Struggle Pacific, page 20
part #3 of Pacific Alternate Series
The pool was a disgusting muck of body parts, smelly, oily water, and with tons of flies. Above, enemy fire slackened, as they surely killed most of the attackers. He didn’t understand why the Division’s officers were stupid enough to think it would end with any other outcome than a disaster for the attackers. He rolled on his back and decided to wait until it was over. For a long while, he watched the sky, seeing flashes of passing bullets ad artillery. Then he slept.
A few hours later, darkness fell, and with it fighting died out to a trickle, with the night only disturbed by the random shot from a sniper or a canon shell. He then proceeded to put as much blood, dirt, and gore on himself before crawling back to Japanese lines. Tanaka already looked dreadful after a day in the hole anyway, but it didn’t hurt to have a little dark and dried blood on him to look the part. He rolled up over the Japanese trench a few minutes later to the joyous yells of his comrades, which put him upright and asked him if he was all right. None of the men had noticed his little scheme, and he felt relieved that once again, he’d survived.
As he stood up and thanked the men congratulating him for surviving the ordeal, he stole a look at Taichun Togunaka. The man looked as arrogant as ever and gave a glimpse of utter contempt for Ishiro. The veteran soldier smiled inwardly. Now he could think of getting rid of that damned officer.
General Stilwell headquarters
The defense of Kunming, October 8th, 1942
General Joseph W. Stilwell (or “Vinegar Joe”), the commander-in-chief of all Nationalist Forces in China, was in his lavish Chinese office in Generalissimo Shek’s official government building, the magnificent Mingliang Palace. He was at his desk, facing mounds of papers and reports. Intricate tapestry adorned the office’s walls. Intricate Chinese symbols were also carved all around, and a green-tiled floor completed the picture. The General liked to be in the place to think.
The Chiang Kai-Shek government, known as the Nationalists, was in danger. But he’d been able to organize a sort of defense about two hundred kilometers south of Chungking. The ground in the area was rugged, and he had been able to amass enough firepower to make something work.
The General’s back was against the wall. If the 5th and 6th Army failed to hold on to the road to Chungking, the war was as much as over for the Nationalists. Another Japanese offensive was in full swing in central China and on the coast, and without the capital and the recent loss of Kunming, it was over.
Stillwell had sent several long inquiries to the president in the last few weeks to send more troops. He also communicated with the Indian Viceroy (British Empire) to ask the Indian Army to attack in Burma as a diversionary action. But to no avail. The USA was barely holding the line in Australia and the Pacific in general, while the Brits were still trying to recuperate from the loss of the United Kingdom and its production capabilities. In time he might receive help from the Indians, but it would not be anytime soon.
Stillwell needed to find something to change the equation. He had already looked at the map to see if he could get some outflanking move done and had only a few options.
The workable one involved some hard convincing on Chiang Kai-Shek, for he wanted to evacuate two armies from Central China to bring them over to the Chunking area.
The Chinese Generalissimo was not very keen on the prospect, as it would give free rein to the Japanese AND the hated Communist forces under Mao Tse Dong, which would surely move in to fill the void. Additionally, it meant losing another bunch of important cities, which would further degrade the overall production capabilities.
It was rather a bad option compared to a really bad one, but Stillwell believed that he had to propose it to Shek. He hoped it would work. He picked up the phone to get an audience with his excellency.
67th Division command
Desperate situation, October 8th, 1942
General Harukichi Hyakutake looked absently at the clouds that gathered below him and the 67th Division’s position. Hid forces were entrenched in the old Allied positions at the top of the Kokoda track, overlooking the Port Moresby plain. The sun was shining, and the heat was unbearable, as always. The Japanese were above the clouds, which had not even bothered to climb high enough to rain on the Imperial soldiers on that dreary day of October. A few flies (also unbearable, as pretty much everything in this godforsaken land) buzzed about him.
