CHAPTER 14
The Imperial Japanese Navy's (IJN) Commander-in-Chief Isoroku Yamamoto had hoped, at best, to 'run amok' for a year before US industrial power began to overwhelm Japan. However, the IJN was first checked in the Coral Sea on 4–8 May 1942, simultaneously with the surrender of the last outpost of the US–Filipino Army in the Philippines. General Douglas MacArthur, the Commander-in-Chief had been ordered to leave in March and set up a new South-West Pacific Command based in Australia. Australian forces under his command inflicted the first Allied defeat on the Japanese Army at Milne Bay, on the eastern tip of New Guinea, in early September. Before that, however, the Americans had broken the Japanese naval codes and on 4–7 June the IJN's all-conquering carrier force was destroyed off Midway Island in an ambush set up by US Fleet Commander Chester Nimitz. On 7 August the first of seventy-eight amphibious landings by US forces during the Pacific War was made to seize an airfield on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands east of New Guinea and immediately came under intense attack by land and sea. The Americans held on and the campaign became a prolonged battle of attrition, in which the IJN lost many irreplaceable ships and aircraft before finally evacuating the island in February 1943. Their hope had been to interdict communications between the United States and Australia from the air base on Guadalacanal and another on Betio, the main island of Tarawa atoll in the Gilbert Islands. In May 1943 the Americans encountered unexpectedly vicious resistance when recovering Attu, one of two Aleutian Islands lost to the Japanese in June 1942, and in August mounted a massive operation to retake Kiska, only to find the Japanese gone. In 20–24 November 1943 tiny Betio became the most crowded place on earth when the Americans assaulted it with 35,000 men against a Japanese garrison of 3,000 Marines and 2,000 pioneers. Many valuable lessons were learned, but many more remained to be learned.
MICHIKO NAKAMOTO
Hiroshima schoolgirl
I thought, always I had thought America was a very, very big country and Japan is very small and what's going to happen, that was my first thought. Well, naturally Japan was winning and every day we had over the radio all the victories and the whole nation was very excited and the thought I had at that time when I heard the news about the war was immediately all the victories over the radio all day long so we are quite excited and it was almost like a festival. I didn't even doubt about the news when they were always talking about the victories and then the sad news began to be heard over the radio and we were very sad but of course we had to believe what we were hearing. I can't remember correctly by order about the battle of Midway, battle of the Solomons and all South Pacific areas. Japan was beginning to pay much sacrifice although it was always said we sank many ships, we attacked so many aeroplanes, but at the same time we lost our soldiers, we lost our ships; so I don't recall precisely news of the battle of Midway but I remember it was very sad news and always when news began with very sad Japanese music, very immediately we knew it was bad news.
AMBASSADOR W AVERELL HARRIMAN
President Roosevelt's Special Envoy to Europe
There were people who wanted to go to the Pacific first: all the Pacific states [of the USA] were more interested in the Pacific war; some military opinion was that we should fight this war first. Roosevelt did everything he could to bring public opinion to his view [that Germany should be beaten first]. Those who were involved in the war demanded more, the Pacific was almost an endless demand; war production was very limited in the beginning. It wasn't until considerably later that we had adequate for both fronts, so one side or the other had to sacrifice and also we had to balance off the requirements of our allies, Britain and the Soviet Union. I think Roosevelt handled public opinion extremely skilfully.
TOSHIKAZU KASE
Principal Secretary to the Foreign Minister
Most people were surprised by the extent of the victories achieved by the Navy and Army in the initial phase of the war. There was a torchlight parade night after night, but I was basically sceptical because having lived years under German Blitz in London, having witnessed at close quarters the war in Europe, I knew that victory amounts to little when the war is likely to be dragged on.
COMMANDER MINORU GENDA
Japanese Navy Air Staff
The British and American troops were not as well trained as those of Japan. In this respect I think that the Navy, particularly its air arm, had no equal in the world at that time. I was in Britain before the war and saw the ability of the Americans when the war started and my impression was that in both countries their ability was below that of Japan. As for strategy, there was not much to choose between the two sides.
