The Project Gutenberg EBook of Top of the Ladder: Marine Operations in the Northern Solomons, by John C. Chapin This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: Top of the Ladder: Marine Operations in the Northern Solomons Author: John C. Chapin Release Date: April 27, 2015 [EBook #48808] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOP OF THE LADDER *** Produced by Brian Coe, Charlie Howard, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Transcriber's note: Table of Contents added by Transcriber and placed into the Public Domain. Contents Top of the Ladder: Marine Operations in the Northern Solomons SIDEBAR: Major General Allen H. Turnage, USMC Planning the Operation SIDEBAR: 3d Marine Division Diversionary Landings SIDEBAR: The Coastwatchers Battle at Sea Action Ashore: Koromokina SIDEBAR: 37th Infantry Division The Battle for Piva Trail SIDEBAR: War Dogs The Coconut Grove Battle SIDEBAR: Navajo Code Talkers SIDEBAR: ‘Corpsman!’ Piva Forks Battle Hand Grenade Hill The Koiari Raid Hellzapoppin Ridge Epilogue Bougainville Finale Sources About the Author About this series of pamphlets Transcriber’s Notes TOP OF THE LADDER: MARINE OPERATIONS IN THE NORTHERN SOLOMONS MARINES IN WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES BY CAPTAIN JOHN C. CHAPIN U.S. MARINE CORPS RESERVE (RET) Riflemen clad in camouflage dungarees await the lowering of their landing craft from George Clymer (APA 27) for their dash to the beaches in their amphibious assault landing on Bougainville. (National Archives Photo 80-G- 55810) A Raiders, up to their hips in water, man a machine gun along a jungle trail. Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 70764 Top of the Ladder: Marine Operations in the Northern Solomons by Captain John C. Chapin, USMCR (Ret) ssault landings began for the men in the blackness of the early hours of the morning. On 1 November 1943, the troops of the 3d Marine Division were awakened before 0400, went to General Quarters at 0500, ate a tense breakfast, and then stood by for the decisive command, “Land the Landing Force.” All around them the preinvasion bombardment thundered, as the accompanying destroyers poured their 5-inch shells into the target areas, and spotters in aircraft helped to adjust the fire. As the sun rose on a bright, clear day, the word came at 0710 for the first LCVPs (Landing Craft, Vehicle and Personnel) to pull away from their transport ships and head for the shore, a 5,000-yard run across Empress Augusta Bay to the beaches of an island called Bougainville. Almost 7,500 Marines were entering their LCVPs (with Coast Guard crew and coxswains) for an assault on 12 color-coded beaches. Eleven of these extended west from Cape Torokina for 8,000 yards to the Koromokina Lagoon. The 12th was on Puruata Island just offshore from the beaches. The six beaches on the right were assigned to Colonel George W. McHenry’s 3d Marines and Lieutenant Colonel Alan Shapley’s 2d Raider Regiment (less one battalion). The five on the left and Puruata Island were the objectives of Colonel Edward A. Craig’s 9th Marines and Lieutenant Colonel Fred D. Bean’s 3d Raider Battalion. Bougainville As the men headed for shore, 31 Marine torpedo and scout bombers, covered by fighters, came screaming in from their base at Munda, bombing and strafing to give the beaches a final plastering. At 0726, the first wave touched ground, four minutes ahead of the official H-Hour. As the other waves came in, it was immediately apparent that there was serious trouble in two ways. A high surf was tossing the LCVPs and LCMs (Landing Craft, Medium) around, and they were landing on the wrong beaches, broaching, and smashing into each other in the big waves. By the middle of the morning, 64 LCVPs and 22 LCMs were hulks littering the beaches. Three of the designated beaches had to be abandoned as unusable. Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 62751 Marine riflemen keep their heads down as they get closer to the assault beach on D-Day. Major Donald M. Schmuck, commanding a company in the 3d Marines, later recalled how, in the “mad confusion” of the beachhead, his company was landed in the midst of heavy gunfire in the middle of another battalion’s zone on the beach of Torokina. Running his company on the double through the other battalion and the 2d Raiders’ zone across inlets and swamp, Major Schmuck got his men to the right flank of his own battalion where they were to have landed originally. His surprised battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Hector de Zayas, stared at the bedraggled new arrivals exclaiming, “Where have you been?” Major Schmuck pointed back to Cape Torokina and replied, “Ask the Navy!” As seen from a beached landing craft, these Marines are under fire while wading in the last few yards to the beach. The other trouble came from the Japanese defenders. While the 9th Marines on the left landed unopposed, the 3d Marines on the right met fierce opposition, a deadly crossfire of machine gun and artillery fire. One Japanese 75mm gun, sited on Cape Torokina, was sending heavy enfilade fire against the incoming landing waves. It smashed 14 boats and caused many casualties. The boat group commander’s craft took a direct hit, causing the following boat waves to become disorganized and confused. Machine gun and rifle fire, 1 2 Department of Defense Photo (USMC) Sgt Robert A. Owens was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. with 90mm mortar bursts added, covered the shoreline. Companies landed in the wrong places. Dense underbrush, coming right down to the beaches, shrouded the defenders in their 25 bunkers and numerous rifle pits. The commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, 3d Marines, Major Leonard M. “Spike” Mason, was wounded and had to be evacuated, but not before he shouted to his men, “Get the hell in there and fight!” Nearby, the executive officer of the 2d Raider Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph J. McCaffery, was directing an assault when he was severely wounded. He died that night. In spite of the chaos, the intensive training of the Marines took hold. Individuals and small groups moved in