Podcast appearances and mentions of henderson field

We call upon all former Navy SeaBees to join us for a conversation marking the 83rd anniversary of the founding of the U.S. Navy's Construction Battalions on March 5, 1942. Formed in response to the urgent need for military construction forces capable of working under combat conditions, the Seabees have since established themselves as an indispensable part of U.S. military operations. Before World War II, the Navy relied on civilian contractors to build bases and infrastructure. However, after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entry into the war, it became clear that construction crews needed to be able to defend themselves. The solution was the formation of Naval Construction Battalions—skilled builders trained as combatants. The name “Seabees” comes from the phonetic pronunciation of the initials “CB.” Seabees undergo rigorous training that combines construction expertise with military readiness. Initial training takes place at the Naval Construction Training Center in Gulfport, Mississippi, and Port Hueneme, California. Recruits learn essential skills like carpentry, plumbing, electrical work, heavy equipment operation, and demolition. In addition, they receive weapons training and instruction in defensive tactics, ensuring they can operate in hostile environments. Their motto, “We Build, We Fight,” reflects their dual purpose. During World War II, Seabees were deployed to the Pacific and European theaters, constructing airstrips, roads, bridges, and bases under combat conditions. They played a key role in the island-hopping campaigns of the Pacific, building the infrastructure necessary for advancing U.S. forces. In the Battle of Guadalcanal, Seabees constructed Henderson Field, a crucial airstrip that enabled the Allies to gain air superiority. At Iwo Jima, they worked under constant enemy fire, repairing airfields to keep American planes in the fight. By the war's end, Seabees had built over 400 advanced bases and countless facilities that proved essential to victory. When the Korean War erupted in 1950, the Seabees were once again called upon to provide critical construction support. They built airstrips, roads, and supply depots in challenging environments. One of their most notable achievements was the rapid construction of an airfield at Wonsan, which played a key role in supporting Marine and Army operations. Seabees also repaired and maintained infrastructure in war-torn areas, showcasing their ability to work in extreme conditions. In Vietnam, the Seabees operated extensively, constructing bases, airstrips, hospitals, and roads while also engaging in civic action projects. They built schools, hospitals, and bridges to help local communities, winning the support of Vietnamese civilians. One of their most daring projects was the construction of Khe Sanh Combat Base, a strategic stronghold. Seabees worked under enemy fire to complete the base, enabling U.S. forces to hold their ground during the pivotal siege of Khe Sanh in 1968. Since Vietnam, Seabees have continued to play a crucial role in military and humanitarian missions worldwide. They built infrastructure in the Persian Gulf during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, repaired damage from hurricanes and natural disasters, and provided disaster relief in Haiti and the Philippines. In Iraq and Afghanistan, Seabees built forward operating bases, roads, and medical facilities, ensuring U.S. and allied forces had the support they needed. We're grateful to UPMC for Life for sponsoring this event!

Starvation Island is the name the Japanese gave the pacific Island of Guadalcanal. Second only to the Battle of Midway, the capture and retention of Guadalcanal was one of the most significant achievements leading to eventual victory in the Pacific. The price would be high, with brutal combat on the ground, at sea and in the air. A group of mostly green Marine aviators were dispatched to Guadalcanal to assist in the defense. They were lacking in supplies, equipment, fuel and ammunition. These aircrews believed the Marine Corps considered them expendable. Best Selling author John Bruning joins us to tell their story, as recorded in his book “53 Days on Starvation Island; The World War II Battle That Saved Marine Corps Aviation.”  This exceptional book draws upon historical records and personal interviews with some of the men who saw action there. The story of these brave Marine aviators centers upon three men who played key roles in the aerial defense of the island: Major John Smith, who was principally responsible for organizing the air defenses of Guadalcanal. He would end the war with 19 aerial victories. Marion Carl, a farm boy from Oregon who became the Marine Corps' first WWII Ace. Richard Mangrum, a lawyer from Seattle Lawyer who led the bomber group. The book not only does an excellent job of highlighting the depravations suffered by all the Marines on Guadalcanal, but also the disconnect between life on the home front and the brutality of battle during those early stages of the Pacific campaign. Bruning's book describes many of the battles in exceptional detail, capturing the viciousness of air to air combat. By the time it was over, those 31 aircrews could be given credit for helping to save the lives of 20,000 Marines on the island by intercepting further Japanese landings and protecting the critically important Henderson Field from bombing raids. “Remember this fellows – while we are all expendable, we are not so expendable as to take unnecessary chances. Your mission is to sink as many ships as you can. But a still more important mission is for all of you to get back here whole.  This war is young yet – we can die later.” - Dick Mangrum

In this episode, Dave and James discuss the second episode of HBO's The Pacific.  This episode deals primarily with the Battle of Henderson Field, especially Sgt. John Basilone's role in the battle.  Basilone and the Seventh Marines land on Guadalcanal to bolster the defenses around Henderson Field.  During the Japanese attack on the Marine perimeter, Basilone, attempting to relocate his machine gun to a better position, bare-handedly cradles the hot barrel and severely burns his arms. Despite this, he continues fighting and kills scores of Japanese troops.  Later, Basilone is awarded the Medal of Honor for his conduct during the battle.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

#Oceania:PRC may be developing port, roads and Henderson Field in the Solomon Islands. Cleo Paskal, FDD Guadalcanal Island

GOOD EVENING: The show begins in the paused markets, much the same as last week; 1939 Colorado CBS EYE ON THE WORLD WITH JOHN BATCHELOR FIRST HOUR 9-915 #Markets: Markets remain on pause; oil declines. Liz Peek, The Hill, Fox News and Fox Business 915-930 #Markets: VPOTUS unknown economics. Liz Peek, The Hill, Fox News and Fox Business 930-945 #IRAN: US bargains with Israel what not to strike. Jonathan Schanzer, FDD 945-1000 #GAZA: Hamas Sinwar surrounded by human shield hostages. Jonathan Schanzer, FDD SECOND HOUR 10-1015 1/2: #StateThinking: Three targets for predator-states: Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. @MaryKissel, Former Senior Adviser to the Secretary of State, Executive VP Stephens Inc. 1015-1030 2/2: #StateThinking: Three targets for predator-states: Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. @MaryKissel, Former Senior Adviser to the Secretary of State, Executive VP Stephens Inc. 1030-1045 #EU: Migration challenges in Poland and Albania. Judy Dempsey, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Strategic Europe, in Berlin. 1045-1100 #BERLIN: Scholz's Germany falls behind China. Judy Dempsey, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Strategic Europe, in Berlin. THIRD HOUR 1100-1115 #POTUS: Three stalemates directed by the last of the Biden Administration. Gregory Copley, Defense & Foreign Affairs 1115-1130 #CANADA: Receiving the Charles III Coronation Medal at Ottawa. 1130-1145 1/2: #IRAN: Preparing agitprop for the IDF counter strike. Behnam ben Taleblu, FDD. 1145-1200 2/2: #IRAN: Preparing agitprop for the IDF counter strike. Behnam ben Taleblu, FDD. FOURTH HOUR 12-1215 #LondonCalling: Macron and warning that the sky is falling! @JosephSternberg @WSJOpinion 1215-1230 #LondonCalling: Starmer and the sky really is falling. @JosephSternberg @WSJOpinion 1230-1245 #Oceania: PRC may be developing port, roads and Henderson Field in the Solomon Islands. Cleo Paskal, FDD 1245-100 am #NOBEL PRIZE: Three economics nobelists and their predecessor Adam Smith, 1776. David Henderson, Hoover Institution

For extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry in action above and beyond the call of duty while serving with.... some of the most well known individuals in Marine Corps and Coast Guard history. Reinforcements arrive when both Soldiers and Marines dig in for the defense around Henderson Field. Tune in to this riveting story of unwavering bravery and selfless heroism as the men involved make a stand against the Empire of Japan. Brett's Call-to-Action Follow us on:  Instagram @Americafogofwar   TikTok @america_fogofwar Become a Member for more insider content Follow Civil War Trails — www.civilwartrails.org/    Hosts Colby Sumner        Brett Thomas                 Host                        Host   

For extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry in action above and beyond the call of duty while serving with.... some of the most well known individuals in Marine Corps and Coast Guard history. Reinforcements arrive when both Soldiers and Marines dig in for the defense around Henderson Field. Tune in to this riveting story of unwavering bravery and selfless heroism as the men involved make a stand against the Empire of Japan. (EPISODE TO BE CONTINUED) Brett's Call-to-Action Follow us on:  Instagram @Americafogofwar   TikTok @america_fogofwar Become a Member for more insider content Follow Civil War Trails — www.civilwartrails.org/    Hosts Colby Sumner        Brett Thomas                 Host                        Host   

Some of the first major engagements of the battle take place in this episode as the Imperial Japanese Army is determined to retake Henderson Field from the Marines defending it. Find out how native Solomon Islanders work to assist American troops in the desperate struggle to hold the line at all costs. Brett's Call-to-Action Follow us on:  Instagram @Americafogofwar   TikTok @america_fogofwar Become a Member for more insider content Follow Civil War Trails — www.civilwartrails.org/    Hosts Colby Sumner        Brett Thomas                 Host                        Host   

This week Seth and Bill welcome back pal John Bruning to the show to talk about his new book, and always a fascinating subject, the Cactus Air Force. John's new book, 53 Days on Starvation Island is an absorbing look into the first two United States Marine Corps squadrons to land on Henderson Field in August 1942, VMF-223 and VMSB-232. The guys get deep into the personalities of the main figures of the two squadrons including legends such as Medal of Honor recipient John L. Smith, Marion Carl and Richard Mangrum among others. The guys talk about the complete lack of preparedness that the two squadrons faced from daily life, training, the ground echelon, disease, and of course, aerial combat. Tune in to hear a fascinating discussion on one of our favorite topics, the Guadalcanal campaign. #wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #usnavy #usa #usarmy #medalofhonor #enterprise #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #cv6 #midway #wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #worldwar2 #usnavy #usnavyseals #usmc #usmarines #saipan #usa #usarmy #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #battleship #battleships #ussenterprise #aircraftcarriers #museum #essex #halsey #taskforce38 #wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #usnavy #usa #usarmy #medalofhonor #enterprise #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #cv6 #midway #wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #worldwar2 #usnavy #usnavyseals #usmc #usmarines #saipan #usa #usarmy #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #battleship #battleships #ussenterprise #aircraftcarriers #museum #hollywood #movie #movies #books #mastersoftheair #8thairforce #mightyeighth #100thbombgroup #bloodyhundredth #b17 #boeing #airforce wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #usnavy #usa #usarmy #medalofhonor #enterprise #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #cv6 #midway #wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #worldwar2 #usnavy #usnavyseals #usmc #usmarines #saipan #usa #usarmy #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #battleship #battleships #ussenterprise #aircraftcarriers #museum #hollywood #movie #movies #books #oldbreed #1stMarineDivision #thepacific #Peleliu #army #marines #marinecorps #worldwar2 #worldwar #worldwarii #leytegulf #battleofleytegulf #rodserling #twilightzone #guadalcanal #cactus

Undeterred by the failure of their October attempt to capture Henderson Field, the Japanese high command ordered that yet another, still bigger, attempt be made in November. This resulted in two massive ship-to-ship battles between November 13 and 15, in which dozens of warships and planes, plus over 3500 soldiers, sailors, and airmen were lost. Join Dave and James as they tell the exciting story of this epic naval clash, which has come to be known simply as the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal.

In this episode, Dave and James discuss the second episode of HBO's The Pacific. This episode deals primarily with the Battle of Henderson Field, especially Sgt. John Basilone's role in the battle. Basilone and the Seventh Marines land on Guadalcanal to bolster the defenses around Henderson Field. During the Japanese attack on the Marine perimeter, Basilone, attempting to relocate his machine gun to a better position, bare-handedly cradles the hot barrel and severely burns his arms. Despite this, he continues fighting and kills scores of Japanese troops. Later, Basilone is awarded the Medal of Honor for his conduct during the battle.

The Japanese defeat at the Battle of Edson's Ridge did not deter the Japanese high command, who immediately began planning an even bigger effort to retake Henderson Field and to remove the Americans from Guadalcanal. The new operation was christened “Plan X” and would include massive air, sea, and land attacks on American positions. On the ground, this time an entire division would assault the American perimeter. The American defenders were spread thin and outnumbered. Would the heroic efforts of Col. Chesty Puller, Sgt. John Basilone, Sgt. Mitchell Paige, and countless other Marines and soldiers be enough to stop the Japanese onslaught? Join Dave and James as they tell this exciting story.

The Japanese realized that if the U. S. were able to hold and utilize the airfield on Guadalcanal, Japan's strategic objectives in the South Pacific would be foiled. Consequently, Japanese air, naval, and land forces immediately began trying to retake the airfield, recently renamed Henderson Field by the Americans. In August, Japanese bombers began conducting daily bombing raids on the field, an effort that the Americans called “Tojo Time.” In addition, an infantry battalion launched an aggressive attack on the Marine perimeter in an effort to retake the field. But would it work? Listen, and Dave and James will let you know!

This episode dives into the strategic reorganization of American forces during the Guadalcanal campaign. The 164th Infantry and 7th Marines, positioned in the East Sector, tackled the harsh terrain as they encircled the enemy. Company B of the 8th Marines in the West Sector was crucial in securing vital artillery positions. Central to the operation's success was the 2nd Raider Battalion. Known for their bold patrolling tactics, their objective was to ambush and attack the enemy unpredictably. Yet, despite their strategic prowess, some Japanese forces slipped away due to communication and coordination hiccups. We'll also spotlight the pivotal naval and air battles that cut off Japanese supply lines, focusing on the decisive role of American aviation based at Henderson Field. This relentless air pressure prompted Japan to shift its strategy from trying to recapture Guadalcanal to sustaining and extracting its forces. Additionally, we'll cover the deployment of war dogs and the crucial reconnaissance missions undertaken by the 2nd Raider Battalion.

Following the initial engagement with the Ichiki Force, the Marines braced for more severe Japanese attacks along with ongoing air raids and bombardments. Despite limited resources, the Cactus Air Force, comprising Marine, Navy, and Army Air Force units, demonstrated remarkable resilience and efficiency.  This episode explores the harsh realities at Henderson Field, from crude refueling methods to the vulnerability of the airfield to weather and enemy actions. Despite these challenges, significant progress was made in infrastructure and defense capabilities, enhancing the airfield's functionality and resilience. We also dive into a few battles and introduce the one and only Chesty Puller as he leads his Marines against Japanese forces.

