US Marine Corps - The Black Vault
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<strong>The</strong> Amphibians<br />
Came to Conquer<br />
Volume I<br />
U.S. <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong><br />
FMFRP 12-109-I<br />
PCN 140 12991900
1. PURPOSE<br />
DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY<br />
Headquarters United States <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong><br />
Washington, DC 20380-0001<br />
FOREWORD<br />
26 September 1991<br />
Fleet <strong>Marine</strong> Force Reference Publication (FMFRP) 12-109-1,<strong>The</strong>AmphibiansCameto Conquer, ispublished<br />
to ensure the retention and dissemination of useful information which is not intended to become<br />
doctrine or to be published in Fleet <strong>Marine</strong> Force manuals. FMFRPs in the 12series are a special category<br />
of publications: reprints of historical works which are not available elsewhere.<br />
2. SCOPE<br />
Thk reference publication is Volume 1 of the two-volume biography of Vice Admiral Richmond Kelly<br />
Turner, the officer who commanded the Navy amphibious forces in the Pacific theater during World War<br />
U. <strong>The</strong>se publications reveal thedevelopment of themanas well asthedevelopment of the amphibious<br />
doctrine, tactics, and techniques which defeated the Japanese forces in the Pacific. What was developed<br />
inthe Pacific theater wasused succ@sfullyinthe African and European theaters. <strong>The</strong>AmphibiansCame<br />
to Conquer and Cora/and Brass (FMFRP 12-37)are companion publications which provide a unique insight<br />
into how amphibious operations, themost difficult ofoperations, can replanned andexecutedsuc-<br />
Cessfully.<br />
3. CERTIFICATION<br />
Reviewed and approved this date.<br />
DISTRIBUTION: 14012991900<br />
BY DIRECTION OF THE COMMANDANT OF THE MARINE CORPS<br />
7? f%2z-g==’<br />
M. P; CAUL LD<br />
Major General, U.S. <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong><br />
Director, MAGTF Warfighting Center<br />
<strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> Combat Development Command<br />
Quantico, Virginia
80-G-227738<br />
Rear Admiral Richmond KeUy Turraer enrotite to Kwajalein on board <strong>US</strong><br />
Rocky Mount, ]anwry 1944.
<strong>The</strong> Amphibians<br />
Came to Conquer<br />
THE STORY OF<br />
ADMIRAL<br />
RICHMOND KELLY TURNER<br />
I<br />
1?<br />
by<br />
VICE ADMIRAL<br />
GEORGE CARROLL<br />
<strong>US</strong>N (Retired)<br />
With an introduction by<br />
DYER<br />
REAR ADMIRAL<br />
ERNEST McNEILL ELLER<br />
<strong>US</strong>N (Retired)
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 71–603853
Prologue<br />
In a letter to the Director of Naval History, 9 November 1956, Admiral<br />
Kelly Turner wrote as follows:<br />
But the matter of my writing a book—and particularly a history of all<br />
past amphibious warfare—is quite a different thing, and one which I would<br />
not care to undertake. Before retiring in 1$)47’,I did give serious thought to<br />
writing an account of the amphibious operations in which I participated, but<br />
decided against doing so for several reasons.<br />
In the first place, writing history is quite a field in itself, and one with<br />
which I am unfamiliar. I definitely would not attempt it by the use of a<br />
‘ghost’. Look at all the lousy books that ghosts have produced since the war!<br />
Again, it would have meant living in Washington for several years, of<br />
digging into many thousands of documents written by other officers as well<br />
as by my staff and myself, and of which I do not have copies. Finally, I<br />
scarcely could have avoided controversy, and giving myself ‘breaks’ that<br />
perhaps would be undeserved.<br />
So, Judge, the whole thing simply did not appeal to me then, and appeals<br />
to me even less now. Future professional historians will write what they feel<br />
like writing anyhow, whether truthful or not. So I’m willing to let them<br />
disagree among themselves !<br />
When I had my first interview about this book with Kelly Turner, he<br />
told me with a grin:<br />
When Judge told me that you were willing to undertake the task, I thought,<br />
‘Well, he’s just enough of a son-of-a-bitch to do a good job.’<br />
So, I told Judge ‘all right’.<br />
v
Acknowledgements<br />
During the nine years that the author of this factual study of the life of<br />
Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner worked on these volumes, hundreds of all<br />
ranks and ratings in the Armed Forces have been interviewed. My very real<br />
thanks go to each one of them for their contribution to this work, but<br />
particularly to those wI-10had the intestinal fortitude to permit themselves<br />
to be quoted when they had something critical to say abou; the subject.<br />
To the Director of Naval History, Rear Admiral E. M. Eller, who initiated<br />
this factual study, who encouraged me to undertake it and then patiently,<br />
very patiently, waited for the end product, more than thanks is due. My<br />
warmest gratitude extends to him.<br />
<strong>The</strong> long seige of my efforts was mostly carried through in the Navy’s<br />
Classified Operational Archives, whose physical location shifted frequently,<br />
but the courtesy of Dean Allard who heads the Archives Division and of<br />
Mrs. Mildred Mayeux, research assistant, who was a thousand times helpful,<br />
never shifted. <strong>The</strong>y are real gems in the naval historical research field.<br />
To Mr. Paul A. Sweeney of the Office of Naval Operations, who took my<br />
maps and diagrams and made them come alive with his cartographic art,<br />
my deepest thanks.<br />
To my friends of many years, Vice Admiral T. G. W. Settle and Captain<br />
John E. Dingwell, who read the manuscript and pointed out my errors, thanks<br />
again for their patience and real help.<br />
To a former Ships Writer of mine, Chris A. Miller, who persisted through<br />
his retirement years in the decipherment of my handwriting and the typing<br />
(and then retyping) thanks ten times over. And to Mrs. Jean Ellinger who<br />
typed the final smooth copy so well, an accolade.<br />
Last, but not least, my wife of 48 years bore with me and my writing chore<br />
with remarkable understanding, year after year after year, and my public<br />
thanks to her.<br />
GEORGE C. DYER<br />
vii
Foreword<br />
THE AMPHIBIANS CAME TO CONQUER<br />
This book is a story of a fighting man—Kelly Turner—of the maturing<br />
United States Navy, and of the people who helped develop the man into a<br />
fighting admiral. It is also a story of the seagoing part of the amphibious<br />
operations of World War II in which Kelly Turner fought.<br />
Since Kelly Turner was a United States Naval Oficer and fought only in<br />
the Pacific Ocean in World War II, this book deals primarily with the<br />
amphibious matters of the World War II Pacific campaigns. But it does not<br />
pretend to tell the whole story of our naval war or the amphibious campaigns<br />
in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945. After all, it took that distinguished historian,<br />
Samuel E. Morison, nine of his 14 volume Hiftory of Unzted States Naval<br />
Operations in World War II and 18 years to do that chore.<br />
KelIy Turner’s claim to permanent naval distinction arises out of his<br />
contributions to the amphibious phases of World War II in the South and<br />
Central Pacific Oceans. So this volume moves from Pacific island to Pacific<br />
atoll to Pacific island again, as our bone crushing amphibious operations<br />
cleared the stepping stones to Tokyo.<br />
It also tells a bit of the state of the purely naval aspects of the amphibious<br />
art when World War II started. And, more importantly, what happened as<br />
the war moved along to improve the art, as Kelly Turner and a million other<br />
Americans brought their minds to bear on “the most difficult problem” in<br />
warfare, an amphibious operation.<br />
During the 24 years since World War 11 ended, most of the titans of the<br />
World War II Navy—namely Leahy, King, Nimitz, Halsey, Edwards—have<br />
told their last anecdote and voyaged over the line into their last snug harbor.<br />
In an effort to get a well-rounded picture of Kelly Turner and of the various<br />
amphibious operations, those of the titans (Nimitz, Kinkaid, Spruance) still<br />
alive when this was being researched and many of his other seniors and<br />
principal subordinates have been consulted about a vast variety of matters<br />
ix
in connection with which they were in a position to witness events or to have<br />
informed opinions.<br />
Keeping in mind that the historian’s rule is that the pale ink of a contem-<br />
porary record is better than the best memory, still there are some facts and<br />
many important opinions never committed to that contemporary record. At<br />
least that was this biographer’s own experience during service through three<br />
wars in the United States Navy. So it is only fair to say that the contents of<br />
this book are colored by the facts revealed and opinions expressed by those<br />
consulted, as well as by the basic contemporary record.<br />
Every major amphibious operation in the South and Central Pacific cam-<br />
paigns was born and bred among strong men of strong professional opinions.<br />
<strong>The</strong> student of amphibious warfare and of the Navy will benefit from men-<br />
tion of those differing opinions, for he must prepare himself to operate<br />
successfully in an atmosphere of strong professional judgments in any future<br />
arena of war.<br />
A/%zl 23, 1969<br />
A +nq~ ? %5<br />
GEORGE C. DYER<br />
PENDENNIS MOUNT<br />
ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND
Chapter<br />
I<br />
II<br />
III<br />
IV<br />
v<br />
VI<br />
VII<br />
VIII<br />
IX<br />
x<br />
XI<br />
XII<br />
XIII<br />
XIV<br />
xv<br />
XVI<br />
XVII<br />
XVIII<br />
XIX<br />
xx<br />
XXI<br />
XXII<br />
XXIII<br />
XXIV<br />
xxv<br />
XXVI<br />
-<br />
Lontents<br />
VOLUME I<br />
Prologue<br />
Acknowledgements ........... ...’ ...-’..<br />
Foreword ......................................................... .. ................................................ .................<br />
Introduction ............. .................... ............ ..... .....<br />
<strong>The</strong> First Thirty Years of “Kelly’;<br />
1885–1915 ............................................... ....................................................<br />
Ten Years of Big Ship Gunnery;<br />
1916-1926 .................................................................................................................................<br />
Early Years of a Decade of Service in the Naval Aeronautical Organization;<br />
1927–1932 ................................................................................................<br />
In and Out of Big Time Naval Aviation;<br />
1932–1940 . . . .. ........ ............................ ..... ................................<br />
Planning for War with Germany or Japan, or Both; 1940–1941 . ..<br />
1941 Naval Organization, Doctrine and Landing Craft Developments<br />
for Amphibious War . . . ..............................<br />
WATCHTOWER; One for Ernie King .. .. .. ... ........................... ........ ...<br />
CACT<strong>US</strong> Bound ....... ........ ............ .<br />
Success,<strong>The</strong>n Cliff Hanging ...................................................................... ..<br />
SAVO—<strong>The</strong> Galhng Defeat .................................... .................................................<br />
Logistics, the Heart of the Six Months Battle; August 1942–February<br />
1943 .,.’,..,,.. .........,...’.......’....<br />
HUDDLE Slowly Scuttled .<br />
Polishing Skills in the Russells ... ................................... .. ................. ....... ...... .. ...........<br />
Planning for Paring the Japanese Toenails in New Georgia<br />
Tough Toenails Paring; 30 June 1943 to 15 July 1943 ... .. ..........................<br />
VOLUME II<br />
To the Central Pacific and Tarawa . .. ..... ...................................<br />
<strong>The</strong> Pushover—M&in . . . ...... ..... ........................... ...........<br />
That Real Toughie—Tarawa ..... .. ..... ............. ........ .. .. .....<br />
At Long Last ‘<strong>The</strong> Perfect One,” <strong>The</strong> Marshalls .........................................<br />
Roi—Namur, and <strong>The</strong> Frosting on the Cake-Eniwetok . .<br />
<strong>The</strong> Nut Cracker; Saipan—Tinian--Guam<br />
<strong>The</strong> Nut Cracker After the Fall of Saipan; Tinian-Guam ..................<br />
Iwo Jima; Death at Its Best . . .<br />
Okinawa and Four Stars ......................................................................................................<br />
End of the War and United Nations Organization Duty ..............................<br />
<strong>The</strong> Last Long Mile ................ ...................... ................... ......<br />
Appendix A—<strong>US</strong>S Richmond K. Turner ................................... .......<br />
Appendix B—A Note on Primary Sources ............................................................<br />
Appendix C—<strong>The</strong> Last Word .....................................................................<br />
Bibliography .......................................................................................<br />
Index ......................................................................................................................... ......................<br />
Page<br />
v<br />
vii<br />
ix<br />
xix<br />
1<br />
51<br />
87<br />
115<br />
153<br />
201<br />
229<br />
277<br />
319<br />
355<br />
403<br />
435<br />
457<br />
481<br />
533<br />
597<br />
651<br />
683<br />
733<br />
801<br />
853<br />
925<br />
969<br />
1053<br />
1113<br />
1137<br />
1175<br />
1179<br />
1181<br />
1185<br />
1191<br />
xi
Illustrations and Charts<br />
(Illustrations identifiedby numbersprecededb 80.G are official U.S. Naval photographs in the National<br />
Archives; those numberedwith NR&L(M) preJxes are in tbe historical collectionin the U.S. Naval Photographic<br />
Center, Washington, D. C. ; those numbered with NH prefixes, and those identified as from the<br />
Turnel Collection, are in the Naval History Division, Washington, D.C.)<br />
VOLUME I<br />
Rear Admiral Turner enroute to Kwajalein____________ ._________ ---frontispiece<br />
Richmond Kelly Turner at fifteen _______________________________________ 7<br />
Invitation to reception, 1900__________________________________________ 8<br />
High school graduation _____________________________________________ 10<br />
<strong>US</strong>51Miitiaukee___________________________________________________ 31<br />
Ensign Turner and niece ____________________________________________ 34<br />
Kelly Turner and his bride-to-be ______________________________________ 37<br />
Ensign Turner in landing force uniform ________________________________ 44<br />
Lieutenant (jg) Turner at San Pedro de Macoris _________________________ 47<br />
Commander Turner at about 45_______________________________________ 82<br />
Commander Turner, Executive Oficer of <strong>US</strong>SSarutoga ____________________ 117<br />
<strong>US</strong>SAstoria woodat _______________________________________________ 143<br />
Funeral procession for late Ambassador Saito ____________________________ 144<br />
Sailors carrying ashes _______________________________________________ 145<br />
Captain Turner, Mr. Arita, and Joseph Grew ____________________________ 147<br />
Turner-drafted despatch __________________________________________ 178–79<br />
Beardall memorandum _____________________________________________ 180<br />
Central and South Pacific Area (chart) _________________________________ 231<br />
Solomon Islands, Santa Cruz Islands (chart)____________________________ 236<br />
South Pacific island garrisons (chart)___________________________________ 237<br />
Lines of communication (chart)_______________________________________ 250<br />
South Pacific distance chart __________________________________________ 251<br />
Captain James H. Doyle, <strong>US</strong>N________________________________________ 271<br />
Kelly Turner at Tongatabu, Tonga Islands ________________________________ 278<br />
Organization of the South Pacific Force ________________________________ 280<br />
Organization of Permanent Forces of PHIBFORSOPAC ___________________ 281<br />
Rear Admiral Turner and Majo; General Vandegrift ______________________ 289<br />
Amphibious Force, TF620rganization for WATCHTOWER ---------------- 291<br />
COMSOPAC organization for WATCHTOWER ________________________ 292<br />
Expeditionary Force, TF61 organization for WATCHTOWER ______________ 292<br />
Top Echelon organization for WATCHTOWER _________________________ 293<br />
On the bridge of <strong>US</strong>SMcC4wfey ______________________________________ 299<br />
...<br />
X111<br />
Page
Page<br />
<strong>The</strong> Fiji Islands (chart) ____________________________________________ 306<br />
<strong>The</strong> Solomons and Southern Approaches (chart)_________________________ 314<br />
<strong>The</strong> Solomon Islands (chart)________________________________________ 320<br />
Guadalcanal-Tulagi (chart) _________________________________________ 322<br />
Task Force 62 Cruising Disposition (chart)_____________________________ 324<br />
Guadalcanal and the Russell Islands (chart)_____________________________ 325<br />
Landing Objectives—Tulagi-Gavutm (chart)_____________________________ 331<br />
<strong>Marine</strong> landing at Tongalsland ______________________________________ 334<br />
Transport Area, Guadalcanal (chart)__________________________________ 335<br />
Mineswept Areas, Guadalcanal (chart)_________________________________ 339<br />
Japanese attacks, Guadalcanal ________________________________________ 347<br />
JaPanese high-level attacks, GuadalcanaI-------------------------------- 349<br />
Battle of Savo Island (chart)_________________________________________ 356<br />
Plane lightings of Japanese Cruiser Force (chart)------------------------- 363<br />
Vice Admird Gunichi Mikawa, IJN___________________________________ 366<br />
Ship disposition at Savo Island (chart) _________________________________ 376<br />
Disposition of Patrol and Screening Groups atSavo (chart)________________ 379<br />
Multiple Approach Route—Savo (chart)_______________________________ 381<br />
Rear Admiral Turner at sea, 1942_____________________________________ 409<br />
Guadalcanal supply lines (chart)_______,_______________________________ 418<br />
Santa Cruz Island (chart)___________________________________________ 436<br />
Officersand Men of the Staff Allowance, COMPHIBFORSOPAC ____________ 459<br />
Movement to CLEANSLATE (chart) __________________________________ 461<br />
Russell Islands (chart)_____________________________________________ 469<br />
Airfield Banika Island______________________________________________ 471<br />
<strong>The</strong> Bismarck Barrier (chart)________________ ________________________ 482<br />
New Georgia and Rendova Island (chart)______________________________ 486<br />
TOENAILS Operation Area (chati)___________________________________ 489<br />
JaPanese Defense Organization for Bismarck Barrier---------------------- 491<br />
Training Seabees at Noumea, New Caledonia____________________________ 495<br />
Rear Admiral Turner with Seabee officers_______________________________ 496<br />
Vangunu and New Georgia Islands (chart)_____________________________ 497<br />
Colonel Henry D. Linscott, <strong>US</strong>MC------------------------------------ 508<br />
Oficers’ Quarters, Guadalcanal_______________________________________ 510<br />
SOPACNaval Organization for TOENAILS ____________________________ 514<br />
<strong>The</strong> Admiral’s Head _______________________________________________ 517<br />
Lieutenant Colonel Frank D.Weir, <strong>US</strong>MC______________________________ 519<br />
Staff of Commander Amphibious Force South Pacific______________________ 521<br />
Task Force 310rganization for TOENAILS _____________________________ 524<br />
lst Echelon Western Group (TU31.l)_________________________________ 526<br />
Eastern Force organization for TOENAILS ______________________________ 526<br />
<strong>The</strong> day's catch____________________________________________________ 529<br />
Lieutenant Charles Stein (SC), <strong>US</strong>N__________________________________ 529<br />
New Georgia Group (chart)_________________________________________ 534<br />
Assault Force organization for TOENAILS ______________________________ 535<br />
xiv
Page<br />
New Georgia Island, Onaiavisi Entrance (chart) -------------------------- 540<br />
Rendova Harbor (chart)-------------------------------------------- 543<br />
Road at East and West Beaches, Rendova ------------------------------- 544<br />
Rendova-New Georgia Area (chart)___________________________________ 546<br />
LCI(L)Group 141anding craft, Rendova Harbor (chart)__________________ 553<br />
Men of the 24th Constru~ion Battalion _________________________________ 557<br />
Japanese airattack, 30 June 1943 (chart) -------------------------------- 558<br />
Eastern Force organization for TOENAILS _____________________________ 563<br />
Viru Harbor (chart)_______________________________________________ 568<br />
Vangunu Island and Wickham Anchorage (chart)--------------------------- 573<br />
Zanana Beach, New Georgia Island (chart)_______________________________ 578<br />
Rice Anchorage, New Georgia Island (chart)_____________________________ 580<br />
Bairoca Road, Munda, New Georgia ___________________________________ 584<br />
Cargo unloaded at Munda ------------------------------------------- 588<br />
VOLUME H<br />
Fifth Amphibious Force Emblem _______________________________________ 602<br />
Rear Admiral Turner, Fall 1943_____________________________________ 605<br />
<strong>US</strong>S Pennsylvania (BB-38)__________________________________________ 610<br />
Marshall and Gilbert Islands (chart)____________________________________ 612<br />
Gilbert Islands [chart)_____________________________________________ 615<br />
Central Pacific (chart)______________________________________________ 615<br />
CINCPAC's Operation Plan-GALVANIC _____________________________ 629<br />
Central Pacific Forces, Fifth Fleet Operation Plan—GALVANIC --------------- 630<br />
Assault Force, TF>40peration Plan-GALVANIC ---------------------- 631<br />
Northern Attack Force, TF 520peration Plan—GALVANIC ______________ 633<br />
Makin Atoll (chart)_______________________________________________ 650<br />
Southwest Butaritari Island (chart)--------------------------------------- 660<br />
Makin Atoll, Gilbert Islands (chart)__________________________________ 664<br />
Butaritari Island, Yellow Beach Two (chart)------------------------------ 670<br />
Tarawa Atoll (chart)______________________________________________ 683<br />
Betio Island (chart)_______________________________________________ 689<br />
Landing craft allocation, Betio (chart)_________________________________ 695<br />
Red Beaches, Betio Island (chart)____________________________________ 698<br />
Japan to the Gilberts (chart)________________________________________ 735<br />
<strong>The</strong> Marshall Islands (chart)_________________________________________ 738<br />
Kwajalein Atoll (chati)____________________________________________ 750<br />
Fifth Fleet Command organization for FLINTLOCK _____________________ 754<br />
Joint Expeditionary Force, TF510rganization for FLINTLOCK ____________ 754<br />
Southern Attack Force, TF 52 organization for FLINTLOCK ______________ 755<br />
Fifth Amphibious Force Staff _________________________________________ 759<br />
Blockhouse “BRUCE” on Roi Island ___________________________________ 764<br />
Southern Kwajalein Atoll (chart)____________________________________ 768<br />
Geaand South Passes (chart)_________________________________________ 768<br />
Roi-Namur (chart) _______________________________________________ 772<br />
Majuroor Arrowsmith Atoll (chart)__________________________________ 774<br />
xv
Page<br />
<strong>US</strong>SRochy Mount, Marshall Islands___________________________________ 7SCI<br />
Gea Pass (chart) ________ ----------------------------------------- 784<br />
Landing beaches, Kwajalein Island (chart)_____________________________ 794<br />
Northern Kwajalein (chart)_________________________________________ 801<br />
<strong>US</strong>SAPPalachian (AGC-1)_________________________________________ 804<br />
Landing Plan-IVAN and JACOB (chart)------------------------------ 805<br />
Roi-Namur Fire Support Areas (chart)________________________________ 814<br />
Blockhouse at Red Beach Three, Roi Island ______________________________ 818<br />
<strong>Marine</strong>s waiting to advance at Green Beach Two_________________________ 819<br />
Eniwetok AtoIl (chart)_____________________________________________ 824<br />
Rear Admiral HarryW. Hill and Brigadier General Thomas E. Watson _____ 828<br />
Engebi Island (chafi)______________________________________________ 835<br />
Eniwetok Island (chati)____________________________________________ 835<br />
Parry Island (chart)_______________________________________________ 840<br />
Pacific distance chart _______________________________________________ 85S<br />
Lower Marianas distance chart _______________________________________ 858<br />
Vice Admiral Turner, 6June 1944____________________________________ 863<br />
Vice Admiral Turner atthe Saipan attack _________________________________ 866<br />
Northeast coastof Saipan ___________________________________________ 867<br />
Saipan (chart) ___________________________________________________ 871<br />
Fifth Fleet, TF500rganization for FORAGER __________________________ 874<br />
Joint Expeditionary Force, TF510rganization for FORAGER ______________ 875<br />
Northern Attack Force, TF520rganization for FORAGER ________________ 877<br />
Fortification, Saipan (chart)_________________________________________ 890<br />
Landing positions, Saipan (chart)______________________________________ 904<br />
Landing craft and transports _________________________________________ 908<br />
Saipan attack ____________________________________________________ 917<br />
Guam (chart) ___________________________________________________ 926<br />
Southern Guam (chart)____________________________________________ 936<br />
Coral-filled log cribs off Agana _______________________________________ 938<br />
Wire fence roll obstrudions, Agana ____________________________________ 941<br />
Barbed wire entanglementat Agana ___________________________________ 942<br />
Japanese anti-boat battery, Bangi Point ________________________________ 947<br />
Tinian Island (chart)______________________________________________ 951<br />
Tinianflag raising ceremonies, 1944____________________________________ 963<br />
Vice Admiral Turner, Commodore <strong>The</strong>iss, Captain Patted __________________ 967<br />
Admiral King's handwritten memo ____________________________________ 977<br />
<strong>US</strong>SEldorado at Iwo Jima __________________________________________ 985<br />
Vice Admiral Turner dictatingto his writer _____________________________ 986<br />
Nanpo Shoto Group (chart)_________________________________________ 988<br />
Iwo Jima (chart)_________________________________________________ 99o<br />
Vice Admiral Turner enrouteto Iwo Jima ______________________________ 992<br />
Command organization for DETACHMENT ___________________________ 995<br />
Fifth Fleet organization for DETACHMENT ___________________________ 996<br />
Joint Expeditiona~ Force for DETACHMENT _________________________ 997<br />
xvi
Page<br />
“Every Man a Lookout''____________________________________________ 1007<br />
Assault commanders in <strong>US</strong>S Rocky Moruzt______________________________ 1012<br />
Landing beach at Mount Suribachi ------------------------------------ 1017<br />
Bombardment of Mount Suribachi ____________________________________ 1019<br />
Landing craft, East Beach ___________________________________________ 1022<br />
Congestion of supplies _____________________________________________ 1026<br />
LST-764unloading at Iwo Jima -------------------------------------- 1026<br />
Road construction at Iwo-------------------------------------------------- 1029<br />
Bulldozers _______________________________________________________ 103I<br />
Preassembled Marston matting _______________________________________ 1034<br />
Unloading at Red Beach ____________________________________________ 1034<br />
View from Mount Suribachi _________________________________________ 1036<br />
Turner’s request for pre-landing bombardment ___________________________ 1043<br />
Spruance’s reply to Turner repre-landing bombardment ____________________ 1044<br />
Turner with Captain Whitehead and Commodore <strong>The</strong>iss ------------------ 1057<br />
Distance chart, Ryukyu Islands _______________________________________ 106o<br />
Okinawa (chart) _________________________________________________ 1067<br />
Kerama Retto—Okinawa Area (chart)________________________________ 1068<br />
Command organization, Okinawa _____________________________________ 107o<br />
Pacific Ocean Area, Okinawa ________________________________________ 107o<br />
Fifth Fleet organization for Okinawa __________________________________ 107I<br />
Joint Expeditionary Force Comnland for Okinawa ------------------------- 1073<br />
Military leaders, <strong>US</strong>SEldorado off Okinawa ____________________________ 1085<br />
Hagushi assault landing ____________________________________________ 109o<br />
<strong>US</strong>STetoz2 Okinawa operation ________________________________________ 1092<br />
LST-884at Kerama Retto after kamikaze attack__________________________ 1101<br />
<strong>US</strong>SLeatze after kamikaze attack_____________________________________ 1103<br />
Oil painting of Admiral Turner ______________________________________ 1107<br />
Mrs. Turner at Navy Day Luncheon, 1945______________________________ 1116<br />
Portrait of Admiral Turner __________________________________________ 1118<br />
Military Staff Committee of United Nations ------------------------------ 1120<br />
Vice Admiral and Mrs. John Ballantine ________________________________ 1123<br />
Major General Leslie Groves and Admiral Turner ________________________ 1126<br />
Mrs. Turner and her dogs------------------------------------------- 1129<br />
Admiral Turner visits the Eldor~do___________________________________ 1151<br />
Admiral Turner and Captain Peden, 1954______________________________ 1155<br />
Richmond Kelly Turner on Time magazine cover------------------------- 1164<br />
xvii
Introduction<br />
Admiral Dyer has created a unique book about a unique man in these pages<br />
filled with the clear understanding, the seeking for truth and the salty<br />
language of a true sailor. He has done this by years of indefatigable persist-<br />
ence not unlike that of his subject—a man never known to quail before a<br />
barrier or to shrink from work, danger or hardship. In fact, those on the<br />
receiving end of his amphibious typhoon soon learned that Admiral Kelly<br />
Turner didn’t even know the word barrier.<br />
Of the millions of Americans who greatly served our times afloat and<br />
ashore in the Pacific in World War II, few did not know of Kelly Turner,<br />
one of history’s ablest military leaders. He was a man greatly admired by<br />
many, greatly loved by some and greatly hated by others. He was a genius,<br />
a relentless driver of himself as well as of everyone under him, an unusual<br />
leader who could integrate into his computer brain more details of an<br />
operation than the experts on his staff knew. At the same time he could<br />
make the big decision instantly and then carry it through with unrelenting<br />
drive. He had the rare ability to see all the trees and at the same time comprehend<br />
the forest. “Terrible Turner,” as many called him, was terrible indeed<br />
to the enemy, as well as to some of those under him who did not measure<br />
up to his almost impossible standards of effectiveness.<br />
Admiral Dyer’s fascinating biography of this remarkable naval leader has<br />
many appeals. Not the least is his unremitting effort to get at the truth and<br />
frankness in relating it. He pulls no punches showing Turner just as this<br />
tough and fearless leader wanted to be shown—without camouflage. Thus the<br />
dark cruises in company with the bright. Note a few of the statements about<br />
Kelly Turner picked at random from the book:<br />
a. A “fresh caught” ensign who served in Kelly Turner’s spit and polish<br />
cruiser before World War II recalls vividly: ‘
Amphibians Came To Corzquer<br />
work. He drove himself without mercy, and he expected and<br />
demanded the same of those around him. I never saw him relax or<br />
take his ease.”<br />
c. General Holland M. (Howling Mad) Smith, Turner’s able counterpart<br />
in the <strong>Marine</strong>s writes: “Kelly Turner is aggressive, a mass of<br />
energy and a relentless task master. <strong>The</strong> punctilious exterior hides a<br />
terrific determination. He can be plain ornery. He wasn’t called<br />
‘Terrible Turner’ without reason.<br />
“He commanded the FIFTH AMPHIBIO<strong>US</strong> FORCE, while I<br />
commanded the Expeditionary Troops which went along with the<br />
Navy and our partnership, though stormy, spelled hell in big red<br />
letters to the Japanese.”<br />
As a young officer, many years his junior, I had not heard of Kelly Turner<br />
before World War 11. His name hove in sight for me with his well-executed<br />
landing on Guadalcanal and subsequent bitter defeat in the Japanese surprise<br />
night attack of what we then called the first battle of Save—and of which<br />
as part of my duties on Admiral Nimitz’s staff, I prepared the CINCPAC<br />
action report. <strong>The</strong> same questions about this battle that Admiral Dyer so well<br />
explains without bias, but with care to present all of the evidence, likewise<br />
deeply concerned us at the time. Yet I think most agreed with the decision<br />
that the defeat did not mean that Admiral Turner would be relieved.<br />
In November 1942 on a trip to Guadalcanal and elsewhere in the Pacific<br />
related to training, battle lessons, and improvements in ordnance and gun-<br />
nery, I first met Admiral Turner in his flagship at Noumea. Subsequently<br />
I rode with him in his flagship, as in the Gilberts operation, or visited him<br />
from another ship in later mighty amphibious assaults including Okinawa<br />
that swept awesomely across the Pacific like successive typhoons. I saw him<br />
often at Pearl Harbor in the planning stages of these far-reaching campaigns<br />
as we and his staff worked closely on bombardment plans, shore fire control<br />
parties, tactics, training, and other facets of amphibious operations like<br />
underwater demolition teams. <strong>The</strong> initial team developed late in the planning<br />
for the Gilberts operations evolving from intelligence on boat mines close<br />
inshore and the problem of reefs interfering with movement to the beaches.<br />
<strong>The</strong> first makeshift team, hurriedly assembled, served such good purpose in<br />
the Gilberts operation that a full program sprang from it.<br />
No man could have been more courteous, gentlemanly and kind than<br />
Admiral Turner was to me, a visitor and observer in his domain. At the<br />
xx
Introduction<br />
same time I could see the relentless tenacity with which he cracked his whip<br />
over those who formed his team. He drove them ruthlessly but none more<br />
so than himself, as Admiral Dyer clearly brings out.<br />
If I were to measure the traits that make a leader succeed, I would place<br />
at the top courage and drive (the will to win), faith in Divine guiding<br />
power, preparation and knowledge, integrity. If a leader has these, few<br />
things short of death can stop him. If to them he adds generosity of spirit,<br />
compassion and patience with people, overlaid on his own impatience to<br />
succeed, he will be greatly loved.<br />
Though often lacking this last noble trait, Admiral Turner had the qualities<br />
necessary to succeed to an eminent degree. Nothing fazed him. Difficulty and<br />
danger stirred him to his most brilliant endeavor, He seemed to fear neither<br />
death nor the devil and hurled himself into the forefront of the greatest peril,<br />
On one of the operations I remember being shown by the flag censor an outgoing<br />
letter from a sailor on the flagship. It read something like this, “We<br />
are getting ready to sail on a big operation. I don’t know where we are going<br />
but this is probably your last letter from me. Terrible Turner is on board<br />
and where he goes you are lucky if you come back.”<br />
Admiral Turner obviously had compassion and understanding of men.<br />
His own swift grasp of the whole picture, however, his customary near<br />
perfection in action, his relentless urge to hit ever faster and harder, resulted<br />
in lashing impatience against those who couldn’t steam at his flank speed<br />
18 hours a day.<br />
<strong>The</strong> United States needed a leader of his capacity in the rough, tough<br />
and complex amphibious game in the Pacific. After victory, we also needed<br />
to get a clear account of this man and his methods against the unknown<br />
crises the future would bring. Years ago upon relieving Rear Admiral<br />
John B. Heffernan in this job, I found an excellent program of command<br />
studies underway on two of our senior naval leaders who had played key<br />
roles in shaping events from World War I on. To these we happily were<br />
able to add many others in full or partial studies by joining in the Columbia<br />
University Oral History Program through the generous aid of Allan Nevins.<br />
In addition to these oral history studies, some leaders covered personal<br />
recollections of the momentous events of World War II at least in part by<br />
published works as in the case of Admirals Leahy, King, Halsey and<br />
Mitscher. Admirals Nimitz, Spruance and Turner, three titans in any history<br />
of war, steadfastly refused to record anything. Each had personal reasons<br />
that repeated efforts could not shake. We kept trying. At last when we found<br />
xxi
Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
the right officer to prepare his command study, but near the end of his<br />
voyage on earth’s troubled seas, Admiral Turner gave in.<br />
Sadly, early in the study Admiral Turner embarked upon his last great<br />
expedition—to storm the gates of the Beyond. Very soon thereafter Admiral<br />
Spruance, his close friend and neighbor as well as companion through many<br />
valiant days, agreed to enter the program. This resulted in the excellent book<br />
Admiral Raymond A, Spruancej <strong>US</strong>N, A Study in Command by Vice<br />
Admiral E. P. Forrestel, <strong>US</strong>N (Retired). Admiral Nimitz went part way,<br />
but, for reasons one must respect, even to the end, would not enter into a<br />
full command study.<br />
Admiral Turner knew that he had in Admiral Dyer an officer of great<br />
sagacity, excellent balance and judgment, wide experience in both planning<br />
and operations—a man like himself, tenacious for the truth. He desired and<br />
knew that Admiral Dyer would spare no effort to find the facts and to present<br />
them as he found them, let the chips fall where they may. In the interesting<br />
pages that follow, the reader will swiftly note these characteristics of the<br />
sailor-author along with seagoing language filled with the tang of salt spray.<br />
It has been a deep pleasure working with Admiral Dyer through the years<br />
and watching this exhaustive study evolve-a study that could be of immense<br />
benefit to the Navy as it serves the nation in the trials of the future. We have<br />
made all our resources available to him, including the matchless records of<br />
World War II. We have helped in every way possible but he has done the<br />
work. His own tireless spirit drove him on in sickness and in health through<br />
thousands of hours of work. He did much of his research in our Classified<br />
Operational Archives aided by our admirable staff there under Dr. Dean<br />
Allard. Along with myself, Dr. Allard was among those who read and made<br />
recommendation on the manuscript which Admiral Dyer accepted or rejected.<br />
Miss Sandra Brown contributed immeasurably in preparing the final manuscript<br />
for publishing. Mr. John Gallagher of the Printing and Publications<br />
Division of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations deserves special<br />
credit for his assistance. But to repeat, this is Admiral Dyer’s own work,<br />
developed with his own hand without any variation other than his acceptance<br />
of some of our suggestions.<br />
<strong>The</strong> United States Navy’s overwhelming and invariably successful amphibi-<br />
ous assaults of World War II, which this fine book covers for those directed<br />
by that master of the art, Richmond Kelly Turner, did not come solely from<br />
the courage, skill and bold leadership that illumined all of them. <strong>The</strong>se<br />
q~alities of the spirit marvelously shown by hundreds of thousands of Ameri-<br />
xxii
Introduction<br />
cans made the assaults succeed. However, the unbroken chain of successes in<br />
the Central Pacific where Turner’s driving will reigned, in the Southwest<br />
Pacific under Admiral D. E. Barbey (Uncle Dan the amphibious man) and<br />
in the Atlantic under another master, Admiral H. Kent Hewitt, rested on the<br />
marked advantages sea based power had gained over that ashore with every<br />
step in invention and technology. Together they had strikingly increased the<br />
ancient advantages of navies of mobility, flexibility, surprise and awesome<br />
concentration of striking power.<br />
From the first decades of the Iqth century to these last ones of the 20th,<br />
the gradually accelerating and now exploding industrial-scientific revolution<br />
has profoundly changed the world. It has had far-reaching impact upon every<br />
aspect of man’s life but nowhere more than in the weapons by which aggressors<br />
try to spread the rule of tyranny and by which wise men of democracies<br />
keep strong if they expect to survive.<br />
One of the most significant results of the repeated scientific-technological<br />
revolutions has been the steady growth in ability of power based at sea to<br />
overcome that ashore, Over a century ago the introduction of steam (and<br />
much later the internal-combustion engine) freed the attack by ships from<br />
the vagaries of wind and tide and speeded up every part of an amphibious<br />
operation. Indeed the increased capability and precision that steam brought<br />
to attack from the sea came at just the right time to play an overwhelming<br />
role in Union victory in the Civil War—insuring a united nation for the great<br />
needs and stresses of our times.<br />
Several significant developments besides steam increased relative strength<br />
afloat in the Civil War. <strong>The</strong>se included armor that gave ships something of<br />
the resistance of forts, much larger guns providing enormous concentrations<br />
of heavy mobile artillery that seldom could be matched ashore, and the<br />
beginning of rifling that increased the range of attack making it harder for<br />
fixed guns to hit distant maneuvering ships.<br />
After the Civil War many other developments followed. It is sufficient to<br />
mention a few of the most influential. At the turn of the century the sub-<br />
marines came into the Fleet to enlarge seapower’s advantages of secrecy and<br />
surprise; in amphibious operations they provided means for undetected<br />
scouting and reconnaissance. <strong>The</strong> airplane, evolving with the internal com-<br />
bustion engine, when based afloat on the moving airfields of carriers gave<br />
large concentrations of power and opened vast new horizons for navies. In<br />
World War II, radar and the influence fuse joined a long line of advances<br />
in fire control, including ancestors of today’s computers, that brought large ...<br />
XXIII
Arnphibzavs Cawe To Conquef<br />
progress in accuracy and et?ect of gunfire. This particularly benefited the<br />
ship in combat with shore fortifications because of its ability to maneuver<br />
and dodge at high speed whereas its target ashore was immobile.<br />
Other developments favoring assault from the sea included increased size<br />
and efficiency of attack transports that provided swift movement of armies<br />
over long sea distances. Likewise, specialized landing ships and craft of many<br />
types developed to speed the assault troops to the beach. Closing the shore,<br />
they enjoyed a volume of protective fire never before attained. In most of<br />
Admiral Turner’s operations the concentration of fire from ships large and<br />
small, from planes off support carriers cruising nearby, and from the troops’<br />
amphibians, including tanks, was so devastating that, if it did not knock out,<br />
it stunned the defenders. Hence the first waves of troops met practically no<br />
resistance coming in, or at the beach. After the capture of Guam, for example,<br />
Major General Geiger, <strong>US</strong>MC, commanding the Landing Force sent this<br />
message:<br />
. . . I wish to express . . . my appreciation for continuous and effective<br />
support rendered. <strong>The</strong> enemy was never able to rally from the initial bombardment<br />
and the continual gunfire support kept him in a state of confusion<br />
to the end of the campaign. Naval gunfire contributed largely in keeping<br />
losses of the Landing Forces to a minimum and in bringing the Guam<br />
Campaign to an early and successful close. . . ,<br />
<strong>The</strong> positions where we landed were heavily fortified. . . . Our naval<br />
gunfire and aic bombardments were so effective that scarcely a shot was fired<br />
at our first four LVT waves until after they were on the beach. At least half<br />
of the total amount of fixed defenses were destroyed, and more than that<br />
in the vicinity of the landing. Probably 80~o of the troops defending the<br />
beach either were killed or retreated to other positions.<br />
<strong>The</strong> foregoing and much more unfold in Admiral Dyer’s thorough study<br />
as he tells the story of the growth of the Amphibious Navy’s ships and craft,<br />
the development of the amphibious art, and the awesome effect of Terrible<br />
Turner’s amphibious typhoon “slightly controlled and irresistible. ” Not least<br />
among the study’s merits is the fact that in it for the first time we find<br />
individually named the smaller ships and craft of the amphibious task<br />
forces, and their commanders, who fought under Turner through the rugged<br />
campaigns of the South and Central Pacific.<br />
Admiral Turner fearlessly rode the crest of danger. Where the greatest<br />
risks and toil awaited, there he was found leading the attack. Americans<br />
owe him a large debt for his achievements that so remarkably shaped history.<br />
And we owe gratitude to Admiral Dyer who has so carefully and well<br />
XXIV
Introduction<br />
portrayed Admiral Turner’s methods, his growth in experience, and the<br />
accomplishments of the amphibians of the Pacific Fleet which Turner so well<br />
developed and led.<br />
How much these meant to the United States and freedom then. How much<br />
the complex overall Navy in which the amphibious force merges as a key<br />
element means today. Yet, we find most Americans complacently accepting<br />
the phenomenal rise in Soviet sea power in the last decade, while we cut back<br />
our own Navy, as a matter of no importance. Hopefully, Admiral Dyer’s able<br />
work will help to bring better understanding.<br />
E. M. ELLER<br />
Director of Naval History<br />
xxv
CHAPTER I<br />
<strong>The</strong> First Thirty Years of “Kelly”<br />
1885–1915<br />
Kelly Turner spent43 active years onthe Navy List. Helefthis mark on<br />
the Navy and on his brother officers, both seniors and juniors, for he flayed<br />
about a bit in our Navy. But most of all, he flayed the Japanese, from early<br />
August in 1942 until mid-August in 1943.<br />
When Kelly finished with the Japanese, they were licked. When Kelly<br />
finished his active service and moved on to the retired list of the Navy, the<br />
Navy was not licked, but it was quieter and never quite the same.<br />
His multitudinous friends, And even his foreign enemies were unanimous<br />
in their appraisal of one aspect of his character. For the Japanese in a radio<br />
broadcast on 21 February 1945 said:<br />
<strong>The</strong> true nature of an alligator is that once he bites into something, he will<br />
not let go. Turner’s nature is also like this.1<br />
This is the story of a man who once he bit into something, would not<br />
let go.<br />
THE TURNER CLAN2<br />
Let us look into Kelly Turner’s family origins to find a clue explaining<br />
this characteristic.<br />
His forebears, the Kellys and the Turners were an energetic and a restless<br />
lot. <strong>The</strong>y moved out of the British Isles and west across the Atlantic Ocean.<br />
‘ Foreign BroadcastIntelligenceService Bulletin; 28 February 1945.<br />
aInformation on the Turner Clan from:<br />
(a) James Turner’s Bible (oldest son of John Turner); (b) John Turner’s Bible from his<br />
children. Presented on his 73rd birthday 27 October 1873 (serond son of John Turner); (c)<br />
B. I. Griswold, Hi~tory of Fort W’uytre,Itsdiuna ( 1917); (d) Turner Family Magazine, January<br />
1916; (e) Records of Caroline County, Maryland; (f) Newspaper clippings, 24 November 1879<br />
to 19 October 1932, from various California and Ohio newspapers; (g) History of the Turner<br />
Clan as compiled by Richmond Kelly Turner; (h) Interviews with and letters of Miss L. Lucile<br />
Turner, Carmel, California, 1961–1963. Hereafter Miss L. Turner.<br />
1
2 Amphibians Came To Conquev<br />
<strong>The</strong>y kept moving west across the New Country until the Pacific Ocean<br />
barred further western movement. <strong>The</strong>n they churned up and down the<br />
Pacific Coast.<br />
<strong>The</strong> particular Turner progenitors with whom we are concerned migrated<br />
from Westmoreland in Northwest England prior to the middle of the<br />
1720’s and settled on the Chesapeake Bay side of the Eastern Shore of<br />
Maryland. <strong>The</strong>y received a 12-mile square land grant in Caroline County<br />
between the Choptank River and Tuchanoe Creek. This is about 50 miles,<br />
as the crow flies, due east of the capitol in Washington, D.C.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Turners had been farmers and millers in England and they were<br />
farmers, millers and traders in Colonial Maryland. <strong>The</strong>y also were Protestant<br />
and members of the Church of England. John Turner, great grandfather of<br />
Richmond Kelly Turner bit into Methodism in 1765. This outraged the<br />
elders of the clan, who gave John the hard choice of reconverting or losing<br />
his land heritage. He was a good alligator, gave up his land heritage, and<br />
stayed a Methodist. This decision entailed a short move westward in Maryland<br />
to Talbot County on Chesapeake Bay.<br />
In 1827, a little over a hundred years after the Turners had first settled in<br />
the New World, young farmer John Turner,’ grandfather of the Admiral,<br />
up anchored from Maryland and moved west. He first settled south of<br />
Columbus, Ohio, near Circleville, and then in 1833 in Whitley County in<br />
northeast Indiana. Here, on 10 April 1843, Enoch Turner, father of Rich-<br />
mond Kelly Turner, was born.<br />
In 1844, the John Turners moved on westward to Iowa. Five years later<br />
the big decision was made to undertake the long overland trek to California<br />
after a preparatory winter period at Council Bluffs, Iowa.<br />
Departing on 3 April 1850, in company with a family named Blosser, and<br />
proceeding via Salt Lake City, the John Turners with six children arrived in<br />
Stockton, California, in late August 1850. <strong>The</strong>y brought supplies for the<br />
gold mines in what were the latter days of the “Gold Rush.” For some months<br />
after arrival, John Turner continued in that freighter trade, although the<br />
older sons engaged in gold mining on the north bank of the Calaveras River,<br />
near San Andreas, California. <strong>The</strong> family then reverted to farming, first on<br />
a section of land in San Joaquin County (where the town, Turner, named<br />
for the family lies on Route 50), and then, 20 years later, near Woodville<br />
in Tulare County in South Central California.<br />
Enoch Turner, the sixth son and eleventh of John Turner’s twelve children,<br />
3Born Talbot County, Maryland, 27 October 1800, married Mary Bodfield, 27 August 1821.
<strong>The</strong> FirJt Thirty Years 3<br />
moved to Oregon after the Civil War, during which his mother had died.’<br />
His brothe~ Thomas was a printer on the Portland Oregoniav. On 2 July<br />
1867, Enoch married Laura Francis Kelly ‘ in East Portland. He was 24 and<br />
a school teacher at the time. <strong>The</strong> tradition of large families was carried on<br />
by Enoch Turner and Laura Kelly. Grandfather Samuel Kelly had had<br />
12 children and the Clinton Kellys 13. Great grandfather John Turner also<br />
had had 12, and in turn, his son, John Turner, had had nine children.<br />
Eighteen years after the marriage, on 27 May 1885, Richmond Kelly<br />
Turner was born in East Portland, C)regon, the seventh of eight children,<br />
three boys and five girls. Grandfather John Turner was 85 when this grand-<br />
son was born. He was to see the young alligator when, in the next year, he<br />
persuaded his son, Enoch, to return to California to help him run his ranch<br />
near Woodville, which was becoming a burden because of his years.<br />
Surviving portraits and other data of the Turner clan show their physical<br />
characteristics to have been an upright and spare physique, with straight black<br />
or brown hair, dark eyes and an occasional hooked nose. In general, they<br />
were tough physically and long-lived, the first one transplanted from<br />
England reputedly having hung on until reaching the age of 104 ( 1760).<br />
John Turner died in 1891 at age 91; ‘ his oldest son James at 102; 7 but<br />
his son Enoch, Admiral Turner’s father, died in 1923 at a young 80.8<br />
<strong>The</strong> 19th century Turners were a severe clan. <strong>The</strong>y raised their children<br />
in the tradition of “Spare the rod, and spoil the child.” <strong>The</strong>y were always<br />
moving westward toward more primitive living conditions. As farmers and<br />
ranchers, they battled nature for long, long hours each day, and with very<br />
few mechanical assists. <strong>The</strong>se stern conditions left a mark on the Twentieth<br />
Century Turners.<br />
Enoch Turner believed in the value of education and stressed it to his<br />
children, Five of the seven, who reached adulthood, prepared for and taught<br />
school. One taught for 50 years, another for 37. Since every naval officer is<br />
constantly schooling young Americans, it can be added that the youngest<br />
son, Richmond Kelly, also was in education for 40 years. For the urge to<br />
master knowledge was ingrained in this youngest son from as early as he<br />
could remember.g<br />
43 March 1863, French Camp, California, 3 miles west of Turner, California.<br />
‘ Born 15 March 1847. Died Anaheim, California, 13 October 1918.<br />
e 22 December 189I, Woodville, Tulare County, California.<br />
‘ 18 October 1932, Turner’s Station, California.<br />
816 November 1923, San Diego, California. Buried Parkview Cemetery, Stockton, California.<br />
“ Interviews with Admiral Richard K. Turner, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret.), Monterey, California, Mar. 1960.<br />
Hereafter Turner.
4 Amphibians Came To Cozquer<br />
KELLY CLANIO<br />
It will be no surprise that an enterprising Protestant Kelly came from<br />
Ireland, settled in Pennsylvania near Philadelphia, and by the early 1740’s<br />
started a numerous Kelly clan on the development of the New World. This<br />
was a period which the Encyclopedia Britannica says was marked by immi-<br />
gration from Ireland of “poorer Protestants ruined by heavy rents and tlie<br />
commercial acts. ” 1’<br />
In the early 1750’s the Colony of Virginia recruited many Scots, Irish<br />
and Germans, recently arrived in the New World, to settle on the western<br />
border of Virginia to form barrier communities against Indian attacks. One<br />
of the Irish so recruited was Thomas Kelly who moved to Botetourt County<br />
(north of Roanoke) where he farmed his homestead.<br />
Thomas Kelly fulfilled the purpose of his recruitment when he par-<br />
ticipated in the French-Indian Wars of 1754–1 760, during which France and<br />
England fought for the control of the Ohio Valley. Certificate # 5808 of<br />
the Botetourt County Court, Virginia, now in the possession of the Turner<br />
family (and sighted by the author), certifies that he served as a corporal in<br />
the militia of Virginia and in Captain Dickenson’s Company of Rangers for<br />
the protection of the Colony of Virginia during 1757, 1758, and 1759.<br />
<strong>The</strong> fighting capabilities of the Irish found further employment during<br />
the Revolutionary War, when Thomas Kelly served in Moylan’s Cavalry,<br />
Continental Line, Fourth Pennsylvania Regiment of Light Dragoons, As<br />
partial compensation for these services, Thomas Kelly received a grant of<br />
land in Greenbrier County in the western part of Virginia (now eastern<br />
West Virginia).<br />
However, land did not hold the Thomas Kellys in Virginia, for about<br />
1800 they moved on from Greenbrier County to a place near Somerset in<br />
Pulaski County, Kentucky. <strong>The</strong>re it is duly recorded that Samuel Kelly, third<br />
son of Thomas who had been born in Botetourt County, Virginia, on 7<br />
‘0Information on the Kelly clan is from:<br />
(a) Pennsylvania Archives, 5th series. Vols III and IV; (b) Lewis Preston Summers, Annals<br />
oj South- lVelt Virginia, 1790–1800 (Abingdon, Virginia: By the author, 1929), pp. 91, 373,<br />
379, 384; (c) James P. Haltigan, <strong>The</strong> Irifb in fbe American Ret$olution and <strong>The</strong>ir Early Influence<br />
in /be ColonieJ (Washington, D. C.: By the author, 1908); (d) Laura Francis Kelly Turner, Pamphlet<br />
(Portland, Oregon: By the author, 1901). Mrs. Turner, the Admiral’s mother, was interested<br />
in genealogy. Early dates in her pamphlet were based on inquiries made and data collected during<br />
a visit east in 1882.<br />
u Encyr)opwiiu Britutrnicu, 14th cd., Vol. XII, p. 61o.
<strong>The</strong> First Thirty Years 5<br />
February 1776, was married to a Nancy Canada at Clifty Creek, Pulaski<br />
County, Kentucky, on 3 September 1807. Nancy Canada was ten years<br />
younger than her husband, having been born 7 April 1786.<br />
In 1847, Grandfather Clinton Kelly, the eldest son of the Samuel Kellys<br />
was 39.” He lost two wives through early death, and had married a third,<br />
Moriah Maldon Crain, on 11 March 1840. She bore the future mother of<br />
the Admiral.<br />
Clinton Kelly was a successful farmer, a lay preacher in the Methodist<br />
Church, and dead set against the practice of slavery. He made the quite<br />
natural alligator decision to hold on to his belief and to leave the slave state<br />
of Kentucky and move on westward to territory where slavery did not exist.<br />
Clinton Kelly and two brothers, Albert and Thomas, built wagons, collected<br />
horses, oxen and necessary traveling effects, and in the fall of 1847,<br />
the three families went to Independence, Missouri, to make final prepara-<br />
tions for an overland trip to <strong>The</strong> Dalles, Oregon, the next spring. On 1 May<br />
1848, accompanied by four other families, they set out in 12 wagons. <strong>The</strong><br />
first night a bad hailstorm scattered the stock. All the stock were later found<br />
except those belonging to Albert Kelly, so Albert turned back. <strong>The</strong> remain-<br />
ing six families, with Clinton Kelly as the leader of the caravan, made the<br />
trip successfully, shipping their freight by raft from <strong>The</strong> Dalles to Oregon<br />
City, Oregon.<br />
In the spring of 1849, Grandfather Kelly bought 64o acres of land in what<br />
is now East Portland, Oregon, for 50 dollars, and planted a crop of<br />
potatoes.” Grandfather Clinton Kelly became a leader in his community,<br />
and remembering that he had given the land for the first school, a grateful<br />
East Portland named a high school after him, “<strong>The</strong> Clinton Kelly High<br />
School of Commerce.” 14 <strong>The</strong> 227th ship launched by the Oregon Shipbuild-<br />
ing Company during World War 11 was named the Clinton Kelly.” <strong>The</strong><br />
Clinton Kelly Memorial Church is a lasting monument of his zeal and of<br />
his assurance of the vitality of his Christian faith.<br />
Laura Francis Kelly, Mother of the Admiral and the fourth child of<br />
Clinton, was born in Pulaski County, Kentucky, prior to the movement of<br />
the family to Oregon.<br />
n Born Clifty Creek, Pulaski County, Kentucky, 15 June 1808.<br />
n Now bounded by East 26th, East 42nd, Hogate and Division, East Portland.<br />
“ Powell Blvd and 40th Avenue, East Portland.<br />
mLaunched 31 July 1943.
6 Anzpbibfans Came To Conquer<br />
RICHMOND<br />
Admiral Turner’s first name “Richmond” came from his mother’s youngest<br />
brother, Richmond Kelly. Why Laura Kelly’s brother was named Richmond<br />
is not known, but it is family legend that it came from the Duke of<br />
Richmond. <strong>The</strong> Duke was a great sympathizer and worker for the cause of<br />
the American Colonies (and for the cause of Ireland), and an early Kelly<br />
had received the name Richmond in his honor. This name had been carried<br />
along.lfi<br />
<strong>The</strong> 14th Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, under the heading<br />
“Earls and Dukes of Richmond” states:<br />
Charles, 3rd Duke of Richmond, 1734-1806 . . . In the debates on the<br />
policy that led to the War of American Independence Richmond was a firm<br />
supporter of the colonists. Richmond also advocated a policy of concession in<br />
Ireland, with reference to which he originated the famous phrase ‘a union of<br />
hearts.’ 17<br />
Admiral Turner informed the author that his mother was a warm sup-<br />
porter of the Irish and of their efforts for independence during the early<br />
20th century.”<br />
Admiral Turner’s brothers and sisters usually referred to him as “Rich”<br />
and family letters to him carried this salutation. His boyhood letters are<br />
signed “<strong>The</strong> Kid,” up to age 14 and then until about 1925 are either signed<br />
“Richmond” or ‘fRich.” After that they are signed “Rich” or “Kelly.” “<br />
<strong>The</strong> John Turner Clan and the Clinton Kelly Clan each were closely knit<br />
clans. When Richmond Kelly Turner died, the Kelly Clan, in annual meeting<br />
assembled, passed a proper memorial resolution, stating that it was “Fitting<br />
and proper that the members of the Kelly Clan take note of his passing and<br />
briefly review his life and career.”<br />
RICHMOND KELLY TURNER<br />
Young Turner received his grammer grade and high schooling in Cali-<br />
fornia, mainly in Stockton, although there was a period when his father was<br />
18Turner; Miss L. Turner.<br />
“ Encyclopedia Britannica, 14th cd., Vol. XIX, p. 293.<br />
n Turner.<br />
‘9Family letters 1898-1940 (Miss L. Turner). Earliest letter dated 20 NOV. 1898 to “mar<br />
Old Mama” (RKT then aged 13).
<strong>The</strong> First Thirty Years<br />
Ricbrnond Kelly Turner at fifteen, 1900.
8 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
Invitaliofl to reception,<br />
NH 69095<br />
typesetting and later editing a small weekly in Fresno, during which time, he<br />
attended school there.<br />
He was 13 when the Spanish-American War commenced. In Fresno, where<br />
he was in 1898, he recalled that he went frequently to the Armory to hear<br />
the drummers and speakers bidding young men to enlist. However, he<br />
formed no predilection for the Navy at that time.’”<br />
In 1900, the San Francisco Examiner, as a circulation promotion project,<br />
sponsored the holding of a competitive examination amongst boys from the<br />
eighth grade through junior in high school, in the Examiner’s circulation<br />
area. Subjects covered in the examination were United States History, Civics,<br />
and English Composition.<br />
<strong>The</strong> top 15 contestants were selected to attend both the Republican and<br />
Democratic National Political Conventions of 1900. <strong>The</strong> group, all boys,<br />
witnessed the re-nomination of William McKinley in Philadelphia and that<br />
of William Jennings Bryan in Kansas City, Missouri. Richmond Kelly Turner<br />
n Turner.
<strong>The</strong> First Thirty Years 9<br />
was one of this very fortunate group of 15 representing Fremont School of<br />
Stockton, where he was then in the eighth grade.21<br />
In 1901, a cousin suggested that young Turner try for the Naval Academy,<br />
as a local appointment existed. Despite the success in the previous competi-<br />
tive examination, the tests for the Naval Academy included geometry,<br />
which he had not yet taken in high school, so he decided he was unprepared<br />
to tackle the examination without more schooling.”<br />
In 1902, the Turner family moved south briefly to Santa Ana, California.<br />
<strong>The</strong> transfer letter for “Richmond Turner” reads as follows:<br />
To THE PRINCIPAL, SANTA ANA HIGH SCHOOL<br />
STOCKTON HIGH SCHOOL<br />
May 26, 1902<br />
This will introduce to you Mr. Richmond Turner who is desirous of<br />
entering your High School. He is within a month of promotion from our<br />
Junior Class. As a student, he is strong, thorough, and painstaking. Had he<br />
remained with us until the end of June, he would have been promoted to the<br />
middle class with honorary mention. We regret to part with such a student<br />
and feel sure that you will find him a young man of marked ability.<br />
TO THE NAVAL ACADEMY<br />
Very respt,<br />
D. A. MOBLEY<br />
Prin. S.H.S.<br />
Early in 1904, Enoch Turner was back north and operating a print shop<br />
in Stockton. He called his son’s attention to an article in the local newspaper<br />
announcing that competitive examinations would be held for appointment<br />
by the local (Sixth District) Congressman, James Carion Needham, to both<br />
the Naval Academy at Annapolis and the Military Academy at West Point.23<br />
By an Act of Congress approved 3 March 1903, the number of appoint-<br />
ments to the Naval Academy by each Senator, Representative, and Delegate<br />
in Congress had been increased temporarily from one to two, in order to<br />
provide officers for the enlarged United States Fleet, which President <strong>The</strong>o-<br />
dore Roosevelt was urging the Congress both to authorize and to provide the<br />
tax money for. In passing the Act for the enlargement of the Naval Academy,<br />
Congress had prescribed that the appointments were to be made as deter-<br />
m San Francisco Examiuer, 1943; Miss L. Turner.<br />
= Turner,<br />
= Ibid.
<strong>The</strong> First Thirty Years 11<br />
mined by the Secretary of the Navy; but so that ultimately each Senator,<br />
Congressman, and Delegate might recommend one person for appointment<br />
as midshipman during each Congress.z’ So Congressman Needham’s vacancy<br />
was similar to one which many Congressmen had in the year 1904.<br />
It might be noted here, however, that the Congress took a dim view of this<br />
increase as a long-continued measure, and provid-ed that on 30 June 1913, the<br />
appointments would revect to one midshipman in the Naval Academy at<br />
any one time for each Congressman. Fortunately for the United States Navy<br />
in World War I, this diminution in appointments never took place.25<br />
After a couple of days of wrestling with the problem of his future, and<br />
primarily because of the modest state of the family exchequer, which did<br />
not match his burning desire for a first-rate college education, young Turner<br />
decided to make a try for an appointment. This decision was made despite<br />
his mother’s general, and strongly stated, objections to all war and its trap-<br />
pings and her youngest son’s involvement therein. He started doing extra<br />
studying. Without tutorage, but with an assist from the Naval Academy in<br />
the form of a pamphlet with copies of previous examinations, he won the<br />
appointment from a group of eighteen candidates. ”<br />
Looking over the examinations which young Turner took for the Examiner<br />
contest and the ones which candidates for admittance to the Naval Academy<br />
took during the years 1903–1907, and then giving these examinations a<br />
quick comparison with those taken by prospective midshipmen of recent<br />
years, the vast changes in the examination processes for the same basic subjects<br />
are immediately apparent. <strong>The</strong> present educational examination system<br />
frequently supplies correct answers and requires only their identification<br />
amongst error, while the horrendous ones of yester-year required substantive<br />
knowledge, such as:<br />
Briefly describe the work of the following men in connection with the<br />
colonial history of the United States<br />
Captain John Smith<br />
John Winthrop<br />
Roger Willliams<br />
Lord Baltimore<br />
William Pitt<br />
James Wolfe<br />
Give an account of:<br />
Admiral Coligny<br />
2’U.S. NatIaI Academy Regisfer, 1901–1902, 1903–190-4, 1905–1906, 1906-1907.<br />
= Ibid.<br />
mTurner.
12 Amphibians Came To Conq~er<br />
Warren Hastings<br />
Nathaniel Hawthorne<br />
Despite this hazard and that of having to name in proper order all the<br />
waters passed through in making a voyage from Yokohama, Japan, to Saint<br />
Louis, Missouri, via Hongkong and the Suez Canal, 297 physically qualified<br />
young Americans took their places in the rear ranks of the Regiment of<br />
Midshipmen during the summer of 1904. Among them was Richmond Kelly<br />
Turner, who had done very well in all subjects except geography, in whi
Tbe First Thirty Year.t 13<br />
from 1845 and the “New Quarters” dating from 1870, were being replaced<br />
by Bancroft Hall, a large dormitory named after the 1845 Secretary of the<br />
Navy, George Bancroft. Large classroom buildings with commodious and<br />
modern teaching facilities and named after naval officers who had made<br />
their mark in the educational (Mahan), inventive (Dahlgren), engineering<br />
(Isherwood), or command aspects (Sampson, Schley) of the Navy, were<br />
growing apace.<br />
<strong>The</strong> work on the new buildings has progressed in as satisfactory a manner<br />
as could be expected during the past year, considering the almost unprecedented<br />
severity of the winter. . . . [and the living quarters for the midshipmen]<br />
should be ready for occupancy on 20 September 1904.2T<br />
<strong>The</strong> Old Academy was a hodgepodge, in arrangement of buildings, in<br />
types of architecture, and in the varying inadequacies of the facilities. But<br />
the primary reason for the complete rebuilding was to be found in the<br />
blossoming of the United States into a world power under the leadership of<br />
Presidents William McKinley and <strong>The</strong>odore Roosevelt. To provide the<br />
military power to support its new world position, the Navy was being<br />
expanded.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Secretary of the Navy would soon report to the President that “Never<br />
before were so many warships launched by this or any other nation in one<br />
year.” ‘8 And never before had there been so many midshipmen under<br />
instruction at the Naval Academy.<br />
<strong>The</strong> number of graduates of the Naval Academy had slowly increased<br />
from 34 in 1890 to 62 in 1904. <strong>The</strong> total number of midshipmen at the<br />
Naval Academy in 1890 had been 241 but now at the start of the 1904-<br />
1905 Academic Year there were 823 midshipmen in the Naval Academy;<br />
114 were in the capable First Class, 133 in the blossoming Second Class,<br />
279 were “Sprightly Youngsters,” and 297 neophytes were in the Plebe<br />
Class, of which Midshipman Turner was a hard working part.”<br />
From these figures it is apparent that the Class of 1908 was the second<br />
of the very large classes needed to man the “Great White Fleet” to enter<br />
the Naval Academy.’”<br />
n (a) U.S. Navy Department, Annual Report o} tke Secrehzry oj the Nuvy for tbe Y’eut’ 1904<br />
(hereafter SECNAV, Annual Reporf) (Washington: Government Printing OtKce, 1904), p. 43,<br />
Captain Willard H. Brownson, <strong>US</strong>N, June 6, 1904 to Chief of the Bureau of Navigation in<br />
Repor/ of Cke/ of the Bweuz of Nuv;.@ots, 1904 (hereafter CHBUNAV, Annual Report).<br />
(b) Luc}y Bug (Naval Academy Graduating Class Book), 1908, p. 171.<br />
* SECNAV, Annual Report, 1904, p. 3.<br />
= U.S.NuoulAmdeny Re.?;Jter,1S90-1891, 1904-1905.<br />
w Ships of the United States Navy were painted white.
