GUADALCANAL: Thwarting the Japanese Advance (WW2HRT_32-01)

[Music] welcome to the beginning of the 32nd year of the dr. Harold C Deutsch World War two history roundtable I'm going to ask John partial there's a very colorful group called the naval nerds they did a little convention here and I'm not sure who the instigator was but as you know John did this noted book on the yo you're the okay you're the head nerd but John wrote this book that sold huge volumes approaching 50,000 now anyway not many not many books of any kind sell that but it is a the seminal book on the Battle of Midway at that time we connected with our speaker this evening and we look forward to carrying on that tradition and John thank you for being the instigator thank you I wrote in my book on the Battle of Midway that Midway was the single most important battle during the Pacific War not because of what happened on that day but because it created the context for what was the single most important campaign in the Pacific War which is clearly the epic six month long struggle to capture Guadalcanal I was privileged to see some tracks from Trent's book while it was being developed and I can tell you that it contains some of the most original and interesting research on the Guadalcanal campaign that has come out and decades Trent and I have known each other for a number of years we share a number of similarities we are both graduates of Carleton College and like all good Carleton students we love a good game of Ultimate Frisbee we both work in technology for our day jobs and as you can see we both suffer from hair lines that have been ravaged by too many years of reading too much military history Trent has won numerous awards for some of his articles including the US Naval War College Edward s Miller prize the naval history and heritage commands honest M eller prize and most recently an article of his on Guadalcanal won second place in the Chief of Naval Operations naval history essay contest and as a matter of fact Trent was privileged enough this Monday to sit down to lunch with Admiral Richardson the Chief of Naval Operations to share with him lessons from the Guadalcanal campaign that might have pertinence to future campaigns for the US Navy so please join me in welcoming my friend Trent home to the stage I'm really grateful and privileged to be here this evening to address all of you and talk about as John said the stage a very important campaign I call it the the turning point we often think that Midway which is a very important and arguably the most important battle in the Pacific in World War two as the turning point and I think that's something that becomes clear only in hindsight a football analogy is not inappropriate because many of the naval officers that we're going to talk about tonight either were familiar with the football field from the Naval Academy or at least understood the game well enough to use it in how they talked about naval warfare Midway you can think it of it akin to causing the Japanese to fumble the ball they lose the initiative and now the ball is on the field sitting on the turf and first team that acts aggressively and gets it gets on the ball they're going to have the initiative and they're gonna keep it for the rest of the war and that's what happens at Guelph now the United States Navy and its allies and the other forces of the United States seize the initiative but it takes six long months to do it that I think is the first most important theme and when we think about what'll canal the other one is the ability to learn rapidly as John mentioned that is something that is instrumental to my book I'll try to weave that through here but Don made it very clear meaning that I should not just focus on the naval aspects of this and I think it would be inappropriate this evening to do so so we will sprinkle throughout hopefully a fine understanding of how the fighting for Guadalcanal is a three-dimensional conflict in the skies above the island and the jungles along it on the Seas be beside it and also under the surface of the water and there's not enough time this evening to give adequate attention to absolutely everything so I'm gonna focus on things that I think are seminal moments we talked sometimes about the tides of war and also in world war two there's a certain inevitability that we bring to our understanding of it and we think about the American industrial base and how it was brought to bear particularly later on in the conflict that was not brought to bear at this moment in late 1942 it's a much more evenly matched game and many aspects of this campaign hinge on individual decisions heroic actions by individual people and I'm gonna talk about a few of those one of the most important is the decision to take the offensive Midway creates the opportunity Ernest J King commander-in-chief of the United States fleet recognizes the opportunity that this creates and decides immediately that the time is right to take the offensive to try to seize the initiative and to keep the Japanese off balance so after the victory he orders Chester Nimitz commander of the Pacific Fleet to seize the Anchorage of Tulagi in the Solomon Islands it's across the sound from Guadalcanal when it becomes known that the Japanese have been building an airfield on Guadalcanal that becomes the major focus of the operation now King does this he issues these orders without getting approval from his peers on the Joint Chiefs of Staff this is a significant move because at the time the United States strategy is Germany first Europe is the important theater the Pacific is a secondary location but King recognizes the opportunity issues the order and then seeks approval for it afterwards he begs forgiveness as much as king could he wasn't the type to do that and then proceed this map gives us some sense of how and why this is an important location the blue line is the supply line to Australia the circle is Guadalcanal and Tuilagi the red arrow was the intention to advance up the solomon chain towards the base at Rabaul on the island of new britain the red line here is the extent of Japanese Dominion and you can see potentially it's a relatively small font but you can see the the red marks from prior battles Midway the attack on Pearl Harbor and Coral Sea there wasn't much time to plan the operation initially the invasion was designated to take place at the 1st of August it was pushed back almost a week to allow more times for preparation dress rehearsals did not go terribly well they exposed a lot of flaws there was not time to address them all but responsibility for the operation was invested in Vice Admiral Robert Gormley there in the center Nimitz is commander in the South Pacific his the forces the invasion forces would be covered by Vice Admiral Fletcher on the left he commanded the carrier forces which included Enterprise Saratoga and wasp and then on the right we have Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner those of you who were listening in to our earlier session got a little sense of what John and I think of Turner and farthest to the right is general Alexander Vandergrift who was a native of Virginia or in Charlottesville in the late 19th century the stars that he wore while he was on Guadalcanal are preserved in Richmond's military museum the landings took place on the 7th of August as you can see there are two different distinct landing fields on the north they seized the island of Tulagi and then the two the twin islands of 10m BOGO and gave Oh to where the Japanese had established a seaplane base that was landing group yoke or why any group xwy landed at Guadalcanal near luma point to seize the Japanese airfield that had been constructed the landings on Guadalcanal went off relatively easily confronted with the large invasion fleet Turner's covering forces the Japanese retreated into the interior of the island many of the Japanese on Vall canal itself were laborers who were busy building the airfield they left their equipment behind the Marines seized it used it to improve the airfield and make it ready for planes the situation across the sound and Tuilagi was very different this is a picture taken later in 1943 