THE ARRIVAL of the 164th Infantry Regiment’s three thousand soldiers had given Archer Vandegrift 23,000 men on Guadalcanal, with another four thousand under General Rupertus on Tulagi. Guadalcanal, however, was the prize; and Vandegrift again reorganized his defenses there.
Sector One comprised seven thousand yards of beachfront held by a composite force of Marines from the Third Defense Battalion, Special Weapons, Amtracks, Engineers, and Pioneers. On its right or eastern flank it joined the 164th holding Sector Two, a 6500-yard line south along the Tenaru which curved back west short of Bloody Ridge. Here it tied in with Sector Three held by the Seventh Marines, less one battalion, for another 2500 yards west to the Lunga, Sector Four, defended by the First Marines, less one battalion, stretched an additional 3500 yards west until it merged with Sector Five, which, held by the Fifth Marines, curved back north to the sea.
Essentially, this was the same perimeter which the Marines had been holding since August 7, except for one new feature: a battle position on the east bank of the Matanikau.
Here two independent battalions of Marines, backed up by artillery and 75-mm half-tracks, held a line from the river mouth left to Hill 67 about a thousand yards inland. Although this position was about three thousand yards to the west of the perimeter, it could be supplied along the coastal road. It could also depend upon Marine artillery registered to fire anywhere along the entire defense.
In reserve, Vandegrift held one infantry battalion and most of the tank battalion. Regimental commanders all held a third of their strength in reserve, as did lesser commanders down through companies.
It was a neat and efficient cordon depending upon the mobility offered by interior lines, and it had, of course, that single exception on the Matanikau. But it was here, from the Japanese assembly area at Kukumbona, that Archer Vandegrift expected the main thrust.
And he was wrong.
Lieutenant General Haruyoshi Hyakutake still depended upon the Sendai Division then marching south to deliver the main blow in his three-pronged assault involving 22,000 men.
General Maruyama was to attack at a point a bit east of the area in which General Kawaguchi had met defeat. His seven thousand men were to seize the airfield, the very nerve center of the American defense.
To assist him, Hyakutake had arranged for a reinforced battalion of the 38th Division to land to the east of Koli Point. This “Koli Detachment” would be boated and ready to land on order.
On the west, Hyakutake planned a heavier distraction. Here he would use a tank-infantry-artillery unit under Major General Tadashi Sumoyoshi, commander of 17th Army artillery. Sumoyoshi’s guns had already been at work battering the enemy airfield and perimeter. Now they would support the remnants of Colonel Nakaguma’s Fourth Infantry Regiment as they charged across the Matanikau River mouth behind sixteen tanks. Farther inland, Colonel Oka’s composite force would cross the river to flank the Americans on Hill 67. Then, while Nakaguma was striking the enemy at the river mouth, Oka would turn north to come in behind the American battle position and isolate it.
In the meantime, Rabaul would mount sustained aerial attacks, covered by Zeros based on Buka and the new field at Buin on southern Bougainville. Combined Fleet’s battleships and heavy cruisers would crush the Americans with sustained bombardment. Once the airfield was captured, Yamamoto’s eagles would fly in to operate from it. His gunfire ships would cut off the American retreat.
All depended on the capture of the airfield, all depended on the peerless Sendai striking from their secret position to the south.
They would not, they could not fail. Guadalcanal airfield should again be Japanese by the morning of October 22.
October 22?
Isoroku Yamamoto was annoyed. What was wrong with the Army? First, the deadline had been moved back from October 17 to October 20. And now there was another postponement of two days. The huge Guadalcanal Supporting Forces had been at sea since October 11, at sea doing nothing; doing nothing and consuming fuel. Was the Army not aware that a fleet feeds on oil? All the Army had to do in Operation Ka was supply a few divisions of men; they had not contributed so much as a single airplane—and here they were dragging their feet again.
While they did, the Americans would surely reinforce. Isoroku Yamamoto did not subscribe to any of those wildly optimistic evaluations of the American change of command, especially not the one predicting “withdrawal of all American naval forces from the South Pacific.”1 Yamamoto could only admire the daring skill which had brought off the Doolittle raid on Tokyo. He did not think that a rude, aggressive man like Halsey—with his insulting boast that he would ride the Emperor’s white horse down Pennsylvania Avenue—could have the slightest intention of withdrawing. Halsey would attack, he would reinforce; and the Army was playing into his hands.
And there, Yamamoto was exactly right.