PETTY OFFICER SABURO SAKAI
Outstanding Japanese naval fighter pilot (sixty kills)
Frankly speaking, Japan had already used up a great part of its resources in the war against China, therefore I personally did not think that Japan would be able to win. In fact I was surprised because the war unfolded so easily in favour of Japan. At the same time, when the other side's counter-offensive got started I felt apprehensive.
PROFESSOR VANNEVAR BUSH
Director of the US Office of Scientific Research and Development
For most of the war the strategy of the Pacific was an American strategy. It had to be: the British were there, but a very minor part. But as far as the war in Europe was concerned, the strategy was worked out jointly with genuine joint discussions and consideration. The decision was made early that Europe came first and it was a decision in spite of the fact that we got the devil knocked out of us in the Pacific for a long time. Now the Navy protested at being left way under par in the Pacific and it did put us up to very heavy casualties, but I think the country in general agreed with the decision that the real threat was in Europe.
NAOKI HOSHINO
Japanese Fascist ideologist
We were told only part of the Midway story; the Navy did not tell us the other part. What we were told was that one aircraft carrier was sunk and one was severely damaged. Since there were four carriers involved in the battle, the way we heard it three had come back, but the Anglo-American side was saying that all four had been sunk and there were similar reports in their newspapers. This left some doubt in our minds and we pressed the Navy for more details, but they stuck to their original announcement. As to when we learned the whole truth it was three years later after the war ended, at the War Crimes Tribunal we learned that four carriers were sunk at Midway from the official documents presented by the United States. If four aircraft carriers were lost at Midway it means it was impossible for Japan to pursue the war effectively any further, so from that point on the military never let us know the real situation. As a result of investigations conducted after the war ended it was found out that the Navy had reported the truth to General Tojo shortly after the Midway battle and he ordered that this being an important matter it must never be revealed to others. Tojo, being the kind of man he was, probably intended to reveal the facts bit by bit as time went on but the war proceeded at a fast pace with Japan going downhill and there was no opportunity to make the facts known. So Japan's subsequent battle plans were made on the wrong assessment of its own strength.
COMMANDER GENDA
I think the big reason the Midway battle did not go well was because Japan was not wary enough. The Americans knew in advance that Japan
Interviewee Anthony Eden behind the Big Three at the Teheran conference, 1943. (insert) Sir Anthony Eden, then Earl of Avon, being interviewed for The World at War in 1971.
Admiral Karl Dönitz, then head of the U-Boat army, congratulating U-boat crew, 1942. (insert) Interviewee Admiral Dönitz in 1971.
Squadron Leader Max Aitken during the Battle of Britain, 1940. (insert) Sir Max Aitken interviewed in 1971.
General Sir Harold Alexander and interviewee Brigadier John Harding in the desert, 1942. (insert) Lord Harding in 1971
Hitler and his gang in the early 1930s.
First Quebec Conference, August 1943 – Churchill and Prime Minister Mackenzie King of Canada stand behind President Roosevelt and Governor General of Canada, the Earl of Athlone.
Night pageant, Berlin to mark Hitler's 50th birthday, 20 April 1939.
Stage management – Hitler addressing the Reichstag following the Fall of France, 1940.
Churchill and Lord Privy Seal Sir Stafford Cripps on HMS King George V, October 1942. 'Former Naval Person' was the nom de guerre used by Churchill in his correspondence with 'Potus' (the President of the United States).
Normandy 22 July 1944 – Churchill with Montgomery, Lieutenant General Guy Simmonds of II Canadian Corps (left) and Lieutenant General Sir Miles Dempsey of British Second Army (rear).
The Battle of Britain, 1940: the workhorse Hawker Hurricane (foreground, above) attacked bombers such as the Junkers 88 (below); while the Supermarine Spitfires (background, above) took on the escorting Messerschmitt 109s (below).
Barbarossa, 1941 – devastation for the Byelorussian peasantry.
While the German mechanised spearheads clattered on ahead the bulk of the army followed on foot and most supply columns were still horse drawn, like this one near Leningrad, autumn 1941.
Mud slowed the German offensive of 1941 and winter brought it to a grinding halt. The flag is for aerial recognition, not patriotic fervour.
would attack Midway, therefore the United States was ready and waiting. And we got trapped in the net. The biggest reason for the failure was that the secret leaked. The Americans had obtained Japan's secret code in Guadalcanal – no, in the Solomons or somewhere like that – salvaging it from a sunken Japanese ship. After Midway we won and lost some engagements but we didn't win as many as before and the defeats began to outnumber the victories. Therefore Midway was the turning point.
