O, do but think
You stand upon the rivage and behold
A city on the inconstant billows dancing;
For so appears this fleet majestical.
—Shakespeare, King Henry V, act 3, prologue
HAVING GONE to bed with no dinner on 6 August, I slept pretty solidly, and it was not the dawn that awakened me. Starting about 0610, very heavy detonations, at very short intervals, were heard from Lunga and Tulagi. There was no doubt what they meant. I was up in a flash, tired no longer. I could hardly comprehend that help had finally come, and yet, instinctively, I knew that it had.
A panting scout from Vungana rushed in to report that the whole Japanese fleet was at anchor between Lunga and Tulagi. I couldn’t believe it—for a moment my heart stood still. Luckily I had just turned on the radio, and after swinging the dial madly for a few seconds I picked up the wavelength of the invaders. From the intercommunication of ships and planes it was clear that not only Lunga and Kukum, but also Tulagi and Gavutu, were being attacked by Allied landing forces. They sounded as if they were mainly American. It was dies irae for the Japs at last.
We heard “Orange Base,” “Red Base,” “Black Base,” and “Purple Base” calling their aircraft; it did not take long to deduce that there were three carriers supporting the landings. Planes were assigned targets, and lookouts came in with reports of their pet objectives at Lunga going off with a bang and a cloud of smoke. The fuel dump, the ammo dump, and the power station on the river, which we had been at pains to describe, went up beautifully.
More than fifty ships, including two Australian cruisers, were counted in the channel. Twenty of them plastered the shore that morning, from Kukum to Tasimboko; we all hoped that they had given the Tasimboko boys a good pasting. The radio reported that several guns had been knocked out and the Japanese were running madly in all directions. At 1205 I picked up a message that U.S. Marines had landed on Gavutu. I had heard of the Marines, but had never met them at close quarters. “Wizard!!!” I wrote in my diary. “Calloo, callay, oh, what a day!!!”
Our planes passed overhead all day long. It was a nice change. We could not resist waving madly and giving the chaps in the air a cheer. At 1245 a two-engined job, probably a Hudson, went past fairly low, heading due south with a damaged tail. We heard over the air, “I see a truck, I see two trucks, I see a hell of a lot of trucks. Swoop in low and you’ll get a good haul.”
In the middle of all this jubilation and excitement came a message that sounded a more serious note, at least as far as I was concerned. It was from Macfarlan’s boss, Hugh Mackenzie, warning that we might be in danger from Japanese soldiers retreating into the bush. The lads’ morale was so high, however, that it raised a laugh: that day we would have walked through a whole division. The “powers that be” would also try to let us know when to come down. I wished they would send me some shoes instead.
At 1600 Gavutu was reported secured, but the Japs still held out on Tanambogo. Some dive bombers were told off to attack them. At 1645 Tulagi was declared under control, except for the hospital (southeastern) end of the island. One pilot asked permission to down a Japanese flag on Makambo; “Permission granted” came the reply, and then, shortly afterward, “Assignment achieved.”
From Vungana came a continuous glowing account of din and destruction. Man and boy, they were all watching in wonder. I couldn’t stand it—the wireless’s reception was fading badly, I had to see what was going on, and Vungana had the best view. Earlier I had sent there for a few carriers, as there were hardly sufficient people at Matanga who were strong enough for the task. Macfarlan had signaled that floods had held him up, and in any case there was not much point in his making the journey across to Matanga now that the situation had so changed.
Moving off at 1915, I walked the river with bare feet, of necessity, then painfully traversed the rest of the rocky track to Vungana. Had it not been for all the excitement, I doubt I would have completed the journey; at last, however, I made it, and so did the carriers, without dropping a battery. It was a clear, starry night; Lunga was quiet, though Tulagi flared up from time to time. It would have to keep till morning. And so to bed.
I awakened to behold an amazing panorama, spread out as far as the eye could see. In clear weather, on a calm sea, there were ships everywhere—from Savo to Rua Sura, from Lunga to Tulagi. I could make out about fifteen transports and cargo vessels, as well as eighteen cruisers and destroyers, lying off Makile. The latter were the escorts, laid like flags round a football field. The destroyers cruised up and down, running all about and across the channel. One of them put on a lovely burst of speed, which left my lads pop-eyed. “Allasame motorcar,” they said.
