Chapter II: Part 2

Three key members of the division--the Assistant Division Commander, Brigadier General William H. Rupertus; the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-1, Colonel Robert C. Kilmartin, Jr.; and the commanding officer of the 1st Raider Battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Merritt A. Edson--were not in this picture for a good reason. They were on Tulagi, where Rupertus headed the Tulagi Command Group with Kilmartin as his chief of staff, and Edson commanded the combat troops. Also notably absent from this photograph was the commander of the 7th Marines, Colonel James C. Webb, who had not joined the division from Samoa, where the regiment had been sent before the division deployed overseas.

In his memoir, _Once a Marine_, General Vandegrift explained why this photograph was taken. The division’s morale was affected by the fact that Vice Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher was forced to withdraw his fleet from the area--with many of his ships not yet fully unloaded and holding more than half of the division’s supplies still needed ashore. Adding to the Marines’ uneasiness at seeing their naval support disappear below the horizon, was the fact that they had been under almost constant enemy air attacks beginning shortly after their landing on Guadalcanal. In an effort to counter the adverse influence on morale of the day and night air attacks, Vandegrift began making tours of the division perimeter every morning to talk to as many of his Marines as possible, and to keep a personal eye on the command. As he noted:

By August 11, the full impact of the vanished transports was
permeating the command, so again I called a conference of my staff
and command officers.... I ended the conference by posing with this
fine group of officers, a morale device that worked because they
thought if I went to the trouble of having the picture taken then I
obviously planned to enjoy it in future years.

Recently, General Merrill B. “Bill” Twining, on Guadalcanal a lieutenant colonel and assistant D-3, recalled the circumstances of the photograph and philosophized about the men who appeared in it:

The group is lined up on the slope of the coral ridge which
provided a degree of protection from naval gunfire coming from the
north and was therefore selected as division CP....

There was no vital reason for the conclave. I think V[andegrift]
just wanted to see who was in his outfit. Do you realize these
people had never been together before? Some came from as far away
as Iceland....

V[andegrift] mainly introduced himself, gave a brief pep talk....
I have often been asked how we could afford to congregate all
this talent in the face of the enemy. We didn’t believe we (_at
the moment_) faced any threat from the Japanese. The defense area
was small and every responsible commander could reach his CP in 5
minutes and after all there were a lot of good people along those
lines. Most of the fresh-caught second lieutenants were battalion
commanders two years later. We believed in each other and trusted.

--_Benis M. Frank_

The General and His Officers on Guadalcanal, According to the Chart

1. Col George R. Rowan
2. Col Pedro A. del Valle
3. Col William C. James
4. MajGen Alexander A. Vandegrift
5. LtCol Gerald C. Thomas
6. Col Clifton B. Cates
7. Col Randolph McC. Pate
8. Cdr Warwick T. Brown, USN
9. Col William J. Whaling
10. Col Frank B. Goettge
11. Col LeRoy P. Hunt, Jr.
12. LtCol Frederick C. Biebush
13. LtCol Edwin A. Pollock
14. LtCol Edmund J. Buckley
15. LtCol Walter W. Barr
16. LtCol Raymond P. Coffman
17. LtCol Francis R. Geraci
18. LtCol William E. Maxwell
19. LtCol Edward G. Hagen
20. LtCol William N. McKelvy, Jr.
21. LtCol Julian N. Frisbie
22. Maj Milton V. O’Connell
23. Maj William Chalfant III
24. Maj Horace W. Fuller
25. Maj Forest C. Thompson
26. Maj Robert G. Ballance
27. Maj Henry C. Buse, Jr.
28. Maj James W. Frazer
29. Maj Henry H. Crockett
30. LtCol Lenard B. Cresswell
31. Maj Robert O. Brown
32. LtCol John A. Bemis
33. Col Kenneth W. Benner
34. Maj Robert B. Luckey
35. LtCol Samuel B. Taxis
36. LtCol Eugene H. Price
37. LtCol Merrill B. Twining
38. LtCol Walker A. Reaves
39. LtCol John D. Macklin
40. LtCol Hawley C. Waterman
41. Maj James C. Murray, Jr.
]

[Sidebar (page 17): The Coastwatchers

A group of fewer than 1,500 native Coastwatchers served as the eyes and ears of Allied forces in reporting movements of Japanese units on the ground, in the air, and at sea.

Often performing their jobs in remote jungle outposts, the Coastwatchers were possessed of both mental and physical courage. Their knowledge of the geography and peoples of the Pacific made them invaluable additions to the Allied war effort.

The concept for this service originated in 1919 in a proposal by the Royal Australian Navy to form a civilian coastwatching organization to provide early warning in the event of an invasion. By the outbreak of war in September 1939, approximately 800 persons were serving as coastwatchers, operating observation posts mainly on the Australian coast. They were, at the outset, government officials aided by missionaries and planters who, as war with Japan neared, were placed under the control of the intelligence section of the Australian Navy.

National Archives Photo 80-G-17080 courtesy of Richard Frank
]

By 1942, the system of coastwatchers and the accompanying intelligence network covered an area of 500,000 square miles, and was placed under the control of the Allied Intelligence Bureau (AIB). The AIB coordinated Allied intelligence activities in the southwest Pacific, and had as its initial principal mission the collection of all possible information about the enemy in the vicinity of Guadalcanal.

Coastwatchers proved extremely useful to U.S. Marine forces in providing reports on the number and movement of Japanese troops. Officers from the 1st Marine Division obtained accurate information on the location of enemy forces in their objective areas, and were provided vital reports on approaching Japanese bombing raids. On 8 August 1942, Coastwatcher Jack Reed on Bougainville alerted American forces to an upcoming raid by 40 Japanese bombers, which resulted in 36 of the enemy planes being destroyed. The “early warning system” provided by the Coastwatchers helped Marine forces on Guadalcanal to hold onto the Henderson Field airstrip.