His clothing was drenched in his own sweat, and he felt dirty and worn. He’d been close to victory a few weeks ago. He’d even been in a better climate by the emperor. The New Guinean coastal plain was not a lot better than the miserable Kokoda track condition, but anything that improved his predicament had filled the General’s heart with joy and hope. The 67th and the two Kwantung regiments fighting alongside it had been swallowed up for so long in the Owen Stanley Range that it felt like forever.
Now that Imperial HQ had decided to switch back to the defensive in the theater, supply had again slowed to a trickle. “Of course, it had,” thought the General. For a while, Hyakutake’s men had been somewhat fed and supplied with ammo; other troops in the area had gone hungry in order to make that happen. Such were the vagaries of Imperial supplies. While improved somewhat by the many prisoners of war and local slaves brought to work on it to widen the damned thing, the Kokoda track was not the easiest way to bring supplies.
The white immensity before him seemed calm and peaceful. It hid the plain and Japanese defeat. So many men and equipment had been left on the plains that one could see the littered dead and destruction from far up. The General turned back toward the trench his men had built and took a deep breath. Looking at the faces, he could see a few machine gunners and a few dozen soldiers milling about. They were working on the pillboxes and other defenses that needed constant work because of the damned rain. He could not help but feel wary.
In his pocket, he had the message from General Orii, his superior in Rabaul, telling him to switch back to the defense and that no more attack – until further notice- should be attempted toward Port Moresby. Thinking about the man’s word on the written order made Harukichi smile inwardly. The damn bastard didn’t even know the conditions here to say such a thing. Even if he’d ordered them to attack, it would not have been possible.
The 67th was down to 4000 men from its original 16 000 complement. The two Kwantung regiments numbered just a little above 1400, down from their original 6000. There was nothing left in store for his men. They didn’t have any more energy or the will to attack. They just stayed where they were and awaited either the order to retreat or else to be swept away by the Allies. General MacArthur didn’t know it – of that Hyakutake was certain – that his forces were one push away from a rout, or else he would have attacked already.
The Japanese commander walked back between two of the machine gun pillboxes that his men worked on, giving a few taps on shoulders to show them his support in the ordeal. The soldiers registered but barely responded. A thin smile was what Harukuchi received.
After another 200 meters, he was back at his bunker HQ. He didn’t like to spend too much time in the place since it was half-flooded and was infested with pests and other disgusting insects. He only went in when it was needed.
Going down the steps to enter, he immediately smelled the foul odor that emanated from the place and despaired.
If only those damned reports weren’t due back to HQ the next morning…
Operation Watchtower part 1
The American invasion of Guadalcanal, October 12th, 1942
“The October 1942 landing on Guadalcanal was a colossal improvisation, concocted on the fly to take advantage of a recent dramatic turn in the Pacific war.”
General Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences, 1964
As the saying goes, “Haste makes waste,” “Look before you leap,” and “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” They all make the same point: Be careful, especially when trying to accomplish a difficult task. Prepare yourself, and plan well. Think about the things that can go wrong and have contingencies ready when they do.
However, in October 1942, the Allies had no choice. An opportunity had arisen, and General Macarthur had decided to respond. He went ahead with whatever plans and resources he could cook up at the moment with the Navy.
What was available at that time were a few battered ships from the 2nd fleet and the 12th Marine Division. The US Marines who landed on the South Pacific Island of Guadalcanal on October 12th, 1942, resulted from a quickly planned operation based on an opportunity. It arose from the Japanese defeat in Port Moresby, its stupor at being hit out of nowhere in Tokyo, and the Nipponese high command’s general tendency to hoard its units even when it had a clear superiority in the theater. Following the Army and Imperial Command (Dai Honei) meeting, Grand admiral Yamamoto switched Imperial forces to the defensive in the Coral Sea and the Solomon Sea.
The landing was a colossal improvisation, concocted on the fly to take advantage of a recent dramatic turn in the Pacific war; the Allied victory in New Guinea. The official name for the Guadalcanal landing was “Operation Watchtower,” but the Marines, with their sarcastic sense of humor, had a better name for it: “Operation Shoestring.”
