BY WORKING ALL NIGHT, we managed to get away for Aola at 0550 on 2 November. Most of the party was the same as before, with the addition of Sgts. Robert Howard and Francis Massaro from D-2 but minus Longley and Pratt. Seeing a large convoy (ours) making up channel, I heaved a sigh of relief and went to sleep on the bottom of the Higgins boat, in spite of the vibrations.
The day’s work consisted of constructing three huge beacons, twelve-foot-high log pyramids six hundred feet apart along the beach. In addition, four tracks were cut from the beach to the main government road to facilitate landing. Howard and Massaro—the latter had a handsome black beard—sketched the area, making several copies. At dusk it set in to rain, and everyone got very wet. Andrew had his scouts out, so the working party returned to the cadet’s house, where we sat round a roaring fire trying to dry out our clothes. Michael, who had fully recovered, was in charge of the cooking; that was a good thing, as I had missed every meal at Lunga and was in need of a square feed. Russo, coxswain Evans’s assistant, kept us amused with New York Italian stories.
By 0300, when we went down to light the beacons, the rain had died down a little; it soon began to pour again, however, and we stood there on the beach, wet and miserable. Then an alarm was raised when the Kombito villagers misinterpreted their orders and lit dozens of other fires, which turned the place into a veritable “Blackpool by night.”
Although it was calm, there was a big swell on the beach, and distant sounds were heard to seaward; but there was no sign of any landing force. Dawn broke to find us still standing there, our teeth chattering, so Howard and his kerosene-tin coffee service were greatly appreciated by all. I had about given up hope of any landing when, about 0830, a Wildcat swooped down and dropped us a message: “Stand by—will inform you when to expect arrival.”
We were rather angry at a night’s work gone for nothing, and a soaking into the bargain. I began to wonder what had caused the big swell on the beach. Was it the enemy? At 1030 a Dauntless dropped the laconic note, “3 a.m., 4th November.” I certainly hoped it would be—if not, we would run out of firewood, or “draw the crabs.” We had to build the beacons all over again; it was harder now, as the timber was thoroughly wet. That done, we gorged on one of Michael’s famous meals, then sat in a row along the verandah of the cadet’s house with our feet up, too tired to move, as transport planes flew low over the water in tight groups, surrounded by fighters. Watching a three-ship convoy pass by, heading westward, Chief Fortune mused, “Oh, the irony of it all.”
That night the beacons burned brightly again—luckily it did not rain—and at 0345 there was a welcome sound of engines to the southeast. Dawn revealed two APDs entering the bay and transports farther out, guarded by destroyers. The first mob off the four-stackers was two companies of Carlson’s Raiders, who rushed ashore with fixed bayonets and spread out in defense. They had wisely been told to treat their landing as opposed, and the landing boats were emptied in rather under five minutes. As they dashed past, Howard, who was standing smoking his pipe, asked one Raider what he was looking for in the bush. “Nips, of course,” the man said. Howard laughed and told him there weren’t any for miles around. Another one of the new arrivals noticed the mass of pink scars on Michael’s chocolate-colored skin. “What kinda disease is that?” he asked. Before I could explain, Michael’s eyes lit up, and a grin spread across his face. “Bomb disease,” he replied.
Colonel Carlson and John Mather came ashore, and we got down to business. As we had planned, the Raiders would act as a security patrolling force between Aola and Lunga; it was arranged that the scouts in whose area Carlson was operating would attach themselves to him and supply him with up-to-date information on the enemy. He would leave at dawn the next morning; I agreed to muster as many carriers as possible, so the Raiders could take the maximum amount of ammunition. As an added precaution I sent a patrol of scouts to see whether the coast was clear toward Marau.
Later, landing of other troops began in earnest from the Fomalhaut and two large transports, protected by the destroyers outside. The men were ashore by 1500, but artillery, trucks, heavy equipment, and supplies continued to roll in till after dark. I met the three component commanders, Marine, Army, and Navy: Colonel Sturgis, whose 5th Defense Battalion was well armed with guns, antiaircraft and otherwise; Lieutenant Colonel Haines, commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, 147th Infantry; and Captain Carney, a flyer whose outfit was known as Acorn (Red) One.1 Most of Carney’s men were technical experts, and I was quite alarmed to find that only half of them were armed.
With the troops ashore and secondary supplies rolling off, our work was finished for the time being, so Wimpy, Koepplinger, and I sneaked on board the Fomalhaut and went straight to the canteen. We reveled in the delights on sale, none of which we had seen for a long time. It was lots of fun. We had long ago given up fancy notepaper in favor of Japanese message forms, and as for the aftershave, phew! We settled for some candy bars and a gallon can of ice cream. Taking them ashore, we sat Indian style round the can on the beach and attacked the ice cream with spoons, the only culinary weapons we carried. It did not last long. With everyone busy digging in, it was a quiet night, but in a tragic mishap an Army private was shot by mistake in the dark and killed.
The Raiders left at dawn on 5 November, with a scout section in advance and a long tail of carriers in the rear. It was the very epitome of Carlson’s battalion motto, “Gung Ho,” which meant approximately “work together, chaps.” Their rations were almost entirely rice, bacon, and raisins. This suited my lads admirably.
The transports returned to discharge their remaining supplies and machinery. Then a convoy of transport planes, heading up channel low over the water, failed to give a recognition signal in time. The ships dispersed and opened up on them. They were quite right to do so; luckily no one was hit. Afterward the transports came in again and continued unloading until the piles were ten feet high all along the beach. I hoped and prayed that our fighters would keep Japanese aircraft away from such a magnificent target. The landing must have been carried out with a fair amount of secrecy, for no enemy planes or ships came to investigate.
I toured the security layout with Colonels Sturgis and Haines. Captain Carney decided to build his airfield on the far side of Aola plantation, and the Marine and Army command posts were located under the plantation’s coconut palms.