The Coastwatchers also rescued and sheltered 118 Allied pilots, including Marines, during the Solomons Campaign, often at the immediate risk of their own lives. Pipe-smoking Coastwatcher Reed also was responsible for coordinating the evacuation on Bougainville of four nuns and 25 civilians by the U.S. submarine _Nautilus_.

It is unknown exactly how many Coastwatchers paid the ultimate sacrifice in the performance of their duties. Many died in anonymity, without knowledge of the contribution their services had made to final victory. Perhaps they would be gratified to know that no less an authority than Admiral William F. Halsey recorded that the Coastwatchers saved Guadalcanal, and Guadalcanal saved the Pacific.--_Robert V. Aquilina_ ]

[Sidebar (page 19): The 1st Marine Division Patch

The 1st Division shoulder patch originally was authorized for wear by members of units who were organic or attached to the division in its four landings in the Pacific War. It was the first unit patch to be authorized for wear in World War II and specifically commemorated the division’s sacrifices and victory in the battle for Guadalcanal.

As recalled by General Merrill B. Twining, a lieutenant colonel and the division’s operations officer on Guadalcanal, for a short time before the 1st left Guadalcanal for Australia, there had been some discussion by the senior staff about uniforming the troops. It appeared that the Marines might have to wear Army uniforms, which meant that they would lose their identity and Twining came up with the idea for a division patch. A number of different designs were devised by both Lieutenant Colonel Twining and Captain Donald L. Dickson, adjutant of the 5th Marines, who had been an artist in civilian life. The one which Twining prepared on the flight out of Guadalcanal was approved by Major General Alexander A. Vandegrift, the division commander.

General Twining further recalled that he drew a diamond in his notebook and “in the middle of the diamond I doodled a numeral one ... [and] I sketched in the word ‘Guadalcanal’ down its length.... I got to thinking that the whole operation had been under the Southern Cross, so I drew that in, too.... About an hour later I took the drawing up to the front of the aircraft to General Vandegrift. He said, ‘Yes, that’s it!’ and wrote his initials, A.A.V., on the bottom of the notebook page.”

After he arrived in Brisbane, Australia, Colonel Twining bought a child’s watercolor set and, while confined to his hotel room by a bout of malaria, drew a bunch of diamonds on a big sheet, coloring each one differently. He then took samples to General Vandegrift, who chose one which was colored a shade of blue that he liked. Then Twining took the sketch to the Australian Knitting Mills to have it reproduced, pledging the credit of the post exchange funds to pay for the patches’ manufacture. Within a week or two the patches began to roll off the knitting machines, and Colonel Twining was there to approve them. General Twining further recalled: “After they came off the machine, I picked up a sheet of them. They looked very good, and when they were cut, I picked up one of the patches. It was one of the first off the machine.”

The division’s post exchanges began selling the patches almost immediately and they proved to be popular, with Marines buying extras to give away as souvenirs to Australian friends or to send home to families. Before long, newly established Marine divisions, as well as the raider and parachute units, and as the aircraft wings, sea-going Marines, Fleet Marine Force Pacific units, and others, were authorized to have their own distinctive patch, a total of 33, following the lead of the 1st Marine Division. Marines returning to the United States for duty or on leave from a unit having a distinctive shoulder insignia were authorized to wear that insignia until they were assigned to another unit having a shoulder patch of its own. For many 1st Marine Division men joining another unit and having to relinquish the wearing of the 1st Division patch, this rankled.

Shortly after the end of the war, Colonel Twining went to now-Marine Commandant General Vandegrift saying that he “no longer thought Marines should wear anything on their uniforms to distinguish them from other Marines. He agreed and the patches came off for good.”--_Benis M. Frank_ ]

_September and the Ridge_

Admiral McCain visited Guadalcanal at the end of August, arriving in time to greet the aerial reinforcements he had ordered forward, and also in time for a taste of Japanese nightly bombing. He got to experience, too, what was becoming another unwanted feature of Cactus nights: bombardment by Japanese cruisers and destroyers. General Vandegrift noted that McCain had gotten a dose of the “normal ration of shells.” The admiral saw enough to signal his superiors that increased support for Guadalcanal operations was imperative and that the “situation admits no delay whatsoever.” He also sent a prophetic message to Admirals King and Nimitz: “Cactus can be a sinkhole for enemy air power and can be consolidated, expanded, and exploited to the enemy’s mortal hurt.”

On 3 September, the Commanding General, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, Brigadier General Roy S. Geiger, and his assistant wing commander, Colonel Louis Woods, moved forward to Guadalcanal to take charge of air operations. The arrival of the veteran Marine aviators provided an instant lift to the morale of the pilots and ground crews. It reinforced their belief that they were at the leading edge of air combat, that they were setting the pace for the rest of Marine aviation. Vandegrift could thankfully turn over the day-to-day management of the aerial defenses of Cactus to the able and experienced Geiger. There was no shortage of targets for the mixed air force of Marine, Army, and Navy flyers. Daily air attacks by the Japanese, coupled with steady reinforcement attempts by Tanaka’s destroyers and transports, meant that every type of plane that could lift off Henderson’s runway was airborne as often as possible. Seabees had begun work on a second airstrip, Fighter One, which could relieve some of the pressure on the primary airfield.

National Archives Photo 80-G-29536-413C

_This is an oblique view of Henderson Field looking north with Ironbottom Sound (Sealark Channel) in the background. At the left center is the “Pagoda,” operations center of Cactus Air Force flyers throughout their first months of operations ashore._]

Most of General Kawaguchi’s brigade had reached Guadalcanal. Those who hadn’t, missed their landfall forever as a result of American air attacks. Kawaguchi had in mind a surprise attack on the heart of the Marine position, a thrust from the jungle directly at the airfield. To reach his jumpoff position, the Japanese general would have to move through difficult terrain unobserved, carving his way through the dense vegetation out of sight of Marine patrols. The rugged approach route would lead him to a prominent ridge topped by Kunai grass which wove snake-like through the jungle to within a mile of Henderson’s runway. Unknown to the Japanese, General Vandegrift planned on moving his headquarters to the shelter of a spot at the inland base of this ridge, a site better protected, it was hoped, from enemy bombing and shellfire.