Wanting to seize the initiative momentarily, US commanders (MacArthur, Nimitz, and Leahy) decided to gamble. Commander in Chief of the US fleet, Admiral Ernest J. King, approved MacArthur’s plan for landing on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. Success there would punch a hole in Japan’s Pacific perimeter, sever the link between Rabaul and New Caledonia, and signify that this young war would soon see its turning point.
The 12th Marine Division was new to the Pacific, and its commander, General Alexander Vandermeer, wanted at least six months of training before launching the plan into action. Maps of Guadalcanal were scarce, and so were charts of the tricky waters in the Solomon chain, the so-called “Slot." Admiral Leahy, the Guadalcanal task force commander, had felt nervous when he drew up the plan with MacArthur: his ships would have to remain on station to resupply the Marines once they’d landed. That meant serving as a sitting duck in the Slot’s narrow waters. The problem was simple to understand if difficult to overcome—a lack of logistics, lack of planes, and lack of ports.
The Americans went in anyway. The opportunity to take a pristine airfield was too good to pass up, and it was about damn time that they went on the offensive in the area. More than 11,000 Marines had landed, and 24 hours went by before the Japanese manning the garrison there even knew of the attack. The Japanese defense forces, numbering 3000 men (the 456th Imperial Regiment), under the command of General Hachiki Tanate, then reacted as best they could and bunched up their strength around the airfield.
On the morning of the 14th, a full 30 hours after the American landing, the Marines attacked the airfield, and a bitter battle for the island started in earnest. It would last months and cost thousands of men and a dozen ships to both sides.
Extract of Tameichi Hara's book Teikoku Kaigun no Saigo 1967
Battling subs, October 12th, 1942
As it turned out, I didn’t need to worry about missing the Tahiti operation after all. After my arrival (on September 23rd), the offensive was delayed because an American submarine attack damaged the Nachi and Kumano with torpedo hits. One of the small troop transports (an old freighter) was also sunk. So, Admiral Mikawa had had no choice but to postpone the attack until things could get re-organized.
Repairs to both cruisers took some time, and we had to wait for another freighter to be sent from Truk. The whole repair-reinforcement waiting took over two weeks, but by October 11th, the fleet finally sailed toward Tahiti. The Nachi and Kumano were only patched up and in no state to face a battleship, but intelligence reports on the French-held islands 1000 km eastward didn’t give any impression that Allied ships were present in numbers. Our recon float planes had spotted a few destroyers and what had been reported as a light cruiser, but that was all. Admiral Mikawa was a lot more worried about submarines, and our job was thus to screen the force. While he’d been at it, he called for three more escort ships from Rabaul to come at the same time as the freighter, so the fleet now had eight destroyers to screen a core of three heavy cruisers and two small freighters.
The journey to Tahiti was uneventful, with a blue ocean, nice breeze, and sunny days/quiet nights, as if the war had taken a break. But as beautiful as the water surrounding us was, none of the sailors and officers on Amatsukaze relented on their watchfulness for the enemy. We knew enemy subs lurked in the vicinity, as proven by the torpedo attack fifteen days prior.
So it was without surprise that the Allies tried to ambush us about halfway through our 1000km trip to Tahiti. To this day, I have no clue how many enemy vessels were involved, but it certainly was more than one.
One of my sharp lookouts spotted a periscope a few kilometers on the fleet’s port side and alerted everyone to the danger. Four of the destroyers bunched up close to the cruisers and the transport to protect them, while two others (including Amatsukaze) sped toward the periscope. Two stayed in reserve to cover the starboard side if the enemy attacked from that angle. It proved to be the right move since a few minutes after we steamed toward the enemy sub on the port side, several torpedo streaks flashed toward the precious freighters in the task force.
