Malaria and dengue fever, yellow jaundice and dysentery, tropical ulcers that ate into the outer covering of the bone and the rot of fungus festering and leaving flesh encrusted and oozing pus by the canteen-cup, these were also enemies; foes as real as the Japanese with all their troops and ships and airplanes; adversaries as authentic as the miasmic jungle and those formless fears of the imagination which trooped into a man’s mind each night, as dusk deepened into darkness, and remained there until dawn.
Dawn sometimes found men out of their minds; most often men who, losing hope, had also lost their sense of humor. For humor was the last rampart. More than hope, even, it stood between a man and insanity; and with all else gone, or going, these Americans held onto their humor.
It was not a dainty mirth. Men moved by it could shout with laughter to hear that a Marine’s collection of enemy ears, pinned on a clothesline of enemy rope, had been lost in a single dissolving cycle of rain-and-sun; they could chuckle while sawing enemy leg bones in sections with a bayonet, prying out the marrow and shaping a grisly ring to grace their true love’s fingers; or they could smile to hear of the two Japanese soldiers who had been found sitting in serene confidence in the center of the beehive that was Henderson Field, waiting there, as they had been ordered, “to rendezvous with the main body.”
Private Phil Chaffee also possessed this grim sense of humor. It sustained him on his numerous overnight patrols into the enemy positions around Grassy Knoll. Twice a week, accompanied by a taciturn red-bearded sergeant, Chaffee came down the ridge held by Lucky and Lew Juergens, bantering with them as he walked toward the jungle between the ridge and Grassy Knoll.
“Hey, Chaffee, got your pliers?”
“You know me, boy, I’d sooner forget m’ rifle.”
“How about it, Chaffee? I’ll give you ten bucks for that Bull Durham sack around your neck.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. How about a pint of my blood, too, huh?”
“How many teeth you got in that sack?”
“That’s my business.”
“A hundred?”
“Guess again, boy. Guess up a storm.”2
Chaffee would vanish into the rain forest, reappearing a few days later with a triumphant grin and a heavier Bull Durham sack, and one day he came back from Grassy Knoll wagging two fingers and bursting with pride.
“Two Japs!” Juergens snorted. “Who’n hell ain’t shot two Japs?”
Chaffee feigned surprise. He twirled the ends of his handlebar mustache, and asked, “With the one bullet?”3
Thus these Marines faced November, the month of decision which Archer Vandegrift began by attacking to the west once more.
General Vandegrift wanted to upset his temporarily beaten enemy before he could consolidate west of the Matanikau again. He also wanted to knock out Pistol Pete and to force General Hyakutake to use landing beaches much farther west, thus complicating his supply problems.
Vandegrift’s objective was the Poha River, a mile and a half west of Hyakutake’s 17th Army headquarters at Kukumbona. To take it, the Marine general collected a force of five thousand Marines—the Second Marines less a battalion under Colonel John Arthur, the Third Battalion, Seventh, reinforced by the Scout-Snipers, and the Fifth Marines—all to be commanded by Red Mike Edson.
The Fifth Marines were to cross the Matanikau at Nippon Bridge while the Third Battalion, Seventh, crossed farther inland and punched farther west.
At midnight of October 31 engineers began throwing three foot bridges across the Matanikau. Then Marine artillery and cruisers San Francisco and Helena, with destroyer Sterett, began pounding the enemy. At dawn, the warships came in close to shell Point Cruz, and the attack went forward.
General Hyakutake fought desperately to hold his position. He plugged his riddled front with service troops, walking wounded, sick, typists, clerks, and cooks, mustering every able-bodied man who could fight. But the Marines drove them back toward Point Cruz. The night of November 1, Edson halted just short of the Point. Behind him, engineers threw a ten-ton vehicular bridge over the Matanikau. In the morning, Edson called upon Silent Lew Walt to wheel his battalion north and drive to the sea on the other side of Point Cruz.
Walt’s men drove quickly into place. The Japanese at Point Cruz were now hemmed in on three sides with their backs to the sea. Edson ordered his men to attack in one of the Pacific war’s rare bayonet charges. The Marines swept forward with a yell to kill every one of the 350 enemy soldiers caught in the trap.
And then General Vandegrift’s third attempt to clear his western flank was again interrupted by events in the east.