Marine Corps Personal Papers Collection
]

The success of Kawaguchi’s plan depended upon the Marines keeping the inland perimeter thinly manned while they concentrated their forces on the east and west flanks. This was not to be. Available intelligence, including a captured enemy map, pointed to the likelihood of an attack on the airfield and Vandegrift moved his combined raider-parachute battalion to the most obvious enemy approach route, the ridge. Colonel Edson’s men, who scouted Savo Island after moving to Guadalcanal and destroyed a Japanese supply base at Tasimboko in another shore-to-shore raid, took up positions on the forward slopes of the ridge at the edge of the encroaching jungle on 10 September. Their commander later said that he “was firmly convinced that we were in the path of the next Jap attack.” Earlier patrols had spotted a sizable Japanese force approaching. Accordingly, Edson patrolled extensively as his men dug in on the ridge and in the flanking jungle. On the 12th, the Marines made contact with enemy patrols confirming the fact that Japanese troops were definitely “out front.” Kawaguchi had about 2,000 of his men with him, enough he thought to punch through to the airfield.

Japanese planes had dropped 500-pound bombs along the ridge on the 11th and enemy ships began shelling the area after nightfall on the 12th, once the threat of American air attacks subsided. The first Japanese thrust came at 2100 against Edson’s left flank. Boiling out of the jungle, the enemy soldiers attacked fearlessly into the face of rifle and machine gun fire, closing to bayonet range. They were thrown back. They came again, this time against the right flank, penetrating the Marines’ positions. Again they were thrown back. A third attack closed out the night’s action. Again it was a close affair, but by 0230 Edson told Vandegrift his men could hold. And they did.

Captain Donald L. Dickson, USMCR
]

On the morning of 13 September, Edson called his company commanders together and told them: “They were just testing, just testing. They’ll be back.” He ordered all positions improved and defenses consolidated and pulled his lines towards the airfield along the ridge’s center spine. The 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, his backup on Tulagi, moved into position to reinforce again.

12-14 SEPTEMBER 1942]

Department of Defense (USMC) Photo 500007
]

Department of Defense (USMC) Photo 310563

_Maj Kenneth D. Bailey, commander of Company C, 1st Raider Battalion, was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously for heroic and inspiring leadership during the Battle of Edson’s Ridge._]

The next night’s attacks were as fierce as any man had seen. The Japanese were everywhere, fighting hand-to-hand in the Marines’ foxholes and gun pits and filtering past forward positions to attack from the rear. Division Sergeant Major Sheffield Banta shot one in the new command post. Colonel Edson appeared wherever the fighting was toughest, encouraging his men to their utmost efforts. The man-to-man battles lapped over into the jungle on either flank of the ridge, and engineer and pioneer positions were attacked. The reserve from the 5th Marines was fed into the fight. Artillerymen from the 5th Battalion, 11th Marines, as they had on the previous night, fired their 105mm howitzers at any called target. The range grew as short as 1,600 yards from tube to impact. The Japanese finally could take no more. They pulled back as dawn approached. On the slopes of the ridge and in the surrounding jungle they left more than 600 bodies; another 600 men were wounded. The remnants of the Kawaguchi force staggered back toward their lines to the west, a grueling, hellish eight-day march that saw many more of the enemy perish.

The cost to Edson’s force for its epic defense was also heavy. Fifty-nine men were dead, 10 were missing in action, and 194 were wounded. These losses, coupled with the casualties of Tulagi, Gavutu, and Tanambogo, meant the end of the 1st Parachute Battalion as an effective fighting unit. Only 89 men of the parachutists’ original strength could walk off the ridge, soon in legend to become “Bloody Ridge” or “Edson’s Ridge.” Both Colonel Edson and Captain Kenneth D. Bailey, commanding the raider’s Company C, were awarded the Medal of Honor for their heroic and inspirational actions.

On 13 and 14 September, the Japanese attempted to support Kawaguchi’s attack on the ridge with thrusts against the flanks of the Marine perimeter. On the east, enemy troops attempting to penetrate the lines of the 3d Battalion, 1st Marines, were caught in the open on a grass plain and smothered by artillery fire; at least 200 died. On the west, the 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, holding ridge positions covering the coastal road, fought off a determined attacking force that reached its front lines.

Department of Defense (USMC) Photo 50921
]

The victory at the ridge gave a great boost to Allied homefront morale, and reinforced the opinion of the men ashore on Guadalcanal that they could take on anything the enemy could send against them. At upper command echelons, the leaders were not so sure that the ground Marines and their motley air force could hold. Intercepted Japanese dispatches revealed that the myth of the 2,000-man defending force had been completely dispelled. Sizable naval forces and two divisions of Japanese troops were now committed to conquer the Americans on Guadalcanal. Cactus Air Force, augmented frequently by Navy carrier squadrons, made the planned reinforcement effort a high-risk venture. But it was a risk the Japanese were prepared to take.

On 18 September, the long-awaited 7th Marines, reinforced by the 1st Battalion, 11th Marines, and other division troops, arrived at Guadalcanal. As the men from Samoa landed they were greeted with friendly derision by Marines already on the island. The 7th had been the first regiment of the 1st Division to go overseas; its men, many thought then, were likely to be the first to see combat. The division had been careful to send some of its best men to Samoa and now had them back. One of the new and salty combat veterans of the 5th Marines remarked to a friend in the 7th that he had waited a long time “to see our first team get into the game.” Providentially, a separate supply convoy reached the island at the same time as the 7th’s arrival, bringing with it badly needed aviation gas and the first resupply of ammunition since D-Day.

