PART ONE: THE CHALLENGE
CHAPTER ONE
1. Morison, Samuel Eliot, The Two-Ocean War: A Short History of the United States Navy in the Second World War (Boston: Little, Brown, 1963), p. 35.
2. Fuchida, Capt. Mitsuo, and Okumiya, Masatake, Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan (Annapolis: United States Naval Institute, 1955), p. 48. (Imperial General Headquarters was composed of two sections or divisions. The Navy Section was presided over by the Chief of the Navy General Staff and the Army Section by the Chief of the Army General Staff. These two sections “consulted” on strategy, operations, and allocation of forces. After an agreement was reached, a “Central Agreement” was drawn up and signed by the section Chiefs. Each Chief issued orders to his subordinates and they, in turn, were to consult each other at the lower, implementing level. Thus, the Japanese military operated on the basis of “cooperation” rather than on the American basis of “control” or “unity of command,” and this, as will be seen, was not always conducive to clarity.)
3. Ibid, p. 11.
4. Clear, Lt. Col. Warren J., Close-up of a Jap Fighting Man (Infantry Journal, November 1942), p. 16.
5. Sakai, Saburo, with Caidin, Martin, and Saito, Fred, Samurai: Flying the Zero in WW II with Japan’s Fighter Ace (New York: Ballantine Books, 1963), p. 72.
6. Feldt, Cmdr. Eric A., R.A.N., The Coastwatchers (New York and Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1946), p. 78.
7. Clemens, Martin, A Coastwatcher’s Diary (Unpublished manuscript on file at Research & Records [R&R], Historical Branch, G-3, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps), p. 4. (In this passage, and all other quotations in pidgin English, I have taken the liberty of altering Clemens’s faithful presentation of that lingua franca as it is spoken by the Solomon Islanders to what I believe may be a more readable form of pidgin.)
8. Halsey, Fleet Adm. William F., and Bryan, Lt. Cmdr. J., III, Admiral Halsey’s Story (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1947), p. 101.
9. Vandegrift, General Alexander A., and Asprey, Robert B., Once a Marine: The Memoirs of General A. A. Vandegrift (New York: Norton, 1964), p. 61.
10. Pierce, Lt. Col. P. N., The Unsolved Mystery of Pete Ellis (Marine Corps Gazette, February 1962), pp. 34, 40.
11. Smith, General Holland M., Coral and Brass: Howlin’ Mad Smith’s Own Story of the Marines in the Pacific (New York: Scribner’s, 1949), p. 177; and Davis, Burke, Marine!: The Life of Chesty Puller (Boston: Little, Brown, 1962), pp. 71, 72.
12. Davis, op. cit., pp. 71, 72.
13. Vandegrift and Asprey, op. cit., p. 25.
14. Author’s recollection.
15. Ibid.
CHAPTER TWO
1. Ito, Masanori, The End of the Imperial Japanese Navy (New York: Norton, 1956), p. 18.
2. Ibid, p. 19.
3. Ibid, p. 36.
4. Fuchida and Okumiya, op. cit., p. 57.
5. Ibid, p. 60.
6. Vandegrift and Asprey, op. cit., p. 100.
7. Halsey and Bryan, op. cit., p. 103.
8. Fuchida and Okumiya, op. cit., p. 71.
CHAPTER THREE
1. Clemens, op. cit., p. 17.
2. Ibid, p. 34.
3. Hara, Cmdr. Tameichi, with Saito, Fred, and Pineau, Roger, Japanese Destroyer Captain (New York: Ballantine Books, 1961), p. 97.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid, p. 99.
6. Morison, Samuel Eliot, Coral Sea, Midway and Submarine Action, Vol. IV. “History of the United States Navy in the Second World War” (Boston: Little, Brown, 1960), p. 98.
7. Clemens, op. cit., p. 43.
8. Ibid, p. 50.
9. Butterfield, Roger, Al Schmid: Marine (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1944), p. 57.
10. Ibid, p. 58.
11. Vandegrift and Asprey, op. cit., p. 102.
12. Ibid, p. 105.
13. Ibid, p. 111.
CHAPTER FOUR
1. Clemens, op. cit., p. 52.
2. Fuchida and Okumiya, op. cit., p. 75.
3. Ohmae, Capt. Toshikazu, The Battle of Savo Island (United States Naval Institute Proceedings, December 1957), p. 1264.
