No Bended Knee

by Merrill B. Twining

  The actual tactical scheme envisioned in the alternative plan was the successive defense—as we fell back—of each of the major river lines running northward from the axial east-west spine of the island. No great obstacles in themselves, they nevertheless would require bridging by the Japanese to bring forward their artillery and wheeled transport. The rivers’ chief value would be as unmistakable phase lines so vital to the control of a retrograde movement and the delivery of its supporting fires. We would occupy two river lines at a time, beginning with the Nalimbiu and the Metapona. Nalimbiu, the westernmost, would be held as a main line of resistance (MLR), supported by artillery from areas east of the Metapona.

  Approximately half the infantry strength would be held as a general reserve east of the Metapona. This force would be assigned the missions of developing a reserve line, counterattacking promptly against any enemy attempt to envelop the north flank by a shore-to-shore amphibious operation, and, finally, moving against an enemy blocking force, should one be landed at a distance to the east.

  Tentative plan of withdrawal from Lunga Point employing a series of delaying actions along each river to the east.

  When compelled to give up the MLR position on the Nalimbiu, the infantry force there would withdraw to the east supported by the Metapona position and proceed across the Balesuna (next river to the east) to take over the reserve role. In turn, the original reserve would become the MLR force along the Metapona and take over the front-line mission. This sequence would be repeated as we were driven to the east.

  Optimistic? Yes. But this whole campaign had been conducted at every level largely on the basis of optimism alone. I still recalled that the JCS directive for the operation enjoined us to “be in New Britain, repeat New Britain, by 20 September.”

  This plan would be found fatally flawed if the Japanese could put a major force, particularly a fresh force, ashore to the east to block our line of withdrawal. We would then certainly have been caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. But in our situation there was one luxury we could not afford—taking counsel of our fears.

  In pursuing us, the Japanese would encounter major problems of their own. The physical condition of their soldiers had deteriorated markedly due to lack of an organized medical service and evacuation facilities. They had very little motor transport and almost no boats. Engineer support was virtually nonexistent. They had few supplies, and we (mistakenly) believed them to be short of ammunition.

  Undoubtedly, the Japanese would rely almost entirely on captured material and supplies, just as we had done during our early half-ration days ashore. Therefore demolition had to be a major part of our plan. What could not be moved must be destroyed.

  Movement would have to be confined to the hours of darkness as we would be exposed to continual attack from the air. This certainty of air attack added emphasis to the idea of demolition as a major element of this particular plan. Henderson Field would have to be destroyed to the maximum extent possible, perhaps using our own bombs or five-inch ammo for the purpose. Without engineering equipment, the enemy would be hard pressed to put it back in operational condition.

  The general told no one about the instructions he gave me, and the subsequent tentative plan was never completed beyond a penciled outline in a notebook that I carried at all times—and in my mind. If that appalling moment ever arrived, it would then be necessary to call in the specialists of the 11th Marines, the 3d Defense Battalion, the 1st Engineer Battalion, the Seabees, the Motor Transport Battalion, the Boat Pool, and many other units that could contribute to, weigh the feasibility of, and build on the framework I proposed. This could not be done in advance under restrictions imposed by General Vandegrift due to the vital necessity of preventing even rumors that such a plan existed.

  I believed that when push came to shove General Vandegrift would accept my plan as a more orderly and promising alternative than a hasty withdrawal to a final defensive position in the hills where no help could ever reach us. I intended to seek permission to initiate the active planning if and when we ever lost possession of the crossing at the mouth of the Matanikau, thereby permitting the enemy to place his artillery in positions commanding Lunga Point and interdicting Henderson Field. This never came about, thanks largely to Lieutenant Colonel McKelvy’s 3d Battalion, 1st Marines. Supported by the massive artillery fires of the 11th Marines, the 3d Battalion threw back a major tank-led attack across the sandbar on the night of 21 October, and the land battle for Guadalcanal was decided once and for all.

  General Vandegrift, far more than the rest of us, labored under a terrific burden of responsibility heightened by doubt and misgivings. His apprehensions centered not upon the sincerity of those who now sought so desperately to intervene on our behalf but upon their ability to do so effectively before our time ran out.