Last time we spoke about operation Galvanic, the invasion of the Gilbert islands. The Americans finally assaulted Tarawa, Makin, Betio and the smaller islands of the Gilberts. Tarawa saw an estimated 4690 Japanese and Koreans killed, with 17 Japanese and 129 Koreans POWs captured. The Marines suffered 1009 deaths, 2101 wounded and 191 missing in action. Vandegrift would tell the New York Times on December 27th "Tarawa was an assault from beginning to end. We must steel ourselves now to pay that price". The heavy casualties would be met by an outraged american public who could not believe such losses were necessary to take such small and seemingly unimportant islands. Little did the American public know, the lessons of places like Tarawa, were just one of many more to come. Admiral Nimitz would spend considerable time reading furious letters from the letters of the dead boys on these islands. This episode is battle of Cape St George Welcome to the Pacific War Podcast Week by Week, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about world war two? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on world war two and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel you can find a few videos all the way from the Opium Wars of the 1800's until the end of the Pacific War in 1945.  The Gilberts, specifically Tarawa, provided the first “wake up call” to American about the ferocity of the war ahead of them. Correspondents were not present at Henderson Field during the Marine battle for Gaudalcanal where the Americans found themselves defenders and the Japanese attackers. 6 months of grueling battle would see casualties approximating those incurred after three days on Tarawa. Correspondent Richard Johnston was one of the first to write of the action for Time magazine “It has been a privilege to see the Marines from privates to colonels, every man a hero, go up against Japanese fire with complete disregard for their lives.“Last week some two to three thousand US Marines, most of them dead and wounded, gave the nation a name to stand beside those of Concord Bridge, the Bonhomme Richard, the Alamo, Little Big Horn and Belleau Wood. The name was Tarawa.”” Johnston was one of 25 war correspondents, 5 photographers and two artists embedded with the marines in the Gilberts. Never in history had a battle been so fully covered by the press. The amphibious landings drew immense casualty rates and during the active fighting, the mortality rate per 1000 soldiers per day was 1.78 compared to 0.36 in europe, thats nearly 5 times more. Overall casualty rates, including the wounded were 5.5 per thousand per day compared to 1.74 for europe. The war correspondents learnt a lot about the fighting qualities of their marines, but they also learnt a great deal about the enemy. The battles frequently saw hand-to-hand combat. The Americans were shocked to find the enemy were not in fact short, bucktoothed, bespectacled “Japs” as the propaganda cartoons had portrayed them. Private 1st class Robert Muhlbach recalled many of the enemy were over 6 feet tall and “They were good at defending themselves, and so we had to parry and thrust, and they were good! Those guys were so much bigger than the average Jap. They were naval landing forces [Rikusentai], like Japanese Marines, and they were larger. They were very accurate with their weapons, and good with their bayonets … They were good and we were pretty good, too. So it was two of probably the best military outfits in the war.” One Lt Thomas encountered some hand to hand fighting and said “ I had the field telephone in my hand when I was rushed by the biggest Jap I've ever seen. We grappled for a few seconds, and I managed to kick him off me and throw him to the ground. Then I picked up a 0.45 and finished him off.” General Holland Smith who commanded the marines had this to say about Tarawa “I don't see how they ever took Tarawa. It's the most completely defended island I ever saw … I passed boys who had lived yesterday a thousand times and looked older than their fathers. Dirty, unshaven, with gaunt sightless eyes, they had survived the ordeal, but it had chilled their souls. They found it hard to believe they were actually alive …” He was not to be the only high ranking commander stunned by what occurred on such a small island. Admiral Nimitz wrote to his wife  “I have never seen such a desolate spot as Tarawa. General Richardson, who saw battlefields in France last year, says it reminded him of the Ypres field, over which the battle raged back and forth for weeks. Not a coconut tree of thousands was left whole …” Nimitz would read countless letters beginning with “you killed my son on Tarawa”. The mothers of 1009 marines and 687 naval personnel would never see their sons again. The invasion of the gilberts had ushered in what is commonly known as the “island hoping campaign” vs what was called Leapfrogging in the south pacific. As told to us by General Douglas MacArthur “Although we've already seen many instances of American forces launching amphibious invasions against Japanese-held islands, particularly at the Solomons, there is one difference to be made. The strategy employed in the South Pacific is often referred to as leapfrogging, and the explanation comes from General MacArthur himself, who claimed to have invented this strategy despite it predating WW2 by many decades.    My strategic conception for the Pacific Theater, which I outlined after the Papuan Campaign and have since consistently advocated, contemplates massive strokes against only main strategic objectives, utilizing surprise and air-ground striking power supported and assisted by the fleet. This is the very opposite of what is termed island hopping which is the gradual pushing back of the enemy by direct frontal pressure with the consequent heavy casualties which will certainly be involved. Key points must of course be taken but a wise choice of such will obviate the need for storming the mass of islands now in enemy possession. Island hopping with extravagant losses and slow progress ... is not my idea of how to end the war as soon and as cheaply as possible. New conditions require for solution and new weapons require for maximum application of new and imaginative methods. Wars are never won in the past.””   With the capture of the Gilberts, now the allies had an assortment of new air bases for land based aircraft to be used against the Marshalls. The seabees and 7th air force engineers rapidly went to work on airfield construction at Tarawa and Makin. Yet there were many who questioned if it really was all worth it, amongst them was General Holland Smith "Was Tarawa worth it? My answer is unqualified: No." He questioned whether 1772 lives and an escort carrier was worth the additional air fields. The invasion taught a lot of bitter lessons, such as how to improve the preliminary naval bombardments and air strikes so they would be more successful; to improve the capability of naval fleets to move into a area and obtain control over it; for naval and aerial assets to remain in the area for the throughout the entire assault; the vital importance of maintaining good communications between land and sea and between the tanks and infantry which proved rather lackluster at Tarawa; the value of amphibian tractors when you had to face fortified beaches and most importantly Operation Galvanic proved to be a significant testing ground of established amphibious doctrine. The Americans had no illusions that the techniques, tactics and procedures set for in the basic US manuals for landing operations were workable under such difficult conditions. On the other side, the Japanese had prepared the Ko Brigade at Ponape consisting of the 3rd battalion, 107th regiment, 3rd battalion, 16th mountain artillery regiment, 2nd company, 52nd engineers and other units of the 1st south seas detachment to launch a counterlanding against the Gilberts, but this plan was quickly dropped. Instead the Japanese would focus their efforts on reinforcing other central pacific islands such as the Marshalls. Over on Bougainville, the Americans were enjoying a rather quiet week after the battle of the Coconut Grove and they used this time to expand their perimeter. However there was a hiccup on November 17th when convoy 31.6 bearing the 3rd battalion, 21st marines were set upon by Betty bombers. 185 marines were aboard the destroyer transport McKean and as she approached Empress Augusta Bay a Betty hit her with a torpedo off her starboard quarter. This exploded her after magazine and depth charge spaces. Flaming oil engulfed her, she lost power and communications. Her commanding officer Lt Ralph Ramey ordered abandon ship at 3:55am as she began to sink stern first by 4am. 64 crew and 52 troops died as a result of the attack. Meanwhile Colonel Hamanoue's men had been busy constructing defenses around the forks of the Piva River. By the 18th, American patrols discovered two new Japanese roadblocks on the Numa Numa and East-West trails. This led the 3rd battalion ,3rd marines to be tasked with knocking out the Numa Numa roadblock. The marines opened the following day up with an artillery barrage before rolling in with some light tanks flanking and rousing the defenders of the roadblock. 16 Japanese would be killed. With the Numa Numa position secured, the men advanced over to hit the East-West roadblock. That same morning the 2nd battalion, 3rd marines crossed the Piva and captured the roadblock at the forks area. During the afternoon, a reinforced platoon seized some high ground to the left of the East-West Trail. The platoon led by Lt Steve Cibek dug in on top of the feature that would provide excellent observation over the area. The Japanese would toss attacks at their hill for 3 days prompting reinforcements to be brought up to help Cibeks men. On the 21st, General Geiger decided to expand the perimeter again, this time to Inland Defense line “easy”. The 21st marines would now take up a position between the other two regiments. They would however run into some strong resistance from the bulk of Colonel Hamanoue's focus with their 3rd battalion getting pinned down after crossing the Piva by heavy mortar fire. Their 2nd battalion in the center ran head on into a Japanese defensive line astride the East-West trail. There were around 20 pillboxes and the 2nd battalion were forced to pull back. Unexpectedly the Japanese pursued them, trying to envelop the line held by the 1st battalion, but they failed and were cut down by machine gun fire. This allowed the 1st battalion to extend their lines north towards what was now being called Cibek's ridge. Geiger then halted the advances on November 22nd and shifted his units the following day to plug up some gaps in the line. He further planned to launch a new assault on the 24th. The 24th began with a heavy artillery bombardment as the 2nd and 3rd battalions, 3rd marine began advancing under the supporting first of the 1st battalion. At H-hour, 9:00am, a Japanese battery located on the forward slope of a coconut grove began to accurately smash the 1st battalions assembly locations. As one observer noted  “Shells poured into the first lines, into the attacking battalions' areas, the forward Regimental C.P. area, the rear C.P., the trail. The noise was much greater now-not only the deafening roar, but, added to it, the sharp terrifying sound of a shell exploding close by ... the agonizing moans of men shouting for corpsmen, for help, for relief from burning torture ... the maniacal screams and sobs of a man whose blood vessels in his head have burst from the blast concussions of high explosives devised by the clever brain of civilized man. The Third Battalion took it. The C.P. area took it to the tune of fourteen men killed and scores wounded in a period of five minutes." The 1st battalion quickly became pinned down. Fortunately Cibeks men were able to locate the battery and used 155mm howitzers to destroy it. At first the advance saw little resistance, as described by one historian of the 3rd marines "For the first hundred yards both battalions advanced abreast through a weird, stinking, plowed-up jungle of shattered trees and butchered Japs. Some hung out of trees, some lay crumpled and twisted beside their shattered weapons, some were covered by chunks of jagged logs and jungle earth, a blasted bunker, their self-made tomb. The Marines pressed forward on their destructive mission toward their clearly defined day's objective." Yet Japanese reserves were rushed to the scene and began engaging the 3rd marines. The 3rd marines were facing extremely accurate enemy artillery and mortar fire taking heavy casualties. The advancing americans would have to destroy a series of bunkers one by one while at the same time repelling the enemy's counterattacks. After already suffering 70 casualties going a quarter mile the Americans fired upon log bunker after log bunker one by one. The Japanese targeted American flamethrower units killing a number of them. Around every defense point Japanese snipers in trees and on elevated platforms fired upon them. Nambu machine guns were firing at all times. The terrain eventually dictated hand to hand and tree to tree combat. Though grueling, the Americans reached their first objective. The men reorganized their positions and unleashed a new artillery barrage with the two battalion advancing yet again against fierce resistance. It was not just the enemy they faced, the terrain in this area was dominated by swamps. General Geiger then postponed the attack to secure the terrain above the proposed airfield site so he could provide his men with a Thanksgiving meal. For thanksgiving the turkey meals were sent forward to the front with parties organized, braving Japanese sniper fire. One observer recalled “Some of the meat got there, some didn't. But it was a good stunt and a necessity; no one would have been forgiven if it had been left to rot down at the Division Commissary just because we had a battle! The men sat on logs eating their turkey. Nearby a Jap lay rotting in the swamp. Heads and arms of dead Japs floated in the near-by jungle streams. Not a very enjoyable setting, but these were tired, ravenously hungry men who had been fighting all day. And it was Thanksgiving. Those who were able to get it enjoyed their turkey.” By nightfall the resistance was crumbling and the Americans were grabbing a mile beyond the objective line before digging in. Mop up operations would be around the clock, but the battle of Piva forks had effectively come to an end, thus securing the site for a projected bomber field. The battle cost the Japanese dearly. Hamanoue's 23rd regiment ceased to exist as a well organized fighting unit. The marines counted 1107 dead Japanese, though it is likely the number was much higher. The 3rd marines suffered 115 casualties, thus earning some relief from the 9th marines for many days. On November 25th, the 1st battalion, 9th marines advanced past Cibeks ridge and unexpectedly ran into heavy machine gun fire from a small feature directly in front. They charged at the feature and tossed grenades, but the Japanese were able to repel their attack, thus the feature was named Grenade Hill.  Meanwhile General Hyakutake feared that the invasion of Cape Torokina was only a stepping stone for a large invasion against Buka. He persuaded Admiral Kusaka to further reinforce Buka. Previously Major General Kijima Kesao's 17t infantry group had been dispatched on 5 destroyers to protect Bougainvilles northern sector. No Captain Kagawa Kiyoto would perform a run to Buka on the 24th. Luckily for him his run went uncontested and he was able to unload 900 men of the 1st mobile raiding unit and a detachment of the 17th engineer regiment. At the same time he evacuated over 700 aviation personnel no longer required on Buka as her airfield was destroyed. Kiyoto's movement however was soon discovered by the Americans. Admiral Halsey, never one to let up a fight, immediately dispatched 5 destroyers, the Ausburne, Claxton, Dyson, Converse and Spence under Captain Burke to intercept them. Kiyoto had departed Buka shortly after midnight, while Burke lurked near them. American radar gave Burke an enormous advantage in first detection and he knew how to use it. At 1:41am after the initial radar contact was gained at 22,000 yards, Burke turned east to close in more. The Japanese were oblivious as Burkes force closed in at just 5500 yards when at 1:55am he ordered all his destroyers to fire 5 torpedoes each before the force made a hard turn to the south to avoid retaliation. Lookouts on the Japanese flagship Onami only spotted the American destroyers when it was too late. Kiyoto's force were absolutely shredded by the torpedo volley. Onami took several hits and sunk without a single survivor; Makinami took a single torpedo hit and managed to stay afloat, but greatly crippled. Burkes force pushed it to the limit going 33 knots to overtake the IJN vessels as they tried to flee while firing upon them using 5 inch guns. Yugiri turned to fire 3 torpedoes, but Burke foresaw the maneuver and executed a well timed evasion. The torpedoes exploded in the wake of Burkes flagship. It devolved into a running gun battle until 2:25 when the Japanese dispersed. 60 miles off Cape St George, Burke's three destroyers concentrated their 5 inch guns on Yugiri which received a critical hit at 3:05am crippling her speed. Yugiri was outgunned and outmaneuvered, so her captain turned her around to fire their remaining torpedoes and engage in a suicidal gun battle. At 3:15 Yugiri received another hit causing a tremendous explosion and would sink by 3:28. Meanwhile the crippled Makinami was finished off with torpedoes and gunfire. The two other Japanese destroyers managed to flee westwards, but Burke could not pursue as it was too close to Rabaul. The Japanese suffered terrible losses, aboard Onami all but 228 men died; aboard Makinami all but 28 out of 200 perished, from Yugiri there were 278 survivors out of 497 crew and troops. For the Americans, it was a brilliant victory and it demonstrated how far the IJN's super human night fighting ability had fallen to allied radar innovation. Burkes victory was described “as an almost perfect action” and he was awarded a Navy Cross. But now we have to head over to Green Hell where the battle for Sattelberg was raging. General Katagiri's counteroffensive that was launched back on November 22nd did not produce the results he was expecting. General Wootten predicted the 238th regiment would attack from the north while the bulk of the 79th regiment would hit from the northwest. Both of these forces had to cross the Song River to hit their main target, Brigadier Porters position at Scarlet Beach. The 2/43rd battalion took the lionshare of the assault with their B company under Captain Gorden successfully repelling the attempts by the 238th regiment to infiltrate. At around 8am, 15 Japanese tried to get between his right flank and the sea. By 9am some telephone lines to the HQ were cut, gradually the Japanese infiltrators were hunted and killed. Meanwhile the Fujii detachment had been created to take back Pabu hill. Unable to get past the Australian machine gun positions, Japanese mortars and 75 mm guns from Pino Hill began to bombard them. The Australians took heavy casualties but would not budge. Lt Colonel Thomas Scott sent small parties to harass the Japanese rear when they attempted an offensive. Fearing the 2/32nd battalion would soon be trapped, Porter sent his reserve D company over to reinforce them. However as D company crossed the Song river, Colonel Hayashida began to attack the Australian perimeter, applying considerable pressure on the positions held by the 2/43rd. Around noon, D company intercepted a Japanese thrust across the Surpine Valley. At 1pm D company saw the enemy force near some huts and began calling artillery strikes down upon them. As they attacked the Japanese it forces them into a more confined area near a creek. The Australians surrounded them, but the Japanese used captured anti-tank mines as booby traps. The Australians backed off somewhat trying to contain the Japanese into a pocket as they hit them with mortars. By 5:40 the Australians dug in and during the night the Japanese would withdraw after losing 43 men.  November 22nd saw the Japanese suffer 89 deaths while the Australians only had 1. With this Wooten felt the Japanese counteroffensive was most likely defeated and prepared to respond against what seemed to be Katagiri's last attempt to turn the tide of battle. For the Japanese, the attack of D company had completely disorganized their counteroffensive. They had estimated the Australians had sent 3 to 4 battalions instead of a single company to reinforce Pabu Hill and this action had the dual effect of cutting off the road between Wareo and Bonga. Colonel Hayashida had no choice but to redirect units of his regiment to defend the northern bank of the song and try to prevent the reinforcement of Pabu. Despite the actions of the Fujii detachment, the Australians stubbornly continued to resist and this led the Japanese to believe they were increasing in strength at Pabu Hill and enjoyed resupply via aircraft drops. Meanwhile the Japanese fighting power was decreasing due to their overfiring of guns and mortars from Pino Hill. Their rations were at a ⅓ standard amount, local supplies like potatoes were nearly all gone and casualties were high. The fighting around Scarlet Beach would continue until November 28th, when the Japanese withdrew towards Wareo. Katagiri's counteroffensive was unable to affect the 26th brigades advance upon Sattelberg and fell apart. Over at the Sattelberg front, Brigadier Whitehead resumed his advance on the 22nd, with the 2/48th, supported by Matilda tanks advancing up the Sattelberg road, while the 2/23rd advanced west to the Turn Off Corner position. The 2/23rd were attempting to go across a 3200 foot Feature to gain high ground over Sattelberg. The 2/48th reached a creek southwest of Sattelberg when suddenly they were halted by a landslide and four mines laid out by the Japanese. The 2/23rd after passing the corner, hit the enemy defending the 3200 feature by encircling and gradually annihilating them. Whitehead believed they held favorable terrain to dig in for the night, but would be met with strong artillery bombardment causing heavy casualties upon the 2/32nd and 2/48th. Further north the 2/24th were trying to break through towards Palanko but the 2nd battalion, 80th regiment managed to thwart their every effort at outflanking them. Both sides suffered heavy casualties of the course of a few days of battle.On the 23rd, the 2/48th spent the day trying to find a way through the rugged jungle grounds leading to Sattelberg, finally discovering an uncontested hairpin bend to the right that led to the Red Roof Hut Spur. By this point Katagiri was aware his forces on Sattelberg were not being supplied well and could not hope to resist for much longer. He began preparing to withdraw the 80th regiment over to Wareo as a result. On the 24th Whitehead sent two companies to creep up the approach of Sattelberg from the south while the Japanese continued hammering them using artillery and bombers. Meanwhile the 2/23rd launched a diversionary attack. The attack would employ what was colloquially called a “chinese attack”, ie; to make as much noise as possible. However the action quickly turned into a real firefight over the 3200 Feature. The Japanese made a surprising counter attack from the feature which inadvertently led to the Australians seizing the feature to their surprise. During the afternoon, the 2/48th reached Red Roof Hut where they found 20 Japanese deeply entrenched in two man pits with log covers. The Japanese opened fire upon them quickly pinning them down. The Japanese rolled grenades and fired machine guns at short range , as the Australians gradually surrounded them. Try as the might the Australians were unable to kill or dislodge the Japanese prompting White to signal at 5:50pm "Plan for tomorrow. 2/48 with tanks to go through Lyne 's company. 2/23 to hold firm." Just as the 2/48th were about to withdraw, Sergeant Tom Derrick made a daring attack against the right flank, rapidly advancing through Kunai grass before his men tossed their grenades into the Japanese entrenchments. By nightfall, Red Roof Hut was seized and the Australians dug in about 150 yards from Sattelberg itself. At the same time the 2/24th found the Japanese defenders who had halted them had abandoned their position. When they checked the area they found evidence the Japanese were eating ferns and the core of bamboo. The state of their corpses and the many documents and diaries they found indicated the Japanese supply situation was extremely dire. The men defending Sattelberg were being supplied from bases at Nambariwa which relied on fishing boats, submarines and airdrops, because their barges were too vulnerable to air and naval attacks. The supplies Australians saw airdropped to the Japanese were hardly enough. It was here the Australians found a diary entry from the 79th regiment I've read a few times  "Every day just living on potatoes. Divided the section into two groups, one group for fighting and the other to obtain potatoes. Unfortunately none were available. On the way back sighted a horse, killed it and roasted a portion of it… At present, our only wish is just to be able to see even a grain of rice." Another diarist of the 80th Regiment jubilantly wrote in mid-November: "Received rice ration for three days… It was like a gift from Heaven and everybody rejoiced. At night heard loud voices of the enemy. They are probably drinking whisky because they are a rich country and their trucks are able to bring up such desirable things—I certainly envy them." On the morning of the 25th, the 2/48th discovered the enemy positions in front of them also abandoned. Soon the Australians were entering the abandoned shell of Sattelberg. Meanwhile with the aid of tanks, the 2/24th were rapidly advancing towards Palanko, capturing it by nightfall. Further to the left, elements of the 2/23rd and 2/4th commando squadron found Mararuo abandoned. The 80th regiment was fleeing towards Wario as a broken force. With this the battle of Sattelberg had come to an end.  The battle for sattelberg cost the Japanese roughly 2000 casualties. Once the Australians entered Sattelberg a signal was sent to the 2/32nd on Pabu that “Torpy sits on Sat”. Torpy was a nickname for Brigadier Whitehead, based on the Whitehead Torpedo. Whitehead had also been one of the commanding officers of the 2/32nd battalion. Such nicknames were used in signals to disguise messages in case the enemy intercepted them. The capture of sattelberg was another turning point in the New Guinea campaign. General Adachi would note “Local resistance in small pockets continued in order to keep the Australian troops in action and prevent the 9th Division from being free to make an attack on Cape Gloucester and Marcus Point (east of Gasmata) should resistance cease altogether. While delaying action was being fought at Finschhafen the 17th Division was being moved by land and sea from Rabaul to Cape Gloucester to resist the anticipated attack in that area… The most advantageous position (Pabu) for the launching of a successful counter-attack was given up; also Pabu provided excellent observation for artillery fire, and after its capture the position of the Japanese forces was precarious. Even after the failure of the attack on Scarlet Beach we still retained some hopes of recapturing Finschhafen, but at this point the idea was abandoned.” The Japanese now believed that Finschhafen was completely lost and there was not much hope of halting the Australian advance. General Berryman now urged Wootten to begin a drive north along the coast to try and cut off the Japanese lines of retreat and secure the eastern coast before the expected American led invasion of New Britain. Thus Woottne next decided to clear the Wareo-Gusika ridge first, predicting the Japanese might launch a counterattack against his rear. On the 26th Wootten ordered the 24th brigade to seize the area from Gusika towards the Kalueng Lakes; for the 2-th brigade to seize Nongora and Christmas Hills; the 26th brigade to advance north from Sattelberg towards Wareo; and for the 4th brigade to guard the approach to Scarlet Beach and the Heldsbach area. Yet before the Australians could start their new offensive they had to first clear out Pino Hill and secure the road towards Pabu. Two companies of the 2/32nd with four matilda tanks led by Colonel Scott were given the job.  Meanwhile Colonel Hayashida launched a last ditch effort to take back Pabu. Reserve company 8 of the 2nd battalion, 78th regiment with the support of two 75 mm guns and mortars were given the task. As the bombardment raged over Pabu, the 30 Japanese attempted to infiltrate from the northwest and southwest. The Japanese ran into well dug positions, and the Australians caused them 20 casualties for their efforts. The Australian defenders had called in artillery support which bombarded the ring area around Pabu successfully foiling the attack. Meanwhile Pino Hill was hit with 2360 artillery shells, then by fire from four matilda tanks, before the Australian infantry stormed the feature to find it abandoned. On the 27th Wootten altered his offensive plan. Now he sought a three pronged assault against the Gusika-Wareo ridge. Berryman, Whitehead and Wootten were visiting Sattelberg on the 27th when they looked at the rugged country towards Wareo. They all knew it would be another logistical nightmare. Berryman stated it would be unwise to commit the 20th brigade through the center and that instead they should launch a two pronged attack using the 26th and 24th brigades against Wareo proper and the Gusika-Wareo ridge. Thus now the 26th and 24th brigades would hit the Gusika Wareo area and the 20th brigade would support the coastal thrust. On that same day, the 2/28th battalion advanced along the coast to take up a flanking position near the Gusika-Wareo ridge. The 2/28th made it just 500 yards south of Bonga when they were halted by strong Japanese resistance. It would take Matilda tank support to cross over a creek and begin reducing the Japanese positions. The Australians stormed over and a platoon seized a feature called “the exchange position” left undefended. The next day saw the relief of the 2/32nd battalion who advanced north while the 2/43rd took over their position on Pabu. The Pabu defenders had suffered 25 deaths and 51 wounded, but would count over 195 dead Japanese. On the 29th, the 2/43rd fanned out finding Japanese resistance west of Pabu. The Australians attempted to encircle and annihilate the Japanese positions, but were unable and gradually had to pull back to Pabu. To the east the 2/28th seized Bonga and sent patrols towards Gusika who found it abandoned so the entire battalion moved forward and took up a position at a former Japanese supply base along the coast. Meanwhile the 26th brigade were advancing north of the Song River and managed to seize Masangkoo and Fior. On the 30th, Wootten commenced the main offensive; the 2/28th crossed the Kaleung river and advanced to the Lagoon area; the 2/43rd seized the Horace and Horse mountain area; the 2/15th crossing the Song River and advanced towards Nongora and th 2/23rd crossing the Song River to cut off the main Kuanko track. Only the 2/28th would be met with strong resistance from the Japanese who were now panicking as the fall of Gusika had completely cut off their supply route towards Wareo. It was a very dire situation for the Japanese as they retreated. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. The battle of Cape St George earned Captain Burke a incredible victory and yet again proved the IJN's night fighting abilities were no longer up to par. The battle for Sattelberg was finally over and with it any hope for the Japanese to take back the Finschhafen area, yet agian they fled north in New Guinea.  

This podcast covers the Guadalcanal Campaign Part 2 After the battle of Bloody Ridge, also known as the battle of Edson's ridge, the US Marines were able to perform some limited offensives known as the Matanikau Actions. There was mixed results for the Americans, but it did lead to the creation of the Whaling group. After the Matanikau adventure the Japanese tossed a major counter attack to try and seize back Henderson Field. It was a colossal failure as the Japanese became lost in jungles and showed up in piecemeal to attack the US Marine defensive perimeter. The Marines were able to repel the Japanese attack sending them on a long and horrifying journey back to the western portion of the island. After defending Hendersonfield the US Marines went on the offensive, performing operations against the Matanikau area and Koli point. Then Carlson's Long Patrol occurred seeing the death of nearly 500 Japanese. Meanwhile US infantry arrived to the scene and performed a campaign to take Mount Austin. The campaign consisted of the battles of the galloping horse, battle of the sea horse and the battle of the Gifu. After this the Japanese tossed the towel and began Operation KE: the evacuation of Guadalcanal.

