US History/US History (Bureau Development Inc.)(1991).ISO/dp/0078/00782.txt

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$Unique_ID{USH00782}
$Pretitle{77}
$Title{The Amphibians Came to Conquer:  Volume 1
Chapter 9A   Success, Then Cliff Hanging}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Dyer, VAdm. George C.}
$Affiliation{USN}
$Subject{island
guadalcanal
ships
august
miles
task
islands
admiral
amphibians
commander}
$Volume{Vol. 1}
$Date{1973}
$Log{}
Book:        The Amphibians Came to Conquer:  Volume 1
Author:      Dyer, VAdm. George C.
Affiliation: USN
Volume:      Vol. 1
Date:        1973

Chapter 9A   Success, Then Cliff Hanging

Where Are We Headed?

     In the first 42 years of the Twentieth Century, the United States Navy
felt that it had visited a fair share of the Pacific Ocean, and its islands,
and that it "knew the Pacific."  But somehow the Solomon Islands, although in
friendly British hands, were outside the Navy's wide ranging sweeps.

     During 1941, this had been intentional.  In a letter to Admiral Husband
E. Kimmel, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral Harold R. Stark,
Chief of Naval Operations, had written:

     We should not indicate the slightest interest in the Gilbert or Solomon
or Fiji Islands at this time.  If we do, our future use of them, might be
compromised.

     Until the amphibians and their combatant escorts sailed from Wellington
on 22 July 1942, the great majority of the officers and practically 100
percent of the sailormen in Task Force 62 did not even know where in the South
Pacific they were to join with the enemy 16 days later.  "When they were told
that this event would take place in the Solomon Islands, they still didn't
know anything but a name.

     Admiral Turner reminisced:  "I think it can truthfully be said that our
officers and men were ignorant of the Solomons."  General Vandegrift has
written that he did not even know the location of Guadalcanal when Vice
Admiral Ghormley told him that he was to land there on 1 August 1942.

     And until Commander South Pacific Force and CTF 62's Operation Plans 1-
42 and A3-42 with their informative Intelligence Annexes were received and
distributed to all of Task Force 61 on 31 August 1942, the great majority of
the officers and men in the carriers and destroyers of the Air Support Force
were in the same state of geographical ignorance.  Ignorance was not limited
to geography alone.  When the San Francisco (CA-38) (Captain Charles H.
McMorris) joined the Task Force less than a week before the landings, the
captain was bold to officially say that he had "no orders, dispatches, and
little information regarding operations."  Another officer recalled:

     When Admiral Turner talked of Tulagi, Guadalcanal or the Santa Cruz
Islands, he talked knowledgeably, but the rest of us naval officers were just
plain geographically ignorant; learning fast, but at the moment ignorant.

Solomon Islands

     The whole Solomon Island Group stretches southeasterly 600 miles from
Buka Island in the northwest to 300 miles south of the equator and San
Cristobal Island in the southeast, located 1,200 miles due east of the
northern tip of Australia.  The Northern Solomons were under German control
from 1899 until early in World War I, when in September 1914, they were
captured by the Australians.  This part of the Solomons, primarily the islands
of Buka and Bougainville, became an Australian mandate in 1920, under the
League of Nations.

     All of the Solomons became an Australian defense responsibility with the
outbreak of World War II.  Great Britain had controlled the Southern Solomons
since 1899, and the British resident commissioner resided on the island of
Tulagi, a sliver of an island nestled under the hills of Florida Island, 20
miles north of Koli Point in the center of the North Coast of Guadalcanal.

     The Australians had chosen the tiny island of Tulagi as their principal
base for the discharge of their defense responsibilities, because between
Tulagi and Florida Island, there was a good medium size ship anchorage (15-25
fathoms) and a sheltered seaplane operating area, a mile and a half long and a
half mile wide.  This was quite suitable for any concentration of ships of the
Australian Navy.  Nearby Gavutu Island was judged particularly suitable for a
seaplane base and just a few more miles away was Purvis Bay, banana-shaped
but deep-watered and adequate for innumerable small ships.

     From the operation orders, the amphibians learned some of these facts.
They also learned from them the hazards of nature as well as the dangers of a
skillful enemy, that had to be endured in the Solomons.  The transports were
to proceed to an anchorage area where:  "uncharted reefs may be expected," and
where "winds of sufficient velocity to drag anchor over coral patched holding
ground may be expected any day of the year."

     But come what may, the amphibians were told that they must land their
Marines on the chosen coastal beaches which were "lined with coconut
plantations."

     Fortunately, the landings on this hostile shore about 600 miles south of
the equator were to take place during the "fine weather season."  Only eight
inches of rain generally fell in all of August, and while humidity might be
expected to average an unpleasant 80 percent, temperatures ordinarily ranged
only from a moderate 75 degrees to a somewhat uncomfortable or hot 85 degrees.

     Rear Admiral Turner's desire was to keep his task groups in the open sea
as long as possible, and out of sight of any Japanese lookout posts high up on
the 7,000-8,000 foot razorback mountain chain which ran from northwest to
southeast along the middle of Guadalcanal.  The shorter route through
Indispensable Strait from the Fijis lying to the southeast could not be used
because of this requirement and because:

     Two weeks observation of Japanese air scouting from Tulagi indicated that
one or two seaplanes daily came down the New Hebrides Chain to the vicinity of
Efate; and apparently on alternate days, at least, one seaplane came about the
same distance on a direct line toward the Fijis.  The Task Force 62 approach
route was laid out to pass to the south and west of known or estimated plane
searches.

     So Rear Admiral Turner planned to make the approach from the Coral Sea to
Florida Island and to Lunga Point around the western end of Guadalcanal and
through the 12-mile wide channel separating that island and the Russell
Islands.

     The amphibians and their escort had made the 1,000-mile westward passage
from Koro Island in the Fijis to a position (16 degrees 34 minutes S, 159
degrees 00 minutes E) 400 miles directly south of the Russell Islands without
sighting an enemy plane or submarine, although the Enterprise (CV-6) (Captain
Arthur C. Davis) had reported a torpedo wake crossing her bow 50 yards ahead,
a little after 2200 on the night before the landing and the Chicago had
reported a submarine contact on 3 August, later evaluated as a large fish.
Army Air Force bombers and COMAIRSOPAC PBYs had flown over the force from time
to time to protect it and to familiarize lookouts and gun and director crews
with the B-17, but the voyage still had had its alarms.  The amphibians had
been forcibly reminded that the hazards of mine warfare were not too far
removed when radio reports were received, on 4 August, that the destroyer
Tucker (DD.374) had had her back broken by a mine only 150 miles north of
their track, at Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides.

     The Task Force was in a circular cruising disposition maintaining radio
and radar silence and, at night, visual silence.  Seventeen destroyers and
fast minesweepers were equally spaced on the three-mile circle from the
formation guide in the center; the cruisers and remaining destroyers were on
or near the two-mile circle; and the 19 transports and cargo ships were in a
line of five divisions spaced one-half mile apart in the center of the
disposition.  The destroyer-type transports were in line abreast a thousand
yards ahead of the Formation Guide, the Hunter Liggett (AP-27), flagship of
Captain Reifsnider, Commander Transport Divisions, South Pacific Force.  Five
of the eight protecting cruisers were in division columns in the bow quadrants
at 40 degrees relative, right and left, between the one and two-mile circle.
The other three cruisers were astern of the guide, between the two and
three-mile circle.

     This formation was well balanced against both submarine attack and
surprise air attack, as it was shepherded along in unfamiliar waters by the
Air Support Force at 131/Z knots.

     The Escort Commander, Rear Admiral Crutchley, R.N., was:

     responsible for the safety of the Force against enemy action and for
maneuvering the Escort for action against the enemy.

All ships of Task Force 62, except the transports, were placed under the
command of the Escort Commander for this purpose.

The Dark of the Night

     At noon on 5 August, the formation course was changed to North and the
run in to the Russell Islands was started at 13 knots.  The weather turned
hazy and there were rain squalls.

     A 12-mile clearance from outreaching and dangerous Russell Island rocks
on the port hand to outreaching and dangerous Guadalcanal Island rocks on the
starboard hand had looked most adequate on the charts, particularly as the
approach disposition into which the formation would be shifted in late
afternoon narrowed the front of the Task Force from 12,000 yards to 3,500
yards.

     However, the Russell Islands had been reported by "pilots familiar with
these waters" and "information sources in New Zealand" to be four to five
miles eastward of their charted position.  If this was true, and acceptance of
the report as valid was sufficient to write it in on the Attack Force Approach
Plan, then the navigational channel between Guadalcanal and the Russells was
only seven miles and the clear and safe channel for night navigation
considering the quirks of current, markedly less.

     It was also desirable to have the outboard ships far enough away from the
beach on either side, so that an alert Japanese sentry would not spot the
ships passing by and sound the alarm.  This hazard dictated splitting the
channel with exact midway piloting of the formation.  To accomplish this task
the staff navigator had to know exactly where the formation was by not later
than 1600 on the 6th.

     But, as noted in the previous chapter, the 51 navigators of the 51 ships
were all over the lot in their morning and noon position reports.  It was as
though they had all agreed to disagree and worry the Admiral and the staff
navigator.

     Perhaps the real reason was that the Coral Sea currents were tricky, the
weather was hazy, and the Solomons were beyond the range of the few 1942
surface radars in Task Force 62.  The Staff Log for 6 August 1942 tells the
story:

     Last [good] sight about 1400, August 5, 1942 . . .

During forenoon obtained various sun lines of doubtful value . . .

     [No] zigzagging in order not to complicate navigational data . . .

     At 1730 Selfridge [DD.357, Lieutenant Commander Carroll D. Reynolds after
sighting Bellona Island] rejoined disposition reporting position of San Juan
[CL.54, Captain James E. Maher] at 1655 as Latitude 10-58 South, Longitude
159-01 East [115 miles due south of Russell Islands].

     With this firm position from Selfridge in hand, an exact approach through
the shoal bound waters ahead was practicable at last for the 51-ship
formation.

     Later in the afternoon of 6 August, the carrier groups totaling 26 ships
which had been hovering around and protecting the amphibians, broke off
contact and disappeared to the southward.  The amphibians were shifted into a
column of squadrons of transports so as to narrow the front of the formation.
Speed was changed to 12 knots and the final die cast.

     The long day of 6 August and the one preceding it had had their blessings
not known or directly recognized at the time.  The rain squalls and the haze
had been even heavier and thicker further north and closer to the equator in
the area toward which the Expeditionary Force was moving.  Thus Japanese Air
reconnaissance flights from Rabaul and from the Tulagi-Gavutu air bases were
either washed out, or the pilot's visibility was limited.  The Japanese land
based planes were unequipped with radar.  Neither the carriers nor the
amphibians were sighted.

     At midnight on the sixth on board the flagship, it had been established
that:

     The force is 3 miles southward or behind planned position with respect to
time.

     The Henley (DD-391) (Commander Robert Hall Smith) and the Bagley (DD-
386) (Lieutenant Commander George A. Sinclair) led the ships into what was
later called "Iron Bottom Sound."  The Henley early on 7 August had sighted
the big high dark mass of Guadalcanal at 0133, less than an hour before the
moon in its last quarter tried to break through the murk of the night at 0223.
From the force flagship, McCawley, the sky at midnight on the sixth had
appeared

     overcast, visibility poor . . . ships in sight - one ahead, one astern,
and in next adjacent columns, only one ship in sight.

     However, at 0050 on the seventh, fortune had begun to shine on the
amphibians:

     Stars out, visibility improving . . .

0130.  Counted eight ships in left-hand column and seven in right . . .

     Betelgeuse and Transdiv Dog widely opened out.  Directed these ships to
close up, using blinker tube with reduced iris . . .

     0440.  The moon after disclosing Guadalcanal and Savo Island became
obscure.

     For the day of the landing, the seventh, the weather was about all that
could be hoped for at Guadalcanal.  The sky was mostly cloudy and the average
temperature was 80 degrees F.

     Off Cape Esperance, the northwest cape of Guadalcanal, Task Force 62 had
been split, with the lead transports bound for Florida Islands (Group YOKE,
Captain George B. Ashe) passing north of Savo Island and the much larger Group
XRAY (Captain Lawrence F. Reifsnider) bound for Lunga Point, taking the
channel to the southward.  Savo Island was abeam just before 0500, with
sunrise due about 0633.