4. Ibid, p. 1266.
5. Newcomb, Richard, Savo: The Incredible Naval Debacle off Guadalcanal (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1961), p. 53.
6. Ibid, p. 53.
7. Vandegrift and Asprey, op. cit., p. 46.
8. Author’s recollection.
9. Butterfield, op. cit., pp. 64, 65.
10. Griffith, Brig. Gen. Samuel B., II, The Battle for Guadalcanal (Philadelphia and New York: Lippincott, 1963), p. 35.
11. Vandegrift and Asprey, op. cit., p. 120.
12. Ibid, p. 120.
13. Ibid.
14. Griffith, op. cit., p. 35.
15. Author’s recollection.
CHAPTER FIVE
1. Shigemitsu, Premier Mamoru, Japan and Her Destiny (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1950), p. 271.
2. Intelligence Summary No. 22, Headquarters, U.S. Army Air Force, Southwest Pacific Area; History of 28th Bombardment Squadron (19th Bombardment Group), 8 Dec. 1941–1 Feb. 1943, p. 16.
3. Clemens, op. cit., p. 124.
4. Author’s recollection.
5. Vandegrift and Asprey, op. cit., p. 19.
6. Leckie, Robert, Strong Men Armed (New York: Random House, 1962), p. 18.
7. Clemens, op. cit., p. 125.
8. Japanese Eighth Fleet War Diary, Office of Naval Records and Library (ONRL), Document No. 161259, p. 6; Newcomb, op. cit., p. 23.
PART TWO: ALONE
CHAPTER SIX
1. Griffith, op. cit., p. 46. (General Griffith, then a lieutenant colonel, was Edson’s executive officer.)
2. Newcomb, op. cit., p. 23.
3. Sakai et al., op. cit., p. 146.
4. Ibid, p. 147.
5. Griffith, op. cit., p. 44.
6. Hara, op. cit., p. 104.
7. Ibid, p. 104.
8. Tregaskis, Richard, Guadalcanal Diary (New York: Popular Library, 1959), p. 77.
9. Leckie, op. cit., p. 23.
10. Sakai et al., op. cit., p. 156.
11. Griffith, op. cit., p. 47.
CHAPTER SEVEN
1. Author’s recollection.
2. Griffith, op. cit., p. 42.
3. Ohmae, op. cit., p. 1272.
4. Newcomb, op. cit., p. 92.
5. Ohmae, op. cit., p. 1273. (Note: All subsequent Japanese battle orders quoted at Savo are from the same source.)
6. Vandegrift and Asprey, op. cit., p. 130.
7. Ibid.
CHAPTER EIGHT
1. Roscoe, Theodore, United States Destroyer Operations in World War II (Annapolis: United States Naval Institute, 1953), p. 153.
2. All these and similar quotations are from monitored Japanese broadcasts on file in the National Archives, Washington, D.C.
3. Letter, Commanding General, South Pacific, to Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, August 11, 1942. OPD 381, PTO1. World War II Archives, Alexandria, Va.
4. Letter, Commanding General, South Pacific, to Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, August 11, 1942. OPD 381, PTO1. World War II Archives, Alexandria, Va.
5. The Americans had a biblical precedent for this ruse. In a dispute with the men of Ephraim, the Israelite leader Jephte set guards at the fords of the Jordan with orders to ask each passerby if he were an Ephraimite. Each man who said “No” was asked to pronounce “shibboleth,” the word for an ear of corn or a flood or stream. Inasmuch as the Ephraimites could not make the sound “sh” they always answered “sibboleth,” thus betraying their identity. That is how the word shibboleth came first to mean a password, then a party slogan, and, finally, the sham or hackneyed rallying cry of some fashionable or partisan cause.
6. Leckie, op. cit., p. 38.
7. Halsey and Bryan, op. cit., p. 108.
8. Tsuji, Masanobu, Singapore: The Japanese Version (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1960), p. 330.
9. Ibid.
10. Sherwood, Robert E., Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1950), p. 622.
CHAPTER NINE
1. Author’s recollection.
2. Ibid.
3. Butterfield, op. cit., p. 92.
4. Author’s recollection.
5. Ibid.
6. McMillan, George, The Old Breed: A History of the First Marine Division in World War Two (Washington: Infantry Journal Press, 1949), p. 61.
7. Few historians agree on the exact time that the Battle of the Tenaru began. Therefore, I have relied on my own recollection and those of other participants.