The Navy covering force for the American reinforcement and supply convoys was hit hard by Japanese submarines. The carrier _Wasp_ was torpedoed and sunk, the battleship _North Carolina_ (BB 55) was damaged, and the destroyer _O’Brien_ (DD 415) was hit so badly it broke up and sank on its way to drydock. The Navy had accomplished its mission, the 7th Marines had landed, but at a terrible cost. About the only good result of the devastating Japanese torpedo attacks was that the _Wasp_’s surviving aircraft joined Cactus Air Force, as the planes of the _Saratoga_ and _Enterprise_ had done when their carriers required combat repairs. Now, the _Hornet_ (CV 8) was the only whole fleet carrier left in the South Pacific.

As the ships that brought the 7th Marines withdrew, they took with them the survivors of the 1st Parachute Battalion and sick bays full of badly wounded men. General Vandegrift now had 10 infantry battalions, one understrength raider battalion, and five artillery battalions ashore; the 3d Battalion, 2d Marines, had come over from Tulagi also. He reorganized the defensive perimeter into 10 sectors for better control, giving the engineer, pioneer, and amphibian tractor battalions sectors along the beach. Infantry battalions manned the other sectors, including the inland perimeter in the jungle. Each infantry regiment had two battalions on line and one in reserve. Vandegrift also had the use of a select group of infantrymen who were training to be scouts and snipers under the leadership of Colonel William J. “Wild Bill” Whaling, an experienced jungle hand, marksman, and hunter, whom he had appointed to run a school to sharpen the division’s fighting skills. As men finished their training under Whaling and went back to their outfits, others took their place and the Whaling group was available to scout and spearhead operations.

Vandegrift now had enough men ashore on Guadalcanal, 19,200, to expand his defensive scheme. He decided to seize a forward position along the east bank of the Matanikau River, in effect strongly outposting his west flank defenses against the probability of strong enemy attacks from the area where most Japanese troops were landing. First, however, he was going to test the Japanese reaction with a strong probing force.

He chose the fresh 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller, to move inland along the slopes of Mt. Austen and patrol north towards the coast and the Japanese-held area. Puller’s battalion ran into Japanese troops bivouacked on the slopes of Austen on the 24th and in a sharp firefight had seven men killed and 25 wounded. Vandegrift sent the 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, forward to reinforce Puller and help provide the men needed to carry the casualties out of the jungle. Now reinforced, Puller continued his advance, moving down the east bank of the Matanikau. He reached the coast on the 26th as planned, where he drew intensive fire from enemy positions on the ridges west of the river. An attempt by the 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, to cross was beaten back.

About this time, the 1st Raider Battalion, its original mission one of establishing a patrol base west of the Matanikau, reached the vicinity of the firefight, and joined in. Vandegrift sent Colonel Edson, now the commander of the 5th Marines, forward to take charge of the expanded force. He was directed to attack on the 27th and decided to send the raiders inland to outflank the Japanese defenders. The battalion, commanded by Edson’s former executive officer, Lieutenant Colonel Samuel B. Griffith II, ran into a hornet’s nest of Japanese who had crossed the Matanikau during the night. A garbled message led Edson to believe that Griffith’s men were advancing according to plan, so he decided to land the companies of the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, behind the enemy’s Matanikau position and strike the Japanese from the rear while Rosecran’s men attacked across the river.

The landing was made without incident and the 7th Marines’ companies moved inland only to be ambushed and cut off from the sea by the Japanese. A rescue force of landing craft moved with difficulty through Japanese fire, urged on by Puller who accompanied the boats on the destroyer _Ballard_ (DD 660). The Marines were evacuated after fighting their way to the beach covered by the destroyer’s fire and the machine guns of a Marine SBD overhead. Once the 7th Marines companies got back to the perimeter, landing near Kukum, the raider and 5th Marines battalions pulled back from the Matanikau. The confirmation that the Japanese would strongly contest any westward advance cost the Marines 60 men killed and 100 wounded.

Department of Defense (USMC) Photo 53523
]

The Japanese the Marines had encountered were mainly men from the _4th Regiment_ of the _2d (Sendai) Division_; prisoners confirmed that the division was landing on the island. Included in the enemy reinforcements were 150mm howitzers, guns capable of shelling the airfield from positions near Kokumbona. Clearly, a new and stronger enemy attack was pending.

As September drew to a close, a flood of promotions had reached the division, nine lieutenant colonels put on their colonel’s eagles and there were 14 new lieutenant colonels also. Vandegrift made Colonel Gerald C. Thomas, his former operations officer, the new division chief of staff, and had a short time earlier given Edson the 5th Marines. Many of the older, senior officers, picked for the most part in the order they had joined the division, were now sent back to the States. There they would provide a new level of combat expertise in the training and organization of the many Marine units that were forming. The air wing was not quite ready yet to return its experienced pilots to rear areas, but the vital combat knowledge they possessed was much needed in the training pipeline. They, too--the survivors--would soon be rotating back to rear areas, some for a much-needed break before returning to combat and others to lead new squadrons into the fray.

[Sidebar (page 22): Sergeant Major Sir Jacob Charles Vouza

Jacob Charles Vouza was born in 1900 at Tasimboko, Guadalcanal, British Solomon Islands Protectorate, and educated at the South Seas Evangelical Mission School there. In 1916 he joined the Solomon Islands Protectorate Armed Constabulary, from which he retired at the rank of sergeant major in 1941 after 25 years of service.

After the Japanese invaded his home island in World War II, he returned to active duty with the British forces and volunteered to work with the Coastwatchers. Vouza’s experience as a scout had already been established when the 1st Marine Division landed on Guadalcanal. On 7 August 1942 he rescued a downed naval pilot from the USS _Wasp_ who was shot down inside Japanese territory. He guided the pilot to friendly lines where Vouza met the Marines for the first time.

Vouza then volunteered to scout behind enemy lines for the Marines. On 27 August he was captured by the Japanese while on a Marine Corps mission to locate suspected enemy lookout stations. Having found a small American flag in Vouza’s loincloth, the Japanese tied him to a tree and tried to force him to reveal information about Allied forces. Vouza was questioned for hours, but refused to talk. He was tortured and bayoneted about the arms, throat, shoulder, face, and stomach, and left to die.