you can get some sense of the terrain of the island Phil oggi is rocky surrounded by coral reefs on many sides here is where the first Marine Raider battalion landed under the leadership of Colonel Merritt Edson they cut the island in two advanced the north took that over and then proceeded towards the south but it took two days to extract the nearly 1,800 Japanese defenders from they're dug in holes on the island and it's terrain the twin islands of gavabutu and Penan BOGO although smaller or even worse like Tuilagi their rocky a Japanese - dug in they are the two islands furthest to the right here smoke is rising from the attack of the carrier planes and you can see the islands are separated by a causeway the intention was to land on one sees it advance across the causeway and take the second but the Japanese having been dug in and the hillsides could hand cover the first island with their machine guns and the paratroopers the marine paratroopers were landed on this island faced very stiff resistance there had to be another landing on the other Island and mixed combat teams of light tanks and infantryman move methodically across it to wipe out the last of the Japanese defenders it took until the 9th of August for these two islands to be secured the Japanese responded very quickly three of their commanders who are instrumental to the campaign are pictured here we have Admiral Yamamoto or soku many of you will be familiar with him he came up with a wide variety of schemes complex plans to try to retake and recapture the island and then we have Lieutenant General hai Aki take who was commander of the Japanese 17th army the 17th army was responsible for New Guinea as well as the Solomons and Hayashi take was hesitant to transfer many forces to Guadalcanal and he underestimated Vandergriff presence he did not think that an entire marine division had landed and so to prevent disruption from the timetables of the offensives that he was planning in New Guinea he dispatched relatively small forces to try to push the Marines back general Vice Admiral McCullough konnichi however acted much more decisively as soon as he realized that the American forces were in place he gathers his flagship and a number of other cruisers and had destroyer together and proceeded towards wall canal to see what he could do at the same time the Japanese send land attack planes Betty in the Allied code - well canal this is a picture taken along the 8th on the 7th they came with bombs they had been armed to attack targets in New Guinea they did not take the time to rearm them with torpedoes the typical armament armament of these planes when attacking ships and they hit nothing they came back on the 8th 26 different planes and you can get some sense of the skill of these aviators by how low these planes are to the surface of the sea this is a picture taken during the actual attack and this one on the left you can see it appears to be below the ship that is farther away up on the horizon so they came in low they came in across the sound Turner and his ships were prepared though an Australian Coast watcher had seen the planes radioed warning and so of the 26 aircraft that attacked 17 were destroyed 125 of the Japanese crewmen including all of the officers were lost during the attack it was the largest single loss of Japanese land attack planes during the campaign many of them ended up like this they did manage to torpedo the transport Georges Elliott and the destroyer Jarvis which was later lost mikawa had somewhat more success so on the night of 8 August his ships entered the sound they avoid detection by the picket destroyers which had been in placed by Turner and his screen commander Vice Admiral Crutchley of the Royal Navy Turner encrust Lee had arranged their ships assuming that the greatest threat to their forces were Japanese submarines although Mikawa and his ships had been sighted the report of the sighting gave turn of the impression that he had to see plane carriers and that they were going to establish the seaplane base nearby from which they could make aerial attacks not a night surface action makalah's flagship was the cruiser choke I hear she's pictured during firing exercises in 1938 and she was typical of Japanese heavy cruisers 10 8-inch guns and large batteries of very powerful 24-inch torpedoes much more devastating than anything that the United States ships were equipped with McCullough and his ships entered the sound they dispatch the initial force that they come across which is the southern covering group and has the heavy cruiser Chicago and the royal australian navy's canberra the canberra is cut down and disabled hail of gunfire Chicago is hit by two torpedoes one doesn't explode the other damages the bow and she sails away from the action makalah's forces then split because he's some confusion it's nighttime it's difficult to ensure cohesion there are a lot of rain squalls in the area and they fall upon the northern carrier group commanded by Captain Frederick reef Paul he has three of the most modern heavy cruisers in the US Navy Quincy Astoria and Vincennes this is Quincy she's on fire and sinking all three of the ships are hit very quickly by Japanese gunfire two of them are hit by Japanese torpedoes Quincy's among them and although they do make some small hits on some of the Japanese ships before they sink they are relatively ineffective and dispatched quickly now Savile Island and the significant defeat there he's usually assumed to have triggered the withdrawal of the Navy from the island that's not the case while the battle was going on there was a conference on Turner's flagship the decision had already been made to withdraw the carrier forces Fletcher was cognizant of the fact that all the exercises that the United States Navy had been through before the war had shown that if fleet forces were pinned to a specific position like an island they could be attacked and damaged and mobility needed to be preserved so Fletcher was going to withdraw Turner was going to pull the transports out the conference was to talk about how best to make this happen and how to ensure that Vandegrift had the forces and the equipment that he required to remain on the island and and keep the hold on the on the airfield that's what happened so the Navy goes away the Marines as they will always remind you were left alone on well okay not now Vandegrift knows he's an experienced veteran from a Marine Corps fighting throughout much of the 20th century and he is without effective maps or an understanding of the terrain that's around so he patrols aggressively to try to get a better sense of what the lay of the land is like and where the Japanese might be remember they've withdrawn into the jungle there's also a constant fear that the Japanese will execute a counter landing Japanese ships come down at night bombard his positions the guarding of patrol is an ill-fated attempt commanded by the lieutenant-colonel guarding a the division intelligence officer there is some belief that the Japanese to the west of the Allied positions at Matanikau are willing to surrender so he takes a group of men and they are virtually wiped out of the 25 people on the Patrol three survive to come back to marine lines the Japanese did not want to surrender the burst patrol and that's more effective this bike led by Captain Charles Bush goes out to the east it encounters Japanese column ambushes them kills nearly everyone in the column there's a an unusual amount of high-ranking people in the column and there's a plan of attack the Japanese have landed a new group is the detachment of Colonel ichiki kyono who originally designated as the Midway occupation force so they were freely available they were sent to Guadalcanal and on the evening of August 20th they come across the mouth of what was then known as the tomaru River because of Russia's efforts the Marines were well-prepared Vandegrift and his men have established a barbed-wire barrier machine guns artillery firing canister shells and the Japanese efforts to storm across the mouth of the river are defeated and later that day after the Sun comes up Vandegrift sends a column around behind them encircling