All my available scouts were out on patrol round the perimeter. Late in the afternoon, Lance Corporal Kimbo reported that his section had seen a couple of Japanese in hiding near Koilotumuria. I doubted whether by themselves they were very harmful, but if they saw what was going on at Aola they could well pass on the information. Wendling happened to be with me at the time; he read my mind, and his eyes lit up. “All right, Wimpy,” I said, “take four scouts and bring me back some prisoners.”
Wimpy departed on his little operation as soon as the sun was up the next morning. He was very proud of himself. I spent most of the day advising the triumvirate of commanding officers on many matters, trying tactfully to explain how we did things at Lunga. None of them really appreciated what was going on up there. I badly wanted to get them to move all the supplies off the beach as quickly as possible; in the end, however, that was achieved only by bringing in more Solomon Islanders to help us. I decided I had better return to Lunga and report that we had completed our mission, before I became completely involved with the Aola force.
At 1700 Wimpy returned with his patrol, brandishing a Japanese sword that was nearly as big as he was. The four enemy soldiers they had found had been killed. He regretted not bringing any prisoners; the only man he could have captured had been “kinda recalcitrant.” I was secretly rather cross with him, but as he had obviously done well I did not have the heart to say so.
One of the rivers that Wimpy and the scouts had to cross was in flood, so they hacked down a few trees and built a raft, with which they made a precarious crossing. They located the Japanese in a small hut, into which they poured a vast volume of fire from about a hundred yards. Two men ran out, wounded; these were quickly dispatched. On closing in they found one of the other two apparently dead and the remaining one, who supported himself behind the doorpost, wounded. The wounded man was an officer, and he could understand English. Wimpy asked him several times to surrender; this the man refused to do. He then offered a bar of chocolate, but as he advanced with it the officer suddenly drew his sword and struck down at him. Luckily Wimpy had his finger on the trigger, and that was the end of his recalcitrant prisoner.
Colonel Sturgis was quite concerned at being what he called left alone, but I had my orders, and I could not be in both places at once. I had done my best to paint a picture of what went on at Lunga, and to show him how lucky he was so far to be undetected. All I could do was to leave Andrew as his liaison officer. He would keep the colonel posted as to what the scouts were finding out and see that the native laborers were handled properly.
The next morning, 7 November, was bright and sunny; we got away about 0700, wondering what we should find. We didn’t have long to wait. Off Koli Point the boat lookout sounded a warning of white water to starboard. I pooh-poohed his suggestion that it was a reef: we were a mile or so offshore, and heaven knows I had traveled that way often enough. We were still wondering what it was when I spotted a small cargo ship ahead. Just as I put the glasses on her, a huge spout of water erupted; this was followed by a tremendous explosion, and she started to sink.2 We quickly realized that the vessel had been torpedoed, and that our white water was in fact a torpedo’s wake. Several destroyers were soon on the scene, dashing about madly and dropping depth charges, which nearly blew us out of the water. Dive bombers also joined in. Wimpy stood precariously on our stern, waving a huge American flag that Evans wisely always carried, in case we were suspected.
We beached our boat ten yards from where two or three people were bending over a long, silvery object. It was another torpedo, all hot and steaming.3 Young Cobb, the bomb disposal officer, was examining it and cautiously trying to put it out of action. We all heaved a sigh of relief that we hadn’t had to argue with a surfaced submarine.
At Lunga, as usual, there was a vast quantity of things to be done. I reported to Colonel Thomas that the landing at Aola had been safely made, but that I was not altogether satisfied with the camouflage and security. This opinion I put forward very tentatively, as it was really not my business and I didn’t want to rub the Aola chaps the wrong way. I felt, however, that it was for their own good, and for the general good, that their presence there should not be suspected, for some time longer at any rate. Later I found out that my anxiety was fully justified.
I was glad to hear that the Catholic missionaries from Avu Avu had reached Marau safely, and that one of the fathers was prepared to go to Gold Ridge to fetch Sister Edmée. After the terrible time she had, hiding in the bush and, finally, learning what had happened to her co-workers, her nerves were almost gone—Hay wrote that she was reduced to a hopeless state every time a plane went over—but she had picked up wonderfully since she had arrived. Ken said he was endeavoring to use his last-war French with her, but most of it was not the sort of French that missionaries would understand. They must have reached some modus vivendi, however, as he reported that she was mending his clothes and sewing on buttons for him! It was, he wrote, one of the strangest experiences of his life, living on a mountaintop with a nun. Hay also very kindly sent us down one of his precious last bottles of Australian whiskey—not, may I say, without many prior broad hints and some urging! He added that he was practically dry, as Sister Edmée did not drink and it was an old family tradition of his never to drink alone—at least not much.
Amongst the pile of letters was an envelope containing six British captain’s pips. I threaded them onto a piece of string and hung them up in our tent, as the Marine shirts had no shoulder tabs and there were no military tailors within range. (It also would prevent them from being scattered by a chance bomb!) Since August I had been wearing a set of Marine captain’s bars, given to me by Colonel Buckley. They were easily recognized, and that saved a lot of explanation, especially at the front line.
As regards the military situation, it had been a near thing, but our prospects were momentarily looking a little better. The outcome of the struggle for Guadalcanal really depended on what the enemy had left to pit against us. On land, we were just about holding things. I was told that it was Japanese warships that had passed down the channel the first night we burned beacons at Aola, and the landing force had had to retire. The Matanikau, however, had at last been taken, and the front pushed well west of Point Cruz. (We had first crossed the river before the end of September, but the unit involved had been cut off, and eventually had to be evacuated by boat.) Since then the position had changed hands several times. The Japs had continued to land troops, but our navy had managed to run the gauntlet and land further Marine and Army reinforcements and some decent-sized artillery.