———
The Big E was coming back to battle. The mighty proud flattop that had been in almost every action since the Pacific War began was whole again, the damage she had suffered August 24 during the Battle of the Eastern Solomons had been repaired. On October 16 she cast off her last lines and stood out to sea from Pearl Harbor.
On her flag bridge was Rear Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, bareheaded and shirt-sleeved as always among his helmeted and jacketed sailors, pacing the deck with binoculars around his neck. Kinkaid was to take tactical command of South Pacific Force after his own carrier and screen had made rendezvous with Hornet and her screen. Then, for the first time since Wasp went down on September 15, the Americans would have two carriers to oppose the Japanese.
Enroute to the rendezvous area, Kinkaid received a message from his new chief, Halsey, urging him to proceed at all possible speed. Kinkaid obeyed. But he could never join Hornet before daybreak of October 24.
And that, according to Hyakutake’s timetable, was just two days too late.
Masao Maruyama was almost in tears. Kawaguchi had been right. The terrain was incredible. And that unspeakable Captain Oda, could he not have realized that if his lightly equipped trailblazers could very easily crawl up and down these terrible cliffs, heavily laden combat troops could not?
Every one of Maruyama’s men carried sixty pounds of personal equipment, besides machine guns or grenade launchers. Each man carried an artillery shell. They had no mules to pull the guns, 37-mm antitank pieces, 70- and 75-mm howitzers. All the division’s horses had been left in Rabaul. The only way to get the artillery up and down the cliffs was by hand and by ropes. It was impossible to do this in daylight because of the American aircraft. It had to be done at night; as a result, the artillery was dropping far behind.
Thirty-five miles, that was all that they had to go, and yet, after five days marching, the advance guard had gone only twenty-nine. Six miles of foul, impenetrable jungle still lay between them and the assembly area. And these were the Sendai! These were the men of Colonel Furumiya’s matchless 29th Infantry who had marched 122 miles in seventy-two hours.
But the men had been splendid. They had gone on half-rations without a murmur, and they plodded on inspired by the sight of officers who also were hungry, who also carried guns or artillery shells. Nor had the Sendai forgotten its heritage. Each morning the march was renewed with the memorable words:
“I am your Commander-in-Chief, you are my strong arms …”
Each time the men seemed to be on the verge of collapse their officers rallied them by turning them to face toward the Emperor, to sing:
“Corpses drifting swollen in the sea depths,
Corpses rotting in the mountain grass …”
They sang with tears streaking their mud-caked cheeks, uncaring if American patrols were in the vicinity. But for all their endurance, for all their sacrifice, General Maruyama knew by October 21 that he could not possibly make the deadline. He radioed General Hyakutake back in Kukumbona that he would have to postpone the attack until October 23.
It was October 22 and it was obvious that Admiral Kakuta’s flag carrier Hiyo was not going to be of use. Hiyo had developed engine trouble. Her power-plant, originally designed for a merchant ship, could not provide the speed required by a carrier. Kakuta sent Hiyo back to Truk at her top speed of six knots and took his flag, together with the Emperor’s picture, aboard his last flattop, Junyo.
On October 23, General Maruyama had reached the end of his march. He set up his headquarters on a rise called Centipede-Shaped Ridge and made his final dispositions.
The point he chose to attack was slightly to the east of the ridge at which General Kawaguchi had met defeat. Unknown to Maruyama, it was defended by the Marine battalions commanded by Chesty Puller and Herman Henry Hanneken.
Facing north toward the sea, the Japanese right consisted of the 29th Infantry, with antitank guns, mortars, mountain artillery, and engineers. It was commanded by General Kawaguchi. The left wing, composed of similar arms and similar strength, was led by Major General Yumio Nasu. In reserve was the 16th Infantry, which Maruyama intended to use once Kawaguchi and Nasu had broken through.
The attack would begin just after sunset, following the scheduled aerial bombardment of the Americans.
October 23 seemed like a dull day to the fighter pilots on Henderson Field. The big enemy push was expected hourly, and yet the skies were free of red-balled aircraft. In the morning, Captain Joe Foss and a few other Wildcat pilots escorted a Catalina south toward Nouméa. Lieutenant General Thomas Holcomb, Commandant of the Marine Corps, was aboard. Holcomb had come to visit Vandegrift, and now, he and some other generals were flying down to confer with Admiral Halsey.
Foss and his comrades dipped their wings in farewell, and flew back to Henderson.
At noon they were hanging on their noses clawing for altitude.