  General Geiger did not share these apprehensions to the same degree and seemed to appreciate my insistence that the division as a whole had never become totally engaged and in a final showdown remained capable of putting up a finish fight exceeding anything the Japanese had ever encountered. He would nod approvingly whenever I made this point. Any outright sign of approval from that old warrior was rare indeed.

  As for the rest of us, we became largely a group of introverts, short tempered and unable to coordinate our activities as effectively as before. For example, a promising push across the Matanikau River had to be abandoned due to lack of truck fuel to support an advance past Kokumbona. We had been so concerned with maintaining our absolutely vital stock of avgas that we had failed to notice the increasing expenditure of lower octane fuel due to additional motor vehicles coming in with the reinforcements. This should never have happened.

  Following this bungle, we began to suffer a series of small but damaging night intrusions by the Tokyo Express staging a revival of a threat we thought had been thwarted by our dive bombers. One such raid destroyed most of our field hospital, to the great distress of our wonderful division surgeon, Capt. Warwick Brown, USN. Brown, who had long ago been described to me as “a very determined man,” now took a personal interest in the war, demanding explanations and action.

  The Tokyo Express was the nickname that Marines and sailors gave to units of Japanese surface vessels, operating from Rabaul, New Britain, that normally arrived off Lunga Point after dark to bombard Henderson Field or bring supplies and reinforcements to Guadalcanal. These ships were usually fast and of various types and numbers depending upon their assignment.

  Coast Watchers could normally see and report these enemy vessels as they sped southeast along their nearly 600-mile route. The southern half of this much-traveled beat was called the Slot, a body of water about fifty miles wide that entered south of Bougainville and extended through the Solomons chain to Guadalcanal.

  Lt. Col. Al Cooley, USMC, commanding the bomber group, told me the Japanese were not coming directly down the Slot but approaching us circuitously from the north through an adjacent patrol sector that ComAirSoPac had not authorized our Cactus Air Force to enter. He volunteered to go up there with a strike force if I would give the word. True to his promise, the following night Cooley’s SBD’s (Douglas Dauntless) found their quarry and badly damaged a Japanese cruiser. For a few days we enjoyed comparatively peaceful nights, and Doctor Brown felt vindicated.

  But that was not quite the end. A plane carrying Rear Adm. Aubrey W. Fitch, who had relieved Vice Adm. John S. McCain as ComAirSoPac, landed briefly at Henderson Field where Fitch admonished Vandegrift about our planes straying out of their sectors. Apparently our general was not greatly impressed. He never mentioned the matter either to Cooley or to me.

  Everyone became nettlesome and irritable. Loss of perspective and proportion became manifest, and tempers flared up over trifles. All this was accompanied by a submergence of the English language and polite communication into a flood of foul speech born of months of deep frustration. One afternoon our D-2 (intelligence) officer, Lt. Col. Edmund J. “Buck” Buckley, and I
, having engaged at length in some feckless dispute, decided to go down to Butch Morgan’s galley and cool off over a cup of hot coffee. Butch and his striker, Shorty Mantay, were happy to oblige. As we sat there, we could hear Butch in his cook shack pounding away with his cleaver on God knows what for supper. Then we saw our police sergeant, Hook Moran, and his cleanup crew coming home after tidying up the usual mess caused by an air raid earlier in the day. Moran, soon to become a highly regarded sergeant major, had volunteered for the humble job because at the moment there was little need of clerical assistance on Guadalcanal. His crew consisted of a small group of very young Marines, boys in their early teens, who had somehow gotten by the recruiting sergeants in the first hectic days after Pearl Harbor. Jerry Thomas, from the depths of his recollection of another war and the dictates of a compassionate heart, had collected these “drummer boy” types who were simply too undeveloped physically for arduous and prolonged front-line duty despite their eagerness to serve.

  As they straggled past, Butch leaned out and shouted at his old friend Hook, “Ya, ya, ya, here comes Snow White and his seven ‘dwuffs’!”