Unloading was by fast motor launches of some sort or other. One could see more of the wake caused by their speed than of the boats themselves; they certainly were not wasting any time. They operated in groups: through the binoculars I counted more than twenty-five of them, all going for the shore together. Another large group of ships stood over toward Tulagi, which was shrouded in smoke and still reverberated with heavy explosions.
About noon, in spite of the smoke and mist and the gathering low clouds, we witnessed a heavy air raid on the fleet. Over the WT came “Orange Base standing by for air attack.” I heard the drone of planes, and then all hell broke loose. It appeared to be twenty or thirty two-engined bombers. A tremendous barrage of ack-ack was put up as every ship went into action. Goodness knows how many guns opened up—it was a mechanical concerto, of pops and bangs, cracks and thuds, every conceivable noise from “boom” to “ping.” Flashes, flare-ups, founts of water as bombs dropped, orange smoke, black smoke, a line of gray mushrooms where shells were bursting just below cloud level, planes roaring in and out. What a game! It went on for over half an hour; all the while my lads were jumping up and down, cheering on the fleet and shrieking imprecations at the enemy. There were hurrahs as our fighters swept over, and bigger cheers when a plane smacked down onto the water near Rua Sura; we hoped it was Japanese. The fighters could hardly be heard above the din or be seen much as they dodged about amongst the clouds. I wondered if the Japs were enjoying it; they had dived right into the middle and flown low across the water, presumably to evade the antiaircraft fire. We couldn’t see a thing for an hour or two afterward. When the smoke had cleared, it looked as though three ships had been hit, but only one, which was on fire, appeared to be in a bad way.1 Later, Jack Read, in northern Bougainville, reported that of the twenty-seven Bettys that had passed him that morning only nine had come home.2
Three scouts came in. They had left Lunga on the night of 6 August after managing to get a fairly senior Japanese officer to confirm that the enemy definitely expected their own land planes there in a matter of a few days. The scouts soon learned, to our merriment, that their report was rather late! It was not until they arrived, clamoring for food, that we realized that we had eaten nothing all day for excitement. We attacked our sweet potatoes with zest, and so ended another splendid day.
Sometime after 0100 on 9 August we were awakened by the rumble of gunfire and heavy explosions; it sounded as if a naval battle was raging off Savo Island. The rest of the morning, however, was fairly peaceful. Off Tenaru, fourteen combatants and a like number of auxiliaries were identified; they all dispersed about 1000, leaving some fifty small landing craft scattered in all directions. The burning vessel exploded, and by lunchtime had sunk. Smoke still floated over Tulagi; there must have been some stiff fighting there. At 1500 the convoy departed, with what was unmistakably an RAN County-class cruiser in the rear guard; it must, I thought, have been either the Canberra or the Australia.3 The fleet looked a bit smaller, but I surmised that some of the escorts had left under cover of darkness. I sat down and started to speculate as to what would happen next; before long, however, I was back to wishing that I had something civilized to eat.
I woke to a clear and peaceful morning with nothing in view. After half an hour’s search I could not discern any vessels at either Kukum or Tulagi, nor was there any activity in the air. Although Macfarlan was not coming over—he said the Sutakama was in flood—I sent him a message insisting that he send back the prison gang of carriers: they would be empty-handed, and could swim the flooded river. Then I sent word to Father Engberink and Clarry Hart, to tell them what had happened and to keep out of the way, and passed the word to Andrew and Daniel to take offensive action against any stray Japanese and reconnoiter the small enemy party at Taivu Point, as we had lots of captured ammo and might be able to knock them off. They could enlist all volunteers who could “obtain” a rifle and fifty rounds—by stealth, if possible.
Vakalea, the district headman from Belaga, arrived, very excited at the big show. He had come, he said, to assure me of the loyalty of his people. It would, I thought ruefully, have been much more valuable a week ago, but the oranges he brought were very welcome indeed, as were 120 pounds of sweet potatoes that he had convoyed up from our gardens at Aola. A lot of growling arose over the issue of the potatoes, as everyone was hungry. I finally shared out the ration myself, fair do’s all round and the same for me; I had to put a guard on the remainder.