to assault the enemy, reducing bunker after bunker, dropping grenades down their ventilators. For an hour, the situation was in doubt. The fierce combat led to a wry comment by one captain, Henry Applington II, comparing “steak and eggs served on white tablecloths by stewards ... and three and a half hours and a short boat ride later ... rolling in a ditch trying to kill another human being with a knife.” The devastating fire from the 75mm cannon on Cape Torokina was finally silenced when Sergeant Robert A. Owens, crept up to its bunker, and although wounded, charged in and killed the gun crew and the occupants of the bunker before he himself was killed. A posthumous Medal of Honor was awarded to him for this heroic action which was so crucial to the landing. Meanwhile, on Puruata Island, just offshore of the landing beaches, the noise was intense; a well-dug-in contingent of Japanese offered stiff resistance to a reinforced company of the 3d Battalion, 2d Raiders. It was midafternoon of D plus one before the defenders in pill boxes, rifle pits, and trees were subdued, and then some of them got away to fight another day. A two-pronged sweep and mop- up by the raiders on D plus 2 found 29 enemy dead of the 70 Japanese estimated to have been on that little island. The raiders lost five killed and 32 wounded. An hour after the landings on the main beaches a traditional Marine signal was flashed from shore to the command and staff still afloat, “Situation well in hand.” This achievement of the riflemen came in spite of the ineffective prelanding fire of the destroyers. The men in front-line combat found that none of the 25 enemy bunkers on the right-hand beaches had been hit. Some of the naval bombardment had begun at a range of over seven miles, and the official Marine history summarized, “The gunfire plan ... had accomplished nothing.” On a beach, rifles pointing toward the enemy, Marines get ready to fight their way inland. Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 69782 Unloading supplies and getting them in usable order on the chaotic beaches was a major problem. Seabees, sailors, and Marines all turned to the task, with 40 percent of the entire landing force laboring as the shore party. They sweated 6,500 tons of supplies ashore. THE LANDING AT CAPE TOROKINA I MARINE AMPHIBIOUS CORPS 1 NOVEMBER 1943 Yellow beaches for cargo unloading during assault phase Simultaneously, the batteries of the 12th Marines were struggling to get their artillery pieces ashore and set to fire. One battery, in support of the 2d Raider Battalion, waded through a lagoon to find firing positions. Amtracs (amphibian tractors), supplemented by rubber boats, were used to ferry the men and ammunition to the beaches. The 90mm antiaircraft guns of the 3d Defense Battalion were also brought ashore early to defend against the anticipated air attacks. The Japanese had been quick to respond to this concentration of American ships. Before the first assault boats had hit the beach, a large flight of enemy carrier planes was on its way to attack the Marines and their supporting ships. New Zealand and Marine fighters met them in the air and the covering destroyers put up a hail of antiaircraft fire, while the transports and cargo ships took evasive action. Successive Japanese flights were beaten off; 26 enemy planes were shot down. THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 1943 The men in the rifle battalions long remembered the sight. On one occasion, a Marine Corsair was about to pull the trigger on an enemy Zeke (“Zero”) fighter set up perfectly in the pilot’s sights when a burst of fire from Marine .50-caliber machine guns on the beach, meant for the Zeke, shot the American down. One of the riflemen later recalled that the Marine pilot fell into the ocean and surfaced with a broken leg. “We waded out to get him. He was ticked off—mostly because he missed the Jap.” In spite of all these problems, the assault battalions had, by the end of D-Day, reached their objectives on the Initial Beachhead 3 4 5 Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 61899 LtGen Alexander A. Vandegrift was an early commander of IMAC. Photo courtesy of Cyril J. O’Brien LtGen Haruyoshi Hyakutake, commanded the Japanese forces on Bougainville. Line, 600–1,000 yards inland. One enormous unexpected obstacle, however, had now become painfully clear. Available maps were nearly useless, and a large, almost impenetrable swamp, with water three to six feet deep, lay right behind the beaches and made movement inland and lateral contact among the Marine units impossible. The night of D-Day was typical for the ground troops. By 1800, darkness had set in and the men all knew the iron-clad rule: be in your foxhole and stay there. Anyone moving around out there was a Japanese soldier trying to infiltrate. John A. Monks, Jr., quoted a Marine in his book, A Ribbon and a Star: From seven o’clock in the evening till dawn, with only centipedes and lizards and scorpions and mosquitoes begging to get acquainted—wet, cold, exhausted, but unable to sleep—you lay there and shivered and thought and hated and prayed. But you stayed there. You didn’t cough, you didn’t snore, you changed your position with the least amount of noise. For it was still great to be alive. At sea, the transports and cargo ships were withdrawn; there was intelligence that enemy naval forces were on the move. A [Sidebar (page 5):] Major General Allen H. Turnage, USMC llen Hal Turnage was born in Farmville, North Carolina, on 3 January 1891. After attending Horner Military Academy and then the University of North Carolina, at age 22 he was appointed a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps. Sent to Haiti, he served with the 2d Marine Regiment from 1915 to 1918, becoming a company commander in the Haitian Gendarmerie. A captain in 1917, Turnage did get to France where he commanded the 5th Marine Brigade Machine Gun Battalion. Home in 1919, he was assigned to the 5th Marines at Quantico and became regimental adjutant and an instructor for the first Field Officers School, 1920–22. A major in 1927, Turnage had three years with the Pacific fleet, and then he served