  Unshaken by his tormentor, Moran, who then sported a neatly trimmed Vandyke on his square jaw, turned his head and responded, “Hi, how ya doin’, Bubbles?”

  I know not the connotation of the word “Bubbles,” but the effect was terrific. Cleaver in hand and in a sudden paroxysm of merciless rage, Butch came back with something that began, “Hook Moran, you piss-whiskered billy goat, one more crack like that and I’m comin’ through this screen and sock this here cleaver right between your horns. You . . .”

  Buck and I looked at each other and shrugged. Not to worry; it was just a couple of old friends engaging in some idle chaff on a quiet Guadalcanal afternoon. We finished our coffee and, having buried our own hatchet, went our separate ways.

  CHAPTER 14

  Decisive November

  After the Koli Point affair and Carlson’s raid, the tempo of ground fighting moderated during the crucial month of November. The war shifted abruptly to a series of battles fought at sea and in the skies by the major forces of the antagonists. On the ground the decision was to maintain a cautious and continuous threat west of the Matanikau while strengthening the perimeter against the possibility of a disastrous turn in our fortunes that would permit the enemy to land and support fresh forces in strength sufficient to overwhelm us.

  The defeat of the Sendai Division and in particular the humiliation inflicted on its premier regiment, the 29th Infantry, had aroused their fury and had reinforced their determination to destroy us. We could feel the heat and hoped that the Japaneses’ ungovernable passion for revenge would lead to their undoing.

  Operations west of the Matanikau River were conducted largely by newly arrived forces, principally the 6th Marines and the 164th Infantry of the Americal Division. These were useful efforts of limited active defense designed to cover the development of the forward battle position along the right (east) bank of the river.

  The first of these met with considerable success but was halted when General Vandegrift received information of an impending large-scale enemy reinforcement effort launched from Rabaul. It was considered necessary to pull all forces back to the east of the Matanikau River to insure the operational integrity of Henderson Field during what promised to be the decisive air and naval phase of the campaign. This was completed on 11 November by a daylight withdrawal made under little or no enemy pressure. It was not particularly well executed and involved the loss of some of our heavy weapons for no apparent reason. This was something new to us, and Jerry Thomas instructed me not to say anything about it to upset the general. It was a shocking experience. I believe the weapons were eventually recovered.

  The predicted attack came quickly and in great force. The next few days were a confused melee of fighting at sea and in the air. The weather favored the Japanese with a series of heavy downpours that at times made Henderson Field totally inoperable due to flooding, particularly the fighter strip. In addition, there was a continuing enemy effort to knock the field out of operation by bombardment in order to prevent air attack on the large approaching transport convoy carrying the Japanese 38th Infantry Division down from Rabaul. For a few days the “unsinkable carrier,” Henderson Field, and its Cactus Air Force were the center of world-wide attention. These airmen knew the hour had come, and they hit hard with everything they had. Losses of pilots and planes were staggering. Admiral Fitch, ComAirSoPac, comprehended the threat and gleaned replacements from all over the South Pacific. Marine squadrons arrived from Espiritu Santo, and eight AAF P-38s flew in from Milne Bay, New Guinea. Offshore the surface navy battled desperately and successfully day and night to prevent destruction of the field, its planes, and installations by enemy naval gunfire bombardment.

  Along the way our navy suffered losses such as no navy in modern times has had to endure both in ships and in men, including two outstanding flag officers, Rear Adm. Norman Scott and Daniel Callaghan. On our part there was full realization that in the final analysis we ashore in the Lunga Perimeter were the personal beneficiaries of these events. It was an awesome and inspiring experience. The Japanese had exhausted their previous run of good luck. On one night they came in with common or bombardment shells in the trays at the guns; our navy replied with armor-piercing projectiles, to the great discomfiture of the Japanese. On the next occasion the enemy did not repeat their error, but the weather intervened on our behalf. The continuous tropical downpour so softened the soil beneath the Marston matting on the runways that for the most part the Japanese armor piercing projectiles failed to explode. Possibly they are still there.