He managed to free himself after his captors departed, and made his way through the miles of jungle to American lines. There he gave valuable intelligence information to the Marines about an impending Japanese attack before accepting medical attention.

After spending 12 days in the hospital, Vouza then returned to duty as the chief scout for the Marines. He accompanied Lieutenant Colonel Evans F. Carlson and the 2d Marine Raider Battalion when they made their 30-day raid behind enemy lines at Guadalcanal.

Sergeant Major Vouza was highly decorated for his World War II service. The Silver Star was presented to him personally by Major General Alexander A. Vandegrift, commanding general of the 1st Marine Division, for refusing to give information under Japanese torture. He also was awarded the Legion of Merit for outstanding service with the 2d Raider Battalion during November and December 1942, and the British George Medal for gallant conduct and exceptional devotion to duty. He later received the Police Long Service Medal and, in 1957, was made a Member of the British Empire for long and faithful government service.

After the war, Vouza continued to serve his fellow islanders. In 1949, he was appointed district headman, and president of the Guadalcanal Council, from 1952-1958. He served as a member of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate Advisory Council from 1950 to 1960.

He made many friends during his long association with the U.S. Marine Corps and through the years was continually visited on Guadalcanal by Marines. During 1968, Vouza visited the United States, where he was the honored guest of the 1st Marine Division Association. In 1979, he was knighted by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II. He died on 15 March 1984.--_Ann A. Ferrante_ ]

[Sidebar (page 23): M3A1 37mm Antitank Gun

The M3 antitank gun, based on the successful German _Panzer Abwehr Kanone_ (PAK)-36, was developed by the U.S. Army in the late 1930s as a replacement for the French 37mm Puteaux gun, used in World War I but unable to destroy new tanks being produced.

The M3 was adopted because of its accuracy, fire control, penetration, and mobility. Towed by its prime mover, the 4×4 quarter-ton truck, the gun would trail at 50 mph on roads. When traveling crosscountry, gullies, shell holes, mud holes, and slopes of 26 degrees were negotiated with ease. In 1941, the gun was redesignated the M3A1 when the muzzles were threaded to accept a muzzle brake that was rarely, if ever, used.

At the time of its adoption, the M3 could destroy any tank then being produced in the world. However, by the time the United States entered the war, the M3 was outmatched by the tanks it would have met in Europe. The Japanese tanks were smaller and more vulnerable to the M3 throughout the war. In the Pacific, it was used against bunkers, pillboxes and, when loaded with canister, against banzai charges. It was employed throughout the war by Marine regimental weapons companies, but in reduced numbers as the fighting continued. It was replaced in the European Theater by the M1 57mm antitank gun.

The 37mm antitank gun, manned by a crew of four who fired a 1.61-pound projectile with an effective range of 500 yards.--_Stephen L. Amos and Kenneth L. Smith-Christmas_

]

[Sidebar (page 29):

The President of the United States
takes pleasure in presenting
the Medal of Honor posthumously to
Douglas Albert Munro
Signalman First Class
United States Coast Guard
for service as set forth
in the following citation:

Painting by Bernard D’Andrea, Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard
Historical Office
]

For extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry in action above
and beyond the call of duty as Officer in Charge of a group of
twenty-four Higgins boats engaged in the evacuation of a battalion
of Marines trapped by enemy Japanese forces at Point Cruz,
Guadalcanal, on September 27, 1942. After making preliminary plans
for the evacuation of nearly five hundred beleaguered Marines,
Munro, under constant strafing by enemy machine guns on the island
and at great risk of his life, daringly led five of his small craft
toward the shore. As he closed the beach, he signalled the others
to land and then in order to draw the enemy’s fire and protect the
heavily loaded boats, he valiantly placed his craft, with its two
small guns, as a shield between the beachhead and the Japanese.
When the perilous task of evacuation was nearly completed, Munro
was instantly killed by enemy fire, but his crew, two of whom
were wounded, carried on until the last boat had loaded and
cleared the beach. By his outstanding leadership, expert planning,
and dauntless devotion to duty, he and his courageous comrades
undoubtedly saved the lives of many who otherwise would have
perished. He gallantly gave up his life in defense of his country.
/s/ Franklin Roosevelt
]

_October and the Japanese Offensive_

On 30 September, unexpectedly, a B-17 carrying Admiral Nimitz made an emergency landing at Henderson Field. The CinCPac made the most of the opportunity. He visited the front lines, saw Edson’s Ridge, and talked to a number of Marines. He reaffirmed to Vandegrift that his overriding mission was to hold the airfield. He promised all the support he could give and after awarding Navy Crosses to a number of Marines, including Vandegrift, left the next day visibly encouraged by what he had seen.

Department of Defense (USMC) Photo 50883
]

The next Marine move involved a punishing return to the Matanikau, this time with five infantry battalions and the Whaling group. Whaling commanded his men and the 3d Battalion, 2d Marines, in a thrust inland to clear the way for two battalions of the 7th Marines, the 1st and 2d, to drive through and hook toward the coast, hitting the Japanese holding along the Matanikau. Edson’s 2d and 3d Battalions would attack across the river mouth. All the division’s artillery was positioned to fire in support.

Department of Defense (USMC) Photo 61534

_A M1918 155mm howitzer is fired by artillery crewmen of the 11th Marines in support of ground forces attacking the enemy. Despite the lack of sound-flash equipment to locate hostile artillery, Col del Valle’s guns were able to quiet enemy fire._]

On the 7th, Whaling’s force moved into the jungle about 2,000 yards upstream on the Matanikau, encountering Japanese troops that harassed his forward elements, but not in enough strength to stop the advance. He bypassed the enemy positions and dug in for the night. Behind him the 7th Marines followed suit, prepared to move through his lines, cross the river, and attack north toward the Japanese on the 8th. The 5th Marines’ assault battalions moving toward the Matanikau on the 7th ran into Japanese in strength about 400 yards from the river. Unwittingly, the Marines had run into strong advance elements of the Japanese _4th Regiment_, which had crossed the Matanikau in order to establish a base from which artillery could fire into the Marine perimeter. The fighting was intense and the 3d Battalion, 5th, could make little progress, although the 2d Battalion encountered slight opposition and won through to the river bank. It then turned north to hit the inland flank of the enemy troops. Vandegrift sent forward a company of raiders to reinforce the 5th, and it took a holding position on the right, towards the beach.

