It was the ancient Japanese battle oath and the modern national anthem, and the men of the Ichiki Detachment chanted it while boarding ship at Truk. They had come there from Guam, for Colonel Ichiki had moved with customary speed. Now, August 16, he took nine hundred men aboard six fast destroyers and sailed south. Colonel Ichiki was going to land at Taivu Point, about twenty-two air miles east of the Tenaru River, at midnight of August 18. Simultaneously, about 250 men of a Naval Landing Force would land west of the Americans as a distraction. The remainder of Colonel Ichiki’s force—about 1500 troops—would follow in slower ships.
Colonel Ichiki’s orders from General Hyakutake were: “…quickly recapture and maintain the airfields at Guadalcanal. If this is not possible, this detachment will occupy a part of Guadalcanal and await the arrival of troops in its rear.” Ichiki, of course, contemplated no such waiting period. He was eager to close with the enemy and his military mustache fairly bristled with the ardor of his yearning. Though he was a trained infantry officer with a high reputation among his colleagues, Ichiki was also fond of what the Japanese call “bamboo-spear” tactics. He believed that Japanese “spiritual power” was ultimately invincible. He made sure that his men read the battle instruction, which said: “When you encounter the enemy after landing, regard yourself as an avenger come at last face to face with his father’s murderer. The discomforts of the long sea voyage and the rigors of the sweltering march have been but months of watching and waiting for the moment when you slay this enemy. Here before you is the man whose death will lighten your heart of its burden of brooding anger. If you fail to destroy him utterly you can never rest at peace. And the first blow is the vital blow.”8
Colonel Kiyono Ichiki was going to deliver that first blow.
Archer Vandegrift was both heartened and uneasy. He was encouraged because Admiral McCain had begun to send supplies in. On August 15 destroyer-transports
The best and proper solution, of course, is to get fighters and dive-bombers onto your field.
General Vandegrift was therefore sure, on the afternoon of August 15, that he would soon have the vital air cover that he now needed more than ever, for Naval intelligence had sent word of something big brewing up north, and on that very day Japanese transports had dropped containers, meant for their countrymen west of Kukum, within Marine lines. Inside one of the cylinders was the ominous message: “Help is on the way! Banzai!”
The following day, as Vandegrift quickly learned, the destroyer
Worse, there were now reports of an enemy build-up to the east. A patrol east of the Tenaru had encountered an American missionary, a priest named Father Arthur Duhamel, who spoke of an increase in Japanese numbers. This fact had been confirmed by the young coastwatcher, Clemens, who came to Vandegrift’s headquarters to put himself at the general’s service. Vandegrift regarded Clemens and his native scouts as a godsend, able replacements for all of the trained Marine scouts lost on the Goettge patrol.
They were put to use after another disturbing report. Just before midnight of August 18 men along the beaches reported the wash of ships moving east at high speed; at about three o’clock they reported the wash going west again. At dawn there were rumors of an enemy landing to the east. Colonel Thomas ordered Sergeant Major Vouza to conduct a patrol around the entire perimeter from east to west. Meanwhile, a Marine patrol under Captain Charles Brush was sent probing eastward along the coast. Finally, on that same day of August 19, three companies of the Fifth Marines attacked west against the Japanese concentrated on the Matanikau River.
The western attack was a minor success.
At Matanikau Village the Japanese counterattacked in the first daylight banzai bayonet charge of the war. The Marines slaughtered them with automatic weapons. Sixty-five Japanese were killed against four Marines dead and eleven wounded.
At Kukumbona Village farther west another company attempted an amphibious assault. Enroute, their boats were shelled by a submarine and two Tokyo Express destroyers lurking in the Bay. Hugging the coast, the Marines got through to storm Kukumbona and drive the enemy into the jungle.
It had been the six destroyers carrying Colonel Ichiki and his 900 men which caused the wash observed by Marine coastal sentries. The Japanese had come ashore at Taivu, twenty-two miles to the east of the Tenaru River. Colonel Ichiki decided to attack immediately, without waiting for the arrival of the rest of his troops, as General Hyakutake had suggested he might do. Ichiki shared Hyakutake’s contempt for Americans. He was going to attack at night, because, as the battle studies said: “Westerners—being very superior people, very effeminate, and very cowardly—have an intense dislike of fighting in the rain or the mist, or at night. Night, in particular (though it is excellent for dancing), they cannot conceive to be a proper time for war. In this, if we seize on it, lies our great opportunity.”9
Colonel Ichiki seized on it. He wrote in his diary: “18 Aug. The landing. 20 Aug. The march by night and the battle. 21 Aug. Enjoyment of the fruits of victory.”
It was then only August 19, but Colonel Ichiki was a tidy man. He foresaw that he might die before he had a chance to make the last two entries, so he merely postdated them for posterity—and then he sent out a company to lay communication wire.
Captain Charles Brush did not convey the impression of tidiness. Shambling along in his baggy dungarees, Captain Brush was as debonair as a bear in overalls. But crusty “Charlie,” as his men called him with a notable lack of filial affection, was a capable company commander—one of those reservists who could compel a regular officer’s admiration.
On the morning of August 19, Brush led his patrol of eighty men eastward from the Tenaru. Shortly after noon, his advance scouts caught sight of the Ichiki wiremen moving slowly westward. Brush attacked.
He pinned the enemy down while Lieutenant Joseph Jachym led a squad off to the right and took up a position in the Japanese left rear. The Marines then struck the enemy front and rear with converging automatic fire. In a fight of about an hour’s length Brush’s men killed thirty-one Japanese while three others escaped into the jungle. Three Marines were killed and three wounded.
Sensing something unusual in the enemy patrol, Brush posted security and personally searched the bodies. He found, for the first time, helmets marked with the Japanese Army star rather than with the Navy’s chrysanthemum. He found an unusual number of officers among the dead. Four carried swords and field glasses, wore polished boots and were clad in neatly pressed uniforms decorated by rows of campaign ribbons. Brush rifled their map cases. He was astonished. Although the maps’ markings were in Japanese they were startlingly clear and they pinpointed the Tenaru line’s weak points with appalling accuracy.
Brush withdrew and made his report to Colonel Cates’s headquarters. General Vandegrift was notified. Some of his staff advised him to push rapidly eastward to surprise this new enemy. Vandegrift demurred. His mission was to hold the airfield. But he did order immediate strengthening of the Tenaru flank, and Colonel del Valle’s artillerymen quickly “zeroed-in” on every point along the line.
The evening of that momentous August 19, unknown to Vandegrift and his Marines, President Franklin Roosevelt radioed Joseph Stalin: “We have gained, I believe, a toehold in the Southwest Pacific from which the Japanese will find it very difficult to dislodge us. We have had substantial naval losses there, but the advantage gained was worth the sacrifice and we are going to maintain hard pressure on the enemy.”10