the Japanese and prepares to annihilate them he succeeds he's aided by the fact that during the day on the 20th the 1st Marine airplanes arrive at Henderson Field f4f wildcats SBD Dauntless is a fly from the escort carrier Long Island and they land and now there's a cactus Air Force cactus is the codename for Guadalcanal in the correspondence of this time so this is this is the origination of the cactus Air Force soon thereafter Army Air Cobra p400s join them and these plans help exterminate what remains of chronologic East detachment the Japanese realize that they are going to have to make a more exert more effort to seize the Guadalcanal if they're gonna push the Marines off so they gather up the 25th there the 28th Infantry Regiment the fifth special naval landing force put them in a convoy and bring them down the slot towards wall canal warned by intelligence and code intercepts Nimitz tells Fletcher to try to prevent the Japanese from using their carriers to help cover this attack and this results in in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons of 24th and 25th enterprises significantly damaged this is a relatively famous photograph many of you have probably seen it a bomb is exploding on enterprises after flight deck here's another picture of the carrier in distress the it's difficult to see but the white here is not a mistake in the photo it's an intense fire in her after 5-inch battery the anti-aircraft battery there so although Fletcher gets enterprise significantly damaged the Japanese like carrier Joe is sunk planes from enterprise land on Henderson field and help the planes their push back the Japanese reinforcements convoy Eastern Solomons turns into a strategic victory and prevents another Japanese attempt to overwhelm the marine defenders so the Japanese turn instead to nocturnal efforts at resupply they control essentially the waters around the island at night because the planes do not fly then and so through a series of destroyer transport missions major-general kawaguchi-ko takis force comes to the island he has the 35th infantry brigade with about 3500 men starting on the 31st of August they begin to land on the island and Kawaguchi has a plan for how he's going to push the marines off of it he comes around through the jungle behind the marine positions and he plans a thrust through a Ridgeline that dominates the marine positions and Henderson field and the Marines know this Ridge now and forever as Edson's Ridge because that's where the Raider battalion merits merit Edson's greater battalion happened to be stationed it was thought that this would be a relatively quiet place to put them it wasn't we have two maps here the fighting raged over two nights the night of the 12th was relatively confused Kawaguchi and his men did not expect to encounter significant resistance but they fell upon the Marines infiltrating and pushing them back very confused chaotic night battle probably captured very well in Colonel Joseph Alexander's book the history of the the first marine Raiders there's an anecdote that he relates a young private John Melky in the midst of this fighting leans over to an aged sergeant who they called pappy Holdren now Pappy had been at Bella wood he had fought in the meuse-argonne in 1918 and milk yes Pappy how does this houses compare is this like what you saw over there and France and pabbie says no this is the worst situation I've ever been in de comes the Marines regroup Edd's and makes of an important decision he stations what Marines today would cynically call speedbumps different positions outposts beyond his lines to try to break up and channel the Japanese advance and secures a solid position at the most dominant place in the hill what they call hill 120 and that's where he's going to have his command post it also invests in artillery registration and understanding very well where and how the Japanese will most likely attempt to advance and take the ridge as soon as night falls the Japanese begin to infiltrate the American positions and then later in the evening a red flare goes up and they come storming out of the jungle the brains are able to get one maybe two shots from their bolt-action rifles into the advance and Japanese and then it becomes a hand hand fight throwing grenades the Marines refuse their flanks you can see here from the map they bend in some of the Japanese infiltrators make it as far as Vandergriff command posts before they're cut down at the top of the ridge the Marines maintain their position and the fight desperately the thing that prevents the Japanese from overwhelming the position they're on the ridge of two things one is the artillery of the 11th Marines those of you who are students of artillery pieces will notice that these don't look like the typical 155 millimeter pieces from the Second World War and that's because they're not these are the old pieces these are the world where one pattern pieces and that's what the Marines had so the recoil mechanisms aren't as sophisticated they don't fire quite as fast but Edison and his men had a good sense of where these shells had to land and they were rocking on the ridge throughout the night surviving Japanese thought that the Marines had acoustic sensors that could detect their movements because they had never seen artillery fire this intense and this thorough and and this accurate it breaks up their advance but the thing that really keeps them from overwhelming the ridge is the presence of two men at the peak of it who maintain their cool and studies example for the rest of the defenders one is Edson himself throughout the battle he stands on top of the ridge directing the artillery fire calling in reinforcements and coordinating the effort the other man standing on the ridge is Maj Kenneth Bailey C company's commander in the map you could see C Company was positioned there at the top of the ridge both of them have bullets whizzing around them several pass through Ed's ins clothes Bailey is hit twice once in in the helmet and another bullet grazes his cheek but through their efforts they act as an inspiration to their men and prevent the Japanese from overwhelming the ridge and if they had overwhelmed the ridge they would likely have overwhelmed marine positions on the island both of them were awarded the Medal of Honor for their efforts and I'd like to highlight this as the second decision of individuals the the seminal moment that helps the arc of this campaign bend towards an American victory now one of the most important things that occurred during the fighting that first night Rear Admiral Turner was on the island so he got a sense of how desperate the situation actually was he left the next day before the second night's fight determined to bring the seventh Marine Regiment to well looking out which he does now carrier wasp was covering that effort and on the fifteenth of September she's sunk by a Japanese submarine I 19 puts four torpedoes into into the carrier down she goes so with enterprise damaged with wasp sunk Saratoga also torpedoed now there's only carrier Hornet holding a line in the South Pacific on the 30th of September nimitz visit the theater he comes to Guadalcanal and he also visits Vice Admiral normally Noumea this is a picture of him hauling ball canal with his staff and other members there you can see general Vandergrift to his left and brigadier general Geiger who was commander the 1st Marine Air Wing to his left he was responsible for the cactus Air Force at this time Nimitz is impressed with Vandergriff determination you know Nimitz is quite frank about it can you hold this out can we win man ative says yes but I need help ok I'll get you help the situation in Noumea is quite different alright Gormley appears defeatist isn't quite sure exactly how to secure the area around the island and make sure that supplies can be adequately and consistently delivered to the Marines it turns out he was suffering from a tad sess tooth but regardless of the factors he did not appear to be the right person at the right time now units is determined to bring not just Marines to the island but also the army the Americal division has been stood up on noumea right and it's named