The Conquering Tide (27 page)

Several of the Avenger airmen, made redundant by the loss of their machines, walked back to their camp and found it a near-complete loss. Every tent had either vanished or been left in a heap of shreds, and all their contents of “mosquito netting, cots, tables, and papers and luggage, had been riddled and tangled and scattered by shrapnel holes and explosions.” The survivors were tense, but also a bit giddy. Ensign Robert E. Ries Jr. drew a laugh from his squadron mates by “pulling the corners of his eyes toward his ears and saying, ‘So sorry. Which way to Henderson Field, please?' ”
⁵⁷

Hundreds of drums of precious avgas had gone up in flames. An urgent appeal went out to quartermasters and supply officers to hunt down any reserves. Many small fuel dumps had been dispersed and hidden in small caches around the field and in the woods. Several hundred drums were discovered, and another 200 were transferred from Tulagi. At one point, Geiger reported that his entire reserve had been pumped into the tanks of the flyable planes on the island. Another night of similar bombardment, he warned, might put the entire air force out of action.

Forty-one men lay dead. That figure was lower than it might have been, a testament to the depth and strength of the bomb shelters and the determination of all to keep their heads down for the duration of the barrage. One dugout took a direct hit, killing nine men at one blow. A newly arrived marine dive-bombing squadron had lost both its commanding officer and its executive officer.

Heavy air attacks, artillery fire, and nighttime naval barrages (though not by battleships) continued throughout the next several days and nights. On the morning of October 15, Americans standing on the bluff above Kukum watched six Japanese troop transports “brazenly unloading” off Tassafaronga, about ten miles west. Japanese destroyers patrolled protectively in the sound, little more than a mile offshore. Clemens observed the incoming troops through his field glasses as they mustered in smart lines. He could not tell how many there were, but their numbers certainly ran into the thousands. Geiger managed to throw his few operable SBDs against the Japanese transports and set two afire, but only after they had unloaded their cargos and troop reinforcements.

That mid-October was the bleakest moment of the campaign. The long shadows of Bataan and Wake Island were cast across the Lunga perimeter. Many men seemed dazed and listless, and gazed vaguely off into the distance. The marines called it the “thousand-yard stare.” Aviators who had lost their planes collected whatever weapons they could find and joined the infantrymen in the trenches. Since August 7, the besieged marines had bucked themselves up with mordant humor and a brawny
esprit de corps
. Now, increasingly, they flared up at one another and exchanged heated words over small annoyances. “Everyone made mistakes,” wrote Colonel Twining. “Orders miscarried. Communications failed. Execution was sluggish.”
⁵⁸

The Japanese army, now heavily reinforced on the western flank, began probing attacks along the Matanikau River. Vandegrift fortified his lines, but he was not entirely confident they would withstand a concerted assault. Retreat and even surrender became a thinkable prospect. D-2, the 1st Division intelligence staff, began burning their classified records. Units made plans to melt into the jungle hills, live off the land, and wage a guerrilla war as long as they could. “We all feared defeat and capture, I think,”
recalled Tony Betchik, an F4F crew chief. “We were afraid they were going to leave us there.”
⁵⁹
A navy air officer, Lieutenant Commander John E. Lawrence, recalled the insidious effects of “the hopelessness, the feeling that nobody gave a curse whether we lived or died. It soaked into you until you couldn't trust your own mind.”
⁶⁰

According to Twining's postwar memoir, Ghormley authorized Vandegrift to surrender his forces if the position became hopeless. (No such dispatch has survived, but it is precisely the sort of document one might expect to slip into oblivion.) Among the 1st Division staff, there was hushed talk of a last stand. Vandegrift ordered contingency plans for a fighting retreat up the Lunga River. Twining studied the issue and recommended another option—moving the marines down the coast to the east, where they could establish interim defensive lines at each river and preserve the possibility of evacuation by sea.

The despair reached all the way back to the United States. The
New York Times
wrote about the Guadalcanal campaign in a valedictory tone. Speaking to reporters in Washington, Secretary Knox refused to guarantee that the island could be held. He had been embarrassed by his boastful confidence immediately before the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, and was determined not to commit another such gaffe.

