On 18 July Ghormley directed Fletcher to loiter west of Tongatabu until Noyes and Kinkaid appeared, then form the carrier striking force. Later, Turner’s amphibious ships and Crutchley’s cruiser force would join him. For the next week, therefore, Fletcher could do little beyond plan in isolation. On 21 July the Platte transferred her remaining oil to the Cimarron, then left for Nouméa with a destroyer to fetch more fuel from the W. C. Yeager and return in late July. With TF-61 gathering three hundred miles west of Tongatabu, the group with the farthest to go was Turner’s at Wellington. Informed Turner could reach the assembly area on 26 July, Fletcher set the grand rendezvous for that afternoon, after which the combined force would conduct rehearsals in Fiji to the northwest.1
Noyes’s TF-18 with the ailing Wasp and Transdiv Two dropped anchor at Tongatabu on 18 July. The Wasp engineers brilliantly accomplished the brutal work of lifting the rotor and replacing the blading in her starboard high-pressure turbine. On 21 July she attained twenty-five knots. Cincpac certainly dodged a bullet. Even so, the reliability of the Wasp’s power plant over the long term was in question. It might not hold up if light winds compelled long runs more than twenty-five knots to launch fully loaded planes. Noyes recommended she return to Pearl, “At first available opportunity after employment now started.” On 23 July TF-18, less the transports, contacted TF-11. The next day Fletcher transferred the Vincennes to Noyes and detached the destroyer Hull to Suva to fetch important visitors.2
Having left Pearl on 15 July Kinkaid anticipated a routine run to Tongatabu. En route the North Carolina and Portland fueled destroyers “with usual efficiency,” according to an admiring Commander Laing, the RN liaison officer. Prevailing light winds forced Kinkaid to increase speed for flight operations and burn more fuel than he liked. On 23 July he was shocked to learn that local time at Tongatabu was Z-12, although the Tonga Islands were east of the 180th meridian. The date line snaked eastward to include them. Thus TF-16 was a day late. “We kept very quiet about it,” Kinkaid later wrote, and doubted “Nimitz or Fletcher know it to this day.” On 25 July he found Tongatabu’s harbor filled with auxiliaries and began refueling his depleted ships from the Kanawha, Mobilube, Whitney, and the store ship Aldebaran. The North Carolina only fueled to 60 percent. To make the scheduled rendezvous, TF-16 cleared the anchorage before sunset due to the difficulty of getting large ships through the harbor channel in darkness. Kinkaid gratefully sighted the other forces on 26 July, released the auxiliaries to Turner’s TF-62, and took position eight miles to starboard of TF-11. He later blamed the fog at Tongatabu for his delay but recalled, “Fletcher looked at me skeptically and said: ‘We don’t have fog in the tropics.’”3
After a long flight from Pearl detouring around storms, Turner belatedly reported to Ghormley at Auckland on 15 July. Two days later in Wellington he broke his flag in the McCawley, one of eight transports and four cargo ships of Transdivs Eight and Ten that hastily re-embarked the personnel, equipment, and supplies of the recently arrived First Marine Division. Its able commander, Maj. Gen. Alexander Archer “Archie” Vandegrift, was also known as “Sunny Jim” due to his cheerful disposition. Lt. Col. Merrill “Bill” Twining, the assistant operations officer, contrasted the gentlemanly Vandegrift with their new amphibious admiral, “A loud, strident, arrogant person who enjoyed settling all matters by simply raising his voice and roaring like a bull captain in the old navy.” Twining thought Turner’s “peers understood this and valued him for what he was, a good and determined leader with a fine mind—when he chose to use it.” Vandegrift’s staff already began detailed planning for the Tulagi-Guadalcanal operation. They were skeptical of Turner’s Ndeni scheme because it diverted vital troops from the main effort. Their scheme of maneuver sent most of the division against Lunga to capture the all-important airfield, but not by frontal assault. Instead, the landing would take place at Red Beach, five miles east. Now the two staffs, amphibious force and marine division, had to create an operational plan. They did not have much time. Unlike some of the Washington brass, Vandegrift was fully aware how difficult the task was going to be at the sharp end. He distrusted the navy’s will to support him. Events at Guadalcanal would only enlarge the omnipresent chip on marine shoulders.4
On 22 July Turner led the twenty-six ships of TF-62 and TF-44 out of Wellington. Crutchley’s mixed Australian-American TF-44 comprised heavy cruisers Australia, Canberra, Chicago, and Salt Lake City, light cruiser Hobart, and the nine destroyers. Promoted rear admiral in February 1942, Victor Alexander Charles Crutchley, forty-eight, was a distinguished Royal Navy officer who received the Victoria Cross for great gallantry and brilliant seamanship in May 1918 during the failed attempt to block Ostend. In 1940 he commanded the famous old battleship Warspite and took her into battle at Narvik. Tall and big-framed, Crutchley wore a full beard and mustache to hide wound scars. His intelligence, careful demeanor, and meticulous approach to planning and operations deeply impressed his American colleagues.5
On the afternoon of 26 July all of Fletcher’s task forces met on schedule at the rendezvous west of Tongatabu and 350 miles south of Fiji. The sight of seventy-one ships offered an impressive demonstration of sea power. Transdivs Two and Twelve and Mine Squadron Two reported for duty to Turner, who released the Salt Lake City to TF-18. The forces maneuvered in general contact while their leaders decided exactly what they were going to do with all this naval might.
On 21 July Ghormley in distant Auckland directed the “staff representatives” of Fletcher, Turner, and McCain to confer prior to the campaign. A destroyer was to embark McCain “and/or staff members” at Suva on 26 July and deliver them to TF-61 the following morning. Ghormley’s own “staff representatives” would accompany McCain’s party, “If practicable.” Ghormley himself did not intend to go and perhaps not even furnish any senior staff. To Fletcher that was unacceptable. He swiftly replied that he would hold the conference in his flagship “at earliest opportunity after rendezvous.” It was “highly important to confer with McCain and your representative [at the] earliest practicable date.” Fletcher, Noyes, and McCain comprised a mini reunion of the class of 1906, but, incredibly, their classmate Ghormley would not take time from his administrative duties to meet his top commanders prior to the most important event in his career. Instead, probably only in response to Fletcher’s insistence, he released his chief of staff, Rear Adm. Daniel Callaghan, to fly up from Auckland.6
This photo of the USS Saratoga (CV-3) was taken 17 September 1942; she was Admiral Fletcher’s flagship from July to October 1942.