14 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
PLEBE YEAR ( 1904-1905)<br />
Plebe Year opened Midshipman Turner’s eyes to the world of the Navy,<br />
which was agreeably busy with trying to keep the Caribbean peace, and<br />
zealously busy with acute professional problems incident to healthy and<br />
vigorous growth. 31<br />
In 1904, naval interest in the political-military arena centered in the<br />
fiscally unsound and politically unstable Dominican Republic. In professional<br />
development naval interest centered in the recent decision to shift from coal<br />
to oil for generating steam for propulsion purposes, and in installing wireless<br />
telegraph stations on shore and on ships.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> Navy at this time, maintained a cruiser-gunboat squadron in the<br />
waters of the Caribbean, available to proceed on short notice to Santo<br />
Domingo, as the Dominican Republic was then known, or to Panama,<br />
recently involved with gaining its independence from Colombia. As the<br />
year 1904 ended, the Commander of the Caribbean Squadron optimistically<br />
reported that a conference held on board the <strong>US</strong>S Detroit in Dominican<br />
waters when the revolution was at its height resulted in
<strong>The</strong> First Thirty Years 15<br />
paternally molded into Midshipman Turner, United States Navy, within the<br />
Academy walls.<br />
In sports, although he had played guard on grade school football teams,<br />
at the Academy he went out for baseball and track. “Previous to 1904, only<br />
inter-class track meets had been held at the Naval Academy. . . . In the<br />
Spring of 1905 a large number of candidates from all classes appeared.”<br />
Midshipman Turner was one of that large number, and made the track team<br />
that year, running the hurdles.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> Superintendent’s prediction in regard to the living quarters proved<br />
reasonably accurate. At the start of the 1904–1905 Academic Year, “the<br />
northeast wing of Bancroft Hall went into commission” allowing half<br />
the midshipmen to take apartments in Bancroft Hall. Turner’s Battalion (six<br />
companies) continued to live in “Old Quarters,” “an unsightly structure per-<br />
haps, but fragrant with the very romance and spirit of the days of yore.” 3’<br />
<strong>The</strong> Regiment of Midshipmen was organized into two battalions of six<br />
companies each, with about 75 midshipmen in a company. Everyone in the<br />
company got to know everyone else, and classmates, in four years, formed<br />
strong opinions in regard to the others in their class.37<br />
Physical hazing of plebes was a problem at the Naval Academy in 1904–<br />
1905 despite the fact that the Congress recently had passed a law forbidding<br />
it, and the official naval policy, as well as unofficial officer belief were<br />
strongly against it.<br />
Awareness of interest at higher levels in physical hazing is shown by the<br />
Superintendent’s remarks in his 1904 and 1905 Annual Reports to the Chief<br />
of Bureau of Navigation: ‘
16 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
Meriwether of the third class (1908) arising out of hazing administered to<br />
Meriwether by Branch during 1908’s plebe year.<br />
From then on throughout Midshipman Turner’s second and first class<br />
years, there was no general physical hazing of plebes.<br />
Most of the stuff in the papers is a pack of lies. . . .<br />
<strong>The</strong> fuss is being raised by a lot of newspapers and old women like the<br />
Secretary of the Navy and others.’g<br />
But, mental hazing or “running” of plebes continued throughout his four<br />
years as a midshipman.<br />
<strong>The</strong> urgency of the need for additional junior officers to man the balloon-<br />
ing number of ships in the Fleet was brought home to the Naval Academy<br />
when the first class ( 1$)05) was suddenly graduated on 30 January 1905,<br />
four months ahead of time. While the second class ( 1906) took over the<br />
duties and privileges of the first class, this only resulted in a change to<br />
stronger and more high-handed masters for Midshipman Turner and his<br />
fellow plebes, despite the Superintendent’s belief that “NO case of hazing has<br />
occurred during the past year. ” <strong>The</strong> Class of 1908 remained in its lowly state<br />
both in name and in privileges until June 1905.4” Of the 297 plebes in 1908,<br />
256 finished Plebe Year successfully and became “youngsters.” Eleven<br />
obtained 85 percent of the maximum mark of 4.o and “starred.” Midshipman<br />
R. K. Turner stood 14th. He stood number 1 in English and Law, 17 in<br />
Military Efficiency, 23 in Modern Languages, but only number 111 in<br />
Conduct.”<br />
At the end of Plebe Year, one of Turner’s classmates who played a major<br />
role in World War II was “found deficient, allowed an examination, passed<br />
and continued with th z class. ” $2 This was Mark A. Mitscher who encoun-<br />
tered later academic difficulties and, after “taking the six year course,”<br />
graduated with the Class of 1910.<br />
As the Academic Year ended, and the midshipmen prepared for the<br />
Summer Practice Cruise, the 1905 Lucky Bag noted:<br />
Though the new Academy is by no means near completion, some of the<br />
buildings not having yet been started, even in its present condition the magnificence<br />
of the finished project can be clearly discerned.<br />
m Ibid.<br />
‘0 (a) CHBUNAV, Annual Report, p. 44> in SECNAV, Annual Report, 1905; (b) Lucky Bag<br />
1905.<br />
4’U.S. Naval .4cudemy Register, 1905–1906.<br />
4’Ibid.
<strong>The</strong> First Thi~ty Years 17<br />
<strong>The</strong> yearbook added, possibly with the Congressional abolition of hazing in<br />
mind:<br />
With the passing of the Old Academy, not only the old buildings have<br />
disappeared, but also the old customs and the old life.<br />
More specifically the 1905 Lucky Bag noted of the Class of 1908:<br />
Bedad, yer a bad un’<br />
Now turn out yer toes’<br />
Yer belt is unhookit,<br />
Yer cap is on crookit,<br />
Ye may not be drunk,<br />
But bejabers, ye look it.43<br />
YOUNGSTER CRUISE<br />
<strong>The</strong> 1905 Summer Practice Cruise for the midshipmen of the Naval<br />
Academy was made by the 6,000-ton second class battleship <strong>US</strong>S ~exa~<br />
(Flagship), four monitors, the <strong>US</strong>S Terror, <strong>US</strong>S Arkansas, <strong>US</strong>S Fiot+da, and<br />
<strong>US</strong>S Nevada, two small cruisers, the <strong>US</strong>S Neuark and <strong>US</strong>S Atlanta, the old<br />
but famous <strong>US</strong>S Hartford, and the Naval Academy Station Ship, the <strong>US</strong>S<br />
Severn. <strong>The</strong> last two had sails only,’+ Even without the Severe and Hartfo~d,<br />
this was a patch-work of ships of rather varied formation keeping qualities.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se ships, except the Naval Academy Station Ship, normally comprised<br />
the Coast Squadron of the North Atlantic Fleet. Rear Admiral Francis W.<br />
Dickens, U. S. Navy, was the Coast Squadron Commander, Rear Admiral<br />
Robley D. Evans (Fighting Bob) was Commander in Chief of the North<br />
Atlantic Fleet.<br />
<strong>The</strong> schedule of the cruise was about as uninteresting from the viewpoint<br />
of midshipmen anxious to see the world, as it was practical for naval<br />
authorities to make. Ports visited were: Solomon’s Island, Maryland; Gardiner’s<br />
Bay, Long Island; Rockland, Eastport, and Bangor, Maine; and New<br />
London, Connecticut. According to the Lucky Bag “We saw the same old<br />
New England towns.” <strong>The</strong> summer was marked by “the seasick cruise up to<br />
Gardiner’s Bay, a little work, more play, good times ashore,” and .<br />
‘Lucky Bag, 1907, p. 16i; Ibid,, 1908, p. 276.
18 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
However, the cruise was notable for one reason. From 7 June 1905, to<br />
17 June 1905, the Practice Squadron held Joint Exercises, or “war maneu-<br />
vers,” with the United States Army in the Chesapeake Bay area.<br />
Leaving Solomon’s we started in to show up the Army. We captured<br />
Baltimore, Washington and Fortress Monroe, the Army getting the decision,<br />
most of the sleep and about all the grub.*8<br />
This exercise fitted into Naval Academy drills which “Sometimes included<br />
practice amphibious landings across the Severn River.” 47 Before they<br />
finished their careers, these fledgling officers were to hold many more Joint<br />
Exercises with the Army—a few in World War 1 and many in World War II.<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>US</strong>S Atlanta, in which Midshipman Turner cruised until 15 July<br />
190>, was commanded by Commander William F. Halsey, U. S. Navy (Class<br />
of 1873), father of Fleet Admiral W. F. Halsey, U. S. Navy (Class of<br />
1904) of World War 11 fame. Commander Halsey was the original “Bull”<br />
Halsey—so named because of his bull throated voice and the frequent use<br />
of that voice in directing his requirements to anyone topside on the 175 to<br />
308 feet between the stem and stern of the <strong>US</strong>S Chesapeake, <strong>US</strong>S Atlanta, or<br />
UN De~ A40izze~, all of which ships he commanded on Midshipmen Practice<br />
Cruises.’s<br />
<strong>The</strong> Atlanta was a 20-year-old protected cruiser of about 3,200 tons<br />
displacement and 13 knots top speed which, although part of the Coastal<br />
Squadron, had been laid up in reserve status at Annapolis during the six<br />
months prior to the 1905 cruise. Notwithstanding the fact that she had been<br />
the first of the llo~ton-class cruisers of the ‘
<strong>The</strong> First Tbir~y Years 19<br />
“Darn a hammock, they are about the awkwardest things to sleep in that<br />
I ever struck.” 50<br />
<strong>The</strong> 1908 Lucky Bag recorded a different event for making one decide for<br />
the Navy:<br />
<strong>The</strong> event of plebe year, however, that remains most vivid in our minds<br />
today was the Army game; it was then we first felt the call of the Navy and<br />
realized that we were in it and for it. How we cheered and yelled and, yes,<br />
cried as the Army defeated us 11–0 in a hard fought game.<br />
YOUNGSTER YEAR ( 1905-1906)<br />
According to the 1908 Midshipman yearbook, “Our Youngster Year saw<br />
the death of the old Naval Academy life and the birth of the new.” Richmond<br />
Turner in a letter to his mother reported: “<strong>The</strong> Sup is trying to bilge all that<br />
he can, as he can’t handle so many [midshipmen] easily.” “<br />
In 1905, the Navy continued active in Santo Domingo, and the Navy<br />
received a new Secretary of the Navy, Charles J. Bonaparte.<br />
<strong>The</strong> increase in the naval power of the United States was not without its<br />
critics, who believed that an increased Navy would merely drag us into<br />
wars. <strong>The</strong> previous Secretary of the Navy thought it desirable to meet this<br />
criticism in his Annual Report to the President by remarking:<br />
. . . while doubtless, we shzll always be in the lead in every international<br />
movement to promote peace, it is much better for us to be at all times so<br />
well prepared for war that war will never come.52<br />
<strong>The</strong> new Secretary, since his last name had strong military connotations,<br />
thought to quiet the critics by taking yet another tack, foreseeing quite<br />
erroneously:<br />
It is reasonable to anticipate that their numbers [of ships in our Navy] will be<br />
reduced, and even reduced materially, within the next five years.<br />
Perhaps to temper this unhappy thought as far as his subordinates in the<br />
Navy were concerned, he added:<br />
Without giving our NNy undue praise, it may be fairly described as of great<br />
promise.’3<br />
M(a) Turner; (b) RKT to Mother, letter, 1 Jun. 190>.<br />
m (a) Lucky Bug, 1908, p. 274; (b) RKT to Mother, letter, 7 Jan. 1906.<br />
= SECNAV, Amwal ~@O?t, 190 f, P. 4.<br />
‘Ibid., 1905, pp. 23, 25.
20 Anzphibtans Came To Conquer<br />
Commenting on the unsolved and vexing problem of desertion, the new<br />
Secretary offered the sage suggestion that:<br />
DesertIon is, in my opinion, due substantially to two causes—either bad men<br />
or bad officers. S4<br />
Sidestepped in this analysis were the miserable pay scale for the enlisted<br />
personnel, harsh living and working conditions, and skeletonized manning<br />
of ships.55<br />
Forty more of Turner’s classmates were dropped out during the aca-<br />
demically tough Youngster Year and only 216 were passed through to the<br />
Second Class. Turner finished number 7, and only three men in his<br />
class starred—which is an indication of the difficulty of the Youngster Year.<br />
Turner stood number 1 in Mechanical Processes and number 5 in Military<br />
Efficiency. His low mark again was in Conduct, where he stood number 149.5’<br />
SECOND CLASS YEAR ( 1906-1907)<br />
<strong>The</strong> summer of 1906 saw the midshipmen gaily off to Funchal, in the<br />
Madeira Islands, and to Horta on Fayal Island in the Azores. <strong>The</strong>y were<br />
embarked in the cruisers of the 5th Division of the U. S. Atlantic Fleet.<br />
This division consisted of the third class protected cruisers <strong>US</strong>S Minneapolis<br />
(C-13), <strong>US</strong>S Denver (C-14), <strong>US</strong>S De~ Moines (C-15), and the <strong>US</strong>S C/eve-<br />
Iand (C-19). Turner, a second classman, was lucky enough to be in the<br />
Denver, a brand new cruiser (commissioned May 1904) of about the same<br />
tonnage as the Atlanta but faster (16.5 knots), and with a modern armament<br />
of ten 5-inch, JO-caliber guns. <strong>The</strong> Des Moines and the Cleveland were<br />
sister ships of the Denver, while the Minneapolis was a larger and faster<br />
(2 I knots) cruiser of 7,4oo tons that had earned her spurs in the Spanish<br />
American War.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>US</strong>S Denver was commanded by Commander J. C. Colwell, U. S.<br />
Navy (Class of 1874). Colwell was one of the unfortunate ones retired by<br />
the Plucking Board the following year, on June 1907, in the interests of<br />
increasirig the flow of promotion to commander. Colwell and his contem-<br />
MIbid., 1905, p. 10.<br />
= Basic pay with allowances for a first class seaman with four years total service was $21 per<br />
month versus .$246 per month today; watch and watch was normal seven days a week routine;<br />
Captain’s weekly personnel inspection was held Sunday morning.<br />
= U.S. NuvalAcademyRegiJier, 19061907. Those attaining an average of 85 percent wore<br />
stars on the collar of their uniform.<br />
s?Djctj~~ary ~j American Fighting Shipf, vol. I, W. 20 3–222.
<strong>The</strong> First Thirty Yea~.~ 21<br />
poraries had spent 27 years of commissioned service before reaching, in 1903,<br />
the comfortable grade of comm~ rider where he was to enjoy only four<br />
brief years in this grade.<br />
Six commissioned line oficers and two past midshipmen formed the 3,200ton<br />
Denver’s complement of line officers. Today’s destroyers of only slightly<br />
greater tonnage have a complement of not less than 17 commissioned line<br />
officers.<br />
Besides the two foreign ports (“Madeira, the place seemed like God’s<br />
own garden,” and “of all the ends of the world, Horta is the worst”) the<br />
midshipmen visited Frenchman’s Bay and Bar Harbor, Maine; Newport,<br />
Rhode Island; and New London, Connecticut.<br />
Not all midshipmen enjoyed th: privilege of visiting foreign ports for:<br />
Just at the end of the year, when we learned we were going abroad, the<br />
hazing restrictions were handed out in large and small packages—many of<br />
us were confined for months to the academic limits and to the practice ships<br />
becausewe upheld a system we honestly believed was for the best interests of<br />
the Academy and the Service.~8<br />
Midshipman Turner was not one of those restricted. He enjoyed his first<br />
“trip abroad” and stayed out of trouble, although he remembered well the<br />
heady Madeira wine. “Yes, Madeira Isle is very fine; nothing so good as<br />
Madeira wine,” ‘g<br />
<strong>The</strong> Second Class Cruise was marked also by “unpleasant memories of<br />
rolling ships, wave-swept decks, and of future admirals manning the rails<br />
wishing only to die, with the winds howling through the rigging in derision.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> Midshipmen Squadron Practice Cruise on the way to the Madeira Islands<br />
had to heave to while the storm abated.<br />
On the return voyage from the Azores, there was heavy weather again,<br />
and “only salt horse and hard tack to eat,” according to one version and<br />
“dog biscuit, salt horse of the vintage of ’69 and syrup,” according to<br />
another.oo<br />
Along with most of his classmates, Midshipman Turner suffered the ex-<br />
perience of being seasick the first time he was i_na real North Atlantic storm.<br />
His recollection of it was vivid.<br />
YOU know there are twelve grades of wind, from No. I a light breeze to<br />
No. 12 a hurricane. <strong>The</strong> storm we had was a No. 10 and lasted six days.<br />
WLucky Bag, 1907.<br />
W(a) Lucky Bag, 1907; and 1908, pp. 277-78; (b) RKT to Mother, letter, 18 oct. 1906;<br />
(c) Turner.<br />
w Lucky Bag, 1907, p. 197; Ibid,, 1908, pp. 275, 277.
22 Antpbjbza?ls cunze To Conquer<br />
Oh it is great to be out on the bounding, pounding, howling, raging deep<br />
at such a time—just fine! I know of no pleasure gre~ter than to be gazing<br />
down into the green, foamy, cr~wling shining w~ter and wonder if the fish<br />
that got your last meal enjoyed it any more than you did, and you know<br />
there’s no help for it either; you know that the blooming old ship won’t go<br />
down and so give you a little relief. Those old freaks who decided that hell<br />
is of fire, hfid it all wrong. I’m sure it’s much more like a storm at sea on a<br />
warship. When you realize that on one day we constantly rolled over to an<br />
angle of 37 degrees on each side of the perpendicular, perhaps you can<br />
imagine that a sailor’s life is not what it’s cracked up to be.<br />
A-fter we got into smooth water the most popul~r song on board went like<br />
this:<br />
‘A farmer’s life, a farmer’s life,<br />
A farmer’s life for me, for me,<br />
If I could lead 3 farmer’s life<br />
How happy I would be.’ 81<br />
Early in Second Class Year, Midshipman Turner wrote to his mother:<br />
Well you never saw half as busy z mm as I tim now, and as I expect to be<br />
all the rest of the yem. I have written over fifty letters in the last week and a<br />
half to other colleges and universities concerning g~mes for our baseball team<br />
next spring . . and on top of this, I have been trying to get the work<br />
on the “Lucky Bag” well underway. This is rather hard to do. It is a thing<br />
that must be created rather than just put together. . . .<br />
Second class year is, deservedly I have discovered, given the name of being<br />
the very hardest year in the Academy. I hive been boning very steadily since<br />
coming back and find that it takes all my concentrating to get anything out of<br />
the stuff-Watson’s Physics—<strong>The</strong>oretical Mechanics (with problems by<br />
J Gow) Biegs Naval Boilers, Naval Engines and Machines . . Exterior<br />
Ballistics :md the Elastic Strength of Guns, both intensely theoretical<br />
and both with formulas anywhere from one foot to ten in length.cz<br />
Richmond was a good correspondent with his mother with seven letters<br />
during the two and a half months of the summer cruise. He confided in one<br />
letter:<br />
We of the Navy are worse gossips than a bunch of women. That and hard<br />
work is about all we do. o:;<br />
Only 14 midshipmen were dropped out of the 1908 class during Second<br />
Class Year. Midshipman Turner still stood number 7, and was the last<br />
man to achieve the enviable stars on his collar that denoted academic ex-<br />
0’RKT to Mother, letter, 8 Nov. 1906.<br />
WRKT to Mother, letter, 1i Oct. 1906.<br />
mRKT to Mother, letter, 18 Oct. 1906.
Tbe First Tbi~ty Years 23<br />
cellence. Other than in conduct, in which he stood number 65, he was not<br />
lower than 27th in any subject.<br />
To Midshipman Turner, Second Class Year was “one of turmoil,” with<br />
1907 graduating in three sections, the largest number 86, in September 1906,<br />
a moderate size group of JO in January 1907, and the last 72 from the<br />
academic bottom of the class, in June 1907.”’<br />
FIRST CLASS CRUISE<br />
Of that cruise, it need only be said that it was the most pleasant experience<br />
of our Naval Academy career. Jamestown, Norfolk, New York, Poughkeepsie,<br />
New London, Baltimore and Wmhington were all on the itinerary<br />
md everyone thoroughly enjoyed the yachting trip.fi:<br />
<strong>The</strong> visit to Jamestown was occasioned by the 1907 Jamestown Exhibition<br />
and participation by the Midshipmen Practice Cruise in “the most noble<br />
pageant of recent years,” a Fleet Review by President <strong>The</strong>odore Roosevelt.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Class of 1908 made its pleasant but unglamorous First Class<br />
Midshipmen’s Practice Cruise during the SLUTUTH’ of 1907 in three monitors,<br />
the i4v,kansas, Flo~ida, and AT~tada, all less than five years in commission,<br />
and in Dewey’s flagship at the Battle of Manila Bay, the fine armored cruiser<br />
Olympia of 8,500 tons, <strong>The</strong> famous Olympia, initially commissioned on<br />
5 February 1895, mounted what, in l’j07, was still considered a modern<br />
battery, consisting of four 8-inch 35-caliber guns and ten 5-inch 40-caliber<br />
guns.<br />
On the other hand, the low powered and awkward appearing monitors<br />
were never popular with the seagoing Navy for they dived under more<br />
waves than they rode over and according to the 1908 Lzc.ky ZLzg “rolled<br />
through 3650 at every swell.” <strong>The</strong>y mounted six guns on their 3,200 tons<br />
displacement. <strong>The</strong>se monitors were built during the 30-Year era when Con-<br />
gress legislated the detailed characteristics of our naval ships, and during<br />
the early years of that era when Congress was unwilling to authorize seagoing<br />
ships capable of offensive action in the sea lanes of the world and authorized<br />
only “sea going coastal line ships” or “harbor defense ships. ” ‘c<br />
w (a) Turner; (b) .N’umzlRi.q,,ter, 1908.<br />
= h{-ky Bug, 1908, P. 279.<br />
WDicliondry of Ameri(an Nd? a[ Fi8hiing Sbipf, Vol. I. pp. 189–91, 203, 207. A~alJalAci of J<br />
Aug. 1882, Ndva[ A(-I of 3 Mar. 188>, Naval Act of 3 Aug. 1886, Natal Act Of19 Ju1. 1892,<br />
Naval Act of 2 Ma~. 1893, and NaI al Art of $ May 1898.
24 Amphibian-r Came To Conquer<br />
<strong>The</strong> harbor defense monitors assigned to his cruise were later to have<br />
their names changed to Ozark, Tuilabassee, and Tonapab, respectively.<br />
Midshipman First Class R. K. Turner, luckily, was assigned to the Oiytnpia,<br />
for not only was she a respectable appearing man-of-war that gave a sense<br />
of pride to her ship’s company, but attached thereto was one Lieutenant<br />
Ernest J. King, U. S. Navy, the future Commander in Chief, U. S. Fleet and<br />
Chief of Naval Operations during World War II. Lieutenant King was an<br />
instructor in ordnance and gunnery at the Naval Academy, temporarily on<br />
duty in the Olympia for the Summer Practice Cruise. Turner admired the<br />
brainy, professionally alert and strict disciplinarian Lieutenant King. Presumably,<br />
King personally thought enough of Turner to join with others to<br />
recommend him for battalion command during the coming year.67<br />
A member of the Class of 1910 did not look upon Midshipman Turner<br />
with the same kind eyes as Lieutenant King. He writes:<br />
We were shipmates in the OlyrnpZUon my youngster cruise in 1907. He was<br />
overbearing and split. Unpleasant to be on watch with. Inspired, I am sure by<br />
a sense of duty-which he understood required him to be ‘Commanding.’ ‘e<br />
FIRST CLASS YEAR ( 1907-1908)<br />
Much to Midshipman Turner’s surprise, in view of his conduct standing<br />
during the previous th~ee years (number 111, 149, and 65), but to his considerable<br />
delight, he was given four stripes and named to command the<br />
2nd Battalion at the commencement of First Class Academic Year. This was<br />
high honor indeed.’g<br />
Harry Booth Hird who stood number 14 in efficiency and graduated num-<br />
ber 30 in the class was the “Five Striper” and Midshipman Commander of<br />
the Regiment of Midshipmen, and Edmund Randall Norton who stood<br />
number 39 in efficiency and graduated number 2 in the class was the<br />
other “Four Striper” and in command of the 1st Battalion.<br />
Both Hird and Norton turned their attention to specialties of the naval<br />
profession; the first became an engineer, the latter a naval constructor.<br />
Both retired as captains; the first voluntarily in 1939, after 31 years of post-<br />
Academy service, and the latter in 1943, with physical disability after 35<br />
years’ service.’”<br />
0’Turner.<br />
WMember Class of 1910 to GCD (the author),<br />
WTurner.<br />
letters, 24Feb.1962.<br />
‘“ U.S. Naval Register, 1939, 1943; U.S. Naval Academy Regi~ter, 1908
<strong>The</strong> First Thirty Years 25<br />
And for the future midshipman contemplating the relationship between<br />
his efficiency and conduct while at the Naval Academy, with his future<br />
success in the Navy, it should be noted that the midshipman in the Class of<br />
1908 who stood number one in efficiency for his four years at the Academy,<br />
Edward James Fey, was one of the 22 officers in the Class of 1908, who<br />
‘became a rear admiral on the active list of the Navy. As for the midshipman<br />
who ended up his four years in 1908, standing number one in conduct,<br />
William Hurton Piersel, it was his misfortune to be found physically dis-<br />
qualified upon graduation and to be required to submit his resignation.”<br />
Midshipman Turner was a very busy young gentleman his First Class Year.<br />
Besides the detailed tasks which any battalion commander has in controlling<br />
and leading four hundred young Americans, he was editor of the Lucky Bag,<br />
the annual of each Naval Academy graduating class. Because of this assign-<br />
ment, he enjoyed “late lights, ” and the privilege of working after the<br />
10 p.m. taps for “All Hands.”<br />
To these duties were added the fun of managing the baseball team which<br />
won nine straight games, but lost the important one to Army, 5 to 6. He soon<br />
learned that there was always more to be done than the day permitted, and<br />
the necessity of tying together the loose ends of every task before checking<br />
it off in his mind, as a satisfactory completion. He also had a strong urge to<br />
improve his academic standing, and this meant further intensive mental<br />
work.’z<br />
<strong>The</strong> effort was rewarded by a class standing of number 4 for First Class<br />
Year, and number 5 for the four-year course.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Academic Year was also one of constant physical change in the Naval<br />
Academy as old classroom buildings on the prospective sites of new ones<br />
had to be torn down, so that classes were shifted from here to there to meet<br />
the day-to-day situation.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Class of 1908 was the only class during the period from 1901 to 1908<br />
to graduate as a unit in the month and year anticipated at the time of en-<br />
trance of the class into the Naval Academy. During most of these years, the<br />
muster role of the Regiment of Midshipmen and the midshipmen officers<br />
therefore were as flexible and fast moving as an accordion.<br />
Mid-term graduations took place in 1905 and there were two graduations<br />
in 1906 and 1907, with the size of the Brigade and its midshipmen leaders<br />
changing accordingly.<br />
“ Piersel, now Commander, LENR (Ret.).<br />
mTurner.
26 Amphibians Came To Conqzer<br />
<strong>The</strong> 1908 Lzzcky Bag indicated that Midshipman Turner had organiza-<br />
tional and editorial skill, as well as a way with words. It made its bow to<br />
culture by having 21 cartoons each amusingly based on an extract from<br />
Shakespeare, and by including in the write-up on each graduate a bit of<br />
poetry or a descriptive phrase from a standard c!assical author. <strong>The</strong> one on<br />
the page devoted to “Spuds” Turner reads:<br />
Something there is more needful than expense.<br />
And something previous even to taste—tis sense,<br />
Good sense which only is the gift of heaven,<br />
And though no science, fairly worth the seven.<br />
Pope<br />
AS editor of the Lucky Bag, it would seem a safe surmise that there would<br />
be nothing in the individual write-up on Midshipman Turner which Editor<br />
Turner did not sanction. It was, in fact, almost a publisher’s blurb:<br />
from California, with the Westerner’s frankness and good nature love of<br />
adventure and fondness for the good old American game of ‘draw’ [poker]<br />
. . . Has served the class well in different capacities and is deservedly popular<br />
. . . A busy man, with hardly time to catch a smoke . . . A good athlete,<br />
but doesn’t like to train . . An all-around man and a good fellow.<br />
<strong>The</strong> “good nature” and “good f~llow” were probably the furthest devia-<br />
tion from the truth as some of his classmates saw
<strong>The</strong> First Thirty Years 27<br />
Class Supper Committee and his giving the toast to “Athletics” on that<br />
wildly festive occasion.75<br />
<strong>The</strong> good sense of the editor was shown when the Class of 1908 dedicated<br />
its Lucky Bag to Commander William Shepherd Benson, Head of the De-<br />
partment of Discipline, who was destined to be the first of an impressive<br />
line of Chiefs of Naval Operations. Commander Benson contributed these<br />
mellow words to the 1908 L~cky Bag:<br />
We shall feel that our work has not been vain, if perchance it helps you of<br />
1908 to realize the true worth of Friendship and the part it plays in the life<br />
of the Class, the Academy, and the Service.<br />
First Class Year was a year which gave Midshipman Turner the feeling<br />
that even the minor cogs in the Navy have “’to work their hearts out” to<br />
satisfy their superiors, and “to be happy with themselves.” ‘e<br />
Midshipman Turner left Bancroft Hall and his four years as a midship-<br />
man with a good taste in his mouth.<br />
And when our course is over<br />
And we leave old Bancroft Hall<br />
We’ll goon leave a singing<br />
It’s a good world after all.77<br />
A treasured keepsake of these four years included the following letter in<br />
long-hand:<br />
My dear Mr. Turner<br />
I acknowledge with hearty thanks your handsome gift of:<br />
<strong>The</strong> Lucky Bag of 1908<br />
It is most interesting and entertaining too.<br />
If the handsome young faces carry out their indications, there are fine men<br />
in the Class, and our country will be the safer for them.<br />
With heartfelt good wishes for you and for the “Class of 1!908,”<br />
I am faithfully yours,<br />
May 27, 1908.<br />
GEORGE DEWEY<br />
INSTRUCTORS AT THE NAVAL ACADEMY<br />
From 1904 to 1908, instruction at the Naval Academy was primarily in<br />
the hands of naval oficers, except in Mathematics and English which were<br />
7’ Lucky Bag, 1908.<br />
mTurner.<br />
w Lucky Bag, 1908, P. 279
28 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
usually by civilian instructors. <strong>The</strong> over-all Academy ratio was roughly two<br />
officers to one civilian instructor.78 According to the Naval Academy<br />
Superintendent, due to the continual shortage of officers in the Navy, and<br />
the continual shortage of money to hire civilian instructors, “it has been<br />
necessary to avail ourselves of the services of the senior class as instructors<br />
in Mathematics, in Applied Mathematics, and in English.” 79<br />
During the period when Midshipman Turner was at the Naval Academy,<br />
duty at that institution was considered highly desirable by the top flight<br />
officers of the “Line of the Navy. ” Such duty offered an excellent opportunity<br />
for the daily exercise of leadership qualities as well as providing an<br />
opportunity for professional study and personal broadening of technical<br />
competence. For example, during his three year duty at the Naval Academy,<br />
Ernie King read military history and naval history voraciously.s”<br />
More than a fair share of the heavy cream of the Line officers of the<br />
Navy of the ranks from lieutenant to commander were to be found at the<br />
Naval Academy. This is evidenced by the fact that during the period 1904-<br />
1908 a total of six future Chiefs of Naval Operations and/or future Com-<br />
manders in Chief of the United States Fleet were on duty at the Naval<br />
Academy among the 58 to 65 Line officers instructing midshipmen in pro-<br />
fessional and cultural subjects and in the Command and Discipline Depart-<br />
ment.<br />
Future Chiefs of Naval Operations were:<br />
W. S. BENSON<br />
W. V. PRATT<br />
W. D. LEAHY<br />
E. J. KING<br />
Future Commanders in Chief, United States Fleet were:<br />
H. A. WILEY<br />
W. V. PRATT 8’<br />
A. J. HEPBURN<br />
E. J. KING 82<br />
It also might be remarked that during this period there were from 58 to<br />
m Naval Academ~ l?egister~, 1901-1908.<br />
mCHBUNAV, Annual Report, p. 45 in SECNAV, AmrudlReport, 1904.<br />
wKing’s Record, p. 74.<br />
mHeld CNO Office subsequently to that of CINC<strong>US</strong>.<br />
= Held combined office and title, Commander in Chief United States Fleet and Chief of Naval<br />
Operations.
<strong>The</strong> First Thirty Years 29<br />
65 Line officers instructing midshipmen in professional and cultural subjects<br />
and in the Command and Discipline Departments. <strong>The</strong> number of future<br />
Flag officers among the 58 to 65 Line officer instructors varied from 18 to<br />
23, depending upon which of the years from 1904 to 1908 is chosen.83 Any<br />
naval command with a nucleus of from 30 percent to 40 percent potential<br />
Flag officers is fortunate indeed. This fact indicates the great importance<br />
attached 50 to 60 years ago to the training of midshipmen.<br />
Victory at sea in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War can<br />
be attributed, in a considerable meastire, in this writer’s opinion, to the<br />
excellence of this fundamental schooling and training, and the high caliber<br />
of those managing and conducting these tasks.<br />
GRADUATION<br />
On 30 March 1908, Midshipman Turner wrote his mother—then visiting<br />
his oldest brother, kzer Turner, teaching school at Lingayen, in the Philippines:<br />
I have requested to be assigned to duty on the Colorado, an armored cruiser,<br />
now on the Pacific Coast. She is one of a squadron of eight ships and this<br />
squadron is expected to be sent to China in the Fall, so 1’11probably be able<br />
to see you then, as they will visit Manila, of course.<br />
****<br />
I expect to have a final mark for the year of about 3.60, which will give me<br />
a mark for the course of about 3.47 with a standing either sixth or seventh.<br />
With that standing, I could probably get into the Construction <strong>Corps</strong>, but I<br />
prefer the Line.84<br />
On 5 June 1908, Midshipman Turner was graduated, his diploma stating<br />
“with distinction, ” and was ordered, not to the Colorado and the Armored<br />
Cruiser Squadron of the Pacific Fleet, but to a smaller cruiser, the <strong>US</strong>S<br />
Milwaukee. <strong>The</strong> Milwaukee in the 3rd Division and the 2nd Squadron was<br />
a new 9,700-ton, 22-knot, protected cruiser officially designated as a {‘Cruiser,<br />
First Class” and one of the 25 cruisers and gunboats which together with<br />
23 torpedo boats and torpedo boat destroyers, made up the LTnited States<br />
Pacific Fleet, then under the command of Rear Admiral John H. Dayton,<br />
U. S. Navy. While the Milwatikee’s protection of 5-inch armor was light,<br />
she fairly bristled with guns. Her main battery consisted of fourteen 6-inch<br />
mU.S. Nau~l Academy Registevs, 190 P1908; U.S. Naval Regi~ter.r, 1908–1936.<br />
“ RKT to Mother, letter, 30 Mar. 1908.
30 Amphibians Came To Conqzzer<br />
50-caliber guns; her secondary battery of eighteen 3-inch 5C)-caliber guns<br />
and twelve 3-pounders. This vast array of 44 topside guns caught the eye<br />
immediately. <strong>The</strong>re was a promise of plenty for a young man with a first-rate<br />
mind and a strong body to learn and do. And it can be assumed that Captains<br />
Charles A. Gove and Charles C. (“Squinchy” ) Rogers, both of the<br />
Class of 1876, and both later Flag officers, were quite determined that the<br />
four or five past midshipmen in the Milwaukee’s officer allowance would<br />
carry their share of the load.<br />
Looking back on his four years at Annapolis, Admiral Turner said: “I<br />
liked the Naval Academy. Most of those in my class who didn’t were<br />
young.” ‘5<br />
PAST MIDSHIPMAN<br />
In 1908, midshipmen successfully completing the course at the Naval<br />
Academy were ordered to sea duty in a semi-probationary status for two<br />
years before being eligible for a Presidential commission as ensigns in the<br />
United States Navy. <strong>The</strong>y were oflicers in a qualified sense, were titled<br />
“Past Midshipman” and were subject to much rotation in their divisional<br />
assignments on board ship. <strong>The</strong>y received continued close supervision in<br />
endless hard work, minor personal consideration, and tantalizingly small<br />
pay ($1,400.00 per year). <strong>The</strong>ir rewards included a possible rearrangement<br />
of relative standing on the naval list with their classmates, based on per-<br />
formance of duty when promoted to ensign, denial of the normal ten percent<br />
increase of pay for officers serving at sea, and denial of permission to marry.<br />
This last feature of a past midshipman’s life was the most distasteful to<br />
Past Midshipman Turner. In his senior year at high school, he had fallen in<br />
love with a schoolmate, Harriet (Hattie) Sterling.sG ‘ he had reported to his mother having<br />
taken to the June Ball a “‘Miss Ethel Naylor of Baltimore, a perfect beauty with the most wonderful<br />
eyes.”
<strong>The</strong> First Thirty Years 31<br />
Midshipman Tzwner’s fi~st ship, <strong>US</strong>S Milwaukee.<br />
Turner Collection
32 Ampbibia~s Came To Conquer<br />
California. He had hoped-very strongly that marriage would come sooner.<br />
As early as the fall of 1906, Midshipman Turner had written:<br />
When I graduate, that is still nineteen months off, I think we will be commissioned<br />
ensigns instead of waiting a couple of years longer, and that means<br />
five or six hundred dollars a year difference.sa<br />
But Congress was S1OW to move on the recommendation of the Navy<br />
Department and the class of 1908 served their two years as past midshipmen<br />
-officers, but not commissioned officers.<br />
Harriet Sterling, as her husband, was of pioneer California stock, her<br />
paternal grandmother having come to California in 1864 by way of the<br />
Isthmus of Panama, after her grandfather, John Calhoun Sterling, was killed<br />
in. the Civil War, Harriet Sterling’s maternal grandparents reached Cali-<br />
fornia in 1849 and 18>2, William Henry Lyons via Cape Horn, Georgia<br />
Allen by wagon train.S9<br />
Harriet Turner brought one immediate change to her husband’s life. She<br />
called him “Kelly’ ‘—and the Navy soon followed suit. Her womanly reason<br />
—she didn’t like the name “Richmond” or its shortened form “Rich” and<br />
detested his Lucky Bag nickname “Spuds.” ‘0 <strong>The</strong> latter nickname had been<br />
given Midshipman Turner reportedly because he had<br />
on his face which looked like incipient potatoes.”<br />
THE FIRST YEARS<br />
several mole growths<br />
Past Midshipman Turner served in four ships during his first year out of<br />
the Naval Academy, and it was not until he arrived in the roomy 13,680-ton<br />
armored cruiser WeJt Virginia in July 190$), that the Bureau of Navigation<br />
let him stay long enough to really make his mark.<br />
In 1908, the old Bureau of Navigation was in desperate straits for oficers.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Great White Fleet of 16 battleships, the backbone of the Navy, and six<br />
torpedo boat destroyers had sailed from Hampton Roads, Virginia, in<br />
December 1907 for its record-breaking, flag-showing and muscle-flexing<br />
“Voyage Around the World.” <strong>The</strong> ships of the Great While Fleet were<br />
manned by a full allowance of officers and men. Since the whole Navy was<br />
WRKT to Moth.r, letter, 18 Oct. 1906.<br />
w (a) Interview with Mrs. Harriet S. Turner, March 1960. Hereafter Mrs. Turner; (b) Miss<br />
L. Turner.<br />
WMrs. Turner.<br />
MInterview with James M. Doyle (Class of 1909), classmate for two years, Jan. 1964.
<strong>The</strong> First Thirty Years 33<br />
under strength in oflicers, this left those ships not lucky enough to make the<br />
voyage less than just scrimpily oficered. <strong>The</strong> Bureau kept robbing Peter to<br />
pay Paul. <strong>The</strong> Milwuakee with an approved complement of 36 officers on<br />
commissioning 11 May 1906, and oficered by nine commissioned line<br />
oflicers, seven past midshipmen, and nine staff and warrant officers when the<br />
Great White Fleet shoved off, was brought down to six commissioned line<br />
officers, four past midshipmen, and nine staff and warrant officers during<br />
1908.’2<br />
During this first year, and after spending four months in the Milwaukee,<br />
Past Midshipman Turner happily served for seven weeks in the 270-ton<br />
harbor tug Active (YT-14) at the Mare Island Navy Yard. Here, he was<br />
reasonably close to Stockton and the love of his life. <strong>The</strong>n he was bounced<br />
back to the Milwaukee for a short month and in January 1909 was assigned<br />
for six months to the Preble (DD-12 ), one of the 16 original torpedo boat<br />
destroyers of about 480 tons authorized by the Congress during the Spanish<br />
American War, and whose keel had been laid down way back in April 1899.<br />
Duty in the Miiwaukee was mainly as a Junior Division Officer and as<br />
Junior Watch Officer, within an ever decreasing number of Line officers and<br />
past midshipmen. Under the principle of rotation of duties, Past Midshipman<br />
Turner served in the Gunnery Department under Gunnery Officer, Lieutenant<br />
Edward B. (Dad) Fenner, later a Flag officer, and then for three months as<br />
First Assistant Engineer in the Engineering Department under Lieutenant<br />
Earl P. Jessop. With the exception of his three “additional duty” engineering<br />
assignments in the Navy’s early torpedo boats and torpedo boat destroyers,<br />
and one month in the West Virginia as Second Assistant, this was his only<br />
real engineering detail in almost 40 years of active duty. He enjoyed engineering<br />
duty but even more, he enjoyed working with Navy guns, whether<br />
they were small, medium or large, but he particularly enjoyed his life in the<br />
Navy with the big guns.”<br />
Duty in the harbor tug Active was in the combined billets of Executive<br />
Officer, Senior Engineer, and Navigator; and in the Preble and Davis in the<br />
combined billets of Executive Officer and Engineer Officer.<br />
In July 1909, Past Midshipman Turner commenced a three-year cruise in<br />
the Armored Cruiser Squadron, about which the old song went:<br />
Here’s to the cruisers of the Fleet<br />
So goldurn fast, they’re hard to beat,<br />
wNaval &?glJtf?t’J,1907, 1908, 1909.<br />
* (a) Turner; (b) RKT to Mother, letter, 8 Nov. 1909
34 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
Ensign Turner and his niece aboa~d U.SSWest Virginia<br />
<strong>The</strong> battleships, they may be fine,<br />
But me for a cruiser every time.<br />
*****<br />
<strong>The</strong> officers are a bunch of drunks.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y keep their white clothes in their trunks.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y stand their watches in their bunks.<br />
In the Armored Cruiser Squadron.<br />
NH69098<br />
In the period of our Navy when there was a touch of truth as well as a<br />
touch of poetry in this doggerel, Past Midshipman Turner and then Ensign<br />
Turner stood out as one of the low powered beacon lights, in the Armored<br />
Cruiser Squadron and in the good ship We$t Virginia,
In a Navy that was<br />
drank hard liquor very<br />
<strong>The</strong> First Thirty Yeuvs 35<br />
officially wet, and unofficially dripping in spots, he<br />
sparingly, he worked unceasingly, he had brains and<br />
applied them, and he kept his eye on the true gunnery target—progress<br />
of the Navy.<br />
In a period of our Navy’s long history, when there was no selection for<br />
promotion to any rank, when seniors were apt to spread the cold truth and<br />
nothing but the truth on officers’ semi-annual fitness reports, when ship’s<br />
companies were small, and every officer was well known to his captain, the<br />
fitness reports of this young officer; while lacking the whipped cream topping<br />
of the fitness reports of the ensigns of the 1960’s, were indicative of the<br />
Navy’s best young officers of any year or age.<br />
[1] A thoroughly good man and excellent officer, steady and reliable. [2}<br />
Even tempered, energetic, active and painstaking. [3} Exceptionally able and<br />
efficient .e~<br />
As a makee learn officer, he was a captain’s dream of what a young officer<br />
should have-interest, brains, and a willingness to work.<br />
I haven’t told you about my new guns. . . . <strong>The</strong>re was a new deal . . my<br />
six 3-inch [Wns] were taken away and I got four 6-inch in their place. . .<br />
I consider myself extremely lucky, as there isn’t another midshipman in the<br />
Fleet, if indeed there is in the entire Navy, with so important a battery.g’<br />
I’ll have to get a little sleep as I have averzged not more than five or six<br />
hours a day for a couple of weeks.”<br />
Everyday since we left the Golden Gate has been one brim full of interest<br />
and hard work.’7<br />
<strong>The</strong> Armored Cruiser Squadron, like the “Cruising, boozing boys of<br />
SUBDIVNINE” (Submarine Division Nine) was always on the move. In<br />
September 1909, they headed for New Guinea, but more particularly for the<br />
Admiralty Islands, part of the Bismarck Archipelago about 400 miles north-<br />
west of the Solomons. According to Kelly:<br />
<strong>The</strong> trip down to Admiralty Islands was more in the nature of a reconnaissance<br />
than anything else. Strictly on the qt., the United States Government<br />
is on the lookout for more coaling stations in this part of the world,<br />
and those islands seem to promise well, if we can only buy them from<br />
Germany, which I doubt very much.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Intelligence Board of the Fleet, of which I am, or was, one of the<br />
assistants, gathered a lot of information without letting the trader there know<br />
w Extracts from fitness reports, J!ISSWeft Virgitiia.<br />
WRKT to Mother, letter. 3 Oct. 1909.<br />
WRKT to Mother, letter, 2S Nov. 1909.<br />
“ RKT to Mother, letter, 3 Oct. 1909.
36 Amphibians Canze To Coirqtier<br />
anything about it, and some of us made a very complete chart of the harbor<br />
[Nares in Western Manus Island], a thing that had never been done before.<br />
We were four days making it, all of which were spent out in a small steam<br />
launch, unprotected from the heat. And let me tell you it gets hot down there,<br />
right underneath the sun. [Latitude 20 South] ‘W<br />
Later he wrote:<br />
Since leaving Honolulu, except for one day in Manila, 1 have spent every<br />
bit of time on board ship, doing nothing but stand my watches and work on<br />
my guns. It has been mighty interesting, too, I can tell you, though, hard and<br />
tedious work as the guns on this ship are old and have to have a Iot of<br />
doctoring to get results from them. But as it was my first target practice (as<br />
a Gun Division Officer] and as I have a lot to Iearn about guns, I haven’t<br />
rrnded abit . . . even over losing about fifteen pounds in weight since<br />
leaving the States. . . . Tomorrow we put to sea and fire at a moving target<br />
exactly the same conditions that we would have in battle. . . . We stood first<br />
in night practice out of all the ships in the Navy, and we are hoping to do as<br />
well tomorrow.gg<br />
VISITING JAPAN<br />
<strong>The</strong> visit of the Great White Fleet to Japan in October 1908 had been a<br />
great personal triumph for President <strong>The</strong>odore Roosevelt’s 1‘Walk softly<br />
and carry a big stick” diplomacy, since as one historian points out:<br />
<strong>The</strong> visit was undoubtedly successful in creating great good will and in<br />
quieting talk of war between the two countries.lo”<br />
In January 1910, Rear Admiral Uriel Sebree, U. S. Navy (Class of 1867),<br />
brought the Armored Cruiser Squadron of the Pacific Fleet to Japan for a<br />
further good will visit. From the depths of the Weft Virginia steerage, Past<br />
Midshipman Turner observed:<br />
I didn’t go ashore very much as I am studying for my exams. . . . Nagasaki<br />
was very pleasant, climate good, and the people very pleasant to us. . . . <strong>The</strong><br />
Japanese are a really civilized people.’o’<br />
<strong>The</strong>re were times in the years ahead, when he might have wished to<br />
question this last judgment.<br />
WRKT to Mother, letter, 28 Nov. 1909.<br />
mRKT to Mother, letter from Olongapo, P. I., undated.<br />
‘wDudley W. Knox, A History oj the United States Navy (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons,<br />
1947), p. 378.<br />
‘“’RKT to Mother, letter from Yokohama, Japan, 17 Jan. 1910.
<strong>The</strong> FZYJt Thzvty Years 37<br />
PROMOTION TO ENSIGN<br />
When promoted to ensign in June 1910, Past Midshipman Turner retained<br />
his relative standing of number 5 in the Class of 1908. <strong>The</strong> Naval<br />
Examining Board, wrestling with the records of 178 past midshipmen,<br />
shuffled the precedence of the bottom half of the Class of 1908 considerably.<br />
In the top half, fewer and less drastic changes were made, the earliest rearrangement<br />
shifting graduate number 12 ahead of graduate number 11.’02<br />
However, in another four years Lieutenant (junior grade) Turner would<br />
become the number one Line officer in the Class of 1908 in the Naval<br />
Register—when one officer senior to him resigned his commission and the<br />
other three Line officers his senior transferred to the Naval Construction<br />
<strong>Corps</strong>.<br />
Two hundred of the Class of 1908 received diplomas of graduation. Six<br />
resigned at graduation time and 13 had resigned as past midshipmen. Three<br />
had been dismissed from the Naval Service and 178 were promoted to en-<br />
‘0’Naval Register, 1911.<br />
Ke~iy Tarrier and his bride-to-be, 1910.<br />
NH69097
38 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
sign, although three, due to general courts martial, were in markedly inferior<br />
positions on the Lineal List of the Line of the Navy.’”’<br />
His marriage in early August 1910 increased Ensign Turner’s financial<br />
problems with only a small measure of surcease from the larger pay check<br />
his commissioned rank carried. His pay now totaled $170 per month as an<br />
ensign on sea duty with over five years’ total naval service.<br />
NAVY PAY<br />
Just before Midshipman Turner graduated, the Congress on 13 May 1908,<br />
had been pleased to grant a very small increase of pay to a limited portion of<br />
the Naval Service, the first pay increase since 1 July 1899. <strong>The</strong> new pay law<br />
increased the pay of Midshipman Turner from $5OO to $6OO per year, of Past<br />
Midshipman Turner from $950 to $1,400 per year, and of Ensign Turner<br />
from $1,400 to $1,700 per year. <strong>The</strong> past midshipmen were judged to have<br />
been extremely fortunate, since commanders and captains at sea continued<br />
to draw for another 12 years the same meager base pay as they had under<br />
the old 1899 pay bill.<br />
Richmond Kelly Turner was raised in frugal circumstances. He had a<br />
sound appreciation of the value of money, including the dollars of the United<br />
States Government. For example, in December 1898, he wrote to his Father:<br />
I have a position carrying papers at $3 a month. Saturday, I bought a hat<br />
$1.85, two shirts @$.5o, and [spent] $.45 on the trip to and around San<br />
Francisco.<br />
I send a little Christmas present which I hope you will enjoy.l”’<br />
He early learned the availability and uses of credit by the officers and gen-<br />
tlemen of the Naval Service.<br />
I had to put off paying for Hattie’s present, but that’s all right, as I got her a<br />
better one than if I’d paid cash.’”s<br />
But, on his first visit to Japan after buying a bolt of white silk for his<br />
prospective bride’s dress, he wrote:<br />
It makes me mad clear through to see so many nice things to buy, without<br />
the wherewithal to purchase.108<br />
‘~ Ibid., 1908, 1909, 1910, 1911.<br />
‘MRKT to Papa, letter, 26 Dec. 1898.<br />
lmRKT to Mother, letter, 7 Jan. 1906.<br />
‘a RKT to Mother, letter, 17 Jan. 1910.
<strong>The</strong> First Tbivty Years 39<br />
On his second visit to the island of Hawaii and a year after marriage, the<br />
pangs of the pocketbook were still with him, as he remarked:<br />
I shan’t go up to Kilauea, the volcano which is rather more active now than<br />
usually, as the trip costs about six dollars and I can’t spare the money. ” 107<br />
Each of his 1909 to 1911 letters available have some mention of financial<br />
problems. Nevertheless, his concern in regard to these never matched his<br />
pleasure over career successes in the Navy, and did not approach his concern<br />
over the care and happiness of his wife, who closely balanced the Navy<br />
as his main source for continued happy living.<br />
HAWAII—PEARL HARBOR, 1911<br />
<strong>The</strong> Navy continued to satisfy the Turner clan’s basic need to be on the<br />
move.<br />
<strong>The</strong> We~l VirginLz continued to cruise about the Pacific Ocean; the Navy<br />
continued to use the Naval Academy marking system where 4.o was the<br />
mark for perfection; and Ensign Turner continued to receive 3.8’s, 3.9’s, and<br />
4.o’s and complimentary remarks from his Commanding Officers in his fitness<br />
reports.<br />
In late 1911, the Weft Virgifiia, as part of the Armored Cruiser Squadron,<br />
took part in the ceremonies in connection with the first opening of what was<br />
to become Ten-Ten Drydock, the 1,010-foot drydock at Pearl Harbor.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Calijorniu officially opened Pearl Harbor the other day, and Prince<br />
Kalianaole [sic] gave a brief luau, or barbecue in honor of the guests. <strong>The</strong>re<br />
were all kinds of native chow and stuff to eat, and the old Queen Lilianokealaui<br />
[sic] was there. She still maintains her old court and sat on a sort of<br />
throne in a pergola, with m fittendant waving one of those big tassel fans,<br />
that you see in Egyptian pictures, over her, and surrounded by her court, a<br />
Chamberlain and Ladies and Gentlemen in Waiting, armed with guitars and<br />
ukuleles. She is over seventy and a toothless, fat old thing. 108<br />
TORPEDO BOAT DESTROYERS<br />
On 12 June 1912, Ensign Turner having arrived in the West Virginia<br />
from a torpedo boat destroyer was detached to duty in a torpedo boat<br />
‘mRKT to Mother, letter, 15 Dec. 1911.<br />
‘MRKT to Mother, letter, 15 Dec. 1911.
40 Amphibians Came To Conqner<br />
destroyer. Ensign Turner had requested duty in “one of the ships of the<br />
Pacific Torpedo Flotilla” on 19 September 191 I.*”’<br />
During this period, 1908–1913, in the life of a developing and growing<br />
Navy, torpedo boats and torpedo boat destroyers had considerable allure<br />
for young officers. <strong>The</strong>se small, cramped, and speedy crafts (22-29 knots)<br />
offered the opportunity to officers in their first five years of seagoing duty to<br />
be heads of departments and commanding oficers-instead of far down on<br />
the totem pole of major shipboard responsibility. Past Midshipman Turner<br />
served six months in the Preble (TBD- 12 ) in 1909. Ensign Turner in March<br />
and April 1912 served in the diminutive 155-ton Daoi~ (TB- 12 ) in a tempor-<br />
ary duty status. Commencing in June 1912 he served a year as Executive<br />
0f3icer and, at the end of his sea cruise, and, for a brief nine weeks, in command<br />
of the much larger Stewart (TBD-13 ) .“O<br />
<strong>The</strong> llavi~ was only 50 paces (148 feet) long and had but 1,750 horse-<br />
power in her Lilliputian engines to provide her with 23 knots. <strong>The</strong> Preble<br />
and Stewart were a hundred feet longer, displaced 420 tons and needed all<br />
their 7,OOO horsepower to make 28–29 knots. <strong>The</strong> torpedo boats normally<br />
had an ensign and a past midshipman aboard while the larger torpedo boat<br />
destroyers required two commissioned officers and one past midshipman to<br />
keep them operating now and then.<br />
It was during this 191 2–1913 period that Ensign Turner’s fitness reports<br />
showed that his eyes and interests had begun to turn to the broader aspects<br />
of a naval officer’s self-training. He wrote: “I have read books by Mahan,<br />
Darriens, Knapp and Logan.” ‘“<br />
Gradually over the next few years Ensign Turner read all of Mahan’s<br />
main works and listed this fact in the appropriate place in his fitness report.<br />
His commanding officers in the torpedo boat destroyers, only a class or two<br />
senior to him, were duly impressed and continued to sprinkle a generous<br />
quota of 4.o’s on his fitness reports and always reported him “forceful, active,<br />
and painstaking,” three useful characteristics for the naval officer.<br />
MAKING A SERVICE REPUTATION 1913-1925<br />
<strong>The</strong> 12 years from 1913 to 1925 saw Lieutenant (junior grade) Turner<br />
‘@CHBUNAV, letter 6312–15, 3 Oct. 1911.<br />
‘0 (a) BUNAV Orders, 6312-19, 21 Mar. 1912 and 6322-19, 11 Jun. 1912; (b) SECNAV,<br />
N-31-H, 29 Jul. 1913.<br />
m Fitness Reports, 1912, 1913.
<strong>The</strong> First Thirty Years 41<br />
acquire an excellent “Service reputation” and the three stripes of a commander.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re was some very thin ice which he barely and luckily got over,<br />
while serving on a staff and while in command of a destroyer. Breaking<br />
through thin ice in the Navy during this period was not only dangerous, it<br />
w’as darn likely to be fatal. For during this period, the Navy, many years in<br />
advance of the Army, fostered and adapted the selective system of promotion<br />
for all grades above the rank of lieutenant commander.<br />
As Fleet Admiral King wrote, the 1916 Selection Law had<br />
an immediate effect on the Service, for until that time longevity had been the<br />
yardstick by which naval officers reached high command, <strong>The</strong> matter of<br />
selecting only the best, and eliminating the others, had been discussed<br />
throughout the Navy for some years.l’z<br />
Since all seagoing Line officers had the same basic education, and the same<br />
fundamentals of military character acquired at the Naval Academy, it was<br />
obvious that to “be amongst the best” for future selection, it was necessary,<br />
at the minimum, to acquire further education and to use it to the maximum.<br />
This Lieutenant (junior grade) Turner set about doing,’”<br />
<strong>The</strong> Navy had for many years required its officers to take broad gauge<br />
professional examinations upon each promotion to a higher grade. <strong>The</strong>se<br />
tough examinations were highly effective in self education and in keeping<br />
all seagoing Line officers up to date in all professional aspects of their com-<br />
plex careers. <strong>The</strong> professional examinations covered such fringe matters as<br />
international law and military law, as well as the basic professional require-<br />
ments of theoretical navigation, practical navigation, electrical engineering,<br />
steam engineering, seamanship, ordnance, and gunnery.<br />
But in addition to this self education, postgraduate instruction was open<br />
to an outstanding few in the Bureaus and at Navy Yards. <strong>The</strong> establishment<br />
of the Naval Postgraduate School in 1912 at the Naval Academy greatly<br />
expanded the opportunity for further formal education of young officers.<br />
After one year of intensive study at Annapolis, the students were sent on to<br />
Harvard, Columbia, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of<br />
Chicago, or the University of Michigan for their master’s degree in mechan-<br />
ical, electrical, diesel, radio, chemical, or various aspects of ordnance<br />
engineering.<br />
m King’s Record, p. 103. Reprinted by permission of W .W. Norton & Co., Inc.<br />
lls <strong>The</strong> Naul Regi~ter, 1914, lists 34 officers who had completed postgraduate courses in<br />
ordnance and 23 who had completed postgraduate courses in engineering, beginning with graduates<br />
of the Class of 1898.
42 Am~bibians Came To Conquer<br />
PROMOTION TO JUN1OR LIEUTENANT<br />
In June 1913, Ensign Turner passed his examinations and became one of<br />
the 150 junior lieutenants from the Class of 1908 commissioned in the Navy.<br />
Fourteen of his classmates had resigned their naval commissions while en-<br />
signs; three had been retired because of physical disability; one had been<br />
dismissed; and one had unhappily run away from the Navy and been declared<br />
a deserter. However, the Line of the Class of 1908 in the Navy had suffered<br />
further losses. Two classmates transferred to the <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong>, two to the<br />
Civil Engineer <strong>Corps</strong>, one to the Mathematics <strong>Corps</strong>, one to the Supply<br />
<strong>Corps</strong> and the three who stood number 1, 2, and 3 upon graduation trans-<br />
ferred to the Construction <strong>Corps</strong>. Out of two hundred graduates, in five short<br />
years, only 75 percent remained in the Line.<br />
On 1 January 1908, there were but 1,270 Line oficers in the Navy including<br />
307 past midshipmen. Only 84 of these were captains, and besides Admiral<br />
George Dewey there were no more than twenty other Flag officers. By 1 Janu-<br />
ary 1913 the total number of Line officers had increased to 1,708.”4 During<br />
the interim, Past Midshipman Turner had been examined and promoted to<br />
ensign on 6 June 1910. He was promoted to junior lieutenant on 6 June 1913.<br />
Acquiring a first flight service reputation with these 105 important people<br />
in the Navy, the captains and Flag officers depended upon doing something<br />
worthwhile where they could see or hear about it. This could be accomplished<br />
in the Navy-wide Gunnery Competition or in the Engineering Competition<br />
which had been started in the Navy in 1902 and in 1907 respectively. It<br />
could be accomplished in command of a ship. It could be accomplished on<br />
the staff of a Flag officer. It had to be accomplished where the greatest number<br />
of officers were stationed—that is in the Fleet. Shore duty was a place where<br />
you prepared yourself for more effective duty afloat and got away from as<br />
soon as possible. You could lose your reputation ashore, but you could not<br />
make it there. Unless under instruction, shore duty was something you en-<br />
joyed and swept under the rug and forgot about.<br />
To illustrate how small the number of officers was on shore duty, in the<br />
Office of the Chief of Naval Operations on 1 January 1916, there were only<br />
39 Line officers; in the Bureau of Navigation, 11 Line officers; and in the<br />
Bureau of Ordnance, 14 officers. Yet the Navy had 1,984 Line officers.’”<br />
‘“ Naval Regi~[e~s, 1908, 1913.<br />
‘u Naval Regi~ler, 1 Jan. 1916.
<strong>The</strong> First Thirty Years 43<br />
SHORE DUTY AND LOVE<br />
Ensign Turner twice was an applicant for postgraduate work at the School<br />
of <strong>Marine</strong> Engineering while in the West Vi~ginia. As hoped for by him:<br />
I have a bare chance to get something pretty good this Fall and we want to<br />
be ready. I have a chance to get detailed to the School of <strong>Marine</strong> Engineering,<br />
a graduate school held at Annapolis. And as it is for two years, and all of it<br />
ashore, naturally we are anxious to go if possible. <strong>The</strong>n after that, if I do well<br />
enough, after one more cruise at sea, I may be able to get the detail permanently<br />
and never go to sea again. It is something that I am very much interested<br />
in, and I am getting to the point where I am tired of being a sort of<br />
parasite, but want to do something real; I want to have a part in the real<br />
progress of the world, to have my work more constructive than destructive,<br />
as it is now.lle<br />
Ensign Turner buttered his second request for postgraduate engineering<br />
instruction with a statement that he had had 13 months and 15 days of<br />
engineering duty in his four years since graduation, and with commendatory<br />
letters from his Commanding Officer and other officers served with in the<br />
West Virgi~ia, Prebie, Milwaukee, and Active,<br />
This yen for perpetual shore duty under the guise of being an engineer,<br />
unfortunately for the Japanese, did not live much beyond the honeymoon<br />
period.<br />
<strong>The</strong> first of his 1908 classmates, Harry B. Hird, the “five striper” at the<br />
Naval Academy, to be ordered to the Postgraduate School was ordered in<br />
1912 for instruction in marine engineering, and became an ‘
44 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
Ensign T.wner in landing force nnif ornz.<br />
POSTGRADUATE 1NSTRUCTION<br />
Past Midshipman Turner had dreamed about having his<br />
in Hawaii:<br />
NH 69099<br />
first shore duty<br />
When the time comes for my first shore duty I am surely going to ask to be<br />
sent to this place [Honolulu] because then, when Hattie and I are married,<br />
I can conceive of no more b&utiful place to spend two honeymoon years.’ls<br />
m RKT to Mother, letter from Honolulu, T. H., 3 Oct. 1909.