MARQUIS KOICHI KIDO
Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal
I guess it was from the Midway naval battle. In that battle Japan lost four large aircraft carriers; this tilted the naval battle against Japan. From then on Japan was on the defensive, therefore I think the Midway battle was the turning point.
RICHARD TREGASKIS
War correspondent, Guadalcanal
All the Pacific fighting was bitter, really, because the Japanese were in a kind of suicidal attempt to hang on, but the thing about Guadalcanal that was really bitter was that this was the whole strength we had. We had such a tiny fraction of America's forces, money and man-power resources. Ninety per cent went to Europe and we had such a tiny little thread of existence down there. It was our first offensive in the Pacific and we went in with only one division and no air power – except the Navy supplied some air power when we went in – but for a long time we had no air power so that the desperate thing was that we had so little to work with. When I was there only a few days – I was one of the first people to come ashore at Guadalcanal – we'd had some desperate battles and we had lost four cruisers, one of them the Canberra, the Australian cruiser, so it was very discouraging and all the ships were leaving. Landing-force commander General Alexander Vandergrift called me in and said, 'A lot of people are saying this may be another Bataan and now is probably the last chance you'll have to leave.' And so I thought and thought and struggled with my conscience, such as it is, and eventually after watching the ships leave one by one decided to stay.
TOSHIKAZU KASE
When our Army begun to suffer at Guadalcanal, and the Navy at Midway, I thought the time had arrived for preparations for an early termination of hostilities. I thought I had to evade the Military Police and to see the movement, and effort, in utmost secrecy, even at the Foreign Office. The group formed to prepare for this movement included the Private Secretary to one of the key members of the High Command in shaping military operations plan, and he was at one time Private Secretary to General Tojo as War Minister, so he was in the know about the intentions of the Army High Command.
RICHARD TREGASKIS
I think the salvation of the Guadalcanal campaign is in an anecdote about probably the greatest single hero of Guadalcanal, Lieutenant Colonel Merritt Edson. He was the head of the 1st Marine Raiders and they say about Red Mike that he had every medal the Marine Corps could give except the Purple Heart and that was the one he deserved most. He had never been wounded and never was till he died. But he was very smart and stubborn and clever. When he was summoned to consult about the situation, General Vandergrift didn't believe the Lunga Ridge would be attacked but Edson said this is where the Japanese will attack, this is their first major attack, and that's where they came. Red Mike had only the remnants at that point of his 1st Raider Battalion and the 1st Parachute Battalion, which had been through the worst of the Guadalcanal fighting to that point. And it so happened that this main attack by the Japanese came right through his bivouac where he was with his troops, who were supposed to be resting. And so they drove right through them and those people hung on and Red Mike went around and personally talked to all these guys who were falling back and he would say to them, 'The only difference between you and a good marine is you're going in the wrong direction.' So he held that whole business together and held that ridge until some supporting troops came up. But the main point of this dramatic episode is that it shows how on Guadalcanal there never was enough and what we had was so badly shot up that it was only through miracles that they could survive. Just nerve and, well, guts.*30
MAJOR GENERAL J LAWTON COLLINS
Commander 25th Infantry Division, Guadalcanal
My division was sent down from Hawaii to go into Guadalcanal to relieve the 1st Marine Division and another Army division that had established a bridgehead on Guadalcanal, having driven off the Japs – killed off a good many of them. But a stalemate had developed and Admiral Richmond Turner, who was in command down in that area, wanted my division turned in to Guadalcanal to lead the offensive of the 14th Army Corps to break out of this stalemate, which we did.
LIEUTENANT COLONEL ICHII SUGITA
Japanese Army
Before the beginning of the war, I felt by myself that the war against America and England would be a very hard war, but I went to Guadalcanal and I found out that the tide had turned against us, especially after the failure to attack at the aerodrome in Guadalcanal on 24th or 25th October.
