Guadalcanal 72 Years On

[kham]

"Make sure that every possible weapon gets into that area to hold Guadalcanal" - FDR

What a typical September day at and around 'canal is like

The IJA has fought their way over the Owen Stanley mountains of New Guinea. They are close enough to Port Moresby to see the lights at night! They are worn out and need reinforcements. Those reinforcements have been sent to Guadalcanal. (Here's the Bergerud quote again!) The IJA's overland attack on Pt. Moresby collapses. Tokyo tells IJA to concentrate on 'canal first.

Tregaskis: Hot rumour at H. The Wasp has been sunk!

Kawaguchi's defeated force staggers toward Kokumbona Many wounded are abandoned on the trail and die ...(ongoing....)

[kham]

est Marines bomb J. installations at Cape Esperance. Marines at H. estimate that, so far, they've shot down 131 J. planes - half twin engine, half single engine.
Turner sees his chance and sends in the convoy with the 7th Marines.
2nd Lt. Smith and PFC Costello crash their SBD next to Santa Isabel on their way back to H. They spend the night on some tiny island.
The IJA are as close as they'll ever get to Port Moresby. No reinforcements on the way, they're ordered to retreat, over the mountains, through the jungle, back to Buna. Most don't survive. Turner's convoy is at Kukum and will try to completely unload before nightfall. While the TRs unload, 2 of the escort DDs (Monssen, MacDonough) stroll up and down the coast bombarding all known J. positions. This is bad for J. morale. J. are short of food and the DDs are blowing it up. When J. arrive on TE runs, each man comes with only 3 days of food. TE is bringing lots of soldiers, not a lot of food.

An SBD, preparing to land at H., is shot down by the nervous AA gunners of the transport fleet. Pilot dies. 3 more TRs (not Turner's) arrive and unload emergency supplies of AvGas.
Lucky break - no air attacks today - the convoy's unloading is uninterrupted

Kawaguchi's defeated force staggers toward Kokumbona Many wounded are abandoned on the trail and die ....(**Ongoing....)

[kham]

After spending 3 days refueling, the huge IJN force 200 miles N. of 'canal returns to Truk. Yamamoto has decided that further attacks on 'canal are pointless until a full division is used. So no reason to keep these ships at sea.
Radio intelligence units start to arrive on 'canal. First in, a radio direction finding station. Radio intercepts can give quicker warning of incoming bombers. The radar on 'canal, due to a bad location, usually gives 15 minutes notice.

90% of the 7th Marine Regt. and their supplies are unloaded before Turner's convoy departs Lunga! 4,187 Marines (including 2 artillery battalions), 147 vehicles, 1,000 tons of food and lots of ammo. The first new ammo since Aug 8th! Marines on 'canal now have enough food to go back on full rations. (they had been on 2 meals a day) This is how Turner planned it. From now on, transports arriving at 'canal will be set up to be unloaded in one day.

Smith/Costello swim to Santa Isabel, spend night in deserted house. There's a Japanese calendar on the wall. That makes them nervous!
The Tokyo Express enters the channel just as Turner's convoy leaves it. TE does not pursue. TE (DDx4) bombards H.

[kham]

Yamamoto reorganizes his Striking Force. CVs Hiyo, Junyo and CVL Zuiho will move from Tokyo to Truk. (Junyo, Hiyo - 53 AC, Zuiho - 27 AC) That'll give IJN 5 carriers in the SWPac to the USN's 1. (USN estimate of 8 to 1 was an *estimate*. Code breakers haven't caught up yet) J. worries about the US striking Japan through the Central Pacific (Dolittle raid) and holds back carriers to guard.

Vandegrift now has enough men to defend the entire perimeter. Not all parts are strongly held but there are no gaps or exposed flanks. The Southern part of the perimeter is still a problem. The jungle is so dense that units can't support each other and there isn't enough manpower to chop it down over a 14,000 yard line. Vandegrift also has enough men to do a limited offensive. Hard to go on offense with men that have been on 'canal for awhile due to Malaria and such. Acclimate for few days, then attack. Tokyo now estimates there are 7,500 Americans on 'canal. There are actually 19,000 at the end of the month (23,000 on Oct 13) All though this campaign, J. would underestimate the number of Americans on 'canal while the Americans would overestimate the number of J.
Tregaskis interviews Marines from Bloody Ridge (the big battle last week). They tell him J. will ask to be killed when they're captured. They think the request is enough to satisfy the honor requirement of death instead of capture. After the marines don't kill the J., the J. usually seems relieved and makes no attempt at suicide.
est Smith and Costello reveal themselves to local natives on Santa Isabel. They're spirited away to "The Chinaman" - an assistant to coastwatcher Kuper. He arranges for a rescue.

The refugees at Tangarare (de Klerk's mission) learn J. are moving down the SW coast. They get panicky - ready to flee into jungle.

A NYT correspondent interviews V. NYT: Are you going to hold this beachhead, General? Are you going to stay here? V: Hell yes; why not?

Kawaguchi's defeated force staggers toward Kokumbona. Many wounded are abandoned on the trail and die .....

