Guadalcanal 72 Years On

[kham]

4 USN air crew were captured by the IJN yesterday and today. They are: Dusty Rhodes - F4F pilot
Weighed 88 pounds when the Japanese were finished with him. Later flew with the Blue Angels.
Also, Al Mead - F4F pilot, Tom Nelson - TBF crew Murray Glasser TBF crew All were in bad shape, similar to Rhodes, by 1945.

est IJA HQ to 17th Army - Reinforce 'canal. The next attack must succeed!
IJA E. of the Matanikau are in general retreat*. *Mostly to Kokumbona. Some go E. to Koli point
Marine patrols can move 2,500 yards S. of the perimeter without encountering any J. other than stragglers and snipers.

[kham]

** note to watchers, thus closes the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands
A tactical victory for the Japanese, but, a shattering strategic loss. They might have did better with their naval aviation assets here than the USN, and sank a major US carrier, but at the cost of brutalizing their core of veteran aircrews. This they would never recover from. The next time the carriers clashed, would be 20 months from now, at what would be known as the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot. There, it truly would be boys fighting men, and the men have spent the last nearly 2 years perfecting their system and fixing all the flaws that plagued them today. Not to mention adding a vastly more deadly fighter/interceptor/strike fighter to their arsenal

The next main event as it were will be in about 2 1/2 weeks , the naval equivalent of The Battle of Endor, or Coruscant, depending how old you are I mention this now, only because not sure how the postings will space out; the engagements there were probably the most intense of the entire war. Only Taffy 3 in 1944 would be as close

[kham]

esd Tokyo Express starts landing 228th Regt of 38th Div (Nagoya) around Cape Esperance. Conscripts, not elite like Sendai division was. TE still can't land heavy weapons. IJA will get the men on land first. Big guns, tanks and such will get to 'canal on IJA's fast transports later this month. There'll be a lot of food on those TRs as well.

Halsey puts *maximum* effort into getting Enterprise repaired. Even as she was returning to port, Halsey strips his subordinate commands for mechanics and repairmen.

Repairs were estimated to take 3 weeks. She'll be back at sea, mostly fixed, in 11 days.

"Killing Pistol Pete." The main threat to H. now is IJA long range artillery.
After the Battle for Henderson Field the IJA 17th army is a shambles. (**faceplanting from 40 floors up can do that... )

The Marines have a chance to attack and push the IJA far enough W., past Kokumbona, so that H. is out of range of Pistol Pete.

[kham]

Vandegrift picks units for this limited offensive.
Coastwatcher Waddell is operational at Choiseul. His base has a great view of "the slot".

est Lt. Dowd, flying a recon PBY, sees a yellow life raft floating near Santa Cruz. He lands to pick up 2 survivors. It's his flight instructor from Pensacola!
Dowd: What the hell are you doing here? Widhelm: None of your damn business - get me a cup of coffee!
Widhelm is awarded, effectively, a 2nd Navy Cross. Looks like Stokely gets a hearty handshake.

Col. Tsuji is walking back to the Kokumbona. He feeds wounded, abandoned soldiers when he passes them.

Little more on the Swede Remember, he was an SBD driver BEFORE he flew F4Fs...and killed 4 Zeros while doing it! And helped sink 3 Jap ships at Tulagi; served over 30 years in the Navy, and was skipper of USS Constellation CV-64

[kham]

esd Yamamoto tells Hayakutake that Y. will commit BBs (!!) to suppress H. before the next offensive.
Gotta suppress H. to clear the way for the fast TRs. Unlike October, IJA won't spend a week in the jungle after the TRs unload. If they get tanks one night, they can attack with those tanks the next morning since they'll be going after the Matanikau front.
est A Marine patrol captures and spikes 2 75mm guns.
Some air action for H. today. (No time was mentioned for any of the following events.)
Recon finds DDx2 off Tassafaronga. They're bombed - no hits. They're pursued to the Russel Islands. Still no hits. One SBD shot down by AA.
F4Fs attack the seaplane base at Rekata Bay - they destroy 3 planes and blow up a fuel dump.

est Downed aircrew Mester, Forwood and King are picked up at Santa Isabel by a barge from Lunga.

est Coastwatcher Silvester gets return message by canoe - there'll be no new radio for Josselyn.
Josselyn will have to take the radio to Kennedy in New Georgia.
Silvester's massive network of natives makes this easy. They take Josselyn and radio 130 miles by canoe - traveling at night.

[ducttapej]

http://grognard.com/fb/

[kham]

**Avalon Hill, old but good games from back in the day. There are several rule sets for running naval miniatures , from Seekreig to Larry Bond's rulesets. The night actions almost always need a ref, to simulate the limited visibility and intelligence. Having done both as player and ref, its good fun, but is interesting to note that in almost every scenario the result mirrored the historical outcome Can be run using just charts online, but really suits in person for using the actual minis.

[kham]

Adm. Turner is not happy with the way the IJA was able to shut down H. for a while with artillery last week. He decides to build another airfield far outside IJA range - at Aola Bay, 50 miles E. of H. APDs take 2 raider battalions there to occupy it and wait for the Army and seabees to relieve them and build the airfield.

est CV Saratoga is at Pearl Harbor - repaired! A TF (CV, CAx2, DDx8) built around her will soon head to SWPac.

[kham]

est Lt. Wallace Din, Army Air Corp, is shot up over Rekata Bay. He makes it to Santa Isabel. Helllooo, Mr. Kuper! He gets recovered Nov 3rd.

Adm. Callaghan has TF 64.4 - CA San Francisco, CL Helena, DDx3. They'll be escorting ships to 'canal.
1st convoy will deliver 8th Marine Regt. (6,000 men, tanks, heavy arty) Then V. will have healthy troops to go on offense in November.

esd Col. Tsuji makes it back to J. positions W. of the Matanikau. He sends a message to Tokyo.
The November Marine offensive. With the IJA's October offensive crushed, the Marines will again try to push ...their Western perimeter past the Matanikau - putting H. out of arty range. The ultimate objective is the Poha river - 2,600 yards past Kokumbona. The November IJA Offensive.

IJN down to CVs Junyo, Hiyo (being repaired) in SoPac. (Zuikaku will return to Japan to train her new air crew) A historian pointed out that Zuikaku *could* have stayed in SoPac and taken aboard Hiyo's aircraft. He speculated that Yamamoto thought all the US CVs were either sunk or badly damaged so why not send Zuikaku back to train air crew?

IJA wants the rest of 38th division on 'canal plus another division and a brigade in December. No more sneaking around in the jungle! Next time - a frontal assault across the Matanikau! In daylight with heavy artillery support! This will require 30,000 troops, 300 arty, 30,000 tons of supplies (requiring 50 transport trips) Fifty. Transport. Trips.
Long time followers of this account have noticed that J. transports around H. are as safe as an Ebola nurse wearing a bikini.
But Yamamoto has promised to suppress H. with battleship bombardment first. That *almost* shut down H. in October so it's a realistic plan. Yamato will be able to support the IJA with CVx2, BBx4, CAx9, CLx2 and lots and lots of DDs.
IJN aircraft attrition for October 288 lost in combat, 135 lost to other causes (all theaters, not just SWPac)

[kham]

Monthly Malaria Report! This month, Malaria has hospitalized 1,960 Marines on 'canal.

est IJN has sent a big shot, Capt. Tomae, to 'canal to figure out what's causing the IJA so much trouble.