Challenge for the Pacific

it would not succeed.¹³ Then, Admiral Fletcher turned on Admiral Turner and angrily accused him of “instigating” the Solomons invasion.¹⁴ Unimpressed by Turner’s indignant denial, Fletcher interrupted him to ask, “How many days will it take to unload the troops?”

“Five,” Turner replied.

Fletcher shook his head stubbornly. Two days, he said, were quite enough. He would not risk his carriers any longer.

Vandegrift struggled to control himself. He tried to explain that this was no mere “hit-and-run” operation. This was an expedition to take and to hold fortified enemy islands. He, Vandegrift, commanded a heavily reinforced division. There was going to be a fight. His Marines would need air cover. Even five days of air cover was scarcely sufficient. Two was suicidal.

Admiral Turner agreed, with heat and with force.

Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher shook his head. He was leaving with his carriers on the third day.

“The conference is dismissed,” he said curtly.

The commanders arose. With them was Vice-Admiral Daniel Callaghan, chief of staff to Admiral Ghormley. He had been present at the entire conference and had taken notes on what was said.

But he represented the admiral who commanded the entire Area, as well as this first American counteroffensive, and he never said a word.

Two days later the First Marine Division attempted to practice landings on the beaches of Koro Island. In full battle gear, the men scrambled down the cargo nets into waiting Higgins boats to form in a circle, then to go monotonously circling, circling, circling, and to sail back to their ships and clamber back up the nets to return to their holds.

The maneuvers were a fiasco. Sharp offshore coral prevented many boats from landing on the designated beaches, other boats broke down, the naval gunfire was inaccurate and the dive-bombers missed their targets.

But Admiral Turner and General Vandegrift, who had begun to respect each other and who were both optimists in battle, agreed that at least the defects had shown up early and there would be time to rectify them. A poor rehearsal, they said, means a good show.

On the last day of July there was frustration of an entirely different order. Marine officers from Wellington had flown in and they brought with them copies of the July 4 edition of the Wellington Dominion, which said:

HOPE OF COMING U.S. THRUST

South Pacific Marines

INTENSIFIED RAIDS IN NORTH

(Received July 3, 7 P.M.)

New York, July 2.

Operations to seize Japanese-held bases, such as Rabaul, Wake Island and Tulagi, are advocated by the military writer of the New York Herald Tribune, Major Eliot. One of the signs which suggest that the [Allies] may be getting ready to capitalize on the naval advantage gained on the Coral Sea and Midway battles is the recent American bombing of Wake Island, he says. The other signs include the intensified raids on the Timor and New Guinea areas.

“…What is needed is to drive the Japanese out of their positions and convert them to our own use. The only way to take positions such as Rabaul, Wake Island, and Tulagi, is to land troops to take physical possession of them.”

The newspaper [New York Times] adds: “It may also be significant that the censor passed the news of the arrival of the completely equipped expeditionary force of American Marines at a South Pacific port recently, as Marines are not usually sent to bases where action is not expected.”

Nor were Marines allowed to mention so much as a bathing suit in their letters home, so strict was their Division’s security; and yet the chief of censors had presumed to permit newspapers to publish their whereabouts, and columnists had not scrupled to pinpoint their destination, for both the Japanese and the people down under found the name Tulagi synonymous with Solomon Islands. The disclosure was not treachery, of course, it was only stupidity—which is sometimes more destructive. Filled with futile fury, the Marines could only curse the caprice of the free press they would soon be defending.

That evening the sun sank into the sea ahead of them like a dull red disk.

“Looks like a Jap meatball,” said Private Lew Juergens, one of the Marines aboard Elliott.

“It’s symbolic,” the young private called Lucky said sententiously. “It’s the setting of the Rising Sun.”

“Ah, shaddap,” Juergens growled. “Trouble with you, Lucky, you read too many books.”¹⁵

Then the ships upped anchor and sailed away.

CHAPTER FIVE

LIEUTENANT GENERAL HARUYOSHI HYAKUTAKE arrived at Rabaul on July 24, and was immediately greeted by good news from New Guinea. Troops landed at Buna had pressed into the Owen Stanleys to scout for passable mountain trails and had reported finding the Kokoda Track.

This little-known and little-used trail ran from Buna to Kokoda, a small mountain plateau on which the Allies had built an airfield, and from Kokoda to a 6000-foot mountain pass penetrating the otherwise impenetrable Owen Stanleys. On the very day of Hyakutake’s arrival, his forward elements had invested Kokoda. Within the next few days they captured the airfield from an outnumbered force of Australians and on July 29 decisively defeated an enemy counterattack.

It seemed to Haruyoshi Hyakutake that he might try to invest Moresby from both sea and land. He would send more troops to strike along the Buna-Kokoda-Moresby axis, and mount a fresh seaborne invasion.

On July 30 Vice-Admiral Gunichi Mikawa sailed into Simpson Harbor aboard Chokai, and the next day he met with Hyakutake and agreed to the new plan. Ships from Mikawa’s Eighth Fleet and planes of the 25th Air Flotilla would support the seaborne phase. Some air squadrons now based in New Guinea would be recalled to Rabaul.

Nothing was said of Guadalcanal. General Hyakutake—in fact, the entire Japanese Army—was ignorant of the fact that the Japanese Navy had begun to build an airfield there. General Hyakutake had absolutely no fear of any sizable American counterattack—in the Southern Solomons or anywhere else. For this, he could not be blamed. The Army did not know of the Navy’s disastrous defeat at Midway. The generals believed the Navy’s falsified claims of victory. Even General Hideki Tojo, the Prime Minister of Japan, though aware of the defeat, did not know the details.¹

Admiral Mikawa did not inform General Hyakutake of the truth about Midway. The Navy could not lose face before the Army. So Hyakutake, Mikawa, and Admiral Nishizo Tsukahara, commander of Eleventh Air Fleet, signed an Army-Navy Central Agreement covering the outer South Seas Area. The Navy would continue to be responsible for the defense of the Solomons. General Hyakutake was now free to concentrate on Port Moresby.

It was August 2 and Saburo Sakai and eight of his comrades were flying over Buna at 12,000 feet when Saburo saw five moving specks against the seaward clouds. Flying Fortresses! Here was Saburo’s chance, the chance of all of them to show that a direct, nose-on attack could destroy the American bomber that had become the Japanese fighter pilot’s scourge.

Saburo flew his Zero alongside the plane of Lieutenant Sasai. He pointed to the Forts. Sasai nodded. He raised his right hand and rocked his wings. The nine Zeros broke V formation and formed in column. Nine emergency fuel tanks went tumbling through the air. Sakai, Nishizawa, Ota, Yonekawa, Hatori, Endo—all of Japan’s