Rain poured down on the 8th, all day long, virtually stopping all forward progress, but not halting the close-in fighting around the Japanese pocket. The enemy troops finally retreated, attempting to escape the gradually encircling Marines. They smashed into the raider’s position nearest to their escape route. A wild hand-to-hand battle ensued and a few Japanese broke through to reach and cross the river. The rest died fighting.

Department of Defense (USMC) Photo 50963

_More than 200 Japanese soldiers alone were killed in a frenzied attack in the sandspit where the Tenaru River flows into Ironbottom Sound (Sealark Channel)._]

On the 9th, Whaling’s force, flanked by the 2d and then the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, crossed the Matanikau and then turned and followed ridge lines to the sea. Puller’s battalion discovered a number of Japanese in a ravine to his front, fired his mortars, and called in artillery, while his men used rifles and machine guns to pick off enemy troops trying to escape what proved to be a death trap. When his mortar ammunition began to run short, Puller moved on toward the beach, joining the rest of Whaling’s force, which had encountered no opposition. The Marines then recrossed the Mantanikau, joined Edson’s troops, and marched back to the perimeter, leaving a strong combat outpost at the Matanikau, now cleared of Japanese. General Vandegrift, apprised by intelligence sources that a major Japanese attack was coming from the west, decided to consolidate his positions, leaving no sizable Marine force more than a day’s march from the perimeter. The Marine advance on 7-9 October had thwarted Japanese plans for an early attack and cost the enemy more than 700 men. The Marines paid a price too, 65 dead and 125 wounded.

There was another price that Guadalcanal was exacting from both sides. Disease was beginning to fell men in numbers that equalled the battle casualties. In addition to gastroenteritis, which greatly weakened those who suffered its crippling stomach cramps, there were all kinds of tropical fungus infections, collectively known as “jungle rot,” which produced uncomfortable rashes on men’s feet, armpits, elbows, and crotches, a product of seldom being dry. If it didn’t rain, sweat provided the moisture. On top of this came hundreds of cases of malaria. Atabrine tablets provided some relief, besides turning the skin yellow, but they were not effective enough to stop the spread of the mosquito-borne infection. Malaria attacks were so pervasive that nothing short of complete prostration, becoming a litter case, could earn a respite in the hospital. Naturally enough, all these diseases affected most strongly the men who had been on the island the longest, particularly those who experienced the early days of short rations. Vandegrift had already argued with his superiors that when his men eventually got relieved they should not be sent to another tropical island hospital, but rather to a place where there was a real change of atmosphere and climate. He asked that Auckland or Wellington, New Zealand, be considered.

For the present, however, there was to be no relief for men starting their third month on Guadalcanal. The Japanese would not abandon their plan to seize back Guadalcanal and gave painful evidence of their intentions near mid-October. General Hyakutake himself landed on Guadalcanal on 7 October to oversee the coming offensive. Elements of Major General Masao Maruyama’s _Sendai Division_, already a factor in the fighting near the Matanikau, landed with him. More men were coming. And the Japanese, taking advantage of the fact that Cactus flyers had no night attack capability, planned to ensure that no planes at all would rise from Guadalcanal to meet them.

On 11 October, U.S. Navy surface ships took a hand in stopping the “Tokyo Express,” the nickname that had been given to Admiral Tanaka’s almost nightly reinforcement forays. A covering force of five cruisers and five destroyers, located near Rennell Island and commanded by Rear Admiral Norman Scott, got word that many ships were approaching Guadalcanal. Scott’s mission was to protect an approaching reinforcement convoy and he steamed toward Cactus at flank speed eager to engage. He encountered more ships than he had expected, a bombardment group of three heavy cruisers and two destroyers, as well as six destroyers escorting two seaplane carrier transports. Scott maneuvered between Savo Island and Cape Esperance, Guadalcanal’s western tip, and ran head-on into the bombardment group.

Alerted by a scout plane from his flagship, _San Francisco_ (CA 38), spottings later confirmed by radar contacts on the _Helena_ (CL 50), the Americans opened fire before the Japanese, who had no radar, knew of their presence. One enemy destroyer sank immediately, two cruisers were badly damaged, one, the _Furutaka_, later foundered, and the remaining cruiser and destroyer turned away from the inferno of American fire. Scott’s own force was punished by enemy return fire which damaged two cruisers and two destroyers, one of which, the _Duncan_ (DD 485), sank the following day. On the 12th too, Cactus flyers spotted two of the reinforcement destroyer escorts retiring and sank them both. The Battle of Cape Esperance could be counted an American naval victory, one sorely needed at the time.

Department of Defense (USMC) Photo 410772
]

Its way cleared by Scott’s encounter with the Japanese, a really welcome reinforcement convoy arrived at the island on 13 October when the 164th Infantry of the Americal Division arrived. The soldiers, members of a National Guard outfit originally from North Dakota, were equipped with Garand M-1 rifles, a weapon of which most overseas Marines had only heard. In rate of fire, the semiautomatic Garand could easily outperform the single-shot, bolt-action Springfields the Marines carried and the bolt-action rifles the Japanese carried, but most 1st Division Marines of necessity touted the Springfield as inherently more accurate and a better weapon. This did not prevent some light-fingered Marines from acquiring Garands when the occasion presented itself. And such an occasion did present itself while the soldiers were landing and their supplies were being moved to dumps. Several flights of Japanese bombers arrived over Henderson Field, relatively unscathed by the defending fighters, and began dropping their bombs. The soldiers headed for cover and alert Marines, inured to the bombing, used the interval to “liberate” interesting cartons and crates. The news that the Army had arrived spread across the island like wildfire, for it meant to all Marines that they eventually would be relieved. There was hope.