MAJOR GENERAL COLLINS
It was jungle fighting, but not entirely because Guadalcanal is a rather rough volcanic island and the ridges were covered normally with tall grass that grew eight or ten feet tall. In the earlier fighting by the Marines and the Army Division there, this grass has been burnt off so the ridge lines were clear and the jungle was down in the valleys, very heavy. But in my attack, which was designed to envelop the south flank of the Japanese position there, we stuck to the ridge lines so our troops in the initial fighting went along the ridges in relatively open country. It was very tough fighting because these ridges were not very broad and furthermore the Japanese were tough fighters and they never would give up. We had isolated a Japanese regiment as a strong point and they fought until we actually had to annihilate them. We used loudspeakers after we had surrounded them and tried to persuade them to surrender but they wouldn't. They were gallant fellows, no question. Not very skilful at times, but tough fighters and this made it difficult.
ROBERT SHERROD
War correspondent
Nimitz was a much quieter man who had a great deal more strength than MacArthur. He was much stronger and better prepared for war, and the Pacific was essentially a naval war, you can't get away from that. MacArthur tried to pretend that it was not mostly a Navy war and it made for a great deal of conflict during the war. Sometimes there was overlapping. Once during, I think it was the invasion of Leyte, we caught ten Japanese destroyers and both of them put out communiqués on it. MacArthur simply said yes, we sank them all, and then we [Nimitz's staff] said we sank six and damaged four, which was correct of course. It was like MacArthur was determined to beat Nimitz with his communiqué; he'd sink to such petty things as that.
MAJOR GENERAL COLLINS
MacArthur had practically no troops when he withdrew from the Philippines. He went down to Australia and the fighting was initiated by Admiral Nimitz from Hawaii. We went up the islands leading to New Guinea and this could better be controlled under naval command, that is unified command with a naval commander, and he had the airmen and the army troops under Ms control. So we had unified command in the initial phases. Then when MacArthur began to come in later, in the drive to the north from Australia, he ran the show in the western part of the Pacific. Admiral Nimitz was a very able man and a very wonderful chap personally, no problem getting along with Admiral Nimitz. And the same was true with admirals Halsey and Sprague and the other naval people. I was not under MacArthur's command but there was no difficulty that developed as far as I know. I think that it worked out quite satisfactorily, the coordination. By the time the latter part of the fighting was on, I was in Europe, so I had no personal experience in this regard.
ROBERT SHERROD
I was conditioned by what I had gone through in the invasion of the island of Kiska where we landed thirty-five thousand troops – thirty thousand Americans and five thousand Canadians – to do battle with the Japanese who as a matter of fact had been evacuated in a very clever move a few days before we made the landing. Nonetheless, once the wheels started rolling the full thirty-five thousand were landed and the only casualties were some American units that started shooting at each other, I think they killed about thirty and wounded about ninety.*31
MARINE JOE HRUSKA
2nd Marine Division, Tarawa
I was at Pearl Harbor during the 7th December attack and I was in Guadalcanal, so I was exposed to warfare prior to this engagement. To me Tarawa was just another part of this war. We were briefed, of course, before the landing and it really didn't mean nothing to us, nothing really exceptional, nothing at all. It was just going to be another phase, another battle, another day in the life of a marine.
COLONEL DAVID SHOUP
CO, 2nd Marine Regiment, Tarawa
We didn't have too good an idea how many they were. We knew they'd been shipping Japanese in there and they'd been digging holes all over the place, but sometimes you can't tell. You might dig four holes for one soldier to fool the other fellow. We had this wonderful aerial photo of the island, which gave every position; it's absolutely unbelievable, I still have a copy of that map in which every foxhole showed up, every tank trap, every gun emplacement. From that we drew wonderful maps so that every squad leader had a map of his section, which showed what he was going to be confronted with, how many positions, how many guns and how many tank traps and all that but not how many people. Aboard ship one evening we were even going around the island and counting the toilets.*32
ROBERT SHERROD
Tarawa was the first step in the drive across the Pacific aimed at taking air bases from which Japan could be bombed. The bombing by B-29s, we knew even at that stage, was not going to be successful from China and it never was successful. So the drive was to break the inner barrier of Japanese defences and to do this we had to skip from one island to another, from one chain of islands to another. slapping most of them but taking certain key islands for air bases. The strategy was rather simple – the carriers went ahead and bombed the islands and the amphibious forces followed up. We were hoping all the time that the Japanese fleet wouldn't come out in enough strength to stop the drive, as it might have several times.