Ameri Cal America New Caledonia that's where Americal division comes from Nimitz is gonna send their 160 4th regiment to Guadalcanal to supplement and augment the Marines they're covered by Rear Admiral Norman Scott's Task Force his flagship San Francisco they're in the center and one of his escorting destroyers to Buchanan on the right Scott was an observer for the Battle of Tsavo Island he was in command of the group that was off to the east was not involved in fighting but he had a good sense of what went wrong and maybe what he could do differently so rather than having a more dispersed collection of forces he concentrated his ships he's cruises in a single line the cruisers in the center destroyers on either side he calls this formation a double-header he wants to be able to attack in either direction immediately he also to prevent surprise he wants to prevent friendly fire and he cruises across the entrance to the sound knowing that the Japanese are coming not just with the reinforcement mission but with a bombardment mission cruisers are coming to attack and bombard Henderson field and disrupt the activities of the cactus Air Force Scott is fortunate he places himself across the line in Japanese advance and although the situation gets a little confused his ships managed to open fire before the Japanese realize what is upon them it was hailed as a significant victory at the time here we see sailor WR Martin and he's pointing at the scoreboard on cruiser Boise that was painted on after the battle Boise was significantly damaged had to proceed to Philadelphia for repairs but you know because she comes back to the United States after a significant battle gets a lot of credit for the victory and this scoreboard gets painted now as Scott and his ships only succeeded in sinking two Japanese ships a cruiser and a destroyer but these night battles were very confusing it's very hard to tell what was going on but it did appear that his linear formation compact linear formation was successful one of the things that they did do although they didn't sink it they severely damaged Cruiser a boa which was rear admiral Cotto air emoto's flagship he was responsible for this bombardment group he was leading it and a hail of shells from Scotts flagship the cruiser Hellena and others slammed into go tows ship and and and killed him he died cursing his luck and believing that he was a victim of friendly fire he thought that he had run into the Japanese transport group that evening so the 164th Infantry Regiment makes it to Guadalcanal successfully the American presence on the island is growing but the Japanese also are maintaining their dominance of the waters around the island so although Scott did have his victory two days later the Japanese send two fast battleships to Guadalcanal and they bombard the area around Henderson field for over an hour they destroyed more than half of the available planes a couple days after that cruisers come back they bombard the island again more damage not as severe as in the battleships were there but additional damage these efforts cover a high-speed convoy that brings almost ten thousand men to the island and they arrive by 15th of October it's the second sendai division under lieutenant general Marie Yama Massoud now also by this point Lieutenant General Hayaku take of the 17th army has been convinced Guadalcanal is important I'm going to move my command post there that's where the 17th army headquarters will be a different army will now take responsibility for the fighting in New Guinea and Murayama prepares for an offensive now at the same time roughly on the 18th of October Halsey takes over he relieves Vice Admiral gourmet when Nimitz returned to Pearl Harbor he talked about the situation with his staff and there was unanimous agreement the glory should be relieved Halsey was coming to the South Pacific as a carrier Task Force Commander not to take command at the South Pacific but when Nimitz and his staff considered their options they thought that Halsey would be the best fit not just because he was going to be the most senior officer on station but also because he was uniquely aggressive in his approach to combat it was something that he felt that Nimitz felt the South Pacific needed and this is another very important and decisive moment because now that the flavor of the American in the South Pacific changes and it begins to transform almost immediately and and that's how holes he phrases it that he has to start throwing punches you know he has to try to make sure to keep the Japanese off-balance and disrupt their efforts so Maruyama has a sophisticated plan he's going to have a two-pronged attack on Henderson field he's going to come out from the West and also from the South again near the ridge line that Edson defended the prior month meanwhile Halsey sends we're at multimers Kincaid and his carrier forces enterprises back now have Enterprise in Hornet in the theater and they're going to try to flank any approaching Japanese carrier forces north of the Santa Cruz islands this is as far north as the American carrier forces have wandered during the campaign and so we have a significant battle that erupts the the battle of the Santa Cruz Islands the last major carrier battle of 1942 as well as a desperate fight on the island for Henderson Field and this is a picture of it in operation you can see one of the q400s here in the in the foreground now the Japanese begin their assault on the field the night of the 24th of October and it's raining it's a very dense and thick rain and they penetrate the Marine Lines the first company of the seventh Marine Regiment they are able to filter through it and this appearance of the victory filters back up the command chain they think oh we've got a breakthrough we're gonna capture the field and so at the Japanese High Command they think great alright so we're gonna send planes to go after the island we're gonna send the carrier forces south we've captured the airfield we need to follow up on the success it turns out that the that the breakthrough was just localized and Colonel Lewis puller who the Marines know is chesty who's commander of that battalion that was getting in frustrated and he had worked out an arrangement prior to the fighting with Lieutenant Colonel Robert Hall unfortunately I could not find a publicly available picture of him everyone seemed to have some copyrights on there so I've got instead just the the divisions insignia there but Hall was was from Fargo too far from here and they had agreed that when puller needed reinforcements when they had to bring the army up that they would just integrate their forces rather than trying to rearrange their lines and give the Army and the Marines a dedicated spot of the defense they would just bring the soldiers in and fight shoulder-to-shoulder with the Marines and so they did this and they repulsed the Japanese breakthrough and pushed them back at a place that they named for obvious reasons coffin corner and for years as I understand it after that fighting the 160 4th Infantry Regiment was allowed to refer to itself as the hundred and sixty fourth Marines for the way that they had dedicated themselves to the cause so although the Japanese believe that they've had a success it is it is not the case Henderson Field comes to life later in the day once it drives out the Japanese ships that have entered the sound or attacked and then farther north the carrier battle is taking place the Americans are unable to form a cohesive striking force they are distracted by the dispersed Japanese units some dive bombers managed to find the large carrier Shikoku and bomb her hit her three or four times she burns for five hours but the Japanese have gotten better at damage control since Midway and they are able to save her at the same time the Japanese strike and they put on a show it is one of the most cohesive carrier attacks of 1942 the the torpedo bombers come in with a hammer and anvil to strike on both bowels of carrier Hornet dive bombers dive remarkably low trying to make sure that they hit and damage and take out this American carrier and and they they do they damage Hornet very very badly