Lonely Vigil: Coastwatchers of the Solomons

  Meanwhile more messengers fanned out. One runner hurried up to the lookout, bringing Josselyn up to date, so he could contact KEN and arrange for a pickup. Another runner headed down the coast and across the island to Bilua to alert the Reverend Silvester.

  It was 3:30 A.M. on the 19th when the messenger panted up the path to the missionary’s house. Taking in the situation, Silvester rushed over to Merle Farland’s quarters. He explained that he had better head for Paramata with some medical aid, while she prepared the mission to receive possible survivors. That wouldn’t do at all, she told him in her nicest brisk way: She was the one with medical training. She would go, and he could get out the sheets and blankets.

  She quickly pulled together an emergency kit, recruited four native guides, gulped a cup of tea, and was off by 6 A.M. At first it was cross-country on a rough but well-cleared path. Then the trail petered out, and she walked mile after mile along the rocks that lined the shore. A fine rain was falling, and all the stones were round and slippery.

  Coming to a river she climbed on the shoulders of one of her guides, and with the others ready to help if needed, they all crossed together. Then on again, now going harder than ever, leaving three of her guides far behind. When she finally reached the little village of Supato at noon, she had walked more than fourteen miles.

  Here she shifted to a canoe and continued up the coast. Planes were prowling overhead. They sounded American—she was becoming quite an expert—but playing it safe, she pulled a native umbrella over herself.

  Henry Josselyn was waiting on the shore when she reached Paramata at 3 P.M. During the night he had come down from the lookout, trading places with Keenan. Josselyn quickly briefed her on the injuries as she walked up to Silas’s house, where the flyers were waiting. A PBY was expected any minute, so she decided not to touch Lieutenant Levi’s thigh. With any luck he could have real hospital treatment in a few hours. Turning to Blondie Saunders, she was just starting to unwind a bandage on his head, when they heard the sound of approaching planes. The patient dashed out to investigate.

  It was the PBY, escorted by three Grumman Wildcats. While the fighters circled above, the big flying boat glided down to a perfect landing a hundred yards off the beach. No time to lose—Japanese planes might turn up any minute. A canoe was launched, and the flyers loaded in. Seeing Lieutenant Levi in obvious pain, Merle Farland—always quick with her needle—managed to give him a shot of morphine in the buttocks as the party shoved off.

  It was a long way to go just to give a shot in the buttocks, but far more important, the episode proved that Josselyn’s setup worked. The downed plane had been promptly reported. Help was immediate. KEN was notified. The pickup was carried out. Everything went off exactly as planned.

  Six days later, and 80 miles to the east, an unexpected Japanese move gave NRY a new chance to prove its usefulness. On the afternoon of November 24 several enemy warships approached Munda Point on the southwestern coast of New Georgia, as a couple of Methodist mission schoolboys excitedly watched from the shore. Alesasa Bisili and Solomon Hitu were two of the very few natives left in the village. Nearly everybody else had fled to the hills when some trigger-happy American fighter pilots strafed the settlement a few weeks earlier.

  The warships anchored off the mission around 5 P.M., and it must have been nearly 7:00 when one of them fixed a rocket. Landing operations began, and all night long the two boys watched a flotilla of small boats ferry in troops and supplies. They were so fascinated that they failed to notice an approaching patrol until too late.

  They were seized and taken to an officer who spoke a little English. Did they know where the white men were? The boys said all were gone. The officer then released them, but told them to report back the following morning, adding, “If you lie, we’ll cut your neck off.”

  He never had the chance. Alesasa and Solomon ran into the bush and joined their families in the hills. The refugees were, of course, in touch with Donald Kennedy’s scouts, and word was quickly passed to Segi that the Japanese had landed in strength at Munda.

  At this point, that was all Kennedy knew. His best man in western New Georgia, Willie Paia, was completely in the dark. Operating from a small island in the Roviana Lagoon, Paia controlled some 30 scouts, but none of them could find out exactly what was going on. For once Japanese security was just too good; this time they weren’t even using native labor. Creeping as close as they dared, the scouts could only report that more ships were arriving and unloading equipment … that construction troops were working with picks and shovels … that others were busy chopping down trees.