with the U.S. Electoral Mission in Nicaragua (1932). He came back to Washington, made lieutenant colonel in 1934 and full colonel in 1939. He was director of the Basic School at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, and, in the spring of 1939, he was sent to China to head Marine forces in North China. In summer of 1941, on the eve of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he returned to Headquarters in Washington. In 1942, as a brigadier general, he commanded the burgeoning Marine Base and Training Center at New River, North Carolina. When the 3d Marine Division was formed in September 1942, he was named assistant division commander. In the summer of 1943 Turnage was promoted to major general and selected to head the division. He then led the division on Bougainville and in the liberation of Guam, the first American territory to be recaptured from the enemy. After the war, he was appointed Assistant Commandant, followed by promotion to lieutenant general and command of FMFPac (Fleet Marine Force, Pacific). He retired 1 January 1948, and died 22 October 1971. His awards included the Navy Cross, the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, and the Presidential Unit Citation (which his men received for both Guam and Iwo Jima). Planning the Operation This kind of strong enemy reaction, in the air and at sea, had been expected by American staff officers who had put in long weeks planning the Bougainville operation. Looking at a map of the Solomon Islands chain, it was obvious that this largest island (130 by 30 miles) on the northwest end was a prime objective to cap the long and painful progress northward from the springboard of Guadalcanal at the south end. As Guadalcanal had been the beginning of the island chain, so now Bougainville would mark the top of the ladder in the Northern Solomons. From Bougainville airfields, American planes could neutralize the crucial Japanese base of Rabaul less than 250 miles away on New Britain. From Bougainville, the enemy could defend his massive air-naval complex at Rabaul. “Viewed from either camp, the island was a priority possession.” 6 LtCol Victor H. Krulak was commander of the Choiseul operation. Department of Defense Photo (USMC) There were the usual sequences of high level planning conferences, but, on 1 October 1943, Admiral William F. Halsey, Commander, South Pacific Area, notified General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Allied Commander, Southwest Pacific Area, that the beaches on Empress Augusta Bay in the middle of Bougainville’s west coast would be the main objective. This location was selected as the point to strike because with the main Japanese forces 25 miles away at the opposite north and south ends of the island, it would be the point of least opposition. In addition, it provided a natural defensive region once the Marines had landed and their airfields had been gouged out of the swamp and jungle. Finally, the target area would provide a site for a long-range radar installation and an advanced naval base for PT (patrol torpedo) boats. It promised to be a campaign in a miserable location. And it was. There were centipedes three fingers wide, butterflies as big as little birds, thick and nearly impenetrable jungles, bottomless mangrove swamps, crocodile infested rivers, millions of insects, and heavy daily torrents of rain with enervating humidity. Major General Allen H. Turnage, the 3d Marine Division commander, summarized these horrors. “Never had men in the Marine Corps had to fight and maintain themselves over such difficult terrain as was encountered on Bougainville.” To carry out this operation, Lieutenant General Alexander A. Vandegrift, Commanding General, I Marine Amphibious Corps (IMAC),A had in his command for the operation: 3d Marine Division 1st Marine Parachute Regiment 2d Marine Raider Regiment 37th Infantry Division, USA (in reserve) A Gen Vandegrift, 1st Marine Division commander on Guadalcanal, relieved MajGen Clayton B. Vogel as IMAC commander in July 1943. He in turn was relieved as IMAC commander by MajGen Charles D. Barrett on 27 September. Gen Vandegrift was on his way home to Washington to become 18th Commandant of the Marine Corps when, on the sudden death of Gen Barrett on 8 October, he was recalled to the Pacific to resume command of IMAC and lead it in the Bougainville operation. He, in turn, was relieved by MajGen Roy S. Geiger on 9 November. The Marine riflemen in these units were supplemented by a wide range of support: 155mm artillery; motor transport; amphibian tractor; and signal, medical, special weapons, Seabee, and tank battalions. The 3d Division had its own engineers and pioneers in the 19th Marines and artillery in the 12th Marines. Immediately following Vandegrift’s operation order, practice landing exercises were conducted in the New Hebrides and on Guadalcanal and Florida Islands. TREASURY ISLANDS LANDINGS I MARINE AMPHIBIOUS CORPS 27 OCTOBER 1943 The objectives assigned on Bougainville were to seize a substantial beachhead and build airstrips. Then American planes could assure final neutralization of the Japanese airfields at Kahili, Buka, and Bonis airfields at the north and south ends of Bougainville. (By 31 October, American planes had initially rendered the Japanese fields inoperable.) After that would come a massive increase in air operations against Rabaul. Facing the invading Marines was a formidable enemy force dispersed on the island. At Buin, for instance, there were 21,800 Japanese. Responsible for the defense was an old adversary, Lieutenant General Haruyoshi Hyakutake, commander of the Seventeenth Army, and the man the Marines had defeated at Guadalcanal. His main force was the 6th Division. Working with the ground U. S. forces were the aviators of Air Solomons: New Zealand fighters, Army Air Force bombers, and the 1st and 2d Marine Aircraft Wings. As early as 15 August fighter planes from VMF-214 (the famous Black Sheep squadron) had strafed the Kahili airfield at the southern end of Bougainville. Now, in October, there were repeated strikes against the Japanese planes at other Bougainville airfields. At sea, Halsey had designated Rear Admiral Theodore S. Wilkinson as commander of Task Force 31. Under him were Rear Admiral Frederick C. Sherman with the carriers (TF 38) and Rear Admiral Aaron S. “Tip” Merrill with the cruisers and destroyers (TF 39). Their job was to soften up the defenders before the landing and to safeguard the Marine-held beachhead. 