I had thought that the Japanese had landed all their reinforcements to the west; now I was amazed to hear that they had put troops and substantial materiel ashore at Koli Point in the early hours of 3 November, under cover of their combatant vessels. Carlson had arrived in the nick of time to stop them from heading toward Aola, as they had evaded another Marine battalion sent out to engage them. Two of our cruisers and a destroyer had provided offshore gunfire support. We had been amazingly lucky that our beacons had not “drawn the crabs” that first night, and lucky too to have kept well off shore on our return to Lunga. It was also very fortunate indeed that we had got the native laborers in while the coast was still clear. The biggest snag was that the Matanikau drive had to be slowed down until the situation in the east was stabilized.
Affairs at sea were still in the balance. I learned that our carriers had engaged a large enemy force off Santa Cruz on 26 October, and the Japanese had sustained severe losses in aircrews and planes. But we had had significant losses too, including the sinking of the Hornet and heavy damage to the Enterprise.
As before, Bettys and Zeros continued to rain their daily blows, and at night the Tokyo Express continued its operations. Now, however, a more cheerful spirit prevailed, though I noticed for the first time what a hollow-cheeked and herring-gutted mob we were becoming. I had seen this first at Aola, where all the newly landed soldiers looked so fresh-faced and well nourished, and everyone’s aim was to see that they did not miss three good meals a day. The officers at Aola commented that the Lunga types never refused anything. Even Colonel Buckley had lost a lot of weight, but he never lost his cheerfulness.
We spent most of the night yarning at D-2 about our different experiences of the last few days; then I was up bright and early to see how the labor show was getting on. Daniel, though very disappointed at being taken off scouting, had got a semblance of order into the camp, and the islanders were doing very useful work unloading supplies at the beach.
I returned to headquarters at 0645 on 9 November to find that Admiral Halsey4 was presenting decorations. General Vandegrift introduced me to him in the most eulogistic terms and told him what I had been doing. The admiral had a very firm handshake. “Well, Clemens,” he said, “you carry on. We are only up here for one thing, to beat these goddam little yellow bastards. If you have any difficulties, just bring them to me, and I’ll do my best to solve them.” They then went to breakfast, which Halsey enjoyed so much that he sent for Butch Morgan and thanked him profusely for the excellent meal. Butch was unused to such praise; he shuffled his feet, wiped his walrus mustache with the back of his hand, and muttered, “Aw, shit, admiral. . .”
As soon as Admiral Halsey had departed, Colonel Thomas called and told me to return to Aola, taking Major Murray5 from D-1 and Major Evans from D-2, in order to get that place put on a pay basis. We left at 0820; by 1300 we were inspecting the Aola defense area, and Murray was impressing on the commanding officers the seriousness of the situation. Andrew, who had now been promoted sergeant major, reported all clear from all patrols. We declined Colonel Sturgis’s invitation to his mess, preferring to have a meal cooked by Michael at our usual headquarters.
Jim Murray had been terribly hard worked, and the comparative peace and quiet did him good. He too commented on the fresh pink faces, compared to the walking skeletons at Lunga. I could not but feel sad at the sight of the old government station completely militarized. We spent the next day helping to get everything straightened out, and left for Lunga at 0250 on 11 November.
When I got back to D-2 Colonel Buckley’s cheerful grin was gone. He took me aside and told me that things were very black indeed. I was to keep the information to myself. The Japanese had a huge force gathering to blast us off the island, and the Enterprise, our only carrier still in action, was being repaired in Nouméa. We had reinforcements ready to bring in, but if their landing were opposed it would be touch and go what happened.
Luckily, the first elements of these got through, and that morning three transports began unloading off Lunga Point as fast as they could. They were given no rest, however, by either bombers or fighter planes. Five Vals, two Zeros, and four Bettys were destroyed in two raids by lunch-time, but not before the Bettys had dropped some bombs in our ration dump. We had to laugh when Colonel Buckley rang up the quartermaster colonel to ask what damage had been done. He replied in a sad voice that his two chief casualties were tomato sauce and tinned loganberries, which had left a horrible blood-red mush in the middle of his beautiful dump! After the second raid, Charles Widdy strolled in, having sneaked in uneventfully on a transport plane. He had returned to discuss the formation of a properly organized labor battalion.
Heaving a sigh of relief, and thankfully leaving a vast pile of signals, mostly about evacuating civilians, I took Widdy up to the labor camp to discuss problems and requirements. I was very glad to see him, as I could not continue to run everything much longer and the labor would be one less problem to handle. Several sections of laborers were now carrying rations up the hills behind Point Cruz to our advancing front line and bringing casualties back. There the real need was for officers, as the men did not like being under fire on their own. We tentatively agreed to try to get the underemployed Butcher Johnstone over from Tulagi, and if possible to bring in Clarry Hart as well.
Arrangements had been made to collect the Catholic evacuees at Marau. Missionaries from San Cristobal were included. One of the reconditioned schooners would bring them up to Aola, where it was hoped they could be put on board a ship. I sighed as I casually glanced at the other signals—there was far too much to deal with for me to handle them quickly. It could be better done, I decided, on the morrow, when I had had a few hours’ sleep.
It was almost midnight when Colonel Thomas summoned me to his tent. I was in a very sleepy and slightly protesting condition, just rested enough to sleep properly. I woke up when I learned that the Japanese invasion force was preceded by battleship task forces and they were headed directly for our area. He ordered me to leave forthwith for Aola, to warn Colonel Sturgis to hide and camouflage everything and to stand by for possible attack.
One good thing was that the Ramada, which I had managed to hang onto since the bishop’s evacuation, was in good working condition. She had been refitted in Tulagi, and was ready for her first trip. I took Evans, Koepplinger, Michael, and a couple of scouts, in addition to the native bosun and crew of four. We got away, without running lights, at 0315 on 12 November. The wind and sea were calm, so as soon as we had set the course I turned in down below in the cabin, leaving Evans on watch. The next thing I knew I was awakened off Koli by a boot on my shoulder and Ray Evans’s plaintive voice: “Captain, do you see what I see?”