8. McMillan, op. cit., p. 62.
9. Vandegrift and Asprey, op. cit., p. 142.
CHAPTER TEN
1. Tanaka, Vice-Admiral Raizo, Japan’s Losing Struggle for Guadalcanal, Part I (United States Naval Institute Proceedings, July 1956), p. 690.
2. Ibid.
3. Griffith, op. cit., p. 90.
4. Hara, op. cit., p. 109.
5. Ibid.
6. United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Interrogations of Japanese Officials (Washington: Naval Analysis Division, 1946), Vol. I, p. 31.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
1. Hara, op. cit., p. 119.
2. Tanaka, op. cit., p. 694d.
3. Griffith, op. cit., p. 93.
4. Tanaka, op. cit., p. 696.
5. Ibid, p. 697.
CHAPTER TWELVE
1. Sherrod, Robert, History of Marine Corps Aviation in World War II (Washington: Combat Forces Press, 1952), p. 82.
2. Vandegrift and Asprey, op. cit., p. 147.
PART THREE: AT BAY
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
1. Vandegrift and Asprey, op. cit., p. 149.
2. Ibid.
3. Author’s recollection.
4. Tregaskis, op. cit., p. 154.
5. Hara, op. cit., p. 120.
6. Sherwood, op. cit., p. 632.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
1. Unsigned article by Marine Combat Correspondent under dateline Avu-Avu, Guadalcanal, Nov. 27, 1942. Article quotes natives in vicinity of Tasimboko. On file in folder marked “Guadalcanal, Miscellaneous” at R&R, Arlington, Va.
2. Russell, Lord, of Liverpool, The Knights of Bushido: The Shocking History of Japanese War Atrocities (New York: Dutton, 1958), p. 269.
3. Griffith, op. cit., p. 110.
4. Ibid.
5. Vandegrift and Asprey, op. cit., p. 151.
6. Davis, op. cit., p. 118.
7. Ibid, p. 119.
8. Ibid, p. 120.
9. Griffith, op. cit., p. 112.
10. Ibid, p. 113.
11. Vandegrift and Asprey, op. cit., p. 152.
12. Ibid, pp. 152, 153.
13. Ibid, p. 153.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Griffith, op. cit., p. 115.
17. Vandegrift and Asprey, op. cit., pp. 153, 154.
18. Griffith, op. cit., pp. 116, 117.
19. Ibid, p. 118.
20. Undated and unsigned story filed by Marine Corps Combat Correspondent and included in “Guadalcanal, Miscellaneous” folder on file at R&R, Arlington, Va.
21. Ibid, quoted in interview with “Lt. Col. Reeder.”
22. Ibid.
23. McMillan, op. cit., p. 78.
24. Ibid.
25. Griffith, op. cit., p. 119.
26. Ibid.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
1. Jitsuroku Taiheiyo Senso (Personal Records of the Pacific War). The Kawaguchi memoir: “Struggles of the Kawaguchi Detached Force.” I am deeply indebted to Brig. Gen. Griffith for having provided me with a translation of this source.
2. Hara, op. cit., p. 120.
3. Arnold, Gen. of the Army H. H., Global Mission (New York: Harper & Bros., 1949), p. 338.
4. Ibid.
5. Whyte, Capt. William H., Jr., Hyakutake Meets the Marines, Part I (Marine Corps Gazette, July 1945), p. 11. (Note: Captain Whyte was to become famous a decade later as author of The Organization Man.)
6. Author’s conversations with pilots.
7. Clemens, op. cit., p. 183.
8. Hanson Baldwin, New York Times, Nov. 3, 1942.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
1. Whyte, op. cit., p. 9.
2. Sherrod, op. cit., p. 91, fn.
3. Davis, op. cit., pp. 135, 136.
4. Vandegrift and Asprey, op. cit., p. 169.
5. Ibid, p. 170.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid, p. 164.
8. Ibid, pp. 171, 172.
9. Griffith, op. cit., p. 141.
PART FOUR: CRISIS
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
1. Clear, op. cit., p. 20.
2. Ibid.
3. Clemens, op. cit., p. 193.
4. Ibid.
5. Pratt, Fletcher, The Marines’ War (New York: William Sloane Associates, 1948), p. 76.
6. Ibid, pp. 76, 77.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
1. Quoted in full in Miller, John, Jr., Guadalcanal: The First Offensive (Washington: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1949), as Appendix A, pp. 357, 358.