7 8 W [Sidebar (page 8):] 3d Marine Division ith Japan’s initial conquests spread over vast reaches of the Pacific, it quickly became obvious that additional Marine divisions were sorely needed. Accordingly, a letter from the Commandant on 29 August 1942 authorized the formation of the 3d Marine Division. There was the 3d Marines, which had been activated first on 20 December 1916 at Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. Deactivated in August 1922, the regiment was again brought to life on 16 June 1942 at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and strengthened by boots from Parris Island. Its commander, Colonel Oscar R. Cauldwell, soon led to it to Samoa, arriving there in September 1942. Intensive training in jungle tactics and practice landings took place there. Then, in March 1943, it received a substantial number of reinforcing units and became a full-fledged regimental combat team, beefing up its strength to 5,600. Finally, in May 1943, it sailed for New Zealand, where the 3d Marine Division would come together. Also with World War I roots, the 9th Marines was born 20 November 1917 at Quantico, Virginia, and was sent to Cuba. From there it moved to Texas, before being deactivated at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in April 1919. Reactivated on 12 February 1942 at Camp Elliott, California, under Colonel Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr., it underwent training at the new Camp Pendleton. Similarly reinforced, by 1 January 1943 it was ready as a regimental combat team with 5,500 men. Movement overseas brought it to New Zealand on 5 February 1943. The third infantry regiment that would make up the division was the 21st Marines. It was formed from a cadre of well-trained men from the 6th Marines, who had just returned from duty in Iceland. Arriving at Camp Lejeune on 15 July 1942, the cadre was augmented by boots from Parris Island and officers from Quantico. Colonel Daniel E. Campbell assumed command and the training began. Moving to join the other elements, the regiment arrived in New Zealand 11 March 1943. The reinforcing of the infantry regiments to make them into self-sustaining regimental combat teams drew heavily on their two complementary regiments: the 12th Marines and the 19th Marines. The 12th Marines was a salty old unit, led by Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler in China in the 1920s. It’s antecedent was a small provisional contingent sent to protect American interests in China and designated the 12th Regiment (infantry), 4 October 1927. The 12th was reactivated at Camp Elliott on 1 September 1942 for World War II as an artillery regiment under command of Colonel John B. Wilson. Concluding its training, the regiment arrived in New Zealand on 11 March 1943. The 19th Marines was different. It was made up of Seabees, engineers, bakers, piledrivers, pioneers, paving specialists, and many old timers from the 25th Naval Construction Battalion at the U.S. Naval Advance Base, Port Hueneme, California. It, too, was formed at Camp Elliott and its birthday was 16 September 1942. This was the regiment with pontoons for bridges, power plants, photographic darkrooms, bulldozers, excavators, needles, thread, and water purification machinery. No landing force would dare take an island without them. Colonel Robert M. Montague took command of the unit in New Zealand on 11 March 1943. The division’s first commander was Major General Charles D. Barrett, a veteran of World War I. He assumed command in September 1942, but left a year later to take charge of IMAC and the planning for the Bougainville operation. His assistant division commander had been Brigadier General Allen H. Turnage, and, upon Barrett’s death, he was promoted to major general and given command of the division which he would soon lead at Bougainville. Diversionary Landings There was another key element in the American plan: diversion. To mislead the enemy on the real objective, Bougainville, the IMAC operations order on 15 October directed the 8th Brigade Group of the 3d New Zealand Division to land on the Treasury Islands, 75 miles southeast of Empress Augusta Bay. There, on 27 October, the New Zealanders, under Brigadier R. A. Row, with 1,900 Marine support troops, went ashore on two small islands. One was named Mono and the other Sterling. Mono is about four miles wide, north to south, and seven miles long. It looks like a pancake. Sterling, shaped like a hook, is four miles long, narrow in places to 300 yards, but with plenty of room on its margins for airstrips. In a drizzly overcast, the 29th NZ Battalion (Lieutenant Colonel F. L. H. Davis) and the 36th (Lieutenant Colonel K. B. McKenzie-Muirson) hit Mono at Falami Point, and the 34th (under Lieutenant Colonel R. J. Eyre) struck the beach of Sterling Island off Blanche Harbor. There was light opposition. Help for the assault troops came from LCI (landing craft, infantry) gunboats which knocked out at least one deadly Japanese 40mm twin-mount gun and a couple of enemy bunkers. A simultaneous landing was then made on the opposite or north side of Mono Island at Soanotalu. This was perhaps the most important landing of all, for there New Zealand soldiers, American Seabees, and U.S. radar specialists would set up a big long-range radar station. The Japanese soon reacted to the Soanotalu landing and hurled themselves against the perimeter. On one occasion, 80–90 Japanese attacked 50 New Zealanders who waited until they saw “the whites of their eyes.” They killed 40 of the Japanese and dispersed the rest. There was unexpected machine gunfire at Sterling. One Seabee bulldozer operator attacked the machine gun with his big blade. An Army corporal, a medic, said he couldn’t believe it, “The Seabee ran his dozer over and over the machine gun nest until everything was quiet.... It