<strong>The</strong> First Thirty Years 45<br />
Ensign Turner had dreamed again about having shore duty before his<br />
initial five years’ sea service was completed, and particularly he had dreamed<br />
about it in January 19 I I, and in May 1912, when he officially requested<br />
shore duty via the postgraduate route. However, it was not until 30 Septem-<br />
ber 1913, that Lieutenant (junior grade) Turner with five years of sea<br />
service and watchstanding under his belt, reported into the Naval Academy<br />
for postgraduate instruction in Ordnance. Three years later, and after several<br />
disturbing sea duty interruptions, he had his postgraduate degree, and was<br />
headed for a job in the Gunnery Department of the Flagship of the U. S.<br />
Atlantic Fleet, the good ship Pennsylvania. However, the interruptions at sea<br />
gave him his first amphibious training, since he had been a midshipman.<br />
In the fall of 1913, there were 13 of the Class of 1908 and one oi%cer<br />
who had come up from the ranks in the “Under Instruction, Naval Academy”<br />
category. Ten of Lieutenant (junior grade) Turner’s classmates came from<br />
the first 15 percent of the 1908 graduating class. Four were taking the postgraduate<br />
courses in Ordnance, the rest in Engineering or Electrical Engineer-<br />
ing. <strong>The</strong> competition was bound to be intelligent, determined, and tough.’”<br />
Lieutenant ( jg) Turner almost didn’t stay at postgraduate instruction.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Bureau of Navigation, having in August 1913 ordered him to post-<br />
graduate duty, five months later, discovered that he had not signed an<br />
“Agreement of Post Graduate students to serve eight years in the Navy.”<br />
So the Bureau sent him the form to sign.<br />
Lieutenant (junior grade) Turner bounced it back with the following<br />
letter:<br />
1. Returned herewith unsigned is Enclosure (A) transmitted to me with<br />
Bureau’s letter above referred to.<br />
2. This agreement is unsigned for the following reasons: that I was ordered<br />
to the Post Graduate Course without having requested the assignment, and did<br />
not at the time know of the existence of the agreement nor that its projection<br />
was contemplated; that I beIieve the agreement should be presented at the<br />
time of issuing orders to this duty and an opportunity be given for a free<br />
decision at that time without detriment to the officer concerned, instead of at<br />
this time when several months have been spent in the course with no knowledge<br />
of the existence of the agreement; that while I have every intention<br />
never to leave the Navy, I desire not to engage unqualifiedly to remain in<br />
the Navy. . . .’20<br />
<strong>The</strong> Bureau could easily have judged this letter harshly and bounced its<br />
author to the Asiatic Station, since the other three Ordnance students signed<br />
“ Naval Regi~/er, 1 Jan. 1914,<br />
‘mBUNAV letter 25545/145D of 6 Mar. 1914 and RKT reply.
46 Amphibians Came To Conqner<br />
it. But instead, the Bureau of Navigation showed compassion and with a<br />
soft answer signed by “Victor Blue, from South Carolina too,” the 48-yearold<br />
Chief of Bureau, accepted Turner’s substitute statement that he had<br />
“every desire to remain<br />
tinue my service in the<br />
eight (8) years. ”<br />
in the Navy my whole life” and intended “to con-<br />
Navy of the United States for a period of at least<br />
TO THE CARIBBEAN<br />
<strong>The</strong> first six months of postgraduate education flowed smoothly otherwise,<br />
until all of a sudden on 24 April 1914, Lieutenant (junior grade)<br />
Turner was detached by commercial telegram to sea duty in the 1,000-ton,<br />
1,loO-horsepower Marietta,<br />
<strong>The</strong> years 1913 to 1916 were years of revolution and counter revolution in<br />
the Dominican Republic, and of United States involvement in the safety of<br />
United States lives and property investment resulting therefrom. Provisional<br />
President Jose Bordas of the Dominican Republic, in of?ice since 13 April<br />
1913, for a term ‘(no longer than one year,” refused to step down at the end<br />
of his provisional term, and a new and strongly supported revolution against<br />
him broke out, augmenting the small revolution proclaimed on 1 September<br />
1913, over his sale of control of the National Railways.121<br />
<strong>The</strong> good gunboat M~rietta was part of the Cruiser Squadron, U.S.<br />
Atlantic Fleet, under Rear Admiral William B. Caperton, U.S. Navy, which<br />
the Navy Department made available to support the State Department’s<br />
“Gunboat Diplomacy” in Santo Domingo in April 1914.<br />
<strong>The</strong> only major trouble with the Marietta was that she was in that nebulous<br />
condition labeled “in reserve” and assigned to training the New Jersey Naval<br />
Militia with only one officer, a chief boatswain, on board. Her state of war<br />
readiness, in mid-April 1914 thus was questionable. <strong>The</strong> Bureau of Naviga-<br />
tion, in 1!914, as in other years of sudden demands for officers, stripped the<br />
Postgraduate School to oficer the Marietta and additional ships needed for<br />
Santo Domingo, noting that “there are only 329 officers on shore duty other<br />
than Postgraduate School and War College.” ’22<br />
Lieutenants (junior grade) Turner and H. Thomas Markland, the latter<br />
also an ordnance student, were sent to the Marietta post haste. <strong>The</strong>y brought<br />
‘mSumner Welles, Ndw/h’J Virzeyurd, Vol. II (New York: Payson and Clark, LTD, 1928),<br />
chs. XI–XIII.<br />
m CHBUNAV, Annual Report, 1914, p. 146.
<strong>The</strong> First Thifty Years 47<br />
the total of commissioned officers to six, and Lieutenant (junior grade)<br />
Turner was the Gunnery Officer of the six 4-inch guns with which the ship<br />
was armed. Besides being given additional duty as Paymaster for the ship,<br />
when the Paymaster had to be hospitalized ashore, Lieutenant (junior grade)<br />
Turner was the Landing Force Officer.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Marie~ta in August 1914, was at San Pedro de Macoris—a seaport on<br />
the southeast coast of the island and about 40 miles east of the capital city,<br />
called Santo Domingo in 1914. On the beach the government forces and the<br />
rebels were maneuvering for advantage. Lieutenant Turner took quick ac-<br />
tion. He reported that:<br />
On [August 2, 1914] at about 3:20 p.m., an engagement having commenced<br />
between the government forces and the revolutionists, I left this<br />
ship . . in charge of a Landing Force [totaling >0] consisting of one<br />
infantry section of twenty six men, and one officer, Ensign H. V. McCabe,<br />
seventeen men with two Colt’s Automatic Machine Rifles, three signalmen,<br />
three pioneers, two men forming an ammunition party and a medical party<br />
of one hospital steward and two stretchermen in the charge of Assistant<br />
NH 69102<br />
Lieutenant ( jg) Turner at San Pedro de Macovis, Dominican Republic,<br />
Azzgust 1914
4a Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
Surgeon T. A. FortesCue.This force at once occupied the northwest corner of<br />
the cement walled enclosure belonging to the Santa Fe Sugar Company in<br />
which were gathered about one thousand refugees. . . . I established outposts<br />
. . . . no armed forces were within the neutral zone when the landing<br />
occurred, and none attempted to enter until about 3:30 the next morning. . . .<br />
<strong>The</strong> firing between the ~o forces continued briskly for about an hour and<br />
a half, many rifle bullets passing over or falling within the neutral zone. . . .<br />
<strong>The</strong>re was one casualty, . . . Firing continued intermittently until moonset,<br />
at 3:00 a.m., when it increased for about an hour, and then gradually died<br />
away. . . .<br />
****<br />
Occasional shots only were fired in town during the day. . . . <strong>The</strong> refugees<br />
were very much pleased that we were there; government troops with whom<br />
we came in contact were uniformly courteous.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Landing Force returned to the ship at 7:10 p.m. August 3rd.’23<br />
<strong>The</strong> rest of the story is told in the fitness report entry of Commander<br />
W. Pitt Scott, U. S. Navy:<br />
Murietta Landing Force under command of Lieutenant Turner was landed<br />
to enforce respect for a neutraI zone by the Government Forces and the rebels<br />
during an attack by the rebels on San Pedro de Macoris, the rebels having<br />
previously refused to agree to respect such a zone. This duty continuing on<br />
the 2nd and 3rd of August was performed by Lieutenant Turner in a highly<br />
credible manner and was entirely successful in its purpose.12A<br />
At least as much to the point were the eleven 4.o’s in the Fitness Report.<br />
During this period, his mother wrote a letter to President Woodrow Wil-<br />
son, on 23 July 1914, protesting her son’s detachment from postgraduate<br />
instruction and sending him to the miniature war. Mrs. Turner addressed<br />
the letter to the President because she believed the President was one<br />
who considers no matter too small for his careful attention. ” 125<br />
<strong>The</strong> Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, signed the pleasant refusal<br />
of the request:<br />
I regret it would not be practicable to relieve him now.’z’<br />
But, at the end of 1914, with the trouble in the Dominican Republic<br />
settled, temporarily at least, the ALwiezta came back to the United States and<br />
m Report of Lieutenant ,( junior grade) R. K, Turner to Commanding Officer, <strong>US</strong>S Mufiettu,<br />
Aug. 4, 1914.<br />
M (a) RKT Fitness Report, 9/30/14; (b) San Pedro de Macoris is on the south coast of<br />
Dominican Republic 50 miles east of Santo Dominico.<br />
m Letter in RKT official personal file.<br />
m Copy of SECNAV letter in RKT official personal file.
<strong>The</strong> FzrJl Tbzrty Years 49<br />
soon thereafter, Lieutenants (junior grade) Turner and Markland returned<br />
to the calm of their text books and instruction courses.12’<br />
During this postgraduate period, Turner wrote an article published in<br />
the 20 May 1916, Scientific American titled, “<strong>The</strong> Size of Naval Guns: Are<br />
Twelve 14-inch or Eight 17-inch Guns to be Preferred ?“ Turner set forth<br />
the problem, explored it, and analyzed it, and without definitely saying so,<br />
seemed to favor the larger guns. Another article titled “Classes of Naval<br />
Guns” is marked “submitted to several magazines but refused.”<br />
Within this same period of study and learning, Turner read papers or<br />
gave lectures before the student officers on Terrestrial Magnetism, Principles<br />
of Gun Construction, <strong>The</strong> Chemistry of Smoky Powders, and Optical Instru-<br />
ments and Appliances.<br />
He was busy as a bee and liking it.”s<br />
‘m26January 1915.<br />
W Turner.
CHAPTER H<br />
Ten Years of Big Ship Gunnery<br />
1916–1926<br />
THE NAVY 1914 STYLE<br />
As Lieutenant (junior grade) Turner finished up his first ten years in the<br />
Navy, Josephus Daniels was firmly in the saddle as Secretary of the Navy,<br />
proving it by signing junior officers’ orders, and attending to other minutiae<br />
of administration.1<br />
<strong>The</strong> Navy had grown and prospered in those ten years. <strong>The</strong> total enlisted<br />
force on 30 June 1904 was 29,321 and ten years later it was 52,293. Line<br />
officers had increased from 1,050 to 1,880.2<br />
Congress, “that forward looking body,” had recently authorized three<br />
new dreadnaughts and six new torpedo boat destroyers, and a “seagoing<br />
submarine . . . first of its kind.” 3<br />
<strong>The</strong> Secretary, despite the blood letting going on in Europe, envisioned<br />
along with Tennyson that the good hour soon cometh when:<br />
the war-drum throbb’d no longer, and the battle-flags were furled,<br />
In the Parliament of man, <strong>The</strong> Federation of the world.’<br />
<strong>The</strong> Secretary, in his wisdom, also gave approval to the sentiments of<br />
Admiral Sir Percy Scott of the Royal Navy who believed that “the submarine<br />
was the most effective ship of the navy of the future” and he advised<br />
a cessation in the rapid construction of dreadnaughts and the utilization of the<br />
money thus spent in building large numbers of submarines.5<br />
<strong>The</strong> General Board of the Navy, that small but select body of elder states-<br />
men, in opposition, reiterated its opinion that:<br />
‘ Josephus Daniels’ original signature on (a) RKT’s 1913 orders to postgraduate duty, (b)<br />
orders granting RKT leave in 1913, (c) detachment from Mur;et~ain 1914, and (d) a l~ve<br />
request in September 1915.<br />
‘ (a) SECNAV, Annrd Repor/s, 1904-1914; (b) Nurul Regj~ter$, 1904 and 1914.<br />
8SECNAV, Annual Report, 1 Dec. 1914, p. 5.<br />
4Ibid., p. 52.<br />
‘ Ibid., pp. 8–9.<br />
51
52 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
command of the sea can only be gained and held by vessels that can take and<br />
keep the sea in all times and in all weathers and overcome the strongest<br />
enemies that can be brought against them.G<br />
Fortunately for the Navy in World War I, World War II, and the Korean<br />
War, Congress bought this truism and has continued to buy it, irrespective<br />
of the military characteristics or name of the particular “vessel” needed at<br />
any particular year date to take and keep the seas.<br />
Even if the professional Navy would not support the spending of all<br />
its allotted share of the taxpayers’ money on submarines, it did go ahead with<br />
their progressive development, and at the same time, it did urge and did<br />
make progress in the even newer field of aviation.<br />
Aviation had received its first really effective approval in the Navy when<br />
Admiral George Dewey, President of the General Board, recommended to<br />
the Secretary of the Navy in October 1910, that “the problem of providing<br />
space for airplanes or dirigibles be considered in all new designs for scouting<br />
vessels.”<br />
By January 1914, airplanes had flown off and onto temporary platforms<br />
erected on naval ships and there existed an ‘
Ten Years of Big Ship Gtirznery 53<br />
b. Every ship should be a school.<br />
C. It must be true in the American Navy that every sailor carries an<br />
admiral’s flag in his ditty box.10<br />
<strong>The</strong> educational urge caught on like wildfire, but the Secretary’s personal<br />
desire and order to put all sailormen into pajamas each night was a great<br />
flop as anyone serving in the Navy 50 years later will attest.<br />
<strong>The</strong> professional Navy had long urged the Secretary to enunciate a policy<br />
that “Henceforth all the fighting ships which are added to the Fleet will use<br />
oil. . . .“ 11When this was done, it was obvious that technical engineering<br />
education in the mass must be undertaken in the Navy, and that the 11 existing<br />
technical schools would have to be expanded many times, and many more<br />
officers would have to be employed ashore in areas of technical training.<br />
Since the Line of the Navy was 75 percent on sea duty, change in this<br />
seagoing condition was in the ofling. An unsteady flow of promotion, then<br />
as always, was another problem. <strong>The</strong> Chief of the Bureau of Navigation<br />
noted:<br />
An abnormal condition exists in the Line of the Navy and to some extent in<br />
the Staff <strong>Corps</strong>.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> abnormal condition was that there were only about 40 yearly promo-<br />
tions out of the grade of junior lieutenant, while 140 ensigns were being<br />
promoted into the grade of junior lieutenant each year, at the completion<br />
of three years of service as ensigns. <strong>The</strong> junior lieutenants and ensigns<br />
constituted almost 60 percent of the Line of the Navy.<br />
Resignations of past midshipmen and now ensigns, who saw no future<br />
promotion beyond lieutenant commander until in their middle fifties had<br />
been running at a high rate, as has been noted for the class of 19o8 with<br />
13 resigning as past midshipmen and 14 resigning as ensigns. <strong>The</strong> result was<br />
seen on board the ships in Mexican waters during the 1914 Vera Cruz<br />
seizure and occupation, about which the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation<br />
said:<br />
Half of the Heads of Departments [on the battle ships) were lieutenants.<br />
Practically all officers on ships in Mexican waters, except Heads of Departments<br />
[and above] were in the grade of ensign.ls<br />
A description of the 1914 Navy would not be complete without mention-<br />
‘0 Ibid., pp. 6-35.<br />
= Ibid., p, 17.<br />
u CHBUNAV, Annual Report, in SECNAV Annual Report, 1914, pp. 144-45.<br />
= Ibid., p. 145.
54 AwPlribians Canze To Conquer<br />
ing a marked change taking place in the relationship between quarter deck<br />
and forecastle. As seen through the rose tinted glasses of the Secretary, in<br />
this area:<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is being established between the Commanding Officers and men a<br />
confidential intimacy, which far from undermining discipline, ennobles it<br />
further by an enlightened consciousnessof solidarity and sacrifice.”<br />
TO SEA DUTY<br />
In March 1916, the Bureau of Navigation thoughtfully advised Lieutenant<br />
(junior grade) Turner that he would be assigned to the Penn@oania<br />
(BB-38) upon completion of his postgraduate instruction on 30 June 1916.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Pennsylvania was brand new, due to be first commissioned on 12 June<br />
1916, and to be the flagship of the United States Atlantic Fleet, with Admiral<br />
Henry T. Mayo on board and flying his four star flag.<br />
<strong>The</strong> detail was a feather in Lieutenant (junior grade) Turner’s cap, and<br />
brought him into favorable contact again with Lieutenant Commander E. J.<br />
King, Deputy Chief of Staff to Admiral Mayo. <strong>The</strong>re are many disad-<br />
vantages to flagship duty, but one of the real advantages, in those days, at<br />
least, was that the senior officers in the ship and on the Flag officer’s staff<br />
were apt to have been carefully chosen, and more than apt to prosper in<br />
their future climb up the Navy ladder.<br />
Although only a junior grade lieutenant in 19I6, Turner was to become,<br />
within 15 months, first a Turret Officer, then the Assistant Gunnery Officer<br />
of the Pennsylvania, and then in late 1917, when only a senior lieutenant<br />
of one year seniority, the Gunnery Officer of the Michigan (BB-27 ).<br />
He had the good fortune to have Captain Henry B. Wilson, a future<br />
Commander in Chief of the United States Fleet, as his captain in the Penn-<br />
~ylvania, and Captain Carlo B. Brittain, an up-coming Flag oficer, as his<br />
captain in the Micbiga.<br />
One of his first flight shipmates in the Pennsyivatzia was Lieutenant<br />
Raymond A. Spruance, Class of 1907, later to be his immediate boss during<br />
the Central Pacific campaigns in 1943–1945.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Pennsylvania, on a displacement of 31,4oo tons, mounted twelve<br />
14-inch 45-caliber guns in her main battery and twenty-two 5-inch 5l-caliber<br />
guns in her secondary battery, and made 21 knots. <strong>The</strong> Mickigan was six<br />
‘4SECNAV, Annual Repor!, 1914, p. 6.
Ten Years of Big SbZp Gunnevy 35<br />
years older, 15,000 tons less displacement, 150 feet shorter, three knots<br />
slower, and mounted only eight 12-inch 45-caliber guns in her main battery.<br />
But she was a real gunnery prize for an officer who had been a senior<br />
lieutenant only a year.<br />
Neither the Pennsylvania nor the Michigan lucked into battleship opera-<br />
tion in the European <strong>The</strong>ater of war during World War I. <strong>The</strong> British<br />
thought it prudent to add only coal burning American battleships to their<br />
Home Fleet, because of their shortage of oil, and the Pennsylvania burned<br />
oil. <strong>The</strong> Michigan, a coal burner, was just too old and too slow to be needed<br />
or wanted. Instead, these two battleships trained and trained and trained<br />
secondary battery gun crews to act as the Armed Guards of hundreds of<br />
merchant ships and to man the guns on the recently converted, and far fewer,<br />
regular transports of the Armed Services. <strong>The</strong> training of gun crews was<br />
largely carried out in the Southern Drill Grounds off the entrance to Hampton<br />
Roads and near Base 2 at Yorktown, Virginia, and off Base 10 at Port<br />
Jefferson, New York, in Long Island Sound. This repetitive training entailed<br />
taking green recruits by the thousands and teaching them to man, operate,<br />
shoot and take care of a 3-, 4- or 5-inch gun.<br />
In January 1917—eight and a half years out of the Naval Academy—<br />
Richmond Kelly Turner put on the two stripes of a senior lieutenant. His<br />
seniority dated from 29 August 1916, the date when the law introducing<br />
promotions by selection into the upper ranks of the Line of the Navy became<br />
effective. This law also markedly increased (by 20 percent) the number of<br />
senior lieutenants authorized in our Navy.<br />
World War I brought temporary promotion of Turner to lieutenant commander<br />
in late December 1917 (dating from 15 October 1917) and just three<br />
months after reporting in as Gunnery Officer of the Michigan. This welcome<br />
step required the second of two upgrading in uniform stripes in one calendar<br />
year.<br />
GUNNERY AND MORE GUNNERY<br />
Although Lieutenant Commander Turner was one of the very junior Gunnery<br />
Officers in the Atlantic Fleet, this did not deter him from presenting,<br />
via official channels to the Chief of Bureau of Ordnance, his ideas on the<br />
improvement of the fire control apparatus for the big guns of the ships of<br />
the Fleet.
56 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
<strong>The</strong> Chief of Bureau, in replying to the letter indicated an aroused<br />
curiosity regarding the ideas, and requested travel orders be issued to bring<br />
Turner to Washington, saying:<br />
<strong>The</strong> Bureau has now received what it considers excellent suggestions from<br />
a Gunnery Officer of the Atlantic Fieet in regard to its director scope.ls<br />
This was the lever which, before the year 1918 was out, moved Lieutenant<br />
Commander Turner from the old, old Mickigan, whose keel was laid in 1906<br />
onto the Missis~ippi ( BB-41 ), of the newest class of battleships in the Fleet.<br />
Kelly relieved Jonathan S. Dowell as Gunnery Officer. We were good friends<br />
and proud of being the junior heads of department in the latest battleship.<br />
Our departments got along fine together, no friction. 16<br />
Captain William A. Moffett was one of the Mi~~i~~ippi’~ two skippers<br />
while Turner was aboard and this officer was to exercise great influence on<br />
the later career of his Gunnery Officer.<br />
During his three years as Gunnery Of%cer of three different ships, Kelly<br />
Turner continued to grind out 4.o’s on his fitness reports, except in “Neatness<br />
of person and dress.” His failure to buy new uniforms at yearly intervals<br />
as the water of time flowed steadily under the bridge, a failure presumed<br />
by this scribe to be due to the fact that he was always traveling financially<br />
close to the wind, caused, on at least a dozen occasions, various truthful<br />
reporting seniors to spoil the panorama of 4.o’s on his fitness reports by<br />
dropping in a 3.4 or 3.7 or even a 3,0 opposite “neatness of person and<br />
dress.”<br />
It was noted on his fitness reports during this three-year period in gunnery<br />
work that he had given lectures before the Atlantic Fleet Gunnery Officers<br />
on such diverse subjects as
Ten Years of Big Ship Gunnery 57<br />
<strong>The</strong>y also remembered more readily the undivided attention to Uncle Sam’s<br />
chores which he had demanded of all within the range of his piercing eyes,<br />
and the stern mannerisms and tongue lashings with which he had boat-<br />
swained his juniors.17<br />
One shipmate wrote:<br />
I got to know Turner at the end of World War I on the Miss?s~ippi,when he<br />
was Gunnery Officer and I was Exec; he was a strong character and a very<br />
able naval officerby this stage of his distinguished career.ls<br />
Another shipmate in the Mi~~i~~ippi, an ensign in 1918, gave this appraisal:<br />
Kelly was a dynamic officer, when I first saw him, and remained such as<br />
long as I knew him, but there probably have never been any ‘Funny Ha Ha’<br />
stories about him.<br />
Dorothy and I entertained him in our home for dinner one evening in<br />
Norfolk, while he was skipper of a cruiser. Our colored cook of the moment<br />
was helping us get rid of cocktails, etc., (unbeknownest to us), and consequently<br />
the dinner was a shambles, when it was finally served, but I doubt that<br />
it was ‘funny’ to Kelly. Few things were. But he always got the job done.ls<br />
For the period in question—June to October 1918—Kelly was the gun<br />
boss on the Michigan, I serving as J.0, in Turret 2.<br />
Kelly was the boss—you never had a thought otherwise. He completely<br />
dominated the running of the ship. With a war on, gunnery was bound to be<br />
the No. 1 activity as opposed to a peacetime one of titivating ship, and the<br />
Captain and Executive Officer gave him a free hand—that hand that had such<br />
a sure touch. Kelly had the admiration and respect of all on board which<br />
generated complete confidence in his leadership. His great industry (he came<br />
closer to working 18 hours a day than any person I have ever known) and<br />
brilliant intellect justified beyond a doubt the high regard in which we held<br />
him.<br />
His leadership did not engender fear but rather a healthy respect for the<br />
qualities I have outlined. It was not borne of much, if any, personal magnetism.<br />
I don’t recall his ever showing any mean or petty streak when some shortcoming<br />
came to his notice.<br />
He was unselfish, the good of the Navy was his only thought.<br />
I do not recall any tall tales that occurred at this time, although certainly<br />
there must have been some. It was all serious business at Yorktown. I do not<br />
recall RKT having any hobbies or indulging in much recreation—as 1 have<br />
said, he was all serious business.~o<br />
“ Interview with Captain E. H. Kincaid, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret. ) 5 Dec. 1961.<br />
mCaptain Paul P. <strong>Black</strong>burn (Class of 19o4) to GCD, letter, 13 Jan. 1964. Captain <strong>Black</strong>bum,<br />
last survivor of Turner’s 1908 officer shipmates in Miirwzkee.<br />
“ Rear Admiral Joseph R. Lannom, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret.), to GCD, letter, Feb. 1964.<br />
n Rear Admiral Grayson B. Carter, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret.), to GCD, letter, 25 Feb. 1964. Hereafter<br />
G. B. Carter.
58 Anzpbibi~ns Came To Conquer<br />
That this domination of the Michigan did not impress all in the steerage<br />
can be judged by the following “45 year after” recollection.<br />
As far as Turner goes, I draw a complete blank. I can’t remember him at<br />
all {not even] what his job was.zl<br />
<strong>The</strong> following letters, one personal the other oflicial, tell more of the<br />
World War I story. <strong>The</strong> official one also bears the pencil notation “NO dice”<br />
and the initials “IWT.”<br />
DEAR ADMIRAL:<br />
<strong>US</strong>S. Arizona,<br />
Navy Yard, New York, N.Y.,<br />
September 30, 1919.<br />
Replying to your letter of September 29, 1919, it gives me pleasure to<br />
state that I served under your command in command of the U.S. S. Michigan<br />
from June 20, 1918 until September 7, 1918, when I was detached and<br />
ordered to command the U. S,S. Arizona, During this time the Mic/rigm was<br />
operating in Chesapeake Bay preparing for and going through with the various<br />
forms of target practice. It will be noted that the ship was very successful<br />
at Short Range Battle Practice and won the ship control “E”. About August 1,<br />
1918 the MicAigan was ordered to the Navy Yard, League Island for overhaul<br />
and made the passage at night, in company with the U.S. S. Loz/i.riana,escorted<br />
by one destroyer, as the enemy’s submarines were then operating off the coast.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Michigan remained at the Navy Yard for overhaul until I was detached.<br />
While the Micbigun was in a very eficient condition while I was in command,<br />
I cannot help but feel that the credit is due to my predecessor, Captain<br />
C. B. Brittain, U. S. Navy, to the Executive Officer, Commander George J.<br />
Meyers, U. S. Navy, and to the Gunnery Officer, Lieutenant Commander<br />
Richmond K. Turner, U. S. Navy. I found the ship in a fine condition and<br />
merely carried on.<br />
I am,<br />
Very sincerely yours,<br />
(signed) J. H. DAYTON,<br />
CaPtai?z,U.S. Navy.<br />
Rear Admiral J. H. Glennon, U. S.N.,<br />
Commandant Third Naval District<br />
CBB/HO<br />
UNITED STATESATLANTICFLEET<br />
U.S.S. Pennsylvania, Flagship<br />
Navy Yard, New York, N.Y. 3 October 1919.<br />
From: Rear Admiral C. B. Brittain, U, S. Navy<br />
To: Bureau of Navigation (BOARD OF AWARDS)<br />
a Mr. Peyton S. Cochran, to GCD, letter, 2 Mar, 1964. Cochran was an ensign in the Mirbigatz<br />
June 1918 to September 1918.
Ten Years of Big Ship Gunne~y 59<br />
Via: Captain J. H. Dayton, U.S.N. (U.S,S, Arizonu)<br />
Subject: Lieutenant Commander Richmond K. Turner, U. S.N., recommended<br />
for war service recognition by the Board of Awards.<br />
1. I recommend Lieutenant Commander Richmond K. Turner, U. S. Navy,<br />
for the Distinguished Service Medal as having distinguished himself by specially<br />
meritorious service to the Government in a duty of great responsibility<br />
while serving under my command on board the U.S.S. Micbigm as Gunnery<br />
Officer of that vessel from September, 1917, to 10 June 1918.<br />
2. Lieutenant Commander Turner displayed ability, zeal and energy in a<br />
specially meritorious degree in maintaining the battle efficiency of the Gunnery<br />
Department of the U.S.S. Michigan in a high degree of preparedness.<br />
At the same time he rendered specially meritorious service in organizing and<br />
training for transfer to other vessels large numbers of recruits and other men<br />
for war service. Only such service as was rendered by this oflicer as above<br />
indicated could have, under the circumstances, maintained the U.S.S Mirbi-<br />
gan, a battleship of the first line, in the high degree of battle efficiency that<br />
she was in during the period covered and I accordingly recommend him for<br />
the Distinguished Service Medal.<br />
3. In June, 1918, I was succeeded in command of the MicLigan by Captain<br />
J. H. Dayton, U.S.N., and this letter is forwarded through that officer for<br />
such endorsement as he may see fit to make.<br />
WAR’S END AND SHORE DUTY<br />
C. B. BRI~AIN<br />
In June 1919, World War I was well over. Josephus Daniels, still the<br />
Secretary of the Navy, was singing the Navy’s praises to the President and<br />
to the Congress, and distributing Navy Crosses, a personal heroism medal,<br />
On a helter-skelter basis but particularly to Commanding Officers who had<br />
lost their ships to enemy action. This sad practice was continued on by his<br />
successors during World War H.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Distinguished Service Medal and Navy Cross Medal distribution<br />
met courageous moral and official resistance from Vice Admiral William S.<br />
Sims. <strong>The</strong> various operational and administrative judgments of the Navy<br />
Department during the war years also evoked a large amount of critical<br />
comment by those who had largely spent the short war at sea in positions<br />
of responsibility.<br />
Before the spitball throwing subsided within the Navy, Congress decided<br />
to look into the squabble, and conducted, over many months, an investigation
60 Amphibians Came To Conq.aer<br />
of the Service, and more particularly the Navy Department, its organization<br />
and its war functioning. This newsworthy chore was undertaken by a sub-<br />
committee of the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs, and soon took on<br />
political overtones.<br />
A fair share of the spitballs had been aimed at Secretary Daniels. He rose<br />
to the occasion with magnificent eclat, proclaiming all those who questioned<br />
any aspect of the total victory achieved at sea, or the sagacity or timing<br />
of the naval decisions prior to this victory, or the organization of the head-<br />
quarters which supported it logistically, as only wanting to deprive the<br />
Secretary of the Navy of his proper range of authority and of detailed<br />
decision-making.<br />
This inglorious publicization of the unhappiness of many of the Navy’s<br />
senior officers with their publicity wise civilian Secretary, made many lieu-<br />
tenant commanders consider leaving the Navy, but not Lieutenant Commander<br />
Turner.**<br />
<strong>The</strong> Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance, Rear Admiral Ralph Earle, on<br />
5 June 1919, nominated Lieutenant Commander Turner to the Bureau of<br />
Navigation for duty as relief of Commander Harvey Delano (Class of<br />
1906) at the Naval Gun Factory, Navy Yard, Washington, D.C. Josephus<br />
Daniels personally signed Turner’s orders to this effect on 20 June 1919.<br />
This second tour of shore duty after a short three years at sea was an<br />
interesting tour. It included a chance to inspect officially the renowned British<br />
battle cruiser HMS Renown carrying six 15-inch guns in her main battery,<br />
a size of gun not in use in the United States Navy, to visit the surrendered<br />
German battleship Ostfriesland, and learn of German fire control, to make<br />
numerous trips to the Fleet to observe various target practices, and to visit<br />
a large number of industrial plants dealing with various parts of ordnance<br />
equipment.<br />
In July 1920, along with the rest of his class, Turner took and passed<br />
his examinations for permanent lieutenant commander, to date from 7 De-<br />
cember 1919.<br />
KNICKERBOCKER DISASTER<br />
During mid evening of 28 January 1922, the roof of the Knickerbocker<br />
<strong>The</strong>ater in the city of Washington, collapsed on its movie-viewing occu-<br />
.—<br />
n Turner.
Ten Years of Big Ship Gunnery 61<br />
pants due to an overweight of snow, caused by a two-foot snowfall. Ninetyeight<br />
of the approximately 1,000 movie fans died.<br />
A Fire and Rescue Party was ordered out of the Washington Navy Yard<br />
about 2300 and this was supplemented twice during the night by supporting<br />
parties and equipment. Lieutenant Commander Turner, alerted about 2300<br />
by Commander Husband E. Kimmel, later of Pearl Harbor fame, but then<br />
the Officer of the Day at the Navy Yard, sent off the first party of about<br />
25 men with their rescue equipment at 2345 and followed with additional<br />
acetylene torches, tanks of acetylene gas, hack saws, sledges and other essen-<br />
tials about 0100, 29 January. Lieutenant Commander Turner remained in<br />
charge of the naval efforts at the theater until relieved about 0800.23<br />
For this work, he participated in the general commendation signed by<br />
Edwin Denby, Secretary of the Navy.<br />
5306-137<br />
THE SECRETARYOF THE NAVY<br />
W@bington, 9 Febraary, 19.22.<br />
From: Secretary of the Navy<br />
To: Commandant, Navy Yard, Washington, D. C.<br />
Subject: Commendation for services in connection with rescue work among<br />
the victims of Knickerbocker <strong>The</strong>ater disaster in this city.<br />
1. <strong>The</strong> Department has noted with much gratification the prompt response<br />
and splendid services of the oficers and men under your command on the<br />
occasion of the Knickerbocker <strong>The</strong>ater disaster on the night of Saturday,<br />
January 28th, last. All reports received speak in the most flattering terms of<br />
the fine work performed by the naval personnel, and while some individuals<br />
particularly distingllished themselves, it was impossible, owing to the confu-<br />
sion and necessity for incessant efforts on the part of every one present, to<br />
obtain the names of all such persons.<br />
2. For this reason, and in order not to single out a few for distinction where<br />
others whose names were unknown rendered equ~ly splendid service, the<br />
Department takes this Occmion to extend, through you, to all members of your<br />
command and of the U.S.S. Mayflower, who participated in the work in question,<br />
its warm praise and sincere commendation of their fine performance<br />
of duty.<br />
EDWIN DENBY<br />
Secretaryof the Navy.<br />
During this shore duty period Lieutenant Commander Turner also com-<br />
5 RKTtoof?icerof Day, Washington Navy Yard, official report, 30 Jan. 1922.
62 Amphibians Came To Conq~er<br />
pleted the correspondence course in “Strategy and Tactics” of the Naval<br />
War College. <strong>The</strong> famous William S. Sims not only signed the routine letter<br />
sending off the certificate of completion but also sent off a special “great<br />
credit” letter.<br />
No. 238<br />
P1-C1-JW<br />
NAVALWAR COLLEGE<br />
Newport, Rhode Island, 8 April, 1922.<br />
To: Lieutenant Commander Richmond K. Turner, U.S. Navy, U.S.<br />
Naval Gun Factory, Navy Yard, Washington, D.C.<br />
Subject: Completion of War College Correspondence Course<br />
1. <strong>The</strong> records show that you have completed the Correspondence Course<br />
with great credit.<br />
I wish to congratulate you on the results of your work, and on the perseverance<br />
you have shown, and tmst that you will make known to other<br />
officers the benefit you may have derived, in order that they may realize the<br />
vast importance of training in their profession, which can be obtained by<br />
study of this sort, and in no other way.<br />
WM. S. SIMS,<br />
Rear Admiral, U. S. Navy, President<br />
In addition to the Naval War College correspondence course, Lieutenant<br />
Commander Turner wrote two articles for the Naval Institute during this<br />
period, “A Fighting Leader For the Fleet” and “Gun Defense Against<br />
Torpedo Planes.” <strong>The</strong> first appeared in the April 1922 issue of the Proceed-<br />
ing~, and the latter article, jointly authored with Lieutenant <strong>The</strong>odore D.<br />
Ruddock, was printed in October 1922, after Turner had gone to sea duty.<br />
TO THE CALIFORNIA<br />
Three years soon passed, and on 17 July 1922, Rear Admiral John H.<br />
Dayton, Commandant, signed Lieutenant Commander Turner’s detachment<br />
orders, sending him to the new battleship Caiif ornia (BB-44). <strong>The</strong> pride of<br />
the Mare Island Navy Yard had her keel laid in October 1916, but was not<br />
commissioned until 10 August 1921. She carried twelve 14-inch 50-caliber<br />
guns in her main battery, the same armament as Turner had supervised in<br />
the Mississippi. <strong>The</strong> California shortly was to take over from the New<br />
Mexico (BB-4o) the honor of being the flagship of the Pacific Fleet. Admiral
Ten Ye~rs of Big Ship Gunnery 63<br />
E. W. Eberle was the respected Commander in Chief. <strong>The</strong> skipper of the<br />
Cdiforniu was Captain Lucius A. Bostwick, Class of 1890, in the near future<br />
to be among those selected to Flag officer.<br />
Commander William R. Furlong, later to become Chief of the Bureau<br />
of Ordnance, was the Fleet Gunnery Officer, and Commander Willis W.<br />
Bradley, Jr., Class of 1907, was the Gunnery Officer from whom Lieutenant<br />
Commander Turner took over. One of Turner’s classmates, Henry Frederick<br />
D. Davis, who had graduated but three numbers behind Turner, was the<br />
Chief Engineer of the Califor}zia, and another, Ernest W. McKee, was Fleet<br />
Athletic Officer.<br />
Another of the Culif ornia officers was Paul S. <strong>The</strong>iss of the Class of 1912,<br />
who later was to be his Executive Officer in his cruiser command, and then<br />
Chief of Staff to Turner during a major part of the Central Pacific Campaign<br />
in World War II.<br />
<strong>The</strong> California was moving along in her first full year in commission, a<br />
very successful year during which she was awarded the Battle Efficiency<br />
trophy for 1921–1922.<br />
<strong>The</strong> 1922–23 Supply Officer of the California recalls:<br />
It was unwise to cross Kelly unless one was fully cognizant of his own position<br />
and believed in the correctness of his own stand.<br />
He was a dynamic and forceful officer who was fully cognizant of what he<br />
wished to accomplish, with due consideration of other Heads of Department<br />
who equally desired to promote the best interests of the ship.<br />
I found him far easier to get along with than his predecessor, Bradley. I do<br />
not recall that Kelly overstepped his position, but was forceful in requiring<br />
cooperation of other departments.24<br />
Highly praiseworthy fitness reports from Captain—later Rear Admiral—<br />
John H. Dayton, were to be anticipated at the Washington Navy Yard after<br />
the very favorable relationship with Turner in the Michigan. However, when<br />
Turner reported to the California, and Captain Bostwick picked up the<br />
chore, there was a new fitness report form from the Bureau ot Navigation,<br />
and a nudge from that Bureau to make the reports more realistic.<br />
In the 19 qualities on which all officers were marked, Captain Bostwick<br />
appraised Lieutenant Commander Turner superior in seven, above average<br />
in eight and average in four—cooperative qualities, patience, education and<br />
24Interview with Captain Walter D. Sharp (Supply <strong>Corps</strong>), 13 Mar. 1964, Sharp was a commander<br />
when Turner, a lieutenant commander, reported to the California.
64 Amphibians Caine To Conquer<br />
loyalty of subordinates. Only the appraisal of average in education can be<br />
questioned, and this only in view of the postgraduate training Lieutenant<br />
Commander Turner had received. <strong>The</strong>re were only 24 of the 111 of his classmates<br />
still on the Navy List who had completed formal postgraduate<br />
training.<br />
A shipmate of this period relates:<br />
I was an ensign and assigned to the Plotting Room in the California.<br />
When the new Gunnery Officer had been aboard a few days, I paid my ‘get<br />
acquainted’ call on him. In due time he asked me whether we were having any<br />
kind of problem in the Plotting Room. I said everything was going pretty well<br />
except we were having certain ‘circuit trouble’ and proceeded to give him the<br />
details. He listened attentively—<strong>The</strong>n he said ‘I suggest you look at the back<br />
of ,a particular switch board, which he designated, the fourth switch up from<br />
the bottom and the third one in. <strong>The</strong> trouble should be there.’ I bowed out,<br />
and with the firecontrol electrician checked out this particular switch-found<br />
it had troubles, which were corrected. From then on, we had no more of this<br />
type of ‘circuit trouble.’ I was mightily impressed since there were several<br />
hundred switches in the Plotting Room.<br />
<strong>The</strong> next time I had a chance to talk to the Gunnery Officer, I asked him<br />
how he knew just where our trouble was located. He answered: ‘I designed<br />
the board.’<br />
He was really something.”<br />
By the time Lieutenant Commander Turner was detached from the<br />
Ca~ifomia on 15 June 1923, Captain 130stwick rated Turner superior in 12<br />
and average in only one-’ ‘patience.” <strong>The</strong>re could be no factual complaint<br />
about that appraisal of his patience.<br />
And the Skipper had these comments to add along the way.<br />
Great energy and force of character, an energetic worker, and of excellent<br />
executive ability.<br />
In his own conduct and bearing, he sets an excellent example to his subordinates<br />
in devotion to duty and industry.<br />
STAFF DUTY<br />
In May 1923, the following letter was received by Lieutenant Commander<br />
Turner and as will be told shortly—led to placing his naval career in<br />
jeopardy.<br />
= Interview with Admiral Walter F. Boone, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret.), 29 May 1964,
Ten Years of Big Ship Gwmery 65<br />
NAVYDEPARTMENT<br />
OFFICE OF NAVAL OPERATIONS<br />
Washington, 19 May 1923.<br />
MY DEARTURNER:<br />
How would you consider the job of Gunnery Officer in the Scouting Fleet,<br />
on the staff of Admiral McCully, who is to command that fleet about 1 July?<br />
I am only writing this to get your wishes in the matter and more or less feel<br />
that if it is agreeable<br />
you.<br />
to you, Admiral McCully would be very glad to have<br />
On the receipt of this and after making up your mind, send me a telegram<br />
at my expense to this effect: “Gladly accept detail,” or “Prefer not take advantage<br />
of your offcr.”<br />
I am going to ask you to keep this mtitterstrictly con/identiaI.<br />
Yours sincerely,<br />
Chauncey Shackford,<br />
Captain, U. S. Navy, Director of Gunnery<br />
Exerciser and Engineering Performances.<br />
<strong>The</strong> answer was “gladly accept detail” and orders were issued on 13 June<br />
1923, to accomplish this change. Turner reported on 29 June 1923.<br />
Vice Admiral Newton A. McCully, Class of 1887, Commander Scouting<br />
Fleet, was a warrior of the old school. Toughened by duty as Commander<br />
Naval Forces Operating in Russia and later as Head Naval Mission to<br />
Russia, this strong minded and capable Flag officer brought to his duty an<br />
extremely active body, honest mind, and the moral courage to speak his<br />
convictions.<br />
His flagship in the Atlantic was normally the coal burning 26,000-ton<br />
Wyoming (BB-32), first commissioned in 1912, and occasionally the slightly<br />
older Fioridu (BB-3o), or Utah ( BB-3 I ). <strong>The</strong> routine of the Scouting Force<br />
in 1923–1924 called for much time to be given to training exercises in<br />
gunnery, engineering and communications, cruising Naval Reserves and mid-<br />
shipmen, an annual amphibious exercise, and then the big Fleet Problem<br />
with the whole United States Fleet.<br />
Vice Admiral McCully wrote on Lieutenant Commander Turner’s first<br />
fitness report.<br />
Lieutenant Commander Turner is probably one of the most capable and best<br />
equipped Gunnery Oficers in the Navy. He is forceful and extremely energetic.<br />
When six more months had passed into the propeller wash, Vice Admiral<br />
McCully opined:<br />
His remarkable ability is founded on thorough study and full consideration of
66 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
any question, His judgment is extraordinarily sound. Very tenacious of his<br />
opinions. Which at times takes the appearance of intolerance of the opinions<br />
of others,<br />
By the time three more months slid under the forefoot, Vice Admiral<br />
McCully’s opinion had further hardened and he wrote:<br />
Individual ability too strong to make a good subordinate. With increased<br />
rank and experience this defect undoubtedly will disappear, as his intelligence<br />
is of too high an order for him not to see its advantages.<br />
As Fleet Gunnery Officer, and with the exception mentioned in [paragraph]<br />
12, and which was aggravated perhaps by a similar defect in Commander<br />
Scouting Fleet, his work could hardly be excelled. . . . In actual<br />
war, he would be invaluable . . being thoroughly capable, resolute and<br />
bold.<br />
Since the Navy Regulations required that any fitness reports containing<br />
unfavorable statements or marks be referred to the officer reported on, this<br />
fitness report was referred officially to Turner for statement. On 25 August<br />
1924, he brought his side of the controversy to a quick official demise by<br />
endorsing the report: “I do not desire to make a statement.”<br />
But to make sure that Lieutenant Commander Turner got the point, as<br />
well as the fitness report, Vice Admiral McCully sat down and penned the<br />
following personal letter:<br />
26 July, 192.4.<br />
At Sea<br />
My DEARTURNER:<br />
I am forwarding you a Fitness Report to which you may take exception.<br />
However, I wish you to know that I never failed to appreciate your really<br />
extraordinary qualities and consider it quite as much my fault as yours that we<br />
could not hit it off better.<br />
I am under many obligations to you for the fine work you did while with<br />
us, and always felt that anything turned over to you would be most thoroughly<br />
worked out, and that the essence of the result could not be improved on by<br />
anyone. I shall remember particularly your assistance during the Battle of<br />
Panama, and your remarks to me “You will never get a better chance at<br />
them” in the morning of the 18th.<br />
In case of war this would make me desire to have you with me again. You<br />
may attach this letter to the Fitness Report<br />
be advisable.<br />
if you see fit, and I think it might<br />
With kind regards, and a sincere affection.<br />
Very faithfully yours,<br />
N. A. MC CULLY.<br />
Fortunately for Kelly Turner’s peace of mind, this last fitness report was
Ten Years of Big Ship Gunnery 67<br />
not submitted until after the 1924 Selection Board for commander had<br />
completed its chores, stored its ditty box, and dispersed.<br />
SELECTION TO COMMANDER<br />
Commander Scouting Fleet, in the Wyoming (flagship) together with<br />
Arkansas, New York, and Texas made the 1924 summer practice cruise with<br />
the midshipmen of the Naval Academy embarked, visiting ports in England,<br />
France, ~Netherlands, as well as Gibraltar and the Azores. Without much<br />
notice, Lieutenant Commander Turner learned he was not to make this very<br />
pleasant cruise, and on 28 May 1924 was ordered out of the flagship to the<br />
Florida to await detachment to other duty.25<br />
Being dropped from the Scouting Fleet Staff just before he was to come<br />
up for selection to commander was a distinct blow to Lieutenant Commander<br />
Turner, but it was softened by his being ordered in command of a ship,<br />
the destroyer Meruine.<br />
Normally, in 1924, all lieutenant commanders of the Line, including naval<br />
aviators, would have had a full command cruise under their belts by the<br />
time they reached the zone where they would actually be considered for<br />
selection to the grade of commander.<br />
An examination of the annual Nawd llegi.rierJ from 1920 to 1925 shows<br />
that during these years, the Bureau of Navigation was working steadily<br />
through the appropriate Naval Academy classes, seeing to it that one and<br />
all had a chance to qualify themselves for selection to command rank by<br />
demonstrating their capabilities in command of aircraft squadrons, destroy-<br />
ers, submarines, minecraft, gunboats, seaplane tenders, or other small<br />
auxiliaries.<br />
Lieutenant Commander Turner had had just the briefest sort of command<br />
cruise-two months in the <strong>US</strong>S Stewart from 7 July 1913 until 14 September<br />
1913, when he was a junior lieutenant. It was obvious that his record<br />
needed bolstering in the “exercise of command area. ”<br />
<strong>The</strong> 1 January 1925 NaVal Regis~er shows 12 officers in the Class of 1908<br />
getting in a late lieutenant commander destroyer command cruise, including<br />
the class’s two future four star admirals, Kinkaid and Turner.<br />
In those benighted days, selection lists came out in late May or early June.<br />
During early June 1924, in fact just before Lieutenant Commander Turner<br />
= COMSCOFLT to RKT, orders, 28 May 1924.
68 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
was finally detached from the Staff, Scouting Fleet, on 17 June 1924, the<br />
selection list for commander was approved by the President and promulgated<br />
by the Navy Department. <strong>The</strong> very, very good news was that the top 11<br />
officers in 1908 had been considered and all had been selected. It could be<br />
said in the case of Lieutenant Commander Richmond Kelly Turner that the<br />
1924 commander Selection Board had been willing to take the intention,<br />
in lieu of the actual deed of demonstrated success in a small ship command,<br />
before promotion to commander.<br />
CLASS OF 1908 ON THE ROAD TO COMMANDER<br />
<strong>The</strong> period from June 1913 to late 1916 by which time the Class of 1908<br />
had been promoted to senior lieutenant was one of further rapid diminution<br />
of the Class of 1908 in the Line of the Navy. Ten were physically retired,<br />
although some of the physical disabilities apparently were not dangerous<br />
to longevity, as five of those ten are still alive nearly 50 years later. Three<br />
were dismissed from the Naval Service, two resigned and death took two,<br />
one (Richard C. Saufley) being the first naval aviation casualty from the<br />
class, and the 14th aviator in all the Navy to win naval wings.<br />
One hundred thirty-three made senior lieutenant and the name Richmond<br />
Kelly Turner appeared at the top of the list of Line officers of the Class of<br />
1908 in the 1917 annual Naval Register. That name was to remain in that<br />
position for the next 25 Naval Registers.<br />
During the short year when the Class of 1908 wore the two stripes of a<br />
senior lieutenant, two more names had to be crossed out. One was a physical<br />
retirement and the other was the first naval officer lost in World War I,<br />
Lieutenant Clarence C. Thomas. He died on 28 April 1917, following the<br />
loss of the 2,55 l-ton tanker the SS Vacatim, sunk by a submarine off the coast<br />
of England.<br />
With the end of World War I, there was an unusual flood tide of ten<br />
resignations. <strong>The</strong>se were surprising, because each of these officers had<br />
devoted over 10 years to the naval profession, the comfortable rank of<br />
lieutenant commander had been reached, a temporary wartime pay increase<br />
had been received and this increase was in the process of being made<br />
permanent by the Congress.<br />
<strong>The</strong> flood tide of resignations was largely based on the flood tide of naval<br />
disarmament talk, which culminated in the Limitation of Naval Armament
Ten Years of Big ship G.wmevy 69<br />
Conference. This conference met in Washington on 12 November 1921, and<br />
drafted a treaty that was signed on 6 February 1922 and ratified by all the<br />
signatory powers by July 1923. During 192 1–1922, 376 ships of the United<br />
States Navy were placed out of commission, and the total of enlisted personnel<br />
was reduced to 86,000. On 31 December 1921 all permanent officers<br />
with a wartime temporary advancement in rank, some 1,059, were reverted by<br />
departmental fiat to their permanent rank. In addition, some 700 Naval<br />
Reserve officers were ordered to inactive duty, and over a thousand enlisted<br />
men were reverted from temporary officer rank to their permanent enlisted<br />
ranks. <strong>The</strong>se events, leaving less than 20 officers of the Naval Reserve on<br />
active duty, and no temporarily commissioned enlisted men, raised doubts as<br />
to the future of the naval profession, and led to the thoughtful resignations.<br />
It was a period of great discouragement for the officer corps of the Navy.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re was a shortage of over a thousand officers of the Line in the Navy.<br />
<strong>The</strong> budget did not allow adequate money for purchase of fuel oil, with<br />
the result that “the movement of ships was restricted far below that which<br />
is necessary to maintain efficiency in the Fleet and to train new personnel in<br />
seagoing habits. ” 26<br />
Ships were undermanned, and they were not going to sea. Strange as this<br />
may seem to the naval officer of the mid- 1960’s, it made many naval officers<br />
of the early 1920’s most unhappy.<br />
By the time the Selection Board of 1924 and 1925 started looking over<br />
Lieutenant Commander Turner and his classmates, there were 109 on the<br />
Line of the Navy list remaining out of the 131 who had made the rank<br />
of lieutenant commander initially. One hundred were selected to the grade<br />
of commander. This was selection at its easiest. In fact it couldn’t be called<br />
selection. It was a modified form of plucking those whose records indicated<br />
they were the less able 10 percent. But the promise of tougher hurdles lay<br />
ahead, and only 50 percent of the 1908 graduating class was still around<br />
working at seagoing chores.<br />
THE 1924 SEAGOING NAVY<br />
<strong>The</strong> 1924 United States Fleet had four major components in U. S. waters.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se were the Battle Fleet, operating in the Pacific, the Scouting Fleet<br />
= SECNAV,Annual Report, 1923, pp. 10, 12.
70 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
operating in the Atlantic, and the Control Force and the Fleet Base Force<br />
operating in both oceans.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Battle Fleet contained battleships, destroyers and aircraft squadrons,<br />
while the Scouting Fleet had fewer and older battleships, a lesser number<br />
of destroyers, but all the new light cruisers. <strong>The</strong> Control Force had the old<br />
cruisers, some destroyers, part of the mine squadrons, and the submarines.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Fleet Base Force had mine squadrons, a few destroyers and the logistic<br />
support ships of the Train.<br />
According to the Fleet’s Annual Report:<br />
<strong>The</strong> amount of time allotted to the year’s work (of the Fleet) is approximately<br />
as follows:<br />
Tactical Exercises 10 weeks<br />
Cruising . 10 weeks<br />
Gunnery Exercises ..,..,.. 12 weeks<br />
Upkeep and Overhaul,..,. 18 weeks<br />
Holidays . 2 weeks<br />
Possibly unforeseen calls will encroach upon the overhaul time. This is the<br />
common tendency.2T<br />
Much has been said in conference and in correspondence concerning the insta-<br />
bility of officer personnel. . . . Such a condition is inevitable.’s<br />
<strong>The</strong> 1924–1925 year was the second year of Visual Signaling Competition<br />
and of Radio Competition between ships of the Fleet. <strong>The</strong>se competitions<br />
added to the previously long existing gunnery and engineering competitions,<br />
and expanded cruising schedules meant that ship employment schedules,<br />
in fact, were “very crowded.” This crowding led the Commander in Chief<br />
(Admiral Robert E. Coontz) to recommend that interruptions to the training<br />
of the Fleet “must be limited to national celebrations, and specifically to the<br />
Fourth of July and Navy Day.”<br />
Among the events logged by the Commander in Chief were:<br />
a.<br />
b.<br />
c,<br />
<strong>The</strong> Japanese Training Squadron of three cruisers, visited San<br />
Francisco during the year.<br />
Ten ships of the Fleet rendered assistance to the Army-Around-<strong>The</strong>-<br />
World fliers.<br />
A shift from Magdalena Bay on the Southwest Coast of Lower<br />
California, Mexico to Lahaina Bay, in Maui, Hawaii, as a training<br />
base for the Battle Fleet was made, on a trial basis.”<br />
—<br />
* CINC<strong>US</strong>, Annual Report, 1924, para. 92<br />
= Ibid., para. 51.<br />
= Ibid., paras. 64, 65, 77, 79.
Tevr Years of Big SbZp Gannery 71<br />
Recognition of the need for cohesiveness of the seagoing personnel<br />
marked this era.<br />
<strong>The</strong> importance of the association of the personnel of the Fleet during<br />
Fleet concentration periods, not only for the training of the various subordinate<br />
units in cooperative action for the effective use of the Fleet as a whole,<br />
but also for the exchange of ideas, for the coordination of opinion, and, for<br />
the rectification and reduction to writing of Fleet Instructions and indoctrination<br />
has been clearly demonstrated .30<br />
<strong>The</strong>se were also the years when the groundwork for the successes of the<br />
Navy during World War 11were being laid. Admiral Coontz noted:<br />
date:<br />
<strong>The</strong> early completion and addition to the Fleet of aircraft carriers, cruisers,<br />
and submarines is recommended. 3I<br />
An increase of ten thousand ( 10,000) men is required now if the advance in<br />
Fleet training is to continue. Without this training material preparedness is<br />
futile and belief in our readiness to perform our missions a delusion.32<br />
<strong>The</strong> logistical problems of a war with Japan were recognized at this early<br />
Fleet logistics as bearing upon mobility have been developed, and underway<br />
fueling exercises for cruisers and destroyers were included in the 1925 Fleet<br />
problems for the second time.3:’<br />
*****<br />
After a study of Fleet operations extending over many years, and after<br />
executing numerous operations in simulation of war conditions, the Commander<br />
in Chief is impressed with the complete dependence of the combatant<br />
vessels of the United States Fleet upon the service rendered by auxiliaries. . . .<br />
<strong>The</strong> slow speed of the auxiliaries . . is the greatest single element of<br />
weakness in the United St~tes Fleet today. . Whatever may be the number<br />
and characteristics of the combatant vessels, they cannot be used to the full<br />
extent of their speed, radius of action, and offensive power, unless they can<br />
be accompanied by auxiliaries.”<br />
One of the three main objectives of the Commander in Chief, Admiral<br />
Robert E. Coontz, was stated to be:<br />
Development of the Train to the end that it may refuel, re-victual, re-stock<br />
and repair combatant units on the high seas.3g<br />
* Ibid., 1925, para. 59.<br />
= Ibid.j 1924, para. 164(f).<br />
‘Ibid., 1925, para. 192(a).<br />
= Ibid., 1924, para. 24; Ibid,, 1925, para. 44<br />
‘Ibid., 1925, para. 171(i).<br />
= Ibid., 1924, para. 16.
72 Ampbibiarzs Came To Conqaev<br />
Plain speaking in official reports was the practice, and the most important<br />
element leading to improvement of the Navy. For example,<br />
of all the classesof ships in the Fleet, the submarines are the worst inherently<br />
for the purposes required. <strong>The</strong>ir design appears to be obsolete and fmlty, and<br />
they are not reliable.’e<br />
In the years ahead, submarines could and would be improved, although<br />
it took a good bit of doing.<br />
Lieutenant Commander Turner fitted into this pattern of the 1924 Navy<br />
perfectly. He loved to work and he loved competition. He had an innate<br />
desire to excel.<br />
THE MERVINE (DD-322 )<br />
Turner’s new command, the Mervine, was named for a naval officer who<br />
served on active duty until he was 71,. his last command being the Gulf<br />
Squadron in the early days of the Civil War. Rear Admiral Mervine’s most<br />
famous exploit was his landing, when a captain, as the head of a detachment<br />
at Monterery, Upper California, on 7 July 1847 and, under the orders of<br />
Commodore John D. Sloat, taking possession of that place and “California,”<br />
in the name of the United States.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Mervizze was one of the later numbers of the World War I destroyer<br />
building program, actually having been built in 1919 and 1920 and com-<br />
missioned on 28 February 1921, She mounted four 4-inch 50-caliber guns,<br />
one 3-inch 23-caliber gun, and had twelve 2 l-inch torpedo tubes in four nests<br />
of three each. Her normal displacement was 1,21 J tons, and she had Curtis<br />
geared turbines, which theoretically would provide a speed of 35 knots.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Mertiine was assigned to Destroyer Division 35 of Destroyer Squadron<br />
12 of the Destroyer Squadrons, Pacific Fleet. Rear Admiral Frank H. Scho-<br />
field, Class of 1890, was in command of the Destroyer Squadrons. Captain<br />
John G. Church, Class of 1900, was the boss man of the 20 destroyers in<br />
Squadron 12.<br />
Destroyer Division 35, in that 1924 mid-summer did not have a regularly<br />
detailed division commander when Lieutenant Commander Turner reported,<br />
although the Robert Smith (DD-324), was designated divisicn flagship.<br />
<strong>The</strong> senior Commanding Officer in the division, Commander John N.<br />
Ferguson, Class of 1905, was not in her, but was in the Seifridge (DD-320).<br />
~ Ibid., para. 114.
Ten Years of Big Ship Gunnery 73<br />
<strong>The</strong>re were 103 destroyers in commission in the Navy in July 1924 and<br />
38 of them were in the Battle Fleet. <strong>The</strong> new 7,500-ton light cruisers of the<br />
Omaha class were starting to join the Fleet, and the “experiment of substituting<br />
bunks for hammocks” was being tried in the larger ships of the<br />
Navy.sT<br />
<strong>The</strong> memory of the Honda disaster of September 1923 in which seven<br />
destroyers were stranded and two temporarily grounded by running ashore<br />
in a fog on the California coast was fresh in every destroyer man’s mind.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Afervine, along with the rest of the division was in the Puget Sound<br />
area, when on 28 July 1924, Lieutenant Commander Turner assumed com-<br />
mand, the previous Commanding Oflicer, Lieutenant Commander Robert M.<br />
Hinckley, having already gone to shore duty. <strong>The</strong> Executive Officer was<br />
Lieutenant Frederick D. Powers, Class of 1914, and the ship had one more<br />
than her full allowance of seven officers.<br />
As the officer personnel situation eased, the Department ordered Com-<br />
mander <strong>The</strong>odore A. Kittinger, Class of 1901, as Commander, Destroyer<br />
Division 35. Commander Kittinger had missed stays in his first chance at<br />
selection to temporary commander in August 1917, and when later selected,<br />
served out World War I junior to a number of the Class of 1902 on the<br />
Navy List. On the reversion of all oflicers to their permanent rank on<br />
1 January 1922, he regainedhisoriginalseniority within the Class of 1901.<br />
Considered for selection to Captain in the same year that Turner was<br />
selected to Commander, Kittinger was not amongst those picked for promotion<br />
that year nor by any later Selection Board.<br />
While Turner was in command, the Mervine participated with the other<br />
destroyers of Destroyer Division 35, Destroyer Squadron 12 and Destroyer<br />
Battle Force in the scheduled ship training, division training, squadron train-<br />
ing, and force training incident to the Fleet schedule of tactical and strategical<br />
training and competitive exercises.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Metwine also participated in Fleet Problem v, 2–1 I March 1925. This<br />
was the first Fleet Problem to incorporate actual aircraft operations from<br />
a carrier, the <strong>US</strong>S Lungley, Aircraft patrol squa&on5 had participatedsince<br />
1923 in scouting and search during Fleet problems, as had observation<br />
planes from battleships and cruisers. <strong>The</strong>se aircraft had also simulated<br />
carrier aircraft bombing operations for several years, but the 1925 Fleet<br />
Problem opened the tide gate of seagoing aviation advancement.<br />
Early detachment from the Mervine denied Lieutenant Commander<br />
* SECNAV, AnnualReport, 1924
74 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
Turner a chance to participate in the 1925 Joint Amphibious training exercise<br />
which the Commandant of the <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> described as:<br />
<strong>The</strong> outstanding activity of the year was the Joint Army and Navy Problem<br />
No. 3 held off Hawaii. . . . <strong>The</strong> exercises which took place at Hawaii were<br />
completely successful from the standpoint of the <strong>Marine</strong>s. <strong>The</strong> plan worked<br />
to perfection and the landing was accomplished.38<br />
Planning by the <strong>Marine</strong>s had been on the basis of 40,000 troops. Fifteen<br />
hundred <strong>Marine</strong>s represented the 40,000.<br />
<strong>The</strong> extent that these operations raised the planning interest of Lieutenant<br />
Commander Turner in air and amphibious operations is unknown, since all<br />
the oflicial records of the Mervine, except the Ship’s Log, have been destroyed<br />
by the pitiless burners of the Record Depositories.<br />
On 8 April 1925, six days before Lieutenant Commander Turner was to be<br />
relieved, the Metwitie, while anchored in San. Francisco Bay, dragged anchor<br />
in the late afternoon and fetched up across the bow of the battleship<br />
Colorado, “the latter’s bow striking at the forward end of the deck house.”<br />
Collisions in 1925 generally meant Boards of Investigation or Courts of<br />
Inquiry and all too frequently these were followed by general courts martial<br />
for the unwitting or negligent. Fast paper work and a ‘
Ten Years of Big Ship Gunnery 75<br />
San Francisco Bay is dangerous.” It also included instructions as to how to<br />
detect dragging of the anchor, who was to carry out this duty, and what to<br />
do if dragging occurred.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Acting Executive Officer, Lieutenant ( jg) Samuel W. Canan in his<br />
accompanying statement stated he had published this order to “All Hands,”<br />
and personally instructed the chief petty officers, signalmen and men standing<br />
gangway watches regarding it, and given copies to each of the officers standing<br />
Day’s Duty. Each of the deck petty o%cers in his statement confirmed<br />
receiving this instruction.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Commanding Officer was not on board “having left at 1120 to attend<br />
the Chamber of Commerce luncheon and not having returned.” Following<br />
the luncheon, he played golf at the Presidio. Ensign Everett H. Browne, Class<br />
of 1923, the Chief Engineer of the Metwine, had the Day’s Duty and was in<br />
command at the time of the casualty.<br />
At 1556 the dragging was noted and immediately reported. Ensign Browne<br />
acted promptly. He sent a messenger ashore for the Commanding Officer.<br />
He heaved around on the port chain, went ahead on the engines at 1616<br />
(as soon as the engines were ready) but “just barely missed clearing the<br />
Colorado.” c’<strong>The</strong> Colorado personnel did everything possible to prevent<br />
damage, veering chain promptly. . . . Especial credit is due the Engineer<br />
Force in starting up the main engines so quickly after being notified.”<br />
Ensign Browne is a very promising young officer, of a high type, zealous,<br />
active and capable, and has already rendered excellent service as Engineer<br />
officer of this vessel, <strong>The</strong> Commanding Officer has confidence in his ability<br />
and judgment. . . . [He] appears to have erred in not dropping the second<br />
anchor as soon as he saw the vessel was dragging.sg<br />
How the seniors in the chain of command viewed this letter is not known<br />
but what is known is that a Board of Investigation was held but as far as<br />
Lieutenant Commander Turner and Ensign Everett Hale Browne were con-<br />
cerned, nothing of a disciplinary nature ever came of it. And that was luck<br />
of the first water.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Board of Investigation of three commanders was headed by the Divi-<br />
sion Commander, Commander <strong>The</strong>odore A. Kittinger, and convened on<br />
13 April 1925. Ensign Browne testified that he “did not think you could<br />
heave in on one anchor and veer on the other at the same time,” with only<br />
the one capstan with which destroyers were fitted. This combined with the<br />
fact that he had noted that “the starboard anchor chain was faked out on<br />
‘“COMervine to CINCIIS, Ie!ter, 8 Apr. 1925.