Last time we spoke about the situation in the north pacific and the grand conclusion of the Chindits Operation Longcloth. The battle of the Komandorski islands had basically put a nail in the coffin that was the Aleutian islands campaign for japan. They could not hope to resupply Attu and Kiska properly, therefore America had a free hand to build up to invade them. Also the crazed Onion man Wingate had taken his boys in the fray of Burma and they paid heavily for it. Yes despite all the glory and fame that the propaganda perpetuated the operation had done, in reality, Wingate had sacrifice many lives for little gain. His erratic behavior led to dangerous decision making which took a toll on the men. In the end what can be said of the operation was it atleast provided something positive to boost morale for the British in the far east. But today we are going to speak about the falling of a major giant of the pacific war. This episode is Operation Vengeance  Welcome to the Pacific War Podcast Week by Week, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about world war two? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on world war two and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel you can find a few videos all the way from the Opium Wars of the 1800's until the end of the Pacific War in 1945.  Now two weeks ago I covered Operation I-Go and you may have noticed I sprinkled a bit of foreshadowing information here and there. But to catch you back up to speed so to say let me just summarize those events and the dire circumstances what person would find himself in.  It can easily be deduced by early 1943, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto knew Japan was staggering towards a catastrophic defeat. Rather ironically, he was one of those figures in Japan that tossed as much as his political influence could against the decision to go to war with america. He warned his high ranking colleagues of the great industrial might America held and that it would inevitably overwhelm Japan. His obsession over a decisive naval victory was driven mostly because he knew the only possible way for Japan to come out of WW2 positively was to bring America to the negotiating table as early as possible. But how does one do that exactly? Well Japan held a significant advantage over America in 1941, their Pacific Fleet was by far larger, vastly better trained and held considerable technological advantages. Thus like a game of Axis & Allies, a game I have been playing since I was a teenager and hope to livestream now and then for audiences like yourself, well like a good old game of Axis & Allies if you are the Axis you typically toss the kitchen sink at the offset of the war hoping to break the allies before their productive advantage gradually wins them the board. Yamamoto engineered the raid on Pearl Harbor to smash the US Pacific fleet enough to thwart them of any offensives for 6 months at minimum, though he definitely hoped for a year. After that his plan had always been to force america into a naval surface battle in the hopes of taking out their fleet and forcing them to negotiate. If they did not negotiate after that, well he hoped to buy Japan enough time to build a complex defensive perimeter which perhaps could be used to bleed Americans dry and thus gradually get them to come to terms. Well his obsession for the grand naval battle led him into a trap. Yes, a critical thing the Japanese overlooked during most of the Pacific War was code breaking. The Cryptanalysts at Station Hypo did miracles breaking the JN-25 code, leading them to deduce Admiral Yamamoto's operation MI was directed at Midway atoll. They had knowledge of the locations, the units and the timetables and they used this intelligence to set up a major trap for the combined fleet. The June 1942 disaster at Midway had been a major gambit aimed at forcing the war to an early conclusion, a gambit which fell apart. The losses at Midway meant the war was not to be a prolonged one, though it might surprise many of you to know, the chance of another decisive naval battle was not all but lost, it would just be harder to configure. Regardless the overall viewpoint after the failure at Midway now meant Japan had to fight a war of attrition, something Japan could not hope to win.  Yamamoto had obsessed himself and countless other high ranking figures that Midway was to be the decisive battle, but in reality it fell upon Guadalcanal. Yes the battle for Guadalcanal emerged the decisive battle they had all sought, but the Japanese high command were late to this conclusion. The Americans basically snuck onto the island in an extremely bold manner, forcing what became a horrifying bloody war. In the end the Americans won the battle for Guadalcanal and because of Japan's lackluster planning, this simultaneously led to the major loss of the Buna-Gona-Sanananda front as well. New Guinea and the Solomons were intertwined and Japan kept fumbling back and forth between them which inevitably was leading to them losing both. After the loss at Guadalcanal, Japan had lost the initiative for the Pacific War, now America was in the drivers seat. The battle of the Bismarck Sea proved to the Japanese high command, their sealanes were no longer safe. America was dominating Japan's ability to move men and supplies across the ocean through a war of attrition using airpower and submarines. The Japanese planners understood the allies were going to advance in two prongs; one through New Guinea and the other up the central and northern solomons. For the allies to advance, they required the construction of airfields along the way to provide air superiority to cover their surface fleets and transports of men and supplies. Japan had been massively depleted of ships, aircraft, trained men, resources in general, but one thing they still had an advantage over the allies was their airfields scattered about the Pacific.  On March 15th Japanese high command in Tokyo demanded plans be made to build a new defensive strategy in the central Pacific. The main idea was to build a stronger defensive perimeter emanating from Rabaul. Thus on the morning of April 3rd of 1943, Admirals Yamamoto and Ugaki, accompanied by more than a dozen officers of the combined Fleet staff boarded two Kawanishi flying boats and headed for Rabaul. Yamamoto and the high ranking figures scoured their maps and came up with what was needed to be done to meet this new demand. They needed to hinder the American airpowers advance up the Solomons and New Guinea, this meant hitting allied forward airfields. Four locations were chosen: Guadalcanal, Oro Bay, Port Moresby and Milne Bay. It was to be called Operation I-GO Sakusen and would be the responsibility of the IJN. Admirals Yamamoto and Jinichi Kusaka established temporary headquarters on Rabaul and began planning. The planning led to an incredible concentration of Japanese airpower. The 11th airfleet and 4 aircraft carriers of the 3rd fleet: Zuikaku, Zuiho, Junyo and Hiyo would amass a force of 224 aircraft. The airpower was going to be used to smash the 4 targets and then they would be dispersed to several airfields to mount a new defensive perimeter. They would be sent to places like Buka and Kahili on Bougainville and Ballale in the Shortland Islands. Admiral Yamamoto would personally supervise Operation I-GO as he took up quarters on a cottage high on a hill behind the town of Rabaul. He spent weeks inspecting airfields and other military installations, meeting with local army and navy commanders at various headquarters scattered about New Britain. As was his typical behavior, he bid farewell to departing air squadrons waving his hat to them. For 10 consecutive days, Japanese bombers and fighters hit their designated targets. More than 200 aircraft attacked Guadalcanal on April 7th, a raid larger than any attempted during the 5 month battle over the island. The Japanese pilots came back with extremely exaggerated claims of success. They claimed to have destroyed dozens of ships and hundreds of aircraft. In reality operation I-Go amounted to the destruction of 25 aircraft, 1 destroyer, 1 corvette, 1 oil tanker and 2 transports. The Japanese had lost around 40 aircraft for this.  The Japanese high command including Yamamoto and even Emperor Hirohito bought the success stories. Hirohito send word stating “Please convey my satisfaction to the Commander in Chief, Combined Fleet, and tell him to enlarge the war result more than ever.” On the other side of the conflict, General Kenney had a more damning critique of the way Yamamoto used his air forces during Operation I-Go, “… the way he [Yamamoto] had failed to take advantage of his superiority in numbers and position since the first couple of months of the war was a disgrace to the airman's profession.” The reality was, the aircrews were not the same types that raided Pearl Harbor in 1941, no these men in 1943 were forgive me to say, kind of the bottom of the barrel types. Sure there remained some veterans and experiences men, but far and too few to trained what should have been a brand new generation of Japanese airpower. Japan had squandered their veterans and now she was paying a heavy price for it. On October 25th of 1942, Rear-Admiral Ugaki had written this in his diary “every time it rained heavily, about ten planes were damaged due to skidding.” The Japanese airfields were no match for the American Seabees who were performing miracles across the pacific building superior fields for their airpower. By contrast the Japanese could not hope to match this, they lacked resources and trained personnel. Operation I-GO in the end costed the allies advance 10 days. Yamamoto had his spirits lifted somewhat by Operation I-GO believing it to be a triumph. He announced he would conduct a one-day tour of forward bases at Buin, Ballale and Shortland Island set for April the 18th and this is where our story truly begins. Yamamoto's tour was sent over the radio waves using the JN-25D naval cypher to the 11th air flotilla and the 26th air flotilla. Admiral Yamamoto's operations officer Commander Yasuji Watanabe would go on the record complaining that the information about Yamamoto's visit to the Ballalae Airfield should had been done by courier and not by radio, but the communications officer replied “this code only went into effect on april 1st and cannot be broken”. The message was picked up by three stations of the “Magic” apparatus, the United States cryptanalysis project. One of the three stations ironically was the same team responsible for breaking the codes that led to Midway, station Hypo at Pearl Harbor. Major Alva B. Lasswell, a duty officer at Joseph Rochefort's Combat Intelligence Unit Station HYPO deciphered it and pronounced it to be a "jackpot". The message contained highly detailed information and it was easy to deduce the message was about Yamamoto. It contained his departure time: April 18, 06:00 Japanese Standard Time, 08:00 Guadalcanal Time set for Ballale, 08:00 Japanese Standard Time, 10:00 Guadalcanal Time.; his aircraft which was a G4M Betty and the number of his escorts, 6 Zeros; as well as the entire itinerary for his tour. Admiral Yamamoto's plane was going to be heading over the southern end of Bougainville on the morning of the 18th, a location that happened to be just within the fighter range of Henderson Field. Alva Bryan Lasswell and intelligence officer Jasper Holmes took the decrypted message to CINCPAC headquarters and handed it to the fleet intelligence officer Ed Layton who tossed it upon Admiral Nimitz desk a few minutes after 8 on April 14.  Nimitz scrutinized the chart on his wall and confirmed himself that Yamamoto's plane would enter airspace that could be reached by american fighters from Henderson. “He asked Layton “Do we try to get him?”. The question honestly was a tough one. Was it wrong to target the combined fleet chief based on some sort of convention upon military chivalry? Like most naval officers, Nimitz had interacted socially with Japanese officers during the interwar years. Nimitz was not a particularly vengeful nor bloody-minded man. In era's past, an American flag or general officer would certainly refuse to have his rival commander assassinated. For you American listeners, can you conceive George Washington ordering a hit on William Howe? How about Robert E Lee ordering a hit on Ulysses Grant? However war in the 20th century was not like the previous centuries. Hell even by the standards of the war in europe, the Pacific War was unbelievably more brutal. Honestly if you wanted a good book on the subject of how brutal the Pacific war was, try John D Dowers “War without Mercy: Race & Power in the Pacific War”.  Now during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, cough cough if you want to hear about that one check out my Youtube channel, the IJA and IJN had strictly adhered to the rules of war. Russian prisoners were housed well, fed well, provided good medical care, given cigarettes and alcohol, the 2nd one very important to russians as we know haha. Those who died within captivity were even buried with military honors. During WW1 the Japanese took German prisoners after the siege of Tsingtau and treated them extremely well in Japan, let them parade the country with a band and such. In fact the treatment of the German POW's had a small hand to play in how Japan got into bed with Germany later, and honestly to this very day Japan and Germany have this special relationship. However, Japan certainly did not bring this type of chivalrous etiquette into the Pacific War.  Nimitz may have hesitated to give the order, but he knew full well of the Japanese actions in China, the Philippines, Malaya, Hong Kong, the East Indies, the Solomons. I guess you can say barbarity dishes out barbarity. Yet aside from the morality question, was it wise to kill Yamamoto? This was after all the man who planned and executed the disastrous Midway offensive losing 4 aircraft carriers with nearly all their aircraft. Yamamoto had also mismanaged the guadalcanal campaign by deploying air and troop reinforcements in piecemeals. He arguably was doing a good job losing the war. Layton knew Yamamoto personally and argued that he was the best-respected military leader in Japan and that his death “He's unique among their people… Aside from the Emperor, probably no man in Japan is so important to civilian morale. [His absence] would demoralize the fighting navy. You know Japanese psychology; it would stun the nation.”. Layton said to Nimitz “You know, Admiral Nimitz, it would be just as if they shot you down. There isn't anybody to replace you”. To this Nimitz smiled amusingly and replied “it's down in Halsey's bailiwick, if there's a way, he'll find it. All right, we'll try it”. Thus sealed the fate of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. Thus Admiral Nimitz sent a “your eyes only” message to Admiral Halsey, alerting him to the situation and ordering a fighter interception with the concluding remarks “best of luck and good hunting”. Codenamed Operation Vengeance approved on the 14th, the assassination of Admiral Yamamoto was done under utmost secrecy to protect the cryptanalysis teams. It just so happened Halsey had already been informed of the operation in a chance encounter in Melbourne Australia. He was inspecting naval facilities in the city and dropped by the communications intelligence office where a yeoman named Kenneth Boulier was working on one of the draft decrypts. Halsey came to his desk and asked “what are you working on son?”. And when Boulier explained, Halsey raised his voice and addressed the entire unit “Goddamit, you people knock off this Yamamoto business! I'm going to get that sonofabitch myself!”. I guess one can say he was enthusiastic about the job. Halsey informed his subordinate air commanders, Admirals Aubrey Fitch and Marc Mitscher about the details of Operation vengeance. Southern Bougainville was roughly 400 miles away from Henderson field and the aircraft would need to take a roundabout route to evade detection. Thus the mission would require 1000 miles or so of flying, a range that would test the capabilities of even the longest legged American fighters. AirSols commander Mitscher called for a secret meeting of his staff on April 16th to figure out the logistics of the operation. It was determined that to intercept Yamamoto's flight, they should use Lockheed P-38 Lightnings which held a comparable range to that of the Zero fighter, though it would not alone be enough. They would need to use a lean fuel mixture and drop tanks to barely make the long flight. It was going to be quite tight, thus the timing had to be precise, or else the aircraft would burn their fuel while waiting for the enemy to make their appearance. Major John Mitchell of the 339th fighter squadron was assigned the commander of 18 P-38's piloted by handpicked airmen. 4 P-38's would be designated as “killers”, ie: the guys who would target Yamamoto's G4M Betty, while the other pilots would cover them against the Zero escorts. The killers were to be Captain Thomas Lanphier, Lieutenants Rex Barber, Joseph Moore and James McLanahan. They were going to intercept Yamamoto in the air just south of Empress August Bay.  Now the direct flight to Bougainville meant crossing over or very close to Japanese held islands which held observers. This meant they would need to veer far out to sea to avoid any visual contact made by Japanese coastwatchers. Likewise they would skim the ocean at wave-top height to avoid detection by Japanese radar. Mitchell plotted their missions course to remain at least 50 miles offshore. This also meant they would have no landmarks to use as checkpoints: it would have to be dead reckoning the entire way, flying by airspeed, clock and compass under strict radio silence for over 2 hours, until they saw the Bougainville coast. The strike force would depart guadalcanl at 7:20. Even after all the precision and planning, the lightning force would only have around 15 minutes to shoot down Yamamoto, this was a extremely tight one. Mitchell gave the odds of the operation succeeded about a thousand to one. Back over in Rabaul commanders like Admirals Ozawa and Jojima were trying to change Yamamotos mind about making the tour to the forward airbases thinking he was taking a large risk. Adamiral Ozawa argued with Captain Kameto Kuroshima, a senior member of Yamamoto's staff “If he insists on going, six fighters are nothing like enough. Tell the chief of staff that he can have as many of my planes as he likes.” Admiral Ugaki who was sick in the hospital with dengue ever tried to send a message to Yamamoto to not go on the tour. That message though it did not make it to Yamamoto directly was interceived by Admiral Jojima. Admiral Jojima argued “what a damn fool thing to do, to send such a long and detailed message about the activities of the Commander of the combined fleet so near the front. This kind of thing must stop” Jojima had actually flown over to Rabaul to stop Yamamoto, but Yamamoto did not back down. Yamamoto was a stickler for punctuality, he alongside his party arrived to Rabaul's Lakuni field a few minutes before 6am Japan time, thus around 8am rabaul time. The party wore their field green khai uniforms and airmens boots, aside from Yamamoto who wore his customary white dress uniform, with his usual white gloves carrying his ceremonial sword. Yamamoto climbed into one of the two G4M Betty medium bmbers and Ugaki climbed into the other. Yamamoto's Betty had the number 323 painted on its vertical stablizer. The planes roared down the runway and climbed. The weather was clear, with excellent visibility above and below the high ceiling. The aircraft leveled out at 6500 with the bombers holding a close formation, enough for Ugaki to clearly see Yamamoto through the windshield of the other plane. The fighters hung out at 8200 feet above them and around a mile around them. The formation headed southeast making its first landfall on the southern tip of new ireland, then south along the coast of Bougainville, past the Japanese bases at Buka and Kieta, then on to Ballale. Ugaki began to nod off as the group began its descent towards Ballale.    Major Mitchells strike group launched at 7:10 guadalcanal time, seeing 2 lightnings fail as a result of a blown tire for one and a fuel transfer problem for the other. Both aircraft were part of the killers team, thus Lieutenants Besby Holmes and Raymond Hine, were replaced with Joseph Moore and James McLanahan. Not a great way to start such a precise mission by any means. As they made the first leg of their route, the P-38's descended to 50 feet to avoid radar detection while the pilots had to endure extremely hot temperatures due to the sea level. The temperature was above 90 degrees as the sun blazed through their Perspex canopies causing the pilots to sweat like pigs. The P-38 was a high altitude fighter and its canopy could not open in flight to regulate the cockpit temperature. Thus instead it kind of acted like a convection oven, building up heat as the sun beat down on it. With nothing but hte sight of rolling waves for over 2 hours, the pilots could have very well dozed off. After 55 minutes of hte first leg, Mitchell turned right to 290 degrees then after another 27 minutes, 305 degrees. 38 minutes after this another 20 degree turn to make the 40 mile leg to the south edge of Empress Bay, all using clocks & compass.  As they crossed the bay they turned 90 degrees and were around 4 minutes from their calculated interception point. The lightnings began to close in and made sight of the southwest corner of Bougainville. In an act of extraordinary navigation they hit the precise location intended at 9:34am, a single minute ahead of schedule. Right on top of them, passing serenly overhead was the Yamamoto and unfortuntately for him, security was quite lax. You see the Japanese held air superiority at Buin, thus they did not anticipate any enemy action. Alongside this the escort zero's had their radiots stripped out to reduce their weight. This meant they would not be able to communicate with the Betty's. Ugaki's Betty was carrying its regular armament of 3 13mm guns and 1 20mm gun, but because of the weight of the munition boxes, only a single belt was filled up for each. As for Yamamoto's Betty, there does not seem to be evidence it was armed at all. Mitchell was shocked to see the two Betty bombers, the intelligence had told them one. This somewhat disrupted his plan not knowing where the escorts were hiding, futhermore 2 lightnings piloted by Lieutenants Besby Holmes and Raymond Hine had to pull out when their belly tanks were released and it caused a technical problem. Thus Mitchell had only half the fighters as planned and now faced double the Betty's. He did not know which Betty was Yamamoto's, but with icy resolve he did not improvise the plan and ordered Captain Lamphier to attack as planned stating “he's your meat, tom”. The rest of the lightnings climbed to perform CAP actions as Mitchell expected the Japanese air base at Kahili to toss some zeros over to greet Yamamoto. None would come, another toss of the dice of fate as it were. As Ugaki recounts the event, at 9:43 he was awoken when his plane suddenly began a steep diving turn. The pilot was unsure what was happening, but all of a sudden evasive maneuvers of the Zero escorts alerted him something was wrong. The dark green canopy of the jungle hills were closing in on them as the gunnery opened up the gun ports to prepare firing. Between the rushing wind from the openings and the guns things were incredibly noisy. Ugaki told the pilot to try and remain with Yamamoto's plane, but it was too late. As Ugaki's plane banked south he caught a glimpse of Yamamoto's plane “staggering southward, just brushing the jungle top with reduced speed, emitting black smoke and flames.” Ugaki lost visual contact for some time then only saw a column of smoke rising rom the jungle. Ugaki's pilot flew over Cape Moira and out to sea, descending steadily to gain speed. Two lightnings were on their ass and some .50 caliber rounds slammed into their wings and fuselage. The pilot frantically trid pulling up, but his propellers dug into the sea causing the Betty to roll hard to the left. Ugaki was tossed from his seat and slammed agianst an interior bulkhead. As water flooded the aircraft he thought “this is the end of Ugaki”. But luckily for him, and 3 other passengers they managed to get free and swim to the beach as they were helped ashore by Japanese soldiers and transported to Buin. Despite his miraculous survival, Ugaki's injuries were severe, including a severed radial artery and compound fracture of the right arm, which would leave him out of action until 1944 From the American point of few, they came upon the Japanese formation catching them by complete surprise. The escorting Zeros were flying above the bombers, scanning hte horizon ahead of them to the south and now suspected American fighters would be approaching them from behind at a lower altitude. There are quite a few accounts of how this went down, but by all of them Lamphier climbed to the left, going nose to nose with 3 escorting Zeros, while Lt Rex Barber banked to the right. In response all 6 of the Zeros made a straight dive from their higer altitude position to get between the bombers and the lightnings. Rather than firing directly at the American fighters, they kept their firing infront of the lightnings trying to prevent their line of sight meeting up with the bombers. With the eruption of the choas, both Betty's accelerated into their dives, distancing themselves. One plane banked right going southwest towards the shoreline while the other banked left going east. Now what follows next has actually been a fight going on for decades with all participants going to their grave swearing their perspective was the legitimate account of the event. Lamphier's story, which is by far the most well known, states he quickly engaged the 3 diving Zeros to the left, managing to shoot down one before twisting away to attack the Betty's. He found the lead Betty skimming the jungle, heading for Kahili and dived in pursuit of it. With the other 2 zeros chasing to cut him off, Lamphier held course and fired a long steady burst across the Betty's course of flight. He watched the Betty's right engine and right wing catch on fire and in his words “the bomber's wing tore off. The bomber plunged into the jungle. It exploded. That was the end of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.” While racing out over the open sea towards Moila Point, Ugaki himself was horrified to see the funeral pyre of Yamamoto's crashed bomber. But at the same time, Rex Barber tells a different story.  Rex claims Lamphier's initial maneuver going to the left was smart, as it allowed Barber the opportunity to attack the bombers without the Zeroes being on his tail. Thus Rex banked sharply to the right to fall in behind one of the Betty's. At around 1000 feet above the jungle canopy, Rex opened fire, aiming over the fuselage at the right engine. Rex could see chunks of the Betty's engine and fires emerge as he continued to ranke the Bettey with his guns, until the Betty suddenly stopped in mid-air, nearly colliding with him before crashing into the jungle below. Rex also claimed the Betty did not fire back at all. The zero escorts however did catch up to him, but the sudden appearance of Lt's Besby Holmes and Raymond Hine saved him as they shot down the 3 zeros.  Heading to the coasts, Holmes and Hine pursued the remaining Betty and fired upon it scoring some hits. Rex also dropped in behind what is assumed to be Ugaki's Betty firing a burst over it before it hit the water. Holmes claimed to have shot down Ugaki's Betty by himself. Rex states that “Holmes rounds must have hit the tanks and filled the bomber swings with gas fumes, because the ship exploded in his face”. As Rex flew through the black smoke and debris a large chunk of the Betty hit his right wing cutting out his turbo supercharger intercooler. Meanwhile Holmes and Hine were dog fighting two more Zeros. Holmes would claim to have shot one of the zeros down, making his total around 3 Zeros and one betty; Hine's lightning was damaged in the fight forcing him to head east out to sea with smoke trailing his engine. Hine would be last seen around 9:40am, he was to be the only allied casualty of operation Vengeance. With both Betty's down, the mission was done and Mitchell ordered a withdrawal. The lightning's each headed home individually, operating at the limit of their range and suffering the hot weather. The controversy over who shot down Yamamoto's aircraft would begin the moment the pilots got back to base. In the words of Lt Julius Jacobson “there were 15 of us who survived, and as far as who did the effective shooting, who cares?” Yamamoto's plane had gone down about 4 miles inland, in a remote part of the jungle. Search parties took over a day to find the wreck. On April 20th they found the wrecked aircraft, there were no survivors. According to eyewitness testimony, Yamamoto was found sitting upright, still strapped to his seat, with one white gloved hand resting upon his katana. Yamamoto's watch had stopped at 0745hrs. A bullet had entered his lower jaw and went out from his temple; another pierced his shoulder blade. Yamamoto's body was wrapped in banyan leaves and carried down a trail to the mouth of the Wamai River, where it was taken to Buin by sea. His body would be cremated alongside the 11 other men aboard that Betty,  in a pit filled with brushwood and gasoline and his ashes were flown back to Truk and deposited on a Buddhist altar in the Musashi's war operations room.  New's of Yamamoto's death was at first restricted to a small circle of ranking officers, and passageways around the operations room and the commander in chiefs cabin were placed off limits. But the truth eventually leaked out to the crew of Musashi. Admiral Ugaki was seen in bandages holding a white box containing Yamamoto's ashes as he came aboard and the smell of incense wafted from his cabin. Admiral Mineichi Koga was named the new commander in chief. For over a month the news was kept under wraps. On May 22nd, Yamamoto's death was heard on the NHK news. The announcer broke into tears as he read the announcement. A special train carried the slain admiral's ashes from Yokosuka to Tokyo. An imperial party, including members of the royal household and family greeted its arrival at Ueno Station. As diarist Kiyoshi Kiyosawa noted “There is widespread sentiment of dark foreboding about the future course of the war”. Admiral Yamamoto was awarded posthumously the Grand Order of the Chrysanthemum, first class and the rank of Fleet admiral. His funeral was held on June 5th, the first anniversary of the battle of Midway, which also coincided with the funeral of the legendary Admiral Togo Heihachiro, 9 years previously. It was held in Hibiya park with hundreds of thousands coming to pay their respects. Pallbearers were selected from among the petty officers of the Musashi, carrying his casket draped in white cloth past the Diet and Imperial Palace. The Navy band played Chopin's funeral march as the casket was driven to Tama Cemetery where it was placed in a grave alongside that of Admiral Togo. Some sought to make a Yamamoto shrine, but his close friend Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai said “Yamamoto hated that kind of thing. If you deified him, he'd be more embarrassed than anybody else”.  The new commander in chief of the combined fleet, Admiral Koga Mineichi would later say “There was only one Yamamoto and no one is able to replace him. His loss is an unsupportable blow to us.”  I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. Operation Vengeance was a success, leading to the death of the legendary, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. Would his death help or worsen the allied war effort? For that question to be answered only time could tell.