she has to be abandoned they tried to scuttle her it's not successful but of the 53 planes in the initial strike 53 Japanese attack aircraft that do this only 15 managed to return to the carriers so although there's this display of consummate professionalism Japanese carrier air powers is starting to wane because they do not have the ability to train and build up pilots of the similar ability in the future the Japanese withdraw Kincaid withdraws and once again Henderson field is saved but the fighting continues palsy continues to punch he sends the 180 second Regiment of the Americas Powell division to Guadalcanal the Japanese for their part are creating another very large convoy if got eleven transports in the Shortland the Anchorage south of Bougainville and they're gonna send it to Guadalcanal and they're gonna make sure that it makes it through another battleship bombardment so as Turner is leaving after he's dropped off the million supplies word comes that the Japanese are sending two more battleships down the slot to Guadalcanal and Halsey tells Turner you have to stop them and Turner turns to his screen commander Rear Admiral Daniels jcalahan and says you have to stop them Callahan and Scott Rear Admiral Scott from Cape Esperance Scott's flagship is now the carrier or that sorry the cruiser Atlanta shown here Callahan is in the cruiser of San Francisco and Callahan adopts some of Scott's tactics they steam in line but Callahan does not have a plan to come across the line of Japanese advance he knows that this is a very desperate situation now there have been a lot of analyses and many have been very critical of what Callahan did and I think some of that is extremely justified he did not promulgate any kind of plan he did not communicate to his subordinates his intentions from the material that is available I believe I've been able to reconstruct what he had in mind and I think he didn't share his intentions because it's virtually a suicidal plan he knew that if he got close with his three large cruisers the San Francisco the Portland in the Hellena he could overwhelm one Japanese battleship and then the other but when you put cruisers toe-to-toe with battleships generally good things don't happen but that was the idea so as the radars begin to detect the advancing Japanese formation he heads right for it he doesn't try to come across their advance he goes right at them and he sends his van destroyers straight through the Japanese formation he turns his cruisers all that way to to support to come to course 270 to open up their broad sides and he sends his Stern destroyers his F destroyers straight through the formation as well this painting tries to capture the action it is incorrect in one significant way it's much too bright it's too easy to make out what's happening by the time this battle was fought the Sun had set it was very dark ships came out of the darkness and just appeared many of the American destroyers engage at very close range with the Japanese flagship the bow shove PA which is pictured here they rake her super super structure with 5-inch guns and and semi-automatic weapons and they try to hit her with torpedoes I believe they might have but it's doubtful that any of the torpedoes armed because of the close range and also the American ships had trouble with their torpedo exploders the climactic moment of the battle comes when Callaghan tries to bring his flagship and his other cruisers close to the Japanese flagship now the Portland was the next cruiser in line a Japanese torpedo shattered her Stern and that acted like a rudder of the bent metal kept her turning in circles the rest of the evening and through much of the day Hellena was the next cruiser in line and she just got lost there were too many targets at one point her 6-inch guns are engaging one ship which I think may have been a cruiser nobody's really sure her 5-inch guns are shooting into destroyer and then her forty millimeter gun started shooting at something else so at the climactic moment it's San Francisco spitting range from this battleship this Japanese battleship PA and the it's so close that San Francisco's Gunners once they load the 8-inch guns have to depress them they loaded at three degrees they have to depress them too to come on to the target but they tried to fire round after round into the Japanese battleship one of the rounds lands in her steering gear floods the steering control room and disables her ability to control but a six-inch Michelle from he a lands pawn San Francisco's bridge explodes it kills Callahan virtually all of his staff mortally wounds the flag captain and you get some sense because at around that time San Francisco was being fired upon by at least three different Japanese ships perhaps for each of these circles is a shell hit from from the Japanese this is one nicest indicator of what was happening another one can be provided if you go to San Francisco at the southern entrance today at a place called Lands End there's the park and in that Park there's a memorial to the ship they cut off the bridge wings when they were fitted her after this battle in San Francisco at Mare Island and his bridge wings are still there and they're full of shrapnel holes and you can get a sense of what it might have been like in the midst of this a fire breaks out in the hangar now San Francisco was a sister to Quincy Astoria and Vincennes and one of the things that had caused them to be lost with fire and fire in the hangar specifically so a fire broke out in the hangar has lots of aviation equipment in there it's very flammable even though they had done their best to prepare for battle and well San Francisco is enduring this bombardment one man gets up and starts fighting the fires this man Rhonda Shea Kepler and he fights the fire alone for some time until inspired by his efforts others join in and they put out the fire he helps direct them once they once they join but he had been mortally wounded and collapse from lack of blood he died they awarded them the the middle of honor and his his shipmates and in later years made a plaque that sits in that park in San Francisco and it doesn't have many words on it but it gives you a sense of the gratitude that they felt for what he had done so this is another one of those important moments during the campaign the Japanese transports now that Henderson field hasn't been bombarded have to turn back they go back to the Shortland Japanese cruisers bombard that night just nothing to stop them there's only one task force left on one surface action group available to Halsey it couldn't make it in time so the Japanese transports on they come but because it was only a cruising bombardment there's plenty of planes left and throughout the day assisted by carrier enterprises which stays far to the south out of range of Japanese planes they bombard the transport force and they sink or disable seven out of the eleven that are coming but another Japanese battleship bombardment is on its way and so Halsey sends in the last surface second group available to him it's Rear Admiral Willis Lee's two battleships Washington pictured here South Dakota and four destroyers now the four destroyers that they sent in were not a cohesive group it wasn't a destroy part of the destroyer squadron just the four destroyers that happen to have the most fuel so that they could operate with Lee so it wasn't a cohesive force but fortunately Lee had been director of fleet training before the war he knew effective gunnery techniques he knew how to use a ship like this and so he advanced into the sound with a different plan he was going to send his destroyers out ahead to try to flush out the Japanese and use the big guns of his two battleships to try to keep them at bay and overwhelm them and disrupt their attempt to bombard the field the plan works the destroyers encounter Japanese light forces in the shadow of Tsavo island there's a battle two of the American destroyers of sunk very quickly a third one is reduced to sinking and fourth withdraws and then while that is happening South Dakota suffers a power failure her radars go out she loses track of all kinds of things and she sails between the