all began to stink after a couple of days.” Outmanned, the Japanese drew back to higher ground, were hunted down, and killed. Surrender was still not in their book. On 12 November, the New Zealanders could call the Treasuries their own with the radar station in operation. Japanese dead totaled 205, and the brigade took only eight prisoners. The operation had secured the seaside flank of Bougainville, and very soon on Sterling there was an airfield. It began to operate against enemy forces on Bougainville on Christmas Day, 1943. A second diversion, east of the Treasury Islands and 45 miles from Bougainville, took place on Choiseul Island. Sub-Lieutenant C. W. Seton, Royal Australian Navy and coastwatcher on Choiseul, said the Japanese there appeared worried. The garrison troops were shooting at their own shadows, perhaps because American and Australian patrols had been criss-crossing the 80-miles-long (20- miles-wide) island since September, scouting out the Japanese positions. There were also some 3,500 transient enemy troops on Choiseul, bivouacked and waiting to be shipped the 45 miles north to Buin on Bougainville, where there was already a major Japanese garrison force. Uncertainty about the American threat of invasion somewhere was enough to make the Japanese, especially Vice Admiral Jinichi Kusaka, Commander, Southeast Area Fleet, at Rabaul jittery. It was he who wanted much of the Japanese Seventeenth Army concentrated at Buin, for, he thought, the Allies might strike there. General Vandegrift wanted to be sure that the Japanese were focused on Buin. So, on 20 October, he called in Lieutenant Colonel Robert H. Williams, commanding the 1st Parachute Regiment, and Lieutenant Colonel Victor H. Krulak, commanding its 2d Battalion. Get ashore on Choiseul, the general ordered, and stir up the biggest commotion possible, “Make sure they think the invasion has commenced....” It was a most unusual raid, 656 men, a handful of native guides, and an Australian coastwatcher with a road map. The Navy took Krulak’s reinforced battalion of parachutists to a beach site near a hamlet called Voza. That would be the CP (command post) location for the duration. The troops slipped ashore on 28 October at 0021 and soon had all their gear concealed in the bush. By daylight, the Marines had established a base on a high jungle plateau in the Voza area. The Japanese soon spotted the intruders, sent a few fighter planes to rake the beach, but that did no harm. They did not see the four small landing craft which Krulak had brought along and hidden among some mangroves with their Navy crews on call. Krulak then outlined two targets. Eight miles south from their CP at Voza there was a large enemy barge base near the Vagara River. The Australian said some 150 Japanese were there. The other objective was an enemy outpost in the opposite direction, 17 miles north on the Warrior River. Then Krulak took his operations officer, Major Tolson A. Smoak, 17 men, and a few natives as scouts, and headed for the barge basin. On the way, 10 unlucky Japanese were encountered unloading a barge. The Marines opened fire, killing seven of them and sinking the barge. After reconnoitering the main objective, the barge basin, the patrol returned to Voza. The following morning, Krulak sent a patrol near the barge basin to the Vagara River for security and then to wave in his small landing craft bringing up his troops to attack. But, back at Voza, along came a flight of American planes which shot up the Marines and sank one of their vital boats. Now Krulak’s attack would have to walk to the village of Sangigai by the Japanese barge basin. To soften up Sangigai, Krulak called in 26 fighters escorting 12 torpedo bombers. They dropped two tons of bombs and it looked for all the world like a real invasion. Krulak then sent a company to attack the basin from the beach, and another company with rifles, machine guns, rockets, and mortars to get behind the barge center. It was a pincer and it worked. The Marines attacked at 1400 on 30 October. What the battle didn’t destroy, the Marines blew up. The Japanese lost 72 dead; the Marines, 4 killed and 12 wounded. All was not so well in the other direction. Major Warner T. Bigger, Krulak’s executive officer, had been sent north with 87 Marines toward the big emplacement on Choiseul Bay near the Warrior River. His mission was to destroy, first the emplacement, with Guppy Island, just off shore and fat with supplies, as his secondary target. Bigger got to the Warrior River, but his landing craft became stuck in the shallows, so he brought them to a nearby cove, hid them in the jungle, and proceeded on foot north to Choiseul Bay. Soon his scouts said that they were lost. It was late in the day so Bigger bivouacked for the night. He sent a patrol back to the Warrior where it found a Japanese force. Slipping stealthily by them, the patrol got back to Voza. This led Krulak to call for fighter cover and PT boats to try to get up and withdraw Bigger. But Bigger didn’t know he was in trouble, and he went ahead and blasted Guppy island with mortars, because he couldn’t get to the main enemy emplacement. When Bigger and his men barely got back to the Warrior River, there were no rescue boats, but there were plenty of Japanese. As the men waited tensely, the rescue boats came at the last moment, the very last. Thankfully, the men scrambled on board under enemy fire. Then two PT boats arrived, gun blazing, and provided cover so Bigger’s patrol could get back to Voza. One of the PT boats was commanded by Lieutenant John F. Kennedy, USN, later the President of the United States, who took 55 Marines on board when their escape boat sank. 9 10 CHOISEUL DIVERSION 2d PARACHUTE BATTALION 28 OCTOBER–3 NOVEMBER 1943 Krulak had already used up all his time and luck. The Japanese were now on top of him, their commanders particularly chagrined that they had been fooled, for the big landing had already occurred at Empress Augusta Bay. Krulak had to get out; Coastwatcher Seton said there was not much time. On the night of 3 November, three LCIs rendezvoused off Voza. Krulak gave all his rations to the natives as the Marines boarded