76 Amphibians Came To Couqaer<br />
deck being painted,” when he had made an early afternoon inspection and<br />
that he did not know that it had been reshackled to the anchor until a<br />
minute or so before the collision, had caused him to delay ordering the star-<br />
board anchor let go.<br />
Lieutenant Commander Turner testified that the dragging of the anchor<br />
was due to “a round turn around the fluke of the anchor,” and that Ensign<br />
Browne<br />
was Officer of the Deck of the Mewine on a previous occasion in San Diego<br />
when the vessel dragged her anchor. He noted the dragging as soon as it<br />
occurred and reported it to Lieutenant (jg) Canan—Lieutenant (jg) Canan<br />
got underway and shifted anchorage without darnage of any kind.<br />
I have great confidence in Ensign Browne.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Board of Investigation found “no responsibility for the dragging”<br />
and that the “spare anchor was not let go in due season, nor were the<br />
engines used to maximum capacity.” 40<br />
<strong>The</strong> Board of Investigation asked by the Convening Authority to give<br />
“the Board’s opinion as to the responsibility for the collision” stated it was<br />
due to “the lack of judgment on the part of the acting Commanding Officer.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> Convening Authority, while not disagreeing with this :,s the technical<br />
reason for the collision, took a broader view and indicated the basic reason<br />
lay in the error of the Commanding Officer in having entrusted Ensign<br />
Browne to the charge of the ship:<br />
His ability and performance as an Engineer Officer appears to have led his<br />
Captain to suppose a corresponding ability in other line duties, in which he<br />
actually lacked experience.Al<br />
However, no copy of the Board of Investigation was attached to Turner’s<br />
official record, which was personal and official consideration of a generous<br />
order.<br />
Commander Destroyers Battle Fleet approved the Board’s report, and<br />
informed seniors in the chain of command, by including a copy of newly<br />
issued Circular Letter, that he had reaffirmed the timeless requirement that<br />
no officer is entrusted with charge of a ship at ancl-,or or at moorings, until<br />
that officer has been instructed, trained, and examined as to knowledge and<br />
competence as a seaman.42<br />
From the Navy Directories of 1924 and 1925 it appears that only two<br />
40Board of Investigation, Report of Collision <strong>US</strong>S Mervine-<strong>US</strong>S ColoYado, l?J Apr. 1925.<br />
a COMDESRON, Battle Fleet to CINC, Battle Fleet, letter, 30 Apr. 1925.<br />
42COMDESRON, Battle Fleet to DESRON, Battle Fleet, letter, 24 Apr. 1925.
Ten Years of Big Ship Gunnery 77<br />
ship’s officers served with Turner throughout his eight and a half months’<br />
cruise in the Mervine. <strong>The</strong>se durable officers were Lieutenant (junior grade)<br />
Samuel W. Canan, Class of 1920, and Ensign Everett H. Browne, Class of<br />
1923. <strong>The</strong> Executive Officer, Gunnery Officer, and Communication OiKcer,<br />
however, all served more than seven of the eight and a half months, and the<br />
Communication Officer, Ensign William B. Arrunon, who came aboard<br />
shortly after Turner, went on to become a Flag oflicer on the active list of<br />
the Navy, and Director of Naval Communications. Rear Admiral Ammon<br />
died before this book got well underway.<br />
When asked to say what stood out in their memories from the period of<br />
their service in the Metwine with Turner, one shipmate wrote:<br />
His invincible determination to make a happy efficient destroyer over into a<br />
taut battleship.Aa<br />
Another remembered<br />
his sincere regret in being detached from duty in the Mervi?/e. He had strived<br />
so hard to make his first command a success.AA<br />
Describing Turner another wrote:<br />
Intellectually brilliant, but impatient with average guys slow to grasp his<br />
theories, intolerant of opinions at variance with his, there was only one way to<br />
do a thing—the Turner way. Mostly, he was right, sometimes wrong and<br />
always very hard to convince.AE<br />
All the living officers who served more than a dog watch (a very short<br />
period) in the Mervitze under Turner were queried in regard to Turner.<br />
It can be recorded as a fact that the Mervine is not remembered as a “happy<br />
ship” by several of her officers who served under Lieutenant Commander<br />
Turner, and that all her oficers remember that some were not at all happy<br />
with their captain. He was “rank poison” to one.<br />
Others mentioned Turner’s “positiveness,” his “excellent leadership” and<br />
his’ ‘determination.” 4’<br />
When asked to rate Lieutenant Commander Turner on a scale made up of:<br />
1. Tops,<br />
g Commander Frederick D. Powers, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret.), to GCD, letter, 9 Mar. 1964. Hereafter<br />
Powers.<br />
a Commander Everett H. Browne, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret.), to GCD, letter, 10 Apr. 1964, Hereafter<br />
Browne.<br />
a Captain Joseph U. Lademan, IJSN (Ret.), to GCD, letter, 9 Mar. 1964. Hereafter Lademan.<br />
‘“ (a) Commander Samuel W, Canan, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret.), to GCD, letter, 22 Mar. 1964; (b) Commander<br />
Roy R. Darron, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret.), to GCD, letter, 18 Mar. 1964; (c) Commander Everett H.<br />
Browne, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret.), to GCD, letter, 10 Apr. 1964.
78 Amphibians Came To Conqzer<br />
2. Quite all right,<br />
3. so, so,<br />
4. <strong>The</strong> NUTS,<br />
ratings were from one to four, with two placing him in category one, and<br />
two placing him in category four. It is perhaps significant that the two who<br />
served with him the longest rated him “Tops.”<br />
His Executive Officer believed Turner’s strongest point was<br />
work, work, work of all kinds and everybody’s work as well as his own.<br />
His Gunnery Officer thought Turner’s strongest point was a<br />
brilliant, forceful, theoretical mind.<br />
Another named his “fairness,” and still another “a personal hard worker.”<br />
Turner’s weakest points were believed to be his “refusal to delegate<br />
authority” and his “impatience and intolerance with other points of view,”<br />
that he was “a detail artist,” or “a driver not a leader.” One said: “In my<br />
opinion he had no weakness, unless you would call his driving urgency one. ”<br />
One officer recalled that members of the ship’s company were heard to<br />
ask each other “When do we get a bugler ?“ or “When will the Metwine<br />
get her cage mast ?“ both of which were the dog marks of a battleship.<br />
However, discipline in the Mervine was remembered as “average” or “good”<br />
and by two as “excellent,” although the Executive Otlicer thought that his<br />
captain at mast was “harsh at times and over lenient at others.”<br />
RKT lived by the ‘Book.’ His punishments at mast were exactly what<br />
the Book called for—no more—no less. He believed in swift and impartial<br />
punishment. No delay, no waiting for the convening of a court-martial.<br />
No back log of mast reports.<br />
In approaching the Nest in San Diego Harbor one afternoon, RKT at<br />
the Corm, the forward throttleman answered the annunciator with 73 speed<br />
ahead instead of 73 speed astern, which caused a slight bump between<br />
the Mervine and the ship at the Nest, and made for a poor landing. <strong>The</strong><br />
other ship just happened to be the flagship of the Division Commander, with<br />
the Division Commander on deck.<br />
RKT sent for me and directed the forward throttleman be brought to<br />
mast as soon as the plant was secured. When RKT came down from the<br />
bridge, all was in readiness. He asked the throttleman, an Engineman<br />
second class, for an explanation, and the man stated that he had made a<br />
mist ake.<br />
RKT said ‘Fireman, first class; go aft.’<br />
This is an example of his swift but fair punishment.47<br />
“ Browne.
Teri Yems of Big Ship Gunnery 79<br />
As a ship handler, Turner was remembered as “excellent” by most and as<br />
“not too hot” or “inclined to place too much emphasis on a range and bearing<br />
plot, and little or no regard for the seaman’s eye” by another. This officer<br />
wrote he “wanted every landing to be a mooring problem.” 4s<br />
<strong>The</strong> Chief Engineer related this story:<br />
When preparing for a Full Power Run, the usual procedure is to work<br />
up to speed gradually, warming up each piece of machinery uniformly,<br />
and then settling the plant down to just below the required speed. This<br />
took about two hours and when I was ready, I went to the Bridge to report<br />
to RKT.<br />
This particular ,rnorning the visibility was low, about 5 miles, and when<br />
I requested permission to start the run, this was denied, due to visibility.<br />
<strong>The</strong> plant was in excellent operating condition, and after several denials to<br />
start the run, I was impatient and asked ‘Captain, what’s the difference<br />
between 32 and 33 knots in this visibility?’ He replied, ‘One knot, young<br />
man, one knot.’ 49<br />
<strong>The</strong> Gunnery Officer recalled the following incident:<br />
Turner was an Ordnance P.G. He had designed a gyro stabilized sight<br />
for the type of gun director installed on the Meruine and his word was<br />
law in all matters connected with her tire control system, While the ship was<br />
in drydock shortly after he took command, he devised a method for obtaining<br />
the inclination of the gun roller paths that differed radically from procedures<br />
prescribed in the instructional pzmphlets of those days. Using data<br />
obtained from a complicated arrangement of vertical battens and theodolites,<br />
Turner computed the settings to compensate for the inclination of the<br />
roller paths at each gun and told me to check them after we were underway<br />
to see if they were correct. After the first check I reported that the settings<br />
were way off, showing him the results plotted on a large sheet of cross<br />
section paper. He said I was making some mistake and told me to do it<br />
again. This went on for almost a month and my room was filling up with<br />
sheets of paper half the size of my bunk all proving that his computed settings<br />
were no good. Finally, I persuaded him to come up to the director with<br />
me. He watched a few checks being made, then, saying we’d probably made<br />
some mistake in the original data, promptly discarded what, for me, had<br />
been a troublesome theory. He was a hard man to convince.’”<br />
<strong>The</strong> Executive Officer recalled that he became distraught over what he<br />
considered Turner’s harsh opinions of his and the other officers’ performance<br />
of duty and over the remark of one of the Ofhcers’ of the Deck that he<br />
w Powers, Lademan, Canan, Darron, Browne.<br />
4’Browne.<br />
w Lademan.
80 Amphibians Carrie To Conqrzev<br />
wanted to push Turnei overboard, and would have done so if he thought he<br />
could get away with it. As a result, the Division Medical Officer and then<br />
the Squadron Medical Officer talked with the Executive Officer who was<br />
ordered to the Naval Hospital and to Waiting Orders with no duty assign-<br />
ment for several months.5’<br />
However, no matter how “unforgiving and severe” Turner was, surprisingly<br />
enough no officer was suspended from duty for any of the hundred<br />
and one causes or incidents which in those days resulted in such suspensions.<br />
All the officers convinced their next promotional examining board of their<br />
professional qualifications and were promoted. This included the Executive<br />
Officer. But, the Chief Engineer remembered:<br />
It was common ‘No. 4 Smokestack Gossip’ that RKT and the Division<br />
Commander were not compatible. <strong>The</strong>re was such a contrast in character and<br />
t:imperarnent between the two. <strong>The</strong> Division Commander took great<br />
pride in being the ‘King of the Passovers’ and was marking time until he<br />
was retired and was not very tolerant toward an oficer of the ability of<br />
RKT and his conscientious efforts. If there was any ‘extra duty’ to be<br />
performed by any ship in the Division, the assignment usually fell to the<br />
Mervzne,5’<br />
<strong>The</strong> Division Commander undoubtedly was aware of the lack of calm<br />
leadership exercised by Lieutenant Commander Turner and of the turmoil<br />
within the oficer ranks of the Mervitze. Bad news, and that includes inadequate<br />
leadership, works up as well as down in the Navy. Commander Kittinger<br />
viewed Lieutenant Commander Turner’s performance of duty dimly,<br />
but not so dimly as did some of the ship’s officers. He marked him in command<br />
ability 3.2 or 3.5. “This officer seems to have average ability” was<br />
his only remark on one fitness report, and on another he wrote only:<br />
“This officer possesses about average ability except in Ordnance in which he<br />
is superior.”<br />
On three different fitness reports, Commander Kittinger marked his<br />
brainy subordinate “average” in 19 different categories, including “intelligence,<br />
“ “above average” in none, and “superior” in none.<br />
Never having gotten around to questioning Admiral Turner before his<br />
sudden death, in regard to this phase of his naval service, this scribe cannot<br />
add anything to this unusual series of fitness reports except to say they in no<br />
way painted a complete picture of the officer and man. He was many things,<br />
but never “average.”<br />
61Powers.<br />
“ Browne.
Ten Years of Big Ship Guunery 81<br />
Whatever trials and tribulations Lieutenant Commander Turner had with<br />
his Division Commander, he never gave vent of them to me.<br />
<strong>The</strong> official part of the eight and a half months’ cruise in the Mervi}ze is<br />
covered by the despatch quoted below:<br />
From Commander Destroyer Squadrons, Battle Fleet to Bureau of Ordnance<br />
0129 For Commmder R. K. Turner. <strong>The</strong> Mert,i)]e stmds fourth in battle<br />
efficiency. My appreciation and my hearty congratulations on this excellent<br />
performance 2125.<br />
Fourth out of 103 was not bad, and Rear Admiral Schofield, a future<br />
Commander in Chief, was a good man to impress. <strong>The</strong> personal side was<br />
covered in a letter written to this same Force Commander:<br />
NAVY DEPARTMENT<br />
NAVAL EXAMINING BOARD<br />
Wasbingto/Z,27 May 192J.<br />
REAR ADMIRAL F. H. SCHOFIELD, U. S.N.,<br />
Comnzandi/zgDest?’oyerSqt[adrovs,<br />
Battle Fleet, U.S.S. Owda, Flagship, c/o Postmaster, San I:rancisco,<br />
Calif.<br />
MY DEAR SCHOFIELD:<br />
I was pleased to find that Lieutenant Commander Richmond K. Turner of<br />
the Mervine in his ex~mination for promotion to Commander made marks<br />
of over 3.56 in all subjects.<br />
You are surely having a most interesting and instructive cruise. All of us<br />
here attached to desks envy you and M the others who have been with the<br />
Fleet.<br />
Very sincerely yours,<br />
SUMNER E. W. KtTTELLE<br />
One of Turner’s officers in the Mervine wrote:<br />
I don’t know if Turner was given to introspection before Merzi~]e, but he<br />
must have done some thorough going self-analysis after. Only so, could<br />
he have changed and produced his later record of accomplishment.’”<br />
This scribe does not know either. But considering the fact that he had<br />
been “asked off” of Vice Admiral McCully’s staff and sent to the Mewit2e,<br />
it would have been quite normal if Lieutenant Commander Turner had asked<br />
himself many questions during the 1924–1 925 period of his naval service,<br />
and come up with some good answers.<br />
u Powers.
TO THE BUREAU OF ORDNANCE<br />
in late March 1925, after only eight months in command, Lieutenant<br />
Commander Turner was ordered to the Bureau of Ordnance fom<br />
duty. He<br />
was relieved by Lieutenant Commander Penn L. Carroll, Class oi1<br />
1909, just<br />
back from duty with the Naval Mission to Brazil. Turner drew a dead horse<br />
of one month’s pay—$325—on 14 April 1925 to finance the trij o to Washington<br />
and requested one month’s leave.<br />
On 17 June 1925, Rear Admiral C. C. Bloch, Chief of the<br />
Convnander Turner at about 45.<br />
Bureau of<br />
NH 69100
Ten Years oj Big Ship Gunnery 83<br />
Ordnance, delivered with congratulations, Turner’s commission as a commander.<br />
In 1925, a commission as a commander in the Navy was a license<br />
to sit at the feet of the Navy great and learn, and a franchise to start molding<br />
those about him in his own image.<br />
Commander Turner’s duty in the Bureau of Ordnance was as Head of<br />
the Design and Turret Mount and Machinery Sections. During the 18<br />
months that he held this assignment, he was frequently away on temporary<br />
duty witnessing tests of new ordnance material of both the Army and the<br />
Navy, as well as ‘
84 Anipbibians Ca?ne To Conquer<br />
into aviation because he was “interested in the rise of aviation as a vital<br />
factor in warfare.” “ Amplifying this in 1960, he said:<br />
I was interested in going into ~vi~tion for some yeus, prior to applying<br />
for oviation training. When in 1918-1919, 1 was Gunnery Officer of the<br />
Afi~~iJJippi (BB-4 I ) Cfiptain Moffett was Commanding Officer, and he was<br />
much interested in Nav;d Avi~tion. {Note: From the ~WJJiJJippi, Captain<br />
Moffett went to duty in Naval Operations as Director of Naval Aviation.}<br />
While I WM in the /14iJ~iJ,rippi:1fly off pl:~tform wts built on the top of #2<br />
turret. So it was quite natural that I should take a red interest in planes<br />
flying off any of my turrets.’y<br />
When in 1923, 1 was on Admiral McCully’s staff as Gunnery Oflicer and<br />
Avi~tion Officer, I was strong for aviation. Later when I was in the Bureau<br />
of Ordrmnce in 1925– 1926, Admird Moffett and I used to walk down<br />
together to the Old N:~vy Dept~rtment from 3000 Connecticut Avenue. One<br />
day while we were walking down, he suggested to me th~t I apply. I took<br />
the physicll examin,~tion, pmscd :md :q>plied,;s<br />
Three months later, the Bureau of Navigation got around to replying:<br />
“Note has been made of your request and it will be given consideration.” ‘9<br />
But, Admiral Moffett’s continual efforts to have first flight senior officers go<br />
into naval aviation, put Commander Turner into the same aviation training<br />
class as Captain Ernest J. King.<br />
Commander Turner reported for instruction in flying at the Naval Air<br />
Station, Pensacola, on 3 January 1927 and successfully completed the course<br />
on 30 August 1927. Three members of the Class of 1908, including Turner,<br />
were in the school, but he was the only one whose mental and physical<br />
reflexes were still limber enough to absorb the essential skills, and become<br />
a naval aviator.<br />
One of his instructors, 35 years later, opined:<br />
Kelly wm a good flyer, and very sh:irp in the classroom. He worked at<br />
things hard and cmrght on rapidly.OO<br />
Another of Turner’s instructors wrote:<br />
1 remember the Great Mm’s entrance on the Pens:~col~ scene very well.<br />
At that time, I was running the torpedo plane school :urd teaching ground<br />
aviation ordnance. As e.~ch new class :urived, we, in ground school, had to<br />
help out during the solo period. Ralph D.tvison, Superintendent of Flight<br />
Training resigned Kelly to me JS one of my four students.<br />
‘(’Official Biogr~phy, Turner.<br />
27Turner.<br />
“ Turner. Applic:~tion (iatecl I ,lune 1926.<br />
‘“BCNAV to RKT, letter, cer 6312-1 ~i, NIV 312–L>of 2 Sep. 1926<br />
‘0[nterview with VAclm hf. K. Greer. t’SN (Ret.). 12 Dec. 1961.
Ten Yea-s of Big Ship Gunnery<br />
Kelly’s reputation hod preceded him, ~ hard mm, EJK’s favorite, etc.<br />
We instructors were all Lieutenants who, before flight, hid to sign the Bevo<br />
list. (I hereby certify that I have not piirtaken of intoxicating spirits during<br />
the pmt 24 hours. ) Flight instruction h~d not reached the precision in<br />
technique that c.~me a year or so later when Barrett Studley 61 wrote the<br />
Instructor’s Manual. <strong>The</strong> ;lverage of instruction was poor and some of us<br />
knew it.<br />
Kelly was form.dly friendly m we met on the belch of old Squadron<br />
One. A gray haired grim man who took himself seriously—I told him<br />
about course rules and my proposed procedure and he seemed impatient as<br />
if he knew fill about it,<br />
He wore it student helmet, hard, with ear pieces for a spezking tube from<br />
a canvas mouth piece hung around my neck. Instructors rode the front se~t<br />
of the NY-1 single float, whirlwind engine seaplane. Biplane, of course,<br />
top speed about 7>, I guess and landing speed well below 50.<br />
At first, he was inclined to rogue with me about the errors he m~de. I<br />
remember this well, for during the second or third hour of instruction 1<br />
landed the plane and told him-in no uncertain terms that he had better do<br />
what I said or he wouldn’t get by. From then on, he Wm ~menable to M<br />
suggestions and he soloed without difficulty.<br />
I remember one time when we had :1 strong west wind right down the<br />
beach, and I stalled the plane :~t about 1000 feet so that we came down<br />
almost vertically as I would give short bursts of throttle to avoid spinning.<br />
After he soloed and was being given a check by Ray Greer,6’ he caught<br />
hell for trying to do something similu. . . .<br />
Admiral Upham asked him to submit a report criticizing constructively<br />
flight training and the Pensacola command. I remember that he is reported to<br />
have said th~t he had never seen ;~station run so well,—and by lieutenants.<br />
But it shows the prestige he had with those seniors.”<br />
“’Lieutenant, [TSN, died 3 Nffirch 1911.<br />
0’Now Vice Admiral hf. R. Greer, ITSN (Ret.).<br />
w Admiml Austin K. Doyle, LISN (Ret.), to GCD, letter, 5 Jan. 1961. Hereafter Arty Doyle.<br />
85
CHAPTER III<br />
Early Years of a Decade of Service<br />
in the Naval Aeronautical<br />
Organization<br />
1927–1932<br />
AN OLD MAN IN A YOUTH ORGANIZATION<br />
When Commander Turner left Pensacola in November 1927, he headed<br />
for one of the more difficult assignments in the mushrooming Naval Aero-<br />
nautical Organization. He was 42, a newly found naval aviator and his first<br />
flying billet was to be in command of the Aircraft Squadrons of one of the<br />
three major subdivisions of the United States Fleet, the United States Asiatic<br />
Fleet.<br />
Not that Air Squadrons, Asiatic Fleet was a large organization. It distinctly<br />
was not. But the Department *+s planning on its marked expansion, and it<br />
was highly desirable that this expansion take place from a sound base.i<br />
A more cautious handling of Commander Turner’s limited aviation abilities<br />
would have been to billet him in some part of the Naval Aeronautical<br />
Organization where, for the first few months, he might exercise his wings<br />
under senior aviators who could be expected to offer a word of counsel from<br />
time to time. <strong>The</strong>re were five Flag officers, and a dozen captains and commanders<br />
senior to him, qualified as naval aviators or naval observers at<br />
this time.’<br />
In these days when the Naval Aeronautical Organization encompasses<br />
eight or nine thousand aircraft, depending upon the Administration’s assess-<br />
‘ (a) CINC Asiatic, Annual Repofts, 1928 and 1929 with departmental endorsements thereon.<br />
Hereafter referred to as Asiatic AR.; (b) COMAIRONS, Asiatic, Annuuf Reports, 1928 and<br />
1929. Hereafter referred to as COMAIRONS A. R.; (c) BUAER, Endorsement to Asiatic, AR.,<br />
192$).<br />
2Register oj Commissioned and Warrant Oficers of the United Siates Navy and <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong>,<br />
January 1928. Hereafter referred to as Natial Regi.r/er.<br />
87
88 Amphibians Cane To Conqzier<br />
ment of the degree of heat of the Cold War,’ it is well to recall that, on<br />
1 December 1927, there were only 876 heavier-than-air (HTA) aircraft in<br />
the Navy.’ Of these, just 26 were on the Asiatic Station. Fourteen of the<br />
26 were in VF-1017 and VO- 107 with the 3rd Brigade of <strong>Marine</strong>s in China,<br />
and six VO seaplanes were shipborne in Light Cruiser Division Three. Both<br />
the <strong>Marine</strong> Brigade and the Cruiser Division were on duty in the Asiatic<br />
Fleet and on the China Coast, in a temporary status.’<br />
Only the six Martin Torpedo seaplanes (T3M-2) assigned to VT Squadron<br />
five were directly under the command of Commander Aircraft Squadrons,<br />
Asiatic Fleet, along with the flagship,<br />
and <strong>US</strong>S Heron.”<br />
<strong>US</strong>S Jason, and the tenders, <strong>US</strong>.S Avocet<br />
But irrespective of the size of the command, the Asiatic Station, in 1928,<br />
was a beacon toward which those naval officers seeking to practice the more<br />
turbulent aspects of their profession could well turn.<br />
THE SITUATION IN CHINA 1927–1 929<br />
<strong>The</strong> mere fact that the 3rd Brigade of <strong>Marine</strong>s with Major General<br />
Smedley Butler, <strong>US</strong>MC, commanding, and Light Cruiser Division Three<br />
with Rear Admiral J. R. Y. Blakely, <strong>US</strong>N, commanding, were temporarily in<br />
the Asiatic Command and that 3,OOO <strong>Marine</strong>s were in Peking and Tientsin,<br />
and 1,000 in Shanghai was indicative that China was boiling with “Anti-<br />
foreign agitation and civil war. “ ‘ “Chinese Nationalism and Russian Communism<br />
walked and worked hand in hand.” Americans in China, reportedly<br />
“were in a state of high tension and were much concerned about the welfare<br />
of their persons and their property. ” s Three cruisers, 17 destroyers, 11 sub-<br />
marines, four tenders, four minesweepers, one transport, and one oil tanker<br />
were stationed in northern China during this period in addition to the<br />
regular Yangtze River gunboats.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Commander in Chief of the United States Asiatic Fleet was also<br />
‘ DCNO (AIR) and CHBUWEPS, United States Naval Aviation 1910-1960, NAVWEP%OO-<br />
80P–1, Appendix IV. Hereafter referred to as NAVWEP>OO–80P–1.<br />
‘ United States Navy Directory, January 1, 1928, p. 140.<br />
‘ Asiatic, A, R., 1928, pp. 20, 22, Third Brigade <strong>Marine</strong>s status changed from Temporary to<br />
Permanent status 1 March 1928. Light Cruiser Division Two relieved Light Cruiser Division<br />
Three on 30 May 1928.<br />
eNavy Direc/ory, Jan. 1928, p. 130.<br />
‘ Encyc[opaedia Britannica, 14th cd., vol. V, p. s45; (b) SECNAV, Annual Report, 1928,<br />
pp. 4, 5.<br />
‘ (a) Asiatic, A. R., 1928, p, 3; ibid., 1929, p. IO; (b) SECNAV, A.R., 1928, p. 5.
Service in the Naval Aeronaz4ticui Organization 89<br />
concerned. That wise old man and Old China Hand, Admiral Mark L.<br />
Bristol, opined:<br />
A new spirit has been born in the hemts of the Chinese people of all<br />
clmses. By some it is called N~tionalism, md others cdl it Radicalism, Communism,<br />
or Bolshevism. . <strong>The</strong> term self-fissertiveness is probably a better<br />
name for it, thm any of the above. . . In general, the foreigner has<br />
shown little consideration in his dedings with the Chinese in the past. It<br />
is likely the Chinese will show less in his dealings with the white race in<br />
the future.{’<br />
<strong>The</strong> year 1927 had ended in China on a social note and a blood purge.<br />
Both included the name of Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the Kuomintang<br />
Armies in the march north into Central China.<br />
Returning to Shanghai from Tokyo on 10 November 1927, Chiang<br />
Kai-shek married a sister of Mrs. Sun Yat-sen, by nalme Mei-ling Soong,<br />
on 1 December 1927.’0 This brought Chiang into close alliance with the<br />
financially powerful Soong family, and enabled him to claim both the mantle<br />
of the dead Sun Yat-sen and the leadership of the Nationalists.<br />
<strong>The</strong> attempted communist coup d’etat at Canton on 11 December 1927<br />
provided a more than valid reason for the Nationalist authorities to close<br />
all U.S.S.R. consulates on account of their part in this attempted communist<br />
take over. <strong>The</strong> Russian Vice Consul and other Russians were shot.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> “Rape of Nanking” on 24 March 1927 had turned the bulk of<br />
moderate elements of the Kuomintang away from their Soviet Union<br />
advisors. <strong>The</strong> Russians were blamed for working up the soldiers in the<br />
Nationalist armies to a high pitch of hatred against foreigners in general,<br />
as well as against foreign schools, churches, and hospitals. Chiang Kai-shek,<br />
in December 1927, was anxious to widen the break of his former personal<br />
ties with the communists, both foreign and domestic, to become the acknowledged<br />
leader of the midde-of-the-road Chinese, and to halt the disintegration<br />
of the Chinese governmental structure.]’<br />
When Commander Turner arrived at Manila on 19 January 1928, it<br />
appeared for a time that China might simmer down as Chiang Kai-shek was<br />
soon appointed Commander in Chief of all the Chinese Armies, and<br />
announced a moderate policy. However, this hope was short lived. Conflict<br />
‘ Asiatic. A. R., 1928. p. 7. Admiral Bristol, when a commmder, was on the Asiatic Station in<br />
1911–1913.<br />
‘“Asiatic, AR.. 1928, p. 8.<br />
“ (a) Asiatic, AR., 1928,p. 16; (b) En[y(-/opuedia Britu//~/ic~, \ol. V, p. 5 ‘i6.<br />
“Ibid., p. 5 [5.
90 Amphibians Came To Covquev<br />
continued between conservative leaders and radical leaders, the “followers<br />
and students of the Soviet Russian advisors who came to China to assist the<br />
revolution.” 13 Added to this turbulence was the Japanese-generated conflict<br />
at Tsinan in Shantung Province, in May 1928. A partial Japanese re-occupa-<br />
tion of Shantung Province along the Tsingtao-Tsinan railroad followed.<br />
<strong>The</strong> situation was turbulent enough so that the Commander in Chief of the<br />
Asiatic Fleet thought it fit to report to the Department:<br />
Concentration, protection, and evacuation plans have been worked out for<br />
all Chinese cities where any numbers of Americans reside, at the various<br />
ports along the Chinese Coasts, and up the Yangtze River.”<br />
Acts and threatened acts against foreigners had thrown all foreigners into<br />
a state of panic from which most of them have not yet recovered. 15<br />
To state the matter conservatively, 1928 and 1929 were interesting years<br />
for a naval officer with a deep interat in world politics to be on the China<br />
Station.<br />
AIRCRAFT SQUADRONS ASIATIC 1928-1929<br />
Aircraft Squadrons, U. S. Asiatic Fleet had formed in February of 1924,<br />
when the Secretary of the Navy’s General Order 533 of 12 July 1920, pro-<br />
viding for an Air Foice, as one of the type of commands within each of the<br />
three major Fleets, was finally effectuated for the Asiatic Fleet.’c<br />
<strong>The</strong> Naval Aeronautical Arm of the Navy had been extended organiza-<br />
tionally into the two continental based Fleets beginning in January 1919,<br />
when the <strong>US</strong>S Sbawnrut (CM-4) was designated as flagship of the Air<br />
Detachment, U. S. Atlantic Fleet.” This organization had been activated on<br />
3 February 1919 when 39-year-old Captain George W. Steele, U. S. Navy,<br />
Class of 1900, assumed command. Captain Steele, although not a graduate<br />
of Pensacola, had been an assistant to the Director of Naval Aviation in<br />
Naval Operations before taking over this sea detail. He was an intelligent<br />
supporter of naval aviation and showed his continuing interest in its development<br />
by qualifying as a lighter-than-air pilot in 1923.’8<br />
‘=Asiatic, A. R., 1929, p. 6.<br />
‘4Ibid., 192S, p. 33.<br />
= Ibid., 1929, p. 11.<br />
‘e (a) Navy Directory, May 1924; (b) General Orders of Navy Department; (c) Interview<br />
with Vice Admiral M. R, Greer, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret.), 12 Dec. 1961, Hereafter Greer.<br />
‘7NAVWEPSOO-80P-1, p. 30.<br />
M(a) Archibald D, Trumbull and Clifford L. Lnrd, Ifistory oj Uni/ed States NurJul A.iution<br />
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1949), p. 150. Hereafter Trumbull and Lord; (b) Oficiul<br />
Navul Biogru~by, of officer concerned. Hereafter Oficiul Bio.grapby.
Service in the Naval Aeronautical Organization 91<br />
Steele’s command consisted of six H-16 flying boats under Lieutenant<br />
Bruce G. Leighton, U. S. Navy, Class of 1913, as l’Airboat Squadron Commander,”<br />
a Kite Balloon Division of six balloons on as many ships, and an<br />
airplane division of three land planes on the famous Sbuwmut, later to be<br />
iunk as Oglala on 7 December 194 1.“ All 3,8o5 tons of her had been converted<br />
into an aircraft tender after 11 years passenger-freight service in the<br />
Fall River Line, and 18 months as a converted minelayer.’”<br />
It was 10 months later, before the Aroostook (CM-3), a sister ship of the<br />
Sbawrnut was taken from the Mine Force of the Pacific Fleet and made the<br />
flagship and tender for the Air Detachment, Pacific Fleet.” She got off to a<br />
running start with Captain Henry C. Mustin, Class of 1896, (number 11<br />
naval aviator certificate) as Detachment Commander and skipper of the<br />
flagship. Commander John H. Towers (number three naval aviator certifi-<br />
cate) was the Executive Officer.’”<br />
<strong>The</strong> hunt for just any kind of a ship, which could undertake the duties<br />
of an aircraft tender and flagship on the Asiatic Station had taken much<br />
longer. Finally, the old collier Ajax (AC-14) of 9,250 tons, built in Scot-<br />
land for the coal trade in 1890, and 34 years and two wars later serving the<br />
United States Navy alongside the dock in Cavite, Philippine Islands, was<br />
chosen. She was hauled into the stream in February 1924. Her designation<br />
was changed to AGC-15, and her assignment was changed from the Receiv-<br />
ing Ship for the l(lh Naval District to flagship of Aircraft Squadrons, U. S.<br />
Asiatic Fleet. Lieutenant Commander Charles S. Keller, U. S. Navy, who<br />
commanded the Ajax as Receiving Ship, temporarily continued in command,<br />
awaiting the arrival of an officer versed in aviation.<br />
Six Douglas Torpedo (DT-2 ) aircraft of Torpedo Squadron 20 were<br />
ferried out to Cavite aboard the <strong>US</strong>S Vega (AK-17) and arrived in Cavite<br />
in mid-February 1924 after a 40-day passage from San Diego, California.z3<br />
<strong>The</strong>y were the backbone and sinew of Aircraft Squadrons, Asiatic.<br />
Everything in supporting resources for the Squadron over the next few<br />
years was in the nature of an improvisation. “Aircraft Squadrons Asiatic<br />
exists solely to provide a groundwork to be built upon” was the way Admiral<br />
“ (a) NutiyDireczory,191!); (b) NAVWEPSOO-80P-1, p. 30.<br />
n Bureau of Construction and Repair, Ship.r Data, U.S. Natal VeJreh (Washington: Government<br />
printing Office, 1938) Hereafter S&p~ Du~a.<br />
‘(a) Dictiorrury of Arnericurs NarJ~l Figbrirrg Ship,, Vol. I, p. 64. Hereafter DANFS, I; (b)<br />
Navy Directory, 1919.<br />
m (a) Ibid.; (b) NAVWEPSOO-80P-1, Appendix I, p. 195.<br />
5 (a) Navy Directory, 1924; (b) Greer; (c) DANFS, I, p. 17.
92 Amphibians Came To Conquev<br />
W. A. Moffett, Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics, described the situation to<br />
his Aide.”<br />
It was 24 June 1924, before Commander Albert C. Read, U. S. Navy,<br />
reported aboard the Ajax to take command of that ship, Aircraft Squadron,<br />
Asiatic and VT Squadron 20. Read was Class of 1907, holder of naval pilot<br />
certificate number 24, and had been skipper of the NC-4 on the first eastward<br />
trans-Atlantic flight, 16-27 May 1919.2’ He had just come from two<br />
years at the Naval War College. By previous training and experience, Read<br />
could be judged outstandingly well qualified to get naval aviation development<br />
off to a good start in the Asiatic Fleet and make a contribution to its<br />
task of showing the flag in and about the important Far East area.<br />
In assigning naval aviators, the Navy Department gave Commander Read<br />
some real help. For in the eight officer complement were George D. Murray,<br />
Marshall R. Greer, and Frederick W. McMahon, all of whom served the<br />
Navy in later years as Flag officers.”<br />
By early 1925 the Heron, a 950-ton Bird class minesweeper, had been<br />
taken from “out of commission” status and converted to a small seaplane<br />
tender (AVP-2), and added to the Aircraft Squadrons command.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> important change in Aircraft Squadrons, Asiatic, was to take place<br />
in mid-1925. Because the Navy was rapidly shifting from coal to oil for its<br />
propulsion, the services of the big Ig,000-ton collier JLZJCM(AC-12), were<br />
no longer needed in the Fleet Base Force operating in the Atlantic. Without<br />
being fitted as a “heavier-than-air aircraft” ~ender, she was sent out to Manila<br />
to relieve the antiquated and disintegrating Ajax,”<br />
A change had been desirable from the day the Ajax was designated an<br />
aircraft tender. Her topside space was so limited that only two assembled air-<br />
craft could be carried on board. <strong>The</strong> remaining four were boxed and stowed<br />
in the holds. Additionally, she was worn out with sea service. Before the<br />
year was out, this became painfully evident during a typhoon-afflicted voyage<br />
between Guam and the China coast. Reluctantly, but immediately, she was<br />
surveyed as unsafe, condemned as unfit, and sold.28<br />
x Interview with Captain George Dorsey Price, LJSN (Ret,), San Diego, California, 12 Oct.<br />
1961. Hereafter Price.<br />
= (a) Official Biography, Read; (b) Trumbull and Lord, p. 168; (c) NAVWEPS-OO-80P-1,<br />
Appendix II.<br />
n (a) Nay Directory, 192.4; (b) Nuwl Regi,ter, 19 i7.<br />
= (a) Naoy Directory, 1925; (b) Ship, Data, 1938.<br />
= (a) Ibid,; (b) N~vy Direcfory, 1925; (c) Greer,<br />
a (a) Ibid.; (b) Ship, Data, 1938; (c) DANFS, I.
Service in the Naval Aeronautical Organization 93<br />
<strong>The</strong> Jason was 21 years younger than the Ajax, with twice the displacement.<br />
But she was not ideal as an aircraft tender.<br />
As Commander of Aircraft Squadrons, Asiatic, reported to the Navy<br />
Department:<br />
<strong>The</strong> ]tzfon is a collier assigned as an aircraft tender and flagship. No materiel<br />
nor personnel changes, other than the addition of a small Flag complement<br />
have been made. . . . [She is] wholly inadequate as a tender for the Air<br />
Squadrons.30<br />
As a further supplement, another‘ Bird-class minesweeper, the Avocet<br />
(AVP-4) had been added to the squadron early in September 1925, having<br />
been freshened up to act as a seaplane tender, after being taken from “out<br />
of commission” status.3’<br />
By 1928, the command of Aircraft Squadrons, Asiatic, had passed through<br />
the hands of two non-aviators, Commander Ernest Frederick (Class of 1903)<br />
and Commander Raymond F. Frellsen (Class of 1907). This occurred be-<br />
cause, with only a dozen commanders in the Navy designated as naval<br />
aviators, none had been made available to the Commander in Chief, Asiatic,<br />
for the command.3’<br />
Commander Frellsen, having been detached at the end of September 1927,<br />
had already arrived back in the States before Commander Turner sailed on<br />
the SS President Monroe from San Francisco on 16 December 1927, for<br />
the four and a half week voyage to Manila, Philippine Islands.<br />
PROBLEMS AHEAD<br />
In January 1928, not only was the flagship without a regularly detailed<br />
Commanding Officer, but the Executive Officer, Lieutenant Commander<br />
Karl E. Hintze, U. S. Navy (Class of 1913), was awaiting departure for<br />
the States as soon as his relief, Lieutenant Commander Walter M. A. Wynne,<br />
U. S. Navy (Class of 1915) came aboard. In addition to the doctor, a paymaster,<br />
and his clerk, there were two junior grade lieutenants and an ensign<br />
to keep the 162-man ship’s organization producing.33<br />
mCOMAIRONS, A.R., 1928, p. 1.<br />
3’ (a) Navy Direrlory, 1926-1927; (b) DANFS, I, p. 78.<br />
“ Four of the commander naval aviators commanded or were executives of ships (.Lexitzglon,<br />
Sarutoga, Wright, Lzngley); three commanded Naval Air Stations (Hampton Roads, Pearl Harbor,<br />
Pensacola ); two were on Staffs AIRBATFOR, AIRSCOFOR; three were in Navy Department.<br />
= (a) Navy Directory, Jan. 1928; (b) Turner; (c) Price; (d) COMAIRONS, A. R., 1928,<br />
p. 23.
94 Anzpbibians Came To Conquer<br />
In the other major unit of the command, Lieutenant Commander George D.<br />
Price, U. S. Navy, was in command of VT-5A, the current designation for<br />
what previously had been called VT Squadron 20, and there were only three<br />
other naval aviators in the squadron.<br />
So, upon arrival, Commander Turner found much to be done. This was<br />
not only because the Squadron and its flagship had been required to operate<br />
under-manned in officers and men, but because a change was taking place<br />
in the type of aircraft the Squadron operated. VT Squadron Five A was just<br />
being provided with six new Martin torpedo airplanes (T3M-52), a type<br />
which started coming off the assembly lines in July 1926. <strong>The</strong> orders from<br />
the Department were that four were to be in commission and two in reserve.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> hand-to-mouth existence of the Navy in the lean-national defense days<br />
of the Coolidge Administration is illustrated by a quote from Commander<br />
Turner’s official report. <strong>The</strong> new torpedo planes, he noted, ‘[were received<br />
without any spare parts whatsoever. ” <strong>The</strong>se T3M-2s were one engine tractor<br />
biplanes with twin floats, built by Martin in 1926-27. “Spares did not begin<br />
to arrive until March” 1928.35 Not only was the supply end of logistics<br />
spotty, but adequate personnel were lacking. Only five aviators, including<br />
Commander Aircraft Squadrons, and 33 enlisted men were assigned to the<br />
squadron.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re was also a lean ration of bread and butter flight orders for the flight<br />
crews. Only eight flight orders for the squadron were allowed and “several<br />
enlisted men in the Squadron fly regularly, but have no flight orders.” In<br />
due time Commander Turner’s efforts persuaded the Department to raise<br />
this quota of flight orders to 14 against his recommended 22.3’<br />
<strong>The</strong> four aviators in the Squadron were glad to have an aviator in com-<br />
mand because they believed his voice would carry more weight than the<br />
previous non-aviators at the Fleet staff level, he would understand their<br />
many problems more quickly, and would be more apt to be sympathetic<br />
to them. But their real desire was for a naval aviator who had been in<br />
naval aviation as long or longer than they had been. Someone who would<br />
anticipate the aviator’s problems and do something to avoid their even<br />
arising. Commander Turner was accepted with an ‘‘It’s bound to be better<br />
now’’—but the big question mark was ‘
Service in the Naual Aeronautic! O~ganization 95<br />
<strong>The</strong> most obvious handicap of the Aircraft Squadrons, Asiatic, was the<br />
lack of a proper tender. <strong>The</strong> second handicap, which had to be accepted,<br />
was the 1922 Washington Treaty for the Limitation of Naval Armaments.<br />
This treaty included provisions that the status quo, at the time of signing<br />
of the treaty, would be maintained by the United States in regard to its naval<br />
bases west of Hawaii. <strong>The</strong>refore, no measures could be taken “to increase<br />
the existing naval shore facilities for the repair and maintenance of Naval<br />
Forces” in the Philippine Islands.”<br />
It was distressingly obvious that facilities to permit the operation from<br />
the beach of the seaplanes of the Squadron would violate the provisions<br />
of the treaty. One of the aviators in the Squadron at this time in 1928,<br />
Lieutenant George DorseY Price (Class of 1916), recalls an incident arising<br />
during the typhoon season when the planes had made a routine operating<br />
flight to Olongapo and were moored overnight in Olongapo Bay. <strong>The</strong><br />
squadron was warned the next day of the near approach of a typhoon which<br />
had veered suddenly to head for Manila from its original path to the east<br />
of Luzon.<br />
In order to save their aircraft, the plane crews, with some shoreside<br />
assistance and hastily-laid ramps, hauled the seaplanes up on the beach at<br />
the Naval Station Olongapo. Here the pontoons were filled with water and<br />
the planes lashed down. When the typhoon had passed, the planes were<br />
floated, and returned to their tenders at Manila.<br />
About three weeks later, the squadron commander was informed that the<br />
Japanese Government had complained to the United States Government<br />
that the Navy had violated the 1922 Washington Treaty by increasing the<br />
facilities for plane handling at the Naval Station, Olongapo. <strong>The</strong> squadron<br />
commander was required to provide factual data to the Governor General’s<br />
Office, so that an appropriate response could be made to the Japanese.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> general hazard of weather and the specific hazard of typhoons to<br />
aircraft were a constant worry to the new squadron commander. He ex-<br />
pressed his anxieties in these words:<br />
Too great emphasis cannot be placed on the dangers of plane operations on<br />
this station due to typhoons. Unless planes can be hoisted out of the water<br />
or anchored down on shore or on board ship during typhoons, they will<br />
almost certainly be wrecked.<br />
Under present conditions, it is impracticable to operate planes from the<br />
“ Washington Treaty for the Limitations of Naval Armaments, 1922, Article XIX.<br />
WPrice.
96 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
vicinity of Manila during the rainy season, Cavite is unsuitable as a seaplane<br />
base at any time of the year.’”<br />
During his 16 months on station, two planes were lost and one was<br />
badly damaged due to crack-ups in rough water landings, which proved to<br />
be beyond the skill of the pilots, or the structure of the planes.”<br />
With shoreside seaplane facilities out of question, Commander Turner<br />
immediately turned his attention to drafting plans to convert the 17-year-old<br />
]a~otz (AC-I2) to a heavier-than-air aircraft tender. He soon formulated two<br />
major projects to alter the Jafon. Project One would fit her to base 12 planes<br />
on board and Project Two would permit 30 planes to be based on board.’z<br />
Project One was urgent because, beginning on July 1, 1928, the ]tzson<br />
was to base six T3M-2 aircraft and a flag unit of two UO Chance Vought<br />
observation aircraft in full commission, and carry three more T3M-2 air-<br />
craft in reserve.~3<br />
Admiral Bristol, the Commander in Chief, was quick and positive in help-<br />
ing the project along. He advised the Chief of Naval Operations:<br />
<strong>The</strong> ]UJO?Zis unsuitable in her present condition as an aircraft tender, but<br />
could be made so with the alterations to be recommended. <strong>The</strong>se include<br />
additional quarters for officers and men, the conversion of the coal bunkers<br />
into fuel oil stowage, storerooms and magazines; the installation of gasoline<br />
stowage, of new generators, and the possible removal of the coal;.ng booms,<br />
substituting two cranes; with these changes, the }uson could maintain<br />
the following planes :—18VT; 6VO; and 6VF.W<br />
Although mentioned last in priority by the Commander in Chief, the<br />
change dearest to the naval aviator’s heart was one which would remove<br />
the coal hoisting gear of the ~a~on and provide modern plane handling<br />
booms, with winch controls, permitting fast and delicate handling of the<br />
planes. On 30 April 1928, one of the new Martin torpedo planes was<br />
dropped 30 feet by the coal handling gear
Service in the Naval Aeronautical Organization 97<br />
fall of 1929, as was the proposed patrol plane increase on the Asiatic Sta-<br />
tion to 18.<br />
<strong>The</strong> ]a~on, burning “old and slack” Chinese coal and making a competitive<br />
score in the Fleet Engineering competition of only 75.oo at her best cruising<br />
speed of 11.6 knots, was to be nursed along until mid-1932. <strong>The</strong>n, together<br />
with many other ships, she succumbed to drastically reduced naval appro-<br />
priations, and was placed out of commission, taking most of Aircraft Squad-<br />
rons, Asiatic, to the same boneyard.”<br />
So although Commander Turner was largely responsible for initiating the<br />
remodeling of the collier ]a~on into an aircraft tender, the length of his<br />
tour in command did not permit him to witness the undertaking of the actual<br />
alterations or to publish the official change in designation.”<br />
Commander Turner received a distinct boost up the ladder from his tour<br />
on the Asiatic Station. This was far from routine, as many an oficer damp-<br />
ened his promotion opportunities on that fast stepping station. He was<br />
extremely lucky to have Admiral Mark L. Bristol as the Commander in<br />
Chief, Asiatic Fleet, and as his immediate senior. Admiral Bristol, a nonnaval<br />
aviator, but an officer of recognized ability and strong character,<br />
had been Director of Naval Aviation in the Navy Department from 1913<br />
to 1916, and was the originator of the phrase “Take the Air Service to Sea.” 4’<br />
One of Turner’s earnest desires was to take the Aircraft Squadrons to<br />
sea and to conduct air reconnaissance of the sea areas around and about<br />
the main islands of the Philippines. Primarily this was because “there are<br />
no charts for aerial navigation of the Philippines” and there was little infor-<br />
mation regarding possible seaplane bases from which large seaplanes could<br />
be operated in time of war.” Both of these deficiencies could be corrected<br />
while at the same time Commander Turner would acquire an opportunity<br />
to ‘
98 AnzPbibians Came To Conquer<br />
Commander Light Cruiser Division Three, Rear Admiral J. R. Y. Blakely,<br />
U. S. Navy, to visit and report upon Malampaya Sound, Palawan; Tawi<br />
Tawi Bay, Tawi Tawi; and Dumanquilas Bay and Davao Gulf, Mindanao.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se large water areas, all 50() to 600 miles south of Manila were examined<br />
‘
Service in the Naval Aeronautical Ovganizatiov 99<br />
an aerial survey of the Naniing area was made.55 During all these flights,<br />
Commander Turner carried more than his share of the load. He showed an<br />
eagerness to fly which matched that of his subordinates, eight to 16 years<br />
younger, and he showed a high degree of skill for one of his years. He also<br />
showed a complete unwillingness to accept past performance of the Aircraft<br />
Squadrons as a standard for the present or future.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> squadron was kept pounding away at the wearisome, but rewarding,<br />
task of air reconnaissance, until at the time of his relief, Commander Turner<br />
was able to report “all operations contemplated in connection with the<br />
preparation of airway charts have been completed.” 57<br />
During 1928 and 1929, the Commander in Chief also was requesting all<br />
merthant ships transiting the general Asiatic Station area to send in a<br />
report at the end of each voyage showing the type of weather encountered<br />
each day, and to answer:<br />
a. What speed could a destroyer maintain?<br />
b. What speed could a submarine maintain?<br />
c. Could a destroyer or submarine oil from a tanker?<br />
d. Could airplanes land or take off?<br />
With this data properly synthesized and plotted on the monthly pilot<br />
charts of the North Pacific Ocean and, acting on the assumption that the<br />
masters of the ships had not answered questions where they lacked compe-<br />
tence, it was possible to plan more accurately for a naval campaign in the<br />
Western Pacific.”<br />
JOINT MANEUVERS<br />
Admiral Bristol was energetic and air-minded. He had come away from<br />
his eight years’ duty as High Commissioner in Turkey, with a well-founded<br />
reputation for diplomacy. This was helpful in continuing and expanding<br />
Joint Exercises with the Army, in which both Army and Naval aircraft played<br />
a regular role. Major General Douglas MacArthur, <strong>US</strong>A, was commander<br />
of the Army’s Philippine Department. He was to be the next Chief of Staff<br />
of the Army.<br />
Joint maneuvers between the Army and Navy were a tradition on the<br />
= Ibid., p. 19.<br />
WPrice.<br />
“ COMAIRONS, AR., 1929, p. 19.<br />
= Asiatic, A. R., 1929, P. 42.
100 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
Asiatic Station, but they waxed and waned depending on the spirit of cooperation<br />
between the top echelons of command. Admiral Bristol in his first<br />
yearly summary of operations after taking command reported:<br />
Measures have been taken with the Army authorities to greatly extend the<br />
scope of these Joint maneuvers for next year (July 1, 1928 to June 30, 1929).<br />
His future plans specifically included “scouting for the approach of the Fleet<br />
by combined Army-Navy planes, followed by a combined air attack.” 5’<br />
<strong>The</strong>se operations brought Commander Turner into close working relations<br />
with the senior officers of the Army Air <strong>Corps</strong>, and with the staff of the<br />
Commander in Chief, as well as with Admiral Bristol himself. In due time<br />
and ; fter much preliminary communication training, during which “reliable<br />
radio ranges between planes up to 200 miles” were achieved, the planned<br />
operations were carried out on 12, 13, and 15 November 1928. <strong>The</strong> November<br />
15 operation resulted in the following despatch to the Chief of Naval<br />
Operations.<br />
Setting a precedent in the Asiatic Station, and it is believed for the first<br />
time in history, Army and Navy planes in a single formation, under a unified<br />
command performed a simulated attack on an assumed hostile fleet.<br />
COMAIRONS with six T3M2 planes, 2 UO planes, 8 Army pursuit planes,<br />
6 Army attack planes, and 6 Army bombers at 0800, 15 November 1928<br />
made rendezvous at Corregidor, and, acting on the information supplied by<br />
4 Army scouts, delivered a simultaneous attack, involving torpedoing, bombing<br />
and strafing on the light cruisers, which were defended by their own<br />
planes and a force of fifteen destroyers, at a point about 30 miles to the<br />
southwest of Corregidor.<br />
<strong>The</strong> operation appeared successful in every phase and was marked by<br />
excellent radio communication and coordination.<br />
A total of 32 planes simultaneously conducted the operation, in addition to<br />
the six defending planes of the attacked crusiers.<br />
This maneuver marks a distinct advance in the efficiency of the defense of<br />
the Philippine Islands and it is believed the spirit of cooperation existing<br />
between the Army and Navy Air Services could not be higher.’”<br />
<strong>The</strong> Secretary of the Navy was quick to snap back with:<br />
<strong>The</strong> Department is much gratified at success of Joint Air Operations and<br />
especially because of the high spirit of cooperation existing between Army<br />
and Navy in Philippines.sl<br />
This was followed by a warm congratulatory personal letter to Com-<br />
m (a) Ibid., 1928, p. 36; (b) COMAIRONS, A.R., 1929, p. 6.<br />
“0Paraphrased copy of a coded despatch, COMAIRONS, AR., 1929, p. 28.<br />
m SECNAV to CINC, Asiatic, Plain Language message 0019-0847 of November 1928.
Service in the Naval Aeronautical Organization 101<br />
mander Turner from the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air, Edward P.<br />
Warner, which concluded with “I hope there will be opportunity for many<br />
more such studies and practices, both in your command and elsewhere.” ‘z<br />
A copy of this letter was placed in Commander Turner’s official record.<br />
By April 1929, Commander Turner was able to report: “<strong>The</strong>re have been<br />
ten occasions when operations have been held by this squadron with units of<br />
the Army, since 1 July 1928. “ ‘3 <strong>The</strong>se included Joint Board Problems 1 and 3<br />
as set forth in Joint Board No. 350. And Admiral Bristol, at the end of the<br />
1929 fiscal year, in commenting on Fleet training during the previous 12<br />
months said:<br />
One of the most interesting features has been the development of combined<br />
Army-Navy aircraft operations.’4<br />
He summed up the matter with these words:<br />
Cooperation between the Army and Navy air forces has been excellent and<br />
great advancement made in combined operation.Gs<br />
WAR PLANS<br />
A tour of the Asiatic Station at this time also provided an excellent oppor-<br />
tunity for an analysis of war operations in the Philippines. That Commander<br />
Turner was so minded is indicated by what he wrote in April 1929:<br />
It is customary amongst Naval officers to consider it practically settled that<br />
the ORANGE [Japanese] forces in the case of an ORANGE-BLUE War,<br />
will be landed on the shores of Lingayan Gulf. <strong>The</strong> existing ASIATIC<br />
FLEET operating plan covers this contingency in considerable detail.GG<br />
Commander Turner did not controvert this surmise, which proved to be<br />
100 percent correct. But he thought, and was forthright enough to say so in a<br />
carefully reasoned three-page letter, that the possibility of a Japanese land-<br />
ing in a southern arm of Lamon Bay, called Lopez Bay, “should be again<br />
studied” by the Navy as an alternative Japanese landing objective. Lopez<br />
Bay was 125 miles by rail and road southeast of Manila. <strong>The</strong>re the water<br />
was smooth and the beaches good. Turner believed that “this matter has not<br />
‘2ASSECNAV, letter, January 26, 1929.<br />
WCOMAIRONS, A.R., 1929, pp. 6, 11.<br />
m Asiatic, A. R., 1929, p. 26.<br />
= Ibid., p. 44.<br />
WCOMAIRONS, Asiatic to CINC, Asiatic, letter, FE 14/FC–4/FF6/AV, 20 Apr. 1929.
102 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
received the attention from the Navy it merits.” He noted that “the Army<br />
has held maneuvers in Eastern Luzon at this point.” He further opined:<br />
<strong>The</strong> use of Naval forces, in case of a hostile landing on the East Coast of<br />
Luzon has been insufficiently investigated {and] prepared for.87<br />
This proposal, however, did not result in immediate action. Due to the<br />
Army being unwilling to hold combined operations during a period when the<br />
Asiatic Fleet was normally in the Philippines for the fiscal year 1929, Admiral<br />
Bristol sadly reported ‘
Service in the NutJai Aeronautical Organization 103<br />
and Type exercises were held during passage between ports and Joint exer-<br />
cises when in the Philippine area.70<br />
An impressive schedule of exercises was carried out in 1928–1929 despite<br />
the fact that the shadow of the Great Depression had already fallen on<br />
the Navy and some exercises were cancelled “due to the necessity of con-<br />
serving fuel oil. ” ‘1<br />
Despite the fact that “water conditions on the Asiatic Stations are fre-<br />
quently too rough for the present type of seaplane,” VT Squadron Five A<br />
flew nearly 800 hours in fiscal year 1928 and 1,000 hours in fiscal 1929.<br />
More than 100 of these latter hours were in night flying.72 A compulsory<br />
requirement for night flying by all naval aviators had been promulgated<br />
by the Chief of Naval Operations on 16 January 1929 to become effective<br />
1 July 1930. Each naval aviator was required to pilot an aircraft for 10 hours<br />
of night flying involving at least 20 landings.<br />
Always anxious to be the first over any hurdle, Commander Turner on<br />
30 March 1929, reported to the Bureau that he had met both requirements<br />
and submitted the supporting data. <strong>The</strong> Bureau of Navigation was hard-<br />
hearted. <strong>The</strong>y pointed out that some of his night flying had been prior to<br />
16 January and that he had completed only 9 hours and 45 minutes of night<br />
flying time after that date.’3<br />
It was during this cruise that Commander Turner’s appetite for intelligence<br />
data was whetted. <strong>The</strong> lack of current informational data especially oriented<br />
to the needs of naval aviators on the Asiatic Station, and the lack of foreign<br />
intelligence both bothered him. He had been able to do something about the<br />
first problem, and he tried to do something about the intelligence. He noted<br />
in his Annual Report, that he had sent into the Department “twenty intelligence<br />
reports,” and he recommended that the Office of Naval Intelligence<br />
issue a new intelligence portfolio for the Far East Area.74<br />
On the way back to the continental United States, Commander Turner<br />
was given authority by the Bureau of Navigation to enter Japan. He spent<br />
two weeks there with the United States Naval Attache at Tokyo, Japan,<br />
getting himself better grounded with the military resources of the Japanese<br />
Empire, and receiving educated guesses on its probable political and military<br />
w Asiatic, A, R., 1929, p. 23,<br />
m (a) Ibid.; (b) COMAIRONS, A.R., 1928, 1929.<br />
7’ (a) Ibid., 1928, pp. 7-8; 1929, p. 15. (b) Asiatic, A.R., 1928, p. 39.<br />
m (a) CNO, letter, A21/Pll/I/29 Ser. 0116 of 16 Jan. 1929; (b) BUNAV, Ser. 6312<br />
167–Nav 311–MF of May 22, 1929,<br />
74COMAIRONS, A. R., 1929, p. 31.
104 Ampbibiatzs Came To Conquer<br />
intentions. <strong>The</strong>se two weeks counted as leave. Mrs. Turner had preceded<br />
him to the United States.’5<br />
However, the tour on the China Station was not all beer and skittles. In the<br />
16 months of command, four planes, out of an operating force never num-<br />
bering more than eight, were lost. One of the tenders, the <strong>US</strong>S Avocet:<br />
grounded on the beach at Chefoo, China, as described in the following<br />
report:<br />
One summer night, while the ]aJon lay at Chefoo, a gale came up and<br />
ships began to drag anchor. I and Commander Turner had already retired<br />
ashore for the night. A rumor came to me at our hotel that the Avocet was<br />
aground on Chefoo beach. I went out and verified this and then returned to<br />
our hotel and told Turner. Without any grumbling he turned out and<br />
together we went to the beach and began salvage operations. My duties next<br />
morning were to take the heavy ]ason, anchor as near the Avocet as safety<br />
permitted, get out hawsers to the Avocet and keep them under tension. With<br />
the aid of some sand sucking gear, the Avocet came off easily. No aid was<br />
requested from outside our own organization.Te<br />
In the Navy of 1928, planes and ships were carefully guarded pieces of<br />
government property, for which officers had a high degree of personal<br />
responsibility. Each of these events was followed by a Court of Inquiry or<br />
Board of Investigation and, in the Avocet case, a General Court Martial.”<br />
While Commander Turner was happy to report that “for the first time<br />
since the establishment of the Aircraft Squadrons, the planes have fully<br />
completed all the gunnery exercises required in the Navy-wide gunnery<br />
competition during the gunnery year,” he added that “the scores made were<br />
very poor,” and the results were ‘(unsatisfactory.” So, the gunnery of the<br />
squadron was dismal. To a former gunnery officer of no mean skill, this<br />
was a bitter pill to swallow. Previously “not one of the aviators on board<br />
had ever launched a torpedo from a plane. . . . No officer attached to VT<br />
Squadron Five A was sufficiently familiar with the general methods of<br />
gunnery training to supervise this important and arduous work.” <strong>The</strong>re had<br />
been handicaps, but there was also progress. <strong>The</strong> best that could be said was<br />
that the future should be more propitious, based on the training accomplished.’”<br />
Special pleading to the Fleet Staff had produced an increase of three Line<br />
“ (a) CINC, Asiatic to Commander Turner, orders, 16 Mar. 1929. (b) Turner.<br />
n Lieutenant Commander Walter M. A. Wynne, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret. ) to GCD, questionnaire answers,<br />
18 Mar. 1962.<br />
n COMAIRONS, AR., 1928, p. 11; 1929, p. 22.<br />
“ (a) Ibid., 1929, p. 11; (b) Turner.
Service in tbe Naval Aeronautica~ Organization 10><br />
lieutenants and four warrant officers on board the /a.ron, but only much<br />
letter writing persuaded the Department to provide a 50 percent increase<br />
in naval aviators on the far China Station.<br />
Officer turnover had been painfully rapid. In 16 months there had been<br />
four changes in Executive Officers of the flagship. One served under Commander<br />
Turner only one month and another only four months before returning<br />
to the United States at the expiration of their cruise on the Asiatic<br />
Station. Additionally there had been four Engineer Officers, three First<br />
Lieutenants, two Gunnery Officers, and two Communications Officers be-<br />
tween 1 July 1928 and 1 April 1929.79<br />
HOMEWARD BOUND<br />
Having drawn a two-months dead horse, amounting to $816.66 (today<br />
this would amount to $2,800.00), having paid the 20 peso fee to become<br />
a permanent absentee member of the Manila Golf Club, and having<br />
shipped his Essex Sedan stateside for a mere,$ 125, Commander Turner went<br />
aboard the SS President Madison on 20 April 1929 with a feeling of some<br />
elation as he carried a message given him that day by a spokesman for the<br />
ship’s company of the command which read:<br />
To Commander R. K. TURNER, U.S. Nuvy<br />
With sincere and grateful appreciation of the high quality of leadership and<br />
spirit of good fellowship you consistently exhibited as our Commander, the<br />
Aircraft Squadrons Asiatic wish you God speed and bon voyage. May you<br />
enjoy a pleasant and satisfactory tour of duty in your new assignment. May<br />
good fortune and happy landings always be your portion.<br />
Au Revoir.so<br />
Not that there had been no dissent.<br />
One of the junior lieutenant aviators in the squadron balanced out the<br />
picture with the following words:<br />
He was capable and energetic, a good flyer with good aviation judgment;<br />
[the Squadron was} efficient, fairly smart as an outfit. [Commander<br />
Turner] was interested in tactics. He could foresee war with Japan. {<strong>The</strong><br />
n (a) Navy Directory 1928, 1929; (b) COMAIRONS, A. R., 1929, pp. 11, 37. (c) Interview<br />
with Captain E. B. Rogers, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret.), 10 Ott. 1961. Following an assignment as Commanding<br />
Officer S-40, Rogers, then a Lieutenant Commander, served as Executive Officer <strong>US</strong>S Jtiots from<br />
November 1928 to March 1929. He relieved Lieutenant Commander Walter M, A. Wjnne, <strong>US</strong>N<br />
(Class of 1915). Hereafter Rogers.<br />
WPersonal files of R. K. Turner.
