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

by John Prados

  The lull was real. CINCPAC’s war diary observed a withdrawal of the Imperial Navy forces immediately after Santa Cruz, attributing this to a need to refuel and deal with damage. Halsey reported the next two days as quiet, though SOWESPAC claimed direct hits on a Japanese heavy cruiser at Rabaul on the thirtieth—another George Kenney fantasy. But in Nimitz and Halsey, the Allies now had a team perfectly suited to this complex conflict. Not willing to cavil before danger to SOPAC bases, and rejecting inaction despite the aircraft carrier imbalance, Nimitz cabled Halsey on October 28, “GROUND SITUATION AT CACTUS CAN BE TURNED IN OUR FAVOR ONLY BY OFFENSIVE ACTION.” The SOPAC commander immediately signaled his complete agreement.

  Halsey had already set up escorts for a convoy. He crafted plans for additional Marine and Army reinforcements to Cactus that ultimately led to doubling the troops there, replacing Alexander Vandegrift’s 1st Marine Division with a full corps of the Army and Marines. Within the fortnight several convoys departed for the ’Canal, bearing heavy artillery, fuel, more men, and supplies. Halsey also pulled out all the stops on repairing the Enterprise. By dint of putting every available specialist on the project, enough holes were patched and decks pounded flat to restore watertight integrity in just eleven days. The “Big E” would sail and fight in a damaged condition—still without that critical number one elevator—but sail she would. That was the depth of SOPAC’s need—and Halsey answered the call. The enemy’s window of unassailable superiority lasted barely two weeks.

  On the Japanese side, Admiral Yamamoto’s plans had been deficient, not merely in omitting any provision for failure, but in neglecting arrangements to exploit success. Americans were right to worry about their SOPAC bases. Had Combined Fleet been ready to execute the FS Operation at this moment, the Allies might have been imperiled. But the Japanese were not prepared for that. Ditto Guadalcanal. Had Yamamoto been primed to really put Yamato off Henderson Field and obliterate it, and the Army’s 38th “Nagoya” Division ready to sail, Cactus would truly have been in the shit. The Imperial Navy’s unpreparedness put the outcome on a razor-thin edge. In Tokyo the emperor seems to have sensed that nexus more clearly than his admirals. On November 5, Hirohito made another of his indirect interventions, probing his commanders as to their intentions. But no changes were in the offing.

  Fleet commanders Kondo and Nagumo, meanwhile, reached Truk on October 30. Instead of fueling the fleet, setting objectives, and getting it back out, the admirals held memorial services for the dead. The Combined Fleet chief of staff thought fighting spirit low despite the recent victory. Yamamoto and Ugaki had already begun rebuilding morale, visiting damaged warships that had arrived earlier. Not until November 2 did the senior officers begin their battle review.

  Ugaki, just promoted vice admiral, met with Colonel Hattori Takushiro, chief Army operations planner, who had flown down from Tokyo, plus Combined Fleet staff posted as observers at Rabaul. He also listened to fleet staff’s ideas for new forays. To be fair to Japanese naval commanders, the Army played an important role in retarding the follow-up to Santa Cruz. Hattori told Ugaki his service had finally decided to take the South Pacific seriously, with creation of an army-size force just to fight in New Guinea, Hyakutake’s existing Seventeenth Army in the Solomons, and an area army to control both—adding up to delay while the Army marshaled the troops. Transferring a further formation, the 51st Infantry Division, now slated for Guadalcanal, deferred a full-scale offensive until December. And when Hattori passed through Truk again, on his way back from Rabaul, he reported conditions on Starvation Island even worse than supposed. The “offensive” would need to be held until January.

  Renewed activity began on November 3, when Rear Admiral Nishimura took heavy cruisers Suzuya and Maya with a strong escort group to Shortland on the first leg of another Cactus bombardment. Upon the fleet’s return, these vessels, together with Rear Admiral Tanaka’s Destroyer Squadron 2, were rearmed quickly so they could reinforce Vice Admiral Mikawa. The carriers damaged at Santa Cruz departed for Empire waters. The next day, rather than deploying Kido Butai, the fleet sent the undamaged carrier Zuikaku to Empire Waters to train new aircrew. That made sense for a December or January offensive but offered no hope for the moment. Yamamoto’s move left the Junyo as the only flattop active in the South Pacific.

