WHEN COLONEL ICHIKI and his men sped south in six fast destroyers on August 16 they set in motion Admiral Yamamoto’s Operation Ka.
Although Ichiki had failed in his rash decision to destroy the Americans “at one stroke,” Ka was continuing as planned. Two slow transports carrying the remaining 1500 Ichikis continued south from Truk, followed by the faster and bigger transport Kinryu Maruloaded with a thousand men of the Yokosuka Fifth Naval Landing Force. All were bound for Guadalcanal under command of Rear Admiral Raizo Tanaka.
Tanaka, the veteran destroyer leader who had commanded the Landing Force at Midway, had been placed in command of the Guadalcanal Reinforcement Force and assigned to Eighth Fleet at Rabaul. And “Tanaka the Tenacious,” as he would one day be called by his admiring enemies to the south, had not liked his new assignment any more than he had favored the ill-fated expedition against Midway. He considered that landing troops in the face of an armed enemy was the most difficult of military undertakings and He was dumbfounded that Imperial General Headquarters was attempting such operations without prior rehearsals or even preliminary study.1 But his opinion had not been asked, nor would it ever be—a fact which also irked him—and so Tanaka the Tenacious took over as ordered, convinced that Guadalcanal reinforcement would be a failure and certain that Eighth Fleet did not know what it was doing.2
At first, he was surprised and gratified to hear that Captain Yasuo Sato’s six destroyers had successfully put the Ichiki spearhead ashore at Taivu. Next, he was aggrieved and dismayed to hear of Colonel Ichiki’s destruction. Then, he was shaken to learn that American aircraft had landed at Henderson Field, thus making his attempt to put troops ashore more difficult than ever.
Nevertheless, Tanaka the Tenacious plowed on. At least he would have the support of Combined Fleet, which had sortied from Truk shortly after his own departure.
Isoroku Yamamoto had assembled his customary massive armada. He was going to direct it by radio from aboard Yamato, cruising in the vicinity of Truk.
There was the Advance Fleet force of battleships led by Vice-Admiral Nobutake Kondo and the Striking Force of three carriers commanded by Chuichi Nagumo. Yamamoto was going to bait the American carriers with light carrier Ryujo. While their aircraft were away attacking her, planes from Shokaku and Zuikaku would make surprise strikes on them. After they were destroyed, Kondo’s fleet would batter Guadalcanal. And Kondo had the battering power. Yamamoto, an old battleship man much as he might emphasize air power, had seen to that. Big Mutsu and the bombardment sluggers Hiei and Kirishima, backed up by six heavy cruisers, would wreck Henderson Field and mangle the Marines so that the troops aboard Mikawa’s transports would only have to mop up.
Moreover, there was added insurance: about a dozen submarines had been sown in waters southeast of Guadalcanal. They lay athwart the American supply line. One day, American sailors would give those waters the descriptive name of Torpedo Junction.
By August 20, Yamamoto knew that Admiral Fletcher’s carriers were at sea. Two days later he had placed Combined Fleet in position to attack about two hundred miles north of the southern Solomons. Fletcher’s three carriers—Saratoga, Wasp, and Enterprise—were about three hundred miles to their southeast. The Americans were operating as independent groups for fear of Torpedo Junction’s numerous torpedoes.
By the same date Fletcher also knew that the enemy was at sea. One of Slew McCain’s long-ranging Catalinas had detected Tanaka’s transports. Tanaka had himself realized that he had been observed. From flagship Jintsu, a light cruiser, he reported to Rabaul. Admiral Mikawa at once ordered him to turn about and make north. Tanaka obeyed. And then he received a message from Admiral Tsukahara commanding Southeast Area Force, and therefore superior to Mikawa, instructing him to proceed as ordered.
Furious, Tanaka was now positive that Rabaul did not know what it was doing. But he did not turn about as Tsukahara had ordered, for it would be impossible to reach Guadalcanal the morning of August 24 as scheduled. And that was indeed fortunate for Tanaka.
By August 22 General Vandegrift was also aware of Tanaka’s approach. He felt chilled at the prospect of large-scale enemy reinforcement. As yet, he had no way of knowing that the First Marines had all but destroyed the enemy to the east. Vandegrift debated risking his new Cactus Air Force, so-called after the code name for Guadalcanal. He decided that he must, and sent Mangrum’s bombers and Smith’s fighters roaring aloft. He watched them go from the top of the Japanese pagoda-like structure which had become Cactus Air Force’s headquarters.