burning destroyers and the Japanese ships and becomes the target of the remaining Japanese task force their cruisers and the battleship carissima now leaves a little bit uncertain what this situation is like the surface search radar of Washington at the time was here in front of the four tower so it had a blind spot to the rear South Dakota had been in the blind spot and they weren't sure where South Dakota was but the gunnery officer was tracking a big target and the fire control computer had developed a solution and they were ready to shoot and they were sure it wasn't South Dakota Lee wasn't sure so the Japanese had illuminated South Dakota or the shells were passing through her superstructure her radars were getting destroyed her and her gunners could not find the target the Japanese sure the target had turned the searchlights off and we're continuing to pound her Lee still wasn't sure what to do and then the Sun went down or sorry the moon and we went down and went set and Vice Admiral Kondo who was in a cruiser not in this battleship Kashima turned his search lights back on so that his ships could make sure the target and when that happened from Lee's perspective South Dakota's over there our targets over there let her have it boys and so the order to fire goes out the fire control switch is closed and the gyro-stabilized fire control system as soon as the ship levels out closes the circuit and 9/16 inch shells each weighing 2,700 pounds start flying through the air at this Japanese battleship now there's some debate as to how many shells actually ended up hitting the ship she fired about 79 whole series of salvos using radar ranges and visual bearings which was at the time the most accurate way to shoot what is not up for debate is that Theresa was was wrecked very quickly reduced to a sinking condition from all the damage and eventually capsized so the Japanese formation is now in disarray their large central battleship unit has sunk and but they're after Lee in the Washington South Dakota has started to withdraw Washington could also have withdrawn but lead chooses not to do this instead he cruises towards the Japanese transports knowing that they're still headed toward Golic now in an effort to make them turn around to give the aviators more time to attack them the next day and they do turn around and then leave withdrawals and so the last major Japanese effort to retake the island ends with their four transports eventually they make it the island they Beach but they are hammered by additional aerial attacks a destroyer an American destroyer comes into the island during the day Shell's them from close range the Marines bring up their artillery pound Japanese supply dumps and a lot of he's erupted on the shore and so of the Japanese effort to get a major reinforcements to the island it falls apart Rear Admiral Spruance who is deputy commander the Pacific Fleet at the time wrote the ciency pack the commander chief of the Pacific Fleet report and he had this quote in it which gives you some sense of how he felt about how things went through this series of actions in November all right so there's callaghan's fight and then there's Lee's fight and this is all the results of haul Z's effort to continue punching and keeping the pressure on the Japanese many courageous decisions heroic actions without number there's an additional naval action that happens later in November but it's of a Frank character the Japanese have shifted tactics rather than ruining battleships and cruisers see island they bring destroyers and other destroyer transport mission holes he goes after them again with a mixed cruiser destroyer force and the Americans have not adapted effectively yet to the change in Japanese tactics because the Japanese tactics now rely on stealthy torpedo attacks while the Americans emphasize gunnery from a distance and so the cruiser Northampton is torpedoed and sunk and three others are seriously damaged but the Japanese begin to realize that they are not going to be able to maintain the kind of resupply efforts that would be required to keep presence on the island so by 9 December the army takes over as a general patch they're in the sunglasses or leaves Vandergrift the 25th Infantry Division arrives on the island and Pat's begins offensive operations to push the Japanese off of it and so the battles of mount austin the galloping horse and sea horse the army fights the Japanese through the jungle terrain eventually overwhelms their positions there's a significant fortified area called the Gifu named after a Japanese province and they pushed them out of it and so by 9 February patch is able to radio back to Admiral Halsey and say that the Tokyo Express which was the Marines name for the Japanese resupply missions that would come every night no longer has a terminus on Guadalcanal Island was that one was secure and I'd like to close with this picture this is Gunner's Mate second class Charles J Hanson and you may not be able to read it but he's got a tattoo here and that tattoo is a memorial to his shipmates vincennes one of the cruisers tongkat Savile Island and so Hanson comes through the Guadalcanal fighting transformed as does the Navy all right they learn a great deal about what kinds of tactics work they emphasized three things going in gunnery aggressive action and decentralized command and control rights give the initiative to your subordinates and allow them to seize on opportunities and I believe that the emphasis on those three are one of the reasons why there were strategic victories in the night actions that were fought off Guadalcanal and also that informed the Marines approached general Vandergrift supposed to fighting on the island but what I really want to leave you with and which is the other reason why I like this picture is that this is this is a human story and there were a lot of very important decisive decisions that individuals took King's decision to take the offensive Edson's defense on the ridge Callahan's desperate close-range action with San Francisco Lee's work methodical work and gunnery as well as the actions of all the other individuals that I haven't mentioned the Aviators and the Marines and the soldiers who fought on the island thank you [Applause] as you know I always lament about our veterans and relish that we have a gentleman here this evening by the name of Ken Hanson I'm gonna give a little bit of introduction he was born to lose moved to Minneapolis went to schools at Hawthorne Franklin Gordon and North High School graduated in 1938 from North High School he worked for the National Youth administration part of the New Deal programs for a while worked for Mike Thompson's shoes enlisted January 42 and as I heard him tell the story he went down to the federal building was sworn in walked across the street to what is then and now the Milwaukee Road Depot and went off to war he did his basic training at Great Lakes and then went out to Oakland awaiting assignment in February of 1942 the USS Colorado came down and he was assigned to be on the Colorado some circumstances that seemed pretty tough to me he got on the ship very shortly after that had a hernia operation at sea you may have seen those stories but not an operating room on a ship in in patrolling the west coast after he survived the hernia operation he was assigned into the commissary and Kent I'm going to leave it right there for you tell your stories I'm gonna start off with something that's amusing that happened on our ship and it's one of these deals where relates about an incident about the Colorado one morning that chief petty officer reported back from Liberty and a rather tipsy condition and as he waived his way onto the deck he made no attempt to hide the bottle of liquor he was carrying this was one regulation that was strictly enforced the officer of the deck did not want to put the chief on report so he said I'm going to turn my back ten seconds during that time I want to clearly hear the splash of that bottle as it hits the water the chief quickly pulled off once you tucked the bottle under his shirt and threw the shoe over the side the officer of the deck upon hearing the splash turned around and