The game of cat and mouse then started. Our destroyers could go to 36 knots, while a sub would go at 4 to 6 knots when submerged. It didn’t take long for Amatsukaze to be right on top of the area where the periscope had been spotted, and I consequently ordered depth charges intuitively dropped in the water first but then in a more systematic way to cover the whole potential area. The underwater explosion produced giant geysers of water around the destroyer, and we peppered the entire area with our ordinance, helped by our comrades from Yukikaze, a Kagero class destroyer.
After a few minutes, we struck gold and heard a powerful underwater detonation. One a lot stronger than our depth charges, indicating that something big had exploded under us. A dying submarine makes a weird, uncharacteristic popping noise when a depth charge opens it to the sea. The sound was reminiscent of a champagne bottle popping with an odd noise.
Not long after, a dirty and expanding patch of oil bubbled up to the surface, along with several floating objects, like life jackets and a few bodies. Feeling elated, we turned toward the task force starboard side to help our comrades take care of the threat.
But during our turn, the same sharp lookout spotted a torpedo stream in the water, heading directly for Amatsukaze. His sharp call made me order the ship to veer away from the threat, and the enemy weapon slid harmlessly by us, but only a few meters.
I ordered to speed up toward the enemy sub, and we started the depth charge dance again, again with the same result. Another enemy sub was destroyed. Our second kill of the day! This was amazing for my crew and me, but there was no time to congratulate ourselves since another sub fired its weapons at the task force. One of its torpedoes hit heavy cruiser Nachi smack on the hull but failed to explode.
While we didn’t sink the third and last enemy to attack from our side, we did chase it away, while our brothers on the starboard side also destroyed an enemy sub and got the rest to retire away, or else we distanced them with our superior speed.
Above and around Guadalcanal
The battle for the air, October 14th, 1942
The Zero fighter flew just above the blue water of the so-called “slot” near the American landing beaches on the island's northern side. As it thundered toward the small destroyer that was firing all of its flak at it, it lifted water with the tremendous speed it had. Water droplets lifted off the sea, attracted by gravity and the plane’s speed. The flak shells exploding all around it produced sprouts of water that drenched the aircraft’s wings, threatening to unbalance it. Any normal pilot would have crashed into the sea, so difficult a maneuver it was to keep the plane level and dodge the enemy fire simultaneously.
But Takashi Onishi was no ordinary pilot. He was Japan’s leading Army ace in all of the Pacific theater. The man ad 69 victories to his tally, and he was considered a god by the Japanese side—a hero in the Home Islands and a terror to its American enemies. The poor American destroyer trying to shoot it down frantically fired everything it had but to no avail.
Above the Japanese fighter, a couple of Grumman's stubby, little Wildcat F4F (flown from the light carrier Charger) also fired at it trying to shoot it down. But then again, they could do nothing against the skilled Japanese pilot.
Takashi veered left and right, zipping by the enemy shells and dodging. Two large geysers produced by the destroyer flak towered just before his Zero, and he turned it vertically to flash between them.
And then it was time to strafe. He unloaded a long burst of his powerful 20mm cannon shells, riddling the poor American vessels with hits. The weapon’s impacts sparked all around the hull, and several penetrated through. The destroyer’s armor wasn’t as tough as heavier ships, so Takashi knew from experience that his guns could hurt it.
But he had not expected to demolish the little ship he’d targeted. One of his hell penetrated luckily to the ammo magazine, and thus the ship exploded in one catastrophic explosion. The blast was so sudden and extreme that Onishi’s fighter had no choice but to fly through the powerful cloud of fire and hope for the best. The Japanese ace closed his eyes and hoped for the best. The little fighter shook through the fire vortex and came out on the other side, still alive but looking like hell. The Zero was smoking and burning like a flying ball of fire. Onishi couldn’t see much from his canopy but instinctively pushed his speed to the maximum to try and quickly extinguish the flames. The trick worked after a few seconds at full speed, but the aircraft still shook, and it was obvious to the ace pilot that it would need to land soon or else it would crash.