  It was NRY that caught the first clue. Japanese barges en route to Munda made a habit of hiding out along the Vella Lavella coast during daylight hours, and Josselyn’s natives were watching them closely. Based on their descriptions of the cargos carried, he radioed KEN about December 1: SUGGEST THAT JAPS ARE LANDING HEAVY GEAR, CEMENT, ETC., MUNDA POINT, POSSIBLE AIRFIELD MATERIALS.

  Airfield was right. The destruction of Admiral Tanaka’s big convoy didn’t end Japanese hopes of recapturing Guadalcanal, but it convinced Tokyo that nothing could be done until Japan could hold its own in the air. More planes were available through a new agreement of cooperation between the Army and the Navy, but there remained the problem of distance.

  The new fields at Buka and Kahili—the new seaplane base at Rekata Bay—all helped, but they were not enough. A base still closer to Guadalcanal was needed, and careful reconnaissance indicated that the big Lambeti plantation at Munda Point might be the answer. It would shave another 240 miles off the round trip to Guadalcanal, saving enough fuel to provide real fighter protection for future convoys.

  The problem was how to get the field built before it was destroyed by the very planes it was meant to counter. One way, as Willie Paia had discovered, was better security. But the real stroke of genius was a brilliant job of camouflage. Instead of clearing away the coconut palms that were chopped down for the runway, the tops were left suspended on wires while work on the strip continued below. To the American photo reconnaissance pilots poking about overhead, the plantation’s neat rows of trees appeared absolutely normal. It was not until December 5 that some sharp-eyed photo interpreters detected the truth, and by then the strip was virtually complete.

  For Donald Kennedy at Segi it was one more headache in a growing list—all indicating that the war on New Georgia, after a long lull, was definitely heating up. Besides Munda, he had to keep an eye on new Japanese landings at Wickham Anchorage to the east … at Ramada Island to the North … at Vila, a plantation on Kolombangara, far to the west. He had to cope with aggressive enemy patrols that were now fanning out from Viru, only nine miles away. He had to run a hotel for the American flyers his natives had rescued—and a jail for the Japanese pilots they had captured.

  He felt so shorthanded that he decided to try a daring experiment. Recalling that Merle Farland had once offered to do “anything anywhere,” he wrote her and very hesitantly suggested she might shift from Vella Lavella to Segi and relieve him on the teleradio. It would release him from the base, giving him more time to keep on top of these new, fast-breaking developments.

  Merle knew the area, knew the native dialects, knew the codes, and loved the challenge. She was a little worried about leaving her medical work at Bilua, but there would also be plenty of that at Segi.

  At 1 A.M., December 3, she was on her way. It was another of those hair-raising canoe journeys, made all the more dangerous by the increased Japanese traffic off the western end of New Georgia. To avoid Munda, they curled north through Hawthorne Sound, then east into the Marovo Lagoon, dodging enemy barges and once gliding right by a Japanese outpost on Bukobuko Island. A mildly curious sentry emerged from his hut to watch them pass; then, satisfied, he ducked back in as Merle lay flat in the canoe.

  Dawn, December 6, they reached Segi, and Donald Kennedy was soon indoctrinating his new assistant. She scored 22 out of 25 on her first target practice with a ri
fle—not bad for a missionary nurse—and proved a skillful radio operator. But one of the very first messages she decoded brought disastrous news. Sent by Resident Commissioner Marchant, a “raj” of the old school, it said simply: ARRANGEMENTS BEING MADE TO EVACUATE SISTER FARLAND. HAVE YOU ANY NEWS OF OTHER MEMBERS OF THE MISSION?

  The irony of it. For nearly a year she had worked on Vella Lavella, completely overlooked by the powers that be. Now, by coming to Segi in order to make an even greater contribution, she had apparently reminded them of her presence, and they would have none of it. For a week she parried with officialdom, trying to get the decision reversed, but it was no use: She was violating “present restrictions on white women remaining in the Protectorate”—she would have to go.

  She did have the consolation of one last fling. On December 16 word came that a B-17 was down at sea, and Donald Kennedy rushed off in a boat to the rescue. Handing Merle a loaded automatic, he left her virtually in charge of the station. For three days, she handled all the radio traffic, received reports from the scouts, and even concocted a signal recommending bombing targets for Henderson Field.

