Neither Colonel Oka nor General Kawaguchi considered such stories fit for the ears of the defenders of the Matanikau, still less for the men of the 4th Infantry Regiment which had arrived at Cape Esperance in mid- September. Led by Colonel Nomasu Nakaguma these fresh and well-equipped troops, part of the crack Sendai Division, had marched east to reinforce the Matanikau. It would be unwise to allow them to mingle with the Kawaguchi scarecrows and catch that most deadly of military diseases: defeatism. So the survivors of Bloody Ridge were sent farther west again, to the food stores and doctors and quinine at Kamimbo Bay and Cape Esperance, and, for the more fortunate among them, for shipment to Rabaul and hospital treatment via destroyers.
For the Tokyo Express was running at full throttle again.
In late August, just before he had left for the South Pacific, Brigadier General Roy Geiger had encountered Lieutenant Colonel Albert Cooley in San Diego.
“Al,” Geiger grunted, “got your Group ready for war?”
Cooley gulped. His dive-bomber squadron had just been split four ways to form new squadrons and his fighters were new and untrained. But he smiled weakly and said: “Not ready, sir—but willing.”
“Well, you’re going next Saturday,” Geiger grunted.2 And they did.
In the last week of September, Cooley and five Dauntless pilots were flown into Guadalcanal by Scat. Geiger immediately put Colonel Wallace in charge of all fighters and Cooley in charge of the bombers, with orders to stop the Tokyo Express.
On September 21 Cooley led the Dauntlesses against destroyer
Next day they attacked the enemy assembly point at Visale, a few miles north of Kamimbo. Roy Geiger flew one of the bombers. Disgusted to hear pilots complaining that the bomb-pocked airstrip was risky, fifty-seven- year-old Geiger had lumbered from the Pagoda to squeeze into a Dauntless cockpit. Then he thundered aloft to drop a thousand-pounder on the Japanese. That night more bombers struck at a group of destroyer-transports.
On September 24 Cooley’s planes bombed and strafed destroyers
Nevertheless, the Tokyo Express still ran as scheduled. The troops were getting through, and Vandegrift, alarmed by patrol reports of strong defenses on the Matanikau, decided that he had better attack.
It was from Chesty Puller that Vandegrift heard of the enemy strength.
Puller was a lieutenant colonel now, and on September 21 he was just where he wanted to be: at the head of a body of Marines hunting the enemy. His Crusader’s Cross around his neck, his jungle-stained copy of Caesar’s
And the Japanese were waiting for him. They struck repeatedly at his column, and these unseasoned men of the First Battalion, Seventh Marines, proved themselves not as jungle-wise as they might be. On the night of the first day they were all but exhausted from the ordeal of moving through the sort of terrain which had ruined General Kawaguchi’s brigade. Colonel Puller was also out of breath, from swearing at them.
In the morning they were hit again. One of the casualties was Captain Jack Stafford. He was torn about the face and neck by the explosion of his own rifle grenade. Puller came to his side just as a corpsman gave him morphine. He saw that Stafford was strangling in his own blood. He unsnapped a big safety pin from his bandoleer. He reached into Stafford’s mouth, seized his tongue, and pinned it neatly to the man’s dungaree collar. Puller’s action saved Stafford’s life, and it convinced his men that perhaps this little leader with the big chest and the big voice was even bigger than his legend.
They were an improved force, when, on September 23, they struck out again for the upper Matanikau. This time, though they lost seven dead and twenty-five wounded in fights with Oka’s outposts, they gave much worse than they got. But there was still no crossing the Matanikau. Oka had blocked all the fords. On the morning of September 26, Puller called for air and artillery support. But the enemy was dug in and could not be dislodged. So Puller swung north and moved down the east bank of the Matanikau toward the coastal road. Japanese mortars and automatic weapons emplaced on the Matanikau’s west bank struck them as they moved. Weary, they reached the coast at sundown.
From reports of Puller’s foray it was clear to Vandegrift that the enemy held the Matanikau west bank in strength. He decided on a three-pronged operation to dislodge him.
The First Raiders, now under Lieutenant Colonel Sam Griffith, were to march inland along the Matanikau’s east bank. They would cross the river at a log crossing called Nippon Bridge, and then wheel right to attack downstream to the sea.
As the Raiders attacked, the Second Battalion, Fifth Marines, would strike across a sandbar at the mouth of the Matanikau.
Simultaneously Puller’s battalion would sail west to Point Cruz, land to the west of this promontory, turn left and attack to the east along the coastal track.
The operations were to be under Red Mike Edson, now in command of the Fifth Marines. They began on the morning of September 27, and they began with immediate trouble.
As Griffith and his Raiders approached Nippon Bridge they were struck by a storm of fire. The gallant Major Bailey was killed. Colonel Griffith attempted to swing around the blocking force and come down on its rear. But this slow and painful maneuver was eventually spotted by the Japanese and they opened fire. Griffith was wounded and his Raiders were stalled.
But garbled messages led Vandegrift and Edson to believe that the Raiders were safely across the river. Edson ordered the Marines at the river-mouth to attack across the sandbar. They did, and were beaten back.
At this moment, Puller’s battalion, under Major Otho Rogers in the absence of Puller, who was with Edson, sailed west to Point Cruz. They came quickly ashore and prepared to swing to their left. But the Japanese had seen them coming and had wisely pulled back and allowed them to penetrate about 400 yards inland. Then they struck at the Americans from three sides. They poured mortars and bullets into them and within a few minutes Major Rogers was killed—blown apart by a mortar landing almost under his feet—as were half a dozen others. Captain Charles Kelly took command. The toll of dead and wounded rose, especially in the company commanded by Captain Regan Fuller. The only way out for these Marines was the way they had come, now completely covered by enemy fire. And then the Japanese moved to surround them.
Colonel Edson had called for aerial support of the Marines trapped down at Point Cruz, but his message was never received. One of the heaviest air raids of the month came roaring down from Rabaul to knock out all of Henderson Field’s communications.
While the raid was at its height, Chesty Puller hurried down to Kukum to hail the old four-stack destroyer,
Marines on Point Cruz were fighting desperately. Mortarmen fired at almost point-blank range. They held the mortars in place by lying on their backs to support the tubes with their feet. Captain Kelly tried to contact Captain Fuller’s outfit. But Sergeant Robert Raysbrook, the communications man, reported that he had forgotten to bring his radio.
Lieutenant Dale Leslie saw it underneath him, tiny but distinct, in white letters that might be T-shirts. Leslie was flying his Dauntless along the coast in search of targets. He came down closer, saw the trapped Marines, and radioed Edson. Then he began patrolling the area, waiting to help. Beneath him on the Bay he saw an American destroyer approaching.
Sergeant Raysbrook was redeeming himself. He saw