the LCIs. They could hear their mines and booby traps exploding to delay the Japanese. Within hours after the departure, a strong Japanese pincer snapped shut around the Voza encampment, but the Marines had gone, having suffered 9 killed, 15 wounded, and 2 missing, but leaving at least 143 enemy dead on Choiseul. I [Sidebar (page 9):] The Coastwatchers t was on Bougainville, as well as on other islands of the Solomons chain, that the Australian coastwatchers played their most decisive role in transmitting vital advance warnings to Allied forces in the lower Solomon Islands. Japanese war planes and ships summoned in urgency to smash the beachhead at Guadalcanal had to pass over Bougainville, the big island in the middle of the route from Rabaul. Paul Mason, short, bespectacled, soft spoken, held an aerie in the south mountains over Buin, and dark, wiry W. J. “Jack” Read watched the ship and aircraft movements of the Japanese in and around Buka in the north. One memorable Mason wireless dispatch: “Twenty-five torpedo bombers headed yours.” The message cost the Japanese Imperial Navy every one of those airplanes, save one. Read reported a dozen or so Japanese transports assembling at Buka before their trip to Guadalcanal, with enough troops loaded on board to take the island back. All of the transports were lost or beached under the fierce attack of U.S. warplanes. In 1941, as the war with Japan commenced, there were 100 coastwatchers in the Solomons. There were 10 times that number as the war ended, later including Americans. Assembled first as a tight group of island veterans in 1939 (although there had been coastwatchers after World War I) under Lieutenant Commander A. Eric Feldt, Royal Australian Navy, their job was to cover about a half million miles of land, sea, and air. The very first moves of the Japanese on Guadalcanal were observed by coastwatchers in the surrounding hills. The coastwatchers could count the Japanese hammer strokes, almost see the nails. When the Japanese began the airfield (later to be called Henderson Field), the report of the coastwatchers went all the way up the American Joint Chiefs of Staff and across the desk of Admiral Ernest J. King, Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Fleet. Later, General Alexander A. Vandegrift on Guadalcanal banked heavily on the intelligence coming in from the radios of the coastwatchers. The attacks on the Treasuries and Choiseul were based on the information provided them. On New Georgia, long before Americans decided to take it, a coastwatcher had set up a haven for downed Allied pilots. And if the Americans needed a captured Japanese officer or soldier for interrogation, the local scouts were often able to provide one. The key to coastwatching was the tele-radio or wireless, good to 600 miles by key, 400 by voice. Cumbersome, heavy, the set took more than a dozen men to carry it—an indication of how much the Allies depended upon the local natives. The risks were great. Death would come after torture. But Mason recalled the risk was worth it, seeing the sleek, orderly formations heading for Guadalcanal, then limping back home with gaping holes in their hulls. Mason and Read were highly decorated by both the Australians and Americans for their vital services. Battle at Sea A final part of the planning for the main landing on Bougainville had envisioned the certainty of a Japanese naval sortie to attack the invasion transports. It came very early on the morning of D plus 1. On the enemy side, Japanese destroyer Captain Tameichi Hara, skipper of the Shigure, later recalled it was cold, drizzly, and murky, with very limited visibility as his destroyer pulled out of Simpson Harbor, Rabaul. He was a part of the interception force determined to chew up the U.S. invasion troops that had just landed at 11 Empress Augusta Bay. The Shigure was one of the six destroyers in the van of the assigned element of the Southeast Area Fleet, which included the heavy cruisers Myoko and Haguro, together with the light cruisers Agano and Sendai. At 0027, 2 November 1943, he would run abreast of U.S. Task Force 39 under Rear Admiral Merrill, who stood by to bar the enemy approach with four light cruisers and eight destroyers. Among his captains was the daring and determined Arleigh Burke on board the Charles S. Ausburne (DD 570) commanding DesDiv (Destroyer Division) 45. This encounter was crucial to the Bougainville campaign. At Rabaul, Rear Admiral Matsuji Ijuin had told his sailors, “Japan will topple if Bougainville falls.” At 0250, the American ships were in action. Captain Burke (later to become Chief of Naval Operations) closed in on the nearest of the enemy force under Vice Admiral Sentaro Omori. Burke’s destroyers fired 25 torpedoes, and then Merrill maneuvered his cruiser to avoid the expected “Long Lance” torpedo response of the Japanese and to put his ships in position to fire with their six-inch guns. “I shuddered,” Hara wrote later, “at the realization that they must have already released their torpedoes. The initiative was in the hands of the enemy. In an instant, I yelled two orders: ‘Launch torpedoes! Hard right rudder.’” Not a single Japanese or American torpedo found its mark in the first exchange. Merrill then brought all his guns to bear. The Japanese answered in kind. The Japanese eight-inch gun salvos were either short or ahead. The Americans were luckier. One shell of their first broadside slammed amidships into the cruiser Sendai which carried Admiral Ijuin. There was frantic maneuvering to avoid shells, with giant warships, yards apart at times, cutting at speeds of 30 knots. Still Sendai managed to avoid eight American torpedoes, even with her rudder jammed. Then a Japanese torpedo caught the U.S. destroyer Foote (DD 511) and blew off her stern, leaving her dead in the water. Samuel Eliot Morison in Breaking the Bismarck Barrier, tells how “Merrill maneuvered his cruisers so smartly and kept them at such range that no enemy torpedoes could hit.” Admiral Omori showed the same skill and judgement, but he was a blind man. Only the American had radar. Hara afterwards explained, “Japan did not see the enemy, failed to size up