On November 2, Vandegrift was informed by Admiral Halsey’s intelligence section that the Japanese would land near Koli Point to the east that night.
Vandegrift decided to intercept them. He would mark time in the west while clearing the east. Once that was done, he could throw all his strength into the Matanikau thrust.
So Red Mike Edson returned to the perimeter, leaving a blocking force west of Point Cruz under Colonel Arthur, and Herman Henry Hanneken’s tired but trusty battalion was pulled out of the line and sent on a forced march toward Koli Point.
Hanneken’s Marines reached Koli before dusk, fording the Nalimbiu River which debouches into the Bay there, and pushing on to the east bank of the Metapona River a few miles farther east.
Hanneken organized a coastal perimeter and tried to reach Vandegrift by radio. But he could not. The river crossings had soaked his radios. There was nothing to do but sit down to await the arrival of the Tokyo Express.
Vice-Admiral Chuichi Nagumo had been relieved of his command. He was going home, and Commander Tameichi Hara came to see him before he left Truk. Hara was surprised to see that the hero of Pearl Harbor looked so haggard.
“You don’t look good, Admiral,” he blurted.
Nagumo tried to make light of his appearance. “Just a touch of flu,” he said. “Once back home, I’ll be in good shape.”
Hara nodded. “Sasebo’s climate will cure you,” he said. “And you deserve a rest. Compared to your duty, sir, I’ve been on a pleasure cruise.”
“Well, you’ll have a tougher time from now on,” Nagumo said grimly, informing his visitor that all but two of Combined Fleet’s carriers were going home for repairs. Hara was astounded, and then dumfounded to hear Nagumo admit that although Santa Cruz had been a Japanese tactical victory, it was “a shattering strategic loss for Japan.” To offset American replacement capacity, Nagumo explained, Japan had to win every battle overwhelmingly.
“This last one,” he said, “was not an overwhelming victory.”4
Saddened, Commander Hara returned to Amatsukaze. He knew that he would soon be sailing his destroyer from Truk as part of the Guadalcanal bombardment fleet. And now, as Nagumo told him, Japan’s precious warships were to be risked without aerial cover.
The next day, November 3, Commander Hara stood on his bridge to watch cruisers Isuzu, Suzuya, and Maya and eight destroyers sortie from Truk. Standing on Isuzu’s flag bridge was Hara’s old chief, Rear Admiral Raizo Tanaka. He was taking his squadron to the Shortlands. Tanaka the Tenacious was returning to the helm of the Tokyo Express, and even as he sailed, the Express’s first run in the new reinforcement operation was making for Koli Point.
One cruiser, three destroyers and one transport were bringing more men and supplies to Colonel Toshinaro Shoji at Tetere. Shoji had arrived at this village east of Koli Point—the place where Mr. Ishimoto murdered the missionaries—after an agonizing march from the October battleground. He brought with him 2500 starving and exhausted men, the remnant of the Sendai Division’s right wing. He expected his badly needed supplies to arrive early in the morning of November 3.
Or roughly at the same time Admiral Kelly Turner’s airfield-building expedition would arrive farther east at Aola.
Martin Clemens was at Aola.
With him were a handful of Marines and his cook, Michael, who had just been discharged fr
om the hospital, his dark face pocked with pink shrapnel scars as mementoes of The Night of the Battleships. Clemens had brought his party to his old headquarters to provide landing beacons for Kelly Turner’s Aola expedition. Three pyramids of logs twelve feet high were built on the beach at intervals six hundred feet apart. At three o’clock in the morning of November 3, in a pouring rain, they were set ablaze.
Clemens and his men stood watching the fire. Firelight made grotesque silhouettes of their lumpy, poncho-swathed figures. The cold rain made their teeth chatter. Then, from the east, Clemens saw the swell of high-speed ships washing over the beach. The wash continued west toward Koli Point. Clemens gazed at the beacons in apprehension.
“I hope they don’t draw crabs,” he muttered.
The Japanese ships had sailed north of Florida Island. They rounded its eastern tip and entered the Bay. Landing beacons were noticed at Aola, but they were considered an enemy trap—a very clumsy one—and the ships pressed west to anchor and unload at Gavaga Creek, midway between Koli and Tetere.
Colonel Hanneken was chagrined. He could see the enemy putting men and supplies ashore, but they were too far away for immediate action. He decided to attack at dawn.