Last time we spoke about the disastrous first Arakan campaign and the Pacific Military conference of 1943. Yes Mr. Irwin had royally messed up the Arakan offensive, so much so it was gradually bringing his bitter rival General Slim into the mix. While Irwin failed, Slim gradually was placed in operation control and would soon unleash a box strategy against General Koga's forces in Burma. On the planning front, the war between MacArthur and King raged on, but compromises were finally hashed out. The July 2 directive, became the Elkton plan which in turn would evolve into Operation Cartwheel. The allies were learning how to play nice together in the Pacific at last. MacArthur was gradually shifting the war towards his own personal goals. However while all of this was going on, the Japanese were also forming their own plans, which would soon be unleashed. This episode is the Operation I-GO Welcome to the Pacific War Podcast Week by Week, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about world war two? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on world war two and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel you can find a few videos all the way from the Opium Wars of the 1800's until the end of the Pacific War in 1945.  It is April of 1943, a year ago, the Empire of the Rising sun stood proud and victorious over the Pacific. The Japanese had taken Malaya, the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, Burma and pretty much anywhere they went, victory was at hand. Yet as Admiral Yamamoto moved his flag from super battleship Yamato to the Musashi, he looked quite withered down. The past 14 months since the great raid on Pearl Harbor had aged him considerably. His close-cropped hair had turned almost entirely gray and his eyes looked discolored. It was rare to see him leave his quarters and whenever he did it was quite briefly, usually him waving his hat in the air as a departing sign to a squadron of aircraft. Rarely did he join his fellow staff officers for a game of ring-toss on deck. In a letter he wrote at the end of January of 1943 he asserted he only set foot ashore 4 times since the previous august, only to check in on the sick or wounded men at the hospitals or to attend funerals. Critics of Yamamoto would claim he actually made considerable amounts of visits to the “naval restaurant” on an island in the lagoon. This “naval restaurant” was actually a well-known brothel near Yokosuka Naval base in Tokyo Bay. The commander in chief seemed resigned to his fate. When he was asked in October of 1942 what he would do after Japan won the war he replied “I imagine I'll be packed off either to the guillotine or to set Helena”. On most occasions he would openly declare he did not believe he would live through the war. Yamamoto mourned the loss of so many IJN officers and sailors and was especially saddened by the loss of the commanders who refused to leave their doomed ships. Yamamoto had actually campaigned to reform the principle that a captain could and should honorably survive the destruction of his ship, but it was to little avail. The belief was so hard-wired into the Japanese naval officer corps.  Yamamoto knew Japan was staggering towards a catastrophic defeat, but he could not openly say it to those around him. He had tossed everything he could to thwart the war in the first place, warning everyone of the great industrial power of America that would gradually overwhelm Japan. His operation against Midway in june of 1942 was a major gambit aimed at forcing a decisive victory to bring the Americans closer to the negotiating table. The utter failure at Midway had ensured the war would be prolonged, it would become a war of attrition and one that Japan could not hope to win. On the morning of April 3rd, 1943 Admirals Yamamoto and Ugaki accompanied by more than a dozen officers of the combined fleet staff boarded two Kawanishi flying boats enroute for Rabaul. The battles of Guadalcanal and Buna-Gona-Sanananda were extremely heavy setbacks to Yamamoto's plans of extending the defensive perimeter towards the east of Australia so it could be strangled of supplies. The disaster that occurred at the battle of the Bismarck Sea showcased how vulnerable their shipping lanes were. The state of their land-based aviation was abysmal, it failed to protect the convey sent to Lae resulting in the terrible loss. As Commander Toshikazu Ohmae stated “The land-based air groups at Rabaul were not effective, largely because there were only a few experienced pilots in them.  Vice-Admiral Ugaki was even harsher, adding “We cannot expect much of the land-based air force partly because of a passive atmosphere among them.”  Admiral Kusaka's 11th air fleet had suffered tremendous losses from a series of serious ongoing issues, but two were of vital importance; 1) the poor health and low morale of those at Rabaul. Men were succumbed to widespread diseases, such as malaria and chronic diarrhea. And 2) the terrible situation when it came to replacing men such as their valuable veterans. As Yamamoto put it “They used to say that one ‘Zero' fighter could take on five to ten American aircraft, but that was at the beginning of the war. Since losing so many good pilots at Midway we've had difficulty in replacing them. Even now, they still say that one ‘Zero' can take on two enemy planes, but the enemy's replacement rate is three times ours; the gap between our strengths is increasing every day, and to be honest things are looking black for us now.” The new recruits were unfamiliar with the aircraft employed by Kusaka's command, requiring to be re-trained upon their arrival to Rabaul. Without their veteran pilots to train these men the task took longer and resulted in less capable pilots and crews. The replacement issue for aircrews was a fleet-wide issue forcing the IJN to shorten their training syllabus for commissioned and enlisted pilots by 2 months. To achieve this reduction, the amount of instructional time devoted to skill areas like tactics, gunnery and formation flying were reduced or in some cases even eliminated. The veterans who began the war in a third position of a 3-plane sector and were still alive now took upon the role of shotai or chutai leadership. Shotai leaders were responsible for flights of 3 aircraft and Chutai leaders were responsible for 9 aircraft or better said 3 shotai. However many of these men did not really have the necessary experience to assume such responsibilities. On March 25th a directive was established to quote “create a superior and impregnable strategic position”. In other words, Tokyo was demanding the Army and Navy come up with a plan to stop the allies southern offensive. Tokyo wanted the two services to actually work together so they could defend the precious gains they had made in the early part of the war, like their holdings in New Guinea which were currently being hammered upon by MacArthur's forces. To implement the new directive, General Imamura summoned a conference on Rabaul for April 12th. Commanders of the 17th and 19th armies, the 6th air division would be in attendance. During the conference it was decided General Hyakutakes 17th Army would take on the responsibility for defending the northern solomons in coordination with the Navy. They would also have to help assist the navy who was expecting allies attacks directed at the central solomons. General Adachi's 18th army was given responsibility to defend Lai-Salamaua, but because of the shipping lane crisis this would have to be done mostly via land routes. They were going to establish a major overland and coastal supply route linking Madang and Western New Britain to the Lae area to aid this. Furthermore naval and air bases would be built up in eastern New Guinea to aid Lt General Itahana Giichi's 6th air division to operation in the region. Despite all these grand plans, American air power was already making Tokyo express runs to places like Finschhafen impossible. The Japanese war effort in New Guinea was gradually being torn apart by constant air raids. Therefore, the only way to get men and supplies to places like Lae would be using the ever glamorous submarine or barge methodology. Now that is all for the Imperial Japanese army boys planning session, but what about Yamamoto and the Naval gang. By the time of the conference, MacArthur's efforts in New Guinea had basically ruined Yamamoto's expansionist strategies. A complete strategic rethink was now necessary. Yamamoto was quartered in a cottage high on a hill behind the town of Rabaul. He spent the following week inspecting airfields and other military installations, meeting with the local army and naval commanders all around New Britain. As was typical of him, he bid good luck to the departing air squadrons, with his usual wave of his hat. Yamamoto set to work creating a new offensive directive erected as part of the March 25th plan. The IJN planned for an air campaign against allied positions in New Guinea and the Solomons. The 11th air fleet, on its lonesome would not able to mount an effective strike, thus Yamamoto called upon the 3rd fleet to augment them.  Admiral Ozawa who led the 3rd fleet voiced opposition to this, not wanting his precious elite units to be squandered. But he eventually gave in and provided aircraft carriers and agreed to supervise plans for the new operation. At the same time it was decided that Yamamoto and Ozawa would shift their headquarters temporarily to Rabaul, this would prove to be a fateful mistake on his part. You see him doing so was announced using a radio message. His operations officer Commander Yasuji Watanabe would go on the record complaining that the information about Yamamoto's visit to the Ballalae Airfield should had been done by courier and not by radio, but the communications officer replied “this code only went into effect on april 1st and cannot be broken”. It would be broken, but more about that later. Now the Zuikaku, Zuiho, Junyo and Hiyo would toss up 160 aircraft: 54 Vals, 45 Kates and 96 Zeros to augment the 155 aircraft of Admiral Kusaka pushing them to a strength of over 350 aircraft. The aircraft were dispersed to multiple airfields such as Buka and Kahili on Bougainville and Ballale in the Shortlands.   Now before Yamamoto and his team launched their new offensive, Admiral Kusaka decided to do a preliminary fighter sweep down the Slot on April 1st. He hoped to draw out large portions of the allied airpower on Guadalcanal to soften them up. Kusaka launched a first wave of 32 and second wave of 25 Zeros which intercepted 42 fighters of Admiral Mason's ComAirSols command. The allied force consisted mostly of Wildcats, some P-38's and a few new F4U Corsairs. They were intercepted over the Russell Islands causing a giant melee of dog flights lasting over 3 hours. The Americans had home field advantage over the Japanese, managing to shoot down 9 Zero's at the cost of 5 Wildcats and a Corsair. It was not exactly a promising start for the Japanese. As usual both sides of the air battle submitted exaggerated reports. The Americans claimed to have taken down 18 Zeros and the Japanese claimed to have downed 47 American fighters. So yeah the Japanese claimed to have shot down more aircraft than they even encountered haha. Now it was on April the 3rd when Yamamoto and his staff arrived in Rabaul and he personally took command of the upcoming operation alongside Admirals Ozawa and Kusaka. Now Yamamoto had accurately anticipated the allied advance into the solomons and New Guinea would focus on the subjugation of Rabaul. Within five days of the battle of Guadalcanal being officially declared on February 9th of 1942, Lt General Kenney had authorized a plan to take down Rabaul. This plan commence on the night of February 14th with a bombing raid consisting of 12 B-29's from the 63rd bomb squadron. They targeted the fuel dumps and munitions. A second wave of 10 B-29's from the 65th bomb squadron came in dropping incendiaries upon the town of Rabaul. The Japanese had managed no fighter interceptions. Yamamoto had further predicted the allies would launch a double-pronged advance through New Guinea and the northern Solomon islands. To meet this advance he had set up a ring of airfields around Rabaul. His visit to Ballalae airfield was part of developing the rings and it would be his death sentence in the end. The result of these plans led to a triangular combat zone with Port Moresby on its west point, Guadalcanal at its east and Rabaul as its northern apex.  Yamamoto knew the US forces would advance under the cover of air superiority which in turn depending upon their ability to build forward airfields. In anticipation of his Yamamoto had as we mentioned gathered a massive build up of aircraft with the intent to hammer the allies ability to supply materials and build further airfields. The battle for Henderson field on Guadalcanal was the first of these contests and many would follow. Yamamoto hoped the shorter lines of supply from airfields closer to Rabaul would give them an advantage over the Americans, but despite all the claims of great air victories, Yamamoto's personal tour was revealing the opposite. In fact, as Yamamoto used the post-guadalcanal lull in action to bolster his defenses for a anticipated battle ahead, Halsey had likewise prepared his forces for their advance into the central and northern solomons.  Halsey would have a number of new toys to play with such as the Chance Vought F4U Corsair and Grumman F6F Hellcat. 4 new airbases were built upon Guadalcanal and during march of 1943 allied bombers made sporadic attacks on the Japanese airfields at Ballalae, Kahili, Shortland Island and Munda. On top of that large scale reconnaissance efforts were made to get a good picture of the Japanese build up of their airfields. When reconnaissance found out the Japanese were developing a seaplane off southern bougainville, the Japanese launched a dawn fighter attack on March 28th. Led by Captain Lanphier of the 70th squadron, 6 P-38's destroyed 8 Japanese seaplanes. Now after a week of sporadic bombing raids from both sides, allies watchers on the New Guinea coast indicated a major offensive was afoot.  Yamamoto's grand air campaign was codenamed operation I-GO with attack day X set for april 5th. The first target was to be guadalcanal, but bad weather forced a postponement of 2 days. Japanese reconnaissance since March 25th had indicated the allies had roughly 300 aircraft on the island, alongside transports, cargo ships, warships and other goodies going between Lunga Point and Tulagi. In the early hours of April the 7th, Yamamoto unleashed a massive strike force consisting of over 224 planes, the largest striking force since the attack on Pearl Harbor. 67 Vals and 157 Zeros were enroute to smash Guadalcanal. But the allies enjoyed great intelligence and received several warnings of the impending offensive. The coastwatchers were hard at work transmitting their sightings. Rear-Admiral Marc Mitscher , the new commander of AirSols scrambled 76 fighters consisting of Wildcats, Lightnings, Airacobras and Kittyhawks from Hendersonfield, Milne Bay and other outlying airfields. Despite the prior warnings, the allied scramble was rather disorderly and to make matters worse the Japanese cleverly split up their attack force into 4 groups to confuse the allied radar systems. 4 squadrons of Vals were preceded by 2 sweeps of Zeros which were intercepted by 3 squadrons of Wildcats. Marine 1st Lt James E Sweet of the VMF-221 was credited with shooting down7 Vals and possibly an 8th using his Wildcat. His aircraft was badly mauled during the combat forcing him to make a water landing outside Tulagi harbor. He would be awarded the Medal of Honor for this great feat.  Despite valiant efforts made by the allies, the Vals laid havoc to the Tulagi anchorage. The destroyer USS Aaron Ward, New Zealander corvette Moa and US tanker Kanawha were sunk. THe crews over in Henderson field were fortunate as it was not hit too hard as the dog fights broke up the Japanese Vals and Zeros who were forced back towards Bougainville. For their efforts the Japanese lost 12 zerosand 12 vals. The Japanese pilots claimed to have downed 41 allies aircraft, which turned out to be 7 Wildcats and 12 major warships which were the 3 previously mentioned. With what seemed to be a large success for operation X, Yamamoto felt confident and decided to launch operation Y of I-GO. While operation X of I-GO was directed at Guadalcanal, operation Y would hit New Guinea. On april 11, 27 Vals and 73 Zeros departed Rabaul to hit Oro Bay which was adjacent to the rapidly expanding airdrome complex at Dobodura. The allies scrambled 50 aircraft consisting of Lightning and Warhawks of the 7th, 8th and 9th squadrons. The vals managed to sink a US cargo ship, heavily damaging a transport and an Australian minesweeper. The next day Yamamoto traveled to Vanukanau airdrome to personally send off another strike and announced he would do a tour of the forward bases of Buin, Ballale and Shortland island. The signal was picked up by allied listening posts. Cryptanalysts at Station Hypo led by Joseph Rocherfort decrypted the message and pronounced it a jackpot. The message referred to Yamamoto was easily deduced, and the geographic designators for Rabaul, Ballale and Buin were easily extracted. Better than that the message contained the specific information that Yamamoto would be traveling on a medium bomber escorted by 6 fighters, and would arrive at RYZ at 8am. This would put Yamamoto's aircraft over the southern end of Bougainville on the morning of the 18th, a location just within the fighter range of Henderson Field. I will not be speaking anymore of this as it will be discussed in depth in a future episode, just a tease I know. At Vanukanau Yamamoto presented himself in his crisp white uniform, waving his hat to the crews of 43 Bettys followed up shortly by 65 Zeros. A second group of 66 Zeros assisted the raid to perform a sweep, leaving a combined total of 174 aircraft. They flew in two large formations with an initial course direction going towards Milne Bay. Allied radar picked them up prompting General Kenney to scramble every fighter had in the area. However the course the Japanese took was a feint and without warning they broke out going across the Owen Stanley range enroute for Port Moresby. 44 allied fighters were able to intercept them, but many of the bombers managed to get past them. The bombers hit the airstrips, damaged installations alongside 15 grounded aircraft. The Japanese would claim sinking a transport anchored in the harbor and the destruction of 28 enemy planes in the sky, though only two P-39's were shot down at the cost of 2 Zeros and 7 Bettys.  On april the 14th, Yamamoto again personally waved off another attack, this time targeting Milne Bay. 23 vals and 75 Zeros were launched from carriers Hiyo and Junyo joined by 54 fighters and 44 Bettys from the 11th air fleet for a total of 196 aircraft. Here the Japanese scored some luck, because as a result of the air raid against Port Moresby the allies had actually rerouting most of their shipping to Milne Bay. The allies scrambled 44 fighters, 36 Kittyhawks from Milne Bay and 8 lightnings from Dobodura to intercept them. Despite the efforts of the allied airmen, Japanese bombers broke through making their way to Milne Bay in several waves. The high level bombers dropped at least 100 bombs over the anchorage, while the dive bombers attacked the allied shipping. The Dutch troop transport Van Heemskerk was forced to beach itself after suffering several hits lighting her ablaze; the British cargo ship Gorgon was also hit many times and lit on fire; the Dutch transport Van Outhoorn and Australian minesweepers Wagga and Kapunda were damaged by near misses. In the battle in the sky one Kittyhawk was shot down, 4 p-40's were severely damaged and 1 lightning was forced to make a crash landing. The Japanese claimed to have sunk 3 large and 1 medium transport, heavily damaged 6 transports and shot down 44 aircraft. During the air battle one Lt Richard Bong was starting to make a name for himself having shot down a pair of Betty's. He would earn a lot of attention from General Kenney who described him “as a little blonde-haired Norwegian boy. Best watch the boy Bong”.The Japanese claims was so incredible, upon hearing of it Emperor Hirohito sent a message stating “please convey my satisfaction to the commander in chief, combined fleet, and tell him to enlarge the war result more than ever”. To contrast this, General Kenney made some remarks about the intense air raids “the way yamamoto had failed to take advantage of his superiority in numbers and position since the first couple of month of the war was a disgrace to the airman's profession”. The reason he had this scathing remark was because apart from the rare exception of mass attacks, the Japanese attacks were marked by their use of aircraft in Penny-packets. What Kenny did not know was how the IJN's air forces were being hampered heavily by logistical issues. Their inability at this time was a result of lack of experienced aviation engineers, ground crews, adequate airfield facilities and airfield equipment. They simply were not the same aviation force that had hit Pearl Harbor, the spear had been heavily blunted. Yamamoto planned to perform another fighter sweep of the 16th, but reconnaissance flights failed to turn up adequate targets on New Guinea's northeast coastline.  On April the 17th, Yamamoto's chief of staff, Vice-Admiral Ugaki Matome held a conference to review the lessons learned from their air offensive. The staff were reluctant to admit a startling and horrifying truth. Hundreds of aviators had been burnt to a crisp because the aircraft engineers messed up installing the protected fuel tanks. This led to countless aircraft catching fire from minor hits, even tracer rounds. When Japanese aircraft saw they were on fire, they assumed they had been scored a fatale hit from the enemy, though in most cases their aircraft were minorly damaged. Many of the pilots in these situations chose to kamikaze their aircraft. Thus Operation I-Go was finished, but despite all the unrealistic exaggerated reports from the Japanese pilots, the entire operation only really amounted to setting back the American operations in the Solomons for about 10 days. While the Japanese believed they had inflicted tremendous damage, in reality the only real insignificance for the allies was to postpone some bombing raids and minelaying activity. The most significant consequence of operation I-Go would actually end up being Admiral Yamamoto's decision to personally carry out a tour of the forward airbases, as he tried to raise morale for the men like he had done at Rabaual. This would have a very dire effect on the future of the Empire.   I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. Operation I-Go was quite the lackluster offensive, despite what the Japanese pilots were claiming to their leadership. The leadership likewise believed the claims or were unwilling to see the truth of the matter. They had only accosted the allies about 10 days in the solomons.

This week Seth and Bill discuss the legendary Cactus Air Force on Guadalcanal. In this episode the team breaks down some of the legendary men who flew from Henderson Field in the struggle for Guadalcanal, digging into the combat history of men like Joe Foss and John L Smith to name a couple. Tune in and see what the guys have to say.