I scrambled up on deck. There were ships all around us—we were sailing straight through a task force. We counted at least three cruisers and ten destroyers in the immediate vicinity; I hoped we had some more somewhere. I expected us to be blown out of the water any minute; they must have been warned that we were leaving, or we would not have survived to tell the tale. As we found out later, it was nearly our entire available strength, waiting to prevent the enemy from landing troops at Cape Esperance and Tassafaronga.
We got to Aola at 0820 without further incident, and I saw Colonel Sturgis immediately. Their peaceful calm was interrupted—everyone “turned to” and got cracking on camouflage and an emergency withdrawal plan. One thing that required a lot of attention was their beautiful roads. There was so much mud at Lunga that all our roads were black and didn’t show up from the air. At Aola they had made beautiful, dazzling white roads out of coral rock, which stood out very clearly. Captain Carney was very proud of them, so he was not at all keen on covering them with earth, as I suggested. The air lookout tower of occupation days was repaired and a telephone installed, and native laborers helped Colonel Sturgis move his command post back behind the cadet’s house. He wanted very much to move into it, but I was quite firm in saying no: it was an obvious bombing target, and we were still using it as scouting and reconnaissance parties’ headquarters. In any case, the district officer had to have somewhere to go!
About coffee time, a signal came in from CACTUS that the Japanese battleships had been sighted only 300 miles away. That would place them off the coast before midnight. Their guard destroyers were but 195 miles away. Six transports at Lunga6 were feverishly unloading reinforcements, but they were being sniped at by enemy artillery. A second signal reported that more than twenty bombers attacking the ships had been shot down by ack-ack fire,7 and our shore installations were also under bombing attack.
At Aola it was bright and sunny, with practically no swell. Apart from the steady drone of diesel-engined vehicles, all one could hear was the gentle splash of the surf and the rustling of coconut palms in the breeze. It was a peaceful scene—it was hard to imagine that there was a war on, let alone that our nemesis was so near at hand. But the news of the enemy battleships, which had spread like wildfire, had taken the silly grin off most faces, and preparations for defense went on apace.
Our job done, we settled down to the long ordeal of waiting to see what happened. I hung round the radio shack until 1700, but although Colonel Sturgis had asked that we be kept informed we got no further news. There was no doubt it would be a dirty night at Lunga. After supper, Koepplinger, Evans, and I couldn’t sleep, so we sat up talking of everything else, trying to avoid the subject. Gerry Koepplinger told me that some wit he had met that afternoon had told him it was common knowledge that Lever Brothers had already decided to charge the United States government five shillings for every coconut palm cut down to extend Henderson Field. This story was quite baseless: as far as I know neither Lever’s nor any of the other corporate or individual owners in the Solomons received even one “brass razoo” as war compensation for their ruined coconut plantations, from either the Americans or the British. Nor did they get anything for their houses.
Nine o’clock came, then ten o’clock. There was no news. The sky was clear, and all was quiet. The silence was overbearing. I finished all my tobacco and sucked on an empty pipe. Midnight, one o’clock passed. What had happened? Was the enemy heading for Aola? We knew from past experience that when it wasn’t raining the flashes from naval gunfire lit up the sky, and could easily be seen from the cadet’s house. Then, about 0130 on 13 November, the opening chords of a clangorous fugue fell upon our waiting ears. There were tremendous flashes, followed by thunderous explosions from the direction of Lunga Point. The Japanese had arrived.
The outgunned American force sallied to meet their challenge. As far as we poor souls knew at the time, our big stuff was but two heavy cruisers. David and Goliath. My God! If you have ever seen a naval action at night, you will know how I felt. I had seen warships exchanging red-hot shells at eight thousand yards, and even where we were we knew, from the din and the flashing sky, that this was the biggest battle of them all. The awful thing was that there was nothing any of us could have done to help, not even had we been at Lunga. We just had to hope and pray, knowing that our fate depended on the outcome.
The tremendous racket continued most of the night. Just after dawn a vessel came into the bay, accompanied by a mangled destroyer.8 They were, thank goodness, ours. Instructions were given them to proceed south, and they headed out and away shortly afterward. I was relieved when Sergeant Major Andrew reported at 0800 that all was clear and as far as could be ascertained no one had landed within ten miles on either side of us during the night.
So far, the scouts round Aola had borne the brunt of the security patrolling, and they needed a rest. Although there were still dumps of supplies to be dispersed, I talked to Colonel Sturgis and eventually persuaded him to send out Marine and Army patrols with single scouts as guides. This gave the others the chance for a good feed and some sleep.
Everyone was, of course, too busy at Lunga to signal us a neatly documented account of what had happened. The resourcefulness of the average “gyrene,” though, soon overcame this little difficulty, and unofficial reports began to filter through. The battle had been little short of amazing. Our cruisers and destroyers, under Admirals Callaghan and Scott,9 had gone bald-headed for the enemy force and sunk seven or eight.10 We had taken horrible losses—half a dozen ships sunk, including the light cruisers Atlanta and Juneau; both admirals dead; and five more vessels damaged, several badly so—but one of the Japanese battleships had been hit and torpedoed. SBDs, TBFs, and B-17s attacked her all morning, and by late afternoon she was thoroughly wrecked, off Savo Island. She had made a mess of the Aaron Ward, in which we had shelled the Japs ashore; the destroyer had to be towed to Tulagi. We had held them for the moment, but I remembered that it was Friday the thirteenth, and we probably had no naval replacements. The battleship was still afloat at dusk.
There was nothing we could do at Aola but sit and wait for the next round. We wondered how the chaps at D-2 were getting on, and wished very much we had been there. Everything was quiet again that night, and it was not until about 0200 on 14 November that the flashes and heavy gunfire came. In the morning, we heard that cruisers, destroyers, and probably the second battleship had bombarded the airfield and destroyed a large number of planes.