Department of Defense (USMC) Photos 304183 and 302980

_Two other Marine aviators awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism and intrepidity in the air were Capt Jefferson J. DeBlanc, left, and Maj Robert E. Galer, right._]

As if the bombing was not enough grief, the Japanese opened on the airfield with their 150mm howitzers also. Altogether the men of the 164th got a rude welcome to Guadalcanal. And on that night, 13-14 October, they shared a terrifying experience with the Marines that no one would ever forget.

Determined to knock out Henderson Field and protect their soldiers landing in strength west of Koli Point, the enemy commanders sent the battleships _Kongo_ and _Haruna_ into Ironbottom Sound to bombard the Marine positions. The usual Japanese flare planes heralded the bombardment, 80 minutes of sheer hell which had 14-inch shells exploding with such effect that the accompanying cruiser fire was scarcely noticed. No one was safe; no place was safe. No dugout had been built to withstand 14-inch shells. One witness, a seasoned veteran demonstrably cool under enemy fire, opined that there was nothing worse in war than helplessly being on the receiving end of naval gunfire. He remembered “huge trees being cut apart and flying about like toothpicks.” And he was on the frontlines, not the prime enemy target. The airfield and its environs were a shambles when dawn broke. The naval shelling, together with the night’s artillery fire and bombing, had left Cactus Air Force’s commander, General Geiger, with a handful of aircraft still flyable, an airfield thickly cratered by shells and bombs, and a death toll of 41. Still, from Henderson or Fighter One, which now became the main airstrip, the Cactus Flyers had to attack, for the morning also revealed a shore and sea full of inviting targets.

The expected enemy convoy had gotten through and Japanese transports and landing craft were everywhere near Tassafaronga. At sea the escorting cruisers and destroyers provided a formidable antiaircraft screen. Every American plane that could fly did. General Geiger’s aide, Major Jack Cram, took off in the general’s PBY, hastily rigged to carry two torpedoes, and put one of them into the side of an enemy transport as it was unloading. He landed the lumbering flying boat with enemy aircraft hot on his tail. A new squadron of F4Fs, VMF-212, commanded by Major Harold W. Bauer, flew in during the day’s action, landed, refueled, and took off to join the fighting. An hour later, Bauer landed again, this time with four enemy bombers to his credit. Bauer, who added to his score of Japanese aircraft kills in later air battles, was subsequently lost in action. He was awarded the Medal of Honor, as were four other Marine pilots of the early Cactus Air Force: Captain Jefferson J. DeBlanc (VMF-112); Captain Joseph J. Foss (VMF-121); Major Robert E. Galer (VMF-224); and Major John L. Smith (VMF-223).

The Japanese had landed more than enough troops to destroy the Marine beachhead and seize the airfield. At least General Hyakutake thought so, and he heartily approved General Maruyama’s plan to move most of the _Sendai Division_ through the jungle, out of sight and out of contact with the Marines, to strike from the south in the vicinity of Edson’s Ridge. Roughly 7,000 men, each carrying a mortar or artillery shell, started the trek along the Maruyama Trail which had been partially hacked out of the jungle well inland from the Marine positions. Maruyama, who had approved the trail’s name to indicate his confidence, intended to support this attack with heavy mortars and infantry guns (70mm pack howitzers). The men who had to lug, push, and drag these supporting arms over the miles of broken ground, across two major streams, the Mantanikau and the Lunga, and through heavy underbrush, might have had another name for their commander’s path to supposed glory.

Photo courtesy of Col James A. Donovan, Jr.
]

General Vandegrift knew the Japanese were going to attack. Patrols and reconnaissance flights had clearly indicated the push would be from the west, where the enemy reinforcements had landed. The American commander changed his dispositions accordingly. There were Japanese troops east of the perimeter, too, but not in any significant strength. The new infantry regiment, the 164th, reinforced by Marine special weapons units, was put into the line to hold the eastern flank along 6,600 yards, curving inland to join up with 7th Marines near Edson’s Ridge. The 7th held 2,500 yards from the ridge to the Lunga. From the Lunga, the 1st Marines had a 3,500-yard sector of jungle running west to the point where the line curved back to the beach again in the 5th Marines’ sector. Since the attack was expected from the west, the 3d Battalions of each of the 1st and 7th Marines held a strong outpost position forward of the 5th Marines’ lines along the east bank of the Matanikau.

In the lull before the attack, if a time of patrol clashes, Japanese cruiser-destroyer bombardments, bomber attacks, and artillery harassment could properly be called a lull, Vandegrift was visited by the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Lieutenant General Thomas Holcomb. The Commandant flew in on 21 October to see for himself how his Marines were faring. It also proved to be an occasion for both senior Marines to meet the new ComSoPac, Vice Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey. Admiral Nimitz had announced Halsey’s appointment on 18 October and the news was welcome in Navy and Marine ranks throughout the Pacific. Halsey’s deserved reputation for elan and aggressiveness promised renewed attention to the situation on Guadalcanal. On the 22d, Holcomb and Vandegrift flew to Noumea to meet with Halsey and to receive and give a round of briefings on the Allied situation. After Vandegrift had described his position, he argued strongly against the diversion of reinforcements intended for Cactus to any other South Pacific venue, a sometime factor of Admiral Turner’s strategic vision. He insisted that he needed all of the Americal Division and another 2d Marine Division regiment to beef up his forces, and that more than half of his veterans were worn out by three months’ fighting and the ravages of jungle-incurred diseases. Admiral Halsey told the Marine general: “You go back there, Vandegrift. I promise to get you everything I have.”