The fight the night before, 13-14 November had beaten both naval forces down.  US forces had been beaten to a bloody pulp, as had the Japanese.  Yet despite the beating, the Japanese still held a significant numerical advantage.As Jon said last episode, the Japanese still held 3-4 BBs in reserve and had yet to commit them to the fight around Guadalcanal, for who knows what reasons.The US on the other hand, quite literally were scraping the bottom of the barrel.  That's not to say that the battleships sent to IBS were scows, not at all, but Halsey was hesitant to commit his battleships to the close waters off Savo, but honest to God had no choice at this time BUT to commit them.Let's talk about Halsey's decision to send the battleships to IBS.BB56 was designed to be a long range sniper, not a close range brawler.  She was designed in the 1930's with limitations on armor and gunnery.The USN decided in the 1930's to throw out their previous slow battleship designs, heavy on armor, heavy on firepower and low on speed, for more modern designs that emphasized gunnery, speed and cruising range.The culmination of this decision was the North Carolina class battleship, of which BB56 was the last of two.  She was fast by BB standards, capable of bending on upwards of 28-30 knots with a breeze behind her, but did not have the armor to withstand hits from weapons of her own size, that being 16 inch rifles.Washington's companion, the USS South Dakota BB57, carried the same rifles, but carried more armor, had a smidgen less speed, but had negligible torpedo protection in order to pack on more armor to withstand the hits from 16 inch rifles like she packed herself.All that being said, the decision to send his 2 BBs, literally all he had left, to deal with another heavy Japanese surface force in the claustrophobic, torpedo infested waters of IBS was incredibly ballsy…but did he really have a choice?ChingThe man who was in command of the battleships was quite honestly the perfect choice to be in that slot.  Naval Academy Class of 1908, his fondness of asian culture and desire to serve in the asiatic theater earned him the nickname “Ching”.Ching was an avid shooter.  He absolutely loved firearms of all sorts, even building a few of his own from scratch.  He joined and shot on the Naval Academy rifle team multiple times, eventually competing in the 1920 Summer Olympics.In those games, Lee earned 5 (!) gold medals, 1 silver and 1 bronze in team events, consistently shooting in the top three in every event.  His record of 7 medals for the olympics would not be topped until 1980.  The majority of his early service was in BBs, Cruisers, including command of USS Concord, and a destroyer division command.   In 1942 he was promoted to rear admiral.In the interwar years, Lee served on many Bureau of Ordnance boards, practicing naval gunnery, experimenting with powder calculations, windage, fire control systems theory and practical usage of heavy naval rifles.  To say that he was an expert marksman and an expert regarding naval gunnery would be an understatement.  In 1942, Lee was considered the US Navy's foremost expert on anything regarding gunnery and accuracy. A fanatic for anything that aided in gunnery, Lee was a quick advocate and an even quicker study on the new radar sets entering USN service in the late 30's early 40's. He advocated that the Navy should start a new school for the instruction of radar and also was a very vocal advocate for the new technology's installation aboard BBs, CA, and CLs.His subordinates absolutely adored him, and in a statement you will probably never hear again, so did Admiral King.  Admiral Nimitz, upon sending him to Guadalcanal stated, “Now we'll see what a real fighter can do.”Initially taking BB57 as his flagship, Lee was forced to transfer to what would become his “home” for the majority of the war, USS Washington when SoDak ran aground almost as soon as she got into theater.  The move to “Big Wash” would be fortuitous for all the reasons we are about to see.USS WashingtonBB56 had a core crew that would have made any ship blush in envy.  Her skipper Glenn Davis was absolutely loved by the crew, he was genteel, caring and whip smart.  With him he had a core of officers that turned 56 into an absolute machine of efficiency.LCDR Edwin Hooper, a graduate of MIT, was the ship's fire control officer and assistant gunnery officer.  Like Lee, he was an advocate of superior marksmanship, dove head first into ballistics and trajectory of heavy rifles, and was a firm believer in radar's abilities.  He and ADM Lee got along like a pair of long lost cousins.The gunnery officer, CDR Harvey Walsh, LCDR Harry Seeley, main battery spotting officer, CAPT Jonas PLatt, secondary battery officer and even LCDR Ed Schanze, navigator and radar officer all routinely met with and discussed gunnery and radar with ADM Lee aboard BB56.  The “Gun Club” as it was dubbed, was probably the foremost grouping of gunnery minded individuals in the US Navy, let alone on one ship.BB56, under Davis and at the direction of Hooper and Walsh, had rigorously trained their main battery crews to an efficiency level that had not been seen before aboard an American battleship.  Walsh relentlessly trained his gunnery crews to be as fast as possible when loading the 16 inch rifles.  Normal 16 inch rifles could be loaded in a time span between 25-30 seconds.  Washington's gun crews had the practice down to 15.  Absolutely devastating, earth shaking firepower ability in literally the perfect hands. Washington took delivery of her SG radar system when ADM Lee was aboard.  Lee personally supervised the installation of the interior monitoring sets and laid them out in a compartment next to the flag bridge so he could monitor it all the time, using the new technology to plot fall of shot when training.Talk about Lloyd Mustin and Atlanta taking fire from BB56 in trainingLee had Walsh and Hooper calibrate 56's guns to such a degree that when she fired in Atlanta's wake from 35,000 yards, 56's shells all landed in Atlanta's wake, not over or short, but directly on target.  Mustin said, “Those 2700 pound armor piercing projectiles were going to be very bad news for anybody they were ever aimed at.”The Fight draws nearJapanese ships, 14 in number, were assigned to bombard Henderson Field yet again on the night of 14-15 November under the direction of ADM Kondo.1 BB Kirishima2 CAs Takao, and Atago2 CLs Nagara, Sendai9 DDsThe US force, designated Task Force 64 was under the command of ADM Lee and consisted of:2 BBs, Washington and South Dakota4 DDs, Walke, Preston, Benham and GwinIt should be noted that the 2 BBs had only operated together for a very short time, and had never operated with these specific DDs before.The DDs were chosen from different divisions based on their fuel status only.TF64 aligned itself in column formation, with the DDs in the lead, followed by BB56 and BB57 bringing up the rear.At around 1300, Lee received a message from Halsey that, essentially, gave Lee a free hand to do whatever he needed to do, gave him complete freedom of action for his “excursion”.At 1600, Lee received a sighting report from submarine USS Trout that identified the Japanese bombardment force and mentioned a Japanese BB in that same force.  Knowing that the Japanese force would not reach the Savo area until around 2300, Lee waited before making his approach into the patrol area.Moments after getting the report, he gave it to CAPT Davis who got on the ship's pa system and stated, “We are going into an action area.  We have no great certainty what forces we will encounter.  we may be ambushed.  A disaster of some sort may come upon us.  But whatever it is we are going into, I hope to bring all of you back alive.  Good luck to all of us.”The men aboard the big battlewagons, aware that they were going to tangle with the Japanese, were beginning to get a bit edgy.The previous night, Japanese cruisers had bombarded Henderson relentlessly, ADM Kondo, for whatever reason, was sure that Henderson would be silenced and he would have little to worry about in the waters offshore.  He was wrong.The night, unlike the Friday the 13th battle, was clear and moonlit by a quarter moon, enough to see visually, but also enough darkness to hide if need be.As the battleships eased into the sound, radio watch picked up a transmission that has now become famous:Unknown voice aboard a US PT Boat confirmed they were tracking a target in the sound…TF 64: “This is Lee.”PT: “Who is Lee?”At this, ADM Lee grabbed the handset and broadcast himself in the clear: “Cactus, this is Lee.  Tell your big boss Ching Lee is here and wants the latest information.”PT Boat Skipper: “There go two big ones, but I don't know whose they are.”Lee: “Refer your big boss about Ching Lee, Chinese, catchee? Call off your boys.”PT: “Identity established.  We are not after you.”Lee: “Peter Tare, this is Lee.  Stand clear, we are coming through.”Well, stand by, Glenn, here they comeAboard BB56, the radar picture began to take shape as Kondo's force entered the sound.At around 2230 hours on November 14, the SG radar system aboard the Washington indicated targets north-northwest making 21 knots in two columns at a range of 18,000 yards.As the news was relayed to Lee, he smiled, looked at CAPT Davis and said, “Well, stand by, Glenn, here they come.”Such coolness under fire, and a supreme confidence in his and his crew's abilities…Davis gave the order to load the main battery, and aboard both 56 and 57, the weapons were loaded and trained to starboard as the radar tracked the incoming targets…Kondo had arranged his ships in 3 groups actuallyKirishima, Atago and Takao were the center groupNagara and 6 DDs were the screening forceSendai and 3 DDs were the sweeping force ordered to sweep the sound for any US shipsIt was this third group that 56 was tracking at this time…At 2313 hours, the waiting ended. When the enemy was visually sighted from the Washington at a range of 11,000 yards, Admiral Lee called South Dakota's Captain Gatch over the radio and gave him permission to fire. Lee put the radio down, turned to Davis and ordered, “Open fire when ready.”When the indicator lights in main battery plot flashed green, Harvey Walsh gave the order, “Open Fire.”Both 56 and 57 opened fire within seconds of each other.56's first salvo was an over, less than 30 seconds later her next salvo was a straddle, her third salvo showed a flicker on the radar scope, indicating a hit which actually did not occur on Sendai.The Japanese, aware of the presence of American ships, but unaware of the presence of American battleships seemed to panic at the sight of enormous geysers of water sprouting around Sendai.  SoDak's radio snoopers heard “Japanese voices, excited and very numerous.”Sendai and her escorts, put about and got the hell out of there…At 2322 hours, the American van of DDs engaged Japanese DDs and Nagara of the screening force.Within 10 minutes, both Walke and Preston are hit by accurate Japanese gunfire, and of course, torpedoes.Preston may have also been a victim of BB56's secondary battery fusilladeDD Benham has her bow blown off by a Long Lance and sinks later the next day.DD Gwin is hit in her engine spaces and retires from the fightADM Lee orders all of his remaining DDs to retire at 2348, leaving the 2 US BBs as the only opposition.Japanese DD Ayanami is taken under fire by BB56's secondary battery and is repeatedly hit and eventually sinksCredit for her sinking goes to BB56 and her secondary battery, although she actually shares credit with DD GwinSouth Dakota in a world of troubleAt roughly the same time that all this is happening, SoDak goes dark.SoDak's after turret had just fired when all of a sudden, power went out across ship.The ship's chief engineer had tied down the circuit breakers, against regulations, and when the main battery went off, the concussion was such that it tripped the breakers in series, knocking power out throughout the ship.At this time, BB56 turns to avoid running through the scattered remnants of her DD escort, and when she does she passes behind the burning wrecks, keeping out of the Japanese eye.As she does, her crewmen on deck throw life rafts and life jackets to the Americans bobbing in the water.Supposedly a 56 sailor hears a survivor holler, “Get after em Washington!” as she passes through the debris at 26 knots…The blind SoDak turns as well to avoid the wrecks, but she turns to the outside of the burning hulks and when she does, the burning US DDs silouhette her for all of the world to see.3 minutes after SoDaks power failed, it was restored.  It is said that the confusion aboard caused Gatch's ship to become a tactical punching bag, but who knows…The Japanese execute a series of confusing maneuvers, both in response to the attack on the US DDs and the  report of US BBs in the sound by visual detection.In the ensuing maneuvers, Kondo's screening and sweeping force both move out of effective range for the fight, leaving Kirishima and the two CAs aloneKirishima turns on her searchlight and illuminates SoDak.  When this happens, SoDak immediately takes heavy enemy fire, especially from Takao and Atago, as they pour 8 inch fire into her upper-works setting her afire from 5,000 yards.At the same time, Kirishima finally opens fire (announcing her presence) and hits SoDak in her after turret essentially knocking it out as it doesn't respond any longer.Her main battery out of commission again because of another power failure, her secondaries bark in local control and do score hits on Atago but do little damage.SoDak eventually does restore power again and unleashes her main battery at Kirishima.  It is unknown, but unlikely, that she hit her.In the pounding, SoDak takes at least 26 hits, mostly 8, 6 and smaller caliber hits in her upper works that started many fires and threatened her secondary powder magazine.She also suffers 1 14 inch hit in her after turret.  Having taken a beating and on fire, Gatch orders SoDak to come about and retreat from the area. He does this without telling Lee by the way.Washington slays the giantAs all of the previous mentioned action is happening, BB56's radar had steadily been tracking a large target off her starboard beam.Lee was aware that SoDak was blacked out and he was concerned that the target might actually be SoDak as 56's radar had lost track of her because of poor placement aboard ship.When Kirishima switched her searchlights on, the target was confirmed visually as hostile.At a range of only 8,400 yards BB56 emerged from the cover of her burning DD escort and unleashed  a full nine gun broadside at KirishimaShell splashes in the water caused Hank Seeley to believe they had missed the target. AAR stated that the first salvo missed, but 2019 underwater surveillance confirmed that Kirishima suffered several below the waterline hits, including the recorded “miss” from 56's first salvo.Because of his supposed “miss”, Seeley nudges the main battery up a smidge and 56's second salvo, which was fired less than 20 seconds after the first, slammed into Kirishima's superstructure, obliterating her third level bridge and everyone in it.Washington's third salvo was deadly accurate. Five of Washington's shells struck Kirishima amidships, with one shell penetrating below her waterline, causing massive flooding. The five amidships hits blew open bulkheads, penetrated well inside the ship, and exploded in close proximity to Kirishima's secondary battery-ammunition magazine, causing ship-threatening fires and leaving 30-foot holes in the deck near the casemates.Another salvo from Washington scores more hits.  Another below the water line blast causes more internal flooding, and yet more below water line hits occur.Another hit penetrates the steering room causing severe damage inside, and yet another detonates through her stern and helps to jam the rudder.As the distance continues to close, 56's secondaries join in on the beating and pour 5 inch shell fire into Kirishima's superstructure, even scoring 2 hits on her hull that do little to no damage.  No one knows amount of damage done by the secondaries, but it had to have been frightful.Kirishima manages to return fire at Washington, but misses, her 14 inch shells passing through 56's rigging, tearing down some of her signal flags and nothing more.  An inch is as good as a mile…Kirishima spotters say they hit BB56 at least 10 times with the main battery, yet don't touch her in reality.Through the melee of noise, smoke, and fire, ADM Lee said, “If you can see anything to shoot at, go ahead.” The leviathan's 16-inch guns opened up again, striking Kirishima at a range of 7,850 yards. Two shells struck the forward 14-inch turret of Kirishima at the same time, destroying the weapon. More shells found their mark up forward as even more shells struck farther aft, the coup de grace a 16-inch shell exploding under Kirishima's keel, permanently jamming her rudder 80 degrees to starboard and eliminating all control of the vessel as Kirishima tries to retire and shows her stern to Washington.Utterly beaten to a bloody pulp, Kirishima begins to circle helplessly, still taking hits from Washington's guns.Post war wreck analysis confirmed at least 21 16 inch shell hits on Kirishima's hull and what could be seen of her upper-works (which isn't much).Kirishima slides down by the bow as she is scuttled and detonates under her forward barbettes absolutely destroying the forward part of the ship.Kondo orders a withdrawal  as BB56 tracks a cruiser with her forward turrets and a DD with her after turret.  Lee, still not knowing the location of SoDak does not allow the main battery to open fire.Kondo orders a torpedo attack as his ships withdraw, torpedoes pass close to BB56, but all miss her.At 0033 Lee orders a retirement still observing torpedoes in her wake.By 0110 the Japanese were gone…End of battle…SoDak suffers 38 men KIA, and a further 60 wounded.Washington suffers 1 punctured eardrum and 1 hand abrasionThe US DDs suffer losses in excess of 200 KIA.Japanese casualties are unclear, but were excessive.Had Lee not shot the Japanese to pieces, they would have bombarded Henderson and the troop convoy inbound would have likely unloaded relatively unmolested.Regardless, Tanaka orders his convoy to continue south, where they eventually run aground, those that survive the coming aerial onslaught the following day.Implications on the rest of the campaign… 

The hectic and high stakes month of October 1942 has finally wound down and passed into history.  And with it, the lives of nearly 400 Americans at The Battles of Henderson Field and Santa Cruz and an astonishing figure of nearly 3,500 Japanese lives at those same events.  The Japanese have thrown their very best efforts at Guadalcanal in October, both ashore and off shore, and have come up short.  The devastating defeat ashore was followed by a tactical victory, but strategic defeat off shore and has left the Japanese in no better position than they were in August…just thousands of lives shorter.As November dawns, Guadalcanal is still a hot bed of activity.  Fighting on the ground has eased off in intensity, but is still a fairly constant struggle, although nowhere near as bad as the previous several months have been, but the Japanese aren't done yet.  At sea, however, the Japanese are also not through with their efforts to both smash the American fleet and destroy Henderson Field.   The Japanese will try several more times this month, specifically twice in back-to-back nights.The first of these epic naval clashes occurs on, of all dates, Friday the 13th.  The confused and chaotic melee that follows will be known as the Bar Room Brawl.Talking Points:The Set UpThe Imperial Army had planned to reinforce Guadalcanal yet again with a large troop convoy that consisted of nearly 7,000 well trained troops, 31,500 artillery shells, and food for 30,00 men for 20 days.The convoy was made up of 11 transport ships under reliable ADM Tanaka with a heavy escort of 12 DDs.Before the planned troop landing which theoretically would occur on November 14, the Japanese would send 2 fast BBs (Hiei and Kirishima) to shell Henderson with special frag shells that would destroy aircraft and supplies as well as men.The Japanese bombardment unit was commanded by ADM Abe and consisted of:2 BB's Kirishima and Hiei1 CL11 DDsThese ships were timed to sail on November 12 and arrive off Lunga Point just after midnight on Friday the 13thIronically enough, at the same time, the Americans were also preparing a reinforcement convoy bound for Guadalcanal.2 separate convoys were to bring over 5,000 troops and much needed supplies to Guadalcanal, they were to be heavily escorted by American cruisers and destroyers.Thanks to intel, the US knew that the Japanese were preparing another reinforcement convoy and deployed this heavily escorted convoy to do 2 things.Deliver troopsDisrupt the Japanese planned troop delivery with the surface ships assigned as convoy escortKelly Turner was in command of the convoy and the 2 separate escorts were commanded by ADM Daniel Callaghan aboard USS San Francisco, and Cape Esperance victor ADM Norman Scott aboard USS Atlanta.The American convoy reached Guadalcanal on the morning of the 12th and unloaded the precious cargo and supplies.A Japanese scout named LCDR Mitzi observed the convoy unloading and sent a message to combined fleet HQ that also noted a surface force of  3 BBs, 3 CAs, 11 DDs off Lunga.Japanese ADM Ugaki surmised that the surface force would probably try and intercept the Japanese the following night, however in a staff meeting it was stated that the Americans would “go away as usual” and Abe's force was not notified of the American's presence.Despite this lack of warning, Japanese air assets decided to strike the Americans, sending 16 torpedo armed Bettys, and 30 Zeros to hit the forceWarned by coast watchers ahead of time, Turner got his ships underway as 20 F4Fs and 8 P39s scrambled to meet the Japanese inboundIn the ensuing air battle, the Betty's missed their targets and were ravaged by the F4Fs who claimed 17 bombers and 6 fighters while actually downing 11 Betty's and 1 Zero to the loss of 3 F4Fs and 1 P39.Turner was later rewarded with a very accurate sighting report of Abe's force to which he decided to shred his transports of any sizeable escort and order these same escorts to intercept and attack Abe's extremely powerful forceTurner assigned Daniel Callaghan as Task Force Commander, despite the fact that Scott had over 6 weeks sea time in these very waters and had won a night time naval fight. He assigned Callaghan because he was 15 days (!) senior to Scott.The stage was set.  An American force that consisted of:2 CAs3 CLs 7 DDsWould intercept Abe's bombardment force under the command of an Admiral who had virtually no experience in combat at all on board a CA that still fielded inadequate radar (USS SF)Let's talk about the radar again here, Scott should have been in charge, but at the very least, Callaghan should have embarked aboard Helena with her SG radar and not Frisco.Collision in the DarkThe night was moonless, black in complete and total darkness…which dam sure didn't help with ship ID in the fight that would come.The American battle line was laid out such:Cushing, Laffey, Sterett, O'Bannon, Atlanta, Frisco, Portland, Helena, Juneau, Aaron Ward, Barton, Monssen, FletcherCallaghan laid his forces out much like Scott did at Cape Esperance, mainly for maneuvering in the confined waters more than anything else.Whereas, he should have laid his forces out with Fletch, O'Bannon, Helena, Juneau and Portland in the van because of the new SG radar systems aboard.The Japanese had split their forces into two separate groups, due mainly to horrible weather that caused some of his units to lose visibility and become detached and spread out.ADM Abe, believing he would not encounter American vessels, ordered his ships to load their weapons for a surface bombardment.BBs Hiei and Kirishima loaded, what amounted to frag shells in their 14 inch rifles, not AP.At around 0130 aboard Helena, her SG radar showed two distinct formations of enemy ships some 27,100 yards distant.Helena relayed this information to Callaghan, who generally seemed to ignore it, instead relying on Cushing's potential visual contact.Tremendous mistake here.  This goes back to what we have said in the past that certain CO's, ADMs and the like did not put any faith in the new technology and in some cases, specifically this one, it would cost them their lives.Back aboard Helena, CAPT Gilbert Hoover was beginning to get highly irritated at the fact that Callaghan was ignoring the electronic picture his ship was presenting.  Cape Esperance all over again.The range to target rapidly decreased from 10,000 yards to 5,000 to 4,000 as both forces literally steamed right at one another.  At 0140 Cushing reported to Callaghan that a “ship is crossing bow from port to starboard, range 4,000 yards maximum.”  Then another passed, and another and so on.  Still Callaghan held fire.Range fell to 2,000 yards and Cushing asked via TBS, “Should I let them have a couple of fish?” Callaghan denied the request, which was followed by another from Laffey, which he too denied. Instead saying, “Stand by to open fire.”By 0147 Callaghan's formation was falling apart as individual skippers were veering out of formation so as to avoid collision with vessels visually identified as Japanese by the van.“Open Fire!”A Japanese searchlight, probably from Hiei, pierced the night and focused directly on Helena.  Just ahead another searchlight from a Japanese DD, probably Akatsuki, focused on Atlanta.Aboard Atlanta, CAPT Jenkins gave the pre-war order to “counter illuminate” the target.  His gunnery officer LCDR William Nickerson heard this, and shouted into his headset, “Fuck that! Open Fire!”  Guns visually ranged in on the enemy DD and opened fire at a range estimated to be between 600-1,000 yards.When Atlanta opens fire…everything goes to hell, everybody opens fire.  As the first to fire, Atlanta comes under fire from several Japanese ships and is hit in her torpedo director.  Lloyd Mustin Asst Gunnery Officer, is visually watching his shells splash just short of the Japanese DD.  He orders visual corrections and watches through his binocs as the rounds start tearing into the Japanese at a range of under 600 yards.Akatsuki is the target and she is absolutely smeared by gunfire from Atlanta, Frisco and Helena. The following Japanese DDs fired their torpedoes at Atlanta just before Ikazuchi was hit by 8 inch gunfire, probably from Frisco.  She doesn't sink and retires.Atlanta is hit by several ships, and at least 1 torpedo and drifts into the field of fire of USS San Francisco.Completely out of touch with the situation unfolding before him, Callaghan gives his infamous order, “Odd ships commence fire to starboard, even to port.”  This order throws several ships, who were either tracking or firing at targets, to disengage and swing turrets to different targets.Hindsight is always 20/20, but its abundantly clear that Callaghan was out of his element.Cushing, still in the lead, is rapidly engaging targets when she is blasted by shell fire from a number of enemy ships.  As she is hit, BB Hiei passes close to starboard.  Cushing flashes a voice warning of the enemy BB over TBS and is then blasted by Hiei's secondaries, drifting to a halt and eventually going down.Laffey is now in the lead, if there actually is a lead, and passes Hiei so close that her superstructure towers over her as if you were on the ground looking at a skyscraper, less than 1,000 yards away.Laffey opens fire with her 5 inchers.  Despite Hiei's belt armor, the 5 inchers are so close that they actually penetrate and explode within.Individual AA gunners aboard Laffey opened fire with 20mm Oerlikon mounts and poured their fire into Hiei's portholes and riddled her upperworks with automatic weapons fire, hitting and killing Japanese sailors topside.ADM Abe took shrapnel to his face from American gunfireAs Laffey passes Hiei and avoids collision, she is taken under fire from Kirishima, who smacks her with 14 inch shellfire.  At the same time, she is hit by a torpedo on the stern which cripples her.Sterett sights in on a Japanese DD, opens fire and watches her stern catch fire and begin to slow.  Almost immediately, Sterett is caught in a cross fire from several Japanese ships, including Hiei.  She takes numerous hits, slows and retires.  She winds up taking a total of 11 hits, all on the port side, all in her upperworks.Friendly Fire, and Cruisers versus HieiAs Atlanta drifted, having been struck by Japanese gunfire and 2 torpedoes, she moved directly into Frisco's line of fire.  From a range of about 3500 yards, San Francisco fired at least two full broadsides at Atlanta, while she was attempting to fire at a Japanese vessel just beyond her.  The 8 inch shell hits were absolutely devastating, shredding Atlanta's superstructure and killing Admiral Norman Scott.Blame can't really be put on Frisco for this.  The battle had devolved into a melee, a chaotic mess in which even radar could not pick enemies from freindlies.  The chaos gave the battle its nickname, when in an AAR an officer likened it afterwards to "a barroom brawl after the lights had been shot out.”It can be assumed that Callaghan witnessed Atlanta take fire from Frisco, as he immediately ordered “Cease Fire Own Ships!”After Callaghan's order, which most ships ignored by the way, Helena was tracking targets via radar, large targets, and requested permission to fire.Helena opens fire on Hiei, aiming at her superstructure, letting her 6 inch weapons loose on automatic continuous mode, the “machine gun cruiser” pours over 200 rounds a minute into Hiei's superstructure, setting it ablaze.Callaghan and Frisco now open flank speed and slides right by Hiei at 2200 yards away on her starboard beam and Kirishima 3000 yards distant on the starboard bow.Frisco unleashes a broadside at Hiei which answers in kind.  Hiei's shells strike just short of Frisco, her bombardment shells exploding on contact with the water.The only way to save Frisco's life is to pour it into Hiei, which is exactly what she does.  Pouring salvo after salvo into the battlewagon's hull and superstructure.By pounding Hiei, Frisco now has the full attention of the 2 Japanese BBs.She takes a frightful beating from the Japanese, suffering over 45 shell hits, 12 of them 14 inch hits.Frisco avoids Davey jones' Locker due to the fact that the Japanese BBs are firing incendiary and HE rounds designated for bombardment as opposed to AP rounds.Still, she takes an absolute pounding.Hiei's 3rd salvo strikes Frisco's bridge, utterly obliterating nearly everyone inside of it, including Callaghan and CAPT Cassin Young.LCDR Bruce McCandless, senior officer in the bridge is the only survivor.  He is instructed by senior DC officer CDR Schonland to command the ship as Schonland is too busy fighting flooding and stability issues aboard ship.Frisco survives because of Schonland and McCandless, who both receive the MOH.Juneau enters the fray, sighting the burning Hiei, passing close aboard and pouring 5 inch and automatic weapons fire into the flaming battleship.Shortly after opening fire, Juneau engages Harusame with gunfire and gets hit, almost dead amidships, by her torpedo which fractures her keel.  She then limps away...we will hear more from her later...The Battle OverAt 0226, CAPT Gilbert Hoover of Helena, now Senior Officer Afloat, orders his forces to retire.  At almost the same time, Abe does the same.  After 40 minutes of the most confused, chaotic fireworks show in history, the battle ends as both forces limp away.Abe, unaware that only 2 US ships, Helena and Fletcher, could offer any type of realistic resistance decides to turn away and not bombard Henderson.  His force has been shot to pieces but is still powerful as Kirishima is relatively undamaged as are at least 5 other ships.  Still, due to heavy damage suffered aboard his own ship, Hiei, he decides to retire.He is crucified for this decision by Yamamoto, who relieves him of command.At 0344 Yamamoto orders the convoy to turn around and go back to the Shortlands.As the sun rises, so do American aircraft from Henderson Field.SBDs and TBFs roar in to finish off the crippled Hiei, just north of Savo at a distance of about 14 miles.56 sorties from SBDs and TBFs, as well as 14 B17s attacked Hiei and other cripples in Iron Bottom Sound.As the attacks increased throughout the day, Abe ordered Hiei scuttled as she was listing heavily from the torpedoes dropped by the TBFs.The final tally is frightful:Japanese:1 BB and 2 DDs sunk4 DDs damagedBetween 5-800 men KIAUS:2 CLs and 4 DDs sunk2 CAs damaged, 2 DDs damaged1439 men KIADespite the disparity in ships sunk and men lost, the battle is considered a US victory because of the failure of the Japanese to complete their mission objective.JuneauJuneau and Gilbert Hoover's decision to steam on…