[kham]

Nuisance raids continue. Washing Machine Charlie / Louie the Louse fly almost every night. Occasionally they drop empty Sake bottles. They make a whistling noise - like a falling bomb. "Sometimes you could hear the bomb bay door kind of click open." "Fire In The Sky" - Eric Bergerud

est Coastwatcher MacFarland arranges for PBYs to pickup refugees at Tangarare on Sept 28. Coastwatcher Snowy Rhoades heads to Tangarare for evac. Takes Lt. Farnam and an army pilot shot down over Lavoro.

Gen. Hyakutake (17th Army) will soon move his HQ from Rabaul to 'canal. (Pictured at Rabaul) This gives him a moral imperative to back him up once his manpower is big enough to attack.

Kawaguchi's defeated force staggers toward Kokumbona Many wounded are abandoned on the trail and die ......(Almost feel sorry...Not. Any twinges girls, think about Bataan...)

[kham]

est Marine air raid damages a CL or CA near Rekata Bay.

Poor weather continues to keep the J. at Rabaul from doing much to 'canal other than a lot of TE runs. H. bombers take shots at incoming TE runs - that same bad weather keeps them from accomplishing anything except pilot fatigue.

[kham]

Adm. McCain replaced by Adm. Fitch. McCain isn't fired, just moving to another job.

Nimitz "Graybook"

Kawaguchi's defeated force staggers ... they make it!

est Nimitz is visiting CV Saratoga at Pearl Harbor "Boys, I got a surprise for you. Bill Halsey's back!" (Halsey had medical issues)

The men cheered, Halsey cried. That night, Nimitz decides to, eventually, install Halsey as ComSoPac (Commander South Pacific)

The Rabaul-Henderson-Rabaul flights were *dangerous* even without combat.
For the month of Sept, non-combat AC losses for Rabaul were higher than combat losses! (Fighters especially hard hit)

[kham]

est J. APD tries to sneak some infantry onto 'canal at Kamimbo bay. F4Fs strafe it.

IJA engineers start construction of the "Maruyama Trail" (Gen. Maruyama commands one of the units in the October offensive.) It runs South from Kokumbona, then *behind* Mt. Austen then North along the Lunga river towards H.
(Can't find a map tracing the Maruyama trail but the *approximate* route looks like this.)

It covers some of the roughest terrain on 'canal - you have to use ropes to "walk" up some of the sections. It's the longest 15 miles on earth. The jungle is thick enough that the trail is invisible to aircraft. The trail will be used for the October offensive. The destination will be Centipede Height. Or, as the Americans call it, Bloody Ridge. The master plan of Hayakutake is to attack in the *exact* same place where the Kawaguchi Butai just got murdered! BUT, thanks to the Maruyama trail, the Sendai Division will bring artillery with them! That's the plan, anyway. BTW, this trail is 20-24 inches wide. It's reasonable to ask why the IJA doesn't try attacking from somewhere that isn't impossible - like from the West. The Marines have heavy defenses along the Matanikau. That would be a *challenging* river crossing. And, if they IJA did force their way across, there'd still be miles of jungle between them and H. - *and* the Lunga river.

**staff thinking like this would have gotten the "save the paperwork" solution in Russia. Come on, stick your face into the same meatgrinder AGAIN?? You can use a lot of adjectives to describe that, starting with retarded, imbecilic, moronic.....

[kham]

Lt. Col Edson makes Full Colonel. Gets command of the 5th Mar Regt. Marine/Native scout patrols are doing a good job of keeping track of the location of most of the J. forces on 'canal.

Smith and Costello are whisked away from romantic Santa Isabel in a float plane. Chalk up two more saves for the Coastwatchers!

Gen Geiger sees his pilots are cracking under the stress of near-constant combat. He'll set an example to improve morale. He takes an SBD and the 57 year old drops a 1,000 pound bomb on J. positions near Visale. (Going after supplies from last nights TE run.)

[kham]

est Edson tells Lt. Col Puller to survey the track Kawaguchi took when he retreated from Bloody Ridge. Henderson Field has F4Fx30, SBDx22, TBFx7 and P-400x5 operational. Despite the P-400s bad rep in air combat, Vandegrift finds they're excellent for ground support and asks for more.
SBDs and TBFs take a crack at a TE run off Visale. They try dropping flares first since it's night. No hits.

Elements of the Sendai division start to arrive on 'cana' via TE runs.

Secure on East and South, Vandegrift starts offensive to push IJA back from Matanikau on the West (favorite this) The newly arrived 7 Regt. aren't ill yet so they get the job.
Lt. Col "Chesty" Puller's battalion will move through the jungle, following Kawaguchi's retreat route. They'll move S. to Mt. Austen, W. to the Matanikau, cross the river and patrol N. up to the coast. That's supposed to take from 23 to 26 Sept. After that, they'll set up a base at Kokumbona. Vandegrift thinks J. are ruined after Bloody Ridge. He not allowing for the 700-900 new J. a night coming in via TE.