Sixteen Japanese bombers were coming in, escorted by a few Zeros. The Wildcats closed. In the rear of the formation, Joe Foss took a last look around. High above, like a flight of silvery flying fish, he spotted about eighteen Zeros. They were coming down in a screaming dive. They flashed beneath him.
Foss dove to overtake them. A Wildcat crossed his course firing into a Zero trying desperately to escape. Another Zero was on the Wildcat’s tail. Foss swung in behind him. Only a few feet away, he pressed the button.
Ba—loom!
The enemy plane was gone. It had blown up with the vehemence characteristic of the Zero. Foss saw the pilot pop from his cockpit like a pea pressed from a pod. The motor went spinning into space, and Foss tore through an aerial dustbin of bits and pieces of aircraft. Below him, the plane’s wing section was sailing downward like a leaf.
Foss banked hard. He went after a Zero which went into a dive, pulling out and looping. Foss cut close inside, and the Zero went over on its back. Foss was upside-down, too, when he triggered a leading shot at the red-balled fighter and caught him in a terrible, converging burst.
His second kill had blown up.
Foss ducked again to avoid debris, and suddenly a Zero came from nowhere, slow-rolling as though in a victory celebration, and Foss’s plane again shook from the recoil of its wing guns. There was a disintegrating flash, and the pilot popped from his cockpit and nearly hit Foss’s plane.
Now there were two Zeros coming at Foss, one head-on, the other from an angle. Foss rushed at the first one. The planes drove toward each other with smoking guns. The Japanese swerved right, and Foss aimed a burst behind his motor. Streaming flames, the Zero came on—exploding off Foss’s right wing and rocking the Wildcat with the force of the blast.
Now Foss’s plane was smoking. The enemy had scored hits. Foss went over in a dive for home. A Zero came after him, overran, and Foss fired his last rounds at him in a useless burst. Another Zero raked him on a side pass. Foss radioed for help, and two Marine fliers came roaring over to shoot down both Zeros.
Foss reached the field safely, bringing in his fourth damaged plane since he had begun fighting from Henderson on October 10. One more shot-up Wildcat, he thought, and I’ll be a Japanese ace.2 But he was already twice an American ace, with eleven aircraft downed in fourteen days.
Other newly made aces were rolling exultantly over the field, among them Lieutenant Jack Conger, a wiry gamecock who had chased a Zero all the way up to Savo before sending him down in flames. Of the twenty Zeros that came down to Guadalcanal that October 23, every one was destroyed. So was one bomber, while four others staggered home trailing smoke and flames.
Once again the Cactus Air Force had fought to save the ground troops, for Maruyama’s anticipated bombardment never came off.
Nor would his attack.
General Maruyama was beside himself. Shortly after the raid from Rabaul was repulsed, he was notified that General Kawaguchi had not yet reached his assembly area. He could not possibly attack at sunset. Maruyama had no alternative but to postpone his assault another day. He did, and then, in an icy rage, he telephoned Kawaguchi and relieved him of his command. Colonel Toshinaro Shoji took his place.
Next, Maruyama attempted to reach General Sumoyoshi to tell him to postpone the Matanikau thrust until sunset of October 24. He could not reach him. As happened so frequently to both sides in that moist, dissolving jungle, communications had broken down.
But Maruyama did reach Hyakutake, who quickly informed Yamamoto, who angrily sent his fleet tankers south and ordered Kondo’s force to withdraw for refueling.
Yamamoto was incensed. One carrier had already been lost because of delays, and here he was forced to withdraw his entire fleet from the target area. More, he was made uneasy by reports of growing American naval strength along the supply line to Guadalcanal. A patrol plane from the Gilbert Islands had sighted Enterprise steaming north, and a few days before that Hornet had been detected. Then, suddenly, like ghosts, the American carriers had vanished. What did it mean? Neither Yamamoto nor Chuichi Nagumo, both of whom carried the memory of Midway burned in their brains, could supply the answer. One thing Yamamoto knew, though: he would brook no more delays, and he informed Hyakutake of his displeasure.
Hyakutake contacted Maruyama again. There was no doubt: the attack would go forward at sunset of October 24. By early morning of October 25 Hyakutake should receive the message signaling capture of the airfield. It was one word: “Banzai!” Upon receipt of it, the Koli Detachment would be ordered to land to the east.
Meanwhile, Maruyama inquired, had he remembered to specify that when the American commander came to the mouth of the Matanikau to surrender, he must come unarmed and accompanied only by an interpreter?
The American commander was not on Guadalcanal.