This week Bill and I have a special guest with us, he's been here before and we always love to have him, he's the one, the only, my good buddy, Jon Parshall.If you've been listening to the podcast as of late, you are well aware that we are making our way through the slug fest that was the Guadalcanal campaign.  While the fighting ashore has raged on and off between pitched engagements, the seas around the Canal have been anything but quiet.  Savo Island in August was a debacle for the US Navy, the carrier forces under Admiral fletcher landed some fairly significant blows on the Japanese carrier force at Eastern Solomons, and Admiral Norman Scott finally exacted some revenge for Savo at the Battle of Cape Esperance.  The US Navy has seen it's share of victories, as well as defeats in these bloody waters.  And while the fighting has been significant at sea…it ain't over.  Not even close.  The calendar now sits in October 1942, October 26 exactly.  And ashore, the Japanese have launched a massive offensive to finally push the Marines and Army off Guadalcanal.  The October offensive and the fighting that takes place ashore will be remembered as the Battle of Henderson Field.  The fighting at sea that takes place only a day later, all coinciding with the offensive ashore, will be called the Battle of Santa Cruz.Talking Points:Japanese Preparations and Plans Pre-Battle:The combined fleet sorties from Truk on October 11.  The force is very large, the largest Japanese force that has put to sea since Midway and consists of 4 CVs and 1 light CV3 Fleet CVs1 Light CV4 BBs8 CAs2 CLs24 DDsThe Japanese had planned that the naval force that was now at sea would not necessarily support the operation ashore, but would directly benefit from the success of the ground offensiveThat being said, once Hyakutake's infantry had captured Henderson, the Japanese combined fleet would then be free from any attack from land based air.The pre-sailing plans called for the Japanese so-called Support Force to make a high-speed run into the Guadalcanal area to intercept and destroy any American fleet units that would come to the rescue of the infantry following the Japanese land-based offensive's success.This is part of the reason why Kongo and Haruna blasted the shit out of Henderson on October 14-15.  Both to soften the defenses, destroy the airfield and also, hopefully draw the Americans out to fight.Japanese intel, which we have not talked about very much, had deduced via traffic patterns that at least 1 US CV was in the Canal area.Based on traffic patterns, the Japanese had seen a large flurry of messages go out to a “powerful unit” south of Guadalcanal that would receive the messages and maintain radio silence.This of course is CV8Again, based on traffic patterns, the Japanese had deduced that another major fleet unit had sailed from Pearl Harbor on or about Oct 15.This is the newly repaired CV6The Japanese estimated that this task force was headed south as well to join up with the other “ghost” forceJapanese. Intel also read US newspapers and listened to the news, as US officials ignorantly declared on October 20 that US Naval forces off Guadalcanal were preparing for a “sea clash”The Land influences the SeaDelays ashore from the Japanese 17th Army (future Henderson Field offensive force) caused Y-Day to be pushed from October 19 to the 22nd.  Incidentally, Hiyo suffers a fire in her engineering spaces that causes her to return to port and not take part in the planned upcoming action.17th Army again delays the offensive until the 24th further irritating the IJN.The delay by the Army forced the Navy to delay its attack which allowed CV6 to rejoin the American forces off Guadalcanal on October 24 and thus restoring some parity to any upcoming carrier battle.US Forces for battleUS forces are under the overall command of ADM Thomas Kinkaid TF 16 under Kinkaid has:CV61 CA1 CL 8 DDs 1 BB (SoDak)TF 17 under ADM George Murray has:CV82 CAs2 CLs 6 DDs Previous to CV6 returning from Pearl, CV8 was the only US CV in the area.CV8 was still, despite having been at Midway, an unexperienced CV.That being said, her aircrew was a mix of veterans and newbies.VS-8 skipper Gus Widhelm Veteran of Coral Sea and hit and run raids with VS-5Fantastic leaderVB-8 SBD pilot Clayton FisherVeteran of the Flight to Nowhere, June 4 afternoon raid and Mogami/Mikuma raid on June 6, but otherwise relatively fresh CV6 had just returned to the fleet after having been patched up after Eastern SolomonsCV6 still retained her well-trained deck crews, DC parties and the like.  Battle tested, CV6 would need all the help she could get in the upcoming fightWhile a veteran carrier, she deployed a brand-new air group, AG 10.Air Group 10, although new, is rife with veterans of different engagementsVF-10, better known as the Grim Reapers, is led by the legendary Jimmy Flatley and hosts names like:Jack LepplaDon Flash GordonWhitey Feightner and most importantly, Swede VejtasaBucky Lee led VS-10, not so much a veteran, but an incredible leader.  He had with him names that were both familiar and would become familiarBirney StrongMartin “Red” CarmodyAgain, technically a new air group, Air Group 10 would prove to be, arguably, the finest Air Group put to sea in 1942, and maybe the warThe Battle draws nearNight of October 24-25 the Japanese send out searches to find the suspected US CVs but do not find them.  They do detect ADM Willis Lee's BB56 but do not attack due to extreme rangeAround noon on October 25 US PBYs spot 2 Japanese CVsMonitoring the radio intercepts in Noumea, Halsey reads the sightings and messages Kinkaid “STRIKE! REPEAT STRIKE!”Amplifying reports allowed Kinkaid to launch at 1430 and again at 1520 his main strikeThe Japanese turned north, but radio silence does not allow Kinkaid to recall his strikers. This ends up, not so well, in that the majority of the strike gets lost and is, thankfully, shepherded back to CV6 by Swede Vejtasa who recalls that CV6 has an oil leak, spots the leak and follows it, at wave-top height, back to CV6 with the majority of the strike…at night.The Carrier Battle (Morning)Both sides readied search planes for a first light search patternDuring the night of 25-26, US PBYs spotted, and attacked, the Japanese including Zuikaku.  The PBYs missed, and their contact reports essentially went unheard.The Japanese got scouts off first, between 0415 and 0445.CV6 launched her own scouts around 0445 as well.  Kinkaid finally received the PBYs sighting report at 0512 but deemed the information old (which it was) and considered it to be inaccurate.One of CV6s scouts saw and approached one of Nagumo's Kate scout planes, only 85 miles away from CV6, confirming the presence of Japanese CVs in the area. First BloodBucky Lee, skipper of VS-10 spotted Nagumo's CVs at 0650 and climbed to attack altitude, but were driven off by CAPLee's scouting report alerted every SBD in the area, and drove them towards the Japanese like flies to honeyRadioman Clarence Garlow heard Lee's report, jotted it down and reported the contact to his pilot, Birney Strong.Birney and Eastern Solomons, pressure from Crommelin to attack and a bruise on his prideStrong diligently plotted the contact report, adjusted his fuel mixture for maximum distance and headed in the direction of the sighting.Showing off his supreme navigational skills, Strong found the enemy 20 minutes later as 2 of the 3 CVs in the area emerged from cloud cover.At the same time that Strong and his wingman Irvine approached, 2 other SBDs, one piloted by Red Carmody were being harassed by CAP Zeros, leaving Strong and Irvine wide open for a clear attack.Diving from 14,000 feet, at 0740, Strong popped in and out of clouds for the 30 seconds he dove.  At 1,500 feet the clouds parted and directly beneath him was the flight deck of Zuiho.Both Strong and Irvine planted their 500 pounders into the flight deck of Zuiho. The hits were not fatal, but did force her withdrawal.At 0658, Japanese scouts spot the HornetDespite the fact that the US spotted the Japanese first, it is the IJN that gets their strike off first (no surprise here)At 0725 Shokaku and Zuikaku launches their strikes, 62 aircraft led by MurataTalk about MurataComposition of the strikeAs the Japanese strike is on its way to Hornet, CV8 and a small CV6 strike passes them in the air.Let's talk about how the US strikes during this entire battle are very piecemeal, unorganized and generally unpreparedAs the Hornet strikers pass the Japanese, Zeros from Zuiho break off and attack the CV6 formationThe TBFs are hit hard as their fighter protection was in the process of making S turns to keep up with the slow TBFs and were on the outward leg of the turn during the attackAt 0850 Hornet's strike spotted Shokaku.  As the SBDs home in, they are hit again by Zuiho CAP, as well as Shokaku CAPGus Widhelm, strike leader, is shot down but later rescued.At the tail end of the formation is Clay FisherTalk about Clay's experienceHornet's strike, despite taking heavy casualties, is successful in hitting ShokakuJohn describe Shokaku damage 4-06 hits from 1000 poundersHornet Under AttackHornet receives word of the inbound strike from her outbound strikePoor coordination from CV6 and CV8 FDOs do not allow the CAP to engage in sufficient numbers to deter the incoming attack (Like Eastern Solomons)Japanese sight Hornet at 0855, but do not see CV6 as she dives into a rain squallHornet prepares for the attack, turns NE and dials up 31 knotsCAP engages at 15 miles but Vals break through and commence the attack at 0910First two Vals miss At 0912 Hornet is hit by three bombs within minutes1st bomb hits the flight deck and kills 60 men as it explodes 3 decks downMoments later another bomb struck the flight deck, this time exploding on the deck itself. The explosion blew an 11-foot hole in the deck, and the flying shrapnel killed another 30 of Hornet's crew. Still the rain of bombs came. Hornet suffered yet another hit when another 550-pound bomb penetrated three decks below and exploded there, causing severe damage but no loss of life. Seconds later, a damaged “Val” dive-bomber, hit by Hornet's own antiaircraft fire, plunged into the carrier's stack, glancing off of the port leading edge of the stack and smacking into the flight deck, the engine and propeller embedded firmly into the sea-blue stained Douglas fir flight deck. All of the hits suffered by Hornet thus far had occurred in a blinding fast span of just over two minutes. As Hornet reels from the Val attack, the Kates come into viewDescribe the Kate attack led by MurataHammer and anvil attack0915 Hornet is struck by 2 torpedoes starboard1 Val, having already dropped its load, swerves around Hornet from astern, passes the bridge and makes a wingtip vertical turn to crash into her port bowAt 0925 the attack is over and Hornet is dead in the water and listingFires were under control by 10, and she is being prepared for a two by NorthamptonThe Big E under attackJapanese Vals spot CV6 at 1000. They commence their attack at about 1015, led by SekiLT Keiichi Arima, who had hit the Big E at Eastern Solomons, again dives on CV6 and scores yet another hit on the ship.  Dead center near the bow.  The bomb flew through the flight deck and exploded in the water, showering CV6 with shrapnel and starting fires in the focsleMinutes later another bomb hits CV6, near the after portion of the forward elevator exploding in the hangar deck killing 40 menWilliam PinckneyAfrican American of slight build- carried wounded up the ladders to safety before he himself passed out, both wounded and with 3rd degree burns.  Navy CrossA third bomb was a tooth rattling near miss that opened hull plates and 2 empty fuel bunkersBy 1020, the attack was over.At 1035 the Kates arrived.  One of the CAP pilots to engage was Swede VejtasaDuring the attack on Hornet, Swede engaged and shot down one of the Vals that was about to dive on CV8, as well as one of the Vals that attacked CV6.Still aloft and with the majority of his ammunition still available, Swede switched off his two outboard weapons so as to conserve ammo, climbed above the Kate's altitude, dove into them and began picking them off one by one, dropping five of the bandits in about 15 seconds.His last target, another Kate, was riddled by Swede's guns, but flew on.  The aircraft piloted by Takei Kiyomi, dropped down, flew over SoDak and deliberately crashed into USS Smith.  The dead aircraft slid off the ship but the torpedo cooked off, setting the destroyer ablaze.Smith, under the command of LCDR Hunter Wood, steered directly into the boiling wake of SoDak.  The enormous wake thrown up by the battleship sliding along at 27 knots extinguished the flames, allowing the plucky little DD to resume station and resume firing.Vejtasa is credited with downing 7 Japanese aircraft in that one CAP mission, a record that still stands today. He would be recommended for the MOH, but instead would receive his 3rd (!) Navy CrossCV6 dodges a total of 9 Japanese torpedoes, throughout her ordeal USS South Dakota (BB-57) keeps station, a scant 1,000 yards astern, matching every move she makes so as to provide AAA support with her new 40mm bofors guns.SoDak claims 26 kills, an unlikely mark, but nevertheless, her guns and her adroit maneuvering certainly helped keep the Big E afloat.The returning Japanese (what few manage to return) get back to their CVs and speak of the tremendous amounts of American AA.  Some of those who returned were visibly shaken and could not speak due to shock.The Battle OverAt 1135 with CV8 out of action and CV6 heavily damaged, Kinkaid withdraws, leaving CV8 under tow by Northampton and a few screeners.At 1235 CV6 resumes landing ops and recovers the remaining aircraft aloft with only one operable elevator.  LSO Robin Lindsey, performs his legendary “virtuoso” He receives word from the bridge to stop landing aircraft as the deck is clogged.  Knowing that the majority of the remaining aircraft are SBDs, he elects to literally pull the plug from his headset, ignore orders and bring the boys down.  Lindsey landed so many planes that he was landing the last batch on the last arresting wire, unfazed. Last to land was Swede catching the #1 wire, with 56 other aircraft jammed ahead of him on the deck.At 1520, with the majority of US forces leaving the field of battle, Hornet is attacked again.  She is struck by 1 torpedo from Junyo. At this point, the remaining crew abandons ship and she is ordered to be scuttled.2 US DDs fire over 400 rounds into CV8 as well as torpedoes, but she refuses to sink.  (Harder than woodpecker lips)Knowing the IJN is closing, the DDs beat feet and get the hell out of the area, leaving CV8 to her enemy. 2 Japanese DDs finally finish Hornet off.Implications on the CampaignClearly Santa Cruz is a US defeat, although we claimed victory.  We leave the field of battle to the enemy and suffer more damage…clear defeat…in one way, a victory in another although unseen at that time.Japanese air losses have now reached a critical level.  Through attrition at Coral Sea, Midway, eastern Solomons, and especially Santa Cruz, more than half of the elite aviators who started the war are now dead.  Japanese pilot training and replacement systems problemsFinal Tally:US- 1 CV sunk, 1 DD sunk, 1 CV heavily damaged.  1 BB lightly damaged, 1 CL and 2 DDs damaged.81 aircraft lost266 men KIAJapanese- 1 CV heavily damaged, 1light CV damaged, 1 CA damaged, 1 DD damaged99 aircraft lost400-500 men KIA18% of Zero pilots killed 50% of Val crews killed31% of Kate crews killedHorrendous aircrew lossesUS AA, with the introduction of the 40mm account for roughly half of these losses!

This week we would like to welcome back Dave Holland.  Dave is a former United States Marine, owns and runs the facebook and youtube channel called Guadalcanal: Walking a battlefield, a Solomon islands battlefield guide, and most importantly, a Guadalcanal expert.  Welcome back, Dave. We've been building up to this specific event for some time now, and so have the Japanese.  As you will recall, the last several months on Guadalcanal have seen steadily larger Japanese assaults hit that Marines with intents on grabbing Henderson Field.  The Japanese have tried and failed at Tenaru in August, tried and came very close at Edson's Ridge in September, tried a few smaller attacks here and there the next several weeks, all failures.   Now we sit in late October and the Japanese have finally built enough forces on Guadalcanal for their almighty “decisive battle”.  All the Japanese thrusts, both ashore and at sea, have led to this operation.  This is the all or nothing, the decisive battle that the Japanese have clamored for and the Americans have been preparing for. This is the tipping point for better or worse.  Talking Points: Preparations:The Japanese had been steadily sending troops and supplies, more troops than supplies, to Guadalcanal for several weeks in anticipation of this specific offensive. The IJN fully supported the operation in just about any way that they could. On October 14, two battleships, Kongo and Haruna, along with screening vessels shelled Henderson Field in what was easily, the worst bombardment of the entire campaign.For nearly an hour and a half the two battleships fired over 900 rounds of 14 inch ammunition into the Lunga perimeter to knock out both airfields and destroy the Cactus Air Force's aircraft.The shelling, known as “the Bombardment” by the Marines and soldiers ashore destroyed about half of the Cactus Air Force, and heavily damaged the two airfields, although one was back in operation in a few hours.This bombardment, as well as others in between, were all in conjunction with the large-scale offensive, all with plans to soften the defenses of the Americans. The Japanese had begun steadily moving troops into the attack area for many days, through the jungle (again), with the date of the main assault set for October 22, but would actually take place two days later.   To distract the Americans attention from the main location of the attack, the Japanese set up a series of diversionary infantry assaults. The Japanese were under the assumption that only 10,000 Americans were ashore, when in actuality the number was over 23,000. The Americans, aware that a large scale assault was eventually coming, had been preparing their defensive perimeter for weeks.The addition of the Army's 164th Infantry Regiment gave Vandegrift a total of 13 infantry battalions to defend the perimeter in an almost continuous line.  Prelude to the main event: The Japanese had been moving their main assault force through the jungle, along a trail blazed by their engineers, for days…completely undetected by American forces. At dusk on October 23, one of the diversion attacks under COL Nakaguma, alomng with 9 tanks, attacked Marine defenses at the mouth of the Matinikau river. The Japanese tanks advanced near the river under the cover of an artillery barrage, however, the Japanese tanks were either disabled or destroyed by Marine anti-tank weapons on the opposite side of the river.   In response to the Japanese assault, and the Japanese artillery, 4 battalions of Marine artillery fired over 6,000 rounds at the Japanese inflicting heavy casualties and essentially stopping the assault at the river. In between the artillery detonations, Marines on the line could audibly hear Japanese screaming and moaning in pain.  The artillery, yet again, was devastating.It should be mentioned that while this was happening, Vandegrift was in Noumea at the bidding of newly appointed head banana, Admiral Halsey. We'll get to Haley's installation as main man in another episode when we discuss the leadership, both good and bad, of the Guadalcanal campaign with buddy and friend of the show Jon Parshall.  The Main Event October 24:At first light on October 24, Marines along the Matinikau caught sight of a long column of Japanese infantry  on a ridge to the left rear of the American lines.  COL Hanneken's 2/7 redeployed to the rear and loosely tied in with the Marines of 3/7, albeit with a gap in the line. With the departure of Hanneken's people, Chesty Puller was forced to stretch his single battalion over a regimental front.Only 700 men guarded an area designed for the protection from over 2,000.Puller, ever vigilant, personally walked the line inspecting each area, and each emplacement ordering improvements or movements as he saw fit in each area. As the Japanese under GEN Maruyama approached the area thought to be the correct position for attack, they began to get bogged down again by the jungle and now, also, heavy rain.The original kick off time for the attack, 1900, came and went as the Japanese continued to grope towards American lines. Finally, around 2200, elements of COL Shoji's people stumbled into the leading elements of puller's defenses.The fighting was short but fierce as Puller's men eventually drove off the attackers, making no progress and gaining no ground.Oddly enough, the Japanese sent a message back to 2nd Division HQ that stated that Japanese infantry were moving into the grassy area at the edge of the airfield, when in reality, they were nowhere near the airfield and had certainly not broken through any lines.   COL Matsumoto called and stated that the airfield was now completely in Japanese hands. The 17th Army signaled “2300 Banzai-a little before 2300 the right wing captured the airfield.” This odd transmission is even stranger when one considers that the “right wing” had marginal, at best, participation in the event at all. Meanwhile, the left wing of the Japanese assault decidedly did attack.3rd Battalion 29th Infantry 11th Company under CAPT Katsumata reconned American lines in the area, found a soft spot between 2 MG emplacements and began a low crawl advance towards the American gap in the lines that was threaded with barbed wire. Japanese engineers began snipping the wire, unbeknownst to Americans, as the infantry low crawled through the grass to spring a surprise assault.Either due to delirium from the long march, fear, excitement or a combination of all 3, one lone Japanese let out a war cry that was soon picked up by many others alerting the Americans of their presence.   Almost instantly American machine gun fire erupted as did mortars. The Japanese now knowing the surprise was gone, leapt up and charged.  They began to get entangled in the barbed wire and were summarily annihilated by the Marines holding that area, which was Puller's A Company at about 0100. Shortly thereafter, Japanese of the 9th Company moved to the left in the wake of the now dead 11thCompany and prepared to attack.After giving a great Banzai, the men of the 9th Company charged Marine lines, running straight through the prepared machine gun position firing lanes of Puller's C Company. Within 5 minutes, the 9th Company was wiped out. John Basilone After the majority of the infantry were killed, American artillery began dropping, killing what was left of the Japanese. Puller was now aware that he was under attack from a large and well-seasoned Japanese force. He immediately fed 3 platoons from 3/164th into his lines to beef up the defenses.The National Guardsmen were led, sometimes by hand, through the torrential rain into the raging battle and fed piecemeal into the Marine lines, mixing with Marine units and holding their own in the fight. The only real success of the initial assaults came in the form of COL Furimaya's assault at dawn. Realizing he had little to work with, Furimaya assembled what he could and personally led an assault that partially pierced the American lines.About 100 Japanese broke through and held a salient in the Marine lines that was eradicated in the morning. The Main Event October 25:By mid-morning, it was obvious that the Japanese were not through with their assault.  As a result, Marines and Army troops began to reshuffle their defenses and prepare for another night time assault.  For over an hour after 2000, the Japanese fired artillery into the positions of Puller's 1/7 and LCOL Robert Hall's 164th IR.  The majority of the assault fell on the soldiers of the 164th who held their ground again, all night long.  With the main push coming through an artery between the 2nd and 3rd BTLN 164th.  However, that artery was manned by a couple of Marine 37mm guns that were firing canister into the charging Japanese.A few Japanese parties broke the lines, but those were hunted down and killed by soldiers and Marines within hours. The return of Col Oka…His attacks concentrate on the area held by Hanneken's 2/7Just before midnight, the Japanese surged forward against the Marine positions, finally culminating in an all out assault at 0300.Company F bore the brunt of this assault…Mitch PaigeDespite Paige's heroics, Japanese scaled the slopes in front of F Company and ejected them from their positionsMAJ Odell Conoley led a group of Marines that counterattacked and eliminated the Japanese in the former positions of F Company. The Battle Over: Rough US casualties run about 90 KIA Japanese casualties are unknown in exact figures but estimates range in the neighborhood of 2,200 but probably more than that. The Japanese blamed the terrain, the march through the jungle, no air support, poor physical condition of the troops, inadequate supplies, faulty intel, etc, etc…all of which were accurate. While this isn't the last land battle on Guadalcanal, it certainly was the most crucial to the Japanese, and the most decisive for the Americans.  For all intents and purposes, the land campaign, in terms of Japanese all-out assaults and large-scale operations, was over.  While there were plans for yet another assault in November, as we shall see, this does not end well for the Japanese. 