The Marine planes ran into a solid front of weather. Driving rain misted their windshields. Visibility fell close to zero, and they had to turn back. Vandegrift watched them come in. He was pacing the Pagoda’s muddy floor when Mangrum entered to make his negative report. Vandegrift thanked his pilots courteously, but Mangrum thought that the general was deeply distressed.3
Next day, in clearing weather, the Marine fliers again went on the hunt; but Tanaka had turned north as ordered and they missed him.
Vandegrift’s distress deepened.
Martin Clemens was very much distressed. He was worried about Mr. Ishimoto. His capture and torture of Vouza made it clear that as long as Ishimoto was alive, Clemens’s scouts were in mortal danger. They could not feign neutrality and mingle with the enemy with Ishimoto about.
After the battle of the Tenaru, Clemens had had his men comb the battlefield for Ishimoto’s body. They did not find it.
Then Gumu, a scout who had become separated from the Brush patrol, came into the perimeter reporting he had been caught by Ishimoto. Gumu had been sitting beside a track with ten stones to count the Ichikis as they passed. He made a movement and was discovered by Ishimoto and four soldiers. They had Father Oude-Engberink, Father Duhamel and Sister Sylvia and old Sister Edmée of France and Sister Odilia of Italy with them. The missionaries were under guard, having been brought from their mission at Ruavutu.
Gumu said Ishimoto had tried to make the fathers go back to the Americans and tell them that the Japanese were too powerful and that they should surrender. They refused, and they and the sisters were taken east.
Ishimoto also tried to make Gumu carry his pack. When Gumu said he was sick and could not lift it, Ishimoto hit him across the mouth. Gumu continued to feign illness and was at last released. Coming west, he met another native who told him he was the lone survivor of five natives who had carried a wounded Marine back to American lines. Ishimoto and his soldiers had bayoneted the other four to death.
According to Gumu there were quite a few parties of Japanese wandering about in the east. But no new force had landed. For this news, at least, Clemens was thankful; and he passed it along to Marine intelligence.
Haruyoshi Hyakutake was puzzled, as well as distressed.
General Hyakutake had heard from signal men whom Colonel Ichiki had left behind at Taivu and their report was astounding. Annihilation? It had never happened before. Moreover, in a military given to writing reports wearing rose-colored glasses, there was absolutely not a single euphemism available to describe it. Hyakutake at last notified Imperial General Headquarters: “The attack of the Ichiki Detachment was not entirely successful.” Then he ordered Major General Kiyotake Kawaguchi and his brigade of five thousand Borneo veterans to stand by for movement to Guadalcanal.
Admiral Raizo Tanaka had resumed course for Guadalcanal. Shortly after noon of August 24 his lookouts sighted heavy cruiser Tone speeding southward on the eastern horizon, followed by Ryujo flanked by destroyers Amatsukaze and Tokitsukaze. Tanaka was encouraged. These ships were his indirect escort to Guadalcanal. Even though Ryujo was to decoy the Americans, she could still fly off aircraft to bomb Guadalcanal.
Commander Tameichi Hara stood on the bridge of Amatsukaze steaming at twenty-six knots off Ryujo’s starboard beam. He looked at the 10,000-ton decoy and wondered how her green pilots—replacements for the veterans lost at Midway and latterly over Guadalcanal—would stand up to Ryujo’s first battle test.
Grimly recalling how his and Admiral Tanaka’s fears had been realized at Midway, Hara kept glancing apprehensively upward. He looked at Ryujo steaming serenely along and wondered if her skipper was not taking her decoy role too fatalistically. She had no aircraft ready to fight. True, Ryujo had flown off fifteen fighters and six bombers to attack Guadalcanal. Nevertheless, Hara knew that she still had nine more fighters belowdecks and he wondered why some of them were not at least armed and ready.
Even after American scouts sighted them, Ryujo acted like a mesmerized ship, sending two fighters up only after Amatsukaze and the others had begun blasting with antiaircraft guns. Hara lost his temper. He dashed off a message for an Eta Jima classmate aboard Ryujo.