The Catalina which Foss and his comrades had escorted south that morning of October 23 also carried Alexander Archer Vandegrift. Admiral Halsey had had the grace and the common sense to summon the ground commander to an important conference at Nouméa. Kelly Turner was there, too, along with Lieutenant General Holcomb, Major General Harmon, Major General Alexander Patch, commander of the U.S. Army’s Americal Infantry Division from which the 164th was drawn, and which was now scheduled to relieve the First Marine Division—when and if it was possible.
Halsey sat smoking while the others settled around a table. Then he asked Vandegrift to outline the situation. Vandegrift did. His soft, courteous voice was charged with urgency. The question was one of reinforcement of every kind. He needed more airplanes and the rest of the Americal Division and a regiment from the Second Marine Division, then enroute to the Pacific. His men were worn out. There were now seven hundred new cases of malaria a week.
Holcomb and Harmon spoke. They agreed, vigorously. Kelly Turner spoke. He was stung by the implied rebuke to his efforts. He rehearsed all of his attempts to supply the island, he said there were getting to be fewer transports and fewer warships to protect them. There were no sheltering bases at Guadalcanal. They still needed the seaplane base at Ndeni to provide aerial cover of the supply line. Solomons’ waters were too narrow for maneuver. Torpedo Junction swarmed with submarines.
Halsey heard him out, his knuckly fingers drumming the desk, his eyes thoughtful under the shaggy gray brows. Then he turned to Vandegrift.
“Are we going to evacuate or hold?”
“I can hold,” Archer Vandegrift said softly. “But I’ve got to have more active support than I’ve been getting.”
“All right,” Halsey said. “Go on back. I’ll promise you everything I’ve got.”3
Archer Vandegrift did go back, to find Guadalcanal ablaze with battle again.
In the United States Marine Corps there is a legend concerning the battle between Serapis and Bonhomme Richard. After the British commander summoned John Paul Jones to surrender, and after that doughty sailor had flung back his immortal, “I have just begun to fight,” it is said that one of the Marines* who had been fighting very briskly in the rigging looked down upon John Paul in disgust, and snorted: “There’s always some poor slob who doesn’t get the word.”
On the night of October 23 the unfortunate Major General Tadashi Sumoyoshi was one of those who did not get the word. Maruyama had not reached him to postpone his attack on the Matanikau, Hyakutake had not done so either, and Sumoyoshi was himself lying in his dugout in a malarial coma.
His attack went forward at six o’clock that night.
Once again Colonel Nakaguma’s Fourth Infantry was torn apart. Ten battalions of Marine artillery had registered their guns on the Matanikau mouth and the coastal track behind it, and they blew the massing Japanese apart with a howling hurricane of steel.
Then Sumoyoshi’s tanks burst from the cover of the jungle and went racing with spinning inner wheels toward the sandspit. One came, two came, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine—and then the Marine gunners in dug-in half-tracks on the west bank decided that there were enough targets.
Wham! Brrranng! Ba—loom!
Seventy-five millimeter rifles smoked and recoiled, howitzers to the rear bucked and bellowed, 37-mm antitank guns spat out flat trajectories, everyone opened up—riflemen, machine-gunners, BAR-men, mortarmen—and in a single disintegrating outburst lasting at the most three minutes, they halted or blew apart all but one tank and sent bullets or shells into the backs of the crewmen who leaped from them to flee.
The surviving tank was the first one, carrying Captain Maeda, the tank commander. It came whizzing over the sandbar. It rolled over strands of barbed wire and crushed a pillbox and wheeled to its right to come clanking down on a foxhole occupied by Private Joe Champagne.
Champagne ducked. The tank rolled over his hole and paused, as though Captain Maeda was taking his bearings. Champagne pulled a grenade from his belt, stuck it in the tank tread, and pulled the pin while the tank resumed speed and clattered away.
Barrrooom!
Maeda’s tank sloughed around out of control. A Marine halftrack drove down to the sandbar. Its seventy-five flashed and Maeda’s tank shivered. It fired again. Flames gushed from the tank. Its ammunition locker had been hit, and it was blown twenty yards into the sea where it was finally finished off.
And now those massed battalions of American artillery were walking their fire back along the coastal road, raking the assembly area, knocking out three more tanks, and putting the dreadful seal of annihilation upon the Fourth Infantry Regiment of the Sendai Division.
Another 650 men had been killed, and in the dawn of October 24 Marines along the Matanikau heights could look down upon a silent sandbar clogged with broken, burned-out tanks and the bodies of the enemy. Nothing moved but the crocodiles swimming hungrily downstream.
* They were French Marines.