  Then it was over. On December 21, while no less than seventeen U.S. fighters flew cover overhead, a PBY landed off Segi Point; picked up Kennedy’s fourteen Japanese prisoners; and plucked Merle Farland out of the Solomons campaign.

  At Tulagi and later on Guadalcanal, where she stayed overnight awaiting transportation to Noumea, she caused something of a stir. She was, after all, the only woman among 30,000 troops, and it was quite understandable when one malaria-wracked boy glanced up from his stretcher and declared, “Now I know I am delirious.” As others caught a glimpse of her pert look and tousled hair, a new rumor swept the island: Amelia Earhart had been found alive.

  Despite the sensation that Merle Farland caused, life on Guadalcanal was far more normal than six weeks before, when the Marines were grimly waiting for the fourth and greatest Japanese attack.

  General Hyakutake still had 25,000 men on the island, but they had lost much of their punch. Naval losses had been high—particularly in destroyers—and the Tokyo Express just couldn’t deliver supplies on the scale needed. The troops were now ragged scarecrows, weak from starvation, living on berries, roots and leaves.

  In contrast, the American strength mushroomed. Army units were pouring in, relieving Vandegrift’s battle-worn Marines; the new commander, Major General Alexander M. Patch, would soon have 35,000 fresh troops at his disposal. The CACTUS Air Force now had 200 planes, including 100 fighters operating from a new airstrip beyond the range of “Pistol Pete,” as the Japanese guns that shelled Henderson Field were called.

  The Americans were no longer penned up in their hard-won perimeter. For one thing, the eastern end of the island was finally cleared completely of the Japanese by Lieutenant Colonel Evans Carlson’s 2nd Marine Raiders. Originally the Raiders had been landed at Aola to guard the construction of a reserve airstrip. When the ground proved too swampy, Carlson’s men headed back for Lunga on November 3 … cutting through the jungle, living off the land, mopping up stray enemy units.

  Guided by Sergeant Major Vouza’s scouts, they wiped out over 400 Japanese, losing only sixteen Marines in the process. Finally on December 3 they reached the hills overlooking Henderson Field. Here they had the satisfaction of destroying two of the Pistol Petes that plagued the airstrip. Surrounded by the carnage of this last fight, Colonel Carlson called his men together, explained they would be entering the American lines next morning, and led them all in singing the “Marine Corps Hymn.” The natives were so moved they persuaded the Marines to add, so that every one might join in, a chorus of “Onward, Christian Soldiers.”

  Meanwhile, other American troops began probing south and west. On November 19 a U.S. plane dropped a message to Father de Klerk at Tangarare asking if he could provide guides for a patrol of 20 men, to be landed the following night. Of course he could—it was what the “commander-in-chief” of the south coast had been longing for—and on the evening of the 20th they arrived on the faithful Ramada.

  At last Father de Klerk and his native troops were part of the big show. Tangarare even acquired a code name, PINEAPPLE, with the Father serving as “base commander.” On the 21st he guided the patrol up the coast for a reconnaissance behind the Japanese lines at Maravovo and Lavoro, and on the 30th he returned to Lunga with them, to get supplies and hold conferences on future operations.

  He arrived just as the Army was taking over from the Marines, and General Patch took to him right away. When de Klerk returned to Tangarare on December 5, he had ample stocks of food, rifles, ammunition, a case of hand grenades, and a complete U.S. uniform bequeathed him by some departing Marine. The shepherd could now take the stick to the wolf in earnest.

  As the Americans steadily consolidated and expanded their hold on Guadalcanal, the Coastwatcher station on Gold Ridge became less important. By December the way to the ridge lay open, and on the 7th Ken Hay sent down the elderly Sister Edmée, who had been marooned there since the Ruavatu massacre. Hay himself remained a month longer, fretting over his “deadly boredom.”

  The big action was now 300 miles to the northwest. Here the Coastwatchers on southern Bougainville, Choiseul, and Vella Lavella vied to be first in reporting the Tokyo Express starting down the Slot on its regular runs from the Shortlands to Guadalcanal. Their messages were often received at KEN within five minutes of the actual sighting, and within another five minutes the information was in the hands of the air command. By cutting the time lag to an absolute minimum, the CACTUS Air Force began getting in some hard blows before darkness swallowed the approaching destroyers.