“Fully realizing my impertinence, am forced to advise you of my impression. Your flight operations are far short of expectations. What is the matter?”4
It was a rude message—incredible for a Japanese—and the Ryujo force was dumfounded by it.
Yet, Hara’s classmate sent the reply: “Deeply appreciate your admonition. We shall do better and count on your co-operation.”5
Seven more Zeroes quickly appeared on Ryujo’s decks. Their propellers were just beginning to spin when Amatsukaze’s lookouts shouted: “Many enemy planes approaching.”
They were from Saratoga. Thirty Dauntlesses and eight Avengers under Commander Harry Felt. The dive-bombers flew at fourteen thousand feet above broken and fleecy cloud cover, but the torpedo planes circled at a lower level waiting to strike when all enemy guns were turned toward the Dauntlesses.
Now the dive-bombers came sliding down a staircase of clouds.
They came out of a bright sun that blinded enemy gunners and polished the white caps ruffling a dark blue sea; thirty pilots diving one after another through tracers reaching up like yellow straws, thirty pairs of hands and feet working sticks and rudder-bars to steady aircraft bucking beneath the onslaught of heavier flak; and thirty rear-gunners sitting tensely to watch the narrow tan deck of Ryujo growing larger and larger. Five thousand feet, and the pilots bent to their bombsight tubes to center that deck in the crosshairs. Two thousand feet and they seized release handles. Thirty thousand-pounders falling on wildly weaving Ryujo, thirty great eggs describing their yawning parabola in full view of morbidly fascinated Japanese seamen; and then the pilots were drawing back hard on sticks, pulling out fast and flat and away while tracers seemed to wrap them in confetti and their own gunners cursed with fierce joy and raked the enemy decks with bullets.
Then the Avengers came skimming in off Ryujo’s bows, launching an anvil attack from either side so that no matter which way the enemy carrier turned to evade she would still be exposed to warheads.
Ryujo never had a chance.
Scarlet flames shot up from her. Explosions staggered and punctured her. Smoke billowed upward in huge balls that thinned as they rose into the air like pillars. As many as ten bombs had pierced her decks and at least one torpedo flashed into her side. She was an iron red sieve and Commander Hara watched in agony as she rolled over to expose her red-leaded belly. There was a hole in that, too. Then Hara’s ship and the others were rushing to her side to take off survivors. Three of her Zeros appeared, returning from the Guadalcanal strike. They circled wistfully overhead before ditching alongside the destroyers. The pilots were rescued. Ryujo would sink shortly after dusk with a hundred Japanese still aboard her.
To the west, Rear Admiral Mikawa saw the smoke columns rising from the dying carrier, and he turned to look fearfully in the direction of Henderson Field.
Ryujo’s fighters and bombers had joined with about a half-dozen Betty bombers from Rabaul to raid Henderson earlier that afternoon. All of Captain Smith’s available Wildcats had been waiting for them. They shot down sixteen enemy planes. Captain Marion Carl flamed two bombers and a Zero, and Lieutenants Zennith Pond and Kenneth Frazier and Marine Gunner Henry Hamilton shot down a pair apiece. Four Wildcats were lost, but only three pilots.
It was far from being the most famous aerial battle in Solomons history, but it marked the beginning of the end for Japanese air power.
When Admiral Nagumo heard of the attack on Ryujo he thought that the time to avenge Midway was at hand. He still believed that Fletcher had three big carriers in the vicinity, unaware that Wasp had been sent south to refuel. The flattops which a float plane had reported sighting after two o’clock were Enterprise and Saratoga.
Certain that Fletcher had flown off all his planes against sacrificial Ryujo, Nagumo ordered Zuikaku and Shokaku to send every eagle they could fly screaming against the Americans.
They missed Saratoga entirely, but they caught Enterprise at about half-past four—and they also caught a tiger by the tail.
Fletcher had not forgotten Lexington or Yorktown, and he had not flown off all of his planes. He had fifty-three Wildcats stacked in the skies, waiting. They tangled with the Japanese planes—dive-bombing Vals and single-engine torpedo-launching Kates heavily protected by layers of Zeros—and a wild scrimmage raged overhead. Even returning American dive-bombers and torpedo-planes roared into the battle.