106 Amphibians Came To Conqaet’<br />
main accomplishment was} surveying sites in the Philippines which could<br />
be made into aircraft landing areas in the future. [He remembered his<br />
AIRONS Commander as] Ambitious and the Prussian Type. [His main<br />
interest was] to advance himself through hard work. He demanded hard<br />
work and eficiency from others, but drove himself harder. [He] was<br />
unpopular with a considerable number of junior officers and a few seniors.sl<br />
One of his executive officers in the ]a~otr described his 44-year-old skipper<br />
as follows:<br />
Kelly Turner had a strong mind and lots of drive. He was up at dawn<br />
and still going strong at ten that night. If he had an objective in mind, he<br />
would seek to reach it, exploring any and all ways. He would accept no<br />
half-way job of any kind from an officer subordinate. He drove, and would<br />
not listen to excuses, and certainly not always to reason, You either met his<br />
standards or got to hell out of the way.<br />
His primary weakness was his lack of consideration and cooperation down<br />
the ladder to the wardroom,<br />
He was a bold seaman and an excellent ship handler. <strong>The</strong> /a.ron was<br />
a big old tub with inadequate power. Turner took her into holes on the<br />
East Coast of Luzon, which required a very high degree of skill. <strong>The</strong> ]aJon<br />
had no sonic depth finder, and the charts were old and inadequate, but<br />
he dodged coral heads adeptly and frequently.<br />
<strong>The</strong> ~a-ron had good discipline. <strong>The</strong> men got a fair shake at mast, but<br />
Kelly Turner was no molly-coddler.<br />
He was about as far from a beach hound as one could get. He played<br />
golf with me and with Russ Ihrig (Skipper of the Heron) on week-ends.<br />
He was a long iron hitter. With a number i’ iron, he could drive nearly<br />
200 yards.” w<br />
Along the lines of the latter comments, another officer added:<br />
He played a fair game of golf and liked golf. He stuck strictly to the rules.”<br />
One of the Commanding Officers of seaplane tenders, the Heron, who<br />
served a full year with Commander Turner says:<br />
It was my opinion, and common consensus of Squadron Officers, I believe,<br />
that Kelly was tops in all respects as a Squadron Commander. He was<br />
obviously a tine planner from the aviation survey projects he laid out. He<br />
was an aggressive operations commander. I know from his inspection procedures<br />
that he was a thorough and highly competent administrator. My<br />
impression from Squadron and ]ason officers was that he was taut and perhaps<br />
a Captain Crutchfield Adair, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret. ) to GCD, questionnaire answers, 23 Apr. 1962.<br />
Hereafter Adair.<br />
* Rogers.<br />
= Adair.
Service in the Naval Aeronautical Organization 107<br />
tough, but fair, although intolerant of indiciency to the point where some<br />
thought he was a sundowner.a’<br />
<strong>The</strong> Executive Officer of the ]aon who served longest with him (10<br />
months ) reports:<br />
Before I reported for duty on the ]usot~, the advice to me was to watch<br />
out for Commander Turner. He was a Son-of-a-bitch.<br />
Kelly Turner turned out to be a close approximation to what I consider<br />
an officer and gentleman should be. One who could lead in any direction.<br />
He had no weak points, but instead a variety of strong ones which would<br />
only come in focus as occasion required. . . .<br />
To the enlisted personnel, he had for them the aura of the master about<br />
him. . . . For the officers, he was the gentleman’s gentleman. . . . Hence,<br />
he never once lost the respect of any of the personnel he came in contact<br />
with, officers or men.85<br />
Admiral Mark Bristol took a kindly view of Commander Turner in the<br />
regular fitness reports. He recognized his weaknesses, marking him average<br />
in patience and self-control, but superior in most other qualities, and in<br />
the various reports penned these descriptive phrases:<br />
Active mind and desire to be doing something is very gratifying.<br />
A very good mind which he keeps working with a very desirable imagination.<br />
He never hesitates to undertake anything.<br />
BUREAU OF AERONAUTICS<br />
Commander Turner’s cruise on the Asiatic Station was 12 months<br />
shorter than the normal two and a half years. <strong>The</strong> shortening of this pleasurable<br />
and stimulating command duty arose because of the familiar Navy<br />
“Daisy Chain.”<br />
In early 1928, Captain Ernest J. King was Assistant Chief of the Bureau<br />
of Aeronautics. “When fur flew” between King and the Chief of Bureau,<br />
Rear Admiral Moffett, King promptly was ordered to command the Naval<br />
Air Station, Naval Operating Base, Hampton Roads, Virginia.’G To replace<br />
King, Admiral Moffett decided to fleet up his Planning Officer, Commander<br />
J. H. Towers. To keep the daisy chain moving, and to fill the important<br />
billet of Plans Officer in the Bureau, the decision was made to take advan-<br />
MCommodore Russell H. Ihrig, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret. ) to GCD, questionnaire answers, Feb. 1962.<br />
w Wynne.<br />
m King’~ Record, p. 211.
108 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
tage of Commander Turner’s planning ability and bring him back early from<br />
the Asiatic Station.<br />
Rear Admiral Moffett had headed the Bureau of Aeronautics for nine<br />
years. Moffett was an “’energetic personality” who ‘“invariably knew what<br />
he wanted in the most definite way.” ‘7 For this reason, doing the advance<br />
planning for him was not an easy task, since no matter what an extensive<br />
estimate of the situation might show to be a desirable course of action,<br />
Admiral Moffett was apt to have already made a couple of 10 league mental<br />
strides along his own throughway from here to there in the particular area<br />
under consideration.as<br />
In July 1929, when Turner reported, the Bureau of Aeronautics had 42<br />
officers assigned to it, of which six were in the Plans Division. Commander<br />
Marc A. Mitscher, a former classmate, and Lieutenant Commander Charles E.<br />
Rosendahl (Class of 1914) and a lighter-than-air enthusiast, were Com-<br />
mander Turner’s principal assistants, but there was also a recent shipmate,<br />
Lieutenant Commander George D. Price who had commanded Squadron<br />
VT Five A in Aircraft Squadrons, Asiatic.a’<br />
<strong>The</strong> Air Arm of the Navy was growing although the great economic<br />
depression of the early 1930’s was to slow the pace for several years.<br />
Naval appropriations for the year ahead were 366 million, but before<br />
Commander Turner would get to sea again they would be down to 318 million<br />
for fiscal year 1933.90<br />
<strong>The</strong>re were 5,458 officers in the Line of the Navy of which 520 were<br />
naval aviators. Of all officers in the Navy 50 percent were on shore duty,<br />
50 percent on sea duty. <strong>The</strong> <strong>Marine</strong>s were in Nicaragua where operations<br />
against the bandits continued, and in Haiti, where a “state of unrest which<br />
for a time threatened the internal peace” continued. Although 84,500 men<br />
manned the Navy, this number was soon to be cut back to 79,991 by 30 June<br />
193 1.“ Out of a grand total of 928 planes available to the Navy, 425 planes<br />
were attached to the United States Fleet.gz<br />
<strong>The</strong> Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics would soon object to the reduction<br />
to two million dollars of money available for “experiments,” half “for<br />
the development of details of” and half for the purchase of “experimental<br />
“ Ibid., p. 207.<br />
= Turner.<br />
m Naval Re&’i3rer,July 1929.<br />
WSECNAV, Annual Report~, 1929, 1930, 1933.<br />
a SECNAV, Annual Report, 1928, pp. 23, 24, Ibid., 1929, pp. 1>7, 1>9, Ibid., 1930, pp. 5, 6.<br />
“Ibid., 1930, pp. 8, 567.
Service in the Naval AeronanticaI Organization 109<br />
aircraft and engines.” <strong>The</strong> Chief of the Bureau of Construction and Repair<br />
would soon report that “designs of two types of 40-foot motor launches for<br />
landing in the surf have been completed.” ‘3<br />
One incident of Commander Turner’s desk tour in the Plans Office which<br />
was connected with the reduced expenditure of research funds is interesting.<br />
A classmate of Kelly Turner’s, resigned from the Navy, Eugene E. Wilson,<br />
relates this tale in connection with trying to interest the Navy in letting the<br />
British manufacture the controllable pitch propeller, the gear shift of the air.<br />
When I approached the Bureau of Aeronautics [to get approval of letting<br />
a foreign manufacturer have the plan], I ran smack into a cold frent. Control<br />
of research and development had been usurped by the Plans Division, now<br />
under my Academy and Columbia classmate, Commander R. K. Turner.<br />
“Spuds’ Turner was a fighting man, an E. J. King type, and a tough customer.<br />
He was to become immortal as ‘Terrible Turner of Tarawa’ in World War<br />
11, but he was scarcely my choice for BUAERO’S Research and Development,<br />
He and I had had a run in in Guantanamo Bay on the Destroyer Tender<br />
Bridgeport, when he was Gunnery Aide on the Staff of the CinC. In the<br />
absence of my skipper, he tried to bawl me out in public for one of his<br />
own blunders, and I ordered him off the ship. Now, he not only avowed<br />
‘no interest’ in the new propeller, but he stormed up and down the corridor<br />
bawling me out for wasting money on a useless gadget.g~<br />
When the Chief of the Bureau o’f Aeronautics, Rear Admiral Moffett,<br />
agreed with Wilson, who in 193o was President of Hamilton Standard Pro-<br />
pellers of Pittsburgh, and signed the papers approving the giving to de Havil-<br />
Iands, a British aircraft company, the plans to build the controllable pitch<br />
propeller, then Turner “was really hoist on his own petard, ” according to<br />
Wilson. <strong>The</strong> “gadget” turned out to be invaluable.<br />
As Chief of the Planning Division, Bureau of Aeronautics, Commander<br />
Turner was a regular member of the Aeronautical Board, a Joint Board of<br />
the Army and Navy, and one of the first vehicles for Joint action by the<br />
Services. <strong>The</strong> Aeronautical Joint Board was:<br />
Specifically charged with the preparation of plans to prevent competition<br />
in the procurement of material, when the Chiefs of the respective Services<br />
have been unable to reach an agreement; consideration in respect of projects<br />
for experimental stations on shore, coastal air stations, and for stations<br />
to be used jointly by the Army and Navy; and the consideration of all estimates<br />
for appropriations for the aeronautical programs of the Army and<br />
Navy with a view to the elimination of duplication. . . . the Joint Board<br />
WIbid., pp. 576; 261.<br />
WEugene E. Wilson, Tbe Gift oj Foresight (n.p., author, 1964), pp. 284-86.
110 Amphibians Came To Conqaer<br />
during the past year has submitted 30 unanimous reports and recommendations<br />
for the approval of the two Secretaries.gs<br />
Having gotten his feet pleasantly wet in Joint maneuvers with the Army<br />
Air <strong>Corps</strong> on the Asiatic Station resulting in a Secretarial commendation,<br />
Commander Turner was particularly willing to work with the Army as a<br />
member on the Joint Board.”’<br />
<strong>The</strong> next few years flew by, and they moved Commander Turner from<br />
strictly naval matters into the arena of political-military affairs. This was a<br />
major broadening step in his over-all development, since in this latter field a<br />
military officer becomes a trustee of the essential interests of the country.<br />
In 1931, the Big Powers were going through one of their perennial disarmament<br />
binges. <strong>The</strong> Washington Treaty for the Limitations of Naval<br />
Armaments, concluded in February 1922, and signed by France, Italy, Japan<br />
and the United Kingdom as well as by the United States, had started an<br />
incomplete and unequal limitation of naval armaments among the major<br />
naval powers. This limitation was very popular not only in the countries<br />
directly affected, but in those countries whose navies were small. Statesmen<br />
and politicians talked continuously of expanding the limitations.<br />
In 1925, the United States joined in the unfruitful discussions of that year<br />
by the Preparatory Commission for the Reduction and Limitation of Arma-<br />
ments—sea, land, and air—fathered by the League of Nations. Two years<br />
later, a three-power naval conference between Japan, the United Kingdom,<br />
and the United States, convened in Geneva, but the conferees failed to<br />
expand the naval armament limitations of the 1922 Washington Treaty.<br />
France and Italy declined to join in this 1927 naval disarmament effort, but<br />
did join in the London Naval Conference of 1930. <strong>The</strong>y refused, however, to<br />
accept the limitations placed on auxiliary tonnage by the 1930 London Treaty.<br />
Having accomplished a minor advance in naval limitation in 1930, the<br />
United States’ effort turned in 1931 to the broader field of all military dis-<br />
armament. In early 1931, a Draft Convention for Limitations and Reduction<br />
of Armaments, drawn up by a Preparatory Commission assembled under the<br />
auspices of the League of Nations, was referred by the State Department to<br />
the Navy Department for comment. <strong>The</strong> disarmament convention was to<br />
meet at Geneva on 2 February, 1932.<br />
<strong>The</strong> General Board of the Navy, which consisted of its senior statesmen,<br />
considered the subject matter for some eight months and submitted its<br />
= SECNAV, Annual Report, 1929, p. 72.<br />
w Turner,
Service in the Naval Aeronautical Organization 111<br />
recommendations to the Secretary of the Navy in a weighty 104-page document.<br />
<strong>The</strong> General Board recommended to the Secretary of the Navy for<br />
adoption the following statement of policy as Navy Department policy, and<br />
its forwarding to the Secretary of State.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Department is opposed, as unsafe and inadvisable, to reduction by<br />
example, or by any method which does not consider all elements of national<br />
armament.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Navy Department believes that the first and most important problem<br />
in the movement toward limitation and reduction of armaments is to effect<br />
general agreement in 1932 which will bring nations into a worldwide system<br />
of limitation of armaments stabilized at the lowest level obtainable without<br />
undue friction or misunderstanding.”’<br />
Commander Turner was directed in March 1931 to<br />
report to the Senior Member present, General Board, Navy Department, for<br />
temporary duty in connection with preparation for the next disarmament<br />
conference at Geneva in 193.2.g8<br />
For nine months, Commander Turner carried water on both shoulders<br />
by serving in the Planning Division of the Bureau of Aeronautics and with<br />
the General Board. At night he was studying and learning the positions taken<br />
or advanced by all the participating nations in the disarmament discussion.<br />
During the day he was trying to devise plans for a shrinking purse to cover<br />
expanding naval air operations.<br />
On 27 November 1931 he was detached from all duty in the Bureau of<br />
Aeronautics and in due time proceeded to Geneva, Switzerland, where he<br />
remained until 22 July 1932. Admiral Turner’s most significant remembrance<br />
of this conference was that the British had recommended and argued long<br />
and hard for the abolition of aircraft carriers from the navies of the signatory<br />
powers. <strong>The</strong> records of the conference indicate that this proposal was ad-<br />
vanced by the British on 29 February 1932.<br />
1932<br />
Commander Turner’s efforts, and those of his seniors, were fruitless. <strong>The</strong><br />
conference was soon lost in a maze of conflicting proposals, each nation<br />
seeking to improve its own relative status by suggesting the reduction or<br />
abolition of those weapons essential to potential opponents and the retention<br />
of those considered necessary to its own national defense.ge<br />
And perhaps more succinctly, it can be said that the confer~--<br />
WGeneral Board, letter 438–2–Serial 1521–C-CM<br />
WBUNAV, letter, NAV–3–N–6312–10“<br />
* Encyclopedia Bri~annir~ ‘‘
112 Anzpbibians Came To Conquer<br />
on the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in September 1931, the threatened<br />
withdrawal of Germany from the conference which actually took place in<br />
September 1932, and the absence of the largest land power nation in Europe,<br />
the Soviet Union, from membership in the League of Nations.<br />
<strong>The</strong> world-wide economic depression was having a significant effect in<br />
every democratically run country in reducing the willingness of the peoples<br />
representatives to spend tax money on armaments. <strong>The</strong> United States Navy<br />
was enduring markedly reduced steaming and training activity. A large<br />
number of the ships were sitting day after day alongside of docks in Navy<br />
yards in “rotating reserve.” <strong>The</strong> small nucleus of professional officers and<br />
men had their low pay further cut, the first year by 8.33 percent and then,<br />
the next year by 12.5 percent.<br />
This period was remembered as somber and depressing,<br />
Forced by this circumstance [the depression] to effect rigid economies, the<br />
expansion of naval aviation was slowed, the aircraft inventory was barely<br />
sufficient to equip operating units, research and development programs<br />
suffered, and operations were drastically Curtailed.*oo<br />
<strong>The</strong> Bureau of Aeronautics was asked to keep the budget inside 32 million<br />
for 1932.101<br />
However, there were two important advances in making naval aviation<br />
an integral part of the U. S. Fleet. Toward the end of Commander Turner’s<br />
detail in aviation planning, the keel for the <strong>US</strong>S Ranger (CV-4), first ship<br />
of the U, S. Navy to be designed and constructed as an aircraft carrier, was<br />
laid down, September 1931, and the underway recovery of seaplanes by<br />
battleships and cruisers became a reality through planned development of<br />
the towing sled.<br />
Equally important was the new policy, enunciated in November 1930 by<br />
the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral W. V. Pratt, 16 months after<br />
Commander Turner took over the Plans Division, by which the majority of<br />
large naval air stations were assigned to and operated under Fleet command<br />
instead of under Shore and Bureau of Aeronautics command.<br />
Admiral Turner felt that he had been most fortunate to have been picked<br />
in 1931 for the technical advisor detail at Geneva. It gave him the opportunity<br />
to work closely with Ambassador Hugh Gibson and with the diplo-<br />
matically trained members of the General Board, such as former Command-<br />
ers in Chief of the Asiatic Fleet, Admirals Mark L. Bristol and Charles B.<br />
W NAVWEPtiO-80P-1, p. 65.<br />
‘mTrumbull and Lord, p. 276.
Service in the Naval Aeronautical Organization 113<br />
McVay, and the senior naval member of the Advisory Group sent to Geneva,<br />
Rear Admiral A. J. Hepburn, later Commander in Chief of the United States<br />
Fleet.’oz<br />
Commander Turner felt he had profitted greatly. And fortunately he<br />
came out of it with three good pieces of paper, the most important of which<br />
were orders to the carrier Saratoga ( CV-3 ) as Executive Officer. <strong>The</strong> Saratoga<br />
was one of the only two real battle line carriers in the Navy, the other being<br />
the Lexington (CV-2 ). <strong>The</strong> other two pieces of paper were commendatory<br />
letters from Secretary of State H. L. Stimson and from the Chairman of the<br />
American Delegation, Hugh Gibson. <strong>The</strong> latter is reproduced herewith.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Honorable the SECRETARYOF STATE.<br />
Washington<br />
Geneva, Switzerland<br />
~uIy 27, 1932<br />
SIR: I have the honor to refer to the services of Commander Richmond<br />
K. Turner, Naval Adviser to the American Delegation to the General Dis-<br />
armament Conference. Commander Turner’s technical knowledge and skill<br />
in handling all matters pertaining to air questions rendered his services of<br />
great value to the Delegation. He was often called upon to present the views<br />
of this Delegation during the meetings of the Air Commission, and he<br />
rendered this service most effectively.<br />
I desire to commend his services most highly to both the Department of<br />
State and the Navy Department, and should be pleased if a copy of this<br />
despatch were made available for the records of the Navy Department.<br />
Respectfully yours,<br />
AS A SPEECHMAKER<br />
(Signed) HUGH GIBSON<br />
During this tour of shore duty, Commander Turner was in considerable<br />
demand as a speechmaker. He received five sets of official orders from<br />
the Bureau of Navigation for this purpose in 1930, which should have been<br />
something of a record considering the parsimony of the Bureau in doling<br />
out travel funds during those money-hungry days.<br />
Commander Turner talked to the Naval Postgraduate School on:<br />
a. Aircraft Policies of the Army and Navy<br />
‘mTurner.
114 Amphibians Came To Co~quer<br />
b. Programs and Projects of Naval Aviation<br />
c. Naval Five-Year Program<br />
He talked also to the Coast Artillery School, the Air <strong>Corps</strong> Tactical School,<br />
and the <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> School. And he was invited back the next year.<br />
Whether it was Commander Turner, Captain Turner, or Rear Admiral<br />
Turner, the man was no flamboyant orator. If, however, one was interested<br />
in learning about the subject talked on, he was not only first-rate to listen<br />
to, but superior. For he always had the facts in his mind and on the tip of<br />
his tongue. <strong>The</strong> facts were arranged logically to support major conclusions.<br />
He spoke with marked intensity and with a minimum of note referencing<br />
and hemming and hawing. He was a great success during question periods,<br />
since he quickly tautened the bowline around the necks of those whose<br />
queries indicated lack of attention to what had been said once, but dealt<br />
painstakingly with those who sought to explore areas in the speech not<br />
covered fully, or to question the reasoned deductions.<br />
As Patrick J. Hurley, Secretary of War, wrote:<br />
It is reported that the lectures were very interesting, instructive, and capably<br />
delivered, and that their quality indicated a thorough knowledge of<br />
the subjects covered.’o’<br />
He was an effective speaker<br />
informed.<br />
because he was unpretentious, direct and<br />
‘WCHBUNAV to RKT, letter, 31 Mar, 1931, forwarding commendatory letter from SECWAR.
CHAPTER IV<br />
In and Out of Big Time<br />
Naval Aviation<br />
1932–1940<br />
EXECUTIVE OFFICER—SARATOGA (CV-3 )<br />
<strong>The</strong> United States Fleet had been reorganized in April 1931, and the use<br />
of the terms Battle Fleet and Scouting Fleet discontinued. Under the reorganization,<br />
there was a large Battle Force in the Pacific Ocean with battle-<br />
ships, carriers, destroyers, minecraft, and shore-based patrol squadrons, and<br />
a smaller Scouting Force in the Atlantic Ocean with no minecraft and fewer<br />
of all the other types, but strong in cruisers. <strong>The</strong>re was a widely dispersed<br />
Submarine Force to supersede the Control Force, and a Base Force, the latter<br />
performing expanded d~ties of the former logistic Train, and including a<br />
few shore-based aircraft squadrons, largely patrol aircraft.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Saratoga was half of the aircraft carrier strength in the mighty Battle<br />
Force, sharing that honor with the Lexington. <strong>The</strong> third carrier in the United<br />
States Navy, the ex-collier ]ti@er, now the Langley, was in the Scouting<br />
Force. <strong>The</strong> number of battleships on 1 July 19?J1 was at a new low, as only<br />
12 battleships were in full commission, and the number of enlisted personnel<br />
in the whole Navy was down to the post World War I low of 79,7oo.<br />
Just to make the modern naval officer’s mouth water at the thought, the<br />
percentage of reenlistments in 1933 was over 90 percent, and to shed a tear,<br />
the 15 percent pay cut was in effect and officers did not receive any increase<br />
of pay when promoted or when completing stipulated periods of naval<br />
service.1<br />
Fleet Problem XIV was to be held in 1933 in the area between the<br />
Hawaiian Islands and the Pacific Coast, and Fleet Problem XV was held in<br />
1934 in the Caribbean.<br />
‘ SECNAV, Annual Repor$, 1933, pp. 8, 14, 16<br />
115
116 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
<strong>The</strong> Captain of the Saratoga was Rufus F. Zogbaum. In his nostalgic book<br />
From Sail to Sartitoga, he wrote, in the early 1950s:<br />
My executive officer was a man who has since become famous in commanding<br />
many of the great amphibious operations in the Pacific War, Kelly<br />
Turner, sometimes referred to in newspapers as ‘Terrible Turner.’ He had<br />
taken over his new duties at the same time as I had taken command, so we<br />
had both to get acquainted with the ship as well as with one another, and<br />
to plan how she was best to be run under our new regime.<br />
New brooms generally sweep too clean, and so, after all the publicity<br />
the Saratogu had lately gotten in the newspapers, on account of her grounding,<br />
we decided to proceed with caution in any reforms we intended to<br />
make. In my first talk with Turner, I felt we were in complete accord,<br />
that with this able and brilliant second-in-command I could leave him all<br />
the details that go with the executive’s job. Although he was aggressive,<br />
dominant and could see quickly the best way of doing things and demanded<br />
they should be done thus and with despatch, I never found anything<br />
‘terrible’ about Kelly Turner.z<br />
Captain Zogbaum was of the same Naval Academy class of 1901 as Ernie<br />
King. He had gone to Pensacola as a junior captain at age 49, the same age<br />
as King ventured into aviation. He had completed the aviation course about<br />
18 months after Turner and King. He was justly proud of qualifying as a<br />
naval aviator, and of his fine command, the Sara~ogu,<br />
Commander Turner was Executive Officer of the Saratoga for 18 months<br />
from the day after Christmas 1932 until 11 June 1934, and served throughout<br />
Captain Zogbaum’s command tour.<br />
On the final fitness report which Captain Zogbaum gave Commander<br />
Turner, he wrote:<br />
No Commanding Officer could ask for a better Executive. . . . Recently<br />
selected for Captain and should go far in the Naval Service.<br />
TO WORK AS EXEC<br />
One of the outstanding senior lieutenants in the Sara remembered:<br />
I was the Assistant Gunnery Officer on the Saratoga when R.K.T. came<br />
aboard as Exec. When his orders to the ship were posted I seem to recall<br />
rumors going around to the effect that he was somewhat a sundowner.<br />
He had the single-minded devotion to duty which I sense in Russ Ihrig<br />
[Commodore Russell M. Ihrig]. He wanted things done as they should be<br />
2 Rufus Fairchild Zogbaum, From Sail to Saratoga, A Nawd Autobiography (Rome: author’s<br />
wife, 1956).
Commander<br />
Nava! Avicztion, 1932–1940 117<br />
done—right the first time—and he followed up his orders. <strong>The</strong> Sara was to<br />
be the best ship in the Fleet and her boats were one way of showing this. He<br />
demanded a spick and span crew and brass work that winked, canvas scrubbed<br />
and bleached, with lots and lots of real sailormade awnings, turksheads and<br />
rope mats. None of this was in the nature of make-work, however. He felt<br />
that a good ship had good boats and vice versa. To be sure that he was always<br />
a man who had his wits about him when duty called he did not drink on week<br />
days, and his weekend drinking was so moderate as to be almost abstemious.<br />
Under his eye, we did a good job when Long Beach was hit by the quake.’<br />
s Rear Admiral Chmles B. Hunt, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret,), to GCD, letter, 1 Apr. 1965.
118 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
Another shipmate of early aviation days remembered:<br />
While Exec of the Stiratoga,Kelly was a legend. It is said he studied music so<br />
that he could give the band hell.’<br />
Before the 1932 Christmas holidays were over, the new Executive<br />
Officer had gathered together all the naval aviators of the squadrons<br />
attached to the Saratoga and told them:<br />
You are all naval aviators, and from what I hear, darn good ones. But from<br />
now on, you have got to also be naval officers ! ~<br />
<strong>The</strong> practice under the previous Executive, a classmate of Turner’s, Com-<br />
mander A. H. Douglas, had been for the squadron aviators to do their flying<br />
and a very minimum of shipkeeping and watch standing. Kelly put them all<br />
on the ship’s watch lists, the younger ones as Junior Officer of the Watch or<br />
as Officer of the Deck, the senior ones on a Squadron Watch List similar to<br />
the ship’s Head of Department Watch List. <strong>The</strong> squadron officers took their<br />
duty turns with the ship’s officers, a day of watch duty every fourth day, but<br />
watches so scheduled to give them eight hours off watch before flying.<br />
This broad concept of officer seagoing and ship qualification endeared<br />
Commander Turner, neither to the officers, nor to their wives when the<br />
Saratoga was in port. However, the policy paid big, big dividends in forma-<br />
tion handling skills and in self-confidence during World War II when a<br />
number of these aviators increased in rank markedly and, by CINCPAC fiat,<br />
automatically senior to all non-flying officers in surface ship commands in<br />
the same unit or group and thus the task unit or task group commander.<br />
This Saratoga policy spread its wings softly throughout the aeronautical<br />
organization of the Fleet during later pre-World War II years.<br />
<strong>The</strong> cruise in the Saratoga included all the usual chores borne by Execu-<br />
tive Officers of that 193+1934 period including much umpiring of other<br />
ships, most frequently the Lexington, gunnery and torpedo practices, and<br />
much inspecting and writing of reports.<br />
This latter aspect resulted in Commander Turner receiving two official<br />
letters of praise from the Commander in Chief of the United States Fleet,<br />
Admiral David F. Sellers, one stating that his report had shown “a broad<br />
tactical knowledge.” “<br />
In late March 1934, Commander Turner learned that his services were<br />
4 Arty Doyle.<br />
‘ Interviews with Vice Admiral William M, Callaghan, <strong>US</strong>N, and Rear Admiral Carl K. Fink,<br />
<strong>US</strong>N, both lieutenants in the Surutoga in 1932-1933, 2 Mar. 1966.<br />
‘ CINC<strong>US</strong> to Commander Turner, letters, A163/3817 of 29 Dec. 1933 and 11=-O of<br />
16 May 1934.
Naval Aviation, 1932-1940 119<br />
being sought for duty on their staff by two Flag officers, each a qualified<br />
aviation observer, rather than a qualified naval aviator. <strong>The</strong> two were Rear<br />
Admiral Henry V. Butler, a rear admiral of the upper half, and currently<br />
away from aviation and commanding Battleship Division Three, Battle<br />
Force, and Rear Admiral Alfred W. Johnson, a rear admiral of the lower<br />
half and currently commanding Aircraft, Base Force. Aircraft, Base Force,<br />
contained all the aircraft patrol squadrons of the major Fleet air bases.<br />
However, Rear Admiral Butler was slated to fleet up to vice admiral and<br />
take over Aircraft, Battle Force, containing the two largest carriers of the<br />
Fleet, and their healthy contingents of fighting aircraft. <strong>The</strong> problem was<br />
further complicated by the desire of the Department to do its own detailing.<br />
As described by Mrs. Turner:<br />
Kelly is still at sea about his job. Admiral Butler wants him for his Chief<br />
of Staff, and, of course he is crazy for the job. <strong>The</strong> Bureau wants another man,<br />
and the thing is still hanging fire.<br />
His relief has been ordered. <strong>The</strong> Butler job will keep him away until<br />
December. If he goes to Admiral Johnson’s Staff, he will be back in Coronado<br />
for six weeks, and then go to Alaska for three months. I am afraid there will<br />
be so much fuss they will just order him to some shore job.7<br />
But feminine intuition proved wrong and on 11 May 1934, the Bureau<br />
of Navigation ordered Commander Turner detached from the Saratoga in<br />
June and assigned him as Chief of Staff to Commander Aircraft, Battle Force.<br />
<strong>The</strong> orders were delivered in Gonaives, Haiti, on 17 May and executed in<br />
New York City on II June 1934.<br />
THE FEMININE FRONT<br />
<strong>The</strong> problems in 1934 of the childless Navy wife with a seagoing hus-<br />
band are timeless, as indicated by the following abstracts from Mrs. Turner’s<br />
letter:<br />
It is so dead here [Long Beach], and everyone is so blue, it is awful.<br />
I can’t seem to fill up the days.<br />
I started taking steam baths and massage at the club, and it made a new<br />
woman of me. Lost eight pounds. . . . Must go to the dressmaker. I lost so<br />
much weight, all my clothes are falling off.<br />
Ming [the dog] expects her puppies any day now. I am hoping they will come<br />
so that I can go to the Riverside Dog Show Sunday.8<br />
‘ Mrs. Turner to Miss L. Turner, letter, 12 Apr. 1934,<br />
8Ibid,
120 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
THE 1934 SEAGOING NAVY<br />
<strong>The</strong> Naval Directories of 1 July 1924 and 1 July 1934 list “Ships of the<br />
Navy in Commission” as follows:<br />
1924<br />
Battleships, first line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18<br />
Heavy cruisers, first line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0<br />
Heavy cruisers, second line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5<br />
Lightcruisers, first line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8<br />
Lightcruisers, second line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3<br />
Aircraft carriers, first line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0<br />
Aircraft carriers, second line. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1<br />
Minelayers, second line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2<br />
Destroyers, first line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103<br />
Light minelayers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6<br />
Submarines, fleet, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0<br />
Submarines, first line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77<br />
Submarines, second line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3<br />
Gunboats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9<br />
Auxiliaries (large) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52<br />
Total 291<br />
1934<br />
15<br />
14<br />
0<br />
10<br />
0<br />
3<br />
1<br />
1<br />
102<br />
In the 10 years from 1924, the Fleet had shrunk, particularly in numbers<br />
of enlisted personnel, and in submarines and auxiliary strength. But, and it<br />
was a great big BUT, in 1934, there were 46 new ships building compared<br />
with only 17 building in 1924.<br />
Besides new and better ships, another essential for fighting a major war,<br />
a professionally trained officers corps, also was being slowly but steadily<br />
built up. <strong>The</strong> number of Line oficers had increased from about 4,7oo in<br />
1924 to 5,800 in 1934, nearly 25 percent. Thus gradually the professional<br />
corps that could instruct the tens of thousands of Naval Reserve officers who<br />
would instruct the millions of citizen sailors during World War II, was<br />
being gathered together.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Commander in Chief of 1934, David F. Sellers, as had Admiral<br />
Coontz in 1924, thought that “the replacement of our obsolete submarines”<br />
was the first and primary deficiency of the Fleet, needing correction. In 1934<br />
“suitable tactical flagships for submarine squadrons operating with the<br />
Fleet,” and “suitable tenders specially designed to facilitate the operation<br />
4<br />
3<br />
50<br />
0<br />
8<br />
30<br />
241
Nauai Aviation, 1932–1 940 121<br />
of patrol planes” edged out faster ships “in the Train” as the second most<br />
urgent deficiency needing to be corrected. However, in connection with the<br />
1934 Train, the Commander in Chief stated:<br />
It is essential that we should have faster oilers. Either the Navy should build<br />
them or we should subsidize private interests to build them.’<br />
This latter suggestion, in effect, bore real fruit several years later, when<br />
the Maritime Commission built the 18-knot Cimawon (AO-22 ), and the<br />
Navy acquired her.<br />
1934 was a year of major progress toward the proficiencies needed from<br />
1942 to 1945, and from 195o to 1953. Fleet Problem XV was conducted in<br />
the Pacific Ocean approaches to the Canal Zone area and continued in the<br />
Caribbean during April-May 1934. A tentative cruising doctrine for a transpacific<br />
campaign was developed and published. ‘7, 8; (b) Ibid., 1934, pp. 7, 8.<br />
*“Ibid., pp. 12, 13, 14, 15, 18.
122 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
and given warm commendation when it has been earned by some outstanding<br />
performance.”<br />
Voice radio was being tested in the Fleet.”<br />
However, voice radio was slow to catch hold in the Fleet.<br />
AIRCRAFT BATTLE FORCE ( 1934-1935)<br />
Commander Turner had a highly successful year as Chief of Staff to Commander<br />
Aircraft, Battle Force. When he reported for this duty in June 1934,<br />
Aircraft, Battle Force, consisted of three carriers, the Lexington, Saratoga,<br />
and the old Langley, carrying all together 15 squadrons of aircraft, totalling<br />
169 planes, as well as the short-lived dirigible Macon, due to be lost 12 Febru-<br />
ary 1935.<br />
In the spring of 1935, the 15,000-ton aircraft carrier Ranger completed her<br />
final trials and joined, bringing five squadrons of aircraft totaling 77 planes<br />
with her.<br />
<strong>The</strong> value of night flying skill for naval aviators had been impressed upon<br />
Commander Turner, and he was able to persuade his Admiral of a wide-<br />
spread need for this skill in his command, the largest seagoing naval aircraft<br />
command in the world.<br />
So, as one old-time skilled naval aviator wrote:<br />
As C/S for Admiral Butler, he [Turner] left his mark by starting the practice<br />
of having all squadrons alternate working only at night.1~<br />
This again paid big dividends to the Navy in World War II.<br />
TO THE NAVAL WAR COLLEGE<br />
As Commander Turner’s sea cruise drew to a close, the question as to<br />
where he would do his upcoming shore duty must have been high in his<br />
mind. No clues on his desires were found by this writer, except that his<br />
fitness reports showed that his preference of duty was for duty and instruc-<br />
tion at the Naval War College. And as a member of the senior class, to the<br />
Naval War College he was ordered, being detached in time to drive across<br />
country and report in late June 1935.<br />
“ Ibid., pp. 16, 17, 19.<br />
“ Ibid., p. 29.<br />
“ Doyle.
Naval Aviation, 1932-1940 123<br />
PROMOTION TO CAPTAIN<br />
Selections to captain from the Class of 1908 extended over three years.<br />
<strong>The</strong> 1933, 1934, and 1935 Selection Boards all worked on 1908. Since<br />
Turner was selected by the 1933 Board and since he was not ordered before<br />
the naval examining board until just after he arrived at the War College,<br />
he had 18 months of pleasant relaxation knowing that he was over the hump<br />
and just waiting to make his number, which he did on 1 July 1935.<br />
<strong>The</strong> years 1933, 1934, and 1935 were lean for the Line of the Navy.<br />
All up and down the Navy List, as far as percentage of officers selected was<br />
concerned, only a bit better than one out of every two lieutenants, lieutenant<br />
commanders, and commanders were being chosen to continue their careers<br />
in the Navy.<br />
<strong>The</strong> top of 1908 did well with the 1933 Selection Board with 14 out of the<br />
top 16 being selected. <strong>The</strong> next year, 27 out of the middle 50 were lucky,<br />
but in 1935 only seven out of 25 from the bottom of the class were tapped.<br />
In each of the two latter years, one commander was picked up by the<br />
Selection Board, after having missed the boat once.<br />
So of the .100 who made commander eight years before, only 50 reached<br />
the charmed grade of captain. Forty-two of the 50 were promoted in 1936,<br />
28 years after graduation from the Naval Academy, which is about the time<br />
the Line officer of today starts wondering whether he will make three stars.<br />
THE NAVAL WAR COLLEGE<br />
<strong>The</strong> students at Naval War College during the 1930’s were a cross section<br />
of the Navy. It was far from being a place where only oficers “going places”<br />
in the Navy or “the brains” were detailed by the Bureau of Navigation. <strong>The</strong><br />
War College was a perfect place to send officers whom the Bureau wished<br />
to put in a specific slot the following summer, and needed to be kept on ice<br />
for the ensuing year. It also was a perfect place to send an officer for whom,<br />
at the moment, the Navy had no appropriate detail. Unfortunately, it also<br />
was a place where an officer, whom nobody in command really wanted at<br />
the moment, or anytime, could be kept for a year, with the hope that a turn<br />
in his health or the ceaseless pruning of the Selection Boards would eliminate<br />
him as a detailing problem.<br />
And of course, there were always in each class at the Naval War College<br />
a small number of eager beavers, who yearned for a broader appreciation of
124 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
the political, economic, and psychological problems of the world and a<br />
keener knowledge of the strategical military aspects of any future wodd<br />
conflicts, whether between Blue (United States ) and <strong>Black</strong> (Germany) or<br />
even Orange (Japan ) and Bize. Despite the Bureau of Navigation’s frequent<br />
circular letters that no request for the War College was necessary, or desired,<br />
these eager beavers requested such duty.<br />
NAVAL AVIATION AND THE NAVAL WAR COLLEGE<br />
In the five years, June 1930-1935, before Commander Turner became a<br />
student at the Naval War College, there had been only one naval aviator on<br />
the staff of more than 20 officers of that institution. In the Line student body<br />
of 70 to 90 officers there was only one naval aviator in three out of these five<br />
years. Throughout this period, there were over 800 naval aviators in the<br />
Navy, out of a total averaging 5,5oo officers in the Line of the Navy. <strong>The</strong><br />
number of students at the Naval War College during each of these five years<br />
was approximately one out of 60 to one out of 80 of the Line of the Navy,<br />
but the number of naval aviator students during three of these five years was<br />
only one out of 800 naval aviators, and always less than one out of 160.<br />
Bearing in mind the reluctance of the Bureau of Aeronautics to designate<br />
any of its charges for a detail outside the Naval Aeronautics Organization, it<br />
was a minor miracle that Commander Turner was so designated.<br />
This divergence between the Naval War College and the Naval Aeronautical<br />
Organization had a large part of its basis in the slowness with which<br />
the “Damage Rules” of the Naval War College, used in all Fleet Problems<br />
and tactical exercises, came to recognize the potency of the air bomb and the<br />
accuracy with which carrier aircraft delivered it. Thus, one aviator wrote:<br />
I had the old Saru Air Group as we headed for Pearl on the annual cruise.<br />
We were ordered to attack the ‘enemy,’ three Culifornia’s and three Idaho’s.<br />
We came in from 22,000 feet, effected complete surprise with 74 a/c and<br />
roughly 54 half ton bombs. Squadrons of the group had won all the gunnery<br />
trophies that year. <strong>The</strong> Chief Umpire, going by War College rules, slowed one<br />
BATDIV two knots!!!<br />
So you can see the thinking at that time at the Naval War College.”<br />
Admiral Turner recalled that duty at the Naval War College was “much<br />
to his liking.” ‘5 <strong>The</strong> President of the Naval War College was Rear Admiral<br />
‘4Admiral Austin K. Doyle, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret.), to GCD, letter, 28 Mar. 1964.<br />
= Turner,
Navai Aviation, 1932–1940 125<br />
Edward C. Kalbfus, who was to fly four stars, when he next went to sea.<br />
Captains Frank H. Sadler, Milo F. Draemel, Raymond A. Spruance, and<br />
Robert A. <strong>The</strong>obald were members of the War College Staff, and Com-<br />
manders Walden L. Ainsworth, Lawrence F. Reifsnider, Alvin D. Chandler,<br />
Bernhard H. Bieri, and Edmund D. Burroughs were all members of his<br />
Senior Class. All these were to be Flag officers during World War II. Another<br />
member of Turner’s class was Lieutenant Colonel DeWitt Peck, <strong>US</strong>MC.<br />
<strong>The</strong> latter served with Turner in War Plans in Naval Operations and on<br />
COMINCH Staff in 1941–1942, as well as a General officer in the %lomons<br />
in 1942–1943.<br />
Captain Turner, while a student at the Naval War College, submitted his<br />
main thesis, on
126 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
in lieu of a smaller number of large destroyers. It was said that the larger<br />
number of small destroyers would more adequately meet the overseas convoy<br />
tasks, as well as the anti-submarine and anti-aircraft problems of the Fleet.<br />
<strong>The</strong> specific problem upon which the opinion of the Naval War College<br />
was requested by the General Board covered the desirability of building 42<br />
destroyers of 1,200 standard treaty displacement tons in lieu of 32 destroyers<br />
of 1,600 standard treaty displacement tons, or some intermediate number<br />
of an intermediate tonnage.<br />
<strong>The</strong> War College reply, after analyzing the problem, set forth the follow-<br />
ing counsel:<br />
and<br />
Superior seakeeping qualities and long radius are the strategic characteristics<br />
which ought to be considered fundamental in the determination of design of<br />
destroyers for the United States Navy,<br />
Larger ships would be more efficient in unfavorable weather, and could keep<br />
the sea for longer periods of time.<br />
[<strong>The</strong> 1600-ton ship was] favored, but it should be given a maximum speed of<br />
from 38 to 40 knots. [in lieu of the 35 knots being considered] “<br />
<strong>The</strong> influence of this letter, which Turner drafted, on the General Board<br />
is unknown, but it is a fact that the “1939 Building Program Destroyer<br />
Characteristics,” as approved, called for destroyers of 1,630-ton standard<br />
displacement .“<br />
That this tonnage was none too great for the ships expected to keep the<br />
seas in the Western Pacific and provide anti-aircraft and anti-submarine protection<br />
to Task Forces, was evidenced when one destroyer of this 1,630-ton<br />
displacement, the Spence (DD-5 12), along with two of the lesser 1,20()-ton<br />
type, Hull (DD-3 JO) and Afomzglum (DD-354), were lost in a typhoon<br />
which the Third Fleet plowed through on 18 December 1944.<br />
A contemporary at the Naval War College furnishes these opinions in<br />
regard to Captain Turner:<br />
In the first year of our association there, he was like myself a student. He no<br />
doubt had in mind staying on on the staff the following year or two. He was<br />
very active and came up with fine papers ant’ solutions to the problems, but<br />
didn’t see eye to eye with the strategical section which at that time was headed<br />
up by <strong>The</strong>obald. For one thing Turner did not think that <strong>The</strong>obald was giving<br />
‘e(a) Chairman of the General Board to President, Naval War College, letter, GB 420-9 of<br />
9 Jul. 1937; (b) President, Naval War College to Chairman of the General Board, letter,<br />
1 Sep. 1937.<br />
‘7SECNAV to General Board, letter, ser 4510 of 16 Dec. 1937.
Naval Aviation, 1932-1940 127<br />
the proper weight to air and its possibilities. He considered <strong>The</strong>obald a bit<br />
unimaginative and hide bound, and did not hesitate to intimate as much. In<br />
the lecture question periods and during the critiques, he was very effective, and<br />
when he had a different point of view, could expound it well. <strong>The</strong>re were<br />
some interesting clashes between these two men, particularly over the role that<br />
air would have in the event of war in the Pacific, and looking back on it, there<br />
is little doubt that Turner was more often more prophetic than <strong>The</strong>obald.<br />
In the two years as hezd of the Strategic Section of the Staff, Turner did<br />
much to revamp the problems and this part of the course to bring it in line<br />
with the most probable developments in naval expansion and the paths that<br />
this might take. <strong>The</strong> problems and staff presentations had not changed much<br />
for several years and were getting a bit stale. A look at the problems used<br />
during Turner’s time will show that he had a good idea of what the war in<br />
the Pacific would be like. He moved away from the idea that the war would<br />
center around the battleships, and intensified the interest in air operations and<br />
amphibious campaigns. He also outlined a new series of staff presentations, of<br />
which he delivered a good number, which will no doubt still be in the archives<br />
of the College. For one thing he insisted that the staff be able to present their<br />
subjects without reading them and this made for more interesting sessions. As<br />
was to be expected he was very good in conducting critiques and had more<br />
consideration for the opinion of the others than his predecessor had had.lg<br />
Another contemporary related:<br />
I was a student at the Naval War College in 1937 and went to the stzff<br />
there just as Turner was leaving in June 1938. He was highly effective on the<br />
staff-an excellent moderator when strategical and tactical situations were<br />
being discussed by the students. He had a sharp tongue, was quite humorless,<br />
but well read and intensely interested in the work of the College.”<br />
Specific lectures delivered by Captain Turner at the Naval War College<br />
in order to fulfill his instructional duties were legion, but he had special<br />
pride in “Operations for Securing Command of the Seas.” In this lecture,<br />
besides covering the strictly naval aspects of the problem, he took a long<br />
look forward and stressed the need for developing and establishing an<br />
organization and a system of natiorzal strategy and national tactics in order to<br />
provide realistic guidance for handling “the particular problems which may<br />
confront American naval officers. ”<br />
<strong>The</strong>refore, the rough patterns of the National Security Council and the<br />
‘8Vice Admiral Bernhard H. Bieri to GCD, letter, 17 Sep. 1960. Rear Admiral <strong>The</strong>obald<br />
commanded the North Pacific Force and Task Force Eight commencing May 21, 1942. Turner’s<br />
naval aviator predecessor at NWC was his classmate, Commander Archibald H, Douglas, whom<br />
he had also relieved in the Sarutogu.<br />
10Intemim ~jth Commodore Ralph S. Wentworth, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret.), 9 Mar. 1964.
128 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
Joint Chiefs of Staff were dimly outlined in this two-day lecture of<br />
!+10 July 1937.<br />
KELLY TURNER AT 51<br />
This seems a good time to introduce a thumb-nail sketch of the KeIly<br />
Turner character at this stage of his career with 29 years of commissioned<br />
service behind him.<br />
At that time ( 1936) he was a newly appointed Captain about 51 years of<br />
age. He was about six feet tall and in apparent excellent physical condition,<br />
Iean and quick acting. He gave the impression of being very alert, was military<br />
in bearing and actions, and was well groomed.<br />
He was serious and devoted to his profession. Being very forceful and<br />
when convinced, of strong convictions, he was inclined to be abrupt and<br />
sometimes tactless, but he was intellectually honest and if one had a point, he<br />
could be convinced. He was aggressive and decisive. He had great ability to<br />
express himself clearly and well, not only on paper but verbally. He made<br />
no point of trying to make people like him, but he commanded a high degree<br />
of respect by the manner in which he mastered his profession and performed<br />
his duties. <strong>The</strong>re was no doubt in my mind, even at that time, that he was an<br />
aggressive, competitive, combatant type, and that when and if the opportunity<br />
came, he would know how to do, and do a good job. When we in the Staff<br />
were given a job, he let us do it. He was free with good ideas but not insistent<br />
that one use them if one had any himself. I profited much professionally<br />
from my association with him at this time.<br />
AS to his drinking habits, I can say that I never noted that he used it to<br />
excess. I attended quite a number of stag affairs over the two and a half years<br />
that I was there and Turner was at most of them. To my recollection, he<br />
handled his liquor well,’”<br />
<strong>The</strong> officer who relieved Captain Turner as Head of the Strategic Section<br />
of the Staff of the Naval War College wrote:<br />
I went to the Naval War College as a student in June, 1937. Turner was Head<br />
of the Strategy Section of the College Staff. I felt that I learned a great deal<br />
from him during the year ending May 1938.<br />
I remained on the War College Staff until late May 1940, serving the last<br />
year as Head of the Strategy Section.<br />
This experience was invaluable to me in the commands I held in World War<br />
II and later.<br />
I observed convincing evidence during my tour at the College of the out-<br />
~ Bieri.
Naval Aviation, 1932-1940 129<br />
standing contributions Admiral Turner had made to the course of instruction.2<br />
1<br />
TO STAY OR NOT TO STAY IN AVIATION<br />
Captain Turner was aware of the fact that he had trod on many toes in<br />
getting his fellow aviators “up on the step” and in line abreast with the<br />
seagoing capabilities of the rest of the general Line officers during his duty in<br />
the Saratoga and on Aircraft Battle Force Staff. He had never been a popularity<br />
hound and never intended to be one, but he was keenly aware of<br />
criticism, even when he refused to let it temper his actions. He was aware<br />
that on a Flag Selection Board, the opinions of the naval aviator members<br />
carried great weight with the non-aviator as to which naval aviators should<br />
or should not be selected.zz<br />
He also longed to get back to a ship where guns were the first order of<br />
importance and not the last. He also thought that if he had a large non-<br />
aviation combatant command, he would be a better Flag officer if he should<br />
be selected and later have a command in the top echelons of the Navy. He<br />
looked at the Navy List and saw that Captain Patrick N. L. Bellinger, Naval<br />
Aviator Number 18, was just two numbers senior to him, Newton H. White,<br />
a designated naval aviator since 1919 only one number senior to him,<br />
and Albert C. Read, Naval Aviator Number 24, not too much further up<br />
the Navy List. A Johnny-come-lately naval aviator might not fare too well<br />
in that competition. So he made up his mind to seek a non-aviation detail<br />
on his next sea cruise, as indicated in the following correspondence:<br />
DEAR TURNER:<br />
NAVY DEPARTMENT<br />
BUREAU OF AERONAUTICS<br />
Wtibington, 31 A~~gust1936.<br />
In connection with preparation of the Captain’s slate for several years in<br />
the future, I would like to recommend to the Bureau of Navigation that you<br />
remain on your present duty until about June 1938. <strong>The</strong> WuJ~ should be<br />
completed in the Fall of 1938 and it is my present intention to recommend<br />
you for command. However, it appears practicable to assign you to the ILmger<br />
in June ‘38 if that would be preferable from your standpoint. Please advise<br />
me which assignment would be most agreeable to you.<br />
n Interview with Admiral John Leslie Hall, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret.), 2–3 Nov. 1961.<br />
= Richardson.
130 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
Trusting that you are enjoying your present duty and with best regards,<br />
I remain,<br />
Very sincerely yours,<br />
A. B. COOK,<br />
Rear Admiral, U.S.N.<br />
CAPTAIN R. K. TURNER, <strong>US</strong>N,<br />
U.S. Naval War Col[ege, Newport, R. I.<br />
P.S. <strong>The</strong> Saratogu, Lex, Yorktow/Z and Enter/wise in June 1938 will all be<br />
commanded by officers senior to you.<br />
Note: <strong>The</strong> Wu~p was a comparatively small 14,800-ton 29-knot carrier, whose contract date<br />
of “completion was November 22, 1938, but which due to delays, was not actually commissioned<br />
until April 25, 1940. <strong>The</strong> Runger was of approximately the same tonnage.<br />
Naval War College<br />
5 September 1936.<br />
My DEARADMIRAL,<br />
Thank you for your letter of 3 L August, and for your consideration with<br />
regard to my choice between command of the Wa~P and Ranger. I had<br />
expected that circumstances would require my remaining here until the summer<br />
of 1938.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is, however, a serious difficulty with regard to my next sea assignment,<br />
at least from my own standpoint. This difficulty is due to the fact that<br />
I will have only one captain’s cruise before I come up for selection for<br />
admiral. Natural’;- it is very important for me that my cruise be such as will<br />
meet two conditions; lst, that it will best fit me for flag rank; and hd, that<br />
it will give me a record<br />
Selection Board.<br />
of well-rounded service such as will appeal to the<br />
In 1938 I will have been continuously in aviation for nearly twelve years.<br />
If I then go to sea in command of a carrier, in 1942 when I come up for<br />
selection my continuous aviation service will probably have been sixteen years.<br />
This does not seem to me to be a very good record with which to go before<br />
the Board. I therefore intend next year to request officially, as I have already<br />
done on my report of fitness, to be sent in command of a battleship. Kinkaid<br />
tells me that my seniority in 1938 will probably<br />
battleship.<br />
give me a good chance for a<br />
This decision should by no means be construed m due to a waning interest<br />
in aviation. On the contrary, I am more than ever convinced that we still have<br />
a long way to go to exploit its full value to the Navy. I certainly hope to get a<br />
later chance to have more aviation duty, which to me has been far more<br />
interesting than any other.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re will doubtless be an ample number of officers in 1$)38 for all the<br />
aviation commands. This is as it should be, in order that aviators may from<br />
time to time have an opportunity to obtain straight line service . . a rotation<br />
absolutely essential, if they are to fit themselves for general command<br />
duty in the grades of captain and admiral. In my opinion, the most serious
Navai Aviation, 1932–1940 131<br />
personnel problem facing .us is the development of a plan whereby we can<br />
give our splendid young aviators enough general line duty to fit them for the<br />
highest positions, as the Navy by no means can afford to lose what in many<br />
respects is its best element. Possibly my return to general service may influence<br />
others to take the same step.<br />
I talked this over with Mitscher in June, but didn’t wish to bother you with<br />
it at the time.<br />
I hope you will forgive this long letter to a busy man. Again with thanks,<br />
and best regards and wishes,<br />
Very sincerely,<br />
R. K. TURNER<br />
Note: Commander Mark A. Mitscher in June 1936 was Head of the Flight Division,<br />
Bureau of Aeronautics.<br />
Tlie first quoted letter above, the one from the Chief of Bureau of Aero-<br />
nautics, only a little over a year after Turner had gone ashore, brought the<br />
matter of his staying or not staying in aviation to a head. Admiral Turner’s<br />
1960 reaction to stories about his being heaved out of the aeronautical organi-<br />
zation was strong.<br />
Anyone who says I was assed out of aviation, doesn’t know the facts, and<br />
you can consider the statement was generally father to the wish. Cook may<br />
have been worrying about his promising me the Wusp and he may have been<br />
joyous over my request for a battleship or cruiser, but if he had any thoughts<br />
of heaving me out of aviation, I beat him to the punch by many many<br />
months.23<br />
<strong>The</strong> rest of the official record reads as follows:<br />
NAVAL WAR COLLEGE<br />
Newport, Rhode Island, 1.2 November 1937.<br />
My DEAR ADMIRAL,<br />
Today I have submitted an official request for my next sea cruise to be in<br />
command of a battleship or heavy cruiser, rather than an aircraft carrier.<br />
You may remember that I took this matter up with you last spring and you<br />
indicated that you were agreeable to the proposal. <strong>The</strong> reason I am submitting<br />
an official request<br />
my own volition.<br />
is to have the record show that this step will be taken on<br />
Very sincerely,<br />
R. K. TURNER<br />
Rear Admiral A. B. Cook, <strong>US</strong>N,<br />
Chief of Bureau of Aeronautics,<br />
Navy Department,<br />
Washington, D. C.<br />
= Turner.
132 Ampbibi&ns Cdme To Conqrzer<br />
From: Captain R. K. Turner, U.S. Navy,<br />
To: <strong>The</strong> Chief of the Bureau of Nmi~~tion,<br />
Via: <strong>The</strong> President, Naval War College.<br />
NAVAL WAR COLLEGE<br />
Newport, Rhode Island, 8 November 1937.<br />
Subject: Request concerning command assignment for next sea cruise.<br />
1. <strong>The</strong>re are several matters in connection with my next assignment to sea<br />
duty which I desire to bring to the notice of the Bureau.<br />
2. I will complete my normal tour of shore duty in the spring of 1938.<br />
Assuming a two year sea cruise, followed by a normal three year shore tour,<br />
I will not go to sea again until 1943. In that year I will have completed<br />
thirty-five years of service since graduation from the Naval Academy. It is<br />
apparent, therefore, that I am likely to have but one sea cruise in my present<br />
grade before my class appears for selection to flag rank.<br />
3. I have perf ormed duty in the Aeronautic Organization of the Navy since<br />
1 January, 1927. If I continue in this Organization during my next sea cruise,<br />
I will come up for selection after a period of sixteen years of continuous<br />
aviation duty. Even though, during this time, my actual duties have been little<br />
different from those performed by other members of my class, I believe that<br />
my apparent lack of general line experience might operate to reduce my<br />
chances for selection. Furthermore, a variation in duty at this stage of my<br />
career would also tend to increase my usefulness as a flag officer, should I be<br />
selected as such.<br />
4. For the above reason, I request that during my next sea cruise I be<br />
assigned to the command of a vessel not in the Aeronautic Organization. I<br />
would prefer the command of a battleship; but if my seniority will not entitle<br />
me to this assignment, I request command of a heavy cruiser. In either case,<br />
I desire command of a vessel in the active part of the Fleet.<br />
5. As I will have but one captain’s cruise, it must necessarily be at least bxo<br />
years in length in order to establish eligibility for promotion. Because my total<br />
sea service is somewhat less than the average for my class, and because of my<br />
desire for a maximum of command experience, I earnestly request that the<br />
Bureau permit me to remain at sea for as long as possible in excess of two<br />
years.<br />
6. This letter should in no manner be construed as indicating a lessening<br />
of my interest in aviation, as such is not the case. In order to remain eligible<br />
for aviation duty at a later period, I request that the Bureau continue in effect<br />
my present designation as naval aviator.<br />
R. K. TURNER
Copy to: Naval War College,<br />
Bureau of Aeronautics.<br />
My DEAR ~HARP,<br />
Naval Aviation, 1932–1940 133<br />
NAVALWAR COLLEGE<br />
Newport, Rhode Island, 12 November 1937.<br />
I have just submitted an official request for command of a battleship or<br />
heavy cruiser during my next sea cruise, rather than command of an aircraft<br />
carrier, You may recall our conversation on this subject last spring. <strong>The</strong> reason<br />
for the official request is merely to show that I will not have been “assed” out<br />
of aviation, but am leaving of my own volition.<br />
With best wishes,<br />
Very sincerely,<br />
Captain Alexander Sharp, U. S. Navy,<br />
Bureau of Navigation,<br />
Washington, D. C.<br />
R. K. TURNER<br />
Note: Captain Sharp was the Captain Detail Officerin the Bureauof Navigation.<br />
In December 19?17, at Captain Turner’s annual aviation physical examina-<br />
tion, the absence of adequate ocular accommodation was noted and in<br />
February 1938, the Bureau of Nlavi~ation officially informed Captain Turner<br />
that he was “qualified for duty involving flying only when accompanied by<br />
a co pilot.” <strong>The</strong> defect was not an unusual one for a man nearing age 53,<br />
but Captain Turner was a man who didn’t like defects in others, much less<br />
in himself.<br />
No matter what the record shows, it is almost a standing tradition of<br />
naval aviators that Kelly Turner was thrown out of aviation. <strong>The</strong> “heave ho”<br />
story will not down. According to one aviator:<br />
I am positive that Kelly’s imperturbable stubbornness as Chief of Staff for<br />
Henry Butler played a large part in his failure to stay in aviation. Butler’s<br />
Flag Lieutenant committed suicide, thereby unjustly giving Turner’s critics<br />
the chance to say he had been too tough on everyone.z’<br />
But after reading the correspondence on this subject the same officer wrote:<br />
I have always thought, as have others, that Jack Towers was the one to deprive<br />
Kelly of his rightful command of a large carrier. I am glad to know differently.25<br />
WA.K. Doyle to GCD, letter, 1961.<br />
5 A. K. Doyle to GCD, letter, 1964. Note: Captain John H. Towers was Assistant Chief of<br />
the Bureau of Aeronautics when Captain Turner was issued orders to sea duty in February 1938.
134 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
HIGH PRAISE FROM ABOVE<br />
Before Captain Turner left the Naval War College, Rear Admiral<br />
Edward C. Kalbfus and Rear Admiral Charles P. Snyder, the two Presidents<br />
of the Naval War College under whom he had served, had written on his<br />
fitness reports:<br />
a superior officer in every respect . . . a keen analytical mind and in an<br />
assiduous search for the truth . . . has made a substantial contribution to<br />
the College . . . Widely read . . . an accomplished strategist and tactician.<br />
TO THE ASTORIA<br />
<strong>The</strong> 16 December 1933 copy of Plane Talk, the ship’s paper of the<br />
Saratoga, printed Commander Turner’s picture and the “hearty congratula-<br />
tions of the ship’s company on his selection to Captain. ” <strong>The</strong> lead article<br />
was headlined “Astoria Launched Today. ”<br />
Four years and nine months later, the AJtoria and Captain Turner got<br />
together again.<br />
<strong>The</strong> A~~oria (CA-34) was a 1(),0()0-ton heavy cruiser, carrying nine 8-inch<br />
55-caliber guns in three turrets, and eight 5-inch 25-caliber guns in her<br />
anti-aircraft battery. She was reasonably new, having been commissioned<br />
in April 1934 and was currently assigned to Cruiser Division Six of<br />
the Cruisers, Scouting Force. <strong>The</strong> Minttea~olis was the flagship of the divi-<br />
sion. Rear Admiral Royal E. Ingersoll was the Division Commander, and<br />
Rear Admiral Gilbert J. Rowcliff ( 1902) was Commander Cruisers, Scouting<br />
Force.<br />
I first met Kelly Turner a couple of hours after he reported on board. It<br />
was Sunday. I was the Supply Duty Officer. He sent for me and asked if we<br />
carried No Oxide in stock. (I was not the GSK pay cIerk. ) I told him I<br />
would find out. I returned a half-hour later and informed him that we did<br />
not, but that I had prepared a requisition for a supply to be delivered either at<br />
Panama or Guantanamo, ports we were departing for the following day<br />
(certainly soon afterwards). He signed the requisition. <strong>The</strong> next morning,<br />
when the regular clerk returned and I told him about the Captain’s desires,<br />
he informed me he had about five hundred pounds in stock, but carried under<br />
a Navy stock number not its commercial name No Oxide. What to do? It<br />
was 8:05, I went to the Captain’s cabin and asked his orderly if I might speak<br />
to him. He was having breakfast. I was ushered into his cabin. ‘Captain,’ I<br />
said, tremulously I fear, because his reputation had preceded him, ‘I’ve come<br />
to tell you that you have the most stupid chief pay clerk in the Navy serving
Naal Aviation, 1932–1 940 135<br />
under you.’ His eyes crinkled, then his face became one huge grin. Well, do<br />
I now?’ he asked. I then told him of my discovery and that I had destroyed<br />
the requisition. I suppose I still had the undertaker look on my face, because<br />
he laughed aloud. <strong>The</strong>n, suddenly, he became quite serious. ‘What made you<br />
say what you did ?’ he asked. ‘Because I’m disgusted having muffed the first<br />
job you gave me.’ He grinned again. ‘YOU outsmarted me. You said about<br />
yourself exactly what I would have said about you, had I found out about this<br />
before you told me.’ Needless to say, the Captain believed what I told him<br />
after that.26<br />
Turner had three Executive Officers during his two years in the Asto~&-——<br />
a bad sign for any Commanding Officer. <strong>The</strong> first was Commander Paul S.<br />
<strong>The</strong>iss who reported to the A~tovia a couple of months prior to Turner’s<br />
reporting on 10 September 1938. <strong>The</strong>iss was a former shipmate and a good<br />
friend. An alert and knowledgeable sailorman aboard the A.r~o~ia at the time<br />
writes:<br />
<strong>The</strong> other gentleman who might have much good to say about Turner<br />
would be Paul S. <strong>The</strong>iss, one of Turner’s XO’S in Astoriu. Conversely, it<br />
would be my guess that Turner had genuine respect for <strong>The</strong>iss. My reasons<br />
for saying this is that Turner normally addressed <strong>The</strong>iss as “Paul” when<br />
talking to the latter (this was unusual for Turner). <strong>The</strong> other reason that<br />
Turner might have been happy with <strong>The</strong>iss is that <strong>The</strong>iss was an insomniac<br />
thereby able to devote most of 24 hours a day to his jobthis would fit<br />
in well for Turner, and I believe it did. I know <strong>The</strong>iss slept very little for as<br />
a QM I had watches on the bridge every night underway. <strong>The</strong> normal path<br />
going on and off watch was such that I could see into the Exec’s room. Regardless<br />
of the time of night, the Exec was usually sitting at his desk, fully<br />
clothed, either working or catnapping. I have never known <strong>The</strong>iss to place a<br />
call to be awakened in the night call book. No doubt <strong>The</strong>iss did sleep in his<br />
bunk but I venture to say that it was not very often. I recall also that sometimes<br />
during WWII, <strong>The</strong>iss was reconnected with Turner at sea, either on his<br />
staff or Captain of Turner’s flagship. A good bet would be that Turner asked<br />
for <strong>The</strong>iss and, if so, because <strong>The</strong>iss would work much longer than most<br />
people’s physical capacity could endure on a continuous basis.27<br />
Rear Admiral <strong>The</strong>iss’s death in 1956 at a young 66 and long before work on<br />
this book started, removed one who knew much about Richmond Kelly<br />
Turner.<br />
Unfortunately, after 26 years’ commissioned service, and without having<br />
n CommanderRoy O. Stratton (SC), <strong>US</strong>N (a Chief Pay Clerk in 1939), to GCD, letter,<br />
4 Aug. 1962. Hereafter Stratton.<br />
= Lieutenant Commander Vicenzo Lopresti to GCD, letter, 12 Sep. 1963. Lopresti was a<br />
seaman and quartermaster third class under Turner, having entered the Navy 6 January 1936.<br />
Hereafter Lopresti.