CORPORAL EDDY OWEN
2nd Marine Division, Tarawa
With the information we had before we went ashore we didn't figure there'd be too much opposition because we'd been told that they were going to drop all these bombs, they were going to drop seventy-two daisy-cutters, and in fact I believe the terminology they used was the equivalent of two destroyer-loads of high explosive would be dropped on the one square mile island. Well, we thought we'd just walk in, get a star on a bar, you know. So really the first time that I knew they were firing at us I was still on board and we were watching the bombardment, explosions, and we saw stuff hitting the water and we all thought it was some kind of large fish. Then all of a sudden someone screamed and we all dived into the paint locker, and I went ashore with two skinned knees because I happened to be on the bottom. By then of course we realised that there was opposition on the beach, as we had been told before we went in. We had been briefed, I believe, that there were eighty-four pillboxes around the perimeter of the airstrip and of course each one had a machine gun in it.
COLONEL SHOUP
We had no air bombardment. It was planned but the bombers that were supposed to come and hit the place and put down the daisy-cutters and just eliminate these buildings and all the trees to make it easier for us, they never got there. We got some later but it was not very much. You never have enough air support but the thing was by the next morning I'd gotten some requests out to the Fleet Commander for naval gunfire and bombardment in some particularly tough areas. There's nothing more effective than a five-inch or an eight-inch shell that lands in a foxhole – that's pretty damned effective, that's the end of that outfit. But if it lands twenty-five yards away, you wish it to hell.
ROBERT SHERROD
I've seen a lot of men who refused to go when they were ordered to. 1 spoke to Colonel Shoup about this and during the battle an officer came up to him and said, 'Colonel, I've got a thousand men out there and I can't get them to follow me across the airfield' – which was a very hot place to go, anyway. And Shoup said, 'You simply have to go and take as many with you as will come, and if it's only ten men that's better than nothing.'
MARINE PEDERSON
2nd Murine Division, Tarawa
We were told they were Imperial Marines and we were told there were quite a few over five thousand. We were told they were going to receive blockbusters before we got there, which we didn't see.*33
ROBERT SHERROD
I was surprised when we found the boats would not go over the reef and we, except for those who could go in the limited number of amphibious tractors, would have to wade in to the beach, which was something like seven hundred yards and a very long wade indeed with machine-gun fire and mortar fire falling all around you. I felt very thankful to be alive considering the difficulty of getting ashore and the number of men I had seen killed. I was with half a boatload that crawled in under the pier, which somehow or other didn't have a lot of Japanese under it shooting at us, as they had before. So we managed to crawl towards the beach under the pier until the last hundred yards or so where the pier was solid under the water, and I felt a hundred times going in that I would never make it.
COLONEL SHOUP
I'd read a great deal about it, listened to the British people who were down there telling us about the tides and all that and we had estimates of the depth of the water over the reef. Our problem was that the LCVPs [Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel – aka Higgins boat] always drew a certain amount of water and of course the question was would there be that amount of water. We arranged to get a certain number of amphibious tractors which would take the men in to the beach, unload and then, hypothetically, come back out to the reef no matter if there was one foot of water or none and pick up another load and bring them in. Well, that's wonderful except the Japanese were in this battle too, and they didn't permit such a high percentage of these amphibious tractors to come back – they shot them up at the beach.
MARINE PEDERSON
I saw a lot of bodies floating on the water, a lot of marines and they still had their packs on. They had the worst of it, really, out in the water, because they came in on the Higgins boats and they were dropped in pretty deep water. Some of them were fortunate enough to get to the pier, others weren't and they died right there in the water. The first, second and third waves were very fortunate because they were all in armoured amphibious tractors and the AmTracs all got to the beach. There were quite a few of them knocked off but at least the rest got to the beach and they got their men off. But then the fourth, fifth and sixth waves were in Higgins boats and they came up short because the reef was there and as they couldn't go no further they dropped their front and the marines got out, and the water was above their heads.