the enemy and failed to locate it.... The Japanese fleet was a blind man swinging a stick against a seeing opponent. The Japanese fleet had no advantage at all....” What Japan had lacked in electronic sight, however, it partially made up with its super-brilliant airplane-dropped flares and naval gunfire star shells. Commander Charles H. Pollow, USN, a former radio officer on the Denver (CL 58), recalled the “unblinking star shells that would let you read the fine print in the bible....” The Japanese also had a range advantage in their eight-inch guns, “Sometimes we couldn’t touch them....” Three shells hit his Denver—not one detonated, but the ship was damaged. Columbia (CL 56) also took an eight-inch hole through her armor plate. Then Merrill confused the enemy ships with smoke so dense that the Japanese believed the Americans were heading one way when they were in fact steaming in another direction. But before Admiral Omori could break away, Burke and his destroyer division of “Little Beavers” was in among them. First the Sendai was sent to the bottom with 335 men, then Hatsukaze, brushed in an accident with Myoko, was finished off by Burke’s destroyers and sank with all hands on board—240 men. Damaged were the cruisers Haguro, Myoko, and destroyers Shiratsuyu and Samidare. But, most important, the threat to the beachhead had been stopped. The Americans got off with severe damage to the Foote and light damage to the Denver, Spence (DD 512), and Columbia. Hara later wrote, “had they pursued us really hot[ly] ... practically all the Japanese ships would have perished.” The Americans had left the fight too soon. And Admiral Ijuin’s prediction that Japan would topple after the loss of Bougainville proved to be accurate, but not because of this loss, particularly. It was just one of the number of defeats which were to doom Japan. Action Ashore: Koromokina Back on Bougainville, following the landing, the days D plus 1 to D plus 5 saw the initiation of Phase II of the operation, involving shifting of units’ positions, reorganizing the shambles of supplies, incessant patrols, road building, the beginning of the construction of a fighter airstrip, and the deepening of the beachhead to 2,000 yards. JAPANESE COUNTERLANDING LARUMA RIVER AREA 7 NOVEMBER 1943 Then, at dawn on the morning of 7 November (D plus 6), the Japanese struck. Four of their destroyers put ashore 475 men well west of the Marine perimeter, between the Laruma River and the Koromokina Lagoon. They landed in 21 craft: barges, ramped landing boats, even a motor boat, but, to their disadvantage, along too wide a front for coordinating and organizing a strike in unison and immediately. A Marine Corps combat correspondent, Sergeant Cyril J. O’Brien, saw the skinny young Japanese who scampered up the beach with 80-pound packs two-and-a-half miles from the Laruma to near the Koromokina, left flank of the Marines, to join their 12 Sgt Herbert J. Thomas was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. Department of Defense (USMC) 302918 Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 12756 PFC Henry Gurke was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. comrades. They were eager enough, even to die. A little prayer often in the pockets of the dead voiced the fatalistic wish that “whether I float a corpse under the waters, or sink beneath the grasses of the mountainside, I willingly die for the Emperor.” The first few Japanese ashore near the Laruma, however, did not die. An antitank platoon with the 9th Marines did not fire because the landing craft in the mist looked so much like their own, even to the big white numbers on the prow. Near Koromokina, they seemed to be all over the beach. One outpost platoon, which included Private First Class John F. Perella, 19 years old, was cut off on the beach. Perella swam through the surf 1,000 yards to Marine lines and came with a Navy rescue boat and earned a Silver Star Medal. Lieutenant Colonel Walter Asmuth, Jr., commanding officer of the 3d Battalion, 9th Marines, ordered a company attack, called on mortars and the artillery of the 12th Marines. The Japanese were well equipped with the so-called knee mortars (actually grenade launchers) and Nambu machine guns and fought back fiercely. In that jungle, you could not see, hear, or smell a man five feet away. Private First Class Challis L. Still found a faint trail and settled his machine gun beside it. An ambush was easy. The lead Japanese were close enough to touch when Still opened up. He killed 30 in the column; he was a recipient of the Silver Star Medal. Yet, the Japanese didn’t give way. Ashore only hours, they had already dug strong defenses. Even a Marine double envelopment in water, sometimes up to the waist, did not work. By 1315, the weakened 9th Marines company was relieved by the 1st Battalion, 3d Marines, coming in from the beachhead’s right flank. During darkness on that night of 7 November, enemy infiltrators got through to the hospital. Bullets ripped through tents as surgeons performed operations. The doctors of the 3d Medical Battalion, under Commander Robert R. Callaway, were protected by a makeshift line of cooks, bakers, and stretcher bearers. (As a memorable statistic, less than one percent died of wounds on Bougainville after having arrived at a field hospital.) The 1st Battalion was close to the enemy, close enough to exchange shouts. The Japanese yelled “Moline you die” ... and the Marines made earthy references to Premier Tojo’s diet. Marine Captain Gordon Warner was fluent in Japanese, so he could quickly reply to the Japanese, even yell believable orders for a bayonet charge. He received the Navy Cross for destroying machine gun nests with a helmet full of hand grenades. He lost a leg in the battle. Sergeant Herbert J. Thomas gave his life near the Koromokina. His platoon was forced prone by machine gunfire, and Thomas threw a grenade to silence the weapon. The grenade rebounded from jungle vines and the young West Virginian smothered it with his body. He posthumously was awarded the Medal of Honor. General Turnage saw that reinforcements were needed. The day before (6 November) the first echelon of the 