136 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
been on board long enough to receive a regular fitness report from Turner,<br />
Commander <strong>The</strong>iss, the first time his class was considered, failed of selection<br />
to captain as “best fitted” that December and was ordered to shore duty the<br />
following June. He was selected to captain as “fitted” by the next Selection<br />
Board in December 1939 and retained on active duty.” <strong>The</strong>iss’s failure of<br />
selection in 1938 actually could not be attributed to Captain Turner in any<br />
way, since Turner did not arrive in the AJtoria until ten days after the regu-<br />
lar 31 August 1938 fitness reports had gone into the Department, the last<br />
semi-annual fitness report before the 1938 Selection Board met in December.<br />
<strong>The</strong> second and third Executive Officers were Commanders Marion Y.<br />
Cohen, and C. Julian Wheeler. Cohen, Class of 1914, relieved <strong>The</strong>iss 15 June<br />
1939, and, by his own official request, in order to better handle a family<br />
problem, left in December 1939 for command of San Diego based Destroyer<br />
Division 70, when relieved by Wheeler, Class of 1916. Commander Cohen<br />
was named “best fitted” captain by his first Selection Board, in a list when<br />
only four of the bottom 15 commanders of the Class of 1914, where he was<br />
positioned on the Navy List, were so picked. So it can be deduced that<br />
Commander Cohen earned more than just highly satisfactory fitness reports<br />
from Captain Turner as did Wheeler, who also cleared the hurdle to “best<br />
fitted” captain at the first try. Wheeler is still around and comments as<br />
follows:<br />
<strong>The</strong> A~toritI under Turner’s command was what is known in the Navy as a<br />
taut ship. It always stood well in the various competitions we had at that time<br />
and was well thought of in the Division.<br />
Due to his brilliance and ability, Admiral Turner was at his best under<br />
stress. He was thoroughly in command of the situation at all times.<br />
When relaxed he entered into the spirit of the occasion and joined in the<br />
fun, whatever it was. I consider him one of the ablest naval officers of our<br />
time.zg<br />
A lower decks observer reports:<br />
Turner’s reputation reached the fo’c’s’le before he took command of<br />
A.rtoriz. A crew member had served with him previously and he soon got the<br />
word around. Suffice to say ‘Turn-to Turner’ was the word. Apparently this<br />
phrase was hitched to him some years previously as it may have been hitched<br />
to other naval officers. Anyway, it was an inkling as to what to expect. This<br />
meant much, because Captain C. C. Gill (Turner’s predecessor) was, indeed,<br />
a relaxed, ‘no-strain,’ pleasant little gentleman.<br />
AJtorid, of course, was Turner’s first major command and command he did.<br />
= For explanation of ‘best fitted’ and ‘fitted’ selection, see pages 267–69.<br />
= Rear Admiral C. Ju[ian Wheeler, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret.), to GCD, letter, 17 Mar. 1964.
Naval Aviation, 1932–1940 137<br />
<strong>The</strong> first day underway, after having been ashore several years, was a routine<br />
evolution. He came up to the bridge, solicited no advice, took the corm and<br />
performed as well as anyone could in getting underway and settled down in<br />
formation enroute to the trainirig area off San Clemente Island. This pattern<br />
persisted for the following two years. He expected that everyone connected<br />
with an evolution knew his part perfectly and executed it efficiently. He, in<br />
turn, knew all the parts.<br />
Turner never forgot for a moment what he was after and how he was going<br />
to get it. He drove himself at full speed with absolute and sincere dedication<br />
for the Navy. Turner was going after Admiral stars and of course he got them<br />
—no one deserved them more. However, in pursuing his aims—personal<br />
and dedicated—he no doubt left a bad taste in many officers’ mouths as to<br />
his ability and as to his relations with them as gentlemen. He was absolutely<br />
intolerant of delay, inefficiency, and laxness among his officers. Impatience<br />
was exhibited immediately with an ensuing ‘chewing out’ on the spot regardless<br />
of rank or rating in the immediate vicinity. This of course runs against<br />
the traditional ‘Commend publicly and censure privately.’<br />
I recall vividly when AJioria was coming onto range for a shoot and Turner<br />
asked his XO if he had studied the OGE and familiarized himself with the<br />
details of the shoot. <strong>The</strong> XO replied in the negative, after which Turner<br />
forthwith ordered the XO from the bridge for immediate study of the exercise.<br />
<strong>The</strong> XO returned in a few minutes with OGE in hand and asked the<br />
Captain if he expected him to learn all about the exercise now, indicating<br />
that it was an awful lot to digest. Turner replied in no uncertain terms that<br />
that was his intent and further that he was amazed that he was questioned<br />
about the intent when in the first place the XO should be ready to take over<br />
command at any time regardless of evolution in progress and therefore he<br />
should have known all about the exercise previously. I heard all this . . . I<br />
was manning a pelorus.<br />
D. R. Maltby, a QM striker, performed incorrectly on a particular occasion<br />
for which he was called by Turner for explanation. Maltby gave his story that<br />
he had been ordered to do such and such. Apparently the situation changed<br />
between order and execution whereby common sense would indicate a<br />
changed situation and Turner pointed it out to Maltby. He asked Maltby if<br />
he recognized the new situation whereby execution of the order would be<br />
stupidity. Maltby answered in the affirmative after which Turner in a kindly<br />
paternalistic manner informed Maltby thus: ‘One of the greatest glories of<br />
being an American sailor is that your officers give you the credit for having<br />
the ability to think for yourself.’ Maltby was very impressed.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re was some humor in Turner and he could smile and laugh. An inci-<br />
dent I recall happened at Captain’s Mast. Approximately six men were before<br />
Turner for ‘shooting craps’. Turner went down the line asking each if he was<br />
‘shooting craps’. Each admitted guilt except one colored boy who said he<br />
wasn’t ‘shooting craps’. Turner turned to a witness to ascertain whether the
138 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
boy was involved in the game. <strong>The</strong> witness replied that he definitely was in<br />
there with money sticking out of his hands. Turner then asked the colored boy<br />
for explanation of his statement. <strong>The</strong> colored boy answered, ‘No such,<br />
Captain, ah wasn’t shooting no craps, ah was jus fadin.’ At this, all semblance<br />
of solemnity and dignity went over the side for Turner burst out laughing as<br />
did all around him. .WKce to say that each was punished lightly.<br />
I mentioned previously that Turner was after Admiral’s stars. He left no<br />
stone unturned in pursuance of his aim. He probably was the worst example<br />
for training officers in shiphandling. I recall no occasion, but there probably<br />
were some, when Turner allowed an officer to get the ship underway and<br />
form up; nor do I recall an occasion during tactical maneuvers when Turner<br />
did no~ take the corm. I suppose the reas~ning was that good maneuvering<br />
would evoke a ‘well done’ from the OTC (usually an admiral). Turner would<br />
have each ‘well done’ certified as a true copy by the Communications Officer<br />
with addition thereon of the particular event for the ‘well done’ after which<br />
the copy would be mailed to the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation for insertion<br />
in his record. Turner’s record must have been full of those messages.30<br />
An officer who served in the A~tori~ for over three years and under four<br />
different captains, remarked:<br />
Kelly Turner’s driving ambition was not getting to be an admiral, but was to<br />
get the job done in as nearly perfect manner as it could be done. Perfection<br />
was his goal.sl<br />
<strong>The</strong> Heads of Departments had varying opinions of their Captain, but<br />
they all testified to the high efficiency and capabilities of the Asto~ia dur-<br />
ing Turner’s command.’;~ <strong>The</strong>y recalled his “thoroughness,” “brilliant mind,”<br />
“long hours” and “hard work. ” To one he was “very strict, very impatient,<br />
intolerant of any mistakes, sharp tongued” but “fair. ” To another, he was<br />
“easily understood, and when his requirements were definitely understood,<br />
easily followed.” To still another, he was “exceptionally smart, but by the<br />
same token he expected everyone else to be in the same category.” It was<br />
recalled that he went on camping trips, fishing trips, and picnics, golfed,<br />
and engaged in gardening. One who fished with Turner found him<br />
companionable, but felt that his real hobby was his career.<br />
All except one department head thought their cruise with Turner was a<br />
big help in their future careers. This one reported: “<strong>The</strong> only unsatisfactory<br />
WLopresti. Note: <strong>The</strong>re were no ‘
Naval Aviation, 1932–1940 139<br />
fitness report in my ~ecord . . . . It was a rough and tough existence, but<br />
I learned a lot about life.” Another recalled “that most officers disliked<br />
Captain Turner,” but ‘
140 Amphibians Came To Conquev<br />
None of the 12 A~toria officer shipmates questioned checked “profane”<br />
as a Turner characteristic. <strong>The</strong>y all checked Turner as “hardworking,”<br />
“brilliant, “ ‘
Naua/ Aviation, 1932-1940 141<br />
political-military area had been whetted by his tour at Newport must have<br />
been hard put to keep abreast, or to guess what might come next.<br />
Along with many other naval officers, Captain Turner did not trust the<br />
Japanese public pronouncements, nor did he believe in the bright idea<br />
originated at a high level that paying a special honor to a dead Japanese<br />
diplomat would cause the Japanese Army officers, in the saddle in Japan, to<br />
alter the policies which the majority of Americans disliked, but about which<br />
they were not prepared to do anything realistic.<br />
But orders were orders, and he honestly wished and tried to show official<br />
good will and to reflect the position of the State Department throughout the<br />
special assignment.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> Captain played the visit straight. I acted as his Aide during the visit and<br />
it was my impression that he believed the mission could and would accomplish<br />
good if everyone in the Astorid did his part well.’”<br />
Captain Turner officially alerted the ship’s company of the A~to~ia in<br />
regard to their demeanor during the days ahead while carrying out this<br />
somber ceremonial chore, with a memorandum published on 18 March 1939,<br />
the day the Astoria received the Ambassador’s ashes in an urn at Annapolis.<br />
This was just a few weeks after the Japanese had shown their predatory<br />
intentions in Southeast Asia by occupying the large Chinese island of Hainan<br />
off northern French Indo China, and just days before they were to raise<br />
their flag over the big old walled city of Nanchang in Southeast China, and<br />
to annex the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.<br />
<strong>The</strong> memorandum read as follows:<br />
A MISS1ON OF HONOR<br />
Today the United States pays honor to the memory of a distinguished diplomat,<br />
Hiroshi Saito, the late former ambassador of Japan to the United States.<br />
Born in 1886, and educated at the Tokyo Imperial University and the Nobles<br />
College, he entered the Japanese Foreign Service in 1911. His first assignment<br />
was as attache of the Japanese Embassy in Washington, so that, strange to say,<br />
both his first and last duty abroad were in America.<br />
Hiroshi Saito served in the various positions of Secretary, Consul, Minister,<br />
and Ambassador, some of his posts being Seattle, London, <strong>The</strong> Hague, Geneva,<br />
and Washington. He achieved success as a writer and public speaker.<br />
He was highly popular with his associates, and, working always for the good<br />
of his own country, until the day of his death never varied from his purpose<br />
of promoting good relations between Japan and the United States.<br />
It is, of course, unnecessary for the Captain to say that he is deeply sensible<br />
3-I’urner.<br />
40Gladney.
142 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
of the honor of having the Atoria selected to transport to his final repose the<br />
remains of this diplomat so highly renowned and esteemed throughout the<br />
world, and especially in America. All hands on board assuredly join in this<br />
feeling, and are gratified at becoming the means chosen by the President for<br />
expressing respect for Hiroshi Saito.<br />
Let us, then, during the ceremonies today and the long voyage ahead, never<br />
fail to show our respect to the memory of the late former Ambassador, and<br />
our cordiality toward the foreign guest who accompanies the remains of his<br />
former chief.<br />
R. K. TURNER<br />
CU/min, U. S. Nduy.<br />
Madame Saito, showing great good judgment, refused the offer of the<br />
Department of State, that she accompany her husband’s remains on the<br />
Astoria,<br />
<strong>The</strong> ship’s paper, <strong>The</strong> AstorianJ carried this account.<br />
THE ASTORIA IN JAPAN<br />
by R. B. Stiles<br />
After participating in Fleet Problem XX in the Caribbean, the A~toria<br />
suddenly got underway on 3 March 1939 from Culebra, Virgin Islands for<br />
Norfolk, Va. After taking on a capacity load of stores and fuel, she proceeded<br />
to Annapolis, Md., and left there on 18 March bound for Yokohama, Japan,<br />
with the ashes of the late ex-ambassador Hiroshi Saito. <strong>The</strong> ashes were accom-<br />
panied by Naokichi Kitazawa, Second Secretary of the Japanese Embassy in<br />
Washington, on the trip to Japan.<br />
After two days in Balboa, C.Z., while various high officials and a delegation<br />
from the Japanese colony in Panama paid their respects to Saito’s ashes, the<br />
Asloria got underway for Honolulu, T. H., on 24 March. Arriving there on<br />
4 April, simultaneously with the Tat.vtaMurfi on which Mrs. Saito and her<br />
two daughters were crossing to Japan, the A.rtori~ tied up to the dock and<br />
various officials of Honolulu boarded to pay their respects. Two days in<br />
Honolulu and the Astori~ left Diamond Head astern on the last lap of her<br />
twenty-nine day, Io,ooo-mile trip, across two oceans from Annapolis, to<br />
Yokohama. She crossed the International Dateline on 9–11 April, and es-<br />
corted by three Japanese destroyers, entered Yokohama harbor on 17 April<br />
with the Stars and Stripes at half mast, and the Japanese ensign flying from<br />
the fore. <strong>The</strong> 2 l-gun salute fired by the Astoriu was answered by H. I.].M.S.<br />
Kilo.<br />
This formal entrance of the A~toria into Japan was described aptly by the<br />
reporter for a Tokyo English language newspaper with these words:<br />
As grey as the leaden dawn from which she emerged, the Atoria, escorted
Nava[ Aviation, 1932-1940 143
144 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
by three Japanese destroyers, steamed slowly into Yokohama Harbor at 8:10<br />
in the morning.~1<br />
Of the four ships which entered Tokyo harbor together on that morning,<br />
only the Hibiki survived the war, although she was damaged by a mine in<br />
late March 1945. <strong>The</strong> Japanese destroyer Sagiri was the first to go, sunk by<br />
a Dutch submarine off Borneo on the day before Christmas 1941. <strong>The</strong> Astoria<br />
was the next. She was one of the first to populate Ironbottom Sound north<br />
of Guadalcanal in August 1942, and she was joined in that graveyard by<br />
the Akat.di sunk by United States naval gunfire from Rear Admiral<br />
Callaghan’s Support Group, Task Group 67.4, during the night of 13<br />
November 1942.<br />
To make the Astoria’s visit stirring and unforgettable, the many Japanese<br />
who wished to avoid war with the United States, joined with those Japanese<br />
who wished to find in the A~to?ids visit an acceptance or an implied forgiveness<br />
by the United States Government of Japanese aggression in Manchuria,<br />
“ Tbe Tva?ss-pdcific, Tokyo, Thursday, 20 Apr. 1939.<br />
Street funeral procession in Tokyo f or late Ambassador Saito.<br />
TurnerCollection
Naval Aviation, 1932-1940 145<br />
U. S. Navy sailor men carrying the ashes of late Ambassador Saito.<br />
NH 69101<br />
and in central China, including the sinking of the gunboat Panay and the<br />
rape and pillage of Nanking.<br />
<strong>The</strong> State funeral was as formalized and impressive as Orientals can make<br />
such a cheerless occasion. Tens of thousands lined the streets. It was the<br />
“double cherry blossom season” in Japan. Once it was over, the Japanese<br />
good will demonstration rolled up like a South China Sea cloudburst. Poets<br />
wrote verses, musicians composed lyrics, the Tokyo newspapers covered the<br />
event with massive minutiae. Everyone was friendly. Thousands visited the<br />
Astoria at Yokosuka.<br />
In Admiral Turner’s effects were three phonograph records with special<br />
English and Japanese renderings of an “Ode by Yone Nogushi dedicated to<br />
Captain Richmond Turner of the A~toria,” a “Welcome A~toria” march and<br />
a lyric “Admiral Saito’s Return,” with special soprano solo.<br />
<strong>The</strong> lyric:<br />
This day the storms forget to rave,<br />
<strong>The</strong> angels walk from wave to wave<br />
This ship glides gently over the foam,<br />
That brings the noble envoy home.<br />
<strong>The</strong> ode:<br />
Pale blossoms greet you<br />
Searnan from afar<br />
Who bring him home<br />
Where all his memories are.
146 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
<strong>The</strong> march:<br />
Welcome you men with hearts so true<br />
America’s best—America’s pride<br />
You show that tho the winds blow<br />
That peace and goodwill the storm can ride.<br />
Upon arrival, Ambassador Grew had informed Captain Turner that he<br />
was trying hard to facilitate the State Department’s purposes of the visit,<br />
and to accomplish these, he felt it necessary to channel the Japanese people’s<br />
enthusiasm and wave of friendliness for the United States into quiet waters.<br />
Suggested remarks for each occasion upon which Captain Turner was to<br />
speak were handed to him to parrot.” A heavy official party schedule was<br />
established.<br />
<strong>The</strong> United States Ambassador entertained Captain Turner, the Execu-<br />
tive Officer, Commander <strong>The</strong>iss, and seven officers at a dinner which the<br />
Japanese War Minister, General Itagaki, and a chief supporter of the Anti-<br />
Comintern Pact of 1936 attended. <strong>The</strong> Japanese Foreign Minister, Mr.<br />
Hachiro Arita, a strong proponent of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity<br />
Sphere, gave a tea for the Captain and 35 officers, and the Navy Minister,<br />
Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai, later Prime Minister and unsuccessful proponent<br />
of the “go slow” policy in antagonizing the United States, gave a full dress<br />
Japanese dinner for the Captain and 20 officers. This party was much<br />
enjoyed as were other courtesies extended by the Japanese Navy.’s<br />
Captain Turner played his delicate part with a skill which pleased the<br />
American Ambassador. Speeches with every meaningless, friendly redundant<br />
word of condolence or of thanks carefully chosen were endless. Sprigs of<br />
cherry blossoms were handed to Captain Turner at all functions. <strong>The</strong><br />
Imperial Family cabled President Roosevelt a message of appreciation.<br />
Mr. Arita said on one occasion:<br />
Sympathy opens the hearts of men. <strong>The</strong> spontaneous expression of sympathy<br />
of the American people for Japan has so impressed the Japanese people that<br />
their gratitude is beyond description.a~<br />
On another occasion these non-prophetic words flowed from Mr. Arita:<br />
We are fully aware that nothing must be left undone to preserve and to<br />
strengthen the happy relations already existing between America and Japan,<br />
which have been maintained unbroken throughout the years since the memo-<br />
“ Gladney.<br />
a Ibid.<br />
u Arita, Speech, Tokyo Advertiser, 21 Apr. 1939.
Navai Aviation, 1932-1940 147<br />
rable visit of Commodore Perry. We are firmly resolved to do our utmost to<br />
attain the noble ideals to which Mr. Saito devoted his ceaselessefforts.~5<br />
<strong>The</strong> speakers of both houses of the Japanese Parliament gave a luncheon;<br />
the Emperor gave a tea in the Imperial Gardens, which Turner did not<br />
attend; the Navy Vice Minister, Vice Admiral Isoroki Yamamoto, and the<br />
Vice Chief of the Navy General Staff, Vice Admiral Mineichi Koga, gave<br />
dinners. <strong>The</strong>se, combined with a luncheon by the American Japanese Society,<br />
a Garden Party by the Foreign Office, oflicial overnight sightseeing tours,<br />
radio broadcasts to the States, and the big return party by the Astoria to all<br />
whom the Captain was indebted, filled the nine days in Japan to overflowing.<br />
<strong>The</strong> ,Secretary of the Navy had allowed Captain Turner only $3OO to cover<br />
all his official entertaining in Japan.<br />
Captain Turner’s memorandum on this subject ends with: “26 April:<br />
Sail for Shanghai, Thank God !“
148 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
<strong>The</strong> AJtoria’s newspaper records the lower deck impression of the visit,<br />
Oflicial calls, ceremonies, and the transfer of the ashes to Tokyo on the<br />
17th, and on the 18th the crew began to realize the gratitude felt and importance<br />
attached by the .Japanese<br />
to the A.rtoria’s mission in Japan. Thirty thousand<br />
yen were appropriated for the entertainment of the Astoria’s men; pres-<br />
ents and tokens of gratitude began to pour in to the Foreign Office from<br />
people in every walk of life; a sightseeing tour for each watch was arranged<br />
by the City of Tokyo; a garden party with entertainment, beer and sake<br />
flowing freely and a Japanese girl as partner for each man at the lunch and<br />
entertainment; a 200-mile” bus and train trip to Shimoda, the sight of Commodore<br />
Perry’s visit in 1854 to negotiate for the opening of Japan to foreign<br />
commerce, bus and train fares free and all doors open to the name <strong>US</strong>S<br />
Astoria on the blue hats. Everyone was shown a royal good time and all were<br />
reluctant to leave when the AJtoria left the cheers, ‘sayonaras’ and ‘bonzais’<br />
from the crowd on the dock behind, and pointed her bow across the East<br />
China Sea for Shanghai on 26 April.”<br />
An officer who made the cruise wrote a five-page letter to his mother<br />
describing the wonderful spirit of good will poured forth by the Japanese<br />
people. Extracted from this letter are several paragraphs of particular<br />
interest:<br />
This was the first indication that we had of the genuine gratitude of the<br />
people of Japan for bringing Mr. Saito’s ashes back in a 10,000-ton<br />
cruiser. . . .<br />
It developed later, in discussions with various people who are supposed to<br />
know the political set-up in Japan, that the Japanese Government itself was<br />
not all in sympathy with the movement, but that the people were grateful.<br />
It seems that Mr. Saito had been kicked out of his post in Washington for<br />
apologizing for the sinking of the gunboat Panay before his Government<br />
ordered him to do so, and that the Government was unkindly disposed toward<br />
him. Some high dignitaries in the Government really looked upon our transportation<br />
of Mr. Saito’s ashes as an insult by President Roosevelt, since he had<br />
sent a cruiser with one whom they had ‘dismissed from office.’<br />
*****<br />
We received quite an ovation from the crowd and an elderly Japanese lady<br />
who must easily have been seventy or eighty years of age stepped out of the<br />
crowd, took my hand and kissed it, saying something in Japanese which I<br />
could not understand. I feIt very little and meek indeed, and could do nothing<br />
but salute and thank her.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Astoria was presented with embroidered pictures and paintings, a<br />
silver plaque and a porcelain statue which were distributed appropriately to<br />
the Captain’s cabin, the wardroom, and the Warrant Officers’ Mess room.<br />
4’ <strong>The</strong> Astorian.
Nava[ Aviation, 19-32-1940 149<br />
Captain Turner was presented with a cloisonne vase by the Navy Minister<br />
and a Daimyo robe from the Foreign Minister “under circumstances that<br />
did not admit of refusal.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> Japanese Government followed up the A~toria’~ visit by considering<br />
the presentation of decorations to Captain Richmond K. Turner and Com-<br />
mander Paul S. <strong>The</strong>iss. <strong>The</strong> Navy Department did not perceive any objec-<br />
tion and “the honor contemplated is appreciated,” 47<br />
<strong>The</strong> Japanese took this step despite a written protest by Vice Admiral<br />
Oikawa, Commander in Chief of the Japanese Fleet in China, that the<br />
A.rtoria had failed to salute his flag when passing his flagship in the lower<br />
Yangtze en route out of Shanghai for Hongkong. Captain Turner’s attention<br />
was called to the presence of the Japanese flagship but—perhaps piqued by<br />
the previous last-minute Japanese cancellation of an arranged exchange of<br />
calls with the Admiral—said “to hell with it” and proceeded on his way.’g<br />
After leaving Japan, the Ajtori~ had a pleasurable cruise to China, and<br />
on back to the West Coast via the Philippines and Guam, After the war,<br />
one footnote to history was added by Admiral Turner on the cruise:<br />
I wonder if you know that Yokoyama, the Jap Junior Aide for the AJtorLz,<br />
was the representative of the Jap Navy in the surrender on the Missouri~ In<br />
the photos taken from MacArthur’s position, he is in the rear rank, the left<br />
hand figure. I saw a good deal of him in Washington in 1940–41 .49<br />
END OF BIG SHIP COMMAND CRUISE<br />
<strong>The</strong> Navy Department let Captain Turner remain in the A.rtoria for a full<br />
two-year command cruise, and when he went ashore in October 1940, at age<br />
55, he was credited with a reasonably healthy total of 18 years and 8 months<br />
of sea duty. Some captains in the Class of 1908 had acquired as much as<br />
21 years of sea duty by this time, and the average for the Class was about<br />
19 years and 6 months.’”<br />
One Head of Department reminiscences included: ‘
150 Anzpbibians<br />
question but many breathed a sigh<br />
had come to an end.”<br />
Came To Conquer<br />
of relief that the Turner command cruise<br />
A further sidelight about this occasion, recalled by one young officer,<br />
who as a freshly graduated ensign was serving as Assistant Navigator in<br />
the A.rtoria in October 1940, reads as follows:<br />
When Captain Turner left the ship, we were all paraded at the gangway<br />
ready to say our farewells, when Admiral Fletcher’s barge approached. He<br />
came aboard, shook the Captain’s hand and said, ‘Well, Kelly, we never got<br />
along, but you always gave me a good ship.’<br />
Captain Turner was the meanest man I ever saw, and the most competent<br />
naval officer I ever served with. u<br />
THE DIVISION COMMANDERS LOOK BACK<br />
Turner had two Division Commanders while in the A~toria, Royal E,<br />
Ingersoll and then Frank Jack Fletcher, Both were still alive with vigorous<br />
opinions as they neared eighty.<br />
Rear Admiral Ingersoll’s 1938–1939 official fitness report opinions of<br />
Turner included:<br />
Captain Turner handled the extensive entertainment program while in<br />
Japan with commendable ease, skill and grace. He spoke well and was a credit<br />
to the Navy. . . I can always count on the A~fori~doing the right thing in<br />
any situation. . . . <strong>The</strong> A.rtoria is a splendid ship, clean, efficient, happy,<br />
taut and smart.<br />
Rear Admiral Fletcher in 1940 wrote:<br />
Captain Turner is one of the most intelligent and forceful men in the<br />
Service. His ship is efficient and unusually well handled. I mark him ‘outstanding’<br />
in the literal meaning of the word.<br />
Twenty-five years and a long war later, neither Flag officer had changed<br />
his mind about Kelly Turner’s fitness for top command in the Navy or his<br />
great capacity for effective work, Admiral Fletcher added:<br />
Any Captain who relieved Kelly Turner was in luck. All he would have to<br />
do is back off on the thumb screws I bit to have the perfect ship.”<br />
Admiral Ingersoll remembered:<br />
I had never served with Kelly Turner until he joined Cruiser Division Six.<br />
He ran a taut but smart ship, beautifully handled in formation and at other<br />
w Commander Tom H. Wells, LISN (Ret. ) to GCD, letter, 4 Dec. 1969.<br />
= Interview with Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher. L~SN (Ret.), 2> May 1963. Hereafter Fletcher.
Naval Aviatiov, 1932-1940 151<br />
times, and always on its toes. You didn’t have to tell Turner much. He was<br />
usually one jump ahead of you.<br />
I later served with him in Operations when he had War Plans, and I was<br />
Vice Chief. He did a magnificent job.<br />
I remember making an inspection of the Artrmia. She was wonderfully<br />
clean. I had put the heavy cruiser San Frmci-rco in that class of cruisers into<br />
commission the same year as the AJtot+a went into commission, and knew<br />
wherever dirt might be found. <strong>The</strong> main blowers were mounted up on massive<br />
circular steel angle irons with small openings around the periphery and keeping<br />
them clear underneath was very difficult because it was so hard to get at<br />
this space. I looked under them all on the Astoria this day. At one particular<br />
blower, I noticed a piece of string sticking out, so I grabbed it and hauled on<br />
it. Out came, at the end, one of Walt Disney’s dogs ‘Pluto on Wheels.’ It was<br />
fun to watch Turner’s expression and the way his lower jaw dropped. We all<br />
really laughed at that surprise.<br />
During the war, he was the right man at the right place.<br />
One other thing I remember about the AJto&. I ordered a General Court<br />
Martial for their Chaplain who got drunk and overstayed his shore leave. That<br />
was the second court-martial of a Chaplain I had as Commander Cruiser Division<br />
Six, and both were dismissed.s~<br />
As for Admiral Turner’s remembrance of the A.rtoria, he wrote to a<br />
shipmate:<br />
Poor old Ajtot’iu. It was a bitter pang on the forenoon of August 9, 1942,<br />
to stand on the McCawley’s bridge while under heavy air attack, and watch<br />
that brave, lovely little ship burn and sink. That’s one memory that will never<br />
leave me—but I’m glad to say that there are many other matters concerning<br />
the AJtoriu, that I remember with the greatest pleasure.ss<br />
MInterview with Admiral Royal Eason Ingersoll, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret.), 26 March 1964. Hereafter<br />
Ingersoll,<br />
= RKT to Rear Admiral Warburton, letter, 28 Jan. 195o.
CHAPTER V<br />
Planning for War With Germany<br />
or Japan or Both<br />
1940–1941<br />
BACKGROUND FOR WAR PLANTNING<br />
It seemed to some otlicers that the publicized policy of the civilian heads<br />
of the government and the vocal opinion of certain mid-western Ccmgressmen<br />
at various times prior to World War I and World War 11 was that,<br />
while the military were supposed to win any war which the United States<br />
got into and the Congress then authorized, there was to be no counteroff<br />
ensive war planning of any kind and no defensive war planning for a<br />
war against any specific country, nor for a defensive war allied with any<br />
specific country.<br />
President Woodrow Wilson actually had forbidden the Joint Board, the<br />
pre-1942 Joint War Planning Agency, to meet when he learned they were<br />
working hard in the pre-Vera Cruz days planning on what to do should the<br />
United States get involved in a war with Mexico. This suspension lasted<br />
from 1914 through World War I and into 1919.<br />
Secretary Daniels forbad the creation of a War Plans Division within the<br />
Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, when that office was created by<br />
Congress in 1915 over his opposition. <strong>The</strong>re was a Director of Plans, but not<br />
until Mr. Daniels had left office and World War I was over, was there a<br />
War Plans Division and a Director of War Plans.<br />
It was not until 1936 that the Navy found enough moral courage and<br />
oficer personnel to establish billets for War Plans Officers on the staffs of<br />
the principal Fleet, Force, and subordinate seagoing commands and on the<br />
shoreside staffs of the logistically essential District Commandants, and it<br />
was not until 1941 that the designation started appearing in the command<br />
rosters.<br />
Despite these powerful handicaps, the press of world events by 1938<br />
153
154 Anaphibiuns Ca??ze To Conquer<br />
indicated to all naval officers, who would open their eyes and see, that the<br />
future held dangers for the United States unless it would stand and fight.<br />
How, when, where, and with whom as allies to fight were not questions<br />
which could be answered unilaterally by the United States Navy, but most<br />
officers had strong opinions.<br />
So, War Planning was rated highly by the Line of the Navy as 1940 came<br />
up over the horizon and many of its best oficers welcomed details therein.<br />
For this reason, as well as a natural interest in political-military matters, and<br />
desire to follow through on the strategical training received at the Naval<br />
War College, Captain Turner was pleased when he was tapped for the<br />
Director of War Plans billet in the Office of Chief of Naval Operations.’<br />
Neither Admiral Harold R. Stark, Chief of Naval Operations in 1940,<br />
nor Rear Admiral Royal E. Ingersoll, his senior assistant, could remember<br />
in detail how Captain Turner came to be picked for the War Plans desk.<br />
Each gave the credit to the other, with an assist to Captain Abel T. Bidwell,<br />
the Director of Officer Personnel in the Bureau of Navigation.’ Both of these<br />
officers used the same expression to summarize their present opinions of the<br />
detail: “<strong>The</strong> right man.”<br />
On 14 September 1940, Captain Turner was relieved of command of the<br />
A.rtoria by Captain Preston B. Haines of the Class of 1909. He drew his<br />
usual dead horse, this time amounting to $698.37 and departed from the<br />
A~torLz, in Pearl Harbor, for Washington.<br />
<strong>The</strong> new billet offered a tacit promise of further promotion, since for<br />
18 years, starting with Clarence S. Williams in 1922, all the regular occu-<br />
pants of the Director of War Plans chair except the captain he was about<br />
to relieve, who had not been reached by the 1939 Selection Board, achieved<br />
Flag rank. And most of its occupants had moved on to the upper echelons of<br />
the Navy. <strong>The</strong>re were William R. Shoemaker, William H. Standley, Frank<br />
H. Schofield, Montgomery Meigs Taylor, and more recently William S. Pye<br />
and Royal E. Ingersoll to emulate and surpass.<br />
Captain Turner reported on 19 October 1940. He was selected for Flag<br />
officer by the December 194o Selection Board. By special Presidential fiat,<br />
on 8 January 1941, he assumed the rank, but not the pay, of a rear admiral.3<br />
In October 194o Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox had been in his job<br />
three months, and Admiral Stark had been in his important billet as Chief<br />
‘ Turner.<br />
‘ (a) Interview with Admiral Harold R. Stark, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret.), 16 Feb. 1962. Hereafter Stark;<br />
(b) Ingersoll.<br />
s FDR to RKT, letter, 8 Jan. 1911.
Planniug for War, 1940–1941 155<br />
of Naval Operations for 14 months. Rear Admiral Ingersoll was Stark’s<br />
“Assistant,” later called Vice Chief. Rear Admiral Walter S. Anderson was<br />
Director of Naval Intelligence, Rear Admiral Herbert F. Leary was Director<br />
of Fleet Training, and Rear Admiral Alexander Sharp was Director of the<br />
Naval Districts Division. Rear Admiral Roland M. Brainard was Director<br />
of Ship Movements and Rear Admiral Leigh Noyes was Director of Communications.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se divisions and War Plans were the principal centers of<br />
authority and power in Naval Operations.<br />
Within the War Plans Division, there was much talent including Turner’s<br />
successor as Director of War Plans, Captain Charles M. Cooke, together<br />
with Captains Oscar Smith, Charles J. Moore, Harry W. Hill, Frank L.<br />
Lowe, Edmund D. Burroughs, and Commanders John L. McCrea, Forrest P.<br />
Sherman, and Walter C. Ansel. In the United States Fleet, Commander<br />
Vincent R. Murphy ( 1918) and later Commander Lynde D. McCormick<br />
( 1915) were the War Plans Officers, while in the Asiatic Fleet, Captain<br />
William R. Purnell acted as such until Commander William G. Lalor<br />
( 1921) was so designated. At lower Fleet echelons, War Plans was generally<br />
an additional duty assignment for the Operations Officer. Commander Heber<br />
H. McLean ( 1921) was ordered to Admiral King’s staff as War Plans Officer<br />
when the Atlantic Fleet was formed up. All of these officers went on to fight<br />
the war which they were engaged in planning against, some in positions of<br />
major responsibility.<br />
When Captain Turner arrived in Washington, the major portion of the<br />
United States Fleet (Admiral James O. Richardson, Commander in Chief)<br />
was in Pearl Harbor. A Two ocean Navy had been authorized by the<br />
Congress on 19 July 1940, but the Atlantic Fleet had not yet been formed<br />
up. <strong>The</strong> old Atlantic Squadron, about to become the Patrol Force and under<br />
Rear Admiral Hayne Ellis in the Texa~, had been carrying out the increasingly<br />
complex naval tasks of the Atlantic. Many naval officers thought some<br />
of the tasks were highly irregular and others saw a violation of the United<br />
States laws of neutrality. By Presidential order, all were keeping quiet<br />
about it.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Germans were still basking in the downfall of France, and had ports<br />
on the Atlantic Ocean from which to operate their submarines. Italy was<br />
about to invade Greece. <strong>The</strong> Havana Conference of June 1940, on the sur-<br />
face at least, had gained the support of all the American republics for a<br />
non-neutral neutrality policy of the United States, as well as for an agree-<br />
ment that territory in the Americas could not be transferred from one non-
156 Amphibians Came To Conqaer<br />
American nation to another despite any changes in management at the home<br />
offices in Europe.<br />
<strong>The</strong> “Destroyers for Naval Bases” arrangement was finalized on 2 September<br />
1940, and Rear Admiral John W. Greenslade was out in the hustings<br />
developing recommendations for base facilities which would permit a better<br />
United States defense of the Panama Canal, and better United States offen-<br />
sive actions against German submarines. When Rear Admiral Greenslade<br />
submitted his Board’s recommendations on this subject, he was put to<br />
developing a set of recommendations for the location and development of<br />
naval bases for a Two Ocean Navy.<br />
One of the first major tasks which Captain Turner faced was to meet the<br />
request of Rear Admiral Greenslade who<br />
orally requested an indication of the views of the Chief of Naval Operations<br />
as to general strategic matters which might influence the conclusion to be<br />
reached by the Board.i<br />
In view of the fact that the Communists—in effect a non-American foreign<br />
power—have now taken over Cuba, the 1940 opinion of the War Plans<br />
Officer, and of the Chief of Naval Operations is worth quoting:<br />
16. <strong>The</strong> Caribbean, the southern flank of the Atlantic position, is doubtless<br />
the most important single strategic area which the United States has within its<br />
power to control permanently. Its security is essential for defense against<br />
attack from the eastward upon the Panama Canal, Central America, Mexico<br />
and the southern United States. It is the most advanced location from which<br />
offensive operations can be undertaken for the protection of South America,<br />
or for the disruption of enemy communication lines along the African Coast.<br />
Its importance to the United States can be realized by imagining a situation in<br />
which a strong foreign power would be firmly ensconced therein. . . .<br />
17. <strong>The</strong> distances around the eastern rim of the Caribbean are such that it<br />
does not seem possible to provide for an adequate defense of the region by<br />
the development of a single operating base area. Preferably, base areas would<br />
be developed in the vicinity of the Northwestern end, in the center, and at the<br />
south eastern end of the rim. <strong>The</strong> positions that naturally suggest themselves<br />
are around Guantanamo and Jamaica, around Porto Rico, and around Trinidad.<br />
. . .’<br />
ARE WE READY?<br />
<strong>The</strong> General Board on 1 July 1940, in answer to the pertinent question<br />
of the Secretary of the Navy “Are We Ready ?“ had said “No” in a clear<br />
4CNO to Rear Admiral John W. Greenslade, letter, Ser 045112 of 29 Nov. 1940.<br />
‘ Ibid.
Planning for War, 1940-1941 157<br />
and unmistakable manner, and supplied 35 pages of details to support its<br />
conclusion. Many of these details related to the War Plans Division. This<br />
was a reaffirmation of a similar conclusion they had arrived at on 31 August<br />
1939. By 14 June 1941, when the General Board again studied the question,<br />
some rays of light were barely visible on the horizon but the Board<br />
adhered to its opinion: “<strong>The</strong> Naval Establishment is not ready for a serious<br />
emergency.” ‘<br />
It is against these seasoned oficial statements that events<br />
October 1940 and 7 December 1941 must be related.<br />
JOINT BOARD–WAR PLANNING<br />
between 19<br />
<strong>The</strong> Joint Board, a 1903 creation of the Secretary of War and Secretary<br />
of the Navy, and initially an advisory board only, had over the years devel-<br />
oped into the principal war planning agency of the War and Navy Depart-<br />
ments, particularly in the areas of Joint operations and coordination and<br />
control of military and naval forces. It produced an excellent publication,<br />
[oint Ac~ion Arnzy-Navy,<br />
As Director of War Plans in Naval Operations, Captain Turner became<br />
the Naval Member of the Joint Planning Committee of the Joint Board.<br />
Brigadier General L. T. Gerow, Chief of Army War Plans Division, was the<br />
Army member, but frequently Colonel Joseph T. McNarney, Air <strong>Corps</strong>,<br />
U.S. Army, signed as the Army Member. According to Turner:<br />
<strong>The</strong> greatest single problem that concerned the Joint Board and the Joint<br />
Planners in the Fall of 1940 was the lack of any clear lines of national policy<br />
to guide the direction of military efforts to prepare for a war situation.<br />
<strong>The</strong> State Department had no political War Plan.<br />
<strong>The</strong>refore the Army and Navy themselves undertook a broad study of the<br />
global political situation and prepared a draft letter which was designed to be<br />
the basis for consultation and agreement between the State, War, and Navy<br />
Departments. . . .7<br />
<strong>The</strong> two officers who turned out the “Study of the Immediate ProbIems<br />
concerning Involvement in War” in late December 1940 were Turner and<br />
McNarney.’ <strong>The</strong>y urged a copy of the study be furnished Mr. Sumner<br />
Welles, and after his recommendations had been received, and revisions<br />
made, they suggested that the Secretaries of State, War, and Navy consider<br />
“General Board No. 425, Sers 1868 of 31 Aug. 1939, 1959 of 1 Jul. 1940, and 144 of 14 Jun.<br />
1941.<br />
‘ RKT, address delivered at National War College, 28 Jan. 1947.<br />
8JB No. 325,.% 670 of 21 Dec. 1940.
158 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
the study with a view to its submission to the President for formal approval.<br />
<strong>The</strong>ir estimate “sought to keep in view the political realities in our own<br />
country” where “the strong wish of the American people at present seems<br />
to be to remain at peace.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> Turner-McNarney study paper was touched off by a “Memorandum<br />
on National Policy” from Admiral Stark to the Secretary of the Navy dated<br />
12 November 1940. This memorandum later became known as “Plan Dog”<br />
since it offered four possible plans of action by the United States in the event<br />
of a two-ocean war, Plan A, B, C, or D, and recommended Plan D, a strong<br />
offensive war in the Atlantic and a defensive war in the Pacific.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Joint estimate of Turner and McNarney is a remarkable document<br />
in many respects, particularly in forecasting the timing and the various<br />
factors which brought the United States into war.<br />
It stated:<br />
With respect to Germany and Italy, it appears reasonably certain that<br />
neither will initiate open hostilities with the United States, until they have<br />
succeeded in inflicting a major reverse on Great Britain in the British Isles or<br />
in the Mediterranean.<br />
With respect to Japan, hostilities prior to United States entry into the European<br />
War or to the defeat of Britain may depend upon the consequences of<br />
steps taken by the United States to oppose Japanese aggression. If these steps<br />
seriously threaten her [Japan’s] economic welfare or military adventures, there<br />
can be no assurance that Japan will not suddenly attack United States armed<br />
forces.<br />
In connection with a war with Japan, they forecast:<br />
Such a war might be precipitated by Japanese armed opposition should we:<br />
1. Strongly reinforce our Asiatic Fleet or the Philippine garrison.<br />
2. Start fortifying Guam.<br />
3. Impose additional important economic sanctions.<br />
4. Greatly increase our material . . . aid to China.<br />
Or by:<br />
5. A definite indication that an alliance with the British or Dutch had been<br />
consummated.<br />
6. Our opposition to a Japanese attack on British or Dutch territory.<br />
It might be precipitated by ourselves in case of overt Japanese action against<br />
<strong>US</strong>,or in case of an attempt by Japan to extend its control over Shanghai, or<br />
Indo-China.<br />
Believing as these planners did, it can now be understood why the Asiatic<br />
Fleet was not reinforced and the Philippine Garrison more rapidly built up
Planning for War, 1940–1 941 159<br />
in the 12 months between December 1940 and December 194I, despite the<br />
pleas of the military commanders responsible for defense in the Far East<br />
area.g<br />
<strong>The</strong> paper also pin-pointed the reality of the danger of imposing “important”<br />
economic sanctions, the effect of which the Japanese formally stated<br />
was the immediate cause of their deciding upon war, in order to ensure their<br />
industrial livelihood. And made clearer now is the background reason for<br />
the many false denials made during 1941 that there were definite contingent<br />
arrangements with the Dutch and British for the defense of the Dutch-<br />
Malaysia area.<br />
<strong>The</strong> rapidity with which Japan overran Malaysia is often stated to have<br />
been a surprise to the military. But, Turner and McNarney ofiered the<br />
opinion:<br />
Provided the British and Dutch cooperate in a vigorous and etlicient defense<br />
of M&ysia, Japan will need to make a major effort with all categories of military<br />
force to capture the entire area. <strong>The</strong> campaign might even last several<br />
months.<br />
Since Singapore surrendered on 15 February 1942 and Java surrendered 9<br />
March 1942, the forecast was uncannily accurate.<br />
<strong>The</strong> hazard of orienting United States forces toward the Pacific was<br />
indicated.<br />
Should we prepare for a full offensive against Japan . . . the length of<br />
time required to defeat Japan would be considerable. . .<br />
If Great Britain should lose in Europe, we would then be forced to re-orient<br />
toward the Atlantic, a long and hazardous process.<br />
For this reason, and in view of the existing situation in Europe, the Secretaries<br />
of State, War and Navy are of the opinion that war with Japan should be<br />
avoided if possible. Should we find that we cannot avoid war, then we should<br />
undertake only a limited war.<br />
<strong>The</strong>ir specific recommendations were:<br />
1. <strong>The</strong> United States . . . should pursue a course that will most rapidly<br />
increase the military strength of both the Army and the Navy . . . and<br />
refrain from any steps that will provoke a military attack upon us by any other<br />
power.<br />
2. <strong>The</strong> United States ought not willingly engage in any war against Japan.<br />
3. That, if forced into a war with Japan, the United States should, at the<br />
same time, enter the war in the Atlantic, and should restrict operations in the<br />
mid-Pacific and the Far East in such a manner as to permit the prompt move-<br />
“ CNO to SECNAV, Op–12–WCB, letter, Ser 08212 of 17 Jan. 1941, subj: Recommmdations<br />
concerning further reinforcement of the U. S. Asiatic Fleet.
16o Anz~bibians Came To Conquer<br />
ment to the Atlantic of forces fully adequate to conduct a major offensive in<br />
that ocean.lo<br />
<strong>The</strong>se recommendations foretold the “Victory in Europe First” defense<br />
plans and the United States Declaration of War on Germany and Itaiy on<br />
11 December 1941.<br />
PLANS DIVISION WORK LIST<br />
Admiral Turner in a lecture at the National War College in 1946, stated:<br />
On October 19, 1940, when I reported to Admiral Stark, the Chief of Naval<br />
Operations, he gave me two orders:<br />
1. <strong>The</strong> first order was that, in view of his expectation of an early Japanese<br />
offensive in the Pacific, the Navy needed an immediate temporary plan for a<br />
major war in the Pacific, with a strong defense of Hawaii, and increased support<br />
for our Asiatic Fleet.<br />
2. <strong>The</strong> second order by Admiral Stark was that, since he believed a collapse<br />
of the United Kingdom would be extremely serious for the United. States, the<br />
United States should at once hold staff conversations with the LInited King-<br />
dom with a view to making an Allied War Plan that could be made effective<br />
quickIy, should the political situation indicate intervention.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se will be dealt within inverse order.<br />
ABC CONFERENCE AND AGREEMENT<br />
<strong>The</strong> day after Christmas 1940, the Director of Naval Intelligence and<br />
the Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics were directed to furnish data needed<br />
in examining the possible operation of naval forces of the United States<br />
from Iceland and Scotland under the assumption of the United States<br />
“having entered the war on I April 1941.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> first sentence of this memorandum read:<br />
As you maybe aware, the War and Navy Department will shortly engage in<br />
staff conversations with British Officers for the purpose of reaching agree-<br />
ments as to the possible fields of military responsibility and methods of military<br />
collaboration of the two nations, should the United States decide to ally<br />
itself with the British Commonwealth in the War against Germany.li<br />
‘“JB No, 325, Ser 670 of 21 Dec. 1940.<br />
u Dirertor of War Plans to Director Naval Intelligence, Chief of BUAER@P-12-CTB,<br />
memorandum, Ser 052212 of 26 Dec. 1940.
Planning for War, 1940–1941 161<br />
By and large this was the first “on the line” statement whereby other<br />
divisions of Naval Operations were informed of the definite cast of United<br />
States die to be ready, at least with plans, for a war against Germany. Many<br />
preliminary steps for such an eventuality had been inferred by the officers<br />
in these divisions from various specific directives covering precise action to<br />
be taken in definite circumstances. This directive was an umbrella.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Staff conversations mentioned in the above memorandum actually<br />
opened in Washington on 29 January 194I, and it was primarily to provide<br />
the Navy War Plans Officer with a more suitable rank for his part in this<br />
conference that the President (against the wishes of his naval advisors)<br />
directed that Captain Turner wear the uniform of a rear admiral.12 <strong>The</strong><br />
British Navy showed up with four Flag and General officers, but the United<br />
States Navy had to be content with two Flag officers, one underpaid.<br />
<strong>The</strong> British had first proposed the conference to Rear Admiral Robert L.<br />
Ghormley, our Special Naval Observer in London, way back in June 1940,<br />
and it could be considered a certainty that they would arrive splendidly<br />
prepared to argue their case.<br />
In order to obtain a firm statement of the British kick-off position for our<br />
planning staff, we asked for “an estimate of the military situation of the<br />
British Commonwealth” as a preliminary to the staff discussions. <strong>The</strong> British,<br />
anxious to engage the United States in military talks, provided it.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner and Colonel McNarney drafted the “Joint Instruc-<br />
tions for Army and Navy Representatives for Holding Staff Conversations<br />
with the British including an agenda for the Conversations.” <strong>The</strong> agenda<br />
included a statement of the ‘
162 Amphibians Came To Cozquer<br />
gave its authors, as well as their military superiors, confidence in undertaking<br />
their important negotiations with the British.1’<br />
RAINBOW WAR PLANS<br />
When Captain Turner reported to the CNO for duty in the War Plans<br />
Division in October 1940, there were five major United States War Plans,<br />
known as Rainbow One, Two, Three, Four, and Fite, in various stages of<br />
completion.<br />
A brief description of their character follows.<br />
Rainbow One sought to prevent violation of the letter or spirit of the Monroe<br />
Doctrine by guarding closely the Western Hemisphere, while at the same<br />
time protecting the vital interests of the United States, its possessions and<br />
its seaborne trade, wherever these might be.<br />
Rainbow Two had as its basic purpose the accomplishment of Rainbow Oue,<br />
and additionally, while not providing “maximum participation in continental<br />
Europe,” defeating enemy forces in the Pacific and sustaining the interests<br />
of the Democratic Powers in the Pacific.<br />
Rainbow Three aimed to carry out the mission of Rainbow One and to pro-<br />
tect the United States’ vital interests in the Western Pacific by securing<br />
control in the Western Pacific.<br />
Rainbow Four proposed to accomplish Rainbow One without allies or help-<br />
ful neutrals by occupying allied areas in the Western Hemisphere, and by<br />
defending the Western Hemisphere only as far south as the Brazilian bulge,<br />
and if necessary falling back in the Pacific as far as Hawaii.<br />
Rainbow Five’~ initial basic purpose was to project the Armed Forces of the<br />
United States to the Eastern Atlantic and to either or both of the African<br />
or European continents as rapidly as possible, consistent with the mission of<br />
Rainbow One in order to effect the decisive defeat of Germany or Italy or<br />
both. Later drafts oriented the purpose, in effect, to winning World War II<br />
with Europe the primary theater of effort.’s<br />
Events occurring in Europe during the 1939–1941 period of actual drafting<br />
of these plans caused certain basic assumptions to vary and to fluctuate, and<br />
similarly, but to a lesser extent, the detailed purposes.<br />
<strong>The</strong> initial Joint Board directive to the Joint Planning Committee to<br />
develop these five war plans was dated 30 June 1939, just two months and<br />
‘4Turner.<br />
‘JB No. 325, Ser 642 of 30 Jun. 1939.
Planning for War, 1940-1941 163<br />
a day before World War 11 started with the German attack orI Poland.<br />
Rainbow Two had been recommended for addition to the earlier drafts of<br />
four prospective tasks of the Planning Committee, on 21 June 1939.1’<br />
Within the next 16 months, two plans, Rainbow Oze and Rai~bow Four,<br />
had been completed by the Joint Planning Committee, pushed up the line,<br />
and approved by the President. Rainbow One was written in the remarkable<br />
time of 45 days, approved by the Joint Board and the Secretaries of War<br />
and Navy on 14 August 1939, and then held by the President for two<br />
months before receiving his blessing. <strong>The</strong> Navy published and distributed a<br />
Navy Basic War Plan, Rainbow One. <strong>The</strong> Army did not publish a support-<br />
ing plan for Rainbow One, putting their efforts into Rainbow Four since<br />
that plan envisaged a stronger Army effort than Rainbow One.<br />
When France started to crumble and Italy jumped into the war, Rainbow<br />
Four was rushed to completion by the Joint Planning Committee and ap-<br />
proved by the Joint Board on 7 June 1940. Again the President sat on a<br />
War Plan for two months before, on 14 August 1940, giving his approval.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Army prepared but did not issue a supporting plan for Rainbow Four<br />
while the Navy started but did not finalize a supporting Plan. This lack of<br />
follow-through came about, presumably because both Services were reluctant<br />
to promulgate such a pure “Fortress America” stand, politically popular as<br />
it might be.<br />
In regard to these War Plans, Vice Admiral Turner during the Hart<br />
Inquiry on 3 April 1944 testified:<br />
I shared the opinion with many others that the war plans which were in<br />
existence during 194o {l?~inbow otze and &itzbow Four] were defective in<br />
the extreme, <strong>The</strong>y were not realistic, they were highly theoretical, they set up<br />
forces to be ready for use at the outbreak of war, or shortly after, which could<br />
not possibly have been made available. . . .17<br />
<strong>The</strong> Joint Planning Committee prepared but did not submit to the Joint<br />
Board a Joint Army and Navy Basis War Plan Rainbow Two. This plan,<br />
which in effect provided for the United States to fight a Western Pacific war,<br />
while England and France fought a European war, became less and less a<br />
reality as Germany showed her prowess over these two prospective allies.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Joint planners were never able to agree on a Rainbow Tlwee, which<br />
provided for active defense in the Western Hemisphere and an offensive<br />
“ JPC to JB OP-12-E6, letter of 21 Jun. 1939; subj: JB No. 325.<br />
‘7Pear[ Harbor Hearings, part 26, p. 268.
164 Amphibians Came To Conqtier<br />
for securing control in the western Pacific, primarily because Army planners<br />
could not accept the basic thought that:<br />
our national policy requires the United States maintain a strong position in<br />
the Western Pacific. . . .<br />
<strong>The</strong> Army members believe that it would be both futile and unwise even to<br />
mention in the Joint Estimate as a serious suggestion for a peacetime course<br />
of action that the garrison of the Philippines be increased.ls<br />
However, since a Navy War Plan for a war in the Pacific seemed essential<br />
to the Chief of Naval Operations, the Navy drafted and issued Navy Basic<br />
War Plan Rairzbow Three (WPL–43 ). This Plan was not concurred in by<br />
the War Department.’g<br />
Th above four War Plans had a relatively short life. Rainbow One<br />
deserves praise because it was a major prop in getting the shoreside Navy<br />
expanded rapidly toward a tremendous wartime capability, since the Plan<br />
called for a military might to protect the vital interests of the United States<br />
wherever they might be located. <strong>The</strong> plan was cancelled by the Joint Board<br />
on > May 1942. Rainbow Two, which gave first priority to our defeat of<br />
Japan, and the many requirements for an agreed upon offensively minded<br />
Rainbow <strong>The</strong>e were cancelled on 6 August 1941, since well before that date<br />
it had been accepted by both Services that Germany was the primary enemy<br />
and Europe the primary theater. Rainbow Fear, the “Hold America” War<br />
Plan, lost its basic requirement when it became evident that Great Britain<br />
and the Soviet Union were going to hold against Germany. It was cancelled<br />
by the Joint Board on 5 May 1942.<br />
RAINBOW FIVE<br />
A month after Captain Turner had arrived in Naval Operations, and 18<br />
months after Colonel Clark’s memorandum, referenced above, the Army<br />
planners still felt that they were unable to make any major military commit-<br />
ments in the Far East because of a lack of realistic capacity.’” <strong>The</strong> Navy<br />
planners, and the Chief of Naval Operations, by November 1940 had<br />
accepted that view. While many sharp differences of opinion with the Army<br />
“ Col. F. S. Clark, War Plans Division, General Staff, memorandum for Director of War<br />
Plans, 17 Apr. 1939.<br />
‘9Pearl Harbor Hearivg$, part 26, p. 268. Advance copies WPL 43 were sent to CINC<strong>US</strong>,<br />
17 December 1940 by officer messenger. Issued by the Navy Department on 9 January 1941.<br />
mActing Assistant Chief of Staff WPD. Memorandum for Chief of Staff, 13 Nov. 1940, Subj:<br />
Comments on Plan Dog.
Piannzng fo~ War, 1940–1941 165<br />
planners continued, the basic concept of the future war which the United<br />
States would wage was close to being a Jointly agreed upon one. This con-<br />
currence permitted an agreed upon draft of Rainbow Five to be hammered<br />
out in five months.<br />
Admiral Ingersoll, the #2 in Naval Operations in 1940–41, and later<br />
Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet, told this author:<br />
One thing you should mention is that Kelly Turner wrote Ruirrbow Three<br />
and the first supporting draft for Rait~bow Five. zl<br />
Rairlbow Five, the famous and quite excellent War Plan placed in effect<br />
on 7 December 1941, immediately following the Pearl Harbor attack, was<br />
approved initially by the Joint Board on 14 May 1941. A revised draft was<br />
approved only four weeks before the United States was fully in World<br />
War II.<br />
Vice Admiral Turner testified in regard to Rainbow Five on 3 April 1944:<br />
While the Navy Department believed that our major military effort, considered<br />
as a whole, should initially be against Germany—that view, I may<br />
add, was also held by the War Department--we were all in agreement that<br />
the principal naval effort should be in the Pacific . our strongest naval<br />
concentration and naval effort ought to be in the Central Pacific.zz<br />
THE PRE-WORLD WAR II PLANNING EFFORT<br />
During the period of two and a half years from June 1939 to December<br />
1941, the Navy published and promulgated three major War Plans in detail<br />
—Rainbow One, Rainbow Three, and Rai?~bow Five. <strong>The</strong> Army published<br />
and distributed only one, Rainbow Five, but certainly the essential one. It<br />
was a tremendous Service-wide planning effort.<br />
<strong>The</strong> War Department had planning problems in connection with the<br />
Rainbow Plans. Mark S. Watson in his official Army history of this effort<br />
says:<br />
But in the case of the undermanned and underequipped Army, these plans<br />
were far from realistic, and hence were little more than Staff studies. This<br />
theoretical approach was inescapable, in view of the weakness of forces which<br />
would be available on war’s sudden arrival. Most of the plans defined ultimate<br />
offensives, but with awareness that they would require forces that would be<br />
available only long after war should start. This meant that comprehensive<br />
planning, which is the only planning of importance, had made far less head-<br />
“ Ingersoll.<br />
“ Pearl Harbor Hearings, part 26, p. 266.
166 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
way in the Army than in the Navy. <strong>The</strong> latter had an impressive force-inbeing—the<br />
U. S. Fleet, which was continuously at sea in some phase of operational<br />
training.z’<br />
RKT AND ADMIRAL NOMURA<br />
On 11 March 1941, the Japanese Ambassador, Admiral Kichisaburo<br />
Nomura, at a cocktail party given in his honor by the Japanese Naval<br />
Attache, talked with Rear Admiral Turner briefly and suggested that he<br />
would like to converse with him at greater length. Admiral Nomura tele-<br />
phoned Turner the next day and arranged for the further meeting on the<br />
same day.<br />
In his five-page report of this conversation, Turner reported that Nomura<br />
had stated “his mission was to prevent war between Japan and the United<br />
States” and that “the best interests of the two countries were to maintain<br />
peace.” He “was exploring the ground, as best he could in order to find a<br />
basis on which the two nations could agree.” “<br />
Nomura placed the blame for the war in China and other strong measures<br />
on the ‘“younger radical element” of the Japanese Army. He said: “<strong>The</strong><br />
senior officers of the Japanese Navy, on the contrary, had been and still are<br />
in favor of peace with the United States.” Nomura recognized “the value of<br />
a peaceful conquest” versus a wartime conquest of areas in Southeast Asia.<br />
“Japan has not now, and never has had, any desire to extend control over<br />
the Philippines.”<br />
When Rear Admiral Turner explained the special relationship existing<br />
between the United States and Great Britain, Nomura said:<br />
All Japanese Naval officers understood this thoroughly, but unfortunately,<br />
Japanese Army officers did not. He had tried to explain this to them, but they<br />
would not believe him. In his opinion the presence of the United States Fleet<br />
in Hawaii, particularly in combination with the British, forms a stabilizing<br />
influence for affairs in the Pacific.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner came away from the interview with the opinion:<br />
I believe he is fully sincere, and that he will use his influence against further<br />
aggressive moves by the militafy fOrCeSOf JaPan.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner was not alone in that belief. He and others in<br />
= Mark S. Watson, Chief of S/a,fi: Preuar Platzs a)ld Preparation, Vol. I in subseries <strong>The</strong> War<br />
Department of series UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington: Historical<br />
Division, Department of the Army, 1950), p. 87.<br />
* RKT to CNO, Report of conversation with Japanese Ambassador, 13 Mar. 1941.
Planning for lVar, 1940-1941 167<br />
Washington through the breaking of Japanese coded messages were reading<br />
the Japanese Ambassador’s report of his conversation with Turner and others<br />
in the Ambassador’s dispatches to the Japanese Foreign Office. Unfortunately,<br />
diplomatic Japanese dispatches prior to I July 1941 are not printed<br />
in the Pearl Harbor Report, so it is not possible to compare the two partici-<br />
pants’ reports on the 12 March conversation to their seniors.<br />
<strong>The</strong> 12 March 1941 Turner conversation with Admiral Nomura was<br />
followed by another on 20 July 1941 which Turner duly reported.z’ Admiral<br />
Nomura, late on this particular afternoon, and with what to him was a hot<br />
piece of Japanese Army news had tried to visit Admiral Stark, but had not<br />
found him at home, so he called at Rear Admiral Turner’s residence. <strong>The</strong><br />
main purpose of his visit was to watch the Navy ripples on the Potomac,<br />
when a Japanese land mine went off in the Far East, for the news was that<br />
“within the next few days Japan expected to occupy French Indo China. ”<br />
From the strength of its ripples, Admiral Nomura could hope to obtain a<br />
naval estimate whether the United States would go to war with Japan as<br />
a result.<br />
Actually the Indo China occupation took place the following day, 21 July<br />
1941. <strong>The</strong> Japanese Army just had not let their Foreign Office in on the<br />
exact date. Yet, the top echelon in Naval Operations already had been<br />
alerted on 19 July 1941 by decoding a Japanese diplomatic message of 14<br />
July that the Japanese Army soon would move into Indo China.” So Rear<br />
Admiral Turner was not surprised by Admiral Nomura’s news.<br />
Turner’s report said Nomura made these points:<br />
a. He had accepted the duty as Ambassador only after great insistence by<br />
his friends, particularly high ranking n~val officers and the more conservative<br />
group of Army officers,<br />
b. It is essential th~t Japan have uninterrupted access to necessary raw<br />
materials.<br />
c. Japan’s economic position is bad and steadily getting worse.<br />
d. Japan must make some arrangement through which support of the<br />
Chungking regime will be reduced.<br />
e. Essential for Japan’s security is the more or less permanent stationing<br />
of Japanese troops in Inner Mongolia in order to break the connection between<br />
Russia and China.<br />
f. Within the next few days Japan expects to occupy French Indo China.<br />
. This occupation has become essential.<br />
g. Japan contemplates no further move to the South for the time being.<br />
JSDWp to CNO, Op_Iz–CTB, letter. %r 083 il? of 21 Jul. 19 Il.<br />
X Peavl Harbm Heavin.z r, part 12. pp. 2–3.