But most of this action raged at the edge of a perimeter far outside the range of Enterprise’s guns; far, far beyond the sight of lookouts squinting into the bright tropic afternoon. The Big E, yet to be scratched in the Pacific War, still sailed along at twenty-seven knots with all her planes up and all her Marines and sailors at battle stations. A few minutes after five o’clock a 20-mm gun-pointer caught the flash of sun-on-a-wing. It was a Val turning over, the first of thirty.
Enterprise’s guns opened up. Behind her, mighty North Carolina belched out an umbrella of steel and smoke over the imperiled flattop. But the Vals kept coming down. Every seven seconds one of them peeled off and dove. They attacked with all the skill that Felt’s dive-bombers had shown over Ryujo. Even though square-winged Wildcats slashed and growled at them coming down, risking friendly aircraft fire, the Japanese pilots never faltered.
Soon Big E’s gunners could see the landing-gear “pants” of the leading Val, could make out the horrible dark blob of an egg nestling between them, and could see, with indrawn breath, that blob detach, yawn, and fall.
There was a monstrous shuddering slap against Enterprise’s side. The first bomb had near-missed.
Big E twisted and turned. Her own gunners and North Carolina’s spat networks of steel across the sky, but at 5:14 the big carrier took her first bomb-hit of the war. A thousand-pounder crashed through the after elevator. It penetrated to the third deck before its delayed-action fuse exploded it with a whip-sawing roar that flung every man aboard up-down-and-sideways. Thirty-five sailors were killed. Huge holes were torn in the deck and sideplates were ruptured. Thirty seconds later, the second bomb hit—only fifteen feet from the first.
Again a violent whipping motion, again death—thirty-nine sailors—but this time smoke and fire. Stores of five-inch powder bags had been hit.
Listing and pouring out smoke, the Big E still raced along at twenty-seven knots—and then she took a third bomb.
Fortunately, it was only a 500-pounder, and its fuse was defective. Damage was comparatively slight. Enterprise was still moving ahead, and all that Captain Arthur Davis and his men need do now was to save their burning ship.
From Lieutenant Commander Herschel Smith in Central Station came the orders. Surrounded by deck plans and diagrams of every system—fresh and salt water, oil and gasoline, ventilation, steam, electricity—and flanked by a battery of telephone-talkers, Smith relayed his instructions to teams of fire-fighters, repairmen, and rescuers.
Men with hoses played streams of water on burning bedding or clothing, men with foam generators smothered burning oil, men with CO2 extinguishers put out electrical fires; and men in asbestos suits and breathing-masks shambled into burning compartments to rescue wounded or burned sailors, bringing them to other men in gauze masks and white coats who sewed flesh or straightened bones or sprayed charred skin with unguents. Other men with axes trimmed shattered timbers around deck holes, hammering square sheets of boiler plate over them. Debris parties cleared the decks of bomb fragments or replaced torn planking. Weakened and dangerous areas were marked off. Gradually, Big E was prepared to receive planes topside. Belowdecks, officers and bluejackets strove to get her on an even keel again. Three portside ballast tanks were flooded while those to starboard were pumped out. Flooded storerooms had to be pumped dry. Carpenters began repairing two big holes in Enterprise’s side, above and below the water line. Working up to their armpits in water, using emergency lighting, they built a cofferdam of two-by-six planking placed vertically a foot from the side of the ship. They covered the holes from the inside with heavy wire meshing. Between the meshing and the cofferdam they packed mattresses and pillows. Then they wedged the cofferdam tight against the packing and began pumping.
An hour after the last bomb struck, Enterprise turned into the wind at 24 knots to receive aircraft.
Less than an hour later, the helmsman reported, “Lost steering control, sir,” and a few minutes later the rudder had jammed and Enterprise was turning, turning helplessly to starboard.