I
F THE GRIM DISPATCHES FROM
G
UADALCANAL
were not enough, Admiral Ghormley was badly shaken by an October 16 aerial sighting report placing a Japanese aircraft carrier just to the west of Ndeni—an island that lay 330 miles
east
of Henderson Field, dangerously near the supply route between Espiritu Santo and Guadalcanal. The report was in error, and was soon corrected, but not before it elicited from Ghormley a pitiable
cri de coeur
. To Nimitz and King, he cabled, “This appears to be all out enemy effort against
CACTUS
possibly other positions also. My forces totally inadequate [to] meet situation. Urgently request all aviation reinforcement possible.”
⁶¹

The embattled South Pacific commander had never really bought into the
WATCHTOWER
offensive. King had thrown it into his lap when he was still setting up the rudiments of his new command, before he had assembled an adequate staff or even established a permanent headquarters. His logistical problems were undoubtedly more severe than those faced by any other Allied theater commander, but Ghormley had made a bad habit of asking for reinforcements that he knew did not exist. From the start of the campaign, he and his staff had seemed stressed and uncertain. When
the French colonialists at Noumea had resisted providing an administrative building, he had accepted the rebuff with a born diplomat's equanimity, and operated from the cramped and fetid precincts of his flagship. He had failed to appear in person at vital command summits, particularly the planning conference on board the
Saratoga
(July 26) that preceded the landing at Guadalcanal. Unlike McCain, Turner, Harmon, and Nimitz, he had never set foot on Guadalcanal.

During his recent inspection tour, Nimitz had observed his old friend closely. His observations confirmed the reports that he must have been gathering from many sources. Ghormley was not up to the job; he would have to be relieved and replaced.

No less a figure than FDR bore a share of the responsibility. Ghormley had been special naval observer in London until he was replaced in that job by Admiral Harold “Betty” Stark, who in turn yielded the job of chief of naval operations (CNO) to King. Stark's transfer to London in April 1942 was really a face-saving demotion that allowed King to wield simultaneously the two most powerful commands in the navy (CNO and COMINCH). But it put Ghormley out of a job, and that didn't sit right with the president, who had known the admiral for more than a quarter of a century. FDR asked his naval aide, Commander John L. McCrea, “What's going to happen to Ghormley?” McCrea had no idea and said so, adding that Ghormley was likely to lose his temporary three-star rank and revert to his permanent rank of rear admiral. FDR replied, “Well, tell Ernie King for me that I think it rather unfair because we have to find a place for Stark that Ghormley is to lose his rank as vice admiral.”
⁶²
Coming from the commander in chief, that amounted to an order to find Ghormley another three-star billet.

In retrospect, Nimitz should probably have relieved Ghormley in September, during or immediately after his inspection tour to the South Pacific. There is evidence that King and Nimitz had discussed a change at SOPAC as early as their meeting in San Francisco on September 7.
⁶³
But Ghormley was an honorable officer who had given forty years of his life to the service. He had been one of the stars of his class, a man (like Nimitz and King) whose talent, dedication, and hard work had marked him at an early age for rapid promotion. There was no way around the fact that relieving him would leave the stain of failure on his career and legacy. It was a painful duty to strike such a blow against a brother officer, and Nimitz hesitated to do it.

In a meeting at Pearl Harbor on October 15, senior members of the CINCPAC staff put the issue to their boss with a forcefulness and candor that crept up to the edge of insubordination. According to fleet intelligence officer Edwin Layton, they urged that “personalities should be set aside and that the commander South Pacific should be replaced by someone who could do a more effective job.”
⁶⁴
Whatever the merits of their case, that was not the way things were supposed to be done in the navy, and Nimitz hotly reprimanded them for “mutiny.” Undeterred, a delegation of officers reiterated their case later that night during a visit to Nimitz's Makalapa quarters, where the CINCPAC greeted them in his pajamas. Bill Halsey had orders to take over command of the carrier task forces, and was at that moment en route to the South Pacific. It would be a simple matter of directing Halsey to Noumea, and then ordering him to relieve Ghormley as COMSOPAC. Nimitz was subdued, but noncommittal.