This week we will be talking about the early actions that occurred along the Matinikau river.  Now, as opposed to the land battles we have discussed before, Tenaru and Edson's Ridge which each only happened one time, the Matinikau actions occurred several times from September through November 1942.  Today, we will be focusing on the September and October actions.   Following the battle at Edson's Ridge, what remained of the Japanese force under General Kawaguchi, pulled back through the jungle and attempted to regroup, as well as refit, on the western side of the Matinikau river.  Marine general Archer Vandegrift was aware that the Japanese had done this very thing and planned to eliminate whatever was left of the force that had slammed against the ridge on two consecutive nights in September. Vandegrift was determined to mop up what was left of the Japanese so as to deny them the opportunity to consolidate their forces and resume their offensive.  Vandegrift chose his freshest troops for this action, the recently arrived 1st Battalion of the 7th Marines under a Lieutenant Colonel whose name was and still is synonymous with the Corps.  Lewis B Chesty Puller. Talking Points: The 7th Marines Arrive:On September 18, the Marines on Guadalcanal finally received some much needed reinforcements, to the tune of 4157 men of the 7th Marine RegimentFresh from garrison duty in Samoa, these Marines were both fresh and eager to go.Their arrival allowed Vandegrift to finally establish a full defensive perimeter around the Lunga Point areaLearning from the lessons earlier in the campaign, the 7th Marines were disgorged on the beach early in the morning, and by 1800 that same day the cargo ships, now properly loaded, spit out a further 137 trucks4323 barrels of fuel60% of the tentage and equipment needed by the 7thThe remainder would be unloaded in short order Lewis B “Chesty” Puller 44 years old at this timeJoined the Marines in 1918By 42 he had served 24 years in the CorpsA veteran of Haiti, Nicaragua, better known as the banana wars, Puller had loads of combat experience before he ever got to the CanalDescribed as the prototypical Marine officer, Puller had a chin like “bulldozer blade”, a barrel chest and seemingly always had a pipe stuck in his teeth.  Highly decorated for service in Haiti and Nicaragua and grounded in the fundamentals of infantry combat and what it took to both be an infantryman, and how to survive as an infantryman, his men absolutely adored him. Mission:Puller was to advance astride Mount Austen, cross the river and examine the area between Mount Austen and KokumbonaClearly just an exploratory mission 900 men under Puller moved out on September 23On the afternoon of the next day, the lead elements of Puller's force ran into a Japanese bivouac area on the NW slope of Mount AustenIn the ensuing fight, the Marines drove the Japanese off just before dark, but took significant casualties7 KIA 25 WIA The next day 2/5 was sent to reinforce Puller and allow his wounded to be brought to the rear At the same time, the Japanese had established a defensive area around the position known as “One Log Bridge” along the riverThe Japanese 12th Company, at the bridge, and Puller's units hit each repeatedly with neither side gaining, or losing, any ground Because of the defense at one log bridge, Puller continued downstream, headed towards the mouth of the river and attempted a crossing.He was met with fierce Japanese defensive fire and mortars that handily checked the Marine advance and forced them to hold on the friendly side of the river Vandegrift sent the 1st Raiders to join Puller and at this point, Edson took commandEdson and Puller devised a plan to have C Company of Puller's Battalion move up the east side of the river, cross one log bridge and attack Matinikau village from the south2/5 would hold the line near the mouth of the river to deny any attempt by the Japanese to flank Puller's group Attack:At first light on the 27th, the Raiders moved up to cross the one log bridgeAs they did so, they came under intense fire from well entrenched Japanese on the east bank of the riverThis was completely unexpected as far as the Marines were concernedWell placed Japanese mortar fire began to take effect on the RaidersKenneth Bailey, leading the attack is killed here After Bailey is killed, LCOL Griffith, who had been wounded in the fight, tried to slip 2 companies around the entrenched Japanese in order to flank them, but they too were pinned down by heavy Japanese fire Back at the mouth of the river, the Japanese 9th Company continuously hurled back 2/5's attacks across the river  Pt Cruz: In an attempt to cut the Japanese off, Companies A, B and D of 1/7 landed near Point Cruz and began to push inland.It must be noted that the this action would not have occurred had it been known by Vandegrift that Puller's and the Raider's attack had not succeeded as yet.Garbled radio transmissions from Griffith did not make it clear that the action was successful Almost immediately, the Marines came under heavy fire as COL Oka deployed several units to attack the recently landed MarinesMortar rounds killed Major Rogers, and wounded another Company commander, leaving Captain Charles Kelly to assume command of the operationWithin a short amount of time, the Japanese had moved behind the marines (coast side) and cut them off from any route of escapeRealizing their predicament, Kelly ordered to radio for help…but no radios had been brought to the area by the Marines.Using t-shirts, the Marines spelled out HELP on the ground, a signal that was seen by an SBD pilot from VMSB231 named Dale Leslie.Leslie relayed the Marines' desperate message which was picked up by PullerMeanwhile, Edson's attack was still underway when he too received the message of distress from Kelly.Edson halted his attack despite Puller's heated argument that halting the attack would allow the Japanese to send more men to attack and eventually annihilate Kelly. Fearing for his men, Puller hauled ass back to Kukum where he boarded the destroyer USS Monssen Gathering landing craft, Puller, Monssen, and a flock of 10 landing craft headed towards Point Cruz in the area the Marines had initially landedOnce arriving, the landing craft were greeted by furious fire from the Japanese who had by this time, pushed the Marines back, cut them off and were preparing to mount an assault to destroy themPuller was able to establish comms with Kelly ashore by use of semaphore and directed him to make his way to the coast NOWAs the Marines attempted to fight their way out, the destroyer Monssen provided direct artillery support with every available weapon aboard ship for 30 minutes and helped blast a path for the withdrawing MarinesBy 1630, those who could, had made it to the beach as the landing craft were heading to rescue themRealizing the Marines were trying to escape, the Japanese poured fire into them and tried to reestablish the encirclement Douglas MunroMunro ordered his Higgins landing craft towards the shore as he and the other boats in his formation came under intense fire.Manning a Lewis machine gun, Munro returned fire at the Japanese and ordered for his boat to move closer to the beach so as to shield the Marines that were attempting to embark on the other landing craft.As his boat moved into position, Munro noticed a grounded landing craft, again moving his boat to shield the Marines attempting to free the craft, Munro purposely exposed himself and his boat to withering enemy fire.  Holding station for several minutes, Munro poured fire back at the Japanese and eventually directed his boat to withdraw after the previously grounded landing craft had been freed and loaded with Marines.  As Munro's craft withdrew he was struck by a Japanese bullet at the base of his skull.Rushing back to Lunga point, his best friend Raymond Evans cradled Munro in his arms. Munro regained consciousness, looked at Evans and asked, “Did they get off?” Evans replied in the affirmative, and Munro died.Munro was the first, and so far, the only Coast Guardsman to receive the MOHThe ill-fated Marine action resulted in 70 KIA and a further 100 WIA October 6-9 actionsOn October 3 LTGEN Maruyama was landed along with fresh troops.  His mission was to set up artillery positions on the opposite side of the Matinkiau with which to shell Marine positions in preparation for the late October offensive that was on the horizonOver the next few days, the Japanese proceeded to do just that as well as set up further defensive postions along the banks of the river. Vandegrift, again aware that the Japanese were preparing positions as well as preparing for an offensive Daily Marine patrols ran into Japanese and confirmed both the arrival of fresh troops and the preparations for offensive As a result of this knowledge, Vandegrift once again planned an offensive against the Matinikau positions to eliminate the threat before it came to himHis plan was to strike and seize the area near Kokumbona to deny Japanese access to the trails that lead to the upper portion of the Lunga area.The 5th Marines, minus 1/5 would advance along the coast and force a crossing of the river.The Whaling Group, as well as the 7th Marines, would cross the river further south at one log bridge.Once across the Whaling Group and the 7th would attack down the ridges and hopefully trap a large number of Japanese in the process. The fighting:October 7 the attack kicked off, with 3/5 reaching the river and running into fierce resistance3/5 used 75mm artillery pieces mounted in half-tracks to pour direct fire into the Japanese positions.  Slowly, the Japanese gave ground.By nightfall, the Marines held the mouth of the river and the Whaling Group and the 7th had crossed the river easily at one log bridge The following afternoon, H Company 5th Marines under Captain Rigaud mistakenly entered a valley between two Japanese units The enemy holding the high ground poured fire into H Company.  Marines started to panic, and began to run.  Rigaud stood up in the middle of the fight, challenged his men, shamed them, cajoled them and made them retake their positions and eventually withdrew in order.Fighting died down on the 7th and the assault waited until the following day to complete the encirclementOn the 8th, Vandegrift received intel that the Japanese were preparing an all out offensive to recapture the island.  As a result, he cancelled the operation for the next day and ordered his units to return to the American perimeter to prepare a defense following this day's actions. The Whaling Group and 2/7 reached the beach as Puller's group topped a ridgeline to find an entire Japanese battalion in the ravine below him.Puller called in artillery and mortars and watched as the artillery did its work, calling them machines for extermination.The Japanese tried to escape by climbing up the ravine side and were taken under direct machine gun and rifle fire from Puller's men.Only after Puller's men had expended all of their mortar ammunition did he order cease fire, moving out to rejoin Whaling and Hanneken ahead of him.This concluded the second battle around the Matinikau which resulted in:65 KIA and 125 WIAThe Japanese lost around 700 men in the three day engagement Effects on the campaign:Because of the loss of the Matinikau, the Japanese were forced to eventually march their men through the jungle (again) before the major assault around Henderson Field in late October .  This march, like Kawaguchi's the month before, exhausted the attackers to the point where their efficiency in the attack that came was severely diminished. 

This week we would like to welcome back Dave Holland.  Dave is a former United States Marine, owns and runs the facebook and youtube channel called Guadalcanal: Walking a battlefield, a Solomon islands battlefield guide, and most importantly, a Guadalcanal expert.  Welcome back, Dave.It's been over a month since the Marines landed on Guadalcanal, Tulagi, Gavutu and Tanambogo.  August has passed and with it, the lives of over 1,200 allied sailors and airmen at the battles of Savo island and Eastern Solomons, as well as the lives of over 200 US Marines ashore.  The Japanese have lost over 1700 men ashore on the aforementioned islands, including nearly 800 at the Tenaru river on August 21 as well as nearly 300 lost at sea.   Operation WATCHTOWER was never assumed to be a quick in and out operation, it was never thought of, at least by the United States, as a quick trip. The Americans knew it would be a slugfest, how much of a slugfest was anyone's guess however.  As September dawned and the first week passed, the slugfest ashore abruptly turned into a meatgrinder.  A bloody, drawn-out campaign of attrition was something that the Japanese could not withstand.  The Japanese were sick of the Marines on Guadalcanal, and wanted them out and wanted them out now.   Beginning in the first week of September, over 5,000 Japanese troops under the command of General Kawaguchi landed on Guadalcanal with their sole mission being to “rout and annihilate the enemy in the vicinity of the Guadalcanal Island airfield.”  The focus of their initial assaults on the Marines would center on an area south of Henderson Field, near three small hills and an, as yet, unnamed ridge.  The unnamed ridge would soon receive several names from the Marines who defended it.  History would call it, Edson's Ridge. Talking Points Lead up to the Battle: As early as August 18, Imperial Japanese Army orders stated that the main body of the 35th Infantry Brigade under GEN Kawaguchi prepare to move to Guadalcanal.By late August, Kawaguchi had formed a plan to move his unit to the Canal from Shortland by barges.  American day time air power shut that idea down, so as to force the Japanese to move Kawaguchi's people to the island by means of fast DDs.This was one of the first operations of the infamous Tokyo Express Kawaguchi was completely ignorant as to the number of Marines in and around the defense perimeter.  Estimates told him that no more than 2,000 Marines held the lines, albeit with aircraft to help them.This estimate allowed Kawaguchi to believe that he could easily break through Marine lines with his force (sound familiar Ichiki?) By September 7, Kawaguchi had over 5,000 men encamped around Taivu PointThis did not include Colonel Oka's men, some 1,000 strong, that were separate and slated to hit the SW quadrant of the American lines. Kawaguchi then split his forces further, breaking his units into groups of about 650 men each and put them on 3 separate avenues of advance, through the jungle, to eventually strike the Marine lines all at once. A further avenue of attack was designated to come from the SE, and this would contain the newly christened “Kuma” BTLN, which was consisted of Ichiki's 2nd echelon.  Artillery would theoretically support the assaults, as would naval gunfire in the form of bombardments of Marine positions on September 9 and 10 Kawaguchi picked the night of September 12 as the night of the assaultBy September 8, Kawaguchi had moved his assault units from Taivu to Koli Point and set off on foot through the jungle on September 9.  The Tasimboko Raid: Word reached Vandegrift (via native scouts) that fresh Japanese units had landed and that a group of 2-300 were in and around the village of TasimbokoThe commander of the 1st Raider Battalion, Merritt Edson, jumped on the news and hatched a plan to land a portion of his Raider Battalion some 3,000 yards behind Tasimboko and take the Japanese by surprise Merritt A Edson Known as “Red Mike” for his fiery red hairGenerally was a quiet and reserved manSpoke with a low, quiet, raspy voice that was hard to hearFormer aviator, but he was an expert in infantry tacticsLike all good commanders, he possessed an innate ability to instantly recognize good or poor performance in his subordinatesOn September 8, the Raiders landed at Taivu PointImmediately found signs of enemy landings in the form of half-eaten food, abandoned packs, shoes, life preservers and some weapons Edson's men were met by heavy defensive fire as they moved inland towards Tasimboko Kawaguchi ordered artillery support and detached an infantry company to lend a hand to the defendersThe rest of kawaguchi's people kept on towards the airfieldP-400's and SBDs from Henderson Field rendered aerial support as Edson's men pushed forwardCompany A of the 1st Raiders burst out of the jungle and annihilated what Japanese had not fled the area of TasimbokoThe Marines entered Tasimboko to find it essentially deserted of people but filled with valuable intel and suppliesMarines bayoneted the Japanese tins of beef and crabThey found 75mm guns, a radio outpost, medical supplies, boats, ammunition by the crate fullCorrespondent Richard Tregaskis filled a blanket with papers, maps and other documentsBecause of some of the intel gathered at Tasimboko, the Marines were able to somewhat prep for what was coming… Eve of battleDue to the intel gathered by Edson, he was able to inform Vandegrift that defenses should be placed along the ridge as it seemed the most likely avenue of approach for an attack that may contain as many as 4,000 Japanese During the trek to the ridge, Kawaguchi's forces were essentially assaulted by the jungle in which they travelled Marine patrols began running into elements of Kawaguchi's people on the 10th Native scouts brought word that the Japanese were on the move allowing the Marine's just enough time to dig some foxholes and clear fields of fire Edson's Raiders were strung out in a thin line often intersected by lagoons and seemingly impenetrable jungle A single string of barbed wire was at the front, flanked by supporting strongpoints with mutually supporting fire lanesEdson was convinced a major Japanese force was in front of him and continued his patrols the next day (12 Sept)Firefights sprang up through the late night of September 12 and early September 13, with intermittent Japanese naval bombardments in between The Japanese had wanted a coordinated attack but because of the jungle and some units simply getting lost, this was not to be on the night of the 12/13 Japanese units were late in assembling, if at all, and when they attacked, sometimes 2-3 hours after they were supposed to, they missed the ridge almost entirely and got into fights with C Co and B Co Raiders in the swamps. Kawaguchi lost control due to the mixed units and late arrivals and the attack fell apart before it really began The following morning (13 Sept) Edson sat eating his breakfast and told his officers, “They were testing, just testing.  They'll be back.” September 13/14 Edson's Ridge Edson pulled his line back in the morning and prepared fresh positions to confuse the Japanese attackers that would come that nightDespite this, the defenses were still inadequate.   Small combat groups of about 100 men each were at positions spread across and around the ridge Around 1830 the first attacks came, pushing B and D Companies off their positions and up the ridgeJapanese surged through the gap in the lines but Marine artillery brought them to a halt for a short whileEdson estimated that around 2200 hours, the B Company and two small groups of Paramarines (300 ish men) were facing 2 full battalions of Japanese Paramarines on the flank were assaulted around 2230 by mortars then a wave of infantry who came bursting out of the nearby jungle, straight at them. The Marines were being assaulted from the front and also flanked.  Harry Torgerson of Raggedy Assed Gavutu fame, helped pull the paras back about 150 yards to a small knoll where they reassembled The main thrust of the attack now fell on B Co Raiders under John SweeneyOnly 60 menEdson pulled these men back to from a line with C Co and A Co of the ParasAs the Marines pulled back, it is thought that someone mentioned the word “withdraw”, having heard this many of the Marines started heading for the airfield moving significantly faster than a walking pace At the same time the Marines were withdrawing, Kawaguchi's reserve slammed into those very men, forcing the withdrawal damn near into a rout Kenneth Bailey All the while the Marines were withdrawing to a better position, the artillery was eating the Japanese aliveTregaskis heard over the radio “Drop it five zero and walk it back and forth across the ridge”Edson sent a runner saying “It's knocking the hell out of them.”Artillery probably saved the day to be honest The Japanese were so close that at the division command post, the men were under direct Japanese rifle fireAt this time, about 300 Marines held a knoll in a horseshoe shaped line, the last defense before Henderson FieldTorgerson led a counterattack of the Paras that forced the Japanese back and extended Marine linesAll throughout this action, Edson kept calling the arty even closer to his position, but still the Japanese came on, undeterred The fighting got so close that Marines could hear the Japanese steeling themselves for another attack and in response the marines rolled grenades down the ridge into the Japanese clusters of men Attacks continued through the night, with the Marines literally clinging to victory as the sun rose As soon as was feasible, P400's arose and lit into what was left of the Japanese in the open Several more Japanese attacks hit Marine lines in different places over the next couple days, but none were serious and none threatened the airfield Assessment: The Marines barely, just barely hung onArtillery was the saviorArtillery is estimated to have killed no less than 2/3 the Japanese killed on the ridge and no more than ¾ Air support and the harassment of Japanese units BEFORE the battle by air also contributed heavily to the victory Regardless of the support, the battle would have been lost had it not been for the men pulling triggersEdson was awarded the MOH and was extremely deserving of the award, having been the main inspirational leader and an excellent tactician during the defense By far, the Ridge battle was the closest fight yet.  Had the Japanese been able to commit their entire force as planned, the airfield, more than likely, would have been captured. Hundreds more Japanese died during the withdrawal from the area (back through the jungle) due to wounds and starvation, thereby eliminating virtually all of Kawaguchi's command Due to the shocking defeat of Kawaguchi, the Japanese were now more committed than ever before to force a showdown on Guadalcanal by committing decisive force This will be seen several times in the month of October