It continued peaceful and quiet all day. Having got the batteries, at long last, fully charged, I sat in the sun listening to soft music. (I went without a shirt, something I had not been able to do for a long time; the browner I got, the less likely I would be to get scorched if I had to cross the grass plains to get to Lunga.) It was absolutely clear, with not a breath of wind, and I took in all the different smells of primeval forest and clear mountain air as I looked down on what last Friday had been a raging inferno. For a moment, at least, one could forget that war had ever touched these beautiful islands. Fighting laziness, I packed up as much gear as possible and sent it down to Paripao.
Vakalea was very proud that, although Japanese agents had spent a long time trying to coax his people to work at Lunga, none of them had gone. Vouza had run into the Japs three times at Koli Point, but he too had managed to keep his people from going to work for the enemy. I felt the other headmen could have done the same; many of them, I suppose, had been too frightened to do so. (In actual fact, the Guadalcanal people did not contribute in large measure to the construction of the Japanese airfield. En route to Lunga, the first contingent—they had been bribed with a large feed of rice—had been warned by one of my scouts that if they worked for the Japs they would be bombed. As luck would have it, two Flying Fortresses bombed the runway that very afternoon, and most of the islanders were home by nightfall! After that, few of them risked their necks, and the Japanese worked alone.)
The most pressing questions were what to do next, and when. It was obvious that a new phase had begun, but I had not received further instructions, and was fretting that we could not yet move down to the beach because of Mackenzie’s warning. Clearly, if enemy parties could be avoided we ought to go down to Lunga and assist the forces there with all the information at our disposal and the intelligence net we had spread all over the island. The BBC was quite sure that there was a naval and air battle raging from Timor to Ontong Java to the southeast of Guadalcanal, but everything appeared to be very quiet. One thing was certain: to cross the grass plains with the Japanese scattered about, I should have to travel light. So, when the carrier gang returned from Macfarlan, undrowned, I packed up more of my scanty gear and sent it down to Paripao. After all its adventures it was a miracle that the teleradio was still working, and I was determined to keep it going right to the end. The last bottle of “real” distilled water for the batteries had been smashed on the way to Vuchicoro; to replace it, I caught some rainwater in a clean piece of stretched-out canvas and topped up my failing batteries with that.
Messages began to come in from all the headmen and from the scouts along the coast. Many of the smaller Jap parties had been very lucky in avoiding death and destruction from the air during the landings. Daniel reported that at Taivu Point bombs had been dropped right on the given target, but that the lugger had slipped away on 5 August and the remaining Japs had moved to a new camp across the creek, near Bokoagau. (He sent an interesting account of their household habits: it would be useful if we had to attack them.) Our bombers had missed the outpost at Sapuru, near Cape Esperance, and instead had unloaded on the edge of the mission station at Visale Island and machine-gunned the bishop’s house. Father McMahon must have had some choice words for the Americans.
The morning of 12 August was glorious, not a cloud in the sky nor an enemy plane to be seen. As I noted in my diary, this was, appropriately, “the glorious Twelfth,” the day the grouse season opened in Scotland. Although the Japs didn’t have feathers, there was no harm in telling the headmen that an open season had been declared on them! Just after noon I sat outside in a deck chair quartering the skies with the binoculars, as three of our planes did a recce of the straits. Listening to their conversations, I longed to speak with them; I tried flashing Morse code with a mirror, but it was too far away. We hoped they would come a bit closer, as I had hoisted my Union Jack conspicuously to the top of the highest tree. I wondered what had happened to the Kawanisis.
There was very little traffic on the teleradio. Rhoades reported an enemy party dangerously close to him, on the Hylavo River; they could have been from Vioru, or runaways from Kukum. The only section of scouts that had not reported in twenty-four hours belonged to Corporal Koimate, who was holding the fort between Gold Ridge and Lunga. I thought that he had probably gone into Lunga to contact the landing forces, or, what was most unlikely, that he had been caught by retiring Japanese. We still had no instructions except to keep a strict watch for enemy counterattacks, which was exactly what we were doing.