The following morning came Ghormley's dispatch (160440) bewailing his “totally inadequate” forces. Nimitz fired off an ultra-secret dispatch for King's eyes only: “In view Ghormley's 160440 and other indications, including some noted during my visit, I have under consideration his relief by Halsey at earliest practicable time. Request your comment.”
⁶⁵
King briefly replied: “Approved.”
⁶⁶

Halsey, overnighting at Canton Island, was directed to fly directly to Noumea. His Coronado let down in the harbor at 2:00 p.m. on October 18. A whaleboat carrying Ghormley's flag lieutenant came alongside, and the lieutenant handed Halsey a sealed envelope, inside of which was another sealed envelope marked “SECRET.” It was a dispatch from Nimitz directing Halsey to relieve Ghormley as COMSOPAC immediately.

One of Halsey's staff recorded the admiral's exact words: “Jesus Christ and General Jackson! This is the hottest potato they ever handed me!”
⁶⁷

^*
In May, Admiral Halsey had been laid low by a skin breakout after several months of continuous command of a carrier task force.

^†
Churchill was receiving similar jeremiads from his RAF commanders. See “Air Marshal A. T. Harris to Prime Minister, Personal and Secret,” June 17, 1942, Harry L. Hopkins Papers, Book 5: The Air Offensive, Box 313.

^‡
Known in Japan as the “Second Battle of Savo Island.”

Chapter Six

T
HE MEMOIRS, DIARIES, AND ORAL HISTORIES ARE UNANIMOUSLY
agreed. The news that Halsey had taken charge brought a sudden upwelling in morale through the theater. “I'll never forget it,” recalled a navy air officer on Guadalcanal. “One minute we were too limp with malaria to crawl out of our foxholes; the next, we were running around whooping like kids. . . . If morale had been enough, we'd have won the war right there.”
¹
Halsey was known as an aggressive, emotional, risk-taking warrior who loved nothing more than to attack. The marines called him a “rough brush”
²
—that is, an artist who painted in big strokes rather than a draftsman who drew fine lines. He would not be deterred by subtle arguments of strategy and tactics—he would simply throw everything he had at the enemy and slug it out until the issue was decided.

The “rough brush” was an old and venerated tradition of American naval leadership, dating back to John Paul Jones's “I have not yet begun to fight!,” James Lawrence's “Don't give up the ship!,” and David Farragut's “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” In October 1942, it was precisely the attitude needed in the South Pacific. It lifted men's spirits and gave them hope. But it is also worth considering how close the Allies came to the brink of ruinous defeat in the Solomons. If the fortunes of war had turned a bit differently in the climactic naval battles of late October and November, American seapower might have been garroted and the marines cut off and overrun. In that case, Halsey's characteristic daring and aggression would have been condemned as unreasoning and rash (as indeed it would be two years later, at the Battle of Leyte Gulf).

At the very outset of his command, the new COMSOPAC faced a stark
choice. He could push all his chips into the middle of the table, or he could fold and wait to be dealt a better hand. It was his duty to give due consideration to the second option, demoralizing as it was. His long-term chief of staff, Admiral Robert B. Carney, maintained that Halsey was never quite as madcap or impulsive as the newspapers liked to portray him. His garish boasts and his exhortations to “Kill more Japs!” and “Keep 'em dying!” were always aimed down the ranks, as a spur to morale. When Vandegrift flew into Noumea for a command summit on October 23, Halsey listened more than he spoke. He listened to Vandegrift, then to Turner; he let silence fall over the wardroom while he smoked a cigarette, drummed his fingers on the table, and turned the issues over in his mind. Finally he asked the general, without fanfare, “Can you hold?”
³

“Yes, I can hold,” Vandegrift replied. “But I have to have more active support than I have been getting.”
⁴
Halsey promised to send everything he had.

It was evident that a big Japanese naval offensive was shaping up. Communications intelligence was far from perfect, at the moment, but the new COMSOPAC knew the Japanese fleet would include more than two flattops (perhaps as many as four) and a large force of surface ships, including at least four battleships. Halsey had two carrier task forces, built around the
Hornet
and
Enterprise
. The latter, having been damaged in August and patched up at Pearl Harbor, rendezvoused with the
Hornet
northwest of Espiritu Santo at 3:45 p.m. on October 24. The two groups were combined into Task Force 61, under the command of Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid—the two carriers, the battleship
South Dakota
, six cruisers, and fourteen destroyers. That force was little more than half the size of the Japanese fleet descending on the region. In an aggressive and potentially dangerous move, Halsey threw virtually everything he had into the fight. Kinkaid was ordered to sweep north of the Santa Cruz Islands and seek battle with the enemy.