  Two strong Tokyo Expresses delivered 38th Division troops to the ’Canal. The Express ran often. On November 5, Tanaka’s destroyers replaced Rear Admiral Hashimoto’s squadron on reinforcement duty. During the first part of November, Imperial Navy destroyers carried sixty-five loads to Starvation Island and landed two cruiser loads as well. Commander Yamada Takashi, a participant in previous midget submarine attacks off Madagascar, launched one of the tiny boats into Ironbottom Sound from his I-20. FRUPAC detected that and signaled a warning all the way from Pearl Harbor. The midget entered the anchorage, found the small cargo vessel Majaba there, and put a torpedo in her. Although Yamada claimed a kill for the mission, the vessel actually beached and was recovered.

  On November 7, Combined Fleet began to ship the bulk of the 38th Infantry Division. Yamamoto ordered up another Guadalcanal convoy. To support that, Rear Admiral Kakuta sortied with the Junyo and an escort. A cover force of three cruisers and seven destroyers sailed as well. The Japanese C-in-C intended to repeat the previously successful battleship bombardment of Henderson Field. The fleet operations order was issued at 6:30 p.m. the next day. Vice Admiral Kondo would take the lead. As accustomed, Admiral Yamamoto stayed at Truk, but he had set the stage for fateful encounters.

  NIGHTS OF THE LONG KNIVES

  Kondo Nobutake, universally considered one of the Imperial Navy’s most brilliant officers, had rocketed to high rank. He might have been the only man to match Yamamoto Isoroku as one of the Navy’s “golden boys.” At fifty-eight in 1942, Kondo was nearing retirement age, but the war mooted such mundane questions. He had led the Second Fleet since before Pearl Harbor, and in the Imperial Navy, where tours of duty usually lasted about a year, Kondo might have looked forward to a new billet. But Yamamoto believed in this golden boy. It was Admiral Kondo’s fleet that had protected the Japanese invasions of Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines in the opening months of the war—profiting from his experience in the China Incident, where Kondo had sparkplugged the 1939 invasion of Hainan. His subordinates had beaten the Allies at the Battle of the Java Sea. Kondo’s brilliance showed in the misgivings he expressed about Midway, but he loyally led the invasion flotilla there. The sinking of heavy cruiser Mikuma of his command had chagrined the admiral, although he had not been directly involved. The Mikuma was the first major surface combatant lost in the war, but this had not been counted against him. Later Kondo had held primacy as seagoing commander at both Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz.

  Admiral Kondo had been active for thirty-five years. He missed the Russo-Japanese War—Yamamoto was ahead of him on that, having fought, and lost two fingers, at the Battle of Tsushima. The young Kondo served on a cruiser and aboard the fleet flagship, battleship Mikasa, but after the war. Kondo was commissioned an ensign in 1908, a year after graduating Etajima. His early career had been typical—duty on a destroyer, another cruiser, and the battleship Kongo. He spent a year in England as junior naval attaché. Kondo married, made a home in the Setagaya district of Tokyo, not far from his Osaka birthplace, and had two daughters, the first of five children. During World War I he held staff posts, then went to sea as chief gunnery officer on a cruiser. Kondo graduated at the head of his class from the Naval War College in 1919. His career moved to the fast track.

  Promoted to lieutenant commander, Kondo was immediately sent to Russia as resident naval officer. Japan was playing power politics in the Russian Civil War, occupying parts of the Russian Far East, and Kondo became a player. Then came a year studying in Germany, plus two more on the commission charged with ensuring the Germans paid requisite war reparations. He returned to a position as aide-de-camp to Crown Prince Hirohito.

&
nbsp; That strain of power politics continued to run through Kondo’s life, accentuated by frequent staff assignments. Kondo acquired the reputation of a polished and literate, even scholarly officer, gracious in the style of an English gentleman, a consummate insider who had no enemies, popular even with the geisha. He spoke fair German and English, never seemed angered, and acted with practiced moderation and caution.

  Commander Kondo went back to sea in 1926 on the staffs of the battleship force and Combined Fleet. His next posting was to the Naval War College as instructor—he would be president of that school a few years later. Sea duty followed as skipper of the heavy cruiser Kako, then battleship Kongo. In between, Captain Kondo had been selected by now-Emperor Hirohito as aide to a special inspector, and served as operations section chief of the Navy General Staff. He made rear admiral in November 1933, heading the war college, became chief of staff of the Combined Fleet, then NGS operations bureau chief. Colleagues considered his service there excellent. At the operations bureau Kondo approved a General Staff plan for the invasion of Hainan, one he later carried out as a seagoing officer. Kondo feared the Hainan operation might trigger war with Britain and France, which suited him fine except that the United States remained unaccounted for. Promoted to vice admiral in 1937, Kondo served in China during 1938–1939. The affable officer next became vice chief of NGS. He was considered pro-German, friendly to the U.S., and anti-British. In the Navy’s pre–Pearl Harbor war games, naturally Kondo had played the British.