Later on, we got the joyful news that the Enterprise was back at sea. She was just in time, for Japanese naval forces appeared to be everywhere, and our aircraft were attacking warships and transports from the Bougainville Straits to the Russell Islands. Every available plane was on the job. Finally, at 1900, we got an official message that the leading section, at least, of the enemy transport force had been put out of action and we were safe for the moment. Seven large transports had been sunk or damaged north of the Russells, and the sea was littered with survivors.
Late at night I got an urgent message from the communications officer, Colonel Snedeker,11 appealing to me to bring up as much combat telephone wire as I could. I managed to get fifty reels together and loaded on the Ramada. Rumor spread wide and fast at Aola, but it was obvious that the Lunga bombardment had shot our telephone system to pieces. We decided, probably wisely, not to proceed until dawn. It was just as well that we waited, for the gunfire that night was the heaviest so far. There was no doubt that the Japanese were quite determined to wipe us out, regardless of cost. It was a question of who could hang on the longest.
Signaling, from far off, “Ramada with telephone wire,” we got to Lunga at 0945 on 15 November. We were challenged but allowed to come in. I thanked my lucky stars that there were no ships about. We came ashore in time to see the four remaining enemy transports, beached at Tassafaronga and Mamara, being hammered by our planes and shelled by a destroyer.12 We heard that we had lost more ships in last night’s action, in which two of our battleships had taken part. One of them had been badly damaged. It was believed that at least fifteen thousand Japanese troops had been lost at sea during the battles. Another enemy battleship and several more cruisers were reported sunk.13 Yet, in spite of the bashing they had received, the Japs were still landing men and supplies. Up at division headquarters there was pandemonium, as most of the main telephone lines had been cut and many units were completely out of touch. I heard many grim stories of the last two nights’ battles.
This was not the war of August and September. It was a stark struggle for survival, and no one knew where it would all end. Hundreds of Navy survivors wandered about dejectedly, looking for somewhere to park. There was no spare clothing left at Lunga; I saw one sailor clad in rubber boots, an undershirt, and a poncho, strapped on with a piece of telephone wire, for trousers. Others had only their undershorts. The sick bay was full to overflowing.
In spite of this desperate situation, the sun was shining, and everyone looked relieved and cheerful, as if the worst were now over. It was evident that we had dealt the Japanese a solid blow and stopped them from landing troops to retake Guadalcanal. What was even better was that we had established superiority with an inferiority both in numbers and in size. Our naval squadron had achieved success in spite of being outclassed. Our flying boys were also on top of the situation, and nearly every wave of enemy planes was pounced on and many sent scuttling into the sea. The Japanese transports at Tassafaronga were now blazing wrecks. That afternoon, the dive bombers administered the coup de grâce to a huge ammunition dump near Mamara. It blew sky high, and the thud of the explosion could be felt on the beach at Lunga Lagoon.
As for the land situation, more Army troops had arrived and supplies were being unloaded in vast quantities. We had all the gear we needed, and unless the Imperial Japanese Navy could mount another full-scale attack we hoped we could settle down to cleaning up the enemy troops between Cape Esperance and the Matanikau. The chow had improved greatly, too: I had actually seen some fresh butter. It would be a great treat. A vast amount of work was waiting for me concerning scouts and laborers; there was also the welcome news that my lads had wiped out the Japanese at Vioru on the south coast and demolished their radio sets.
By 18 November Johnstone had arrived from Tulagi, and with Widdy was doing his best to get the native laborers properly organized. We had, of course, to arrange for the labor force to be properly put on the ration strength; the next thing was to find Widdy and Johnno some transport. It was agreed that Hart should come to assist them, and messages accordingly were sent out to get him up. The number of laborers, which was more than three hundred, was increasing; as they had worked, some of them, for more than a fortnight, the question of what they were to be paid had to be resolved.
It was found, almost by accident, that the Marines had brought a large amount of money in Australian shillings and florins (two-shilling pieces). That it had managed to survive damage for so long was, to me, amazing. I would have to start paying the scouts. Up to this time, all the old hands had received six months’ pay in advance; but the larger part of the force had volunteered, and had joined at various times, and no arrangements had yet been made about signing them on or paying them. I had also made several promotions as the force had expanded, and there was the question of what pay they were to receive. All this entailed many signals back and forth to the resident commissioner’s headquarters on Malaita. As he had been away consulting the high commissioner in Fiji, it all took time.
During the last two days our fighter strength had been greatly reinforced. It was almost a pleasure to drive down to the labor camp, knowing that the morning raid was being intercepted over the Russell Islands and there was no need to cease everything and take cover. The weather had been quite unusual the last two or three days—bright and sunny, with no rain—and the dried mud was everywhere. It got into eyelashes, round necks, and even between the teeth, so it was a sheer delight to go down to the Lunga River and soak there until it had all drifted away.
As I had been so busy and not in a position to reply to his signals, Hay had sensibly got Campbell and Sister Edmée, together with a dozen islanders from San Cristobal, started on their arduous journey down to Aola for evacuation. I sent frantic signals to Bengough asking him to arrange that Campbell’s launch be sent to Aola from San Cristobal as soon as possible in order to take Campbell and his party back there.
Ken complained that, since Vouza’s patrol was entirely committed with Carlson and, as a result of Carlson’s attacks, the number of Japs scattered about to the east was increasing, it was very difficult to get rations up to him. He suggested that if we shipped them through Aola he could send there for them. At the last minute another forty-five men from San Cristobal, who had been working for Andresen and Campbell, were attached to Campbell’s party. This meant that they could not all be taken south in one trip. I wanted if possible to avoid asking the Aola force for rations for them, so I frantically signaled Bengough again to see whether he could send another ship as well.