MARINE HRUSKA
We went in on regular old Higgins boats. At that time there wasn't too many half-tracks or AmTracs or whatever you call them and we had nothing but plain old Higgins boats, the old-fashioned plywood boats. We got up in the morning, had breakfast early and there was no commotion, no disturbance, no nothing, except that this was going to be no more than an exercise. And then of course when we went in to the island we discovered it wasn't going to be a drill. We discovered it when the ramp of the Higgins boat was dropped and we looked for a shore that wasn't there. We were quite some way out from the beach, far enough to the point where you couldn't see the beach for the turmoil of warfare, the smoke, the fire, the bombs, and we actually couldn't see the shoreline at all.
ROBERT SHERROD
People were always being shot just next to you, it seemed. After I'd got ashore and was leaning against the small sea wall – it was only four feet high and made of coconut logs banked with sand – and soon after I got ashore a marine came by and he cheerfully waved at a friend of his and all of a sudden he spun around with a bullet straight through the head. I suppose he was five feet from where I was at the time, but this was the danger unless you bent low and almost crawled along the beach. During the first night the Japanese did swim out to this old hulk of a freighter which had been sunk some time before and also to the disabled tanks and tractors hung up on the reef and opened up on our people, so the people coming in the second morning took the heaviest casualties because they were getting it not only from the front but from the sides. Very courageous thing the Japanese did – they were all killed, of course, but they caused a great deal of damage before they were.
MARINE PEDERSON
Out of this particular pillbox, or from behind the pillbox, came an Imperial Marine with a Molotov cocktail and I killed him. I continued on to the pillbox – until you throw your charge you usually go behind the pillbox – and there was also an Imperial Marine there, and I was not prepared for him and he was not prepared for me. He ran, thank God. Of course if he had been prepared for me, I would have been dead.
ROBERT SHERROD
We found that the man who had been shooting at people along the beach, such as the marine who was killed right in front of me, the sniper was in one of these devilish bunkers they had built. There was only a small slit at the top of a coconut log and we didn't assume that a Japanese would be crazy enough to be right in there. Finally Major Crow said, 'Hey, that shooting is coming from in there, fifteen feet away,' so a marine threw a hand grenade in and another one came up with his flame-thrower. The Japanese ran out at that time but they caught him with the flame-thrower and incinerated him. You can't have a lot of sympathy for him after you've seen him kill a man within five feet of you. It was the idea of a killer being killed, and the method of the killing did not make a great deal of difference to one's thinking at the time.
CORPORAL OWEN
By the third day the smell of death was terrible. Every day as the tide came in there was one navy corpsman that had been killed and when the tide went out they'd leave him hanging over the superstructure of the pier but we were afraid to get him because there were Japanese under there, we knew that. Finally, as some of them were captured – we were trying to capture the Japanese and take them back aboard ship for interrogation – finally, one night, we had to go and get this corpse so that we could bury it.
ROBERT SHERROD
The island was one square mile we thought; actually after the war we found it was only half a square mile. So if you can imagine nearly six thousand dead men on an island as small as three hundred acres, and considering that it's one degree from the equator and the amount of heat, you can imagine the smell that got within a day or two of all this rotting flesh, it was a terribly oppressive thing. I don't know anywhere in World War Two where there was such a concentration of death. I believe there was in the trench warfare of the First World War but certainly never again did I see such a concentration of death as there was on this tiny little island. The other thing that was so impressive, that is besides the very heavy casualties, was the speed with which it all happened – it only lasted seventy-six hours.
COLONEL SHOUP
We learned many, many things, which were later adopted in the procedures, and also gave warning to all other forces about what was likely to happen, and what had to happen if you were going to be successful. Many things had to be done better and naval gunfire had to be made a little more accurate and heavier, and maybe fired parallel to the beach instead of over the top of the landing force, so that you get a better chance for your shells to be effective. Also some of the smaller things which may not have added up as a tremendous thing but were very helpful. For example the Japanese came out on the beach when our tractors came in and threw grenades in. Well, the men that are down in the tractor have no chance to kill the Japanese – maybe the fellow that's running the tractor, if he hadn't already been knocked off or he becomes so fearful that he's out of action in effect. So the Japs will slip out and throw grenades in our tractors. Well, as you know our people get decorated for picking up a grenade and throwing it back but this is not so easy when you're six feet deep in a tractor. Well, as a result of that one of the things we did was we put chicken wire on top of the tractors and when someone threw a grenade instead of going into the tractor and exploding among the troops we could throw it off.