant naval attaché. Impressed with Hitler’s dynamism, he dallied with fascism, emerging as an important member of the Navy’s pro-German faction. Kami returned to the Navy Ministry, then the War College as tactics instructor, and he promoted the Tripartite Pact aligning Japan with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. His extreme views and forceful style made Kami a dangerous man. Even some friends felt he should not have been seconded to sea commands. At NGS, where he had worked for Baron Tomioka, colleagues recalled Kami as holding the strongest opinions, with Tomioka having a tendency to bend to him. Promoted captain shortly before Pearl Harbor, Kami had been the biggest proponent of an attack on the Panama Canal. When news of Guadalcanal reached Rabaul, Captain Kami immediately demanded the Eighth Fleet make an all-out assault.

  Admiral Mikawa responded without knowing whether the Allies had come to stay. Fortuitously, plans for New Guinea now played in favor of action at Guadalcanal. The 25th Air Flotilla had been slated to bomb Buna. Its mission was redirected. Mikawa then planned a night surface attack on the Allied fleet with everything he could scrape together. He summoned flagship Chokai from Kavieng. Rear Admiral Goto Aritomo’s Cruiser Division 6, its four heavy ships also there, would have escorted a Buna convoy. Goto participated along with Admiral Matsuyama’s light cruisers and the single available destroyer. About 400 naval troops were herded aboard a transport and sent to the ’Canal as an emergency reinforcement. Admiral Mikawa with his staff boarded the heavy cruiser Chokai at 4:30 p.m. Captain Kami reunited with an Etajima classmate who was the ship’s executive officer. Kami had never been in a naval battle. This would be a wild one.

  Mikawa put his intentions into a dispatch to Combined Fleet and the Navy General Staff. At the NGS, Admiral Nagano Osami thought Mikawa rash and wanted to countermand his plan. But staffers convinced Nagano to subside. At Combined Fleet there was concern too, but, anxious to fight the enemy promptly, lest the Allies establish themselves and attack Rabaul, neither Yamamoto nor Ugaki voiced any objection.

  Meanwhile, the pillars of Allied intelligence were hard at work. The Combat Intelligence Unit at Pearl Harbor had reported steadily on the Japanese cruisers in the Solomons, seen by air searches at least twice in the days before Watchtower. Radio traffic analysis placed Chokai, Mikawa’s flagship, the heavy ships of Cruiser Division 6, and the light ones of Cruiser Division 18 all in the Solomons. This formula was repeated several times. A wartime history of Ultra in the Pacific is worth quoting here: “[I]t is evident that [Allied] operational authorities were aware of the presence in the Solomons of the enemy cruisers.” Further, the codebreakers intercepted messages formatted as operational orders, directed to Yamada’s 25th Air Flotilla and Rear Admiral Kono Chimaki’s Submarine Squadron 3, plus to SNLF commanders demanding troop reinforcements. Traffic analysis confirmed Admiral Mikawa aboard a flagship, not positively identified, but he had already been associated with the Chokai. A message from Rabaul to Mikawa’s chief of staff gave the tip-off that the fleet boss was at sea, and the reply gave direction finders the geographic coordinates. A partially decrypted Ultra message contained Yamada’s tabulation of available aircraft, while others ordered aerial reinforcement of Rabaul. Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner had refused to bring along one of the fleet’s mobile radio detachments and now paid dearly for that. But Frank Fletcher certainly had one—Ransom Fullinwider’s unit.

  On the night of August 7, as Mikawa’s warships rendezvoused outside
Rabaul to run down The Slot—as the waters between the Solomon Islands became known—they were sighted and reported by American submarine S-38. The radio intelligence on Mikawa should not be overplayed; since some dispatches took longer to decrypt, all were partial breaks subject to interpretation, and they failed to reveal concrete intentions. But the submarine contact alone was enough to warn Allied admirals, and the radio items related the Japanese fleet commander to it. Admiral Turner called for extra air searches of The Slot, but these do not seem to have been carried out. Mikawa’s cruiser group was, however, sighted and followed by an Australian search plane on the morning of the eighth. Its valiant efforts to deliver the information were frustrated, and the report reached Turner too late. There are also questions about the searches carried out by Admiral Fletcher’s task force.* Beyond that, Ultra finally did intercept a Mikawa message containing details of his plan, but the new version of JN-25 the Imperial Navy was using still resisted penetration. This key dispatch would be recovered—more than two weeks after the disaster about to occur.

  The Guadalcanal invaders also helped. Australian vice admiral Victor Crutchley was in tactical command. The necessity of blocking two possible approaches perplexed him—Savo Island split The Slot above Guadalcanal. The Japanese could reach the anchorage either way. Crutchley’s solution was to post groups of cruisers and destroyers on either side of Savo, with a couple more within the anchorage. Crutchley himself had been in the southern group on the Australia, but left to attend a meeting Admiral Turner had called. Each of the forward units had three cruisers and a pair of tin cans. Australia’s departure left two cruisers with the southern group. The disposition looked good on paper but invited piecemeal destruction.