The problem of dispatching our small boats on these tasks was, in a way, made more complicated by the fact that, as a result of the intense air activity of the last fortnight, we had rescued fighter and dive bomber pilots and crews scattered all over the place. Picked up and succored by the people on Guadalcanal, San Cristobal, and Malaita, they were gradually finding their way back to the various headquarters, where they were anxiously awaiting transport back to Lunga and further action. Many had also been picked up by Kennedy on New Georgia and Kuper on Ysabel, but they were returned through Tulagi. At the same time, it was convenient to have a couple of native pilots traveling with the best boat crews, for with something happening at Lunga every day the crews were a little afraid of crossing open waters alone and undefended.
Bringing back pilots to fight another day was one of the great advantages we had over the Japanese. I cannot quote actual figures, but I believe that between August and the end of November more than two hundred of our pilots were returned to duty, through coastwatching posts and the helping hands of Solomon Islanders. Japanese pilots were not so lucky. Very few even had parachutes. Those who survived a crash were often dealt with by the islanders in their own way, and that could not be avoided. Those who were captured were brought back to Lunga as prisoners. They all said that if they had succeeded in returning to Rabaul they would have been segregated from those who had not been to Guadalcanal, in order that the news of their awful defeats not leak out. The number of pilots, either ours or theirs, recovered by the Japanese was extraordinarily small; this no doubt was a factor in our gradual increase in superiority over their air force, since the quality of its pilots and crews rapidly declined.
At D-2 they were very busy sifting out all the reports of the naval battle. It was believed that the Japanese had lost twenty-six ships (in fact, it was seventeen), with twelve more badly damaged. Apart from the two battleships and other combatants, it was almost certain that all eleven of their transports, containing full combat rations and supplies for the fifteen thousand or so on board, were destroyed. We had lost nine ships sunk and nine more damaged, one of them the battleship South Dakota.
There was no doubt that the Japanese had for the time being utterly failed in their effort to recapture Guadalcanal, and unless they could immediately produce that effort again it was unlikely that they would have much chance of victory. Our morale had gone up tremendously—everyone felt that, barring accidents, we could hold the island and eventually drive off the enemy.
On 19 November there was a small alarm of an enemy transport off Malaita. Aerial reconnaissance revealed that it was a floating hulk, a relic of the destroyed Japanese transport fleet. It provided an excellent practice target for the flying boys.
The aloneness we had felt in the dark days of September and October was wearing off as fresh Marine and Army units continued to pour in; the Marines had a great time ribbing the “doggies” and selling souvenirs for more useful “gismals,” such as cigarettes, clothing, and food.14 The Army units were part of the Americal Division, which original plans had landing on Guadalcanal ten days after the Marines. Here they were, nearly three months later. “A miracle,” we called it!
The attack on the Japanese beyond the Matanikau was proceeding with redoubled vigor. Most of our 1st Marine Division men, who looked like lean and aged veterans, had been withdrawn from the exhausting front and replaced with 2d Division Marines and Army units, under Army Brig. Gen. Edmund B. Sebree. More and more native labor was being required here as time advanced.
It was just as well that the Marines were withdrawn, as malaria was taking a tremendous toll. Almost two thousand men were out of action with it in October, and in November the number rose to more than three thousand. Though I never took atabrine as regularly as I should have, a steady prewar routine of quinine had perhaps inoculated me against malaria, for I managed to evade it.
Lieutenant Colonel Carlson was still busily involved with the sizable remnant of the Japanese force from Koli Point. All information pointed to the fact that originally about fifteen hundred men had landed.15 They had suffered heavy casualties from the bombardment by our three warships. Carlson had attacked and broken them up, and they were now in full flight toward the Matanikau via the headwaters of the Tenaru and Lunga Rivers. He lost no opportunity in harassing them.
John Mather, doing valiant service for the Raiders, was yelling for more and more carriers. It was very difficult to help him, as we had collected most of the able-bodied people from the immediate vicinity for the labor force. The best I could do was send John some extra scouts to help with recruiting on the spot.
We began to get a stream of VIPs from down south. They came up in transport planes, which evacuated the wounded. (Heretofore they had been full on the way up with bombs and drums of gasoline to keep our combat aircraft going.) There were senior officers of Admiral Halsey’s command and of units that were about to be sent up to reinforce us, together with officers of the Commonwealth forces. I was introduced to most of them, and had to explain how we ran the island outside the Marine perimeter! Amongst these VIPs was Col. J. I. Brooke, GSO 1 (i.e., chief operations officer) of the 3d New Zealand Division. He stayed with General Vandegrift, and when he first arrived he declared his intention of watching his first Pacific air raid from the top of the general’s dugout. I thought immediately of John Mather’s first effort! The colonel was quite used to air raids in the Middle East, but it did not take him very long to discover that ours tended to be rather different, and he soon developed that rabbitlike tendency with which we on Guadalcanal were so familiar.
Senior officers of the Royal New Zealand Air Force also put in an appearance, including Victor Goddard, chief of New Zealand Air Staff. I confess that when I met him for the first time, in khaki and with his cap off, I completely failed to comprehend the significance of his blue and black air commodore’s rings! The RNZAF was bursting to go into action, and Squadron Leader Fisher with No. 3 Squadron of Hudsons arrived on 20 November. Everyone was very pleased to see them, as it meant that the dive bombers could be relieved of all the long-range ship patrols and could concentrate on strikes only. These lads had been worked very hard, and had to compete with malaria, jaundice, and “the bends” into the bargain.
D-2 had expanded so greatly that it was hardly recognizable. Amongst others we now had two officers and several enlisted men interpreting aerial photographs. This was a fairly new science, and occasionally they made mistakes. One of these, committed by their headquarters, was to issue to the Aola landing force maps of Aola Bay indicating a one-hundred-foot wharf to the westward side of the bay! This puzzled me for a long time, until I realized that the beach had started to shelve and that what they had picked up from the air was the still-intact wing member of Ekins’s Catalina, which had slipped down until it lay just above the surface of the water. I pulled their legs about it, especially as the wing member was, as far as I could remember, more than one hundred feet long!