said that's better a happy chief carefully winked his way down the hatch [Applause] okay a little bit about my time I joined the Navy in January of 42 but thought I interviewed told me because there was around New Year's Day and he allowed me to stay home for that time so I didn't go in until after the New Year's anyway well I'll read it I joined the Navy in January 42 a month after the bombing of Pearl Harbor until October 45 I was sent to the Great Lakes for a few weeks doing gunnery training no I you got to understand I'm left-handed and that gunnery sergeant had a heck of a time with me he wanted me to shift me over the right side and I couldn't do that so anyway I fired from the left side and that guard bolt-action come and hit me post to blow my eye I said well that was my experience with the rifle so then after that I was sent to Oakland California to weight assignment as to his ship which was a Colorado that was in February actually February 9th 242 which by the way I was married on February 9th on 46 to my wife which is ironic so I was placed in the radio gang but like Don said I I found out I had a hernia operation and that and I was in sickbay until I was discharged then they allowed me to go back to CR which is radio communication and instead of using the hammock for fear that would fall out and I was in this healing process so they ushered a cot for me to sleep on well I got so far behind in training they transferred weed through the deck force and I was with the deck force for a few months and I worked on the working parties for a while and went up to the bridge and I was nervous as heck about that because you got your up of the bridge and I don't know whether there's a captain or somebody and you have to relate the communication between the bridge and the engine room and I was sweating and I was scared and whatever and I was afraid I was going to make an error and I was wondering what he's going to put me in the Brig if I made an error so anyway that was part of that well that time in the deck force was very short it was a few months then for some reason or other I don't know how that happened but I got into the commissary and for some reason or other I had the idea it was a chief petty officer burns and where that name came up from I don't know but I do remember that later on there were two men that I remember quite well and their names was paps and Warner and anyway they needed a signature from the division officer who was that time lieutenant Walter eventually he was killed in action there well anyway they got a signature from him and therefore I was transferred over the commissary and then for the mother that time on I stayed as a Baker with the rate of Baker third class I tried to go for a baker second but at that time they start freezing the rate so I just stayed as a baker third class okay okay one other thing I want to mention to you about the Colorado you have to remember that the Colorado is Commissioner 23 but this was really starting at least to me the Colorado was the first first all-electric ship that got 21 knots of speed easily and under force draft was capable of reaching 24 knots she relied on electric power to do all and from the raising of the huge anchors to the running of the potato peeler oh yeah another thing that happened before the bombing of Pearl Harbor there was a fight going on between the we ve or the West Virginia and the Colorado at that time the Colorado was in Port at Ford Island and but being that the Colorado needed some overhaul to bring it up to date to fight the present war there is a little fist fight going on there because the hierarchy they were going to send away West Virginia to the States and all of a sudden the order came back and he said no we're gonna keep the West Virginia here and put Colorado back to the States meaning like I said they needed it for overhaul to meet the present time so there was a lot of fighting going on and that continued for quite a while oh yeah and then after the West Coast training we headed for Pearl on 42 and then we participated in Fiji Island and the New Hebrides from 40 November 42 to September 43 to stop the Japanese expansion and I had here yeah yeah the time that we spent the New Hebrides the first eight months of 43 was spent in either Fiji Islands or New Hebrides talk about boredom we had mail calls were frequent there was a sense of boredom that prevailed officers attempted to counteract this with shipboard entertainment movies liberties food poisoning was not uncommon and when in sickbay and this kind of silly but there were apparently was a rock that they called which made me call monument Rock and it was used for a day-to-day for short bombardment so I'm not sure about that at all and then while we were at Ely we were allowed two cans of beer every fourth day and they could only be used on shore and so then when we got done for that yet let me interrupt here because I want you to go back to one other thing that you had told me when the Colorado finally came into Pearl Harbor describe what you saw when you came into Pearl Harbor after the attack do you recall that not too much it well this you know but there was still the destruction of the ships was evident right and you were glad that you hadn't been there in the West Virginia had been right right so I'm not I'm a little fuzzy about that I'll catch to that now I understand so anyway when we were at yeah that was when we were ready to go for our first combat and Tarawa and one but yet you won't believe this but Admiral spurn Spruance assemble one that a largest fleet to attack the island of Tarawa it consisted of 17 carriers of various types twelve battleships of which we were a part of eight heavy cruisers four light cruisers 66 destroyers and thirty-six transports now I want to tell you about when you get in a place these big 16-inch guns regardless what they do it with the enemy which they do a terrific job but I don't know if any of you realize what damage it does to your own ship so I'm gonna give you a little idea what what happened here the guns can do their job as far as the enemy but do you realize what it does for the ship the shell hoist and terror number four was put out of commission and needs immediate repair to steam lines one waterline and one other line ruptured and needs repair and that's immediately several rivets have been torn out and ball crates have been strained all over the ship stanchions and welded braces have been pulled apart in many places desk and office have been torn loose from the bulkheads the steel slops shoots on the gallery deck were taped in okay yes what did it do to your your body you're talking about what it did to the ship you're you're hearing after it right a salvo the 16 inch had to be devastating for this human right it you just have to I don't know I'll try to try to grab hold of something solid whatever lie down whatever you can so then there's one when we were in Okinawa this is amazing Colorado holds the all-time record of 34 consecutive days of firing at an enemy in the record of 24 direct enemy air attacks in 62 days while both in Okinawa and let's see what else have I got here oh yeah I'm going to tell you a little bit we did get attacked by a common cause and that is the morning of November 27th of 1943 was misty with low clouds and surface visibility restricted suddenly two Japanese planes were spotted approaching the Colorado from a low-level position just off the starboard aft position one plane veered along the side of the ship and crashed just off the bow so close that the deck was drenched with water and the debris as the plane exploded hitting the water the other plane crashed aft at the break of the boat deck the impacting explosion was so great and must have been loaded to capacity and with additional explosive the 5-inch casemates and the quad 40 millimeter mount took brunt of the damage several of the of both gun crews were killed and most most of the survivors were wounded okay I'm getting close to okay we were there at the surrender I thought maybe we would be alongside of the Missouri because Nimitz had us foreclose bombardment because of the gunnery expertise I'm not sure that that's