  More and more often the Express was “derailed,” and Admiral Yamamoto turned to desperate measures to keep the supplies flowing. Submarines were tried, but they carried little, and the risks were great. Air drops were attempted, but the planes were torn to bits by the American fighters. Then Admiral Tanaka came up with a scheme to cut the turnaround time of the Tokyo Express. He would load his destroyers with drums of supplies, linked together by rope like a string of beads. Reaching Tassafaronga, the destroyers were to jettison these “necklaces,” and troops waiting on the beach would haul them ashore. This should cut to an absolute minimum the amount of time his destroyers would be within range of those devastating Henderson Field bombers.

  It never really worked. On their best night the destroyers managed to cast loose 1500 drums, but only 300 ever reached shore.

  The lesson was clear. Stopgap measures would do no good. The solution lay in new bases like Munda, near enough to give Japan a reasonable chance in the air. Only then could she hope to retake Guadalcanal, or at the very least, seal it off as a springboard for any American advance.

  All this focused Japanese attention on the other islands in the Solomons. They began establishing supply dumps for food and materials … hideouts for barges during the daylight … outposts to protect the new flow of traffic.

  At KEN, Hugh Mackenzie caught the drift and further expanded his network of Coastwatchers. As early as November 18 he sent Andy Andresen, recruited from the Gold Ridge miners, with a U.S. team to Rennell Island, 120 miles south of Guadalcanal. They found plenty of Polynesian girls, but few Japanese ever came that way, and the station was soon closed.

  He decided to put another new station on Ontong Java, about 300 miles north of Guadalcanal. This flat coral atoll was ideal for observing traffic coming down from the great Japanese base at Truk, but it was also highly exposed. None of the islets forming the atoll were more than a few feet high or a few hundred yards wide. There was literally no place to hide.

  It might be supposed that the Coastwatcher selected for such a strategic, vulnerable spot would be one of Commander Feldt’s most experienced hands. Actually, Sub-Lieutenant William McCasker had never even been to the South Pacific islands before the war. He was a bright, breezy young intelligence officer who had been sent to New Caledonia because of his knowledge of French. As the fighting moved
north, this was no longer so important, and he was shipped up to Guadalcanal and told to report to Mackenzie. He was selected for Ontong Java because, as so often happens in war, he was available.

  On December 1 he arrived by PBY, accompanied by two equally bewildered U.S. Army privates named Robbins and Guillette. Fortunately some excellent groundwork had been laid by Dick Horton. He had managed to visit the atoll a few days earlier, and when the three neophytes reached shore, a royal welcome was waiting.

  The island king, an enormous Polynesian named Isea, waddled down to meet them, followed by his chief constable, Billy. Then, with great ceremony, Isea formally declared war on Japan and put McCasker in charge of defense.

  It turned out that there was nothing to do. Instead of Truk, the Japanese used Rabaul as their base for mounting operations against the Solomons, and Ontong Java was far off the beaten track. Through rare good fortune, or truly great insight, McCasker was remarkably well prepared for this state of affairs. He had brought along an entire set of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; and when that ran out, he had a Latin edition of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

  The months rolled by. His assistants changed, and changed again, but still no one at headquarters could bring himself to believe that Ontong Java wouldn’t somehow become important. McCasker finished Gibbon and Ovid, then passed away the time compiling a dictionary of the native language. Nine months went by before he was finally recalled—the Coastwatcher stationed where nothing ever happened.

  Lastly, on December 21 Mackenzie sent Dick Horton, one of his most trusted assistants, to New Georgia to set up a new station for the express purpose of watching Munda. Flying to Segi on the same PBY that picked up Merle Farland, Horton checked in with Donald Kennedy, then headed west on the Marovo Lagoon to a little village called Alalu. Here on the 23rd he met a half-caste trader and plantation manager named Harry Wickham, who he hoped would be the key to his whole operation. Member of New Georgia’s most famous family—his half-brother had been a world champion swimmer—Wickham was married to a Roviana Lagoon girl and knew every foot of the area. Only time would tell, but if anybody could find the right spot for watching the Japanese at Munda, he would be the one.