21st Marines had come ashore. Now the battle command was transferred to Lieutenant Colonel Ernest W. Fry, Jr., of the 1st Battalion. With two companies, he was set for a counterattack, but not until after two intense saturations of the Japanese positions by mortars and five batteries of artillery. They slammed into a concentrated area, 300 yards wide and 600 deep, early on 8 November. Light tanks then moved in to support the attack. When Colonel Fry’s advancing companies reached the area where the Japanese had been, there was stillness, desolation, ploughed earth, and uprooted trees. Combat correspondent Alvin Josephy wrote of men hanging in trees, “Some lay crumpled and twisted beside their shattered weapons, some covered by chunks of jagged logs and jungle earth, [by] a blasted bunker....” In that no-man’s land, Colonel Fry and his men walked over and around the bodies of over 250 enemy soldiers. To complete the annihilation of the Japanese landing force, Marine dive bombers from Munda bombed and strafed the survivors on 9 November. By now, the veteran 148th Infantry, the first unit of the Army’s 37th Infantry Division, was coming ashore, seasoned in the Munda campaign on New Georgia. Later, to take over the left flank of the beachhead, would come its other infantry regiments, the 129th on 13 November and the 145th on 19 November. The Army’s 135th, 136th, and 140th Field Artillery came ashore, too, and would be invaluable in supporting later advances on the right flank. Major General Robert S. Beightler, USA, was division commander. 14 C Major General Robert S. Beightler, USA [Sidebar (page 13):] 37th Infantry Division alled the “Buckeye” Division, the 37th was among the very first American troops sent to the Pacific at the beginning of the war. The 37th was an outfit with a long history and many battle streamers, dating from August 1917, when it was formed at Camp Sheridan, Alabama. It left for overseas in 1918, and took part in five major operations in France before returning in 1919, and facing demobilization that same year. As an Ohio National Guard unit, the “Buckeye” Division was inducted into federal service in 1940, and by June of 1942, it was heading into the Pacific war, sent to garrison the Fiji Islands. First combat was on New Georgia, which included taking the critical Munda airfield. The 37th joined the 3d Marine Division on Bougainville, and then trained on the island for the campaign on Luzon Island in the Philippines. Landing with the Sixth Army at Lingayen Gulf, 9 January 1945, the 37th raced inland to Clark Field and Fort Stotsenburg. It entered Manila, and its commander, Major General Robert S. Beightler, accepted the surrender of General Tomoyuki Yamashita. Next came the capture of Baguio and liberation there of 1,300 internees at the Bilibid Prison. The division came home for demobilization in November 1945. Its commander, Major General Beightler, was born 21 March 1892, and enlisted in the U.S. Army as a private in 1911. Promoted quickly to corporal, sergeant, and then first sergeant of his company, he was then commissioned as a second lieutenant in March 1914. After service on the Mexican border, he took part in five major campaigns in World War I with the famous 42d (Rainbow) Division. A graduate of Ohio State University, Beightler finished first in his class in the Reserve Officers’ Course of the Command and General Staff School, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1926. After that he served as a member of the War Plans Division of the War Department General Staff (1932–36). After World War II, he assumed command of the Fifth Service Command at Fort Hayes, Ohio, and then was assigned (1947) to the Personnel Board of the Secretary of War. In 1949, he was sent to the Far East and took over the Marianas-Bonins Command on Guam. In 1950 he was named Deputy Governor of the Ryukyus Command on Okinawa. Major General Beightler received the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation’s second highest honor, for his leadership in the Philippine campaign, as well as a Distinguished Service Medal for the New Georgia operation, with an Oak Leaf Cluster as a second award for his outstanding service on Bougainville and then on Luzon in the Philippine Islands. He also wore the Legion of Merit with Oak Leaf Cluster, the Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster, the Silver Star Medal, and the Purple Heart. He died 12 February 1978. The Battle for Piva Trail BATTLE FOR PIVA TRAIL 2d RAIDER REGIMENT 8–9 NOVEMBER Captain Conrad M. Fowler, a company commander in the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, later recalled how an attack down the trails was expected: “They had to come our way to meet us face-to-face. The trails were the only way overland through that rainforest.” His company would be there to meet them. He was awarded a Silver Star Medal. Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 52622 MajGen Roy S. Geiger assumed command of IMAC on 9 November 1943. COCONUT GROVE 2d BATTALION, 21st MARINES 13–14 NOVEMBER With just such a Japanese attack anticipated, General Turnage had dispatched a company of the 2d Raider Regiment up the Mission (Piva) trail on D-Day to set up a road block—just up from the old Buretoni Catholic Mission (still in operation today). At first the raiders had little business, and by 4 November elements of the 9th Marines had arrived to join them. The enemy, the 23rd Infantry up from Buin, struck on 7 November. Their attack was timed to coincide with the Koromokina landings. The raiders held, but “the woods were full of Japs, dead.... The most we had to do was bury them.” At this point General Turnage told Colonel Edward A. Craig, commanding officer of the 9th Marines, to clear the way ahead and advance to the junction of the Piva and Numa-Numa trails. That mission Craig gave to the 2d Raider Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel Alan B. Shapley. The actual attack would be led by Lieutenant Colonel Fred D. Beans, 3d Raider Battalion, just in from Puruata Island and would include elements of the 9th Marines and weapons companies. The Japanese didn’t wait for a Marine attack; they...