Robert Leckie - Challenge for the Pacific

Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher had sortied from Hawaii. His ships included carriers Saratoga and Enterprise , battleship North Carolina , one light and five heavy cruisers, sixteen destroyers and three oilers. After he had rendezvoused with Wasp and all the other warships and transports then at sea or in New Zealand, the force would number eighty-nine ships and 19,000 United States Marines. It would be the greatest invasion fleet yet assembled.

But Admiral Fletcher was not jubilant. He was thinking of the three carriers—all that America had in the Pacific—and how dangerous it would be to risk them in the narrow and uncharted waters of the Solomons. Admiral Fletcher did not like this operation at all. Back at Pearl Harbor he had openly predicted that it would “be a failure.” 10He had had nothing to do with planning it.

In such high hopes did Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher put out for the Fijis to take command of the entire Expeditionary Force.

Beneath Fletcher in the chain of command was Vice-Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner. He was a planner and perfectionist, Kelly Turner, a man of beetling brows and rimless glasses, of ferocious language and a tongue as caustic as a shaving stick; he was a leader so pedantic that he would not hesitate to tell a coxswain how to beach his boat. This was the admiral who was to command the Amphibious Force, and Major General Vandegrift who commanded only the Landing Force—that is, the 19,000 Marines who were to seize the objectives—soon found that this was also a sailor who often mistook his sextant for a soldier’s baton.

Of this Vandegrift was made aware on July 18, when, a few days after the First Marines had arrived in Wellington, Turner’s flagship McCawley sailed into the harbor and broke out the admiral’s two-star flag. Turner quickly told Vandegrift that he was keeping all but one battalion of the Second Marines for the seizure of unoccupied Ndeni in the Santa Cruz Islands east of the Solomons. Vandegrift replied that this was to be only a later phase of the operation, and that he was counting on the Second Marines for his reserve. If he could not have them, he said, then he would have to change his plans. The meeting ended on a note of impasse.

Four days later—July 22—Vandegrift and his Marines stood majestically out to sea, bound for the Fiji Islands.

On July 26, the top American commanders met.

Turner and Vandegrift risked a heavy sea to transfer from McCawley to the destroyer Dewey . Already aboard Dewey were Rear Admiral John S. McCain, who commanded all of Admiral Ghormley’s aircraft in the South Pacific, Lieutenant Colonel Twining, and Colonel Laverne (“Blondie”) Saunders, commander of the Army Air Force’s Flying Fortresses. Dewey made for Saratoga , Fletcher’s flagship, and came about beneath its towering beam. Admiral McCain seized a Jacob’s ladder and started up.

A garbage chute swung open and the little admiral was showered with milk.

It was an infuriating beginning foretelling an unfriendly conference.

Archer Vandegrift, who had once been startled to see the unruffled Ghormley acting like a drill sergeant, was now amazed to see that Fletcher looked tired and nervous, and he put it down to the admiral’s recent battles of the Coral Sea and Midway. 11Next, he was surprised to learn that Fletcher had neither knowledge of nor interest in the Guadalcanal operation. 12Finally, he was thunderstruck to hear him saying frankly that it would not succeed. 13Then, Admiral Fletcher turned on Admiral Turner and angrily accused him of “instigating” the Solomons invasion. 14Unimpressed by Turner’s indignant denial, Fletcher interrupted him to ask, “How many days will it take to unload the troops?”

“Five,” Turner replied.

Fletcher shook his head stubbornly. Two days, he said, were quite enough. He would not risk his carriers any longer.

Vandegrift struggled to control himself. He tried to explain that this was no mere “hit-and-run” operation. This was an expedition to take and to hold fortified enemy islands. He, Vandegrift, commanded a heavily reinforced division. There was going to be a fight. His Marines would need air cover. Even five days of air cover was scarcely sufficient. Two was suicidal.

Admiral Turner agreed, with heat and with force.

Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher shook his head. He was leaving with his carriers on the third day.

“The conference is dismissed,” he said curtly.

The commanders arose. With them was Vice-Admiral Daniel Callaghan, chief of staff to Admiral Ghormley. He had been present at the entire conference and had taken notes on what was said.

But he represented the admiral who commanded the entire Area, as well as this first American counteroffensive, and he never said a word.

Two days later the First Marine Division attempted to practice landings on the beaches of Koro Island. In full battle gear, the men scrambled down the cargo nets into waiting Higgins boats to form in a circle, then to go monotonously circling, circling, circling, and to sail back to their ships and clamber back up the nets to return to their holds.

The maneuvers were a fiasco. Sharp offshore coral prevented many boats from landing on the designated beaches, other boats broke down, the naval gunfire was inaccurate and the dive-bombers missed their targets.

But Admiral Turner and General Vandegrift, who had begun to respect each other and who were both optimists in battle, agreed that at least the defects had shown up early and there would be time to rectify them. A poor rehearsal, they said, means a good show.

On the last day of July there was frustration of an entirely different order. Marine officers from Wellington had flown in and they brought with them copies of the July 4 edition of the Wellington Dominion , which said:

New York, July 2 .

Operations to seize Japanese-held bases, such as Rabaul, Wake Island and Tulagi, are advocated by the military writer of the New York Herald Tribune , Major Eliot. One of the signs which suggest that the [Allies] may be getting ready to capitalize on the naval advantage gained on the Coral Sea and Midway battles is the recent American bombing of Wake Island, he says. The other signs include the intensified raids on the Timor and New Guinea areas.

“…What is needed is to drive the Japanese out of their positions and convert them to our own use. The only way to take positions such as Rabaul, Wake Island, and Tulagi, is to land troops to take physical possession of them.”

The newspaper [ New York Times ] adds: “It may also be significant that the censor passed the news of the arrival of the completely equipped expeditionary force of American Marines at a South Pacific port recently, as Marines are not usually sent to bases where action is not expected.”

Nor were Marines allowed to mention so much as a bathing suit in their letters home, so strict was their Division’s security; and yet the chief of censors had presumed to permit newspapers to publish their whereabouts, and columnists had not scrupled to pinpoint their destination, for both the Japanese and the people down under found the name Tulagi synonymous with Solomon Islands. The disclosure was not treachery, of course, it was only stupidity—which is sometimes more destructive. Filled with futile fury, the Marines could only curse the caprice of the free press they would soon be defending.

That evening the sun sank into the sea ahead of them like a dull red disk.

“Looks like a Jap meatball,” said Private Lew Juergens, one of the Marines aboard Elliott .