168 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
h. <strong>The</strong> one great point upon which agreement might be reached, he again<br />
emphasized, as the inherent right of self defense.<br />
Turner’s report made the following points:<br />
a. <strong>The</strong> occupation of Indo-China by Japan is particularly important for the<br />
defense of the United States, since it might threaten the British position in<br />
Singapore and the Dutch position in the Netherland East Indies.<br />
b. It can thus be seen what a very close interest, from a military viewpoint,<br />
tie United States has in sustaining the status quo in the southern position of<br />
the Far East.<br />
c. Japan really had very little to fear from American, British, or Dutch<br />
activities in the Far East.<br />
<strong>The</strong> last statement proved all too accurate and probably too revealing,<br />
for ‘the Japanese Army acted boldly. For example, they bombed the <strong>US</strong>S<br />
Tutui/u (PR-4), a river gunboat, at Chungking, China, on 30 July 1941.<br />
Admiral Nomura and the Director of War Plans had other meetings,<br />
as did Counselor Terasaki of the Japanese Embassy. <strong>The</strong>se were mentioned<br />
in Japanese diplomatic messages of so September 1941, 14 October 1941,<br />
and 16 October 1941 (Parts 1 and 2) with direct quotes of Turner’s<br />
remarks.z’<br />
Both Admirals, Stark and Turner, were personally appreciative of the<br />
difficult position of Nomura. By frankly stating their personal reactions to<br />
the Japanese actions and proposals, they sought to provide him with a clear<br />
understanding, uncluttered with diplomatic double-talk, of an informed and<br />
interested American’s reaction.zs Both of these Flag officers believed in<br />
Nomura’s honest intentions during the negotiations and lack of any prior<br />
knowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack.”<br />
FAMILY PROBLEMS<br />
While these momentous events were underway, Kelly Turner took the<br />
time to tell his sister of some Turner family problems:<br />
We are having terrible things in our family. I think I may have told you<br />
that our dogs have been very sick with what the doctor says is a ‘cold’ but<br />
which is very like the intestinal influenza for humans, though much more<br />
wvere. <strong>The</strong> new little puppy (a grand little dog) died of it last week, and<br />
~ Ibid., part 12, pp. 45, 68, 72, 73.<br />
m Stark.<br />
= Stark; Turner.
Planning for War, 1940–1 941 169<br />
today Mikko died. Ming is extremely sick, and I do not believe that she will<br />
live, though I don’t tell Harriet that.<br />
My darling Harriet is in the depths, naturally. Ming has been sick for<br />
nearly four weeks, and Harriet is simply worn out from worry and nursing.<br />
She doesn’t sleep well, and is very thin, and worn. She has had Jtich a terrible<br />
year—five of her lovely dogs dying, her mother’s death, the suicide of a very<br />
dear friend, and the tragic death of her very best friend, Marian Ross. Here<br />
in Washington are no women she has ever been very close to, and my work is<br />
so confining and my hours so long that she simply gets no distraction from her<br />
difficulties. She is fine and brave about it all as anyone could be, but all these<br />
things have depressed her greatly. I try to do what I can, but she is alone a<br />
great deal, and worries a lot. <strong>The</strong> Melhorns are going to stay with us a few<br />
days next month, and then the Cutts for a short time, and that should help<br />
somewhat .30<br />
ESCORT OF CONVOYS<br />
In the Atlantic theatre, where another war was raging, Rear Admiral<br />
Turner also played a role of great importance. On 17 January 1941, he<br />
advised the CNO that the Navy in the Atlantic would be ready to escort<br />
convoys from the East Coast to Scotland by 1 April 1941 .S1<br />
On 20 March 1941, the Secretary of the Navy signed a Turner-drafted<br />
memorandum to the President on the tasks of the United States Naval Forces<br />
in the Atlantic, in case of a decision to escort convoys. This memorandum<br />
ended with the statement:<br />
Our Navy is ready to undertake it [convoying] as soon as directed, but could<br />
do it more effectively were we to have six to eight weeks for special training.32<br />
This was about 22 months after the start of the war in Europe.<br />
<strong>The</strong> SS Robin Moor, a United States merchant ship with a general cargo,<br />
bound for South Africa was sunk by a German submarine on 21 May 1941.<br />
But, it was 19 July 1941 before CINCLANT issued his orders to escort<br />
convoys, and convoys between the East Coast and Iceland were organized<br />
and escorted. It was 16 September 1941 before trans-Atlantic convoys were<br />
escorted by the Atlantic Fleet ships.<br />
It was Admiral Turner’s opinion that had the Germans made a few<br />
submarine attacks in the Pacific Ocean, prior to 7 December 1941, the Pacific<br />
- RKT to Miss LLT, letter, 9 Feb. 1941. Captain Kent C. Melhorn (Medical <strong>Corps</strong>), <strong>US</strong>N,<br />
and Captain Elwin F. Cutta, <strong>US</strong>N (Class of 1908).<br />
= DWP to CNO, letter, 17 Jan. 1941.<br />
mSECNAV to President, memorandum, 20 Mar. 1941.
170 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
Fleet would have been better prepared for World War H and might<br />
have been more adequately alerted on 7 December 1941.33<br />
MR. HARRY HOPKINS HELPS THE NAVY<br />
Admiral Turner thought that Mr. Harry Hopkins made a major contri-<br />
bution to getting the United States ready for war, by his ability to persuade<br />
the President to take steps which the Service Chiefs had been unable to<br />
persuade him to undertake.” <strong>The</strong> following extracts from a 29 April 1941<br />
letter from the Director of War Plans to the Chief of Naval Operations is<br />
supporting evidence.<br />
1. In the course of a luncheon conversation with Mr. Harry Hopkins, he<br />
desired to be informed as to exactly what steps might be taken on the assumption<br />
that the United States might be in the war on August 1st. . . .<br />
2. In reply, I recommended:<br />
a. a detachment of the Pacific Fleet, be sent at an early date to the<br />
Atlantic. . . .<br />
b. that enough antiaircraft guns and pursuit aircraft be diverted<br />
from deliveries to the British and assigned to the United States Army<br />
as might be necessary to outfit the ground and air defense units which<br />
would protect United States bases in the British Isles. . . .<br />
C. immediately taking over approximately thirty transports, freighters,<br />
and tankers. . . .<br />
d. a sufficient expansion of Navy and <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> personnel to<br />
provide for the above ships and for bringing all units up to full<br />
strength.<br />
3. Mr. Hopkins expressed the opinion that, if these matters were presented<br />
to the President, the latter would give directions to carry them out. . . .s5<br />
On 22 April 1941, the President had approved the increase of enlisted<br />
strength of the regular Navy to 232,000. This was an increase from a regular<br />
Navy strength of 145,000 established on 8 September 1939, when the President<br />
declared a “’Limited National Emergency.” <strong>The</strong> President had authority<br />
to move the 232,000 figure to 300,000 when he declared an “Unlimited<br />
National Emergency” and it was towards this objective that he was being<br />
nudged by the Director of War Plans.<br />
It was another three weeks, 22 May 1941, before the Chief of Naval<br />
Operations signed the detailed request to the President, covering the “thirty<br />
= Turner.<br />
3’Ibid.<br />
= DWP to CNO, OP–12–VED, letter, Ser 050712 of 2; Apr. 1941.
Planning for War, 1940–1941 171<br />
transports, freighters and tankers” that Turner mentioned to Mr. Hopkins.<br />
Fourteen additional combat loading transports were specifically requested.<br />
In the Atlantic Ocean, at this time, the Navy had but three transports<br />
fitted for combat loading, and in the Pacific Ocean but three more, with a<br />
total of six more transports being converted. <strong>The</strong> Army had four transports<br />
fitted for combat loading in the Atlantic and none in the Pacific with four<br />
more transports converting. <strong>The</strong>re were eight more Army or Navy transports<br />
not fitted for combat loading, which according to CNO’S memorandum<br />
“were required to support our existing overseas garrisons with equipment<br />
and replacement personnel. ” 36<br />
This letter produced an approval, on 24 May 1941, for the construction<br />
or acquisition of 550,000 tons of auxiliary shipping. Final approval also was<br />
received in the first part of May from the President for the transfer of one<br />
aircraft carrier, three battleships, four cruisers and 18 destroyers to the<br />
Atlantic from the Pacific, a transfer he had originally approved and then in<br />
large part rescinded in early April.”<br />
Finally, in mid-April 1941, the Director of War Plans drafted, the CNO<br />
signed, and the President had with great skill, strengthened, clarified, and<br />
approved a “Project for Western Hemisphere Defense Plans.” This project<br />
required the strengthening of the Atlantic Fleet, and soon emerged as WPL–<br />
50. Presumably, Mr. Harry Hopkins had helped in this and in all these<br />
other matters .38<br />
TO THE AZORES OR ICELAND<br />
At the same time as these desirable actions were taken by the President,<br />
he ordered the Army and the Navy to be prepared to seize the Azore Islands<br />
by 22 June 1941. Since the Joint Plan for this operation showed a need for<br />
41 combat loaded transports and cargo ships, the inadequacy of the CNO<br />
request of May to the President for only 14 additional combat loading<br />
transports was soon apparent. However, when the Azores seizure was can-<br />
celled about 4 June 1941, it does not seem, from the official records located,<br />
that any new request went out from the Director of War Plans for more<br />
= (a) 0~-12B memorandum of 6 May 1911, subj: Army Navy Transports available in<br />
May 1941; (b) CNO to President, memorandum, Ser 059412 of 22 May 1941.<br />
37(a) CNO to CINCPAC, 0P-38, memorandum, Ser 06538 of 7 Apr. 1941; (b) OPNAV<br />
to CINCPAC memorandum, Ser 132019 of 13 May 1941.<br />
WCNO to SECNAV, memorandum, 16 Apr. 19-11. Retyped to include changes made by the<br />
President.
172 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
transports. Had Rear Admiral Turner more clearly visualized then the<br />
pressing needs for transports and tankers in the early stages of World War<br />
II, he would have pressed his case for them even harder.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> Army War Plans Division and the Navy War Plans Division were<br />
agreed in their dislike for the Azores occupation, hut the Army was the<br />
more reluctant to see one of its only two amphibiously trained combat divi-<br />
sions disappear over the horizon for occupation duties before a war had even<br />
started. <strong>The</strong> Azores Occupation Force was scheduled to total about 28,000<br />
troops, with the Army and the <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> each to supply 14,000 troops.<br />
<strong>The</strong> British had 25,000 troops in Iceland and when the President on 4<br />
June 1941, changed the objective from the Azores to Iceland, he assigned<br />
the occupation task to the Army. When the Army begged off temporarily,<br />
the <strong>Marine</strong>s received the nod on 5 June 1941, and a 4,000-man <strong>Marine</strong><br />
brigade sailed in four transports and two cargo ships via Argentia, Newfoundland<br />
on 22 June 1941.<br />
It was not until September 1941 that sizable Army forces arrived in<br />
Iceland and took over command and, during the next five months, relieved<br />
the <strong>Marine</strong>s and assumed the duties of the United States Forces in Iceland.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner was in the White House again during the week of<br />
16 June 1941 in connection with the Iceland occupation, but no report of<br />
this visit has been located in the files. Presumably, however, it strengthened<br />
his favorable impression of Mr. Harry Hopkins.’”<br />
In July, he also had business with the nation’s top political authorities. As<br />
Mrs. Turner described it:<br />
Kelly had a very exciting day. First the Vice President asked him for lunch.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re were just the two of them, and Mr. Wallace wanted to ask a lot of<br />
questions. Later Admiral King, Admiral Stark, the Secretary and Kelly all<br />
had a conference with the President. . . .<br />
<strong>The</strong> burning question now is what are the Japs going to do, and what we<br />
will do? AI<br />
STATE OF MIND—MAY 1941<br />
One thing that continually irritated the Director of War Plans in the first<br />
months of 1941, was what he labeled the “Army planners defensive atti-<br />
- Turner.<br />
w Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt mrd Hopkins, An Intimate History (New York: Harper and<br />
Brothers, 1948), p. 302.<br />
4’Mrs. RKT to LuciLeTurner, letter, 18 Jul. 1941.
Pianning for War, 1940-1941 173<br />
tude.” 42In May, therefore, he persuaded the Chief of Naval Operations to<br />
sign an official letter to the Chief of Staff which contained these critical<br />
words :<br />
9. No plans whatsoever exist for Joint Overseas expeditions, nor for naval<br />
cooperation with Army effort in support of Latin-American Governments.<br />
10. If the United States is to succeed in defeating the Axis forces, it must<br />
act on the offensive, instead of solely on the defensive.43<br />
HAIRBRAINED SCHEMES OF THE PRESIDENT<br />
Admiral Turner also recalled that:<br />
Stark spent a lot of time knocking down the hairbrained schemes of the<br />
President in regard to the Navy.”<br />
When Admiral Stark was questioned in regard to this, he smiled and said:<br />
Maybe I wouldn’t call them hairbrained schemes, but there were many I<br />
didn’t believe sound and we did spend a lot of time trying to prove this, or<br />
provide better alternatives, or determine just what would be needed to carry<br />
the project out. <strong>The</strong> President had a great habit of ‘trying one on the dog.’45<br />
During the 1941 period of German consolidation of position in Central<br />
Europe and the Balkans and prior to the German invasion of the Soviet<br />
Union on 22 June, the question as to where they would hit next was a con-<br />
stant one. <strong>The</strong> value to the Germans of certain pieces of real estate to<br />
facilitate their movement towards the Americas, particularly South America,<br />
was evident, and this generally raised the question of its prior seizure or<br />
reinforcement by American arms. Sooner or later the President would drop<br />
a remark in regard to it, and then the pressure would be on the War Plans<br />
Division for an estimate on such a situation or for a plan to meet it.<br />
Immediately after the President had directed the relief of the British forces<br />
in Iceland, the War Plans Division drafted a memorandum to the Secretary<br />
of the Navy for signature by the CNO on the strategic value to the United<br />
States, of Iceland, the Azores, the Canary Islands, the Cape Verde Islands,<br />
and French West Africa.”<br />
4’Turner.<br />
u CNO to COS, OP–12–VED, letter, Ser 058212 of 22 May 1941, subj: Analysis of plans<br />
for overseas expeditions.<br />
44Turner.<br />
46Stark.<br />
~ CNO to SECNAV, OP-12-VED, letter, Ser 067012 of 10 Jun. 1941.
174 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
<strong>The</strong> memorandum started out with:<br />
Before the United States embarks on any program of the occupation of overseaspositions<br />
in the Atlantic, I wish to bring to your attention certain strategic<br />
aspects of the various positions named. . . .<br />
<strong>The</strong> memorandum then discussed the subject under two conditions:<br />
a. Great Britain in the war and,<br />
b. Great Britain defeated.<br />
Were the United Kingdom to be forced out of the war, it would be strategic<br />
folly for the United States to attempt to hold Iceland [and] . . . . out of<br />
th~ question for the United States to try to hold the Canary Islands.<br />
With the United Kingdom still in the war, Iceland and the Azores were<br />
important, but the Cape Verde Islands much less so.<br />
It would be essential that we be able at all times, to exert a strong naval and<br />
air effort along the line Natal—Dakar, which would be impossible were our<br />
Fleet to be pinned to the defense of outlying positions further North.<br />
Another Presidential throw-out of April 1941 held up to the strong light<br />
of reason by Turner would have initiated a<br />
northern cruise by units of the Pacific Fleet . . (a striking group of one<br />
aircraft carrier, a division of heavy cruisers and one squadron of destroyers,<br />
with tankers as necessary), to proceed from Pearl to Attu, Aleutian Islands<br />
then to Petropavlovsk in Siberia for a three-day visit.<br />
<strong>The</strong> War Plans Officer recommended “that the cruise not be made at<br />
present.” ‘7<br />
Before the year 1941 was out, the President was suggesting using naval<br />
aircraft carriers to deliver aircraft to Russia. This was deemed “inadvisable”<br />
by the War Plans officer since it incurred ‘“risks which I consider cannot be<br />
justified.” It was pointed out that the Japanese had eight carriers in the<br />
Pacific and United States had but three, and that:<br />
you will recall my recently telling Kimmel and Hart to execute preliminary<br />
deployments, and to go on the alert in view of a possible break with Japan.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> original letter to the President on this matter as drafted by Turner<br />
and as modified and then signed by Stark showed some difference in Stark’s<br />
and Turner’s appraisal of Japan’s intentions or at least of the willingness of<br />
these oflicers to bring their appraisals to the attention of the President.<br />
47DWP to CNO. memorandum of 10 Apr. 1911. subj: Project for northern cruise by units<br />
of Pacific Fleet.<br />
48CNO to President, letter. Ser 0132812 of 1 \ Nov. 19 il, subj: Delivery of Aircraft to Russia.<br />
Preliminary Draft of this letter.
Planning for War, 1940-1941 175<br />
Turner wrote that Kimmel and Hart had been alerted “against an attack by<br />
Japan.” Stark softened that to “against a possible break with Japan,” a very<br />
great difference when one considers the Pearl Harbor attack.<br />
THE ATLANTIC CONFERENCE<br />
<strong>The</strong> Atlantic Conference was held in Argentia Harbor, Newfoundland,<br />
from I&l 5 August 1941. Rear Admiral Turner was one of the very small<br />
working naval staff that accompanied Admiral Stark to the conference. <strong>The</strong>re<br />
were only two from War Plans, Turner and Commander Forrest Sherman,<br />
Chief of Naval Operations in 1950-51.<br />
According to Mrs. Turner:<br />
Kelly had two weeks leave granted and we were to leave on [August] first.<br />
Two nights before he came home and said that he couldn’t go. . . .<br />
He says Churchill is splendid, very simple and easy to approach and very<br />
much smaller than his pictures show.<br />
Everything is such a mess though, and no leadership. . . . I am so glad<br />
Kelly got to go and he had a fine two weeks rest.”<br />
BRITISH-AMERICAN PACIFIC PLANNING<br />
<strong>The</strong> Atlantic Conference had broad effects in both the War and Navy<br />
Departments on their planning for future contingencies. It cracked the door<br />
to Combined Planning with the British, but U.S. Naval planners proceeded<br />
very cautiously, insofar as the Pacific Ocean was concerned.<br />
A letter which Rear Admiral Turner wrote to Rear Admiral V. H. Danckwerts<br />
of the British Joint Staff Mission in Washington is informative in<br />
regard to the status of Combined Planning with the British in early October,<br />
1941. It also illustrates the security consciousness of the Chief of Naval<br />
Operations.<br />
In reply to the reference [Your secret letter No. 107/41 of Sept. 25, 1941]<br />
you are informed that we have given very careful study to the Admiralty’s<br />
proposals for a new Far East Area agreement as shown in ADB–2. . . .<br />
While neither the Army nor the Navy has reached a final decision, at the<br />
present time they are inclined to believe that, until such time as a really practicable<br />
combined plan can be evolved for the Far East Area, it will be better<br />
4’Mrs. RKT to Lucile Turner, letter, 18 Aug. 1941,
176 Anzpbibians Came To Conquer<br />
to continue working under an agreement for coordination of effort by the<br />
system of mutual cooperation. . . .<br />
As a matter of fact, the military situation out there has changed considerably<br />
since last Spring, and will change more after the United States reinforcements,<br />
now planned, arrive in the Philippines. <strong>The</strong> Army has a rather large<br />
plan of reinforcements, and the Navy expects, in January, to send out there<br />
six more submarines, one more patrol plane squadron, and two squadrons of<br />
observation-scout planes.<br />
*****<br />
I think you have no need for fears that the Pacific Fleet will remain inactive<br />
on the outbreak of war in the Pacific. You can reassure the Australians on this<br />
point. I regret, however, that in the interests of secrecy, I shall be unable to<br />
show you the U. S. Pacific Fleet Operating Plan—Rainbow No. 5 (Navy<br />
Plan O–1 ). Naturally, we would expect to exchange appropriate information<br />
of this nature were we both at war in the Pacific, but the Chief of Naval<br />
Operations believes, at present, that knowledge of the details of the Operation<br />
Plans should be held by a very small number of persons—a view which the<br />
British Chiefs of Staff apparently share, as we are never informed concerning<br />
the details of proj~ed British operations.50<br />
ADVICE DISREGARDED OR SOFTENED<br />
<strong>The</strong> Director of War Plans, back on 19 July 1941, in a long memorandum<br />
to the Chief of Naval Operations had recommended that “trade with Japan<br />
not be embargoed at this time. ” 51But, on 26 July 1941, just seven days later,<br />
the President announced an embargo on the export of petroleum and cotton<br />
products to Japan.<br />
After the President had done what Rear Admiral Turner thoroughly<br />
believed would cause Japan to see war as the only solution open to her<br />
continued development of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, he<br />
continued to advise his military senior to try to persuade the President not to<br />
take steps which would bring on that war in the near future. As late as<br />
5 November 1941, in drafting a memorandum to the President for Admiral<br />
Stark to sign, commenting on a State Department proposal to send United<br />
States troops to China, he warned that:<br />
undertaking Military operations with U. S. forces against Japan to prevent<br />
her from severing the Burma Road . . . would Iead to war.<br />
~ Rear Admiral Turner to Rear Admiral V. H, Danckwerts, RN, letter, Al&l/EPB/Ser<br />
011>12072 of Oct. 1941, Strategic Plans, ABDA-ANZAC File 1941–1942.<br />
n (a) DWP to CNO, memorandum, 19 Jul. 1941; (b) U.S. Department of State, Foreign<br />
Rekiofl$ of #he Uni~ed Sta?e$, 1941 (publication No. 6325), Vol. IV, pp. 839-40.
He urged<br />
Piann2ng for War, 1940–1941 177<br />
that the despatch of United States armed forces for intervention against<br />
Japan in China be disapproved, [and] that no ultimatum be delivered to<br />
Japan.”<br />
On 25 November 1941, Turner drafted a despatch to the Commander in<br />
Chief of the Asiatic Fleet for release by the CNO, which contained the<br />
words:<br />
I consider it probable that this next Japanese aggression may cause an outbreak<br />
of hostilities between the U.S. and Japan.<br />
Admiral Stark took this message to the President—who changed the<br />
releaser to himself —and softened the judgment words “probable” to “pos-<br />
sible” and “may” to “might,” and he added the bad guess: “Advance against<br />
Thailand seems the most probable.”<br />
A photostat of the original despatch appears on pages 178-9, together with<br />
a memorandum from the President’s Naval Aide, which indicates that both<br />
the CNO and the Army Chief of Staff (COS) were willing to drop the<br />
statement that war with Japan was “probable.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> Beardall memorandum to the President showed the ever present<br />
reluctance of the military heads of the Armed Forces to accept the unwanted<br />
but logical conclusion of events, and a reluctance to tell appropriate responsi-<br />
ble outpost officials of such a conclusion.<br />
WILL JAPAN ATTACK THE UNITED STATES?<br />
THE SOVIET UNION?<br />
<strong>The</strong> Director of War Plans drafted the 24 January 1941 letter, approved<br />
by the Chief of Naval Operations, and signed by the Secretary of the Navy<br />
to the Secretary of War, which said in the first paragraph:<br />
If war eventuates with Japan, it is believed easily possible that hostilities<br />
would be initiated by a surprise attack upon the Fleet or the Naval Base at<br />
Pearl Harbor.’3<br />
When the President made the decision that on 26 July 1941 the United<br />
States would impose economic sanctions against Japan, Rear Admiral Turner<br />
= Gerow and Turner, Memo for President of 5 Nov. 1941, subj: Estimate Concerning Far<br />
Eastern Situation.<br />
mHearings, part 1, SECNAV to SECWAR, letter, 24 Jan. 1941, p. 279.
~<br />
02’ YOSTILITIZSR?2T:.W33TEE)<strong>US</strong> {.I!DJAPAXXx! I 2-&Im THATI.-<br />
W!W73R INTOM!N(3YOURSY!LF AS TO T!l?lsITU&TICl! Pl?D‘l!HEGENE?.AL0CTL73Z!2<br />
Turner-drafted despatch to commander in ch~e~ of the Asiatic Fleet, with<br />
178<br />
President Roosevelt’s changes.
Planning for War, 1940–1941 179
180 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
Beardali memorandzon to the President.<br />
moved from agreeing with the Director of Naval Intelligence<br />
would not attack the United States to the following position:<br />
I believed it would make war certain between the United States and<br />
that Japan<br />
Japan.”<br />
This 1945 testimony was in full agreement with the written forecast which<br />
Turner and McNarney had jointly made in December 1940.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Director of Naval Intelligence (Wilkinson) with quite contrary<br />
w Ibid., part 4, p. 1945.
Planning for War, 1940-1941 181<br />
opinions to those of Rear Admiral Turner, in late 1945 testified and manf-<br />
ully and honestly stuck to what his December 1941 opinions had been:<br />
In fact, I did not think an attack would be made on any United States objective,<br />
but I thought that the Japanese would pursue a course of successive<br />
movements, infiltration, trying the patience and temper of the Anglo-Saxon<br />
nations without actually urging them into war.ss<br />
On 11 July 1941, about three weeks after Germany had attacked the Soviet<br />
Union, the Director of War Plans wrote a memorandum to the Chief of<br />
Naval Operations in which he recommended precautionary measures against<br />
Japan, saying it was his conclusion that:<br />
During July or August, the Japanese will occupy important points in<br />
Indo-China, and will adopt an opportunistic attitude towards the Siberian<br />
Maritime Provinces. Japanese action against the Russians may be expected if<br />
the Stalin regime collapses, and Russian resistance to Germany is overcome.<br />
Since it is inexcusable for military forces to be unprepared for an attack,<br />
even if the chances for an attack appear small, it is recommended that steps be<br />
taken to place our Army and Navy forces in the Far East in an alert status to<br />
be achieved as far as practicable within about two weeks.5G<br />
From this date on Admiral Turner stated that his belief and expressed<br />
advice to Admiral Stark was that Japan would attack in Siberia only if<br />
Germany defeated the Soviet Union. Up until June 1941, he had believed that<br />
Japan might well attack the Soviet Union, without the assistance of Germany.<br />
On 31 July 1941, Admiral Stark had written to the Captain of the Fleet<br />
Flagship, Captain C. M. Cooke, U.S. Navy:<br />
As you probably know from our dispatches, and from my letters, we have<br />
felt that the Maritime Provinces are now definitely Japanese objectives. Turner<br />
thinks Japan will go up there in August. He may be right. He usually is. My<br />
thought has been that while Japan would ultimately go to Siberia, she would<br />
delay . . . until there is some clarification of the Russian-German clash.<br />
Admiral Turner’s later reaction to Stark’s letter was that when the Germans<br />
had just started into the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, and carried all<br />
before them, he had expressed the opinion that Japan would move against<br />
the Soviets in August. But as the Soviets slowed the Germans, and as the<br />
Japanese started funneling troops southward toward Indo China, he backed<br />
away from this belief. This is supported by his written rebuttal of a contrary<br />
prognosis made by Commander Walter Ansel in the War Plans daily summary<br />
on 22 September 1941, and quoted later.<br />
= Ibid., p. 1776.<br />
* DWP to CNO, OP–12–CTB, memorandum, 11 Jul. 1941,
182 Amphibians Came To Conqrzer<br />
<strong>The</strong> Army G-2 (Chief of Intelligence) had written, as late as 1 November<br />
1941, that Japan would attack Siberia when the ratio of Japanese troops in<br />
Kwantung Province, Manchuria, to Soviet Union troops in Siberia reached<br />
3 to 1, and suggested steps to help China and the Soviet Union.” It is<br />
believed correct to say that, at this time, the Director of War Plans thought<br />
the attack would not take place unless Germany defeated the Soviets in the<br />
West. Such a defeat was in the really questionable stage by I November<br />
1941.<br />
By 27 November 1941, when Rear Admiral Turner participated with<br />
many others in the drafting of the memorandum for the President to be<br />
signed by General Marshall and Admiral Stark, he found no problem in<br />
concurring with the statement:<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is little probability of an immediate Japanese attack on the Maritime<br />
Provinces. . . .<br />
WHO HAS THE BALL? INTELLIGENCE OR WAR PLANS?<br />
Over the years, and occasionally in print, there has been much made of<br />
the fact that the Director of Naval Intelligence had to work through the<br />
Director of War Plans in sending out to the Commander in Chief of the<br />
Pacific Fleet:<br />
specific information, which information might require action by our Fleet or<br />
by our naval forces.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Director of Naval Intelligence said this system was required so that<br />
this information<br />
would not be in conflict with his [the DWPS] understanding of the naval<br />
situation, and the operations for which he was responsible.ss<br />
This requirement irritated greatly some of the second echelon officers in<br />
the Office of Naval Intelligence. <strong>The</strong>y objected both to the Navy system<br />
which channeled political action initiating intelligence through the War<br />
Plans Office, and to the strong-minded officer who occupied the billet of<br />
Director of War Plans.<br />
As for the Navy system, Admiral Ingersoll pointed out:<br />
Our organization was not like Military Intelligence and that the estimate of<br />
the situation should be prepared by the War Plans Division, although the data<br />
“ Hearings, part 14, p. 1361,<br />
m (a) A. A. Hoehling, <strong>The</strong> Week Before Pea~[ Harbor (New York: W. W. Norton & Co,,<br />
1963), p. 61; (b) Pearl Harbor Heai’ingr, part 11, p. 5364.
P[anning for War, 1940-1941 183<br />
for the part ‘Enemy Intentions’ naturally would have to be based on data and<br />
information gathered by ‘Naval Intel ligence.’ w<br />
Or to state the case as Admiral Turner saw it while testifying at the Congressional<br />
Pearl Harbor Hearings:<br />
VICECHAIRMAN:Now, would it be fair to assume that from the standpoint<br />
of the real effect on operations that the War Plans Division had the highest<br />
responsibility for the advice given to the Chief of Naval Operations?<br />
ADMIRALTURNER: That is correct.<br />
VICECHA[RMAN:<strong>The</strong> Office of Naval Intelligence was largely charged with<br />
the responsibility of disseminating information?<br />
ADMIRALTURNER: That is correct.eo<br />
Following the Pearl Harbor Attack, there were those who felt that this<br />
“system” had let the Navy down. <strong>The</strong> critics claimed a prescient ability for<br />
the Office of Naval Intelligence. <strong>The</strong>re were also some who remembered<br />
various unsuccessful bouts with Rear Admiral Turner, and claimed that<br />
his mid-1941 belief that Japan would attack the Soviets in Siberia had<br />
diverted his attention away from alerting the Fleet in regard to an attack on<br />
Pearl Harbor.<br />
It is worth a brief look to see if the administrative arrangements had not<br />
been as they were, whether ONI would have alerted CINC<strong>US</strong> late on<br />
6 December when the decoded version of 13 parts of the 14-part final<br />
Japanese diplomatic communication before committing the pearl Harbor<br />
Attack became available.<br />
It is well to remember that this long-winded final statement of Japanese<br />
diplomatic position created a communication problem for the Japanese, as<br />
well as a decoding problem for the cryptographers in Washington.<br />
<strong>The</strong> extensive Japanese point of view of the deteriorating Japanese-United<br />
States relations was crammed into 13 dispatches. <strong>The</strong> 14th despatch stated<br />
what the United States must do to meet Japanese conditions and ended up<br />
by breaking off the current negotiations. <strong>The</strong> 15th despatch directed that<br />
the contents of the prior 14 dispatches should be delivered to the United<br />
States State Department at exactly 1 p.m. on Sunday, 7 December 1941.<br />
<strong>The</strong> 15th despatch acquired public identification as the “One o’clock des-<br />
patch” during the Congressional investigation into the Pearl Harbor attack.<br />
In Washington, the first 13 parts of the Japanese despatch were crypto-<br />
rnIbid.<br />
WIbid., part 4, p. 1983.
184 Amphibians Came To Conqtier<br />
graphically decoded, and their translations circulated all together, during the<br />
evening of 6 December.<br />
<strong>The</strong> 14th Japanese despatch was decoded and circulated routinely during<br />
the forenoon of 7 December, the limited list of viewers seeing it at various<br />
times. Many, including Rear Admiral Turner, saw it subsequent to the 15th<br />
despatch.<br />
<strong>The</strong> 15th despatch received special expeditious delivery service, when it<br />
had been cryptographically decoded and translated. It was available to<br />
Admiral Stark around 9:30 a.m. the morning of 7 December 1941.<br />
FIRST, THE DIRECTOR OF NAVAL INTELLIGENCE<br />
Actually, the Director of Naval Intelligence, Rear Admiral Wilkinson,<br />
was not uneasy or agitated by the first 13 parts of the decoded Japanese<br />
despatch. He testified that he<br />
did not consider it a military paper . . . and there was nothing particularly<br />
alarming in those [13] parts. . . . <strong>The</strong> fact that [in the 15th part] there was<br />
a certain time for the delivery was not significant to me. . . . I thought that<br />
the message was primarily of concern to the State Department rather than the<br />
Navy and the Army.”<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is nothing, absolutely nothing in these statements or available elsewhere<br />
from testimony of the DNI (Director of Naval Intelligence) that he<br />
had any desire to send this Japanese summation of position, a Japanese<br />
white paper, on to Pearl Harbor to Admiral Kimmel.<br />
When Rear Admiral Wilkinson saw the 14th part of the Japanese diplo-<br />
matic message on Sunday morning, his reaction, as he remembered it, was:<br />
<strong>The</strong>y were fighting words, so to speak, and I was more impressed by<br />
that language than by the breaking off of negotiations, which of itself<br />
might be only temporary.8z<br />
<strong>The</strong> DNI, being physically present in the Ofice of the CNO, on the<br />
morning of 7 December 194 I said:<br />
I believe that I advised that the Fleet should be notified, not with any question<br />
of attack on Hawaii in mind, but with the question of imminence of hostilities<br />
in the South China Sea.es<br />
At this hour, the Japanese message (the 15th part) telling the Japanese<br />
mIbid., pp. 1874-75.<br />
= Ibid., p. 1766.<br />
m Ibid., p. 1766.
Planning for War, 1940-1941 185<br />
Ambassador in Washington to present the message to the Department of<br />
State exactly at 1 p.m. Sunday, 7 December, had not been circulated.<br />
NEXT, THE DIRECTOR OF WAR PLANS<br />
When the Director of War Plans saw the first 13 parts of the diplomatic<br />
end of negotiations despatch, he<br />
considered the despatch very important but as long as those officers<br />
[Ingersoll and Wilkinson] had seen it, I did not believe it was my<br />
function to take any action.e4<br />
When Rear Admiral Turner was shown the one o’clock message in<br />
Admiral Stark’s ofice about noon, he<br />
recognized its very great importance and asked him [Stark] if anything<br />
had been done about it. He told me General Marshall was sending a<br />
dispatch, and I did nothing further about it because I considered that<br />
would cover the situation.es<br />
Even had he seen the 14th part at this time or prior thereto, the Director<br />
of War Plans thought:<br />
It was not my business to send that dispatch out. I consider that that<br />
was entirely the province of the Ofice of Naval Intelligence. . . It was<br />
no evaluation whatsoever. My office never sent out information.ee<br />
In summary:<br />
<strong>The</strong> first 13 parts of the Japanese despatch inspired neither the DNI nor<br />
the DWP to believe it should go to the Fleet.<br />
<strong>The</strong> 14th part inspired the DNI with a belief that it should go to the<br />
Fleet. <strong>The</strong> CNO did not carry through on the recommendation. <strong>The</strong> DWP<br />
did not receive the 14th part of the “end of negotiation” despatch in his<br />
own office until after the attack.<br />
<strong>The</strong> “one o’clock” despatch inspired both the DNI and the DWP to<br />
make recommendations for the CNO to send an advisory to the Fleet. <strong>The</strong><br />
delay in sending this advisory, in part at least, was due to a reluctance of<br />
Admiral Stark to accept and immediately act personally and dramatically on<br />
the recommendation of these two of his subordinates, both united and voicing<br />
the same opinions by calling Admiral Kimmel on the voice-scramble telephone<br />
which was on his desk.<br />
UIbid., p. 1924.<br />
m Ibid., p. 1924.<br />
- ibid., p. 2025.
186 Ampbibiarzs Came To Conqner<br />
<strong>The</strong> “system” had no effect on the failure to alert the Fleet on Pearl<br />
Harbor Day, or the day before, insofar as the decoded Japanese diplomatic<br />
dispatches are concerned.<br />
<strong>The</strong> reflections of nearly 20 years that had passed since Rear Admiral<br />
Turner had dominated War Plans and looked down his nose at the OKice of<br />
Naval Intelligence, and most of its minions, had not changed the man’s<br />
conviction that the 1941 division of responsibilities within the Office of the<br />
Chief of Naval Operations for advising the Chief of Naval Operations (and<br />
preparing papers or dispatches for dissemination) in regard to the over-all<br />
international situation which might involve the United States in war, and<br />
thus bring War Plans into effect, was properly a duty of the Director of<br />
War Plans rather than the duty of the Director of Naval Intelligence.<br />
<strong>The</strong> decision that this was the way it would be was made by Admiral Stark<br />
upon the official appeal of Rear Admiral Alan G. Kirk, the Director of Naval<br />
Intelligence prior to Wilkinson. <strong>The</strong> Vice Chief of Naval Operations and<br />
the Director of War Plans were also present in his office and participated<br />
with Kirk in the discussion.fi7<br />
Rear Admiral Turner’s belief that Admiral Stark’s decision was an “inter-<br />
pretation” of the written instructions for the conduct of business in Naval<br />
Operations rather than a marked qualification or change of the written in-<br />
structions was largely confined to himself and his immediate seniors.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Director of Naval Intelligence interpreted the decision to be that ONI<br />
was not to disseminate to the Operating Forces any estimates of enemy, or<br />
prospective enemy, intentions the natural reaction to which would seem to<br />
call for immediate acts of war on the part of our Operating Forces, and so<br />
passed this interpretation on to his relief, Rear Admiral Wilkinson. <strong>The</strong><br />
following testimony during the Pearl Harbor hearing bears this out:<br />
GESELL: In other words, you had the responsibility to disseminate,<br />
but where you reached a situation which led you to feel that the infor-<br />
mation disseminated might approach the area of a directive, or an order<br />
to take some specific action to the recipient; then you felt you were<br />
required to consult War Plans, or the Chief of Naval Operations?<br />
WILKINSON: Exactly.6s<br />
<strong>The</strong> belief of one of Rear Admiral Wilkinson’s best subordinates, Com-<br />
mander Arthur H. McCollum, the Head of the Far Eastern Section in the<br />
“ Ibid., Pp. 1730, 1834-39, 1865, 1924–27.<br />
m Ibid., p. 1731.
Planning for War, 1940–1941 187<br />
Foreign Intelligence Division of ONI, was that the change was very much<br />
broader in effect, if not intent, and that<br />
the function of evaluation of Intelligence, that is, the drawing of inferences<br />
therefrom, had been transferred over to be a function of the War<br />
Plans Division.Gs<br />
It is apparent from the above quotes that the policy decision of the Chief<br />
of Naval Operations created a gap between what the Director of War Plans<br />
thought ONI should and would send to the Operating Forces and what the<br />
most important intelligence subordinate of the Director of Naval Intelligence<br />
actually felt that the Office of Naval Intelligence was responsible for distributing<br />
to the Fleet. <strong>The</strong> McCollum interpretation of the decision was<br />
widely held at the second and third levels in ONI and since they believed that<br />
they had been robbed of one of their main functions, evaluation, they<br />
sulked in their tents. <strong>The</strong> essential close cooperation between War Plans and<br />
Intelligence suffered.<br />
This War Plans-Intelligence gap was indirectly widened by the special<br />
handling of decoded enemy dispatches called “magic” and later “ultra.”<br />
<strong>The</strong>se dispatches were handled, and were known to be handled, in a com-<br />
pletely separate and distinct manner from routine secret information. By<br />
and large, second echelon War Plans officers received more of the droppings<br />
from these dispatches than second echelon ONI officers, except for the Far<br />
Eastern Section of ONI.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re also was a direct wedge widening the War Plans-Intelligence gap,<br />
which was the security precaution exercised by limiting strictly the distribu-<br />
tion, within the Otlice of Naval Operations, of secret dispatches relative to<br />
preparations or readiness of the Operating Forces for war. Such secret dis-<br />
patches were generally limited in their distribution to the head of each major<br />
subdivision of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations and his immediate<br />
subordinate. This left out many, many seasoned officers at the working<br />
levels. Again second and third echelon officers in ONI were less likely to<br />
learn of these dispatches than similar officers in War Plans.<br />
It is suggested by this scribe that Admiral Starks decision in this Intelli-<br />
gence-War Plans dispute, not only was based upon what he considered the<br />
correct channel of advice to him regarding “enemy intentions,” but from<br />
whom, in this difficult and touchy area, he would be apt to receive the<br />
sounder advice.<br />
It is also suggested that there undoubtedly was an administrative error<br />
mIbid., p. 3388.
188 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
by both Turner and Kirk in failing to reduce to writing the CNO policy<br />
decision in regard to advising the CNO and the Operating Forces of political<br />
action initiating intelligence, so that the dividing line between the duties and<br />
procedures of Naval Intelligence and War Plans in this area was clearly<br />
etched. It is only necessary to state that on 12 December 1941 War Plans<br />
proposed such an arrangement.’” This is described in some detail later on.<br />
Although markedly different in personality, there was a complete rapport<br />
between the CNO and his Director of War Plans.<br />
Admiral Stark said:<br />
Every time I think of Kelly Turner, or anyone mentions his name, I<br />
warm a little about the heart. . . .<br />
Probably nobody in Washington had a better understanding of the<br />
Japanese situation than Kelly did.”<br />
Vice Admiral Turner testified in 1944:<br />
Admiral Stark’s opinion and mine on the situation were very close together<br />
from the spring of 1941 on.”<br />
Admiral Turner later added:<br />
<strong>The</strong> Navy was lucky to have as CNO a man as knowledgeable in world<br />
politico-military matters, and who had the ear of the President, the State<br />
Department and the Congress at the same time. His Plan Dog—which<br />
became Rhbow Five—showed his great perception. . . .<br />
He was a wonderful senior to me.Ts<br />
War Plans issued strategic summaries every other day. ONI made daily<br />
strategic estimates, at least up until 24 October 1941, when for reasons<br />
never pinpointed, they were voluntarily discontinued. <strong>The</strong> probable reason<br />
can only be guessed, but it could be hazarded that they were dropped because<br />
they required a very considerable effort and ONI became aware that they<br />
were not heeded in the councils of the great.<br />
Both ONI and War Plans evaluated the semi-raw “magic.” But neither<br />
the Director of Naval Intelligence nor the Director of War Plans evaluated<br />
the bitter end Japanese diplomatic messages as presaging an attack on United<br />
States Territory at the “directed” delivery hour of the diplomatic despatch.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Director of War Plans was not shown the 14th part, “the end of<br />
negotiations” despatch, until after the attack, so he in no way controverted<br />
‘“DWP to CNO, memorandum, OP–12-VDS(SC)A8–1 of 12 Dec. 1941.<br />
n Stark.<br />
“ Pearl Harbor Hedri#gf, part 26, p. 84.<br />
n Turner.
Pianning for War, 1940–1941 189<br />
the recommendation of the Director of Naval Intelligence to the Chief of<br />
Naval Operations in this regard.<br />
It can be said quite objectively that Admiral Stark did not receive the best<br />
of advice (that is advice so strongly and cogently expressed that he, follow-<br />
ing the advice, did in fact alert Admiral Kimmel ) from either of these two<br />
major intelligence evaluating subordinates in the immediate hours prior to<br />
the Pearl Harbor Attack.<br />
Rear Admiral Wilkinson, right up until 7 December 1941, did not think<br />
the Japanese would attack any United States Territory. On 6 December 1941<br />
he had informed Turner that Turner was “mistaken in the belief that Japan<br />
would attack a United States objective. ” 74<br />
QUESTION: Did you ever talk to Admiral Turner as to whether or<br />
not he thought of an attack upon Hawaii?<br />
WILKINSON: No, sir.<br />
QUESTION: But at least you had no thought of an attack upon<br />
Hawaii ?<br />
WILKINSON: No, sir.<br />
QUESTION: And that continued on until after the attack?<br />
WILKINSON: Yes, sir.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner thought the chances of a raid in Hawaii were about<br />
50-50, but no specific mention of this belief appeared in the final version of<br />
any despatch which he drafted for the CNO to send to CINCPAC, although<br />
it has been asserted such a warning was in one of the preliminary drafts.”<br />
And when Admiral Stark, on three different occasions, sought assurances<br />
that CINCPAC did in fact have decryption facilities, and the dispatches<br />
availabIe to him so he could read the Japanese diplomatic traffic, Rear<br />
Admiral Turner brought back the wrong information from the Director of<br />
Naval Communications. This was either through poorly phrased inquiries<br />
to Rear Admiral Noyes, since Noyes stated that he thought Turner was<br />
talking about traffic analysis (called radio intelligence), or through ignorance<br />
of Noyes in regard to what the decryption capabilities were at Pearl Harbor.<br />
<strong>The</strong> latter has been generally suspected, since (1) the Pearl Harbor Naval<br />
Radio Station routinely did not even copy Japanese diplomatic traflic, because<br />
there was no decoding machine in Pearl Harbor essential to change the coded<br />
Japanese diplomatic message into Japanese language, even if it was copied,<br />
and (2) because Rear Admiral Noyes’s testimony showed ignorance of<br />
“ Pearl Harbor Hearings, part 4, PP. 1776, 1869, 1984.<br />
7’Hoehling, <strong>The</strong> Week, p. >5.
190 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
several other aspects of Pearl Harbor’s decryption capabilities and systems.<br />
For example, he stated:<br />
And:<br />
. . . and as I learned from listening to Commander Rochefort’s testimony,<br />
they [Pearl Harbor] could not read another code, which was necessary.<br />
In listening to Commander Rochefort’s testimony, I was surprised that<br />
there would have been anything intercepted in Hawaii [by the Army]<br />
that the Navy could translate that was not immediately passed to the<br />
Navy.’e<br />
As 7 December 1941 drew closer, a special despatch from Naval Com-<br />
mun~cations on 28 November 1941 directing the cryptanalysts unit at Pearl,<br />
in addition to its normal tasks in regard to Japanese naval traffic, to under-<br />
take certain specific copying and decryption of lower echelon dispatches in<br />
the diplomatic field, made clear that someone in the Office of Naval Com-<br />
munications was in no doubt as to the normal scope of activities of its Pearl<br />
Harbor unit regardless of what the Director of Naval Communications,<br />
Rear Admiral Leigh Noyes, knew or didn’t know.<br />
WARNINGS TO THE OUTPOSTS SOFTENED<br />
Admiral Turner remembered, with some pride and much regret, that<br />
when he drafted the 16 October 1941 despatch directing CINCPAC,<br />
CINCAF, and CINCLANT to take preparatory deployments, his original<br />
wording had included the phrase that there “was a distinct probability Japan<br />
will attack Britain and the United States in the near future. ” He regretted<br />
that this wording had been toned down by his Joint Board seniors to “there<br />
is a possibility that Japan may attack these two powers.” 7?<br />
Admiral Turner also was proud of his authorship of “This is a war<br />
warning, “ in the 27 November 1941 despatch and regretted that his wording<br />
“war within the next few days” was changed to “an aggressive move by<br />
Japan is expected within the next few days.” 7’<br />
<strong>The</strong>re was discussion as to whether or not the opening sentence should<br />
be included in this dispatch. I recall that Vice Admiral Turner was<br />
firmly of the opinion that it should be included.”<br />
‘e (a) Pearl Harbor Hearitrg,, part 4, pp. 1975-76; part 10, pp. 4714-15,, 4722-23; (b) Wohlstetter,<br />
Warning and Decision, pp. 172, 173, 179, 181, 182.<br />
“ (a) Turner; (b) Hedrings, part 26, p. 277.<br />
‘8Turner.<br />
n Hedrings, part 26, p. 29>. Testimony of Captain John L. McCrea, Special Assistant to<br />
Admiral Stark.
Planning for War, 1940–1941 191<br />
<strong>The</strong> phrase “This is a war warning” was under attack from below as well<br />
as from above. Admiral Turner also regretted that the phrase “in any direc-<br />
tion” included in the draft of the 24 November 1941 despatch was left off<br />
the sentence “an aggressive move by Japan is expected within the next few<br />
days” of the War Warning Despatch three days later.’”<br />
TURNER’S OPINIONS REGARDING<br />
PEARL HARBOR ATTACK<br />
No real purpose can be served by a detailed rehashing of Admiral Turner’s<br />
testimony before the Congressional Inquiry into the Pearl Harbor Attack,<br />
which extended from Wednesday, 19 December 1945, through Friday,<br />
21 December 1945. Upon the conclusion of this testimony, the Vice Chairman<br />
wished All Hands a “Merry Christmas” and adjourned the hearings for<br />
ten days over the Holidays. Turner had already testified before the Roberts<br />
Commission, the Hart Inquiry, and the Navy Court of Inquiry. Despite a<br />
sharp examination by Admiral Hart during his inquiry and again by several<br />
Congressmen and the Committee Counsel during the Congressional Inquiry,<br />
a reading indicates no substantive change in the Turner testimony.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Vice Chairman Representative Jere Cooper, Democrat of Tennessee,<br />
noted:<br />
My impression is that much of the information you have given us is<br />
somewhat in conflict with other information we have received during<br />
the hearing.81<br />
However, since these conflicts were never pin-pointed by Congressman<br />
Cooper, this appears to have been a thrust in the dark. Admiral Turner was<br />
only the eighth military witness of over 240 to testify. From a close reading<br />
of the previous seven military witnesses’ testimony, the basis of Congressman<br />
Cooper’s statement is not readily apparent.<br />
<strong>The</strong> only major differences of testimony on matters of substance between<br />
Admiral Turner and any of the more than two hundred succeeding military<br />
witnesses were ( 1) in the testimony of Rear Admiral Leigh Noyes, former<br />
Director of Naval Communications, on the question as to whether CINC<strong>US</strong><br />
was receiving the same decrypted information as was being received by the<br />
CNO, and (2) in the testimony of Captain McCollum that he took away<br />
from the ofice of the Director of War Pians, sometime between 1 December<br />
and 4 December 1941, his much marked up draft of an ONI message to<br />
alert CINC<strong>US</strong> to the danger of imminent war.<br />
mTurner.<br />
“ Heuf’i?zg~,part 4, p. 1982.
192 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
Admiral Turner testified that the Director of Naval Communications<br />
stated that CINC<strong>US</strong> had the same decrypted information as the CNO. Rear<br />
Admiral Noyes, however, testified that he did not remember making any<br />
statement to the Director of War Plans that would imply that Admiral<br />
Kimmel had the means of decrypting “purple” (diplomatic) traffic and that<br />
he believed that Rear Admiral Turner had “traffic analysis” and “decrypted<br />
traffic” confused in his mind.”<br />
Admiral Turner testified that Captain McCollum had torn up his own<br />
draft despatch. Captain McCollum testified that the marked up draft message<br />
was returned by him to the desk of the Director of Naval Intelligence and<br />
there it lay, until it disappeared into the circular file.gs<br />
WHERE WILL JAPAN ATTACK THE UNITED STATES ?<br />
Admiral Turner testified:<br />
I was satisfied in July that we would be at war with Japan certainly<br />
within the next few months. I believed during the first part of December<br />
that the probability of a raid on Hawaii was 50->0. . . . I felt that there<br />
were two methods, two strategic methods that the Japanese Fleet would pursue.<br />
One was to go down and base their fleet in the Mandates with the hope<br />
that our fleet would go after them, and they would be in a good position.<br />
<strong>The</strong> other was to make a raid on Hawaii. <strong>The</strong>re were two major methods and<br />
without evaluating it too much, too greatly, I thought it was about a 50-50<br />
chance of the raid on Hawaii.S~<br />
SUNDAY MORNING REACTIONS<br />
Rear Admiral Turner’s normal reaction to a real crisis was never frenzied,<br />
never violent. It was a rapid fire, clear, logical mental application to the<br />
problem at hand and rapid fire, clear, logical dictum of things to be done<br />
by those surrounding him, at either higher or lower levels. This did not<br />
happen on Sunday morning, 7 December 1941, in the Office of the Chief of<br />
Naval Operations.<br />
Had Rear Admiral Turner viewed the situation in the true light of a real<br />
crisis, Admiral Turner says that he would have immediately urged Admiral<br />
= Ibid., part 4, pp. 1975–77, 2029; part 10, pp. 4714-15.<br />
= Ibid., part 4, pp. 1975, 2029; part 8, pp. 3388-90.<br />
wIbid., part 4, p. 2007.
Planning for War, 1940–1 941 193<br />
Stark to pickup the scramble telephone used for classified messages and call<br />
Admiral Kimmel.<br />
It wouldn’t have done much real good at that late hour, but we might<br />
have had the ships buttoned up tight, all the guns manned and ready<br />
and a few planes in the air. . . . <strong>The</strong>re would have been a lot of satisfaction<br />
from the Navy’s point of view in that, and some lives might<br />
have been saved.ss<br />
But this did not happen. <strong>The</strong> only conclusion to be drawn is that Turner did<br />
not appreciate the reality of the time crisis.<br />
When Admiral Turner was asked why he did not urge Admiral Stark to<br />
grab the scrambfe telephone and wake up Admiral Kimmel, he said:<br />
Why weren’t I and a lot of others smarter than we were? I didn’t put<br />
all the Two’s and Two’s together before Savo to get four. Maybe I<br />
didn’t before” Pearl, but damned if I know just where. If Noyes had<br />
only known that Kirrunel couldn’t read the diplomatic Magic. If Kimmel<br />
had only sent out a few search planes. If the words ‘Pearl Harbor’ had<br />
only survived the redrafting of the warning messages. . . . You find<br />
out the answers and let me know.se<br />
OP-12 DAILY SUMMARIES<br />
<strong>The</strong> fact that there were “Daily Summaries” and evaluations of informa-<br />
tion being prepared in various offices of the Navy Department was looked<br />
into by the Congressional Committee for the Pearl Harbor Attack.<br />
A check of the Daily Summaries and evaluations prepared in the War<br />
Plans Division indicates that these were read by the Director of War Plans.<br />
Filed next to the 22 September 1941 summary, there is an undated RKT<br />
handwritten note addressed to Commander Walter Ansel, who was the<br />
actual drafter in OP-12.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se are getting too long. You have drawn some premature and unwarranted<br />
conclusions, I believe. RKT<br />
Another summary is marked in RKT’s handwriting:<br />
“Bad History” and again I can’t see this at all.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se comments lend credence to the thought that the evaluations appearing<br />
in other summaries were fairly close to RKT’s opinions or they would<br />
have been marked up.<br />
= Turner.<br />
MTurner.
194 Amphibians Carrie To Conquer<br />
If the Director of War Plans was “obsessed” about Siberia and, if his<br />
subordinates could only ‘
Planning for War, 1940–1 941 195<br />
of Naval Operations to, in fact, alert CINCPAC to be ready to meet a time<br />
crisis on 7 December 1941, that an effort was made in December 1941 to<br />
delineate more clearly, and in writing, the duties of the various divisions of<br />
Naval Operations in relation to alerting Commanders in Chief Afloat.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner had his way for a short time, and on 12 December<br />
1941, the following procedure was approved for the War Plans Division. It<br />
would issue as of 0800 daily:<br />
1. ‘<strong>The</strong> Naval Situation’ for the President, giving all operational and<br />
related information affecting the United States Navy.<br />
2. “Bulletin for Naval Commanders,’ giving a short summary of the ‘<strong>The</strong><br />
NavaI Situation’ and deleting information which should not go out of Washington.<br />
3. ‘A Daily Navy Department Situation Communique’ . . . giving such<br />
information as should be made public.<br />
Fortunately, Rear Admiral Turner’s seniors did not buy for long this<br />
proposed diversion of effort by the War Plans Division from its primary<br />
business. <strong>The</strong> Secretary of the Navy put the Office of Public Relations back<br />
into the press release business, and the Director of Naval Intelligence, by<br />
15 December 1941, was:<br />
endeavoring to collect, collate, and reconcile all enemy information in the<br />
Department, whether directly by despatch or whether obtained by other means<br />
(including Magic) and to send “out this information to the Cornrnanders-in-<br />
Chief.” 87<br />
<strong>The</strong> memorandum of 12 December 1941 is important only to show<br />
Rear Admiral Turner had a blind spot in regard to the duties of the Ofice<br />
of Naval Intelligence and that he believed the War Plans Division should<br />
transmit:<br />
To the principal naval commanders periodic secret bulletins giving information<br />
designed to keep these commanders up to date with regard to essential<br />
secret information in order that they can take appropriate military measures.ss<br />
This was bound to include information of the enemy, a proper chore for<br />
ONI.<br />
By 28 January 1942, Rear Admiral Turner recommended in writing that<br />
the Joint Intelligence Committee should “put out a daily paper that meets<br />
= (a) CNO to all Divisions of Operations, memorandum, OPBC Ser 604913 of 18 Dec. 1941,<br />
subj: Information for Release to Press; (b) DNI to DWP, OP–16, memorandum, Ser 91163416<br />
of 15 Dec. 1941, subj: Dispatches concerning Intelligence of Enemy Activities.<br />
= DWP to CNO, memorandum, OP-12–VDS(SC)A8–1 (A&N), 12 Der. 1941.
196 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
the President’s needs,” 89and that the President should receive neither Army<br />
nor Navy individual situation reports. This was a long step forward.<br />
1941 JITTERS<br />
<strong>The</strong> state of jitters in Washington among Army and Naval officers after<br />
the Pearl Harbor attack is now hard to appreciate. On 12 December 1941, the<br />
Director of War Plans recommended to the Chief of Naval Operations that<br />
he inform the President in writing that<br />
the Chief of Naval Operations expects a raid on either Puget Sound or Mare<br />
1,~.andNavy Yard today between 9 and 11 a.m. Washington time.go<br />
And on the previous day the Joint Intelligence Committee, being far<br />
removed from the British cross channel weather in the winter months, had<br />
informed the President:<br />
Because of initial reverses received by the United States in Hawaii, the probability<br />
that Germany may be seriously considering an early invasion of the<br />
British Isles must be borne in mind.gl<br />
STATE OF FEMALE MIND—DECEMBER 1941<br />
In a letter to her sister-in-law, written the Tuesday before Pearl Harbor,<br />
Mrs. Turner gave interesting insight as to the state of her mind at this time:<br />
<strong>The</strong> Japanese situation looks terrible. Kelly had to stay on the phone all day<br />
Sunday [30 November 1941 ] but wasn’t called to the office. . . . Kelly feels<br />
fine and is still keeping up his morning walks, and it is dark when he starts<br />
Out.sz<br />
In Mrs. Turner’s next letter of Sunday, 7 December she wrote:<br />
Well, war has come and though we feared it, we all hoped Japan would<br />
not have the nerve. <strong>The</strong>y phoned Kelly to come to the Department a little<br />
before eleven. He had no idea, because he was very calm. Said he knew what<br />
it was about and would be back before long. We were to have dinner at the<br />
Chevy Chase Club, so I had Iet Sadie go. He phoned we were at war before<br />
the radio broadcast it, and didn’t know when he would get home. . . .<br />
- DWP to CNO, memorandum, 28 Jan. 1942.<br />
mDWP to CNO, memorandum, OP-12-VDS(SC)A8-1 (A&N) of 12 Der. 1941, encl. (B).<br />
01JIC Daily Summqt, Noon Thursday, 11 Dec. 1941.<br />
mMrs. RKT to Miss LLT, letter, 2 Dec. 1941.
PIanning for War, 1940-1941 197<br />
I hate to be selfish, but for once, I am glad he is in Washington.<br />
I sit here surrounded by Japanese things plus dogs.g3<br />
DISCLOSURE OF THE VICI ~RY PROGRAM<br />
Just two days prior to the Pearl Harbor Attack, the Director of War Plans<br />
was busy writing a long four-page letter to the Chief of Naval Operations<br />
giving available information in regard to the apparent disclosure to the<br />
Chicago Tribune and the Washington Times Herald of the United States’<br />
“Victory Program.” “ <strong>The</strong> letter had to be personally written, because the<br />
Director of War Plans was the actual custodian of the only copy of the<br />
“Victory Program” in the War Plans office. <strong>The</strong> “Victory Program” was a<br />
Joint Board paper with individually prepared logistics requirements for the<br />
Army and Navy.<br />
This investigation, called a witch hunt by some, and regarding which<br />
Turner disclaimed all responsibility for himself and his subordinates of dis-<br />
closure to the press, had considerable influence in strengthening the belief in<br />
the Navy Department of the correctness of limiting secret information to<br />
those “who need to know.”<br />
Kelly Turner had long been an advocate of this “need to know” policy.<br />
Admiral King, when Commander in Chief of the Atlantic Fleet, had not<br />
been privy to the ABC-1 Staff agreements of 27 March 1941 which provided<br />
for American-British collaboration short of war and for full scale military<br />
cooperation in time of war. In Admiral King’s opinion, Turner guarded his<br />
secret knowledge “with supererogatory zeal. ” ‘5<br />
JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF<br />
Before entering into the amphibious phases of World War II and the part<br />
played in the amphibious Pacific campaigns by Richmond Kelly Turner, a<br />
brief record of his influence on the overall United States military command<br />
structure for the war seems appropriate.<br />
On 28 January 1942, the Joint Board discussed the creation of a Super<br />
Joint General Staff, which had been recommended in broad terms by the<br />
WMrs. R.KT to Miss LLT, letter, 7 Dec. 1941.<br />
“ RKT to CNO, OP–12–CTB, letter, Ser 0140112 of 5 Dec. 1941<br />
ffiKirz.g’s Record, p. 328.
198 Amphibians Came To Conq#er<br />
Navy’s General Board. <strong>The</strong> Joint Board on this date had two planning<br />
agencies, the Joint Planning Committee, and a subsidiary, the Joint Strategic<br />
Committee.<br />
As head of the Navy’s War Plans Division, Rear Admiral Turner on<br />
1 February 1942, was one of the two members of the Joint Planning Com-<br />
mittee, the other representative being Brigadier General Dwight D. Eisen-<br />
hower, of the War Department’s War Plans Division. <strong>The</strong>se two officers<br />
were handed the hot potato of determining what sort of a new military<br />
command organization should be established in the United States to provide<br />
direction and cohesion in running the United States military part of the war.<br />
<strong>The</strong> ~ask was assigned on 28 January 1942, and the report of these two<br />
oficers was submitted on 27 February 1942.<br />
Brigadier General Eisenhower recommended that a Joint General Staff of<br />
fifteen members be created directly under the President and headed by a<br />
Chief of Staff who would be responsible only to the President. <strong>The</strong> General<br />
Staff would provide for coordination of both operations and logistic support,<br />
and be responsible for strategy and the employment of military forces, but<br />
would not command them. Command would be vested in <strong>The</strong>ater Com-<br />
manders.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner recommended the organization of:<br />
1. A Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, consisting of the Chief of Naval<br />
Operations, the Chief of ,Staff of the Army, the Commander in<br />
Chief ~f the U. S. Fleet, and the Commanding General, Army<br />
Field Forces.<br />
2. A Joint training system for higher command levels of both Services,<br />
stating this to be an essential prior to the acceptance of Joint Annual<br />
Staff.<br />
In order to obtain unity of command, he recommended<br />
3. Assigning command responsibilities in campaign areas and on f ron-<br />
tiers to an officer of the Service with primary interest and awareness<br />
of the anticipated problems.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Joint Board did not accept either proposal when they were presented<br />
at the 16 March 1942 meeting and both proposals reached the President.<br />
<strong>The</strong> President, who perhaps was wary of Brigadier General Eisenhower’s<br />
solution (which reflected General Marshall’s desires), thinking it might<br />
dilute his own prerogatives as Commander in Chief to direct the war effort<br />
in some detaiI, eventually accepted what was in effect Rear Admiral Turner’s
Planning for War, 1940–1 941 199<br />
proposal. All three of the Turner recommendations became realities during<br />
the war, two early in 1942, Joint Training in 1944. But President Roosevelt<br />
also accepted part of Brigadier General Eisenhower’s proposal when Admiral<br />
William D. Leahy became Chief of Staff to the President in July 1942,<br />
although without command authority or responsibility, and without a staff.’e<br />
Thus Richmond Kelly Turner became the father of the Joint Chiefs of<br />
std.<br />
W(a) Joint Board, meeting minutes, 28 Jan. 1942, 16 Mar. 1942; (b) JB, Ser 742; (c) Report,<br />
Joint Planning Committee to Joint Board, 27 Feb. 1942, encls. (A) and (B).