A huge party of locals arrived; they appeared prepared to carry anything anywhere. It was infuriating that they had turned up when there was no longer any real need for them, but I took the opportunity to send the spare charging engine, the field safe, and some useless supplies to Paripao. I was dying with impatience, and as there were still no instructions I decided to test out the route to Lunga by sending a scout to the officer commanding there. For good measure I provided a full written report on the Japs at Bokoagau, with a map, and complete details of other enemy parties. I also offered to deal with the Bokoagau mob if necessary. Daniel Pule had advised that there were now two hundred Japanese at Marau Sound but that the lugger that had brought them there from Taivu Point had since been bombed and sunk. It struck me how lucky we were that we had not chosen to evacuate via Marau.
Next day, more locals turned up offering to act as carriers. Just to teach them a lesson, Beato paraded all forty of them and gave them an hour’s tough physical training. They looked really disappointed—the local headman, Nelea, and his villagers were paralytic with laughter—but when they had finished we hired them too, and sent them off down the hill at the double to bring up more rations. Potatoes suddenly seemed to have become plentiful.
That afternoon I got an amusing letter from Andresen. He had been up to see Macfarlan, Hay, and Campbell, whom he called the “Boys of Bombadeha,” after their hideout on the Sutakiki. “Some Boys,” he said, “with their various coloured whiskers one could easily imagine he had walked into a Mormon Camp”; I had forgotten that they had all grown beards! Andy had heard the “bomb to bomb running commentary” on 7 and 8 August: “Say, Brother, wasn’t it sweet music. The Yanks seemed to conduct it more like a Ball Game than a battle.” It took a lot to perturb him, and I was not at all surprised to hear that, while Mac and I were trying to make up our minds whether to go up or down like the good old Duke of York, Andy was improving the shining hour by “trying to rake some elusive out of the Sutakiki.” He had found that “she’s a poor show,” however, his workers having won only eight pennyweights in two weeks. Perhaps for that reason, and as he had heard me ask Mac to send back the carrier gang, he had taken the liberty (for which he apologized) of asking permission from the constable in charge for the prisoners to haul some of his stuff to Nuhu on their way back.
Finally, I got “the word.” At 1700 on 12 August Macfarlan signaled that one of Koimate’s scouts had arrived from Lunga with a message giving the route for going down. It was from Charles Widdy, who had been Lever’s manager at Gavutu. Mac was sending the man straight over. Well done, Koimate; I was very pleased.
I so longed to be away that had the scout flown with winged heels I would have cursed him for being late! To try my patience, a confident note came in from Daniel Pule: he was sure that, with my assistance, he could handle the Japs at Bokoagau. Vouza had done well too: he had invited three Japs into a house at Koli Point, promising refreshments; as soon as the door was closed, they were subdued, neatly trussed, and taken down to Lunga. In addition, Daniel had heard from Koimate that Horton and Waddell, or some other district officers, were with the invading forces.
At last, late on 13 August, the long-expected messenger came, with a printed yellow envelope headed “U.S. MARINE CORPS FIELD MESSAGE.” and “Native runner” written in the space for the messenger’s name. I feverishly opened it and read the terse note inside. It was from Widdy, all right, now styled “Pilot Officer, R.A.A.F.”: “American Marines have landed successfully in force. Come in via Volanavua and along beach to Ilu during daylight—repeat—daylight. Ask outpost to direct you to me at 1st Reg. C. P. at Lunga. Congratulations and regards. C. V. Widdy.” The scout told me that Viv Hodgess, the owner of Paruru plantation at Marau Sound, was also with the Marines, and that most of the remaining enemy forces had moved off westward toward Matanikau. I was really excited to have the chance to be on the move at last.
Although I had received no specific instructions, I decided to come down in the morning, for I knew I could be far more use with the Marines than on a mountaintop. For the last time, I hoped, I packed up the wireless set, which, as a parting shot, suddenly revived. Two of the switches had gone, the ball bearings having rusted; after considerable experiment, I used a lemon to clean the bearings, and the set worked all right. I almost hugged that teleradio: it had been my constant companion for over five months. In spite of its travels it had really worked jolly well, and I would miss the friendliness of the morning “sessions.”
