In Chinese it means “Work together,” and Evans Carlson had learned it during his prewar service with the Chinese Eighth Route Army. After taking command of the Second Raiders—and weeding out the fainthearted with the question “Could you cut a Jap’s throat without flinching?”—Carlson gave them
Guided through the jungle by native scouts under the command of Sergeant Major Vouza, depending upon native carriers to lug the ammunition and rations of rice, raisins, and bacon that were periodically parachuted to them along the way, they killed five hundred of Shoji’s men at a loss of only seventeen of their own. And they did this with a single, simple tactic which Carlson had also learned in China.
His main body marched, unseen, in a column parallel with the Japanese. His patrols followed directly behind the enemy. Each time the patrols encountered large numbers of Japanese, they opened fire. As Colonel Shoji began to rush reinforcements to his rear, Carlson’s men struck from the flank with all their firepower.
Then they vanished.
Twelve times Carlson’s Raiders savaged the enemy in this fashion, and by the time Colonel Shoji’s haggard and reeling column reached Kukumbona, Guadalcanal was known in their language not only as
Death Island.
On November 5—the day the lean and passionate Carlson led his men in pursuit of Colonel Shoji—Admiral Tanaka arrived in the Shortlands. Two runs of the Tokyo Express had already made those landings at Gavaga Creek and in the west, and Tanaka immediately prepared another one.
On November 7, eleven destroyers were to take 1300 men of the 38th Division to Tassafaronga. Tanaka hoped to lead the sortie personally, but Admiral Mikawa insisted that he remain in the Shortlands. Tanaka was needed to plan additional runs of the Tokyo Express scheduled for November 8, 9, and 10. In all, two cruisers and sixty-five destroyers were to be involved in these shipments. Finally the biggest convoy of all, eleven big fast transports carrying half the 38th Division, was to leave on November 13, after Admiral Kondo’s battleships and cruisers had made powder and hash of Henderson Field.
So the eleven destroyers set sail without him, taking the northern route above the Solomon chain.
They would arrive at Tassafaronga at midnight of November 7.
November 7 dawned bright and hot. Martin Clemens decided it was a good day to return to the perimeter from Aola. The Army battalion there had set up a defensive line and the Seabees were already at work building roads. Clemens decided there was nothing more that he could do, and he was anxious to resume his interrupted duties as chief recruiter and straw boss for a force of native stevedores. He had planned to bring back a prisoner or two with him, but “Wimpy” Wendling, an exuberant Marine marksman, had shot holes in that hope.
Wendling and four scouts had gone to Koilotumaria to round up a few of the Japanese missed in the last foray. They had found four, but instead of capturing them they had killed them. Wendling reported that he had attempted to persuade a wounded, English-speaking officer to surrender. The officer refused. Wendling advanced offering a chocolate bar. The Japanese whipped out his saber and swung.
Fortunately, Wimpy explained, his finger was still on the trigger.
So Clemens led his party into their landing boat and sailed west for Lunga.
A mile offshore the lookout called, “White water to starboard.”
Clemens was surprised. He knew there were no reefs in the vicinity. He raised his glasses to look for the “white water” and saw a bubbling wake leading straight into the side of the supply ship
Destroyers dashed about, their sterns digging deep into the water, depth-charges arching off their fantails and geysers of water marking the underwater explosions. Dive-bombers came hurtling down, too, and Wendling jumped up on the prow to wave a huge American flag—just in case some inexperienced Dauntless pilot should mistake a Higgins boat for an enemy barge.
They reached Lunga and found that they had beached right next to a Japanese torpedo. It lay on the beach, long, silvery, and wicked, still hot and steaming from its futile run at
November 7 had seemed like a dull day at Henderson Field. It seemed that the aerial doldrums, begun after the Battle of Santa Cruz, were going to continue—until coastwatchers radioed reports of eleven enemy destroyers slipping down the top of the Solomons.
Major Paul Fontana led his newly arrived squadron of Marine fighters aloft first, and after him came Captain Joe Foss with more Wildcats. About 150 miles to the north Foss saw the specks of the enemy ships crawling over the flat obsidian surface of the sea like a file of ants. Then he saw six float Zeros flying escort. The Zeros struck boldly at the American bombers, trying to ruin their aim as they screamed down on Admiral Tanaka’s skillfully maneuvering ships.
Some of their bombs scored direct hits on destroyers
The Zeros were not so fortunate.
“Don’t look now,” Joe Foss yelled by radio to his pilots, “but I think we have something here.”6
They went zooming down in attack, practically jostling each other, giving each other the aerial elbow in their eagerness not to be left out in the scramble of seven Wildcats for six Zeros. Foss shot the first one, blowing it into an aerial dust bag. And then they were all gone. Foss looked up. He could see five empty parachutes ballooning gently downward. He wondered where the pilots were. Then he saw a sixth chute with an enemy pilot dangling from the harness.
The pilot unbuckled himself and plummeted head-first into the sea, and there were six clouds of empty silk swaying gently in the sky.
Strange enemy indeed, Foss thought, and prepared to go down to strafe the destroyers. Grasping the stick, he made his customary quick survey of the clouds—and saw a pontoon protruding from a bit of fluff above him.
He went up after it and found a single-motored biplane scout. He came in close, missed, and was raked by the scout’s rear-gunner. Wind came howling through a hole in his windscreen. Foss came back and shot the scout into the sea. He caught a second scout by surprise and sent it down like a torch.
And then his motor began to fade and spout smoke, and Foss realized that he was far from home and coming down into the sea near Malaita Island.
Two or three miles offshore, his tail hooked into the water, his plane skipped, bounced, came down hard, nosed over and began to sink like a stone.
Foss was trapped. Water poured into his cockpit with the force of a sledgehammer, knocking him groggy. The plane was plunging toward the bottom of the sea, but Foss could not get out. He had forgotten to unhook his parachute leg strap, and now water was underneath both his chute harness and his inflated life vest, making him so buoyant he could not reach the leg strap.
Still descending, he became frantic and caught his foot under the seat. He was going to drown if he did not calm himself. Holding off death with iron self-control, he straightened, pushed down with all his strength, freed the foot and strap—and shot upward through a crushing weight of water.
But the leg straps of the chute harness were still buckled. They brought Foss to the surface behind-up and face-down. He gulped mouthfuls of sea water. He swallowed more, unbuckling the straps. Then his preserver shot up over his mouth and he took in more.
Still thrashing about, Foss undid his shoes and felt himself become more buoyant. He tried to swim toward Malaita. But the current was too strong and he was barely staying in place. A big black tail fin cut the water a few feet to the side of him. Another slid past on the other side. Foss remembered the chlorine capsule in his pocket. It