Captain Davis slowed to ten knots. He broke out the “Breakdown” flag. He ordered the rudder fixed. And Enterprise circled like a defenseless whale while North Carolina and cruiser Portland stood close by and the group’s destroyers raced around and round them, sniffing for submarines. Below, Chief Machinist Mate William Smith buckled on a rescue-breather-vest and put on his breathing-mask. He filled his pockets with the tools that he thought he would need and stepped into the rubble-strewn oven that was the elevator machinery room. At the other end, behind a dogged-down hatch, was the steering engine room …
Above, Enterprise’s big air-search antenna swung—and stopped. “Large bogey. Two seven zero, fifty miles.” It was Nagumo’s second strike. Thirty Vals from Zui and Sho. And Enterprise still turned …
Below, the heat had sent Smith sagging to the deck. He was dragged back. He recovered and returned, accompanied by Machinist Cecil Robinson. They stumbled through the debris to the hatch. They got their hands on the dogs, and passed out …
Above decks the seas and the skies were darkening. Anxious gunners tilted their chins into the gathering gloom. The big bedspring antenna swept the skies …
Smith and Robinson had been rescued. They had revived and had stumbled to the hatch again. They swung it open. Smith darted inside. He saw that the mechanism had not completed its shift to port. He completed it. The rudder moved again.
Above, the helmsman reported: “Steering control regained, sir.”
Enterprise straightened and sailed south.
Nagumo’s eagles had missed her. They had flown past fifty miles away, going southeast. Enterprise recovered the last of her planes. One flight of eleven Dauntlesses led by Lieutenant Turner Caldwell was too far away to return. They flew on to Guadalcanal, landing after dark by light of crude flares. They were warmly welcomed, and they would prolong their “visit” for almost a month.
And now all of Fletcher’s ships were retiring. Admiral Kondo’s battleships and cruisers came tearing after them. In a night action, they could blow the lightly armed flattops to bits, they could overwhelm North Carolina and her cruisers.
But Fletcher’s caution this time had thwarted the enemy. Kondo could not catch up. The Battle of the Eastern Solomons had ended indecisively. Nevertheless, Ryujo was forever lost and Enterprise, though knocked out of action for two months, would come back to fight for Guadalcanal again, and again.
Admiral Tanaka’s convoy of troops had withdrawn to the northeast again while Admiral Nagumo’s pilots struck at Enterprise. Then, hearing reports that two enemy carriers had been left burning and probably sinking, Admiral Mikawa in Rabaul ordered Tanaka to turn south again.
With a sinking heart, Tanaka obeyed.
Night of the twenty-fourth came and his ships plowed on.
Below him, off Guadalcanal, five destroyers of his command bombarded the Americans. Then they sped north to join Tanaka. They were aged Mutsuki and Yayoi, and the newer Kagero, Kawakaze, and Isokaze. They joined up early in the morning of August 25 at a point 150 miles north of Henderson Field. Tanaka was delighted to have them. He drew up his signal order for their movements and formations, and just as it was being wigwagged the enemy Dauntlesses broke through the clouds.
The dive-bombers were Mangrum’s Marines and Caldwell’s “visitors” from Enterprise. They had caught the Japanese unawares, not even able to ready their guns to return fire.
Lieutenant Larry Baldinus planted his bomb forward of Tanaka’s flagship Jintsu. Near-misses staggered the big cruiser and showered her with tons of geysering water. Another bomb struck the forecastle. Men fell and steel fragments flew. Tanaka was knocked out. He recovered consciousness in clouds of choking smoke. As the smoke cleared, he saw a Dauntless flown by Ensign Christian Fink swoop down and set Kinryu Maru afire with a well-placed thousand-pounder. Admiral Tanaka ordered Jintsu to limp back to Truk for repairs, and began transferring to Kagero. He instructed Mutsuki and Yayoi to take off Kinryu Maru’s troops. Then he took Kagero and the other destroyers speeding north out of airplane range.
But the Dauntlesses had radioed Tanaka’s location and their message brought eight Flying Fortresses over Kinryu and her ministering destroyers. In a shower of deadly eggs Kinryu was finished off and Mutsuki, lying motionless in the water, was sunk almost instantaneously.
Commander Kiyono Hatano of Mutsuki was one of the survivors fished from the water by men of Yayoi. To him had fallen the ignominious honor of skippering the first Japanese ship to be sunk by horizontal bombers, and he took it with resignation, saying: “Even the B-17s can make a hit once in a while.”6
Then Yayoi put about and sailed north.
More ships and more soldiers had been lost to the Emperor. Of the troops who were finally put ashore in the Shortlands, many were wounded or burned and none had their weapons.
Ka had failed and American toes still clung to Solomons soil.