There were certain other additions besides, and to accommodate us all there was now a vast operations room, which had been dug out of the ridge behind our old Ops tent. Fred Kidde was off on attachment to a newly formed eastward offensive force under the command of General Rupertus,16 and Art Claffey was very pleased with himself at having returned all the way from the New Hebrides sitting on a thousand-pound bomb inside a DC-3 transport. Wimpy and Massaro quite typically had “acquired” cots from the Army; I didn’t mind, because they got one for me, too!17
Captain Moran was in his element. The captured material and documents had piled up tremendously, and he had sorted out some interesting “dope.” Some of the Japanese diaries were interesting and amusing, but others were rather grim. The Japs considered themselves invincible, and they went into long explanations making every excuse for their defeat except their own inefficiency.
One captured document purported to be the draft arrangements for our surrender to Lieutenant General Hyakutake.18 Amongst other matters, it stated that General Vandegrift would be escorted to Kokumbona, where, in a touching ceremony, he would be asked to hand over his sword. “It would have been kind of embarrassing,” he said, “as I forgot to bring my sword with me!” Diaries revealed that some of the howitzer crews had died of starvation, while the quartermasters on the beach, who were completely out of touch, lived in hideouts under piles of rotting rice bags.
Another document, of a totally different character, had been written by a medical dresser. It recounted what he termed an interesting lecture, given by a doctor at their headquarters. He revealed that two Marine scouts, who had gone missing some time before on the Matanikau front, had been tied to trees and used as demonstration specimens. With no disgust or horror whatever, the dresser described in detail how the medical officer had carried out vivisection, lecturing the while on the anatomy of the human body. There were no words of emotion for the Marines, nor any reference to their reaction or their horrible fate. All he could say was how interesting a scientific demonstration it had been.
Although still very lean and hungry, we had begun to get three meals a day. As a result, the morning tea club died a natural death. I kept our apparatus for a long time after. The kettle was an elegant Japanese aluminum one, with the lid secured by a chain and a naval badge, consisting of an anchor with a cherry blossom superimposed, on the side. Our drinking vessels, also Japanese, were blue enamel pannikins with the rising sun trademark on the bottom. We used to bring back limes from our extramural operations and, provided we could get ice from the Tojo Ice Factory, make a health-brew of lime squash in our tea kettle. It was eventually stored away for some time, and invaded by ants. Not content with building their mud home inside, they attacked the aluminum, which became full of strange blisters and holes, and my historic relic of life on “the Rock” had to be thrown away.
Rumors always traveled very fast on Guadalcanal. The latest one, toward the end of November, was that eggs would be arriving. To Marine “chow hounds” it was the most important news for months.
Catching up with all the signals and reports, and the letters and demands from my remaining parishioners, was an uphill job. I found I could not stick to it for more than two or three hours at a time. We had all got so used to dodging into a dugout whenever there was an air raid that I felt quite strange working on without them, and instead of concentrating I’d find myself staring up into the sky. We still got the air warnings, but our fighters usually managed to attack their planes while they were still far away.
In catching up with my paperwork I had great assistance from a lad who has not so far been mentioned. His name was Peachey, Private Peachey, and he was formerly a university lecturer in French and German. So, what did they do with him? They sent him to the Pacific! Fred Peachey had lived in England and in Europe for some time, and had been educated at Marlborough College and Paris University. He was our “boffin,” the backroom boy, who wrote many polished reports. He also had a rich and wide range of language, culled from both sides of the Atlantic. If you rang up D-2 you would usually get from the other end, “TEXAS TWO, Private Peachey speaking, sir,” in the most faultless English, with a slight trace of the Oxford accent. Peachey, who was growing bald, was already married, and he became quite incensed when he got the news that his wife had been given a commission in the newly formed lady Marines! This organization had not yet obtained a euphonious acronym such as SPARS or WAVES, but amongst the Marines a title, quite vulgar, was soon found for it, on which officialdom frowned. It was, excuse my French, BAMs, or Broad-Assed Marines. This gave rise to some unmerciful ribbing, as Peachey himself was not all that narrow across the rump! He got a well-deserved commission in the field, however, in a later campaign.
My old, and only, pair of boots had finally come to pieces and worn right through the sole, but I hadn’t had time to notice it. Early on 21 November I went down to see Colonel Coffman,19 the quartermaster, to get a new pair, and to thank him for all the trouble he had gone to in getting rations for our extramural operations at all hours of the day and night.
The colonel presented me with a long cigar. It was a custom to which I had not altogether got accustomed. At first it had struck me as odd that the Marines were prepared to smoke them at all times of the day, though admittedly the cigars that we used to smoke before the war were much stronger than these. I was used to smoking them after meals, and that usually meant after dinner, but here it seemed quite in order to smoke them after breakfast. (Colonel Waterman,20 who commanded the 1st Service Battalion, even smoked them before breakfast, although as often as not he just kept one in his mouth, chewing and rolling it from one side to the other.) I didn’t smoke cigarettes, and I was, as usual, short of pipe tobacco, so who was I to complain? And so I lit up. Colonel Coffman’s ration dumps were in the middle of a leafy grove, and it was rather pleasant to lean back in a camp chair and contemplate the blue sky, quite free of enemy planes, through the checkered green canopy. We talked about “before the war” and about plantations, and what was produced in the islands. I told him all about coconuts, and copra, and bêche-de-mer. As I rose to say goodbye, he asked me whether anyone had ever thought of growing rubber in the vicinity. I told him he was at that moment sitting in the middle of a rubber grove!
The following afternoon I was down at the naval base settling some difficulties over the schooners. The fuel oil was too heavy for our highspeed diesel engines. I was caught there about 1900 by a most irregular air raid, but Dexter’s successor, Lt. Cdr. George W. Holtzman, had the situation well in hand. We retired to his well-equipped dugout, while the night sky was made horrible with flashes and flares. Always the perfect host, Holtzman produced some cartridge-case goblets, into which he poured what he called his antipersonnel cocktail. It was a liqueur made of Coca-Cola syrup and pure alcohol. We sipped it elegantly, to the fanfare of ack-ack guns and falling bombs.
Widdy had gone across to Malaita to discuss with the resident commissioner the establishment of properly organized and officered labor battalions. Until they were in place, we had to get most of their rations and equipment by gentleman’s agreement. Down at the labor camp, Johnstone and Hart were doing great work; Johnno found it a little difficult, however, not because the Marines were uncooperative but because they were so busy getting the laborers to their jobs that they had little time to draw equipment.
Colonel Buckley was highly amused by what he called the boys’ “motorized operations.” Johnstone, who had always claimed to be one of the first Diggers ashore at Gallipoli, would drive around darting his eagle eye over everything. If he saw a case by the roadside, he would stop and examine it, and if he thought it was useful he would pop it in the jeep and drive off, with never a backward glance! Hart, who apparently had not had much recent experience at the wheel, would drive along in a grand manner—meaning that quite often he was well off the road—and come back with a strand or two of barbed wire or telephone wire dragging behind him. Clarry soon developed his own scrounging technique. Stopping conveniently near an unloading truck to disentangle a snagged piece of wire, he would engage the unsuspecting soldiers in conversation. Before long, he would have checked their load, and with a careless air he would say, “I don’t suppose you’ve got any so-and-so?” Then off he’d go with his couple of cases!
Old Clarry was the best intentioned of men. When I wrote him from Aola at the end of October, he replied, in all seriousness, that he had four or five cases of books at Kau Kau, mostly novels, and would be glad to pass them on to one of the camps, where they would probably be welcomed! Perhaps some boat in the vicinity could come and pick them up, or perhaps he could deliver them somewhere. What did I suggest? It was jolly kind of him, but had he been at Lunga he would have realized that there would be no time to read books until we got on board the boat for home. Another of his earlier letters, commenting on the way the Japanese had ill treated his property, mentioned the loss of part of his stamp collection. “Some of the bastards,” he wrote, “also appear to be stamp collectors as they pinched a lot of foreign stamps from a drawer here valued at about £20; I drew Ishimoto’s attention to the loss but he did not do anything, and I could not point out the man who took them.” I remembered that we had found a bundle of stamps wrapped up in a silk handkerchief at Gorabusu, but had not had time to do anything about it. Rooting around in Captain Moran’s “museum,” I found the bundle and sent the stamps over to Clarry Hart. He was immensely pleased.
Many of the scout detachments were working with different Marine and Army units, and those outside the perimeter reported through Adams or Hay. The heavy work of interrogating each scout when he came in, therefore, had slacked off considerably. But something new was always developing. As an example, after the trouble we had had with the Japanese howitzers, a new system had been worked out for spotting them. A scout would set out in the afternoon with a piece of apparatus known as a smoke pot. When the switch was set, it would produce a column of dense gray smoke for more than twenty minutes. The scout, having made a previous reconnaissance and discovered a gun position, would plant the smoke pot at a fixed distance due south of the position. In the morning, at a prearranged time, he would start the smoke off and run like mad. The SBDs would then come over and drop their bombs at approximately the same distance due north of the smoke column.
It did not always work out so simply, and Chaku, returning from the successful raid at Vioru, had a much more exciting story to tell. He came across an artillery piece in the middle of what he called “the big Japanese road.” This was the track cut out of the jungle by General Maruyama21 in his outflanking operation during the October battle. The gun had a caliber of approximately 105 mm. Chaku was about to shoot the crew of four when SBDs and our howitzers began to pound the surrounding area and the Japs retired below ground. Following their telephone line to a shack containing ammunition and stores, he shot the three soldiers he found there, cut the telephone wire, and carried away a long piece of it, together with a Japanese machine gun.
Two days later, Chaku just managed to avoid being killed when the party of fifty that he was shadowing deployed into the bush, forcing him to jettison the machine gun and run away. By this time he was near the Tenaru River, so he went and reported in at Gold Ridge. Hay had some smoke pots dropped, but when Chaku returned to the site he found that the gun had unfortunately been moved. Before he could begin to search for it, a hungry straggler fell out, from a column of about eighty; the scout shot him, then followed them. When the party stopped near the airfield, it was near the prearranged time; as they were the only target offering, he switched on his smoke pot, but though the Dauntlesses came over they did not drop any bombs.
Determined to eliminate them somehow, Chaku went to the village of Garokiki, where he collected about two dozen men and laid an ambush for the Japanese. Unfortunately the enemy saw them and fled, but they managed to shoot six of the party; the Japs had no arms, and only rotten rice for food. Another small party, this one armed, returned down the road and engaged Chaku’s mob, who had not time to disperse; after a short action, however, Chaku was again the winner. He then boldly advanced up the road, but got surprised by another eight armed Japanese, who rushed his amateur soldiers and put them to flight. Chaku cursed them roundly and sent them home. Two enemy soldiers stopped to look at a body that he had thrown in the bush; the scout put them down with a single bullet. Then a completely fresh mob came up the road, and Chaku had to make himself scarce. He was shot at, but vanished silently into the jungle. Sometimes the smoke pot service was more effective, but it certainly was a dangerous business.
After Johnstone and Hart took over the labor force, Daniel returned to Aola to lead the patrol that was shadowing the few surviving Japanese from the Koilotumuria-Gorabusu crowd. When this six-man party wandered into Paripao in search of food, Daniel devised some quite novel tactics to deal with them. As the Japs sat round the steps of a native house, he sent a scout in to sell them a chicken, while he and the rest took up positions covering the doorway at the back of the house. The chicken seller insisted on and got five Australian shillings for the skinny bird, then retired and collected his rifle. Busy with their chicken, the enemy soldiers suspected nothing till a shot rang out and one of their number fell to the ground. The rest fled through the house, to be caught by Daniel and his lads. Result—six Japanese, five shillings, and their chicken!