Leaving my last stronghold aroused mixed feelings, and before I went I walked round Vungana, giving one last look at each old familiar. Some of the children received small trifles, such as colored handkerchiefs, and I formally presented Nelea’s aged father with an ancient pair of corduroy shorts, now bright yellow. He was delighted, and donned them immediately; although the shorts went about twice round his waist, they looked very good against his black shirt, which had formerly been his only garment.
My plan was to head straight across country by the shortest route, as fast as I could go. (The enemy parties seemed to stick to the tracks.) We traveled very light: our surplus gear and the teleradio went down to Paripao for safekeeping. I had to leave a pretty dead beat pair in charge there: Anea, the warder, now over his jitters, and Chaku, the suspected killer in the Wilmot case.4 They had orders to defend Paripao to the last man, if need be.
At 0735 on 14 August, we began our trek down from the hills. In order to maintain all posts I could spare myself only five rifles. Two scouts led the way, well ahead of the bare-bottomed carriers. There were but ten of them, carrying only bedding, cooking apparatus, and the inevitable basket or two of sweet potatoes; Michael, the cook, and Peter, my orderly, saw that they didn’t drop or ruin the loads. Young Peter was very proud of himself as he carried my .22 rifle; it was more for morale than anything else. Two more scouts brought up the rear. The most senior scout, Chaparuka, stayed with me; we kept well up to the front. I had a compass, and a tiny .32 pistol, with eight rounds.
We followed as direct a route as the hills and gorges would allow, trying to keep on earthy ground rather than rock in order to save my feet, for which I had little or no covering other than several pairs of miner’s woollen socks.5 Once we had dropped down from the ridges, which were pretty steep and showed signs of ancient fortified villages, we followed the Givunaga River a few miles to Tanekea, then headed northwestward onto the undulating savannah just behind the grass plains. (According to my diary, we ate sandwiches before we left the riverbed, but as I had no bread and no butter I can’t imagine what kind they were!) We heard planes, and scattered several times, but nothing was seen as we were immediately deluged by torrents of rain; it was just our luck that it came while we were scrambling, two paces forward and one back, up the muddiest and steepest of hills. In the middle of the afternoon we reached a deserted village, Luvenibuli, with a few weedy coconut palms and some orange trees. I had not seen oranges or coconuts for over two months, and we gorged ourselves on them.
By the greatest of good luck I ran into Vouza, on his way back from taking in an American pilot who had crashed. He told me that he had met a Marine patrol to the east of Volonavua that morning. As far as he knew the way in was clear, but he warned about a large number of dud shells behind Gaimale. Vouza had lots of information, and I told him to pass the word to his people that I would be at Lunga, and to send all reports to me there.
I decided to spend the night at Teatupa: we were all very tired—we had done a pretty hard fifteen miles straight through the bush—and we wanted to be in reasonably good condition for the last stretch across the open. My cut and blistered feet were in shocking shape. Fortunately, there were no alarms, and at first light I had two of the scouts out on a recce. They gave us the all clear signal from a very high tree at Bamboo Creek, and soon we were pushing on as fast as we could go, in single file across the grass. It was quite good going for bare feet.
My ears pricked up as I heard bombing from Lunga, and when a trio of Bettys flew low over us from the northwest we stupidly stood our ground and waved. They waggled their wings in recognition and banked round steeply. I had got out my field glasses; the first thing I saw was the large red blobs on the side and tail. Japs! What a terrible mistake! Snatching up two wickerwork containers that they had dropped on parachutes, we moved off at a very fast double, in case they had men out looking for them. Luckily we saw none. What we had heard was probably ack-ack fire, and not our planes dropping bombs on the Japanese.
We made very good time, and soon reached the coast. Once on the beach, I forced Macfarlan’s fancy shoes onto my swollen feet and generally smartened up. We closed column, and marched along in two ranks with rifles at the slope; I figured no Japanese would march in this stupid manner, and we would therefore be regarded as peculiar, rather than hostile! As we came round a bend in the coast after leaving Volonavua, we suddenly saw hosts of green-clad Marines hauling trucks on the beach.