Courtesy of Naval War College, Capt. Archibald H. Douglas Collection
On the morning of 27 July the attendees assembled in the Saratoga. Noyes came from the Wasp and Kinkaid from the Enterprise. Turner, Vandegrift, Callaghan, and staff accompanied McCain in the Hull. The Sara did not behave herself during the transfers. When she rolled, McCain ended up “waist deep in the ocean.” Fletcher welcomed his guests with a few general remarks, then dismissed all but the top officers and their chiefs of staff to the captain’s quarters, where Colonel Maas had a buffet lunch waiting. Afterward the juniors attended separate meetings for intelligence, communications, and related topics. Twining tried to “play dumb” and stay with the brass, but Fletcher addressed him by name and “politely suggested” he get himself some refreshments. In the captain’s quarters Twining discovered his boss, Lt. Col. Gerald C. Thomas, “deep in conversation” with Maas, who “was interested in what we had to say.”7
The senior officers conferred in private for nearly four hours. The only contemporary record appears in the notes Callaghan submitted to Ghormley. Participants who later discussed the conference did so, of course, in full knowledge of the unexpected disaster two weeks later at Savo. Vandegrift’s 1964 memoir described Fletcher, whom he had not previously met, as “distinguished looking,” but “nervous and tired.” He professed surprise Fletcher “appeared to lack knowledge of or interest in the forthcoming operation.” Even worse, Fletcher “quickly let us know he did not think it would succeed.” To his “arbitrary objections, expressed forcefully, we replied as best we could but obviously failed to make much impression.” In 1945 Turner charged that Fletcher “made many remarks against the execution of the plan,” blaming him for “initiating the whole thing.” Turner “merely” replied they were following King’s orders. He told his biographer Dyer he was deeply disappointed with Fletcher but could not appeal given Ghormley’s disinterest. “Whom to, and who was I to do so? Fletcher was my old boss, and at that moment the most battle experienced commander in our Navy. It was his judgment and my job to live with it.” Perhaps Turner did “live with it,” but he never ceased his carping. Capt. Thomas G. Peyton, his chief of staff, characterized the conference to Dyer as “one long bitter argument.” He was “amazed and disturbed by the way these two admirals talked to each other” and “never heard anything like it.” Questioning “the whole upcoming operation,” Fletcher “kept implying that it was largely Turner’s brainchild, and mentioning those who planned it had no real fighting experience.” Thus he “seemed to be doubting the competence of its parent.” Moreover, Fletcher complained the operation was “too hurriedly and therefore not thoroughly planned, the Task Force not trained together; and the logistic support inadequate.” Turner just “kept saying ‘the decision has been made. It’s up to us to make it a success.’”8
Two other participants gave very different recollections as to the tone of the conference. Characterized by Dyer as “more used to the sharp give and take during the councils of the naval great” than Peyton, Kinkaid offered a “much calmer view” of a meeting that was “animated rather than stormy.” Turner “asked for a lot of things, much of which he didn’t get, because they were not in the realm of the possible.” At the close of the conference Kinkaid happened to hear Turner ask Vandegrift, “How did I do?” to which Vandegrift replied, “All right.” That was Kinkaid’s “personal assessment.” For his own part Fletcher asserted in 1947 to Hanson W. Baldwin, “At no time was there any friction between Turner and myself.” He told Dyer in 1963, “Kelly was no shrinking violet and always spoke his piece in conferences. But there was no bitterness in the discussion. Plenty of opinions [were] vigorously expressed as to what or could be done.” Fletcher naively underestimated Turner’s rancor and deviousness.9
Kinkaid noted the gathering was “somewhat unusual” for a “final conference.” The plans were “hurriedly made” and “many details remained to be worked out.” Given the scope of the operation, the first U.S. amphibious offensive since 1898, that was a profound understatement. “Some of us were until then,” Kinkaid noted, “unaware of the procedure to be worked out.” They included Fletcher, whose “lack” of “knowledge” of operational details is perfectly understandable, given he was far away when Turner and Vandegrift did their planning. His supposed disinterest is belied by the searching questions he directed to his new subordinates. Indeed, Fletcher was very interested. Unlike earlier at Pearl, he found himself responsible for a great deal more than the carriers, but being tied to those carriers severely limited his ability to control the rest. Unfortunately Turner, Vandegrift, and Peyton took his queries as personal affronts. Fletcher hurt their tender feelings—hence their laments about “arbitrary objections,” the “many remarks against the execution of the plan” and the apparent questioning of the “whole upcoming operation.” He exercised his one chance to conduct a thorough and not always polite critique of their plan.10
Taking Callaghan aside, Fletcher expressed his pleasure for having “tactical command of the operation.” However, he had expected Ghormley “to exercise that function.” Comsopac should “not hesitate to change tactical disposition if he thought it necessary,” for he “might be in much better position to see the whole picture.” Callaghan, though, “Hoped that need for such action would not arise.” Fletcher should fly messages ashore to keep Ghormley informed and “promised to do this at every opportunity.” Callaghan also told his boss, “We are shy of many of Turner’s annexes to his operation order and of Admiral Fletcher’s orders.” However, they “promised to land all these at Suva on 31 July” for McCain to forward by air to Nouméa.11
As Callaghan’s notes demonstrate, a great deal was discussed. It is useful here to deal in turn with the five topics most directly related to Fletcher and the carriers and offer the necessary background to understand the decisions that were reached.
Easily the most contentious of the many issues, at least according to subsequent accounts, was carrier air support for the Amphibious Force. Over the years Turner and the marines condemned Fletcher’s statements about the carriers and his later actions off Guadalcanal. To assess the validity of their charges, it is crucial to understand what Fletcher believed at the time, bearing in mind that he claimed Nimitz invoked the same provision regarding carrier employment as at Midway. “You will be governed by the principle of calculated risk which you shall interpret to mean the avoidance of exposure of your forces to attack by superior enemy forces without good prospect of inflicting, as a result of such exposure, greater damage to the enemy.” Furthermore, a fundamental transformation in naval power had just taken place. Carriers usurped the prime strategic role of battleships in that their principal opponents were their enemy counterparts, and they should only to be committed to battle in the proper circumstances. Yet the few existing big carriers also had to lead the way to provide air support for an amphibious offensive. That albeit necessary dual role boded great peril, as Japan discovered at Midway, and greatly complicated how the carriers could and should be used in combat.12
In a memo prepared for Fletcher on 15 July, Maas appreciated that a swift assault before Japan solidified its hold in the southern Solomons could achieve strategic surprise. Yet success hinged on whether supporting air, both carrier- and land-based, could neutralize “all initial opposition” and enable the Amphibious Force to execute its mission “quickly and neatly.” Failure could mean the loss of key assets, carriers and elite marines, and imperil the whole South Pacific. Because the Allies should enjoy a vast initial superiority of strength, Maas judged that surprise, although “very important,” was “not absolutely essential” if the enemy gained only a few days warning. “Far more important,” he stressed, “in fact probably all-important, is the necessity that we not be surprised. Every precaution must be taken against our own force being surprised or trapped.” Given Coral Sea and Midway, where Fletcher did the surprising, he comprehended that a “responsible commander” must be prepared should enemy carriers suddenly appear in the Solomons. He later explained, “We all expected they would show up shortly after the landing.” Fletcher was one of the few top leaders who anticipated the Japanese would throw in everything they could once they realized the Allies had come back to the Solomons to stay.13
Fletcher contemplated two alternatives for employing the carriers. In the first scenario the carriers would pound the target area starting on D-6 or D-5 days and bombard shore positions on D-2 or D-1. That would give sufficient warning for Japan to respond in strength. The second option was to hope for surprise, trusting to shore-based air to reduce the enemy’s search capability and darkness to hide the final approach to the target. Carrier air attacks and ship bombardments would start only at dawn on D-Day. “This will involve a much greater risk of loss in both planes and attacking troops,” Maas noted, “but will minimize the danger of successful counter-attack by enemy reinforcements before our mission has been accomplished.” Fletcher preferred the second alternative. Because of restricted waters between Tulagi and Guadalcanal, carriers could only support the landings from the east off Malaita or southward in the Coral Sea beyond Guadalcanal. Recommending the latter station, Maas considered whether to deploy TF-11 (Saratoga) and Noyes’s TF-18 (Wasp) in concert seventy-five miles south of Tulagi. They would strike ground targets and provide fighter cover for themselves and the distant invasion force. At the same time Kinkaid’s TF-16 (Enterprise), operating fifty miles east of the other two carriers, would search the northern semicircle and strike should enemy carriers be discovered. In place of three cruisers detached for shore bombardment, Maas recommended reinforcing the main body with the North Carolina and two destroyers from TF-16. Also curious if the new battleship could truly enhance a carrier task force, Fletcher consulted the Saratoga’s executive officer, Cdr. Cato Glover, an old friend fresh from the Cominch staff, who urged: “Take her. She can be a great help close in with her tremendous AA power.” Later on D-Day, if searches and other intelligence proved negative, TF-16 could join attacks against shore targets and hasten the reduction of enemy positions.14
Commander Pederson, Fletcher’s air staff officer, tackled the organizational and tactical details necessary for the carriers to carry out their assigned tasks. He compiled his preliminary air plan before he knew for certain the Enterprise would also participate. Thus he gave much thought to how the Saratoga and Wasp alone could handle the concurrent missions of air support for the landings, fighter cover for the carriers and invasion forces, searches, and still retain a force in hand if enemy carriers materialized. The limited endurance of U.S. aircraft, particularly fighters, dictated the carriers must remain within eighty miles of the landing beaches during daylight. That would entail a vast shuttling back and forth, working the carriers harder from dawn to dusk than ever before. For D-Day only, Pederson proposed operating all the fighters from the Wasp and the dive bombers and torpedo planes from the Sara. That redeployment was to take place once the carriers launched their initial D-Day flights and last until late afternoon. If the Wasp happened to be sunk or disabled that day, he reckoned most of the fighters should still be aloft. Such radical combinations of carrier air complements had been tried before, but Fletcher wanted to know what Noyes thought before ruling on Pederson’s idea.15
On 20 July, a week before the conference, Turner submitted his TF-62 task organization and requirements for air support. He created two transport groups: X-Ray (ten transports, six cargo ships) for Guadalcanal, and Yoke (three transports, four high-speed transports) for Tulagi. Fletcher was to supply three heavy cruisers and four destroyers for the X-Ray Group and one light cruiser and two destroyers to Yoke. A group of five DMS high-speed minesweepers and a screening group with three heavy cruisers and eight destroyers would also protect the invasion force. Turner desired one VF squadron and three VSB squadrons for close air support, “With one additional squadron each type [on the] first two hours of D-Day.” The transport combat air patrol was to comprise two VF squadrons. “Approximately half of available aircraft” were to be aloft “continuously during daylight.” Fletcher replied on 21 July via radio from Tongatabu that “in general” he approved of the plan. He assigned the Astoria, Quincy, and Vincennes and four destroyers to the X-Ray fire support group and the San Juan (with Admiral Scott) and two destroyers to Yoke. Crutchley’s TF-44 (less the Salt Lake City) would comprise the Screening Group. Fletcher would announce during the upcoming planning conference how many planes he would provide. Turner’s use of the term “squadrons,” rather than the required numbers of planes or sorties, was confusing. The air planners needed more concrete information.16
On 21 July, a day that cost the Saratoga five F4Fs in crashes, Pederson hitched a ride on the TBF flying dispatches to Tongatabu to brief Noyes and obtain the full version of Sopac Op-Ord 1–42. Via a letter Pederson brought back that afternoon, Noyes responded he knew nothing about the impending operation other than what was in the dispatches and wanted until the twenty-second “to study the set up.” In the meantime Pederson updated his draft air plan to include the Enterprise. He now recommended keeping all three carriers together and starting at dawn on D-Day farther west than in his previous plan, that is, off the southwest coast of Guadalcanal and about seventy-five miles southwest of Tulagi. From there the carriers could work into the prevailing southeasterly wind and maintain the interval of seventy-five to eighty miles from the target areas. Pederson proposed a carrier formation of TF-11 (Saratoga) in the center, with TF-18 (Wasp) and TF-16 (Enterprise) deployed four to six miles off each quarter. Initially forty-two Wasp planes would strike Lunga on Guadalcanal, while thirty-nine Enterprise aircraft hit Tulagi. Twenty-two Saratoga F4Fs would fly combat air patrol for the carriers and transports, while eight TBFs searched the northern semicircle. An hour after dawn, a second wave of thirty-seven Sara planes would attack Guadalcanal, where her air group commander was to coordinate air strikes. At the same time the Enterprise would reprise her first Tulagi mission with thirty-one planes and detail her CAG to handle the Yoke attacks. The Wasp was to land the Sara’s fighters as well as her own, while her SBDs and TBFs flew from the Saratoga only for the rest of D-Day. Both carriers would support Lunga and fly combat air patrols, leaving Tulagi to the Enterprise. Maas and Schindler rode the 22 July shuttle flight to Tongatabu and delivered the draft air plan to Noyes.17
On 24 July Noyes flew out to the Saratoga and met with Fletcher for five hours, interrupted only by lunch and the inevitable dart game. Fletcher formally designated him Commander, Air, to take tactical command of the three carrier task groups “when directed.” As Noyes explained, he was to run the carriers, “Usually during air operations and the movements preceding and subsequent thereto.” Fletcher was self-conscious about his dearth of personal aviation experience. He felt he must take advantage of the presence of an aviator flag officer to handle routine operations while reserving the big decisions for himself. Unfortunately that divided command, as Kinkaid complained, contributed to a “built in” delay for the dissemination of plans. Fletcher’s lack of intimate knowledge of aviation was his Achilles’ heel as a carrier striking force commander.18
A JCL, Noyes had little real aviation experience himself and relied on his own flag captain, Forrest P. Sherman of the Wasp. A New Englander like Noyes, Sherman, age forty-six, was intelligent (second in the class of 1918), renowned for his practical and esoteric talents, and also extremely ambitious. Obvious ability put him on the fast track to command. A naval aviator since 1922, from 1937 to 1941 Sherman served as aviation officer for Combatfor and Cincus and in the CNO’s War Plans Division, and after December 1941 on the Cominch staff. He took command of the Wasp on 31 May at Norfolk. Noyes regarded Forrest Sherman as his de facto chief of staff. Cdr. Bradford E. Grow, the able TF-18 operations officer, acknowledged Noyes “probably received advice from Capt. Sherman more than me.” Lt. (jg) Thomas R. Weschler, a Wasp junior officer of the deck, remarked that Sherman, once he felt confident the Wasp was in good hands, spent half his time as TF-18 chief of staff, a responsibility he took “very seriously.” To Weschler, Noyes seemed tentative and unsure of himself. “I thought Admiral Leigh Noyes did not have the big picture, and that Captain Sherman was really the one who was carrying him.” Grow commented that although Noyes “delegated authority,” he “knew at all times what was going on.” Noyes’s own small staff worked out the details of decisions he reached with Sherman. Grow recalled: “I never heard Adm. Noyes criticize anyone. It was a pleasure to work for him.”19
Fletcher and Noyes examined Pederson’s idea of temporarily switching the Sara’s fighters to the Wasp and the Wasp’s SBDs and TBFs to the Sara. Fletcher even considered putting all one hundred fighters on one carrier and splitting the dive bombers and torpedo planes between the other two flattops. The resulting fighter wing offered the advantage of swift deployment on combat air patrol. He finally rejected the radical concept, “Due to lack of time to test and perfect such an organization.” Noyes took the draft plan back to the Wasp, where Sherman and Grow reworked the scheme and removed the references to shuffling planes between carriers. The resulting Carrier Aircraft Op-Plan 1–42 provided a “very tight” schedule, specifying the composition and payloads of all flights, as well as exact launch and recovery times. At any given time one carrier was to be ready to launch planes. To Pederson the operations plan resembled a “railroad time schedule.” He admired its intricacy, which required hitherto unprecedented carrier cooperation. Forty F4Fs and thirty-three SBDs would open the D-Day attacks against Lunga and Tulagi, while forty-five SBDs in three waves executed follow-up attacks on Tulagi, where initially the marines might face the toughest opposition. The Enterprise was to search two hundred miles northward with eight bomb-armed TBFs, while the three carriers retained an “air reserve” of twenty-nine TBFs to attack enemy carriers or reinforce shore strikes as needed. Sherman and Grow labored to complete the draft plan so Noyes could present it on 27 July.20
Rear Adm. Leigh Noyes (left) and Capt. Forrest P. Sherman, USS Wasp, August 1942.
Courtesy of National Archives (80-G-12786)
At the conference Turner and his staff got their first look at what the carriers proposed to do for them during the landings. Callaghan observed “some confusion re: details—argument re: air support from CV Task Forces on D day.” Although “everyone deplored lack of time to plan carefully and thoroughly,” they “saw no out but to whip plans into shape as rapidly as possible.” Fletcher recalled in 1947, “Most of the conference was taken up in planning how to arrange our fighter protection over both the landing and the carriers. I believe we modified our plans and I distinctly remember Turner and his staff were very pleased.” That must have been the case. Turner never commented adversely about the quantity and quality of the carrier air support on 7–8 August, just that he did not get any on the ninth.21
The length of carrier support for landings was an old bone of contention. In 1934–35 during planning for offensive operations against the Mandates, the marines desired the carriers to stay until their land-based air became established ashore, but naval planners rejected that proposal due to the “risk of immobility.” The 5 July Cincpac War Plans summary of Turner’s plan stated the planning session at Pearl envisioned carrier air coverage for “about three days,” the inference being D-Day, D+1, and D+2. Fletcher certainly thought that was the case. On 15 July Maas urged the landings be completed “as quickly as possible,” on “D+1 if at all possible,” to permit “early withdrawal” of the three carriers. If not on D+1, the carriers should depart Guadalcanal “no later than the end of D+2.” The goal was to “strike suddenly and hard, and as soon as the seizure is accomplished and the landing force firmly established, withdraw task forces from the area.” In that regard it is important to cite at length what Fletcher replied to Baldwin in 1947:
At the time of the conference with Turner and Callahan [sic] before the action I do not believe that the length of time the carriers would remain off Guadalcanal was brought up, except perhaps casually. That subject had been covered at some length in a conference between Nimitz, Kelley [sic] Turner and me at Pearl. I pointed out to Nimitz that the stay of the carriers to provide the umbrella would be very limited. Nimitz gave me the impression that the landing force would be ashore in two days and could dig in and accept air attacks. At the time of the conference to which you refer I expected to remain off Guadalcanal for three days or perhaps four if the landing was delayed.
Callaghan wrote in the conference minutes: “Task Force must withdraw to South from objective area (i.e. general advanced position) within two days after D-Day! [Callaghan’s emphasis]” That he meant three days is confirmed in a message from Ghormley to Fletcher on 2 August: “Am informed you plan to withdraw carrier support from Tulagi prior to Dog plus 3 Day.”22
Three days of carrier support would have been sufficient had events followed the sequence established at Pearl, where War Plans exuberantly imagined unloading the transports and withdrawing them the same day. Turner’s own plans were almost as optimistic. He originally intended to use the Second Marines to occupy Ndeni on D-2 Day but soon proposed postponing the Ndeni phase until late on D+1. The Expeditionary Force would remain together and preserve the chance of achieving surprise during its approach. Turner boldly suggested a “Deceptive and roundabout route so as to arrive at Guadalcanal at the western end of the Island.” Having the Santa Cruz Occupation Force (one heavy cruiser, four destroyers, four transports, and one cargo ship) accompany the rest of the Amphibious Force would permit Vandegrift to augment the assault with one battalion to seize sites peripheral to Tulagi harbor. On the evening of D-Day, after retrieving that battalion, the Santa Cruz force would depart for Ndeni. Turner anticipated landing all other troops by the night of D+1 and withdrawing their transports. “If things go well,” he explained in a 25 July letter to Fletcher, “it seems likely we may be able to send Transport Division Two [with the Second Marines] to the rear [that is, Ndeni] on the night of D-Day, and probably the rest of the transports out on the night of D plus one Day.” Along with the main body of transports would go “about all the Pacific Fleet combatant ships.” That did not include Crutchley’s TF-44. The plan to release the Ndeni force the first night evidently caught Callaghan by surprise. “This sounds too sanguine,” he wrote in his notes, but conceded, “They believe it can be done.”23
Although Turner thought the seventeen transports and APDs and escorts should not need to stay beyond D+1, his 25 July letter posed a hitherto unrecognized problem that doubtless arose from a dose of Vandegrift reality. “The great difficulty is going to be with the five cargo vessels [the sixth was to go to Ndeni] that might take from three to six days to unload [from early as the end of D+2 to the end of D+5].” Nonetheless, “We will need air protection during this entire period.” However, Fletcher “can rest assured that we will get this done as soon as possible.” Two days later at the conference Turner proposed the five cargo ships “be anchored as close as possible to beach” while they off-loaded supplies and gear, and that Crutchley’s TF-44 (and apparently also the minesweepers) remain behind and screen them. He reduced his estimate of their unloading to four days (D+3) but did not specify the basis behind this new optimism.24
Thus Turner expected to withdraw most of the Amphibious Force—the transports and Pacific Fleet cruisers and destroyers—by the evening of the second day, D+1. The smaller component of five cargo ships and Crutchley’s TF-44 would remain at least until D+3, but possibly to D+4 or D+5, that is, three to five days later. Turner insisted they have air cover the whole time. The true question was whether Fletcher should (or even could) park the three carriers off Guadalcanal for an uncertain interval until the five cargo ships unloaded and got clear. He responded to Turner, Vandegrift, and Callaghan that the carriers were only going to remain until the end of D+2, that is, three days. Callaghan recorded that fact in his notes, but the length of time Fletcher committed to keeping the carriers off Guadalcanal quickly became misunderstood. Apparently several participants just recalled the “two” in D+2 and erred in thinking that meant two days instead of three.
It is highly significant that Turner’s post-battle complaints simply lumped all the troop transports in with the cargo ships and cleverly concealed the fact that he once planned to withdraw them separately. He claimed that from the beginning he made it clear to Fletcher and Callaghan that the whole Amphibious Force, not just one portion of it, must stay off Guadalcanal for four or five days, but Fletcher only offered air protection for two days. That particular charge, of course, constituted the heart of the case against Fletcher’s conduct at Guadalcanal. In 1943 Turner informed Adm. Arthur J. Hepburn, who investigated the Savo debacle, how Fletcher “warned” that he “proposed to remain in the area south of Guadalcanal no more than two days.” That was despite Turner’s urgent plea “to remain as long as possible, as I was certain the transports could not unload in two days.” Of course the record shows that up until the afternoon of 8 August (D+1), Turner confidently believed he could unload all the transports in two days. Instead he only worried about the cargo ships. In 1945 he claimed in his Amphibious Force administrative history that at the Saratoga conference Fletcher asked “how many days it would take to land troops,” to which he responded “about five days.” Yet Fletcher “stated that he would leave the vicinity of the Solomons after two days because of danger of air attacks against the carriers, and because of the fuel situation.” If Turner’s account is to be believed, Fletcher showed remarkable prescience by realizing ten days early that several subsequent unforeseen delays in bringing up oil would render the carrier task force short of fuel on 8 August. In fact, Turner all along liberally salted his own recollections with self-serving hindsight. Furthermore, he remarked in his administrative history that Fletcher had vowed, “If the troops could not be landed in two days then they should not be landed,” but “in any case, he would depart at that time.” No one else charged such cowardly callousness. In 1946 Turner complained to Baldwin, “Fletcher announced that he could not or would not stay there any longer than about forty-eight hours after the landing,” but that Turner had “protested and finally said that he more or less had to stay there for at least four days for the ships simply could not be unloaded within forty-eight hours.” Again Turner deliberately failed to differentiate between transport ships and cargo ships. It was said after the war that Rear Adm. Donald Ramsey (former commanding officer of the Hughes and Hepburn’s assistant in the Savo investigation) had claimed that on 27 July Turner privately upbraided Fletcher: “You S.O.B. if you do that [withdraw the carriers] you’re yellow.” Supposedly Callaghan never heard the comment, so Turner himself had to be its ultimate source. Whether Turner ever actually said any such thing to Fletcher is another matter entirely.25
Vandegrift also described Fletcher only agreeing to stay two days. He recalled to Brig. Gen. Samuel B. Griffith that he attempted in vain to get Fletcher to understand that the “permanent lodgment in strength” required “air cover for a minimum of four days” to get the men, their arms, equipment, and supplies “ashore and established.” According to Vandegrift’s memoir:
Suddenly Fletcher interrupted Turner to ask him how long he would take to land my troops on Guadalcanal. Turner told him about five days. Fletcher said he was going to leave the area in two days because he refused to risk air attack against his carriers for a longer period. My Dutch blood was beginning to boil, but I forced myself to remain calm while explaining to Fletcher that the days “of landing a small force and leaving” were over. . . . Although Turner heatedly backed me, Fletcher curtly announced that he would stay until the third day [i.e., through D+1]. With that he dismissed the conference.
Twining, who saw Vandegrift immediately after the conference, described him as “deeply disturbed,” because Fletcher relegated the amphibious offensive to the status of a “raid” that was unlikely to be successful. Hence Fletcher “would not agree to expose his force for more than forty-eight hours” despite, according to Twining, being “pressed sharply and stoutly by Turner.” Fletcher supposedly dismissed Vandegrift’s “concerns about the fate of our amphibious forces, especially the fate of the landing force left ashore.” Again it can be charged there was a healthy measure of hindsight in these recollections.26
A proposed two-day carrier stay, however, appeared in accounts by other carrier leaders. Kinkaid’s memoir stated, “Discussion, for the most part, centered around the air support to be provided by the carriers and around the control of air support in the combat area.” Turner requested air cover for several days until the troops could be established ashore, but, “Fletcher decided that two days of exposure of CVs was all that calculated risk warranted.” Kinkaid had refreshed his memory with Morison and the Naval War College analysis, both of which asserted Fletcher stated the carriers would stay only two days. In 1949, Forrest Sherman recalled that after the Saratoga conference: “I am sure that [Noyes] returned with the understanding that carrier air support would be required only two days. That this was unrealistic is now quite apparent, but we had never conducted such an operation before and had much to learn.” Noyes commented in 1950 that Fletcher “stated that Admirals King and Nimitz had both told him that they did not wish the carriers kept in the vicinity of Guadalcanal longer than two or three days at the most.”27
The most influential historical treatments of Guadalcanal reflect the lack of consensus as to what Fletcher actually said regarding his intended stay off Guadalcanal. According to Morison, Fletcher informed Turner, “He had been ordered not to hold his carrier force within supporting distance of Guadalcanal for more than two days.” He cited no source for such an “order.” Jeter A. Isely and Philip A. Crowl asserted in 1951 that Fletcher proposed staying four days (to D+3, 10 August) but, “Without warning to either Turner or Vandegrift, he began considering an even earlier withdrawal from the zone of conflict.” According to Dyer, Fletcher said he would not “support the Guadalcanal landings for more than two days, that is no later than the morning of Sunday, 9 August 1942,” but again offered no documentary support. A careful historian, Richard Frank postulated that Fletcher at first would only stay two days, but “relented” and promised three days after Turner and Vandegrift expressed their indignation. These historians did not have the benefit of the key documents in the Maas and Pederson papers. Nor did they analyze Turner’s stated intention to withdraw, by the night of D+1, all but the five cargo ships and Crutchley’s TF-44 and assess what effect that declaration might have had on Fletcher’s own thinking.28
Another contentious issue for the conference concerned when fighters could be expected to operate from Lunga airfield and whether the carriers would supply them. Marine doctrine declared “every effort should be made” to have marine aircraft participate in the initial landings, ideally from a carrier devoted “solely for their use.” On 15 July Maas anticipated that Turner would get the local airfields operational as soon as possible for the marine squadrons that Nimitz was furnishing from Hawaii. “Marines thereby may provide their own air protection for the occupying forces.” Two marine squadrons were already in Sopac: VMF-212 (eighteen F4F-3A Wildcats) at Efate and VMO-251 (a marine observation squadron with sixteen F4F-3P Wildcats) at New Caledonia. Cominch also assigned newly formed Marine Air Group (MAG) Twenty-three (thirty-six F4F-4s in VMF-223 and VMF-224 and twenty-four SBD-3 dive bombers in VMSB-231 and VMSB-232). As noted, Nimitz resolved in late June to retain MAG-23 at Pearl until all squadrons were fully equipped and qualified for carrier landings. He assumed he had plenty of time because no airfield in the immediate combat area could be ready to receive planes until at least a week after the landings. By early July, though, it became evident the Lunga airfield neared completion. Had Cincpac felt a sense of urgency, the Enterprise could have embarked the better trained of the two VMF squadrons (and its ground crews) and solved a great dilemma.29
The auxiliary carrier Long Island offered another means of delivering at least part of MAG-23 ready to fly. Again Cincpac saw no reason to hurry. Only on 28 July did he return the Long Island to Pearl after delivering planes to Palmyra. Ghormley assumed the Wasp carried some MAG-23 planes, but on 11 July Nimitz informed him they were still in Hawaii. Instead, “about” 1 August, the Long Island and aircraft transport Hammondsport would start south with MAG-23. On 22 July, though, Nimitz temporized. Now just the Long Island with one VMF squadron and one VMSB squadron would leave Pearl about 1 August, with the rest of MAG-23 to follow two weeks later. However, no marine ground crews could accompany the planes if they flew directly to Guadalcanal from the Long Island, and Sopac had no surplus maintenance personnel.30
Concerned by 21 July the Lunga airfield might be ready even sooner than expected, Turner urged McCain to arrange for VMO-251 and VMF-212 to fly to Guadalcanal as soon as possible after the invasion. “Ammunition, fuel and oil will be furnished by this force.” Two small merchant ships were to deliver aviation supplies to Lunga on D+1 while PBYs ferried in key members of the ground crew. The two MAG-23 VMF squadrons would replace them in their former bases. Turner failed to take note that without belly tanks, neither squadron could fly the 550 miles to Lunga from Espíritu Santo, the nearest airfield. McCain suggested to Fletcher on 27 July that the carriers furnish belly tanks to enable the marine fighters to reach Lunga. Otherwise they all must all await the Long Island. On 28 July Nimitz set 2 August for the Long Island’s departure from Pearl with VMF-223 and VMSB-232. Gear and ground personnel would leave a few days later in the slow transport William Ward Burrows. At 1100 on 13 August (D+6) the Long Island was to be 350 miles east of Guadalcanal and at some later time launch planes to Cactus.31
In light of Fletcher’s stated intention to withdraw prior to D+3 (10 August), McCain proposed a contingency plan. Assuming the Lunga airfield could receive planes within forty-eight hours, Fletcher was to leave one or two VF squadrons, a move McCain conceded was “undesirable from carrier’s point of view.” On D+4 on their way out, the carriers could also deliver belly tanks to Maj. Harold W. Bauer’s VMF-212 Wildcats on Efate. Bauer could take his fighters to Lunga on D+6 and with the Long Island contingent relieve the navy fighters. Ghormley in turn was reluctant to impose restrictive conditions on Fletcher after he and MacArthur specifically warned of the danger to the carriers if they lingered too long off Guadalcanal. On 2 August he radioed Fletcher the essentials of McCain’s proposal. If the Lunga field was ready, Fletcher should consider dropping off two fighting squadrons to stay until D+6, when the belly-tank-equipped Efate fighters could join them. At some point, Ghormley did not specify when, the Long Island was to fly her fighters to Lunga and then “receive carrier planes for subsequent return to carriers.” It must be noted that happy event could not occur on D+6, for the Long Island was too slow to get into ferry range that day. If enemy carriers did show up, Fletcher would not even get his fighters right away, for Ghormley added: “Only on contingency no hostile carriers be detected subsequent to landing your fighters these fighters would be immediately released to you.” Of course it would be when enemy carriers did show that the carriers would really need those Wildcats.32
Dyer dismissed Ghormley’s plan as a carrier “strip-tease.” Even so, Fletcher did check it out. On 3 August when TF-61 passed through the New Hebrides, four F4Fs delivered belly tanks to Efate to see if they could be installed on Bauer’s Wildcats. Maas also dropped in flying a Saratoga SBD. Cincpac reported the Long Island’s capability for handling aircraft. She could land twelve planes in one cycle, but if the first dozen planes were fighters, another twelve planes could also come on board after the first batch was stowed in the hangar. The figure of twenty-four fighters is significant. According to Pederson, Fletcher was “prepared to send 24 VF to base at Guadalcanal if the field was usable.” Major Bauer explained to McCain that installing the belly tanks on the marine F4F-3As would be a ten-day job, even if all fittings were available, which they were not. Instead he hoped the carriers could deliver some F4F-4s for VMF-212 to “fly to the Solomons and use up there until permanent replacements come.” McCain wrote a request to Fletcher that after the invasion he dispatch fourteen carrier F4F-4s with belly tanks to Efate. He could either retrieve their pilots with his own SBDs or let them fly Bauer’s old marine F4F-3As back to the carriers. Maas had already left for the Saratoga, so McCain gave the dispatch to an Enterprise pilot. Somehow its delivery was delayed. Only late on 4 August did Kinkaid learn of it via Captain Davis and forward it to Fletcher. Davis himself advised against trading for the non-folding-wing marine F4F-3As, which Bauer confessed were in “awful shape.” Due to the “number of operating planes aboard now we would definitely not want any more non-folding wing types.”33
Early on 5 August McCain informed Ghormley, Fletcher, and Turner that belly tanks could not be installed on Bauer’s Wildcats. Instead Fletcher should not only leave fighters at Guadalcanal but also fly fourteen more F4F-4s with belly tanks to Efate to allow VMF-212 to reinforce the navy fighters already at Guadalcanal. McCain preferred to retain his marine F4F-3As at Efate and fit them for belly tanks as well. When the Long Island finally did send her load of MAG-23 planes to Lunga, she could recover the navy fighters and ultimately return them to the carriers. Dawn on 5 August found TF-61 already nearly three hundred miles west of Efate and steaming directly away. That was too far to ferry the belly tanks to Efate unless Fletcher scrapped the invasion timetable. That was where the fighter issue rested when the landings began. Fletcher would have to see whether indeed the field at Lunga could actually receive fighters, and if the tactical situation might allow him to leave some there.34
The Watchtower offensive is accurately described as proceeding on a shoestring. Nothing is truer in that respect than Nimitz’s failure to have land-based planes ready to operate from Guadalcanal. Had the Enterprise brought VMF-223, already equipped for belly tanks or even just its F4Fs for others to fly, and left it at Efate or Espíritu Santo, the carriers would not have worried about remaining off Guadalcanal to protect that part of the invasion force that could not swiftly unload and depart. Nor would McCain have had to offer harebrained plans to make up for their lack. Yet the successful deployment of VMF-223 (or other fighters) depended on when the marines actually captured the Lunga airfield, readied it for planes, and furnished the necessary fuel, ammunition, and ground crews.
The conferees discussed the available shore-based air in MacArthur’s Allied Air Forces, Southwest Pacific Area, and McCain’s TF-63 with Sopac. MacArthur’s airmen were to interdict Rabaul and probe north and northeast of New Guinea toward New Britain, the upper Solomons, and east across the Coral Sea and strike naval forces before they could threaten the Expeditionary Force. The new field at Milne Bay, on the east tip of New Guinea, allowed RAAF medium bombers to overfly the Solomons from Buka southeast to New Georgia. B-17 heavy bombers could strike Rabaul. The navy’s original plan depended on preinvasion bomber raids against Rabaul and the auxiliary airfield at Buka, but a strong effort was far beyond the capability of MacArthur’s hard-pressed flyers. Now he agreed only to attack Rabaul from D-Day to D+3 and bomb enemy naval forces if detected within 550 miles of Port Moresby. Ghormley warned Nimitz on 29 July, “U.S. forces under MacArthur are not as strong as I expected,” and charged that Washington did not recognize that weakness.35
Sopac could do nothing about MacArthur’s contribution, vital as it was. McCain’s TF-63 was another matter. His assets, scattered at New Caledonia, Efate, Fiji, and the soon-to-be completed field at Espíritu Santo, comprised three seaplane tenders with thirty PBY flying boats and an equal number of B-17 bombers. The fast, well-armed B-17s hunted eight hundred miles but required long runways. The lumbering PBYs, flying from sheltered inlets, could go out seven hundred miles. Their principal task was to warn of ships advancing southeast from Rabaul, south from Truk, or southwest out of the Marshalls. Most of McCain’s air bases were distant from Guadalcanal, greatly restricting how far his planes could roam beyond the invasion area. Thus he would leapfrog some of his forces to forward positions. Beginning on D-1, PBYs from the tender McFarland at Ndeni would search northeast of the Solomons. On D+1 the Mackinac’s PBYs would move into Malaita, only eighty miles east of Lunga. McCain presented his operations plan to Fletcher and Turner on 27 July. Turner told Hepburn in 1943 that Fletcher had promised in the event McCain did not complete his searches, the carriers would “fill in for short-range scouting, both morning and late afternoon, to protect against the approach of surface forces.” He wrote in 1945 that Fletcher had “agreed to send late in the afternoon of each day [that] the Expeditionary Force was in Guadalcanal[,] scouting planes from the carriers up through the Solomons as far as they could go and return safely before dark.” The conference notes do not reflect this, but it makes perfect sense. Fletcher certainly did not want to be surprised. On 29 July he warned McCain of a possible hole in the search plan northeast of the Solomons. By dawn of D-Day an enemy carrier could slip undetected to within strike range of the invasion forces. Fletcher suggested possible remedies that McCain promised to implement if possible. On 31 July McCain’s amended operations plan stated, “As soon as practicable[,] daily search tenders and bases will report coverage of assigned sector in percentage including delineation of those parts not searched.” That notification was vital if Fletcher must supplement any searches, but as will be seen McCain’s reports would not be timely.36
At the conference McCain promised thirty B-17s, specially fitted for long-range missions, would pummel the invasion areas on 31 July. He would repeat the raids daily until D-1 with up to nine B-17s, but he soon discovered his air offensive was in jeopardy. In truth only nine B-17s actually had the necessary additional fuel tanks. On the twenty-ninth he cautioned Ghormley that he could only attack on the thirty-first, “With as many of these planes now so equipped.” Only rapid progress on the Espíritu Santo airfield, where a B-17 landed successfully on 29 July, got McCain out of a real jam. Beginning on 31 July TF-63 opened a series of modest air strikes against Tulagi and Guadalcanal that kept the equally modest Japanese forces there off balance.37
In 1963 Fletcher explained to Dyer, “[Turner] and I spent most of our time picking on Dan Callaghan because of the poor logistics situation,” especially fuel oil. Ghormley wrote Nimitz on 29 July that of Sopac’s many problems, “The big one right now is fuel,” and on 2 August, “It is nip and tuck on oil.” It is worthwhile examining the state of Sopac’s fuel supply, which became such a contentious issue in the early withdrawal of the carriers from Guadalcanal. On 27 July the Cimarron gave some oil to the North Carolina, which had hurried out of Tongatabu before fully fueling. Fletcher also intended the Cimarron to fuel TF-11 on 28 July and the next day tender the last of her oil to the rest of TF-16. He counted on the Platte to refuel TF-18 on 29 July after she returned from Nouméa with oil from the chartered tanker W. C. Yeager. Three more tankers were thought to be nearing the area. The Kaskaskia was due at Suva on 31 July with a convoy from Pearl, which included the San Francisco and destroyer Laffey for Noyes and the transport Zeilin and cargo ship Betelgeuse urgently required by Turner. Likewise the second installment of West Coast chartered tankers, the Esso Little Rock and E. J. Henry, was to reach Nouméa on 2 August.38
Because TF-61 and TF-62 would no longer pass near Nouméa on their approach to the Solomons, the oil coming in from the West Coast was needed instead at Fiji and Efate. On 27 July Fletcher recommended to Callaghan that one incoming chartered tanker be diverted to Fiji to refill fleet oilers and the other proceed directly to Efate to fuel destroyers. Once the Cimarron was empty, he sent her to Nouméa to secure the balance of the W. C. Yeager’s oil and that of the RAN auxiliary oiler Bishopdale (total ninety thousand barrels) and rejoin TF-61 off Efate. He also asked that the Kanawha and the ammunition ship Rainier advance from Tongatabu to meet TF-62 on 30 July in the Fiji group. Turner likewise requested the Kaskaskia, Zeilin, and Betelgeuse from the Pearl convoy join him there that same day instead of continuing to Suva. Ghormley concurred and issued the necessary orders on 28 July. They rerouted the E. J. Henry to arrive 1 August at Suva and the Esso Little Rock at Efate on the second. By that time the Cimarron, with the last of Nouméa’s oil, should already have found TF-61 at Efate, and the refilled Platte and Kaskaskia “presumably” would have left for Nouméa, where they would wait until summoned.39
Callaghan had queried Fletcher and Turner whether in light of the enemy buildup D-Day might be advanced. Both “strongly and earnestly” said no, citing “fueling difficulties” and the need to conduct rehearsals in Fiji. “Much argument” ensued “at this point,” Callaghan wrote Ghormley, “but [they] reiterated [their] recommendation.” That was especially telling, for Ghormley had reason to believe Japan “will commence some operations on 29 July from New Britain area.” He questioned whether Fletcher could dispense with phase one, the rehearsal, and start the invasions early. Fletcher responded on 28 July, via a message flown to Suva, that “irrespective of value exercise of phase one this force will be short estimated more than fifty thousand barrels after emptying Platte and Cimarron on 31 July.” It was “imperative that ships depart [Fiji] area fully fueled and that they be topped off enroute from Kaskaskia and Cimarron.” Clearly Fletcher (and Turner) now expected the Kaskaskia to join the task force off Fiji instead of continuing to Nouméa. As will be shown that did not occur. For his own part Turner agreed D-Day could not be advanced. “This force urgently requires full preparation period. State of readiness of force lower than expected. Strongly advise no change in plan.”40
On 28–30 July Fletcher’s three carriers marked time south of Fiji while Turner conducted three days of landing rehearsals. The carriers only participated on the last day to test the draft air plan, flying simulated strikes against the training area forty to fifty miles north. In the meantime Fletcher attended to logistics and refined his plans. TF-11 spent much of the twenty-eighth drawing oil from the Cimarron. The next day was Kinkaid’s turn, but there was not enough oil for the North Carolina. The Cimarron and a destroyer then left to secure the rest of Nouméa’s supply and catch up with TF-61 at Efate during the run to the Solomons. The Platte likewise reappeared on 29 July with her load of Nouméa fuel and tended to Noyes’s TF-18. She reserved the last of her oil for TF-62, which also got some fuel from the Kanawha. Turner certainly counted on the Kaskaskia for more oil on the way to the objective, but on 29 July Ghormley cautioned that her convoy was now twenty-five hours behind schedule. He directed Turner to set a new rendezvous for 31 July. That delay was still acceptable, because Turner did not intend to leave Koro until late that day. On 30 July Comsopac told him to release the Kanawha to Suva to refill from the E. J. Henry but to hold the Platte and Rainier and forward both with escort to Nouméa. Advancing the empty Platte to where oil was no longer available did not make much sense, but Fletcher and Turner could accept that action if the Kaskaskia appeared by 1 August and the chartered tanker Esso Little Rock reached Efate the next day as planned. They would be sorely disappointed on both scores.41
King stressed to Ghormley the “utmost importance” of not postponing D-Day beyond 7 August. He even hoped “this date may be anticipated, if possible, in order that enemy not be given time to perfect installations now under construction in objective areas for use against us.” Ghormley assured him on 30 July, “Every effort has been and is being made to comply for reasons you have indicated.” Early on 2 August he told Fletcher that on 3 August he would announce the seventh as Dog-Day, “Unless you previously inform me impossible to meet that date.” Receiving no objection, Ghormley did so. The time for preparation rapidly neared its end. The fight to reclaim the Solomons was about to begin.42