  At the operations center we carefully followed the TBS (talk between ships) radio transmissions during these actions. I vividly recall the night of 14 November, when Adm. Willis A. “Big Ching” Lee’s Task Force 64 passed Lunga Point en route to his victory over Admiral Kondo. Unsure of us and worried about attack by our own then-inexperienced PT boats, his flagship resorted to a blaring boom-box singsong chant over his TBS as they approached Lunga Point. It went something like this: “This is Big Ching Lee, Big Ching Lee coming through fast. Don’t shoot at me, little PT boats. This is Big Ching Lee, Big Ching Lee, and I’m . . .”

  Not in the signal manual exactly, but it worked, and Lee went on to sink Kirishima, the second battleship kill of the week. Henderson Field was not bombarded that night. During that week of desperate night battles there was little we could do to help. Lieutenant Commander Dexter’s boat pool swept Ironbottom Sound each dawn to pick up survivors and fight off the sharks. A few of the wounded were rescued, then treated in our field hospital before evacuation by air to Espiritu Santo. Floating bodies were recovered and buried in our division cemetery.

  Our shore batteries, manned by 3d Defense Battalion, participated to the extent offered by fleeting opportunities. In one instance they inflicted three quick hits on an enemy destroyer before her skipper took Nelson’s advice: “A ship’s a fool to fight a fort,” and hauled out of range.

  Our frustration found relief—for one night at least—in an unusual way. A warrant officer, highly skilled in the technical aspects of communications, came into our shelter to make some minor repairs to our equipment. It was early evening and a Japanese flotilla on a Tokyo Express mission was approaching Lunga Point. Our visitor offered to give us a demonstration of the techniques of interfering with enemy communications by jamming. The term sounded like some heavy-handed electronic method of keeping the enemy off the air with a continuous deafening electronic blast. But it was nothing as crude as that, we were promptly informed. Such a performance would interdict our own communications as well. Carefully he tuned in on a two-ship conversation, then selected one ship as his target. Each time it attempted to reply to the other, he would interfere with a faint signal just strong enough to prevent clear reception. There would then follow a polite, routine discussion between operators conscientiously seeking to eliminate the interference. Wit
h fiendish glee our man would lean back and laugh, then come in again, laying the interference on stronger than ever. This procedure continued for some minutes, soon leading the two Japanese radiomen from proper technical corrective phraseology to raised voices. Eventually, violent recriminatory outbursts filled the air. Although we couldn’t understand the words, their tone conveyed all the meaning we needed. Our mentor would then search for two new “victims” to terrorize. It was better theater than Tokyo Rose.

  During this same period we had another strange experience in the field of TBS radio communications. At sunset we began intercepting fragments of a ship-to-shore communication we couldn’t account for involving a landing operation. The voices were distinctly American, and they grew clearer and louder as the evening progressed. No such operation was taking place anywhere in the Solomons, and we were at a loss, for TBS is a short-range radio system. Someone suggested it was a beach jumper record being tested on us at Guadalcanal. Beach jumping was a proposed method of deception by using radio broadcasts of records of a simulated operation to make the enemy believe we were landing at a false location. This could be accomplished by a small raider-type group landing from a submarine and was seriously considered at one time.

  We later discovered that we had been listening to a freak or skipping TBS conversation occurring during a rehearsal landing being conducted at Espiritu Santo, hundreds of miles away, by U.S. Army forces preparing to come to Guadalcanal.

  The two night naval battles of November 13–14 and 14–15 put an end to the series of devastating bombardments of Henderson Field. On 14 and 15 November the Cactus Air Force of army, navy, and Marine Corps planes had their most memorable days, first in defeating and then in destroying the largest reinforcing operation ever launched against Guadalcanal. Eleven Japanese merchant ships, crowded with thousands of soldiers and escorted by eleven cruisers and destroyers, were subjected to an overwhelming air attack while still distant from their objective. Adm. Gunichi Mikawa recalled the ships of the naval escort and ordered them to safety. The unarmed merchant ships were kept on their course and sent on a hopeless saltwater banzai charge toward the beaches near Doma Cove.