The outpost guard stood fast, with his rifle cocked. Thank goodness he did not fire. Suddenly a peculiar feeling welled up inside me, and I felt a queer lump in my throat. As I walked the last hundred yards, with my ragged mob behind me, I wondered what it would be like to speak to someone, face to face, in my own tongue again. I had tried to rehearse what I was going to say, but when the awful moment came all I could do was whisper my name.
Happily, the guard seemed to know who I was, and he gave me a cigarette and a piece of chocolate. We were surrounded by an inquiring mob, all talking at once; then I was taken to a Captain Allison, who had had “the word” from Widdy. After shaking several dozen hands I clambered into a jeep and was whisked off to the regimental headquarters of the 1st Marines, the carriers following on foot. The beach, all the way to Tenaru, was piled high with equipment, and the whole place was bristling with machine guns.
At headquarters I was introduced to the regimental commander, Col. Clifton B. Cates, whom I was frightfully glad to see; then, out of his own coconut trees, came Charles Widdy, who was attached to Cates’s HQ as a guide. We slapped each other on the back for some little time; he told me later that tears of excitement had streamed down my face. I didn’t get a chance to ask many questions, as everyone was mad keen to know where the remaining Japs had got to and what they were doing.
In the afternoon I was taken over to 1st Marine Division headquarters, where at D-2 (Intelligence) Lt. Col. Edmund J. Buckley and his merry men pumped me dry of all I knew about the situation, including geography. Later, Colonel Cates gave Widdy and me each a two-ounce brandy ration, which, with some sake that Widdy had recently acquired, kept us both nervously talking most of the night, much to the colonel’s annoyance.6
After all the excitement had died down, however, I felt empty and alone. I was enormously thankful that I had joined up with the Marines; yet I was horribly disappointed that, after everything, I had to turn in, hot and sweaty, in a foxhole with Charles Widdy. I would have given anything for a hot bath and a soak for my feet.7 Widdy was very kind, and gave some spare clothing to me; but his last remark, before we turned in, was, “If you’d told me that one day I would be sleeping in a hole in the middle of one of my plantations, I’d h’ve eaten my fucking hat!”
I spent most of the next day, after I had been fitted with a pair of shoes,8 driving around learning what had happened at Lunga and familiarizing myself as rapidly as I could with the Marines’ layout and organization. I viewed with rather academic interest the smashed remains of the Jap installations. Although I had never seen them as going concerns, I was quite pleased that their locations well fitted our descriptions of them.
Then I was taken to call on the divisional commander, Maj. Gen. Alexander Archer Vandegrift. He had a modest tent under some trees behind a slight rise near the Lunga River. The general was clean shaven and had a pink complexion, but his jaw was set and he had an air of quiet determination. After he had heard “the story” and learned that the resident commissioner had instructed me to offer my services, General Vandegrift summed up the Marines’ situation in a few words and told me to take complete charge of all matters of native administration and of intelligence outside the perimeter. I was to attach myself to Colonel Buckley, of D-2, collecting information, through my scouts, on the whole island and supplying guides as required, if possible.
Information on matters outside the perimeter was of vital importance, as the enemy situation was very obscure. Three days before, Lieutenant Colonel Goettge,9 the division’s intelligence officer, had been ambushed with twenty-five men somewhere on the far side of the Matanikau River. During interrogation a Japanese prisoner had suggested that his comrades might be willing to surrender. They took him back there by boat, and walked right into it. Goettge and all his patrol were killed, bar three, who made the beach and swam back through the shark-infested sea.
Viv Hodgess, now an AIF captain, was attached to the 5th Marines, the regiment defending the west flank. He had come in on the transport to guide them to the correct landfall. As befitted an old Digger, Hodgess had settled in well. He had “acquired,” probably from the plantation house at Kukum, a working Electrolux refrigerator, and I gratefully accepted a cold bottle of Japanese beer that had also somehow found its way into his possession.