  Admiral Kondo’s technical specialty as a gunner placed him among the Navy’s predominant community, in which he was the senior officer afloat, ranking thirteenth on the Navy List. By comparison Mikawa Gunichi ranked forty-first, Kurita Takeo sixty-ninth, and Abe Hiroaki eighty-fifth. Even Ugaki, the Combined Fleet chief of staff—a post Kondo had himself held—stood lower, at eighty-ninth on the list. But Kondo’s exposure to active command of big ships had been limited, and he was by nature inclined to passivity. Those factors played into what now happened at Guadalcanal.

  As Second Fleet commander, Admiral Kondo led the latest expedition. Wearing his flag in heavy cruiser Atago, he guided the main body, including battleships Kongo and Haruna, heavy cruiser Tone, and eight destroyers. In support would be Rear Admiral Kakuta with the Junyo. Under Kondo, Admiral Abe Hiroaki led the Advance Force, embodying battleships Hiei and Kirishima; another heavy cruiser, Takao; light cruisers Sendai and Nagara; and thirteen destroyers. Yamamoto’s plan focused on a “Z-Day,” when a transport convoy would reach Guadalcanal, discharging the remainder of the 38th Division, plus a month’s supplies for all the Japanese. Eleventh Air Fleet would continue its strikes, working up to especially strong attacks on Z-3. On Z-2 Kondo would detach Abe’s battleship force to bombard Henderson Field. Kakuta would follow with carrier strikes on Z-1. Then the convoy would arrive on Z-Day, screened by Rear Admiral Tanaka Raizo’s Destroyer Squadron 2.

  The fighting on Cactus made the Japanese effort especially critical. By now General Vandegrift felt confident on the offensive, and American troops flooded out to assault Japanese positions. These early November battles resulted in the Marines capturing Point Cruz, west of the Matanikau, and Koli Point, east of Vandegrift’s hedgehog. Hyakutake’s troops were sorely tried. The Tokyo Express runs to Starvation Island were barely making good the losses. Bull Halsey visited on November 8 to see for himself. He got an eyeful—emaciated Marines, thousand-yard stares, the sick and the wounded. The soldiers were delighted to see him but obviously in great need. That night one of Tanaka’s destroyers peeled off the Tokyo Express to shell Lunga, putting Halsey in fear for his life, worrying whether he was “yellow,” and more determined than ever.

  Halsey returned to SOPAC on November 9 to get an earful. Captain Miles Browning, SOPAC’s new chief of staff, met the Bull’s plane to tell him the Japanese were on the move again. Browning’s warning represented the culmination of new Allied intelligence breakthroughs that afforded a peek inside Yamamoto’s planning rooms. The JN-25 code was becoming transparent again. Codebreakers were already aware of convoys bringing Japanese 38th Division troops from Palau up to Rabaul. The first inkling of an actual Combined Fleet operation appeared in an intelligence summary on November 5. The Kondo fleet had yet to leave Truk. Indications solidified. Seaplane tender and convoy movements were noted, so that by the sixth, CINCPAC intelligence expected ground and air operations at a minimum. Then codebreakers penetrated the dispatch containing Yamamoto’s operations order, sent in a JN-25 code transmission on November 8. Though they did not initially break the entire message, the Allies became aware of “Z-Day” and its connection to Cactus. The “Z-Day” terminology appears in intelligence reports and also the CINCPAC war diary.

  At his morning staff meeting on November 9 (the eighth at Pearl Harbor), Admiral Nimitz discussed indications of an impending Japanese offensive “on a grand scale.” With Captain Layton and his people, Nimitz considered the maximum strength Yamamoto might employ. The next day was key—building on Browning’s warning to Halsey. CINCPAC confidently predicted an “all out attempt upon Guadalcanal soon, using transports to carry Army troops and supported by carriers.” Admiral Nimitz authorized a warning dispatch sent out that night—a little after 8:00 a.m. on November 10 in Nouméa:

  ULTRA. INDICATIONS THAT MAJOR OPERATION ASSISTED BY CARRIER STRIKING FORCE SLATED TO SUPPORT MOVEMENT ARMY TRANSPORTS TO GUADALCANAL. CinC THIRD (CARRIER STRIKING) NOW PROCEEDING REFUELING RENDEVOUS NEAR [ocean position by Solomons]. CinC ELEVENTH AIR FLEET TO OPERATE AGAINST CACTUS FROM [Z-3] DAYS. EIGHTH FLEET TO ESCORT ARMY CONVOY. LARGE MOVEMENT ENEMY PLANES TO KAHILI BASE NEAR BUIN. STRIKING FORCE TO HIT CACTUS [Z-1] DAY. ARMY AA UNIT TO EMBARK 11 NOVEMBER PROCEED LAND CACTUS. [Z-DAY] NOT KNOWN BUT RESEARCH CONTINUES…WHILE THIS LOOKS LIKE A BIG PUNCH I AM CONFIDENT THAT YOU WITH YOUR FORCES WILL TAKE THEIR MEASURE.