true or not but anyway after the surrender our ship lighted up and then all those ships nearby also lit up but then as we left for the state we there were 19,000 POWs and we took the most able-body ones which crowded they're overcrowded the ship but until the ship was overcrowded almost to a person they were very quiet sober and seemed to withdraw into themselves seems as if the sudden shock of the liberation had not quite soak in yet and while that happened there was a mine in the sea and one of the Marines was there and detonated it and the shock of that explosion just upset those POWs they didn't know what was happening they thought they were going through it all again so then we headed to the States okay and then what what would get on September 24 20th 1945 Colorado left Tokyo Bay bound for the States by way of Okinawa and the and Pearl Harbor the fleet made good time reaching San Francisco on the 15th of October October 16th Colorado left for a high-speed run to Seattle on arrival that the ship was given pure 91 in 1946 the Colorado was given orders to set sail for Bremerton Navy Yard for deactivation so that's what I can give you well listen I [Applause] after the war can work for general outdoors yes and was a sign painter and he had a scrapbook that he showed me that has a lot of grainbelt signs and many of the signs for Southdale when that was being organized and for Ridgedale as I recall any questions for either of our speakers Ken were you down in Guadalcanal pardon were you in Guadalcanal no other waters down we were specified for certain islands like Kwajalein any wheat our Tarawa like I said for the Philippines we were in legaia engulfed Leyte Gulf Luzon Manila and then we ended up in Tarawa as well as Tinian Island Tinian believe it or not that at all because of the height that like there were moms they were high about 500 feet high on the south end of in the north end and that's why we had such a difficult time with it and that is almost like a equal to a football field is 13 miles by 6 miles and we had the duck dynasty trying trying to conquer that and that was one of the bloodiest as well as Tarawa one of the bloodiest features that we went through Trent one question with you we did a program back in our early days with little fella named Bob Searles who was commanding a PT boat you didn't mention PT boats in your comments no I didn't that was there was there's a lot to be said about the importance of the harbor at szilágyi which was the original target of the operation because the the wounded ships like Portland with her bent Stern and many of the others this suffered from Japanese tour videos took shelter and Tuilagi to LA he was also an operating base for the PT boats right so the night that Willis Lee takes Washington into the sound there there our PT boats in the waters and they initially think that he's a Japanese ship and so they have to get called off but they are instrumental to harassing Japanese reinforcement efforts particularly later in the campaign after November they actually sink its destroyer they sink a Japanese submarine and they're part of the campaign of pressure and aggressive action that Halsey keeps up all through the latter half of or the latter half of the campaign now I realize you I mean you could have done an 8 8 hour presentation so I understand any other comments or questions over here over there yeah let me run over this is for Trent and I really enjoyed your presentation but I understand one of the things that the Navy learned during World War Two was combat loading to make sure that the right stuff was available immediately and that the first landing at Guadalcanal was sort of how everything can be done wrong on combat loading did that improve later in the campaign on Guadalcanal or was that something perfected later on no that that doesn't prove that was recognized as an initial problem part of it is that there there hadn't been enough time to actually combat load some of the ships might be because there's so much pressure to make sure that the the operation gets off on time many people who are part of it referred to it as operation shoestring you should probably know because he just the Marines initially did not have all the things that they needed and your observation about combat loading is absolutely right the ship's initially were not combat loaded they were loaded for efficiency so how do we make sure that we fit all the equipment into the hull not how do we make sure that we can get out the right things at the right time but that was recognized early on and something that was done much better as that campaign went on Trent in your conversation Monday with the C&O one of the things that was emphasized in your presentation was the initiative taken of take the action and try to get the approval with the the world of the corporate world in the military world you know it's micromanage too much was there any discussion with him on that I I don't want to say too much about what he said because I think that's his prerogative but I'll talk about what I said and and there was a little bit of that and and how I think it's important to operate within the constraints that you have whether those happen to be the the ships that you get the orders that you receive or particularly in the casinos mindframe the constraints the laws you know that that Congress puts into place because there are certain organizations that the Navy has in certain organizations that it doesn't but if you look at its history the general board which was introduced in 1900 is introduced by an executive order from the Secretary of the Navy and it's only later that it gains congressional approval the naval aides which predate the Chief of Naval Operations for also from the early 19th century that's another secretarial decision so there are certain parameters that you can work within I mention too that any other questions yes sir in your research would you have any comments to make about the Japanese perspective of Guadalcanal that's yeah that's a that's a good question I think I I'm much more familiar with the the American side of things I have not had the opportunity to look into the Japanese records but one of the things that sticks out to me is that as much as the Japanese invested in the idea of a decisive action they did not seem to recognize ball of canal as such so the the battleships that they send to bombard Henderson field are battleships that have cooperated with cruiser and destroyer forces at night they're not the large powerful battleships that they intended to make as the center of their battle line so there's there's a husbanding of resources that you see that Nimitz and his subordinates did not do and and so that I think is a very interesting dichotomy there hey Don yes sir can I mention one thing about that Yamamoto [Music] that way back in time the United States had specifications as to how ships are to be built Japan was invited but they disagreed and they paid their own specification and out of that there are two sister ships and I don't call the one but the Yamamoto gave us a lot of problems and it was the heaviest warship battleships that the length of that was 700 and some feet its speed was 28 knots and we had more problems with that ship because we called it a ghost ship because one minute was there the next minute it was gone we could not track that ship down at all finally in April of 4045 and finally got sunk but that they didn't go by the specification we had and it was one of the heaviest warship heavily-armed unbelievable okay well listen we're gonna call it quits books are in the back these guys will stay here we'll see you next month thanks support for this program provided by viewers like you thank you additional support provided through the Catherine B Anderson fund of the Saint Paul foundation upcoming roundtable topics can be found at w WM w - roundtable urg production services provided by barrows productions [Music] [Applause]

Channel: World War II History Round Table

Views: 80,430

Rating: 4.633626 out of 5

Keywords: WWII, Guadalcanal, US Navy

Id: QzQQSob4wkw

Length: 84min 11sec (5051 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 30 2018