108 Guadalcanal, After the Battle, AFTER THE BATTLE
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
//-->battleafter the08GUADALCANAL9 770306 154073£3.10Number 108NUMBER 108Editor-in-Chief: Winston G. RamseyEditor: Karel MargryPublished byBattle of Britain International Ltd.,Church House, Church Street,London E15 3JA, EnglandTelephone: (020) 8534 8833Fax: (020) 8555 7567E-mail: (afterthebattle@mcmail.com)Web site: (www.afterthebattle.mcmail.com)Printed in Great Britain byTrafford Print Colour Ltd.,Shaw Wood Way, Doncaster DN2 5TB.© Copyright 2000After the Battleis published on the 15thof February, May, August and November.United Kingdom Newsagent Distribution:Lakeside Publishing Services Ltd, Unit 1D,Tideway Industrial Estate, Kirtling Street,London SW8 5BPUnited States Distribution and Subscriptions:RZM Imports, PO Box 995, Southbury, CT, 06488Telephone: 1-203-264-0774Toll Free: 1-800-661-6136Website: (www.rzm.com)Canadian Distribution and Subscriptions:Vanwell Publishing Ltd., PO Box 2131,1 Northrup Crescent,St. Catharines, Ontario L2R 7S2.Telephone: (905) 937 3100 Fax: (905) 937 1760E-mail: (sales@vanwell.com)Australian Subscriptions and Back Issues:Technical Book and Magazine Company, Pty, Ltd.,295 Swanston Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3000.Telephone: 03 9 663 3951 Fax: 03 9 663 2094E-mail: (info@techbooks.com.au)New Zealand Distribution:Dal McGuirk’s “MILITARY ARCHIVE”, P.O. Box 24486,Royal Oak, Auckland 1030 New Zealand.Telephone: 021 627 870 Fax: 9-6252817E-mail: (milrchiv@mist.co.nz)Italian Distribution:Tuttostoria, Casella Postale 395, 1-43100 Parma.Telephone: 0521 292 733, Telex 532274 EDIALB IDutch Language Edition:Quo Vadis, Postbus 3121, 3760 DC Soest.Telephone: 035 6018641GUADALCANALGuadalcanal — a little-known island in the South Pacific — rose to sudden promi-nence in 1942. The six-month campaign for its possession — a series of savage land,air and naval clashes — was the turning point of the war in the Pacific.Guadalcanal forms part of the Solomons,an island chain extending over 900 milesthrough the South Pacific Ocean betweenNew Guinea and the New Hebrides north-east of Australia. The largest of the six majorislands, Guadalcanal is generally mountain-ous, most of the island being covered bydense jungle, deep ravines and grassy hill-tops, with the northern foothills descendingto a coastal plain. The climate is tropical,with high temperatures, humidity and rain-fall. The native islanders are mostly Melane-sians. Before 1942, the only white men on theisland were a few district officers and civilservants, missionaries, planters and traders.A British protectorate since 1893, theSolomons were governed from Tulagi, asmaller island 20 miles north of Guadalcanal.Imperial Japan began invading theSolomons in March 1942, seizing the islandsvirtually without opposition. Tulagi was occu-pied on May 3, the Japanese taking over theseaplane harbour there, and a firstexploratory force landed on Guadalcanal onMay 28. By July, the island had been occupiedby the 81st and 84th Garrison Units and the11th and 13th Naval Construction Battalions.The Japanese immediately began to build anairfield on the coastal plain east of the Lungariver. The new base would serve to protecttheir flank for the New Guinea campaign,support the advance towards New Caledoniaand Fiji, and disrupt the supply lines betweenthe United States and Australia.Faced with the continued Japanese expan-sion and growing build-up in the Solomons,the American Joint Chiefs-of-Staff, after con-siderable debate, issued a directive on July 2ordering the seizure of New Guinea, New Ire-land and New Britain. As a first stage, Admi-ral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in ChiefPacific Ocean Areas, was ordered to capturethe Santa Cruz Islands, Tulagi and ‘adjacentareas’ (which included Guadalcanal). Theamphibious assault would be the first USoffensive of the war. Nimitz passed the missionto Vice-Admiral Richard L. Ghormley, theCommander South Pacific Area.CONTENTSGUADALCANALGuadalcanal today224PACIFICRecovery of Missing Makin Raiders 39WRECK DISCOVERYBattle over MaltaREADERS’ INVESTIGATIONSNatzweiler-StruthofConcentration Camp4252Front cover:The rusting remains of the JapanesetransportKyusyu Maru,wrecked here at Domabeach on Guadalcanal in October 1942; cut up byscrap dealers in the 1960s — see page 13. (PeterFlahavin)Centre Pages:Guadalcanal pot-pourri.Clockwise:Japanese 75mm AA gun at Henderson Airport;relics at Vilu; Japanese 105mm gun; 8-ton Type 92Bartillery tractor (David Green); Henderson tower andEdson’s Ridge Memorial; F4F Wildcat; Amtracdump at Tetere beach; wreckage on Red Beach;Japanese 105mm at Honiara; 1st Marine Divisionplaque at Henderson (Peter Flahavin).Centre:TheAmerican Skyline Ridge Memorial. (David Green)Back cover:Recovery and repatriation of mem-bers of the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion killed onMakin Island in August 1942 and subsequentlyburied in an unmarked mass grave.Acknowledgements:The Editor would like to thankEarl Bushong and Bill Belcher of the Central Identi-fication Laboratory Hawaii for their help with theMakin Recovery story. We are also indebted to RitaKramer for allowing us to include the extract onpages 50-55 from her bookFlames in the Fieldpub-lished by Penguin Books, 1995 (pages 11-17).Reproduced by permission of the author.Photo Credits:IWM — Imperial War Museum,London; USNA — National Archives, Washington.2GUADALCANALThe task of capturing the islands was givento the 1st Marine Division, commanded byMajor General Alexander A. Vandegrift.When Vandegrift received his orders fromGhormley in Auckland, New Zealand, onJune 26, his division was scattered through-out the Pacific: the 5th Marine Regiment hadrecently arrived in Wellington, NewZealand; the 7th Marines was stationed inSamoa, and the 1st Marines with most of thedivision’s equipment was still in transitbetween the US and New Zealand. D-Daywas set for August 1, which left only fiveweeks for planning and preparation.The undertaking, code-named Operation‘Watchtower’, was organised hurriedly andwith much improvisation. Intelligence infor-mation on the target islands was very scarceand good maps practically non-existent. Esti-mates of enemy strength were inaccurate.There was a shortage of landing ships. Logis-tical preparations were hampered becausecivilian dock workers in Wellington harbourrefused work under what they deemed unac-ceptable winter conditions, forcing themarines to work in eight-hour shifts unload-ing, sorting, and reloading their own supplies.On July 10, the date of the assault was post-poned to August 7, but requests for furtherpostponement were turned down. Doggedly,Vandegrift and his staff worked on solvingtheir many problems. Plans were made,orders drawn up. To make up for the 7thMarines, Vandegrift was given the 2ndMarine Regiment (of the 2nd Marine Divi-sion), then still in San Diego harbour. He alsogot the 3rd Marine Defense Battalion,equipped with heavy AA and coastal defenceguns, which was to come from Pearl Harbor.Despite the chaotic preparation, the inva-sion fleet sailed as ordered. The 82 ships ofthe expeditionary force (Task Force 61),commanded by Vice Admiral Frank J.Fletcher, sub-divided into an AmphibiousForce (under Rear Admiral Richmond K.Turner) — which included the 1st MarineDivision, their 22 troop and cargo transports,and a number of cruisers and destroyers asescort and shore-fire support — and an AirSupport Force (under Rear Admiral LeighNoyes) which was built around the three air-craft carriersSaratoga, EnterpriseandWasp,and the battleshipNorth Carolina.The forcecomprised what was in effect the greater partAbove:The US 1st Marine Division landed on Guadalcanal on August 7, 1942, comingashore on Red Beach, a 1,500-yards stretch of shore located about four miles to the eastof where the Japanese were building their airstrip. The landings were unopposed, butproblems developed later in the day when the shore parties could not handle theamount of supplies coming in. This picture gives a good illustration of the small numberof men assigned to handle the supplies being delivered by the landing craft and pontoonbarges. The LCPL (Landing Craft Personnel, Large) closest to the camera originates fromtroop transport ship AP35, theAmerican Legion,which brought in Regimental HQ andthe 1st Battalion of the 5th Marines. (USNA)Below:The same beach today.of the US Navy in the Pacific. Steaming frompoints as widely separated as Wellington,Sydney, Noumea and Pearl Harbor, the forceunits met on July 26 at a rendezvous nearKoro Island, south-east of Fiji. Rehearsallandings at Koro, conducted between July28-31, were a complete failure, which didnothing to raise optimism about the opera-tion. Regrouping, the invasion fleet set sailfor the Solomons. Luck was with them, forthe Japanese failed to spot the armada. Atdaylight on August 7, the ships of the FireSupport Groups began bombarding theshores of Guadalcanal and Tulagi, while air-craft from the three carriers (which hadtaken up position south of Guadalcanal)sank Japanese float planes at their moorings.The American counter-offensive in thePacific had begun.At 0909 hours, the US 1st Marine Divisionwent ashore on Red Beach on the northcoast of Guadalcanal, some four miles to theBy Karel Margryeast of where the Japanese were buildingtheir airfield. The 5th Marines (minus the2nd Battalion), led by Colonel LeRoy P.Hunt, landed first, with two battalionsabreast, followed by the 1st Marines underColonel Clifton B. Cates. The landings wereunopposed.At 1115, the 1st Marines began advancingas planned south-west towards MountAusten (1,514 ft), the dominating feature onthe island. They had been led to believe thatit was some two miles inland, whereas in factit was about four. By nightfall, the regimentwas only about halfway to its objective, soVandegrift told it to dig in for the night. At1330, he had ordered the 1st Battalion, 5thMarines, to advance westwards along thebeach towards the Ilu river (Alligator Creek)and dig in there for the night.3Left:The main objective of the invasion, in fact the sole reasonfor the whole Guadalcanal campaign, was the airfield on theLunga plain, soon to become known as Henderson Field. Begunby the Japanese in May 1942, the nearly finished 2,600-feet-longairstrip was captured by the marines on D+1, and General Van-degrift immediately ordered its completion. The Marine engi-neers and pioneers had been able to land only one bulldozer, sothey mobilised the equipment left behind by the Japanese: sixroad rollers, four generators, six trucks, two gasoline-poweredlocomotives pulling hopper carts, some 50 handcarts and 75hand shovels, and a quantity of explosives. There was a gap of180 feet in the centre of the field and the engineers moved 6,700cubic feet of earth from a nearby hill to fill it. By August 18, theyMeanwhile, back at the beach, the situa-tion had become chaotic. Not enough menhad been detailed for unloading suppliesand, as the day wore on, stores began pilingup on the beach, with numerous boats await-ing their turn to be unloaded. By late eveningthe situation was out of hand, and Vandegriftwas forced to call a halt to more suppliescoming from the ships.That same day, August 7, the adjacentislands north of Guadalcanal were invaded.Company B, 2nd Marines, landed on FloridaIsland, which they found had been evacuatedby the Japanese. The 1st Marine Raider Bat-talion and the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines,assaulted Tulagi; and the 1st Marine Para-chute Battalion came ashore at the twin isletsof Gavutu and Tanambogo. The Japanesedefenders fought heroically and to the bitterend, but by the evening of the 8th resistanceon both Tulagi and Gavutu-Tanambogo hadbeen overcome. The Japanese had 700 menkilled, the Americans 144.On Guadalcanal, the second day had seena good American advance. The 5th Marines,supported by the 1st Tank Battalion, crossedthe mouth of the Ilu river and, encounteringonly a few Japanese, began advancing alongthe coast. Crossing the Lunga river over themain bridge, they reached Kukum village,where they captured large quantities ofabandoned food and matériel. Meanwhile,the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, had reachedand captured the unfinished Japaneseairstrip. The Japanese had fled to west of theMatanikau river.Despite this success, General Vandegrifthad cause for worry. In planning the opera-tion, he had counted on at least four days ofair and sea support by the Navy’s aircraftcarriers and ships. However, even before thelanding, Admiral Fletcher had made it clearthat he intended to land troops and supplies,and then leave as soon as possible. Now, withthe Japanese having launched several airstrikes against his fleet off Guadalcanal, withhis fighter strength down from 99 to 78 air-craft, and fuel supplies reputedly low,Fletcher requested and got permission fromGhormley to withdraw his carriers. Only amixed Australian/American group of sixcruisers and six destroyers under commandof Australian Rear-Admiral Victor Crutch-ley was to remain behind. It was a decisionthat has been bitterly controversial eversince, because it left the amphibious forcepractically without air cover.4had extended the runway to 3,778 feet. The very first Americanaircraft to land on Henderson Field, on August 12, was the PBYCatalina flying boat pictured here. It was in fact the personalaircraft of Rear Admiral John S. McCain, the commander ofTask Force 63, who controlled all water- and land-based aircraftin Operation ‘Watchtower’. The PBY was flown by McCain’saide, Lieutenant W. S. Simpson, who had come to inspect thejust-finished airstrip. After declaring the field fit for fighters,Simpson took off again, taking two wounded men out. (USNA)Right:Looking south across the present-day runway in January1999. Peter Flahavin, our photographer from Australia, got per-mission from the airport manager to go out on the tarmac for30 minutes to take his airfield comparisons.Henderson’s most famous building — the Pagoda. Originally built by the Japanese ona rise just north of the runway, it was quickly taken over by the Americans who usedit as a flight operations centre. It was an unwritten law that the seats on the left werefor officers and those on the right for other ranks. The officer standing on the far leftis Major Joe Remmer, and seated in the centre on the right, without shirt, is SergeantAubrey Buser. (USNA)A tree has sprung up on Pagoda Hill to stand in for the vanished building.Above:Looking across the runway towards the Pagoda. Thefamiliar landmark building would not survive the campaign. OnOctober 14, following the devastating Japanese shelling andbombardment of the airfield, Brigadier General Roy S. Geiger,During the night of August 8/9 a Japanesenaval force of five heavy and two light cruis-ers and a destroyer under Vice-AdmiralGunichi Mikawa, sent to attack the Alliedtransports off Guadalcanal, managed toapproach the island undetected and, in whatbecame known as the Battle of Savo Island,cripple one Australian and one Americancruiser and sink three others. They were thefirst ships to go down in ‘Ironbottom Sound’,as the straits around Savo soon came to becalled. It was one of the most disastrousdefeats ever suffered by the US Navy.Mikawa got away safe, but failed to attackthe now defenceless Allied cargo ships lyingat anchor off Guadalcanal. However, facedwith this débâcle, and deprived of his carrieraircraft protection, Admiral Turner was leftno choice but to withdraw all transport shipsfrom Guadalcanal — a serious blow to Van-degrift, since about half the supplies had yetto be unloaded. Thus, late on August 9 thefleet steamed away, leaving the marines ontheir own.the commander of the 1st Marine Air Wing on Guadalcanal,ordered the Pagoda bulldozed flat because he suspected theJapanese used it as a fire registration point. (USNA)Below:Looking towards Pagoda Hill from the runway today.The 1st Marine Division settled down todefend the vital airfield, establishing an ovalperimeter around it. Some six miles long andless than two miles deep, it stretched fromjust across the Lunga river in the east to theIlu river (which the Americans mistakenlycalled the Tenaru, confusing it with the nextriver) in the west. Working around the clock,and using captured Japanese equipment, themarines improved the airstrip — now named‘Henderson Field’ (after Major Lofton Hen-derson, a pilot killed in the Battle of Mid-way) — to receive the first American aircrafton August 12.To replace the Pagoda, a wooden control tower was built laterin 1942. By November 1942, when this picture was taken, Hen-derson’s runway had been graded to 5,400 feet, 3,500 of whichwas surfaced with Marston metal matting. The aircraft taxiingpast the tower is a SBD-3 Dauntless dive-bomber. (USNA)Although all the Solomons tourist brochures claim that thepresent tower is the original 1942 one, our comparison provesthat this is not the case. The present steel tower was con-structed in June 1943 by USAAF engineers to replace thewooden one, so it is a wartime original, but nottheoriginal.5
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]