Department of Defense (USMC) Photo 13628

_During a lull in the fight, a Marine machine gunner takes a break for coffee, with his sub-machine gun on his knee and his 30-caliber light machine gun in position._]

When Vandegrift returned to Guadalcanal, Holcomb moved on to Pearl Harbor to meet with Nimitz, carrying Halsey’s recommendation that, in the future, landing force commanders once established ashore, would have equal command status with Navy amphibious force commanders. At Pearl, Nimitz approved Halsey’s recommendation--which Holcomb had drafted--and in Washington so did King. In effect, then, the command status of all future Pacific amphibious operations was determined by the events of Guadalcanal. Another piece of news Vandegrift received from Holcomb also boded well for the future of the Marine Corps. Holcomb indicated that if President Roosevelt did not reappoint him, unlikely in view of his age and two terms in office, he would recommend that Vandegrift be appointed the next Commandant.

Department of Defense (USMC) Photo 513191

_On the occasion of the visit of the Commandant, MajGen Thomas Holcomb, some of Operation Watchtower’s major staff and command officers took time out from the fighting to pose with him. From left, front row: Col William J. Whaling (Whaling Group); Col Amor LeRoy Sims (CO, 7th Marines); Col Gerald C. Thomas (Division Chief of Staff); Col Pedro A. del Valle (CO, 11th Marines); Col William E. Riley (member of Gen Holcomb’s party); MajGen Roy S. Geiger (CG, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing); Gen Holcomb; MajGen Ralph J. Mitchell (Director of Aviation, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps); BGen Bennet Puryear, Jr. (Assistant Quartermaster of the Marine Corps); Col Clifton B. Cates (CO, 1st Marines). Second row (between Whaling and Sims): LtCol Raymond P. Coffman (Division Supply Officer); Maj James C. Murray (Division Personnel Officer); (behind Gen Holcomb) LtCol Merrill B. Twining (Division Operations Officer)._]

This news of future events had little chance of diverting Vandegrift’s attention when he flew back to Guadalcanal, for the Japanese were in the midst of their planned offensive. On the 20th, an enemy patrol accompanied by two tanks tried to find a way through the line held by Lieutenant Colonel William N. McKelvy, Jr.’s 3d Battalion, 1st Marines. A sharpshooting 37mm gun crew knocked out one tank and the enemy force fell back, meanwhile shelling the Marine positions with artillery. Near sunset the next day, the Japanese tried again, this time with more artillery fire and more tanks in the fore, but again a 37mm gun knocked out a lead tank and discouraged the attack. On 22 October, the enemy paused, waiting for Maruyama’s force to get into position inland. On the 23d, planned as the day of the _Sendai_’s main attack, the Japanese dropped a heavy rain of artillery and mortar fire on McKelvy’s positions near the Matanikau River mouth. Near dusk, nine 18-ton medium tanks clanked out of the trees onto the river’s sandbar and just as quickly eight of them were riddled by the 37s. One tank got across the river, a Marine blasted a track off with a grenade, and a 75mm halftrack finished it off in the ocean’s surf. The following enemy infantry was smothered by Marine artillery fire as all battalions of the augmented 11th Marines rained shells on the massed attackers. Hundreds of Japanese were casualties and three more tanks were destroyed. Later, an inland thrust further upstream was easily beaten back. The abortive coastal attack did almost nothing to aid Maruyama’s inland offensive, but did cause Vandegrift to shift one battalion, the 2d Battalion, 7th Marines, out of the lines to the east and into the 4,000-yard gap between the Matanikau position and the perimeter. This move proved providential since one of Maruyama’s planned attacks was headed right for this area.

Although patrols had encountered no Japanese east or south of the jungled perimeter up to the 24th, the Matanikau attempts had alerted everyone. When General Maruyama finally was satisfied that his men had struggled through to appropriate assault positions, after delaying his day of attack three times, he was ready on 24 October. The Marines were waiting.

An observer from the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, spotted an enemy officer surveying Edson’s Ridge on the 24th, and scout-snipers reported smoke from numerous rice fires rising from a valley about two miles south of Lieutenant Colonel Puller’s positions. Six battalions of the _Sendai Division_ were poised to attack, and near midnight the first elements of the enemy hit and bypassed a platoon-sized outpost forward of Puller’s barbed-wire entanglements. Warned by the outpost, Puller’s men waited, straining to see through a dark night and a driving rain. Suddenly, the Japanese charged out of the jungle, attacking in Puller’s area near the ridge and the flat ground to the east. The Marines replied with everything they had, calling in artillery, firing mortars, relying heavily on crossing fields of machine gun fire to cut down the enemy infantrymen. Thankfully, the enemy’s artillery, mortars, and other supporting arms were scattered back along the Maruyama Trail; they had proved too much of a burden for the infantrymen to carry forward.

Marine Corps Personal Papers Collection

_Five Japanese tanks sit dead in the water, destroyed by Marine 37mm gunfire during the abortive attempt to force the Marine perimeter near the mouth of the Matanikau River in late October. Many Japanese soldiers lost their lives also._]

A wedge was driven into the Marine lines, but eventually straightened out with repeated counterattacks. Puller soon realized his battalion was being hit by a strong Japanese force capable of repeated attacks. He called for reinforcements and the Army’s 3d Battalion, 164th Infantry (Lieutenant Colonel Robert K. Hall), was ordered forward, its men sliding and slipping in the rain as they trudged a mile south along Edson’s Ridge. Puller met Hall at the head of his column, and the two officers walked down the length of the Marine lines, peeling off an Army squad at a time to feed into the lines. When the Japanese attacked again as they did all night long, the soldiers and Marines fought back together. By 0330, the Army battalion was completely integrated into the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines’ lines and the enemy attacks were getting weaker and weaker. The American return fire--including flanking fire from machine guns and Weapons Company, 7th Marines’ 37mm guns remaining in the positions held by 2d Battalion, 164th Infantry, on Puller’s left--was just too much to take. Near dawn, Maruyama pulled his men back to regroup and prepare to attack again.