2. Griffith, op. cit., p. 147.
3. Ibid.
4. Hara, op. cit., p. 137.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
1. Morison, Samuel Eliot, The Struggle for Guadalcanal, Vol. V, “History of the United States Naval Operations in World War II” (Boston: Little, Brown, 1959), p. 193.
2. Author’s recollection.
3. Leckie, op. cit., p. 82.
4. Tanaka, Japan’s Losing Struggle for Guadalcanal, Part II (United States Naval Institute Proceedings, August 1956), p. 815.
5. 67th Fighter Squadron History Mar.–Oct. 1942, quoted in Morison, op. cit., p. 175.
6. Quoted in undated and unsigned Marine Combat Correspondent’s report filed at R&R, Arlington, Va.
7. Morison, op. cit., p. 176.
8. Sherrod, op. cit., p. 102.
9. Griffith, op. cit., p. 157.
CHAPTER TWENTY
1. Leckie, op. cit., p. 92.
2. Halsey and Bryan, op. cit., p. 109.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
1. Monitored Japanese broadcasts, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
2. Simmons, Walter, Joe Foss: Flying Marine (New York: Dutton, 1943), p. 66.
3. Halsey and Bryan, op. cit., p. 117.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
1. Hara, op. cit., p. 125.
2. Ibid, p. 126.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid, p. 127.
5. Ibid.
6. Seventeenth Army Operations, Office of the Chief of Military History (OCMH) File 8-51, AC 34.
7. Author’s conversation with Puller.
8. Leckie, op. cit., p. 99.
9. Davis, op. cit., p. 155.
10. Ibid.
11. Davis, op. cit., p. 156.
12. Ibid, p. 157.
13. Ibid, pp. 158, 159.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
1. Hara, op. cit., p. 127.
2. Ibid.
3. Leckie, Robert, Helmet for My Pillow (New York: Random House, 1957), p. 118.
4. Sherwood, op. cit., pp. 624, 625.
5. Seventeenth Army Operations.
6. Whyte, Hyakutake Meets the Marines, Part II (Marine Corps Gazette, August 1945), p. 41.
7. Hara, op. cit., p. 128.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
1. Hara, op. cit., p. 128.
2. Stafford, Cmdr. Edward P., The Big E: The Story of the U.S.S. Enterprise (New York: Random House, 1962), p. 165.
3. Pratt, op. cit., p. 93.
4. Whyte, op. cit., p. 42.
PART FIVE: CRUX
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
1. Tanaka, op. cit., p. 818c.
2. Leckie, op. cit., p. 119.
3. Author’s recollection.
4. Hara, op. cit., p. 135.
5. Clemens, op. cit., pp. 241, 242.
6. Simmons, op. cit., p. 96.
7. Arnold, op. cit., p. 351.
8. Sims, Edward H., Greatest Fighter Missions of the Top Navy and Marine Aces of World War II (New York: Harper & Bros., 1962), p. 57.
9. Simmons, op. cit., p. 102.
10. Halsey and Bryan, op. cit., p. 123.
11. Boyington, Gregory (“Pappy”), Baa Baa Black Sheep (New York: Putnam, 1958), p. 128.
12. Leckie, Strong Men Armed, p. 119.
13. Davis, op. cit., p. 166.
14. Ibid.
15. Halsey press interview on Guadalcanal, November 9, 1942.
16. Ibid.
17. Clemens, op. cit., p. 249.
18. Vandegrift and Asprey, op. cit., p. 196.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
1. Feldt, op. cit., p. 101.
2. Hara, op. cit., p. 138.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Tanaka, op. cit., p. 821.
7. Hara, op. cit., p. 140.
8. Ibid, pp. 140, 141.
9. Ibid, p. 141.
10. Morison, op. cit., p. 242.
11. Ibid.
12. Author’s conversations with pilots.
13. Tanaka, op. cit., p. 821.
14. Morison, op. cit., p. 263.
15. Morison, op. cit., pp. 272, 273.
16. Ibid, p. 273.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. Stern, Michael, Into the Jaws of Death (New York: McBride, 1944), p. 120.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. Tanaka, op. cit., p. 824a.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
1. New York Times, Wednesday, November 18, 1942.
2. Halsey and Bryan, op. cit., p. 130.
3. Hayashi, Saburo, with Coox, Alvin D., Kogun: The Japanese Army in the Pacific War (Quantico: The Marine Corps Association, 1959), p. 62.