The month of August 1942 has had its ups and downs so far as the campaign for Guadalcanal is concerned. The invasion of Guadalcanal, Tulagi, Tanambogo and other outlying islands in the area initially went very well. Marines occupied the islands rather quickly and eliminated Japanese resistance to a man in most places.  On August 21, Marines from the 1st Marine Regiment utterly destroyed the first major Japanese counter strike on land at the Tenaru River.  On land, the campaign was succeeding.  At sea, however, it was not. The debacle at Savo Island, the worst defeat in US Navy history, left a bitter taste in the mouths of every person in and around the seas of Guadalcanal that wore an American or allied uniform.   Because of the defeat at Savo, among other reasons, Admiral Fletcher pulled his precious carriers away from the immediate vicinity of Guadalcanal to preserve their ever so valuable flight decks.  However, because of the Tenaru battle, Fletcher was compelled to reverse course and send his flattops back to the waters of Guadalcanal to protect and support the Marines against any further Japanese efforts ashore.    Unbeknownst to Fletcher, the Japanese had deployed a strong naval force under the command of Chuichi Nagumo, of Midway fame, to support Japanese land efforts and destroy any US ships in the area.  Over the next few days, that being August 24, 1942, the US fleet and the Japanese fleet groped for each other, and eventually became entangled in the third carrier battle of 1942, what history would call, the Battle of the Eastern Solomons. Talking Points: Japanese Intentions:For the most part, Japanese counteroffensives ashore at Guadalcanal, were almost always tag-teamed with a naval supporting operation.  This is the first “significant” Japanese effort to eliminate the Marines ashore and the USN offshore by a combined arms operation.The Japanese had sent another troop convoy under Admiral Tanaka towards Guadalcanal with the remainder of Colonel Ichiki's 2nd echelon.  We will hear from them again at Edson's Ridge…The deployed Japanese fleet would both protect the convoy and destroy any American shipping in the area. Yamamoto knew that US carriers were in the area supporting the Guadalcanal landings, he did not know specifically where they were, but he figured that they had to be in the area. As a result, he deployed the two fleet carriers at his disposal, Pearl Harbor and Coral sea veterans Shokaku and Zuikaku as well as a light carrier Ryujo.Aside from the CVs, which were the long ranged striking arm, the fleet that was deployed consisted of two other task forces.The Advanced Force under Admiral Nobutake Kondo had 5 CAs, 1 CL, 8 DDs and 1 BB.The Vanguard Force under Admiral Hiroaki Abe consisted of 2 BBs, 3 CAs, 1 CL, and 6 DDs.The Japanese actually sent Ryujo ahead of the main striking force as a screen.   Yamamoto's plan called for the destruction of the American CVs that he figured to be in the region thereby allowing the Japanese naval forces the ability to destroy any other US and Allied shipping in the area and isolate and destroy the Marines ashore. Again, like at Midway and Coral Sea, the Japanese divided their forces thereby spreading their AA capabilities, which were not that great anyway, thin. The advantage of spreading their forces, at least here, is that as we shall see, not all of the coveted targets were sighted or attacked by American aircraft. The Japanese forces were laid out as such: Japanese transports were supposed to land reinforcements on August 24  US disposition:To counter any Japanese move in the area, the US had at its disposal, essentially, the same force that it had at the outset of WATCHTOWER, minus the cruisers sunk at Savo of course.Just before the battle, the US had 3 CVs at sea.  CV6, CV3, and CV7.On August 23, Fletcher detached USS Wasp, as she was critically low on fuel , and because of this, she missed the battle The US forces were split into two Task Forces, all under Fletcher's command. TF11 centered around CV3 and included an escort of 2 CAs and 5 DDs. TF16, under the command of Admiral Thomas Kinkaid, centered around CV6 with an escort consisting of 1 CA, 1 CL (AA CL Atlanta), and 6 DDs. A conspicuous presence amongst this TF was the new fast battleship USS North Carolina (BB-55)This was the first time a fast battleship would operate with US CVs in a battle, and as such would also be the first time one of the new fast battleships would unleash their vast array of anti-aircraft weaponry, which would go on to play a vital role in the upcoming battle. August 24 Beginning on August 22, both US and Japanese forces started sending out search aircraft in order to locate one another.USN PBY Catalinas had reported on incoming Japanese warships, and spotted the incoming light carrier Ryujo   By morning, Fletcher was getting itchy.  He was aware that Japanese forces were in the area, but as yet, had not spotted them himself having relied on PBY contacts.   Around 1240, CV6 launched 22 sets of scouts in a fan shaped pattern that covered a 180 degree area north of Fletcher's flattops to visually sight Ryujo and the other fleet carriers Fletcher knew would be there as well One of those pilots was a gentleman named Birney Strong.Strong was an SBD pilot from VS5 aboard CV6 and was scheduled to scout the area 320-340 degrees from Big E.Like most Naval aviators, Birney Strong was confident in his abilities.  As he reached the flight deck, he told his rear seat gunner, “It's our job to find the japs, and I know exactly where they are. We are going to get there, circle them, and report on their position before they find us.”Strong was a VS5 vet, having flown from CV5 in the hit and run raids as well as Coral Sea Fletcher, keenly aware of his mistake at Coral Sea, when he sent a deckload strike from 2 CVs at Shoho, decided to hold CV3's deckload until the distance closed and the location of the enemy was fixed. Thinking he had been sighted by the numerous Japanese snoopers that had been shot down all day (he had not), he finally elected to launch CV3 strike at 1340, despite not knowing a fixed position on Ryujo, or knowing if more Japanese CVs were present. CDR Don Felt aboard CV3 was launched at 1340, however, on the last known sighting of the only Japanese CV spotted thus far, Ryujo.His strike was 29 SBDs, 8 TBFs, and no fighter escortThe fighters were being held back as CAP against a possible Japanese strike. Enterprise searchers had been groping for the target for over an hour when at 1440 hours, just as he had predicted, Birney Strong visually sighted the carrier Ryujo in the 330-340 degree sector of the search grid. Strong approached to within five miles of Ryujo and ordered his contact report sent.  It was an agonizing six minutes before Enterprise acknowledged the sighting, leaving Strong and his wingman to circle the enemy that entire time.Curiously, he neglected to attack the enemy ship At 1510, another CV6 scout, piloted by Yogi Jorgenson of VS5 spotted Ryujo again, elected to attack but were driven off by Japanese CAP.  As the Americans departed the area, they ran into CV3's strike group under CDR Felt and radioed them their newest, hottest location on Ryujo. Finally, around 1500, a VB6 scout piloted by CO Ray Davis spotted the fleet carrier Shokaku.  Radioing its position, he and his wingman elected to attack the big flattop below.Both he and his wingman, Robert Shaw, missed their target by a mere 30 feet as Shokaku was twisting and turning violently to avoid them.Davis' contact report was never heard as there apparently reception was poor this day.Thus, the strike from CV6 that Fletcher had been saving for just this moment, was wasted. What neither pilot knew was that Shokaku had just launched a deckload strike at the last location of Enterprise, having just learned of her location.  RyujoFelt's group closed to within visual range of Ryujo and coordinated their attack at 1536 The poor radio reception that plagued the CV6 airmen all day also plagued Felt, as he did not hear the radio report of Shokaku's sighting just minutes before. Coral Sea all over againFelt sent 21 SBDs to hit Ryujo along with the 8 TBFs that were also a part of the strike.The first fist full of SBDs missed the rapidly turning carrier, but a 1,000 pounder dropped by Jim Sauer hit her on the stern.Syd Bottomly, of Midway fame, noticed that Ryujo seemed to be getting away and redirected his strike back towards the carrier.Bottomly, among the last group to dive on Ryujo chased the ship to almost suicidal low altitude before he dropped his bombHis bomb, hit dead center of Ryujo's deck and exploded…a killing blow.Roy Isaman, another Midway vet hit her again, as did CDR Felt. Ryujo was afire and smoking from under her flight deck when VT-8 approached in their TBFs.Bert Earnest, also a Midway veteran, approached Ryujo from her starboard side with 3 other TBFs and dropped his fish under intense AAA fireNo one knows exactly who hit Ryujo, but Japanese records state that one torpedo hit and exploded on the starboard side, and one passed under the starboard stern and failed to explode.The one that did hit, wrecked her engine room and steering and essentially killed the carrier.Last seen by American eyes, she had drifted to a stop, was afire from stem to stern and had a 25 degree list to starboard.She was the sixth Japanese CV sunk in 42, and would be the last sunk until 1944 Task Force 16 At 1632 radar aboard CV3 reports, “Many bogies range 88 miles bearing 320”CV6 and CV3 launch every fighter available to repel the attack they know is inbound55 F4F Wildcats are aloft to repel the attack, that now appears to be heading directly for the Big E.  CV6 is also screened by 2 cruisers, 6 DDs and BB-55 At 1700 hours the bogies are now bandits and are headed for CV6CAP attempts to intercept, but AGAIN, radio issues force them to scatterFDOs have too many contact reports and the fighter pilots are chattering wildly, thus blocking the FDO from issuing vector orders  Despite having an overwhelming CAP, most of them do not engage, but what CAP does engage, absolutely wreck the JapaneseAs the Vals from Shokaku arrived over CV6, they are engaged by VF6 CAP that chase them down through their divesVF6 pilot Don Runyan attacked and downed 3 Vals and a Zero, chased another 2 Vals away and damaged another, in mere minutes.CAP claims 44 kills against 5 losses.  Actual numbers are 25 shot downA 43% loss rate As CV6's CAP engages, the Japanese do slip some Vals through the fighter umbrella and they approach CV6 and her escortsIt is at this time that the value of the fast battleships that will be arriving soon comes into view…Gliding along at the rear of the formation is North Carolina.  She is making 27 knots and grinding for anything extra she can get.  The massive ship is kicking up a rooster tail as she pours on the power to keep up with CV6 that is hauling ass at 30 knots.When the Japanese strike force appears overhead, North Carolina prepares to fire…Her AA power is awesome.  No other word can describe it.LCDR John Kirkpatrick is the AA gunnery officer and at his fingertips are:40 50 cal machine guns40 20mm Oerlikons4 quad 1.1 inch mounts20 5 inch dual purpose mounts As the Japanese line up over CV6, BB-55 cuts loose…At Kirkpatrick's order to commence firing, all AAA mounts aboard BB-55 open fire simultaneouslyThe noise, smoke, flame and sheer chaos unleashed actually rattles the gunnery officer who briefly thought his guns had set his ship afireTF16 CO Admiral Kinkaid radioed North Carolina to ask, “Are you afire?”The volume of AAA fire by “The Showboat” rattles the Japanese as they line up on CV6 shooting down a great number, and causing many to miss in their dives Despite the CAP and the screening vessels AAA fire, Vals appeared over CV6 and broke into their divesVals came down on CV6 at 7 second intervalsCaptain Arthur Davis maneuvered his ship brilliantly, causing many bombs to splash into the sea behind the great shipAt 1714 a 500 pound bomb crashed through Enterprise's flight deck near her after elevatorIt punched through five decks before exploding, killing 35 men immediately30 seconds later, another bomb hit Enterprise, only 15 feet from the first strike, exploding in the starboard 5 inch gun gallery wiping out the crewmen stationed there, burning them to a cinder at their gun positions, killing all 38 men in a blinding flashEnterprise, like her sister Yorktown, was a tough girl allowing CAPT Davis to continue to maneuver her at high speed despite the 2 heavy hits she had taken and throwing up an impressive AA screen of her ownSome 14,000 rounds of ammunition were fired by Enterprise in that strike alone2 minutes after the first two bombs hit, a third hit the Big E up forward, doing minimal damage. Enterprise is hurt, but far from deadShe retires to Pearl for damage repairs and buries her dead, some 78 KIA and a further 90 woundedWe will see the Big in the seas around Guadalcanal again End of day/end of battle By the end of the day, after word finally reached Fletcher of the whereabouts of Shokaku, it is too late to launch a strike, especially with CV6 hurt. The Japanese think (naturally) that they have heavily damaged or sunk 2 US CVs, when they only attacked 1 Aware of their high casualties from attacking the US fleet, and the loss of Ryujo, compels the Japanese under Nagumo to retire The incoming troop convoy under Tanaka is seemingly left to its own devices and it comes under heavy air attack from Henderson Field the following day 1 DD is sunk, another is damaged, a cruiser is heavily damaged, a transport is sunk and another (or 2) are damaged forcing Tanaka to turn his convoy around and NOT reinforce the island Because of this action, and the fact that the Ryujo was sunk at no US shipping losses, Eastern Solomons is seen as a US strategic and tactical victory. Though a victory, it had little in terms of long reaching effects on the Guadalcanal campaign, which is why it is probably the least known carrier battle of 1942

Last week, we covered the failed third Japanese attempt at retaking the important island of Guadalcanal. The unmitigated disaster that was the Battle for Henderson Field would prove to be the last attempt of the invaders to contest the Americans in what they believed to be the most decisive campaign of the war. Yet at the same time, two American carriers would take on four Japanese carriers in a battle that would decide the fate of the Japanese garrison on this Island of Death. In a theater decided by air power, join us as we delve into the fourth carrier battle of the Pacific War: the crucial Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands.

After the recent defeat at the Bloody Ridge, the Japanese Empire knew for the first time in the Pacific War that they were finally losing the initiative. The US Marines had proven to be resilient foes, and their invasion of Guadalcanal was looking like it could become the most decisive battle of the war. If the Americans could be defeated, then their offensive ambitions could be checked and the Japanese could continue with their designs in the South Pacific. In that regard, General Hyakutake himself traveled to Guadalcanal to command another costly attempt at securing the island. It is all or nothing for the Japanese commander on this episode of the Pacific War, so join us as we travel to the Island of Death to cover the Battle for Henderson Field.

Cactus era el nombre en clave de la Isla de Guadalcanal, donde la US Navy había tomado por sorpresa el aeródromo que habían construido los japoneses. Por lo que cuando llegaron los primeros cazabombarderos Bell Airacobra P-400 el 4 de Septiembre del 42, los sufridos infantes que defendían la pista y sus instalaciones, bautizaron a estos aviones como Cactus Air Force. Te lo cuenta ⚓️ Esaú Rodríguez desde el Henderson Field. Producido por 👨‍🚀 Dani CarAn Casus Belli Podcast pertenece a 🏭 Factoría Casus Belli. Casus Belli Podcast forma parte de 📀 Ivoox Originals. 📚 Zeppelin Books zeppelinbooks.com es un sello editorial de la 🏭 Factoría Casus Belli. 👉https://podcastcasusbelli.com 👉En Facebook, nuestra página es @casusbellipodcast https://www.facebook.com/CasusBelliPodcast 👉En Instagram estamos como @casusbellipodcast https://www.instagram.com/casusbellipodcast 👉En Twitter estamos como @casusbellipod @CasusBelliPod 👉Telegram, nuestro canal es @casusbellipodcast https://t.me/casusbellipodcast 👨‍💻Nuestro chat del canal es https://t.me/aviones10 ⚛️ El logotipo de Carros 10 y de la Factoría Casus Belli están diseñados por Publicidad Fabián publicidadfabian@yahoo.es 🎵 La música incluida en el programa es Ready for the war de Marc Corominas Pujadó bajo licencia CC. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/ El resto de música es bajo licencia privada de Epidemic Music, Jamendo Music o SGAE. de Ivoox. 🖨 Basado en un artículo de Patrick Chaisson. 📧¿Queréis contarnos algo? También puedes escribirnos a casus.belli.pod@gmail.com Si te ha gustado, y crees que nos lo merecemos, nos sirve mucho que nos des un like, ya que nos da mucha visibilidad. Muchas gracias por escucharnos, y hasta la próxima. Escucha el episodio completo en la app de iVoox, o descubre todo el catálogo de iVoox Originals

In episode 158, I talked to Henry Sledge about his father's experiences with the US Marines in the Pacific, which led me to rewatch the 2010 TV miniseries The Pacific. The show revolves around three lead characters, Eugene Sledge, Robert Leckie and John Basilone. Basilone received the Medal of Honor for heroism above and beyond the call of duty during the Battle for Henderson Field in the Guadalcanal Campaign and would go on to be posthumously awarded the Navy Cross. In this episode, I am joined by Dave Holland. Dave is a former marine and battlefield tour guide on Guadalcanal. On his youtube channel, Guadalcanal - Walking a Battlefield, Dave takes the viewer to Guadalcanal and explains the battlefields and shows you what exists today from WWII.

The Battle of Guadalcanal took place from August 1942 until February 1943.  Because Guadalcanal is an island, both the Japanese and the Americans relied on the sea to supply their forces and bring in reinforcements.    James D. Hornfischer's “Neptune's Inferno” tells the story of the fight to control the seas around Guadalcanal.  These sea battles cost roughly three times as many American lives as the fighting on the island and gave the American surface fleet a hard lesson in modern fleet-on-fleet action.

After the failed October Japanese attack on Henderson Field and the American fleet's repeated prevention of Japanese efforts to reinforce and resupply the island, the Japanese army on Guadalcanal became increasingly hungry, disease-ridden, and depleted in numbers. After successful American attacks on the eastern part of the island (the “Long Patrol”) and the key position of Mt. Austen in the center of the island, the Japanese commander faced two alternatives: evacuate, or be wiped out. What would he choose, and how would it work out? In this episode, James and Scott answer this question and many others as they wrap up the epic Guadalcanal campaign.

In October and November of 1942, the Japanese fleet near Guadalcanal kept trying to bring supplies and reinforcements to the island, while the American navy tried to stop this. As a result, no fewer than three naval engagements occurred in these two months: the Battle of Cape Esperance, the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, and the epic Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. Also, in late October, two Japanese forces launched another attack on Henderson Field, the American airfield. Would the attack succeed? Listen and find out!

26OCT1942: PltSgt Mitchell Paige was leading a machine gun platoon on Guadalcanal with the 2/7 Marines when they were tasked with reinforcing a portion of the westernmost lines.  Moving into position, Paige had his men dig in and prepare to head off any Japanese attack that was expected to kick off any moment. Late on the 25th, Paige noticed enemy lights in the distance.  He notified his men and readied for the attack.  It kicked off in the early morning hours of the 26th as Japanese soldiers charged their position.  As his machine guns hammered the enemy, some overheated and created temporary gaps in the line.  Some attackers made it through and were eventually killed in hand to hand combat. PltSgt Paige did all he could to keep his men in the fight and before long found himself manning an gun.  He was so focused on the attacking enemy fighters that it wasn't until his gun was shot out from underneath him that he realized he was the only Marine not dead or wounded from his section of the line.  He quickly ran back to his sister company to pick up another machine gun and returned to the line. Again laying fire into the enemy, Paige had wounded Marines help him with loading ammo and changing barrels.  Finally, recognizing a break in the attack, Paige seized the opportunity to end the fight.  He ordered the men around him to fix bayonets and he led a charge down the hill into the Japanese staging area.  Killing at least one with his MG that he carried, Paige and his team quickly found themselves without targets.  They had repulsed the attack, nearly 1,200 strong. For his actions that day, PltSgt Paige would be awarded the Medal of Honor.  He would earn a battlefield commission and retired as a Colonel in 1959. 

24OCT1942: During the Battle for Henderson Field on Guadalcanal, Sgt John Basilone and his unit came under attack from a 3,000 strong enemy force.  Commanding a section of heavy machine guns, Sgt Basilone held off the enemy attackers until on he and two Marines were left standing.  With enemy forces on all sides, Basilone was forced to fight through Japanese attackers in order to pick up ammunition resupplies to keep his guns in the fight. Despite the extremely close range fighting, Sgt Basilone kept up continual, lethal fire even repairing a machine gun in the midst of battle to keep the enemy at bay.  When he finally ran out of ammunition, Sgt Basilone used his pistol and machete to hold back the final Japanese troops until Marine reinforcements arrived.   As morning came, nearly all of the 3,000 enemy Soldiers had perished.  Likely over 200 of those coming at the hands of Sgt John Basilone.  For his bravery and determination in the face of the heavy enemy assault, Sgt John Basilone would be awarded the Medal of Honor.   Continuing service during the war and promoted to Gunnery Sergeant and was in the initial landings at Iwo Jima where he would again be decorated for heroism, this time with the Navy Cross.  GySgt Basilone would be killed during the assault on Iwo Jima at the age of 28.

12-13SEPT1942: Commanding the 1st Marine Raider Battalion, Ltc Merritt Edson learned of a coming attack against the US lines. Anticipating that it would come near an area known as Lunga Ridge, he petitioned his commander to reinforce. The two disagreed so in turn, Edson asked that his men move to that sector for a little rest from the main lines. Arriving on September 11th, he had his men start to dig in and prepare their defense. Just as they were doing so, Japanese soldiers were making their way through the thick undergrowth in preparation for their attack. As the battle kicked off on the 12th, Edson moved back and forth amongst his lines, motivating his men, assigning sectors of fire and doing all he could to hold the lines. If his men failed, Henderson Field could fall and with it, the entire US presence on Guadalcanal. As the sun rose after hours of deadly combat, Edson had his men reinforce their positions and prepare for what they all knew was coming, a second wave that night. Just after 2100 on the 13th it kicked off, with nearly 3,000 Japanese attacking Edson's 830 Marines. With some Marines falling back or being overrun, Edson consolidated their position and directed danger close artillery right against their position. By morning, the ridge was covered with dead Japanese soldiers. The Marines had held. For his actions during the fight that would come to be known as Edson's Ridge, Ltc Merritt Edson was awarded the Medal of Honor.

The Battle for Hell's Island: How a Small Band of Carrier Dive-Bombers Helped Save Guadalcanal by Stephen L. Moore John Batchelor interviews author. http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/   About the book- The Battle for Hell's Island: How a Small Band of Carrier Dive-Bombers Helped Save Guadalcanal by Stephen L. Moore   November 1942: Japanese and American forces have been fighting for control of Guadalcanal, a small but pivotal island in Japan's expansion through the South Pacific. Both sides have endured months of grueling battle under the worst circumstances: hellish jungles, meager rations, and tropical diseases, which have taken a severe mental and physical toll on the combatants. The Japanese call Guadalcanal Jigoku no Jima—Hell's Island. Amid a seeming stalemate, a small group of U.S. Navy dive bombers are called upon to help determine the island's fate. The men have until recently been serving in their respective squadrons aboard the USS Lexington and the USS Yorktown, fighting in the thick of the Pacific War's aerial battles. Their skills have been honed to a fine edge, even as injury and death inexorably have depleted their ranks. When their carriers are lost, many of the men end up on the USS Enterprise. Battle damage to that carrier then forces them from their home at sea to operating from Henderson Field, a small dirt-and-gravel airstrip on Guadalcanal. With some Marine and Army Air Force planes, they help form the Cactus Air Force, a motley assemblage of fliers tasked with holding the line while making dangerous flights from their jungle airfield. Pounded by daily Japanese air assaults, nightly warship bombardments, and sniper attacks from the jungle, pilots and gunners rarely last more than a few weeks before succumbing to tropical ailments, injury, exhaustion, and death. But when the Japanese launch a final offensive to take the island once and for all, these dive-bomber jocks answer the call of duty—and try to perform miracles in turning back an enemy warship armada, a host of fighter planes, and a convoy of troop transports. A remarkable story of grit, guts, and heroism, The Battle for Hell's Island reveals how command of the South Pacific, and the outcome of the Pacific War, depended on control of a single dirt airstrip—and the small group of battle-weary aviators sent to protect it with their lives.       The John Batchelor Show is a breaking-news program that focusses on global politics, economics, war-fighting, hard sciences, space exploration, literature and whimsy. Four hours a night, seven days a week; most rigorous news analysis in the New World; followed daily in 192 countries.     For a great archive of shows visit- http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/   Listen to John Batchelor at- https://audioboom.com/channel/johnbatchelor   Listen to John Batchelor on iTunes at- https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-john-batchelor-show/id589864479?mt=2   blog Twitter: @BatchelorShow   Listen on Podcast Addict https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/1707620

24OCT1942: During the Battle for Henderson Field on Guadalcanal, Sergeant John Basilone and his unit came under attack from a 3,000 strong enemy force. Commanding a section of heavy machine guns, SGT Basilone held off the enemy attackers until on he and two Marines were left standing. With enemy forces on all sides, Basilone was forced to fight through Japanese attackers in order to pick up ammunition resupplies to keep his guns in the fight. Despite the extremely close range fighting, SGT Basilone kept up continual, lethal fire even repairing a machine gun in the midst of battle to keep the enemy at bay. When he finally ran out of ammunition, SGT Basilone used his pistol and machete to hold back the final Japanese troops until Marine reinforcements arrived. As morning came, nearly all of the 3,000 enemy Soldiers had perished. Likely over 200 of those coming at the hands of SGT John Basilone. For his bravery and determination in the face of the heavy enemy assault, SGT John Basilone would be awarded the Medal of Honor. Continuing service during the war and promoted to Gunnery Sergeant and was in the initial landings at Iwo Jima where he would again be decorated for heroism, this time with the Navy Cross. GySgt Basilone would be killed during the assault on Iwo Jima at the age of 28.

24OCT1942: During the Battle for Henderson Field on Guadalcanal, Sergeant John Basilone and his unit came under attack from a 3,000 strong enemy force. Commanding a section of heavy machine guns, SGT Basilone held off the enemy attackers until on he and two Marines were left standing. With enemy forces on all sides, Basilone was forced to fight through Japanese attackers in order to pick up ammunition resupplies to keep his guns in the fight. Despite the extremely close range fighting, SGT Basilone kept up continual, lethal fire even repairing a machine gun in the midst of battle to keep the enemy at bay. When he finally ran out of ammunition, SGT Basilone used his pistol and machete to hold back the final Japanese troops until Marine reinforcements arrived. As morning came, nearly all of the 3,000 enemy Soldiers had perished. Likely over 200 of those coming at the hands of SGT John Basilone. For his bravery and determination in the face of the heavy enemy assault, SGT John Basilone would be awarded the Medal of Honor. Continuing service during the war and promoted to Gunnery Sergeant and was in the initial landings at Iwo Jima where he would again be decorated for heroism, this time with the Navy Cross. GySgt Basilone would be killed during the assault on Iwo Jima at the age of 28.

Major John L. Smith was the Commanding Officer of VMF-223, the first fighter squadron to operate off Henderson Field on Guadalcanal. Facing almost daily Japanese raids, 223 fought from the 20th of August, 1942 until relieved on the 13th of October, 1942. Major Smith would leave the island as the Corps leading ace with 19 kills and the Medal of Honor. This episode looks at the two main fighters in the campaign, the Japanese Zero and American F4F Wildcat, the state of USMC aviation in the months after Pearl Harbor, and the early attempts by the Japanese to retake Guadalcanal. Selected readings: History of Marine Corps Aviation in World War 2, Robert Sherrod Wildcat, the F4F in WW2, Barrett Tillman Time of Aces: Marine Pilots in the Solomons, 1942-1944, Cdr Peter Mersky Fire in the Sky, The Air War in the South Pacific, Eric Bergerud Samurai! The Autobiography of Japan's Greatest Fighter Pilot, Saburo Sakai with Martin Caidin and Fred Saito The Last Zero Fighter: Firsthand Accounts from WW2 Japanese Naval Pilots, Dan King Guadalcanal 1942-43: Japan's Bid to Knock Out Henderson Field and the Cactus Air Force, Mark Stille I can be reached at aviationmoh@gmail.com. Feedback and reviews appreciated!

The New Guinea campaign, the final defense of Henderson Field, and the Battle of Santa Cruz.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-saga-of-world-war-2-a-casus-belli-project7137/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy