Guadalcanal 72 Years On

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kham
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Re: Guadalcanal 72 Years On

Postby kham » Mon Sep 01, 2014 3:49 pm

est The Air Raid Dog

Jack Read, N. Bougainville: "18 bombers, 22 fighters going yours" (never got there - must have been bad weather)
Seabees (Construction Battalion) arrive at H.! 200 strong - and Two Bulldozers Seabees start work on a backup airstrip - Fighter One. Marines get some heavy artillery today. Also arriving with the Seabees and Arty.... MAIL!!!
Tregaskis: There are many reports of starving Japanese surrendering.
Rabaul gets reinforcements. Betty x24, Zero x20
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Re: Guadalcanal 72 Years On

Postby kham » Tue Sep 02, 2014 5:00 am

est SBDs are out and trying to bomb J. DDs unloading troops near Taivu/Tasimboko.

Tasimboko: Nishino wakes up in an alert. Enemy troops are trying to land nearby!

Float planes, from cruisers at Taivu, nuisance bomb H.
Kawaguchi has the option of waiting for reinforcements. He decides he doesn't need them and has his engineers start cutting a trail that will take them to a point South of H.

Jacob Vouza walks out of the Marine field hospital!! He received 16 pints of blood transfusions! After recuperating, he resumes his position as chief scout. And this time, it's personal.

Nimitz decides spare CV AC will go to H. First off, 3 squadrons from Saratoga. This is in reponse to McCain's "Sinkhole" message yesterday. Rabaul should have 136 Bettys, 136 Zeros, 16 Vals and 28 Flying Boats It has 36 Bettys, 46* Zeros, 6 Vals and 10 Flying Boats. *16 of those are the short ranged Hamps. MacArthur's 5th AF is active and will bomb Rabaul or other air bases almost everyday.
2 air raids on H. today. Betty x18 on the 2nd one. Marines claim Betty x3, Zero x5
P-38s are excellent high altitude interceptors and would be very effective against the Betty Raids. Ghormley asks MacArthur for some P-38s. MacArthur says he only has SIX and can't spare any. Offers P-39s later on. Vandegrift to Ghormley: "P-400 entirely unsuitable for operations (at 'canal). Will not be employed further except in extreme emergencies." (aka = It's a worthless piece of shit! Stop sending the deathtraps and dead USAAF pilots!)
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Re: Guadalcanal 72 Years On

Postby kham » Tue Sep 02, 2014 5:02 am

Richard Amerine, F4F pilot, survived his oxygen mask malfunction on Aug 31. He is behind J. lines making his way back to H. Sneaking through the jungle he finds a sleeping J. soldier and beats him to death with a rock. He takes his pistol.

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Re: Guadalcanal 72 Years On

Postby kham » Wed Sep 03, 2014 1:20 am

est SBDs try to bomb the Tokyo Express tonight. No hits. A sub bombards area near Kukum. 2 other subs are in area. V. suspects there are J. on Savo Island sending signals to submarines. He directs Edson to take his raiders and clear them out.
Paul Mason reports an airfield under construction near Malabita hill - southern end of Bougainville. 250 miles closer to H. than Rabaul. Kawaguchi's base at Tasimboko is under seemingly continuous air attack. Correspondent Nishino counts 71 air raids one day! The soldiers won't make fires to cook food because of smoke. They eat only fruit and raw rice. Kawaguchi wonders why the American's haven't done a ground attack yet. He is surprised he hasn't been... raided.
TR Formalhaut and 3 APDs land supplies. (at Lunga, I assume)

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Re: Guadalcanal 72 Years On

Postby kham » Wed Sep 03, 2014 2:47 pm

J. massacre 4 missionaries at Ruavatu on the N. Coast. Some sources say this was the work of Ishimoto.

3rd 90mm AA gun battery set up at Henderson field.

Richard Amerine is still behind J. lines. As he works his way back to H. he makes good use of the pistol he took from the soldier he killed yesterday. He beats 2 J. soldiers to death with the pistol, shoots another one. (no details, I assume this was 3 separate incidents)

Gen Roy Geiger arrives to take command of Marine aviation at H. He wrote the book on Marine Air Warfare. He has the use of his own personal PBY. He soon puts it to use on regular cargo runs to Espiritu Santo and back.

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Re: Guadalcanal 72 Years On

Postby kham » Thu Sep 04, 2014 12:43 am

Kawaguchi gets word that Col. Oka is ready to make his barge run to Kokumbona. He wants to coordinate his attack but won't send the message by radio fearing interception. Lt. Nakayama and 3 soldiers get a mission! They must run through the jungle behind H. and make their way to Kokumbona to tell Oka about the attack schedule. *** He tells them the success of the attack depends on perfect timing! *** They'll need to go 30-33 miles through some of the worst jungle on the planet without a good map. Kawaguchi: Be sure to avoid Marine patrols! The natives are hostile. You can have my personal can of sardines. Good luck! (is it any wonder the secnav once commented that the Japanese are incapable of fighting a modern war?? This comic-opera stuff is only something a complete gibbering imbecile could come up with. It cannot be expected to be serious)
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Re: Guadalcanal 72 Years On

Postby kham » Thu Sep 04, 2014 1:42 pm

Bad weather has prevented raids from Rabaul so the flyers at H. can go on offense. Marines air raid *36* J. landing boats (barges) near Santa Isabel. F4Fs, P-400s and SBDs rip Col. Oka's ant line all day long. P-400s, with their 20mm cannon*, are ideal for barge busting. *explosive shells These are IJA barges - they have AA guns... not enough though. The surviving barges make a run that night for Kokumbona. They need to go 60 miles before dawn. Can they make it? Following up V's suspicion, Edson finds no J. on Savo. Natives say J. left 5 days ago. Edson used 1/2 the raiders on Tulagi for this. The other half of the Raiders, plus the Para batt, move from Tulagi to H. The Parachute "Battalion" is small. After the casualties they took in the Tulagi fighting the Paras have about 200 men. Very well trained men.
APDs Little, Gregory carry Edson and his raiders from Savo Island to Kukum. After disembarking, they get new orders to board the APDs for a raid on Tasimboko but it's too late in the day. They'll go tomorrow. The 2 APDs will hang around since the weather is so bad they don't want to risk the reefs around Tualagi. Scouts report the J. Force at Tasimboko now numbers several thousand. Marines assume natives can't count, think it's 1/10th as many. From scouting reports and Marine patrols it's obvious something is going on S and SE of Lunga. But Marines don't know the exact location of Kawaguchi's main force. The raid on on Tasimboko is meant to clarify things.

TE run - 3 DDs carrying troops, 3 DDs escorting. They land troops near Taivu. Escorts then proceed to Lunga to bombard H.
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Re: Guadalcanal 72 Years On

Postby kham » Fri Sep 05, 2014 1:51 am

Tokyo Express is bombarding H. APDs Little and Gregory spot the 3 DDs on radar. They move in for an ambush! A PBY sees some sort of bombardment going on off Lunga. Thinks a sub is doing it. The PBY drops a line of flares to illuminate the sub for the Marine shore batteries. The flares are little off. They illuminate APDs Little and Gregory! DDs Yudachi, Hatsuyuki, Murakumo operate at a hair trigger. They waste no time busting up the APDs with accurate gunfire. The 2 APDs have 1 4" gun each, the 3 IJN DDs each have multiple 5" guns. It's a one-sided fight. APD Gregory has taken hits in her boilers. She is dead in the water, on fire and sinking. WW1 relics Little and Gregory , fighting 3 modern DDs, are disabled and on fire. IJN playing hardball. The DDs steam between the burning APDs shooting at survivors in the water. Then they leave. Just like Aug 22, USN DDs (or APDs) try to ambush IJN DDs by exploiting radar and wind up occupying Iron Bottom Sound. APD little sinks (can't find casualty info) APD Gregory sinks 11 died
By now, all realize that Day and Night are very different around Guadalcanal.
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Re: Guadalcanal 72 Years On

Postby kham » Fri Sep 05, 2014 1:55 am

Going at full speed all night, Col. Oka's 15* Ant Line barges are now only a few miles from Kokumbona. *36 yesterday. They need to make landfall before it's light. Dawn is only an hour away. It's gonna be close!
Better pic of the Type A barge. Don't know if this is what Oka was using - but it's probably close.
H. dawn patrol spots Oka's ant line barges *300 yards* from shore The 2 patrolling P-400s attack. 6 F4Fs join the attack on Oka's barges. 1 barge sunk, about 350 J. killed in this raid. 1 F4F shot down by AA. Oka started with 1,400 men. 450 make it to 'canal. Little ammo, no food. Kawaguchi assumes they landed intact. APD Gregory's survivors rescued from water. Little's surivors were also rescued but I don't know the details. est B-17s attack DDs Yudachi, Hatsuyuki, Murakumo on their return from sinking those 2 APDs. No hits.
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Re: Guadalcanal 72 Years On

Postby kham » Fri Sep 05, 2014 4:01 am

About 26 Bettys raid H. F4Fx18 break it up. Marines claim Bettyx2, Zerox1. F4Fx2 shot down, 1 pilot killed, 1 wounded and evacuated. P-400s (probably) depart H. during the raid and strafe the barges on the beach.
Lt. Riley, doing recon in his PBY, opportunistically stalks a Mavis flying boat. Blazing through concealing clouds at a blistering 155 mph the PBY "sprang on his prey like a maddened elephant" :P
The PBY's gunners savage the Mavis from 350 ft. above. The Mavis splashes down, a wing falls off and Lt. Riley can claim a kill! "The Cactus Air Force" - Thomas Miller Jr. (Sometimes fighter pilot isn't the machinery, its the attitude :twisted: )
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