A Beautiful Island

     As darkness turned to light on 7 August 1942, the Lower Solomons came
into view of Task Force 62.  The sailorman's first impression on the morning
of 7 August turned out to be so different from that carried in most literature
on Guadalcanal, that this first impression should be noted.  A Marine combat
correspondent making the initial landing aptly put this impression in these
words:

     . . . Guadalcanal is an island of striking beauty.  Blue-green mountains,
towering into a brilliant tropical sky or crowned with cloud masses, dominate
the island.  The dark green of jungle growth blends into the softer greens and
browns of coconut groves and grassy plains and ridges.

     Admiral Turner put it more briefly:

A truly beautiful sight that morning.

     Although Task Force 62 at 1600 the previous afternoon had been only 125
miles from the south coast of Guadalcanal, and presumably within the range of
a late afternoon seaplane reconnaissance from both distant Rabaul or close
Tulagi, the first enemy knowledge of the approach of the amphibians could have
come from a routine early morning 7 August Japanese aircraft search.  At 0600
the Staff Log noted:

     Observed lights of two planes taking off the water in vicinity of Lunga
Point.  At 0609, red flare dropped over [HMAS] Australia.

     Two minutes before schedule:

     At 0613 Quincy [CA.39, Captain Samuel N. Moore] opened fire on the
beaches at Guadalcanal.

     At 0615 destroyers opened fire.

At 0616 ships commenced firing on the Tulagi side.

     It appeared that the approach of Task Force 62 and the subsequent attack
took the Japanese by surprise as no shots were fired, no patrol boats [were]
encountered, no signs of life were evident until Group XRAY opened fire on
Guadalcanal Island objectives across the channel, about twenty miles away.
Then a cluster of red rockets went up from the direction of Tulagi Island.

First Blood

     First blood on the hostile shore was "a large oil fire" at the small
village of Kukum, just to the westward from Lunga Point.

     First seagoing blood was drawn at sea by two destroyers in the van of
Squadron XRAY where the Dewey (DD-349) and Hull (DD-350) were on the starboard
bow and the Selfridge (DD-357) and Jarvis (DD-393) were on the port bow.  At
0620, the Dewey and the Selfridge opened fire on a Japanese schooner. The
Selfridge reported that

     Selfridge fired 26 rounds 5"/38 common on a small vessel loaded with
gasoline.

     The Dewey made a low key report:

Dewey expended 20 rounds.

     Her consort, the Hull logged

Dewey sank small Japanese schooner.

     The Transport Group Commander recorded:

     At 0630 a destroyer of the screen concentrated gunfire on a small 80-
foot craft directly ahead of the formation.  The vessel was carrying a deck
load of gasoline in drums and was quickly enveloped in flames.

     The flagship briefed the action:

Two masted schooner sunk by leading destroyer.

     And finally, one of the cargo ships, the Alchiba reported:

     After four salvos from a destroyer in the van at 0630, the small craft
ahead was hit and burst into flame.

     However, the Dewey (Lieutenant Commander Charles F. Chillingsworth)
magnanimously reported "checked fire when aircraft attacked" and "one small
schooner sunk by own aircraft."

     From the reports of all the witnesses present, it appears that the
aircraft bomb brought a quick end to a schooner already in extremities from
the gunfire of the destroyers despite the Ellet's (DD-398) opinion that one
destroyer's shooting was "ragged."

     The long drawn-out anti-aircraft battle in the Solomons was soon to
start, at least in the minds of those having their first brush with the
Japanese.  According to the Staff Log and the final Marine report:

     0618. sighted unidentified plane on port bow.

0620. AA fire on plane ahead. . . . only one aircraft got into the air and it
was destroyed immediately after takeoff by cruiser anti-aircraft fire, off
Lunga Point.

     A tiresome check of the war diaries, action reports, and logs of
surviving ships does not reveal which cruiser or destroyer fired anti-
aircraft fire at this hour of the morning.  The haze of the Solomons was
beginning.