He did, and his Marines collided with Japanese soldiers marching west to Koli. Both sides recoiled, but the Japanese snapped back faster. They struck the Americans with light howitzers and mortars, while working a force around to their rear.
Hanneken withdrew. He pulled back across the Metapona to the west bank of the Nalimbiu, where he had communications wire connecting him with the perimeter. He notified Vandegrift of his predicament and was told to expect aerial assistance.
It came, and it hit Hanneken’s men.
Hanneken called for an end to aerial “assistance,” and it was canceled. And then Vandegrift ordered Hanneken to hold while General Rupertus came over from Tulagi to take command.
Martin Clemens watched his second set of signal pyramids lose its brilliance with the arrival of first light of November 4. Then he saw a quartet of old American four-stack destroyers entering the Bay. Farther out were transports guarded by destroyers. Soon landing boats swung out from the four-stackers and the Raiders of Lieutenant Colonel Evans Carlson went down into them. They came roaring ashore, and the Raiders leaped out to go racing up the beach with fixed bayonets.
They had been told to land as though opposed, and they fanned out quickly into the jungle.
Martin Clemens watched them in amusement, for he was, by then, one of the Old Breed of American Marine. He had been there “when the stuff hit the fan,” and he had the right to say, as the first Marine in history is reputed to have said to the second Marine, “Lissen, boot, you shoulda been here when it was really rough.” And so he was prepared when a Raider racing toward him and Michael came to an astonished halt at the sight of the Englishman in his slouch hat and the native with the face full of scars.
“What kinda disease is that?” the Raider asked, pointing at Michael.
“Bomb disease!”5 Clemens snorted, turning to watch, with tolerant disdain, the arrival of the rest of Admiral Turner’s well-dressed and well-fed Johnny-come-latelies.
Not all of the American transports stopped at Aola. Some moved farther west to Lunga Point, bringing General Vandegrift a pair of welcome acquisitions: the Eighth Marine Regiment and two batteries of 155-mm “long Tom” rifles.
The long Toms meant that the days of Pistol Pete’s unchallenged reign were numbered, for the 155 rifles could outshoot the Japanese 150-mm howitzers. The Eighth Marines meant that the attack in the west could be renewed, as soon as Rupertus could clear up the situation in the east.
Listening to reports from Hanneken and Clemens’s scouts, General Rupertus wisely concluded that there were quite a few Japanese to the east. He decided to hold at the Nalimbiu until Chesty Puller’s battalion could come downcoast by boat to take the enemy in his seaflank while Colonel Bryant Moore took the 164th Infantry south to turn north and take the Japanese on his landward flank.
Late that day—November 4—the operation began.
To the west that same day—November 4—soldiers of the 228th Infantry Regiment of the Japanese 38th Division were marching to General Hyakutake’s rescue.
Seventeen destroyers had landed them at Kamimbo and Tassafaronga early that morning. As they came ashore, Major General Takeo Ito, the 38th’s infantry commander, turned them east to Kukumbona.
Meanwhile, General Hyakutake radioed Colonel Shoji at Tetere and ordered him to join him in the west.
Shoji was dismayed at having to forgo the chance to avenge the Sendai. Nevertheless, he left a rear guard of five hundred men at Gavaga Creek and began swinging around Henderson Field along the trail cut by the Kawaguchi Brigade.
Rupertus tried to cut him off with Colonel Moore’s two battalions of the 164th Infantry. But these units, having blundered into each other at night and fought a bloodless battle between them, were unable to halt more than a handful of Shoji’s men. The main body, perhaps three thousand men, had escaped.
Gung ho!
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 Gung ho! as both slogan and battle cry. One day the phrase would come to mean a Marine esprit bordering on chauvinism, and that would be partially as a result of the fury with which Carlson’s Raiders scourged the men of Colonel Shoji’s column in a month-long private war of their own.
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 Ga Shima, or Hunger Island, but also as Shih Shima.
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 pri
soner 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 Majaba. A huge column of water spouted into the sky followed by a roar. Majaba listed, holed by the Japanese submarine I-20. Sinking fast, she staggered ashore and beached herself, later to be salvaged and patched up.
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 Majaba. A bomb-disposal officer was at work dismantling it. Clemens walked back to his tent wondering if it were possible to find a safe spot or pass a dull day on Guadalcanal.