  Radio fixes placed the Junyo at sea near Kavieng and indicated that battleships might be moving toward the southern area. Intelligence tentatively expected operations to begin on the twelfth or thirteenth. By November 11 details were becoming apparent: Z-day involved the arrival of a convoy, preceded by strong air attacks. Coastwatcher Paul Mason confirmed, reporting Japanese naval strength around Shortland as including seventeen merchantmen, at least one troopship, two oilers, plus strong fleet strength of four heavy and two light cruisers and thirty-three destroyers. Once direction finding placed Eighth Fleet commander Mikawa in the area, the circle seemed complete.

  Missing was the impending Japanese surface bombardment, but radio fixes definitely put Admiral Kondo in the Solomons, and on the fourteenth he was reported to be in command. That intelligence energized Halsey and SOPAC leaders.

  In terms of perceptions of the South Pacific balance, it is significant that by now COMINCH was conducting actual conversations with Royal Navy officers about an aircraft carrier loan. Halsey reiterated and amplified his earlier appeal for the ship, and he and Nimitz conducted a cable dialogue on how quickly the vessel could be reequipped with American gear. At the time the British considered the Illustrious, but the ship finally selected would be the HMS Victorious.

  Rabaul looked calm and beautiful as Lieutenant Ito Haruki’s plane approached. He too would fall under the spell of the Southern Cross. Ito was among a new contingent of Japanese fighters in the radio wars. Following a Rabaul visit from the Imperial Navy’s communications chief, the number of operators at Rabaul assigned to the 1st Combined Communications Unit, which worked with the Owada Group, had been increased. Known as the “special duty group,” radio monitors were the key to Japanese communications intelligence as much as they were to Allied. Lieutenant Ito came from the naval signal intelligence center in September. With sixty other officers and men he augmented Lieutenant Ogimoto’s 1st Unit complement.

  The intelligence unit, located in a palm grove at the west end of Vunakanau base, had a radio shack with a monitoring room, a pair of direction-finding huts, and a barracks. With two direction finders at Rabaul and another o
n Guadalcanal, the Japanese now had the means to obtain more accurate radio fixes on Allied ships. Ogimoto was an experienced shadow warrior, involved in signals intelligence since before the war, when he listened in on American transmissions from the Japanese embassy in Washington. Traffic levels on Japanese naval intelligence circuits soared.

  Combined Fleet also obtained good scouting information. Submarine-launched aircraft from Captain Uchino Shinji’s I-8 scouted Efate during the night of November 2, and Fujii Akiyoshi’s I-9 put its floatplane over Nouméa on November 4 and Espíritu Santo on the eleventh. Lieutenant Commander Nagai Takeo’s I-7 reconnoitered Fiji on the eleventh as well, while another I-boat checked Nouméa again. By radio and aerial means the Japanese knew of convoys headed for the Solomons from Fiji, Australia, and the New Hebrides, and they had covered the principal SOPAC bases at a critical moment in the run-up to Kondo’s operation. The covers of Nouméa would have shown the Enterprise in port, since the floatplanes flew at dawn and “Big E” sailed at 10:00 a.m. on the eleventh, but this was set right next day as a JNAF patrol bomber sighted an American carrier at sea south of Guadalcanal. In short, Combined Fleet was aware Allied forces were in play, if not of Halsey’s specific plans. By November 12 Admiral Ugaki had concluded that the fleet’s concentration at Shortland for Z-Day must be known to the Allies.

  Determined to make good his promises to the Marines, Admiral Halsey set his various cruiser-destroyer groups to escort convoys. These delivered heavy artillery, coast defense units, and 6,000 more troops. American superiority grew. Once there the warships formed a task force. Rear Admiral Daniel Callaghan, the erstwhile SOPAC staff boss, took command, though Norman Scott, the victor of Cape Esperance, had his ships in the force too. There is a dispute about which of these two was actually superior in rank, but neither seems to have raised the question himself. Callaghan wore his flag in heavy cruiser San Francisco, Scott in the light cruiser Atlanta. Heavy cruiser Portland, light cruisers Helena and Juneau, and eight tin cans completed the unit. Halsey had Callaghan patrol Ironbottom Sound the night of November 11—without incident.