1941<br />
and<br />
CHAPTER VI<br />
BACKGROUND<br />
<strong>The</strong> Ark made the first recorded amphibious movement which is known<br />
to have had a deadline for both the building of the craft and for the depar-<br />
ture of the passengers.<br />
Those who have seriously studied the Books of the Old Testament of the<br />
Bible in an effort to determine the year date of the Flood, and the first<br />
peril-packed overwater movement to a distant shore, vary widely in their<br />
estimates of the exact Zero Hour and Zero Year of the Flood. A hundred<br />
years ago the Flood was guesstimated by Biblical Scholars as between<br />
2327 B.C. and 3155 B.C., a mere 800 year span.’ Modern scholars and<br />
archeologists have been a bit more chary of naming years, but declare the<br />
Flood happened about 4000 B.C.’<br />
In any case, this happened a long time ago. <strong>The</strong> Ark’~ building and de-<br />
parture was during a time of great stress, and the travelers embarked were<br />
a mixed lot generally unaccustomed to going to sea, and a bit untrained for<br />
foreign duty. <strong>The</strong>y seem to have had only a hazy idea of where they were<br />
going and how they were going to get there. <strong>The</strong>se characteristics almost<br />
seem inherent in amphibious Operations and certainly were not unknown to<br />
our early amphibious operations in World War H.<br />
As to the craft in which the first historically important overwater movement<br />
was made, the Ark, 525 feet long, 87% feet abeam, and 5272 feet<br />
high, was a sizeable craft and far larger than the World War 11 LST (Land-<br />
ing Ship Tank), 327 x 50 x 40 feet. Its building probably was no less ex-<br />
XSamuel W. Barnum, A Comprehensive Dictionary oj the Bible (New York: D. Appleton &<br />
CQ., 1868), p. 174.<br />
‘ Werner Keller, Tbe Bible a History (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1956), ch. 3.<br />
201
202 Amphibians Came To Co~quer<br />
pedited and its overwater movement no less surrounded by the perils of<br />
the deep than many a World War II amphibious craft.<br />
But the Ark served its purpose well, and this without benefit of Congressional<br />
watch dog committees, expediters, super expediters, and public<br />
relations men, all of whom swarmed over the amphibious craft of the 1941–<br />
1945 era.<br />
LANDING CRAFT<br />
Since the man this study is about, Kelly Turner, played no personal part<br />
in the technical development of landing craft and landing boats untii he<br />
arrived in the South Pacific, the interesting, colorful controversial pre-1942<br />
development story of landing craft and landing boats will not be detailed<br />
herein. But some coverage is essential to understand World War II amphibious<br />
warfare.<br />
<strong>The</strong> story of the development of landing boats during the pre-World War<br />
11 period, and the early days of that war reads differently, depending upon<br />
which book is read.3 Since most of the books devoting any large amount<br />
of space to this phase of the amphibious story have been sponsored by the<br />
<strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> or written by <strong>Marine</strong>s, it is perhaps natural that the work<br />
and contributions of the Army and of various other parts of the Department<br />
of the Navy, as well as the contributions of some of our Allies, and<br />
the Japanese enemy, have not been stressed. And it is natural that the long<br />
years of trial and error before really usable landing craft were developed<br />
have been emphasized.<br />
As Admiral Turner wrote to the Director of Naval History in 1950:<br />
I know that the <strong>Marine</strong>s have engaged the ‘Princeton History Group’ to<br />
write a book about amphibious warfare as affecting the <strong>Marine</strong>s, to cover the<br />
period from 1925 to 1945. I received the advance drafts of several chapters<br />
for comments. I spent 3 or 4 hours almost daily for several weeks in research<br />
“ (a) U.S. Congrem, Senate, Special Committm Investigating the National Defense Program,<br />
78th Cong., Znd sess., Senate Report 10, part 16, March 4 {legislative day February 2], 1944; (b)<br />
Jeter A. Isely and Philip A. Crow], U. S. Nari#es and Arnpbibious War, It, <strong>The</strong>ory, and Its Prac-<br />
/ire in the Pacijc (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 195I ), ch. 3, pp. 57-71; (c) Frank O.<br />
Hough, Verle E. Ludwig, and Henry 1. Shaw, Jr., Pearl Harbor to Guadalcarrd, HISTORY OF<br />
U.S. MARINE CORPS OPERATIONS IN WORLD WAR 11 (Washington: Historical Branch,<br />
Headquarters U.S. <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong>, 1958), ch. 3; (d) Lieutenant General Holland M. Smith, <strong>US</strong>MC,<br />
“’Development of Amphibious Tactics in the U.S. Navy,” Murine Corpj Guzeue (Jun. 1946-Mar,<br />
1947 ), 5 parts; (e) General Holland M. Smith and Percy Fuch, Coral and Bra~~ (New York:<br />
Charles %ibner’s Sons, 1949).
1941 llevelopment~ for Ampbibioas War 203<br />
and the preparation of corrections, but finally gave up. <strong>The</strong> work of the<br />
Princeton Group is so full of errors and generally so bad historically that I<br />
couldn’t stand to work on it any longer. In my opinion, unless the book is<br />
changed entirely as to concept and material, it will be a very bad book. It may<br />
start serious controversies. Certainly, it will do the <strong>Marine</strong>s no good in the<br />
long run, because it is so one-sided.<br />
I believe it would bean equally bad thing for the Navy to publish a similar<br />
controversial book, written from the point of view of the Navy alone. No<br />
one Service invented amphibious warfare. <strong>The</strong> <strong>Marine</strong>s contributed much<br />
(patterned on Japanese methods) to its development in recent years. But so<br />
also did the Navy, including Naval Aviation. Furthermore, beginning in<br />
1940, the Army contributed a great deal. We should not forget that the biggest<br />
operation of all—Normandy—was very largely a U.S. Army and British<br />
affair. <strong>The</strong> <strong>Marine</strong>s had nothing to do with the European and African landings,<br />
and the U. S. Navy was not the controlling element.4<br />
To add a bit of balance to the story about landing craft, it is perhaps well<br />
to recall that in Fiscal 1935 the total research and development appropriation<br />
of the whole Department of the Navy, which included the <strong>Marine</strong><br />
<strong>Corps</strong>, was only $2,544,000.00 of which two million dollars were for aviation.<br />
Even for Fiscal 1940, the Congress provided the Department of the<br />
Navy only $8,900,000.00 for research purposes.’ <strong>The</strong> Bureau of Construc-<br />
tion and Repair was only one among four technical bureaus in the Navy<br />
Department having significant research and development needs. Landing<br />
craft, controlled largely by the Bureau of Construction and Repair, was only<br />
one of the significant fields to need research funds.<br />
Its successor, the Bureau of Ships, quite properly has not thought it a<br />
worthwhile effort to scour up a document which might show the actual<br />
dollars allocated to landing craft research and development in 1935 or 1940,<br />
or any intervening year. An informed, but completely unofficial and unsub-<br />
stantiated estimate, by one who has researched this field in the records of<br />
Naval Operations during these years, is that $40,000 was available in 1935<br />
and $400,000 in 1940.G<br />
4RKT to Chief of the Division of Naval Records and History, letter, 20 Nov. 1950, subj:<br />
lsely-Crowl, U.S. <strong>Marine</strong>s itr Amphibious War.<br />
‘ (a) Office of Naval Research, “U. S. Naval Research and Development in World War 11;’<br />
(manuscript) part 1, pp. 100, 144; (b) Rear Admiral J. A. Furer, Narwtiue Hi,tory of Ofire of<br />
coordinatorof ResearchandDevelopment,M Jul. 1945, para. 47.<br />
0 (a) “History of Continuing Board for the Development of Landing Vehicles” (manuscript);<br />
(b) Rear Admiral J. A, Furer, <strong>US</strong>N, “Logistics of Fleet Readiness,” <strong>The</strong> Fleet Maintenance Division<br />
(First Draft Narrative) in United S/ate~ Naval Administration irr World War 11; (c) BUC&R<br />
to CNO, letter, 582–3 ( 15) (DW), 6 Jan. 1937; (d) Lieutenant Colonel B. W, Gaily, <strong>US</strong>MC, “A<br />
History of Fleet Landing Exercises” (manuscript), <strong>US</strong>S Neru York, 3 Jul. 1939; (e) Lieutenant
204 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
It is very dificult in the 1960s, with research and development money<br />
running out of everyone’s ears, to recreate the parsimonious atmosphere<br />
of the 1920s and 193os, when the research and development dollars availa-<br />
ble were exasperatingly few (and percentagewise of total naval appropriations<br />
only a shadow of today’s percentage) and each development dollar<br />
was guarded as though it was the Navy’s last.<br />
NAVY RECOGNIZES LANDING CRAFT PROBLEM<br />
Many have claimed to be responsible for the idea of a separate type of<br />
craft to land troops on a hostile shore. However, one of the earliest powerful<br />
and effective urges during the period between the World Wars for the<br />
Navy to develop a useful landing boat, to train personnel to man them, and<br />
to provide gunfire support for the Landing Force, came from Admiral<br />
Robert E. Coontz (Class of 1885), Commander ‘in Chief of the United<br />
States Fleet, and later Chief of Naval Operations.<br />
He wrote in 1925:<br />
In connection with landing operations, the Commander in Chief offers the<br />
following comments and suggestions:<br />
a. That the use of the regular ships’ boats for the purpose of transporting<br />
landing parties ashore, when opposition is to be encountered, is a hazardous<br />
undertaking and little likely to succeed. He considers it of utmost importance<br />
that experiments be continued with a view to determine what type of boat is<br />
best for this purpose.<br />
b. Consideration of the necessity that ships detailed to cover and support<br />
landing operations be equipped with guns permitting high angle fire. This he<br />
believes is necessary in order that the Landing Force will not be denied artillery<br />
support at a time it is most essential.<br />
c. That a landing operation is likely to result in disaster if the officers in<br />
charge of the boats are not experienced in their duties.T<br />
ln regard to amphibious operations in the Fleet in 1924, Admiral Coontz<br />
wrote:<br />
<strong>The</strong> participation of the <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> Expeditionary Force with the Fleet in<br />
the winter maneuvers of 1924 afforded the first real opportunity for determining<br />
the value of such a force to the Fleets<br />
William F. Royall; <strong>US</strong>N, Landing Boat Officer, Atlantic Squadron, ‘landing Operations and<br />
Equipment,” <strong>US</strong>S New York, Aug. 1939. Contains 38 photographs of landing boats developed<br />
during 1936-1939 period.<br />
TCINC<strong>US</strong>, A. R., 1924, paras. 79, 114.<br />
*ClNC<strong>US</strong>, A.R., 1924, para, 76.
1941 Developments for Amphibious War 205<br />
<strong>The</strong> Advanced Base Def&se Force became the Expeditionary Force in<br />
1921 and then the Fleet <strong>Marine</strong> Force in 1933.<br />
A plain recognition by the Navy of the need for action in the landing<br />
craft field was the creation, on 12 January 1937, by the Secretary of the Navy,<br />
acting upon recommendation of the Chief of Naval Operations, of the ‘
206 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
appreciation and proper placement of the landing craft problem during the<br />
pre-World War II period.<br />
LANDING CRAFT TANK (LCT)<br />
A further small bit of history about the tank lighter is added by Captain<br />
Roswell B. Daggett, <strong>US</strong>N (Retired), who as a lieutenant commander to<br />
captain headed up the Bureau of Construction and Repairs (later the Bureau<br />
of Ships) ‘
1941 Deveiop?nents for Amphibious war 207<br />
tasks, but one for which up until the early years of the Twentieth Century,<br />
they made minimal advance preparations until the event was upon them.<br />
<strong>The</strong> thought that this problem of overwater movement of troops and<br />
then assault on a foreign shore would be with our Navy in a large way in<br />
any war with Japan started to percolate through the Navy in the immediate<br />
post-Spanish American War era. Advance Base work was studied at Newport,<br />
Rhode Island, in 1901 and a permanent Advanced Base School was estab-<br />
lished at New London, Connecticut, in 1910-and moved to Philadelphia<br />
in 1911.<br />
Starting in 1902–1903, <strong>Marine</strong>s became occasional to frequent participants<br />
in the annual winter Fleet cruises as the backbone and sinew, first of an<br />
Advanced Base Defense Force, then of an Expeditionary Force, and finally<br />
of a Fleet <strong>Marine</strong> Force.<br />
After the British-French unhappy experience at Gallipoli, Turkey, the<br />
study of that World War I amphibious campaign became a regular part of<br />
the Naval War College course at Newport.’3 In the early 1930s students<br />
at the Naval War College were taught that the lessons of Gallipoli to<br />
remember included:<br />
1. Do not fail to provide for clear command channels to all forces of all<br />
Servicesand arms involved, and for d single forceful overall commander.<br />
2. Be sure, by detailed orders, properly distributed at all echelons, that<br />
All Hands’ know what the objectives are, who does what when, and where<br />
the coordinating levels of command are located.<br />
3. Do not attack prematurely with insufficient forces.<br />
4. Provide for supplies and equipment to be stowed aboard ship in reasonable<br />
proximation to the order in which they will be used or needed ashore,<br />
i.e., later called combat loading.<br />
It can be presumed that Captain Turner learned these and other amphibi-<br />
ous lessons during his three years at the Naval War College, and that their<br />
possible violation in the Guadalcanal campaign bothered him. It may be<br />
that Commander Nimitz and Captain King, who attended the Naval War<br />
College in 1923 and 1932, respectively, paid particular attention to the above<br />
first lesson of Gallipoli, for they implemented the principle of clear command<br />
channels and forceful commanders during World War II.<br />
It also can be presumed that in addition to these “do’s and don’ts,” Captain<br />
‘a (a) Captain W. D. Puleston, <strong>US</strong>N, <strong>The</strong> Durdunelfef Cumpaign (Annapolis: U. S. Naval<br />
Institute, 1926). (b) Lieutenant General Holland M. Smith, <strong>US</strong>MC “’<strong>The</strong> Development of<br />
Amphibious Tactics in the U.S. Navy,” <strong>Marine</strong> Corp Gazette (July 1946-February 1947).
208 Atnpbibians Came To Conquer<br />
Turner learned that there were two prerequisites for a successful amphibious<br />
operation:<br />
1. Secure lines of communications to the area of conflict.<br />
2. Command of the sea and air around the objective.<br />
If these two basic conditions could be satisfied, then it was essential to:<br />
a. select landing areas with both hydrographic conditions favorable to<br />
the Navy and terrain conditions favorable to the <strong>Marine</strong>s or Army<br />
troops.<br />
b. deceive the enemy as to the chosen areas of debarkation as long as<br />
possible.<br />
c. by air bomb and naval gun fire prepare the landing area, so the<br />
troops could prepare to seize them with confidence.<br />
Once the troops landed and seized the beachhead it would be necessary to:<br />
a. land artillery rapidly, and to secure any high ground commanding<br />
the beachheads so as to permit a quick shore-side build up of<br />
logistic support.<br />
And one could then look forward to:<br />
b. an early transfer of the conflict from amphibious to land warfare.<br />
All this and much more was set forth in Fleet Tactical Publication No.<br />
167, the Bible of Landing Operations Doctrine published by the United<br />
States Navy in 1941.<br />
THE NAVY ORGANIZES SHORESIDE FOR THE<br />
AMPHIBIO<strong>US</strong> TASK AHEAD<br />
Prior to June 1942, there were no distinctive “amphibious ships and craft”<br />
sub-sections in the various divisions of Naval Operations, except in the<br />
Fleet Training Division. Up to that time, amphibious matters were handled<br />
by the various “Auxiliary vessels” sub-sections.”<br />
On 24 February 1940, there were only 35 personnel landing boats in the<br />
whole Navy built for that purpose and these were of the 30-foot type. On<br />
this same date there were 5 tank lighters and 6 artillery lighters. However,<br />
the following extract from a report from the Joint Planning Committee to<br />
the Joint Board and jointly signed by R. K. Turner and L. T. Gerow showed<br />
the vastly improved status on 30 September 1941:<br />
“ CNO Organizational Rosters, 1941–1942.
1941 Develo/nnents for Amphibious War 209<br />
4, u. <strong>The</strong> Navy procurement situation is as follows:<br />
Funds<br />
Available;<br />
Under Awaiting Total<br />
Type Delivered Construction Contract Authorized<br />
Lnding Boats<br />
Regular 36 ft..,,..,........................ 400<br />
RS.mp 36 ft...,,.,.............................. 88<br />
Tank 45 ft..,..,,.,............................ 20<br />
Regular 30 ft ............................... 133<br />
45 ft. Tank Lighters.,,.,, ........ 26<br />
47 ft. Tank Lighters.,...,..,..,.. O<br />
45 ft. Artillery Lighters,,...,.,, 13<br />
Rubber Boats . . . . . O<br />
Amphibian Tractors . .. . 0<br />
197<br />
100<br />
30<br />
0<br />
71<br />
0<br />
12<br />
898<br />
300<br />
367<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
131<br />
0<br />
496<br />
188<br />
g64<br />
188<br />
50<br />
133<br />
97<br />
131<br />
25<br />
1394<br />
488<br />
b. <strong>The</strong> Army has procured 80 36-ft. landing boats and 8 45-ft. tank<br />
lighters.<br />
c, A triangular division, Army or <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong>, should be prepared to<br />
land nine combat teams from combat unit loaded transports. Thirty-nine (39)<br />
36-ft. landing boats (or the equivalent in other types to provide 1350 boat<br />
spaces ) and seven (7) tank lighters are required per combat team. Hence the<br />
above program is sufficient for three triangular divisions, as shown in the<br />
following table:<br />
Available or Under<br />
Procurement<br />
Maximum<br />
Requirements<br />
Navy Army Grand for ~ Triangle<br />
Total Total Total Divisions Reserve<br />
Landing Boats<br />
Regular 36’ ........................ 964 80 1044 1044* O*<br />
&lp 36f 188 0 188 9* 179*<br />
Tank 45’ .. .. ............. ... 50 0 50 0 50<br />
45’ Tank Lighters...,.,..,,,.... 97<br />
11 8<br />
47” Tank Lighters.,..,.,, .......<br />
Landing Boats<br />
131<br />
236 {189 {47<br />
Regular 30’ ........................ 133 0 133 0 133<br />
45’ Artillery Lighters...... 25 0 25 0 25<br />
Amphibian Tractors 488 0 488 300 188<br />
Rubber Boats . .. ... ... ...... . 1394 0 1394 0 1394<br />
* <strong>The</strong> employment in varying combinations of the 36’ ramp boats, the 30’<br />
boats, and the placing of troops in Amphibian Tractors or Rubber Boats will<br />
change these figures and correspondingly alter other figures in these columns.
210 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
6. <strong>The</strong> Navy Department has also initiated steps to procure an appropriate<br />
number of Support Landing Craft, patterned after a British design, and whose<br />
purpose is to furnish fire support against beach defenses and aircraft during<br />
landing operations.”<br />
By 23 October 1941 there were 30 large transports, needing 816 landing<br />
boats, and 11 AKs needing 80 landing boats, in commission, being procured<br />
or converted .15<br />
By 30 September 1941, the 36-foot landing craft had been adopted as<br />
standard, but their availability had not caught up with the demand.<br />
When the Fleet Training Division was transferred from Naval Operations<br />
to the Headquarters of the Commander in Chief on 20 January 1942,<br />
there was only an ‘“Amphibious Warfare” desk in the ‘
1941 Developments for Amphibious War 211<br />
Rear Admiral Richard S. Edwards, Deputy Chief of Staff, in forwarding<br />
Rear Admiral Turner’s memorandum wrote:<br />
<strong>The</strong> amphibious problem is assuming large proportions. Control is badly<br />
scattered in the Department. It should be centralized as Turner suggests. . . .<br />
I concur that an Assistant Chief of Staff be appointed for this purpose. . . .<br />
Rear Admiral Turner and Rear Admiral Edwards well knew that there<br />
was no surer way to arouse Admiral King’s wrath than to recommend an<br />
increase in officers on his staff or in those “attached to Headquarters.” He<br />
had forcefully stated in early January 1942, that his staff would be “under<br />
20” and the officers “attached to Headquarters,” not more than 200. His<br />
personal approval of ail new male officer billets was required.” So it is not<br />
surprising to find that Admiral King on 30 April 1942 vetoed the addition<br />
of a Flag oficer and a new major subdivision for his staff and wrote on<br />
the memorandum:<br />
O.K. for section under a/CofS/Readiness, but first wish to get concurrence<br />
of Gen. Marshall.<br />
It evidently took weeks to get General Marshall’s concurrence, for the<br />
section (F-26) to handle Amphibious Warfare was not established until<br />
4 June 1942, and then with a complement of only six of%cers. Several<br />
captains, who after detachment became Flag officers with advanced rank,<br />
headed up this undermanned and overworked amphibious section in Fleet<br />
Readiness (F-46). <strong>The</strong>y included D. E. Barbey and I. N. Kiland. But<br />
amphibious problems continued to be handled at a lower level than Rear<br />
Admiral Turner considered desirable, or their mushrooming importance<br />
warranted.<br />
AFLOAT<br />
On 1 October 1939, when World War II was getting underway in<br />
Europe, the Navy had only two large transports (APs) in commission. <strong>The</strong>y<br />
operated directly under the Chief of Naval Operations in logistic support of<br />
overseas commands, largely in the personnel area. By 15 October 1940, there<br />
were two additional large amphibious transports (APs) in commission in<br />
the Fleet, the Barnett (AP–11 ) and the McCawley (AP–1O), and four fast<br />
destroyer-type transports.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> number of officers on the Staff was 20 from 1 March 1942 until the end of the war.<br />
<strong>The</strong> number of male officers attached to Headquarters reached 181 on 1 January 1943, and was<br />
193 on 1 October 1945, having touched 226 on 1 January 1944. Furer, p. 25.
212 Amphibians Came To Co~quer<br />
As late as 22 October 1941, Rear Admiral Turner stated to the Joint Board<br />
that the number of large amphibious transports (APs) required by the Navy<br />
under the War Plans was only 36.’9 At this time the Navy had only 16 APs,<br />
all in the Atlantic Fleet. In addition there were five large amphibious cargo<br />
ships (AKs) and six destroyer hull transports (APDs) in the Atlantic F1eet,<br />
but only two AKs in the Pacific Fleet, making a total of 29 amphibious<br />
ships.zo<br />
In the immediate pre-December 1941 Navy, the amphibious ships, limited<br />
in number, were organized administratively into divisions and/or squadrons<br />
and assigned to the lowly Train Squadrons, whose primary mission was the<br />
logistical support of the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets. As the number of<br />
amphibious ships and landing craft grew phenomenally, and as the number<br />
of prospective tasks for them multiplied, it was obvious that the amphibious<br />
ships should be placed in a separate Type command within the major Fleets,<br />
such as had long existed in the Fleets for the aircraft carriers, destroyers, submarines<br />
and other ships of a particular character or classification. <strong>The</strong> Type<br />
commander handled matters dealing with personnel, materiel, and basic<br />
training.<br />
On 14 March 1942, and 10 April 1942 respectively, the Amphibious Forces<br />
of the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets were created in accordance with instruc-<br />
tions from COMINCH and in due time all amphibious units within the two<br />
Fleets were assigned to them. Organizational rosters issued close to these<br />
dates show that there were 12 APs, four AKs and two APDs in the Atlantic<br />
Fleet and six APs, two AKs and three APDs in the Pacific Fleet, ,when the<br />
Amphibious Forces were established as separate entities. And this was only<br />
four to five months before Guadalcanal.<br />
<strong>The</strong> designation of the major amphibious types as APs, AKs, and APDs<br />
warrants a word of explanation. In the Dark Ages, when the standard<br />
nomenclature for the classification of naval ships was first promulgated by<br />
the Secretary of the Navy, the Navy had numerous colliers and tugs, but<br />
very few cargo ships and no transports. So the basic letter C was assigned<br />
to colliers and T to tugs. Later, such other obvious assignments as D to<br />
destroyer, H to hospital ship, N to net layer and R for repair ship were<br />
made. With the obvious coincident letters all assigned, transports drew P<br />
and cargo ships K from the remaining available letters of the alphabet.<br />
‘0Joint Board, minutes of meeting, 22 Oct. 1941.<br />
w (a) Pacific Fleet Confidential Notice 13CN- fl, I Oct. 19.iI; (b) Atlantic Fleet Confidential<br />
Memo 1oCM-4I, 6 Oct. 19.41.
1941 Developments for Amphibious Wur 213<br />
At the time of the designtiing letter assignment, transports and cargo<br />
ships were auxiliaries to the combatant ships of the Fighting Fleets and so<br />
they also carried the basic A for auxiliary in front of their class-type<br />
designation. Thus, an AP was a naval auxiliary and a transport and AK<br />
was a naval auxiliary and a cargo ship. Since it became apparent in 1942<br />
that the transports and cargo ships of the Amphibious Forces were anything<br />
but auxiliary in carrying the war to the enemy, the A in their designation<br />
galled those who served in these ships. <strong>The</strong> hurt was only partially relieved<br />
when early in the war, their designations were changed to APA and AKA<br />
and they became Attack Transports and Attack Cargo ships. Few old sailor-<br />
men could forget that before the war APA officially designated an auxiliary,<br />
and an animal transport, while now it still designated an auxiliary, although<br />
an “attack transport.” As late as 28 February 1944 in his report on GAL-<br />
VANIC, the operation to seize the Gilberts, CINCPAC stated that the<br />
operation
214 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
<strong>The</strong> Army was specifically charged, in connection with Joint overseas<br />
movements:<br />
To provide and operate all vessels for the Army, except when Naval opposition<br />
by the enemy is to be expected, in which case they are provided and<br />
operated by the Navy.24<br />
In October 1940, the Army Transportation Service had fifteen ocean-going<br />
vessels, including eight combination troop transports, which carried some<br />
cargo, and seven freighters. In mid-December 1940, the War Department<br />
received authority to acquire seventeen additional vessels.zs This addition<br />
made the Army’s Transport fleet larger than the Navy’s Amphibious Force<br />
which numbered only 14 transports and eight cargo ships on 18 January<br />
1941 and in late April 1942 had but 18 regular transports attached to<br />
the Fleets, 13 working up to join, and seven more projected.”<br />
Under War Plan Rainbow Five, the Navy was assigned responsibility to<br />
Provide sea transportation for the initial movement and continued support of<br />
Army and Navy forces overseas. Man and operate the Army Transportation<br />
Service.27<br />
<strong>The</strong> Navy plans and projects underway in 1941 hopefully provided the<br />
first installment of personnel and ships for its assigned tasks in Joint<br />
overseas movements, but it had no personnel earmarked or available for<br />
the very considerable chore of “Man and operate the Army Transportation<br />
Service.” Nor, as long as Army troops moved overseas in Army transports,<br />
were there naval personnel available or trained to perform the duty set forth<br />
in connection with “landing attacks against shore objectives,” where the<br />
Army was given the task:<br />
<strong>The</strong> deployment into boats used for landing, these boats being operated by<br />
the Navy’s<br />
<strong>The</strong> Navy failed either to adequately plan for or, on the outbreak of war,<br />
to adequately undertake these two responsibilities ‘g despite the fact that<br />
in 1941 “Admiral Turner, Director of War Plans, advocated making the<br />
‘Joitrt A.;iort, 193s, para. 18(b) (l).<br />
= Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, Global Logistics and Strategy 1940-1943,<br />
Vol. VIII in subseries <strong>The</strong> War De@zr/merrtof series UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD<br />
WAR II (Washington: Ofiice of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1955),<br />
p. 62.<br />
= Revised U. S. Navy Operating Force Plan Fiscal 1941, dated 18 January 1941, CNO-OP-38-<br />
Serial 13738.<br />
= WPL 46, May 1941, War Plan, Naval Transportation Service,8 Jul, 1941.<br />
‘Joirrt Ac/iors, 1935, para. 18c(l) (a).<br />
%Julius A. Furer, Administration of the Navy Department in World War 11 (Washington:<br />
Government Printing Office, 1959), pp. 718-19.
1941 Deue~opments for Amphibious War 215<br />
Naval Transportation Service a going concern” and ready and able to take<br />
over the logistic and amphibious duties of the Army Transportation Service.ao<br />
Consequently, the Navy was in no position to criticize the Army in the<br />
early days of the war for moving ahead rapidly in expanding its amphibious<br />
capabilities, because it appeared that the Army would not only have to<br />
provide the amphibious transports by which it might journey to foreign<br />
shores, but the boats and boat crews needed to make the actual landings<br />
during European amphibious operations.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Army and the Navy proceeded as they did because each had primary<br />
authoritj and responsibility in certain areas relating to amphibious opera-<br />
tions. However, coordination and standardization of procedures in training<br />
for amphibious warfare in the United States was provided for and effected<br />
by the Commanders of the Amphibious Forces, Atlantic and Pacific Fleets,<br />
and in overseas areas by the <strong>The</strong>ater Commanders.<br />
This situation promoted competition, basically friendly though knife-edge<br />
keen between the two Services. It resulted in rapid progress, some wasteful<br />
duplication of effort and spending of money, and tremendous confusion at<br />
the soldier and sailorman level, who could not understand, for example,<br />
the why of Engineer Amphibian Commands which trained Army boat<br />
regiments and soldier’ ‘coxswains”.<br />
Admiral King, who as Commander in Chief of the Atlantic Fleet was<br />
bossman for Fleet Landing Exercise Seven in February 1941, reported on<br />
one aspect of this rivalry as follows:<br />
Two combat teams of the First Division, United States Army, commanded<br />
by Brigadier General J. G. Oral, <strong>US</strong>A, arrived in the Army Transports<br />
Hunter Liggett and Cbatedu Thierry to take part in the exercise. . . .<br />
. . . [King] soon discovered that they [three Army General Staff Officers]<br />
regarded themselves as in a position to criticize the amphibious techniques of<br />
the far more experienced <strong>Marine</strong>s. Creeping and walking normally precede<br />
an ability to run, and as it seemed to King, that so far as amphibious landings<br />
were concerned, the <strong>Marine</strong>s had learned to walk and were beginning to get<br />
UP speed) while the ArmY still had tO master the afi Of creeping> he WaSboth<br />
amused and annoyed by the attitude of these observers, s1<br />
Despite this indication of a strong belief that the <strong>Marine</strong>s would function<br />
better than the Army in the amphibious arena, Admiral King kept a painfully<br />
w (a) Charles Snow Alden, “Brief History of the Naval Transportation Service from 1937<br />
to March 1942,” 1943, para. 39; (b) R. M. Griffin, “Brief History of the Naval Transportation<br />
Service March 14, 1942 to January 12, 1943”; (c) Duncan S. Ballantine, A’aud Logiltics in<br />
Jbe Second World War ( Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1946), p. 78.<br />
91Kitsg’j Record, p, 320-21.
216 Arnpbibians Came To Conquer<br />
tight rein upon expansion of the personnel of the Navy. Admiral King was<br />
also the one who kept the personnel throttle of the amphibious Navy barely<br />
cracked in the early days of 1942, thus making impracticable the manning<br />
with naval personnel of needed transports, cargo ships and amphibious boats<br />
and craft.<br />
Transports with their boat crews were expensive in personnel. Many<br />
officers had no great desire to see men who were desperately needed in the<br />
explosive expansion of patrol craft and destroyers fighting a seemingly losing<br />
battle against the German submarine, diverted into the amphibious arena.<br />
Many naval officers believed it would best serve the Navy’s war capabilities<br />
to let the “expansion minded Army” take over certain amphibious duties and<br />
suffer the pains and penalties of that expansion.<br />
When the question of who should be prepared to do what in amphibious<br />
warfare was raised in the early months of 1942, the Navy’s official position<br />
was that amphibious operations in island warfare should be a function of the<br />
Navy, and that amphibious operations against a continent should be a func-<br />
tion of the Army.” <strong>The</strong> assigned reasons were:<br />
In the one case, landings would be repeated many times, and continuous<br />
Naval support is essential; whereas, in the second case, after the initial kmding,<br />
the Navy’s chief interest would be protection of the line of sea communications.s3<br />
As late as 29 April 1942, the Army was still proposing that it should be<br />
responsible for all amphibious operations in the Atlantic area and the<br />
<strong>Marine</strong>s in the Pacific area of operations.34<br />
It was not until early February 1943 that the Navy agreed to undertake the<br />
amphibious training of boat operating and maintenance personnel to meet<br />
future Army requirements and, based on this promise, the Army agreed to<br />
discontinue all amphibious training activities in the United States. <strong>The</strong><br />
controI and assignment of amphibian units and amphibious training activities<br />
in overseas theaters were left to <strong>The</strong>ater Commanders to determine. This<br />
represented a major advance toward assuring that all amphibious troops and<br />
all amphibious craft would have the same fundamental indoctrination in<br />
amphibious operations. <strong>The</strong> historic memorandum providing for this change<br />
is reproduced below.35<br />
* JPS 2/1; JPS 2/7 (Joint U. S, Strategic Committee Study on Strategic Employment of<br />
Amphibious Forcm; JSSC Study No. 24, Organization of Amphibious Forces).<br />
= RKT to COMINCH, memorandum, 15 Apr. 1942.<br />
wJPS 24.<br />
= COMINCH-C/S <strong>US</strong>A, memorandum, 8 Mar. 1943. See also COMINCH to General Marshall,<br />
memorandum, FF1/A16-3/Ser 00224 of 5 Feb. 1942 and C/S <strong>US</strong>A to Admiral King, 16 Feb.<br />
1943, subj: Army and Navy Amphibious Boat Crews.
1941 Developments for Amphibious War 217<br />
MEMORANDUM OF AGREEMENT OF THE CHIEF OF STAFF,<br />
U. S. ARMY, AND THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF, U. S. FLEET AND<br />
CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS.<br />
This agreement between the Chief of Staff, U. S. Army, and the Commander<br />
in Chief, U. S. Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations, confirms and<br />
approves the agreement arrived at in conference on March 8, 1943, between<br />
representatives of the War Department and the Navy Department, as follows:<br />
a. <strong>The</strong> Army will discontinue all amphibious training activities except as<br />
noted in c below. <strong>The</strong> Army will retain responsibility for all training, other<br />
than amphibious, of Army units designated to receive training under the<br />
Navy.<br />
b. <strong>The</strong> Navy will continue amphibious training of boat operating and<br />
maintenance personnel to meet future Army requirements of this nature, and<br />
also will train at a later date Army replacements for existing amphibian<br />
units if this should become necessary.<br />
c. <strong>The</strong> 3rd and 4th Engineer Amphibian Brigades (Army), which have<br />
been especially organized for shore-to-shore operations in the Southwest<br />
Pacific will be retained under Army control and their training completed by<br />
the Army pending their movement to that theatre.<br />
d. <strong>The</strong> control and assignment of amphibian units and amphibious training<br />
activities in overseas theatres will be as determined by the theatre commander<br />
concerned.<br />
e. Upon completion of the training of the 3rd and 4th Engineer Amphibian<br />
Brigades the boats, shops, spares, tools and other facilities, not part<br />
of the organizational equipment of these units, shall be transferred to the<br />
Navy when and if required by that Service and the Amphibian Training<br />
installations and facilities at Camp Edwards, Massachusetts, and Camp<br />
Gordon, Johnston, Florida (Carrabelle), will be made available to the Navy<br />
for its use. <strong>The</strong> actual transfer of land is not contemplated.<br />
A survey party with representatives of the Navy Department and War<br />
Department (Services of Supply) will be appointed to arrange the details of<br />
the transfer.<br />
JOSEPH T. McNARNEY<br />
Lieut. General, U.S.A.<br />
Acting Chief of Staff, U. S. Army<br />
E. J. KING<br />
Admiral, U.S. Navy<br />
Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Fleet<br />
and Chief of Naval Operations<br />
AMPHIBIO<strong>US</strong> FORCE COMMAND RELATIONS<br />
When, on 29 April 1942, Admiral King issued his LONE WOLF Plan<br />
for the establishment of the South Pacific Amphibious Force, he laid the
218 Ampbibi&ns Came To Conquer<br />
ground work for a lot of later <strong>Marine</strong> abuse of Richmond Kelly Turner.<br />
This extremely terse and stimulating order, which made possible the success-<br />
ful WATCHTOWER Operation, had this important paragraph:<br />
IX. Coordintitiotsof Command<br />
a. Under the Commander, South Pacific Force, the Commander of the<br />
South Pacific Amphibious Force will be in command of the naval, ground and<br />
air units assigned to the amphibious forces in the South Pacific area.<br />
b. <strong>The</strong> New Zealand Chiefs of Staff are in command of any United Nations<br />
units assigned to New Zealand specifically for the land defense of the<br />
Commonwealth of New Zealand.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> Commanding General, First <strong>Marine</strong> Division (Major General Alex-<br />
ander A. Vandegrift, <strong>US</strong>MC) received registered copy No. 35 of the<br />
order. <strong>The</strong> Commandant of the <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> received five copies.<br />
I have been unable to locate, in the files of COMINCH, any letter of<br />
protest or comment from <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> sources in regard to this order. <strong>The</strong><br />
specific requirements of the order assigning command of the ground and<br />
air units to Commander Amphibious Force South Pacific are not mentioned<br />
in any of the better known <strong>Marine</strong> Force accounts of the <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong><br />
Operations at Guadalcanal.37 And yet each of these accounts creates the<br />
impression that Rear Admiral Turner was exercising command responsibilities<br />
during the WATCHTOWER Operation when he should not have<br />
done so.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner’s position was that the directive was drafted in a<br />
section of the COMINCH Staff headed by a senior colonel in the <strong>Marine</strong><br />
<strong>Corps</strong> (DeWitt Peck, later Major General). It was cleared with <strong>Marine</strong> ofiicers<br />
in the Office of the Commandant of the <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> before it was<br />
initialed by the top echelon of COMINCH Staff and signed by Admiral King.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re were no questions raised in regard to the command relationships,<br />
although the draft went through several other changes.a8<br />
On 13 May 1942, Vice Admiral Wilson Brown, Commander Amphibious<br />
Force, Pacific Fleet raised the question of command relationships between<br />
his command and that of Commander Amphibious <strong>Corps</strong>, South Pacific<br />
MCOMINCH, letter, FF1/A3–1/A16-3 ( 5), Ser 00322 of 29 Apr. 1942, subj: LONE WOLF<br />
Plan,<br />
= (a) Hough, Ludwig, Shaw, Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal, pp. 240, 241, 341-342; (b) John L.<br />
Zimmerman, <strong>The</strong> Guad&fcd?ml Campaign, <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> Monograph (Washington: Historical<br />
Branch, Headquarters U. S. <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong>, 1949), pp. 93, 128, 153, 154; (c) Isely and Crowl,<br />
U.S. <strong>Marine</strong>s and Amphibious w~r, pp. 153–57,<br />
= LONE WOLF drafted by F1232 (Capt. B. J. Rodgers) in COMINCH Pacific Section of the<br />
Plans Division. This section was headed by Colonel DeWitt Peck, <strong>US</strong>MC, who was F123.
1941 Developments for Am@ibiozfs War 219<br />
Force. This letter, and the endorsements placed upon it, was sent to the<br />
Commandant of the <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> for comment. <strong>The</strong> Commandant did not<br />
utilize this opportunity to mention the command relationship problem of<br />
Commander Amphibious Force, South Pacific Force, and his <strong>Marine</strong> subordinate,<br />
if it then existed in his mind.39<br />
Once the COMINCH order had been issued, the responsibility for exer-<br />
cising the command lay with Commander Amphibious Force, South Pacific.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner exercised command of the <strong>Marine</strong>s during the early<br />
months of the WATCHTOWER Operations because the Commander in<br />
Chief directed him to do so. <strong>The</strong>re was nothing in either the then current<br />
version of the Landing Operations Doctrine, 1938 Revised Fleet Training<br />
Publication 167, nor in the operations orders or instructions issued by any<br />
senior in the chain of command for the WATCHTOWER Operation which<br />
watered down the COMINCH directive.<br />
This directive was reaffirmed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 2 July 1942.<br />
It did not speak of broad strategical direction. It talked of “direct command<br />
of the tactical operations” as follows:<br />
Direct command of the tactical operations of the amphibious forces {of which<br />
the <strong>Marine</strong>s were the major ingredient] will remain with the Naval Task<br />
Force Commander throughout the conduct of all three tasks.<br />
<strong>The</strong> three tasks referred to were the amphibious operations designed to<br />
secure control of:<br />
1. Santa Cruz Islands, Tulagi, and adjacent position.<br />
2. Remainder of Solomon Islands, Northeast Coast of New Guinea.<br />
3. Rabaul, and adjacent positions; New Guinea—New Ireland.’”<br />
When, on the occasion of his visit to the Amphibious Force, South Pacific<br />
Command in late October 1942, the <strong>Marine</strong> Commandant, Lieutenant General<br />
Thomas Holcomb, raised the question of command relationships in<br />
SOPAC’S Amphibious Force, and suggested changes in organization and in<br />
command relationships, Rear Admiral Turner was not adverse thereto.”<br />
When Commander South Pacific sent to Turner for comment a despatch<br />
with the suggested organizational changes, it was acceptable to him, with<br />
very minor modifications (nit picks ), and when these changes were made he<br />
so informed Commander South Pacific Force in writing of his approval.<br />
* (a) COMPHIBFORPACFLT, letter, A16-1/l l/Ser 938 of 13 May 1942; (b) COMDT<br />
<strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong>, letter, AO–278 003B1 5542 of 5 Jun. 1942.<br />
‘JCS 00581 of 2 Jul. 1942.<br />
4’Turner.
220 ArnPbibians Came To Conquer<br />
<strong>The</strong> minor modifications in wording Rear Admiral Turner had suggested<br />
in the first draft were made by COMSOPAC and that was the form in<br />
which the recommended change was approved and sent up the chain of<br />
command.42 <strong>The</strong>se changes:<br />
a. detached the First <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> from the Amphibious Force,<br />
SOPAC, and established the <strong>Corps</strong> Commander on the same echelon<br />
of command as Commander Amphibious Force, SOPAC.<br />
b. provided that joint planning in the future by COMGENPHIBCORPS<br />
and COMPHIBFORSOPAC would be conducted under the control<br />
of COMSOPAC.<br />
c. provided that after conclusion of the landing phase of an operation,<br />
during which <strong>Marine</strong> units from the Amphibious Force command<br />
landed, a task organization for the shore phase of the operation<br />
would be established, or the <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> units would revert to<br />
<strong>Corps</strong> command, when and as directed by Commander South Pacific.<br />
This established a pattern carried out with minor modifications, throughout<br />
the Pacific phase of World War II.<br />
In order that Rear Admiral Turner’s thinking in late October 1942 in<br />
regard to his command of the <strong>Marine</strong>s can be set forth for all to read, and so<br />
inferences that he was bypassed when the matter was considered and then<br />
opposed any change thereto, as intimated in the of%cial <strong>Marine</strong> history,’s<br />
can be shown to be less than accurate, the official letter is quoted below:<br />
oo/hw<br />
File No. AMPHIBIO<strong>US</strong> FORCE<br />
FE25/A3–l SOUTH PACIFIC FORCE<br />
OFFICE OF THE COMMANDER<br />
Serial 00342<br />
U.S.S. McCAWLEY, Flagship,<br />
October 29, 1942<br />
SECRET<br />
From: Commander Amphibious Force, South Pacific<br />
To: Commander South Pacific Force.<br />
Subject: Reorganization of Amphibious Force, South Pacific<br />
- (a) COMSOPAC to CINCPAC, messages, 312126, Oct. 1942; COMINCH to CINCPAC,<br />
091950 Nov. 1942; CINCpAC to COMINCH, 030201 Nov, 1942; COMSOPAC to TF Commanders,<br />
SOPAC, 161114 Nov. 1942; (b) Turner,<br />
u Hough, Ludwig, Shaw, Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal, p, 34I.
1941 Developments for Amphibious War 221<br />
References: (a) Second”draft of proposed secret despatch from Cornsopac to<br />
Cincpac.<br />
(b) Cominch secret letter FFI/A3-I serial 00935 of September<br />
7, 1942.<br />
1. I am in entire sympathy with the purpose of reference (a). <strong>The</strong> rigid<br />
organization prescribed by reference (b), and now in effect, is cumbersome,<br />
results in a difision of responsibility and authority, and injects into the<br />
organization of the forces an echelon of command which, while possibly<br />
convenient for delegating authority for training (such as on the West Coast<br />
of the United States), is not likely to be effective for the many variations<br />
of offensive and defensive operations involved in warfare in the South Pacific.<br />
2. However, the question of the organization and operations of the Amphibious<br />
Force is very closely tied up with the organization and operations of<br />
all p“~ of the South Pacific Force, to a degree that does not apply to other<br />
Task Forces. Furthermore, it is believed that the major lines of organization<br />
of the South Pacific Force require some clarification. For this reason, it is<br />
suggested that reference (a) would solve only one part of the problem.<br />
Furthermore, since it is in direct conflict with reference (b), it might not be<br />
looked upon with favor by higher authorities unless the entire picture is<br />
clarified.<br />
3. It is, therefore, recommended that a despatch be sent to the Commander<br />
in Chief, U. S. Pacific Fleet, somewhat along the lines indicated in<br />
the following draft:<br />
File No. AMPHIBIO<strong>US</strong> FORCE<br />
FE25/A3–l SOUTH PACIFIC FORCE<br />
OFFICE OF THE COMMANDER<br />
Serial 00342<br />
SECRET<br />
Subject: Reorganization of Amphibious Force, South Pacific.<br />
From: COMSOPAC<br />
To: CINCPAC<br />
EXPERIENCE IN SOPAC INDICATES PERMANENT ORGANIZA-<br />
TION OF AMPHIBIO<strong>US</strong> FORCE AS NOW PRESCRIBED BY JCS<br />
EIGHT ONE SLANT ONE OF SEPTEMBER FIFTH FORWARDED<br />
BY COMINCH SECRET SERIAL ZERO ZERO NINE THREE FIVE OF<br />
SEPTEMBER SEVENTH LEADS TO UNDESIRABLE COMPLICA-<br />
TIONS IN ADMINISTRATION CMA AND TO DISPERSION OF RE-<br />
SPONSIBILITY AND AUTHORITY FOR NORMAL AND <strong>US</strong>UAL<br />
LAND SEA AND AIR OPERATIONS PARA SINCE THIS SUBJECT<br />
CMA DUE TO GEOGRAPHY AND THE VARIED NATURE OF THE<br />
FORCES ASSIGNED MY COMMAND CMA IS CLEARLY BOUND UP<br />
WITH OPERATIONS AND ADMINISTRATION OF THE ENTIRE<br />
SOUTH PACIFIC AREA CMA I RECOMMEND THAT THE SOUTH
222 Arn@ibians Carrie To Conqner<br />
PACIFIC FORCE BE ORGANIZED AS FOLLOWS COLON AFIRM<br />
PACIFIC FLEET OPERATIONAL COMBATANT TASK FORCES AS-<br />
SIGNED PERMANENTLY OR TEMPORARILY WHOSE ADMINIS-<br />
TRATION GENERALLY UNDER TYPE COMMANDERS EITHER OF<br />
PACFLT OR SOPAC ‘TEMPORARY CHANGES IN TASK FORCE WILL<br />
BE MADE AS REQUIRED WHILE IN SOPAC BAKER AIRCRAFT<br />
SOPAC WITH ADMINISTRATION OF ALL SHORE BASED NAVAL<br />
AIR UNITS CMA AND OPERATION CONTROL OF ALL ARMY<br />
NAVY AND MARINE AIR UNITS NOT ASSIGNED FOR LOCAL<br />
DEFENSE OR TEMPORARILY ASSIGNED OTHER TASK FORCES<br />
COMMANDERS FOR PARTICULAR TASKS CAST <strong>US</strong> ARMY FORCES<br />
SOPAC WITH ADMINISTRATION OF ALL <strong>US</strong> ARMY FORCES CMA<br />
AND OPERATIONAL CONTROL OF <strong>US</strong> AND ALLIED LAND<br />
FORCES ASSIGNED BY COMSOPAC DOG FIRST CORPS <strong>US</strong> MA-<br />
RINES WITH ADMINISTRATION OF ALL MARINE UNITS SOPAC<br />
LESS UNITS ASSIGNED TO SAMOAN AREA CMA AND OPERA-<br />
TIONAL CONTROL OF <strong>US</strong> AND ALLIED LAND FORCES ASSIGNED<br />
BY COMSOPAC EASY AMPHIBIO<strong>US</strong> FORCE SOPAC WITH ADMIN-<br />
ISTRATION AND OPERATION OF ALL COMBAT TRANSPORTS<br />
CARGO VESSELS AND ATTACHED UNITS IN SOPAC CMA AND<br />
OPERATIONAL CONTROL OF LAND SEA AND AIR FORCES TEM-<br />
PORARILY ASCIGNED FROM OTHER FORCES FOR PARTICULAR<br />
TASKS FOX BASE FORCE SOPAC WITH ADMINISTRATION OF<br />
ALL NAVAL BASES IN THE AREA AND OPERATIONAL CONTROL<br />
OF ALL PORTS CMA EXCEPT AS TO MILITARY FEATURES CMA<br />
WHICH REMAIN UNDER THE MILITARY COMMANDERS OF<br />
BASES GEORGE SERVICE SQUADRON SOPAC ADMINISTRATION<br />
OF LOGISTICS AND SUPPLY BASES PAREN INCLUDING SHIP<br />
REPAIRS AND PERSONNEL REPLACEMENT PAREN CMA RE-<br />
QUIRED FOR SUPPORT OF NAVAL UNITS IN SOPAC CMA<br />
WHETHER LAND SEA OR AIR CMA PL<strong>US</strong> LOGISTIC SUPPLY FOR<br />
MARINES ARMY AND ALLIED FORCES AND CIVIL POPULATIONS<br />
FOR PARTICULAR ITEMS WHICH MAY BE DECIDED ON AND<br />
OPERATIONAL CONTROL OF NTS UNITS PERMANENTLY OR<br />
TEMPORARILY IN SOPAC CMA PL<strong>US</strong> ARMY ALLIED AND CHAR-<br />
TERED VESSELSASSIGNED HYPO JOINT PURCHASING BOARD AS<br />
NOW ORGANIZED PARA IT 1S TO BE UNDERSTOOD THAT OP-<br />
ERATIONAL CONTROL IS TO INCLUDE CONTROL OF SPECIAL<br />
TRAINING OF UNITS FOR THE PARTICULAR OPERATIONS IN<br />
PROSPECT CMA AND THAT COMSOPAC WILL ACTIVELY COOR-<br />
DINATE JOINT PLANNING TRAINING AND OPERATIONS<br />
AMONG TASK AND ADMINISTRATIVE AGENCIES PARA UNDER<br />
THE FOREGOING CONCEPT NORMAL AND <strong>US</strong>UAL OPERATIONS<br />
LAND SEA AND AIR WILL BE UNDER LAND SEA AND AIR COM-
1941 Deueiopments for Amphibious War 223<br />
MANDERS CMA MINOR AMPHIBIO<strong>US</strong> OPERATIONS WILL CON-<br />
VENIENTLY BE ARRANGED BY LOCAL COMMANDERS WITH<br />
THE FORCES NORMALLY ASSIGNED CMA AND MAJOR AM-<br />
PHIBIO<strong>US</strong> OPERATIONS WILL BE EXECUTED BY THE COM-<br />
MANDER AMPHIBIO<strong>US</strong> FORCE WITH TASK FORCES ADAPTED<br />
TO THE PURPOSE AND PLACED AT HIS DISPOSAL X DECISIONS<br />
AS TO THE TIMES FOR THE FORMATION AND DISSOLUTION OF<br />
AMPHIBIO<strong>US</strong> TASK ORGANIZATIONS AND THE SCOPE OF THE<br />
TASK WILL VARY WITH PARTICULAR CIRCUMSTANCES AND<br />
SHOULD REMAIN AT THE DISCRETION OF COMSOPAC.<br />
R. K. TURNER<br />
And yet it has not been infrequent for this scribe to hear a First Division<br />
<strong>Marine</strong> who was on Guadalcanal in 1942 start off a comment on Admiral<br />
Turner by saying “That S.O.B. Turner, always interfering with the <strong>Marine</strong>s.”<br />
He WM not interfering with them. He was performing an assigned com-<br />
mand fumtion.<br />
DOCTRINE 1941<br />
Amphibious Doctrine is a statement of the working principles of amphibious<br />
warfare. Just what our amphibious doctrine was when we entered World<br />
War II on 7 December 1941 is not always agreed upon, although in the War<br />
Instruction and in Landing Operations Doctritie of that period are two clear<br />
bench marks.”<br />
In the 1934 edition of War ltistructions, United StateJ Navy, the subject<br />
“amphibious warfare” was not even listed in the index. In the actual textual<br />
matter, it was only indirectly referred to as one of the eight main tasks of<br />
the Navy in war in the following words:<br />
Escort of and cooperation with Expeditionary Forces in the seizure and<br />
defense of advanced bases and the invasion of enemy territory.4’<br />
In 1939, when ~oint Action of tbe Army and the Nauy was changed to deal<br />
in greater detail with Joint Operations, the Navy was assigned the following<br />
task which soon appeared in a change to the War Instructions.<br />
To seize, establish, and defend until relieved by Army forces, advanced naval<br />
bases, and to conduct such limited auxiliary land operations as are essential<br />
to the prosecution of the NavaI Campaign.ls<br />
4’ W~r Itrftrzctiom, Utri/ed State$ Ndvy, 1934 ( FTP 143) with changes to December 1941;<br />
Landing Operations Doctrine, 1938 ( FTP 167) with change No. 1.<br />
“ Ibid., 1934, Ch. III, para, 310e,<br />
“ Ibid., 1934, Change No, 6a, RPM No. 1121 of 14 Sep. 1939.
224 Azv~hibians Came To Conquet<br />
In 1941, War Instructions, United States ZVavy was backed up in detail by<br />
a number of confidential publications titled Tactical Instructions each separately<br />
relating to the tactics of aircraft, submarines, battleships, destroyers,<br />
or other type ships in the support of the general doctrines stated in War<br />
lnstrizctions. In the field of amphibious warfare the detailed publication was<br />
Landing operations Doctrine, United Stales Navy, 1938, However, there<br />
was one great difference between amphibious warfare, and such areas as<br />
mine warfare, anti-submarine warfare, or air warfare. <strong>The</strong> backer-up publica-<br />
tion was 99.44 percent of the whole.<br />
It was not until late 1944 that amphibious operations were given a full<br />
chapter treatment in the 1944 War ln~~ruction~, which was a complete<br />
re-write of the 1934 edition. This edition noted that an “amphibious opera-<br />
tion” was synonymous with a “Joint overseas expedition,” a term frequently<br />
used by the Army and Navy during the previous 50 years.” It was Admiral<br />
Turner’s belief that some of those who talked or wrote of vast changes<br />
which took place in amphibious doctrine during World War 11 tended to<br />
confuse the fast changing techniques which were used to implement the<br />
doctrine with changes in the basic doctrine itself.”<br />
Admiral Turner, in 1960, recalled that during his three years at the Naval<br />
War College, the basic amphibious doctrine taught there from 1936 to 1938<br />
related directly to the seizure of advanced bases which would facilitate the<br />
projection of the United States Fleet into the Western Pacific. <strong>The</strong> Admiral<br />
summarized the Lme-world War II Amphibious<br />
1<br />
Doctrine about as follows:<br />
1.<br />
2.<br />
3.<br />
4.<br />
4’ Ibid., 1944.<br />
“ Turner.<br />
<strong>The</strong> place chosen for landing amphibious troops must be favorable<br />
from the naval point of view, so that the landing craft can land<br />
easily; and the terrain in the rear of the chosen beach must be<br />
favorable from the Landing Force point of view, so the attack can<br />
move away from the beach area.<br />
<strong>The</strong> naval gun and the airplane must be used to control the sea<br />
and air at the objective area, to reduce or eliminate enemy resistance<br />
in the chosen landing beach area, and to assist the Landing Force in<br />
moving out of the beach area to its objectives.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Landing Force early objectives must be far enough away from<br />
the chosen landing beach to remove the landing beach from the<br />
field of enemy artillery fire.<br />
<strong>The</strong> logistic support of the Landing Force via a reasonably secure
1941 Developments for Amphibious War 225<br />
line of communications must build up rapidly so as to free the<br />
Fleet for further movement.<br />
5. As soon as the action ashore changes from amphibious warfare to<br />
land warfare, the Army relieves the <strong>Marine</strong>s.<br />
Admiral Turner added:<br />
All of these were of course subject to all the over-riding General Principles<br />
of War, such as surprise, landing where and when the enemy wasn’t immediately<br />
expecting you, and the only part of this general doctrine which I would<br />
say that was changed markedly in the war was the fifth one. <strong>The</strong> Army got<br />
into amphibious warfare in a big way, and in the earliest stage-at Guadalcanal,<br />
they didn’t relieve the <strong>Marine</strong>s as soon as I thought the doctrine<br />
called for.<br />
Of course during Guadalcanal, I can’t saywe had a secure line of communications,<br />
or that at Okinawa we had control of the air all the time. But that<br />
didn’t change the doctrine. We just were temporarily unable to carry it out.”<br />
TRAINING<br />
<strong>The</strong> question could be logically asked whether the future Commander<br />
Amphibious Force, Pacific Fleet received practical training as a lieutenant<br />
commander, ‘commander or junior captain during the major Fleet Landing<br />
Exercises (FLEX 1 to FLEX 6) or the more elementary Landing Force<br />
exercises in 1922, 1923, 1924, 1925, 1931 or 1932?<br />
With one exception, the answer is “No.” As a lieutenant commander and<br />
Gunnery, Officer on the Staff of Commander Scouting Fleet during Fleet<br />
Problem 3, in January 1924, he took part in planning that exercise. <strong>The</strong><br />
5th <strong>Marine</strong> Regiment of the <strong>Marine</strong> Expeditionary Force landed at the<br />
Atlantic end of the Panama Canal, and provided the diversion and holding<br />
effort during which the Atlantic locks were simulated to be blown up to<br />
prevent the passage of the Pacific Fleet. <strong>The</strong> balance of the <strong>Marine</strong> Expeditionary<br />
Force, the forerunner of the Fleet <strong>Marine</strong> Force, landed at Culebra,<br />
and prepared it as an island defense base.<br />
Commander Turner missed the 1936, 1937, and 1938 amphibious exercises<br />
through being on duty at the Naval War College, and the 1931 and 1932<br />
exercises when he was assigned to the Navy Department. He was in the<br />
California (BB-44) in 1922, and she did not participate in the <strong>Marine</strong><br />
phases of the 1922 Fleet Problem, nor in the <strong>Marine</strong> landing exercises at<br />
- Turner.
226 Atn~hibians Came To Conquer<br />
Panama in 1923. He was in the Saratoga in 1935, but she did not participate<br />
in FLEX 1.<br />
Starting in late 1938 when Captain Turner was back afloat in command<br />
of the heavy cruiser A~toria, the Fleet Landing Exercises had become pretty<br />
much the property of the Atlantic Fleet and the A~tor;a was in the Pacific<br />
Fleet so he missed the experimental night landings of 1939 and 1940. By<br />
October 1940, Captain Turner was back in the Navy Department. He<br />
participated in planning Fleet Problems and Joint Exercises at the departmental<br />
level but again he missed both FLEX 7 which took place in the<br />
Atlantic and the Joint Landing Exercises in the Pacific in 1940 and 1941.<br />
In his younger years, like all naval officers facing promotion examinations<br />
and annual inspections, he had studied the Navy’s 1920 and the 1927 revised<br />
edition of the Landing Force Manual, At the Naval War College he studied<br />
the Joint Board pamphlet, titled ]oint Ovetseas Expeditions, promulgated in<br />
1933, as well as the Navy’s 1935 Tentative Landing Operations Manrzal<br />
which, though based on the Joint Board text, was drafted at the <strong>Marine</strong><br />
<strong>Corps</strong> Schools at Quantico.<br />
Final reports on Fleet Problems and Fleet Landing Exercises were comprehensive<br />
documents circulated by the Navy Department and by Fleet<br />
Commanders to ships and stations. In this way, all officers were generally<br />
in touch with amphibious warfare techniques, lessons learned and sugges-<br />
tions made for improvement. Yet, Admiral Turner, an avid student of all<br />
that related to past and present naval operations, stated that he had nothing<br />
but “a highly theoretical knowledge of amphibious warfare” and a ‘“willingness<br />
to learn” to take into the WATCHTOWER Operation.go It was the<br />
“willingness to learn” that paid such high dividends to the Navy.<br />
THE AMPHIBIO<strong>US</strong> OPERATION BIBLE<br />
<strong>The</strong> 1938 edition of Latiding Operations Doctrine, United States Navy<br />
(FTP-167) is a rare publication in its uncorrected and original condition,<br />
but a necessary bench mark for the status of United States amphibious<br />
techniques and material development before World War 11 started in<br />
Europe. It superseded the 1935 Tentatiue Landing Opevatiovzs Manua~.<br />
<strong>The</strong> 1935 Manual was very largely based on the Tentative Manual for<br />
Landing Operations drafted by four officers, including Lieutenant Walter C.<br />
m Ibid.
1941 Developments for Amphibious War 227<br />
Ansel, <strong>US</strong>N, of the <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> Schools Staff and issued in January 1934,<br />
but retitled Manaal for Nava[ Overseas Operations in August 1934. <strong>The</strong><br />
January 1934 publication in turn superseded the Landing Fovce Manuals<br />
of the Navy of earlier years which were about 98 percent devoted to the<br />
“Manual of the Infantryman” and the parade, and were mostly non-amphibious<br />
in character despite their titles. <strong>The</strong> early Landing Force Manuals<br />
basically arose from the need to train sailormen as infantry for the countless<br />
Naval landings on foreign shores to protect American lives and property<br />
during the previous one hundred years, when the <strong>Marine</strong>s had to be supple-<br />
mented with sailormen.<br />
In May 1941, Change No. 1 to the 1938 Landing Operations Doctrine,<br />
based on the more recent Fleet Landing Force Exercises, reports of observers<br />
overseas, and material developments of the 1938–1941 period, was issued.<br />
It was “a complete revision of FTP 167 except for the title page.” 5’ <strong>The</strong><br />
WATCHTOWER Operation was based on this massive revision of FTP 167,<br />
although Change No. 2, with 60 new pages was issued in Washington on<br />
1 August 1942, six days before the Tulagi-Guadalcanal landings.<br />
<strong>The</strong> amphibious experience in the Solomons and in North Africa led to<br />
further revisions, and these came out in another fifty new pages of the<br />
Landing Operations Doctrine in August 1943. In these changes, Rear<br />
Admiral Turner not only had a hand; he many times called the tune.<br />
~ ~fl~;n~ ~~~rd~;~~~Docfrine, 1938, Change No. 1. P. 111
CHAPTER VII<br />
WATCHTOWER;<br />
One for Ernie King<br />
THE DECISION TO OPEN THE OFFENSIVE-<br />
DEFENSIVE PHASE<br />
To get the United States offensive-defensive phase in amphibious warfare<br />
started against the southward rolling Japanese, the military decision that<br />
this was a practicality, within United States amphibious resources, had to<br />
be taken.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n the area of the counter-offensive had to be chosen, and specific<br />
amphibious operations within this area had to be conceived.<br />
Note: <strong>The</strong> officialU. S. Army history of the Guadalcanal Operation, written in 1948, states that<br />
the documents in the files of the Navy in regard thereto are “widely diffused.”’ This was the<br />
understatement of the year. Official War Diaries of ships and unit commands are available in<br />
quantity, but when it comes to locating background data in the files which individual ships and<br />
lower unit commands continuously maintained during World War II, it cannot be done, because<br />
these files are non-existent. <strong>The</strong>y were officially destroyed and went up in smoke. <strong>The</strong> Directors<br />
of Naval Record Centers witnessed this great historical loss as they struggled to stay within<br />
available stowage space or below a set maximum cubic footage of record allowed by orders<br />
originating in the Executive Office of the Secretary of the Navy or in the Department of Defense.<br />
Even the War Diaries were limited in scope and contents. In June 1942 the Assistant Chief of<br />
Staff to the Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet addressed a letter to the Commander Amphibious<br />
Force, Pacific Fleet in which he said:<br />
‘To conserve paper and time, it is suggested that the reference report [War Diary] could<br />
be materially condensed.’<br />
<strong>The</strong>re was not much in the Amphibian War Diaries before this, and after the word got around,<br />
a whole months War Diary appeared on two pages with nary a mention of policy, plans, or<br />
progress contained therein.<br />
PESTILENCE was the code name assigned for the entire offensive operation in the South<br />
Pacific Area initiated in July 1942. WATCHTOWER was the code name for the Tulagi Phase.<br />
CINCPAC to COMSOPAC Ser 070231 of Jul. 42.<br />
‘ (a) John Miller Jr., G#uddkznu/: <strong>The</strong> Fir,~ Ofiemive, Vol. 5 in subseries <strong>The</strong> Wur irs T~e<br />
~acificof series UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR H (Washington: Historical<br />
Division, Department of the Army, 1949), p. xi. (b) CINCPACFLT to COMPHIBFORPACFLT,<br />
letter, A16-3/LE/A~5 (o5 )/Ser 01745, of 2I Jun. 1942. Signed by Capt. Irving D. Wiltsie,<br />
<strong>US</strong>N. (c) COMPHIBFORPACFLT, War Diurie~, Jun.-Dee. 1942.<br />
229
230 Ampbibi~ns Came To Conquer<br />
Next, the basic ~ilitifi decision and the specific operation had to be sold<br />
first at the highest Joint Military and then at the highest U.S. political level.<br />
Practical knowledge of amphibious operations was thinly held at both these<br />
levels.<br />
And finally, the plan had to become a simple practical reality, with<br />
probable success lying within the hard framework of calculated risk.<br />
Everything about the Watchtower Phase of the PESTILENCE Operation<br />
initiated by the Navy-<strong>Marine</strong> amphibious team against the fast moving and<br />
hard fighting Japanese Army and Navy was difficult. But the most difficult<br />
part was the taking of the military decision at the Joint Chiefs of Staff level<br />
to initiate the offensive-defensive phases of amphibious warfare in the<br />
Pacific War. It was Rear Admiral Turner who, at the working level, spear-<br />
headed Admiral King’s drive to secure this decision at the Joint military<br />
level.<br />
NAVY PLANNERS’ POSITION<br />
In accordance with the pre-World War II promulgated Joint Army-Navy<br />
War Plan, Rainbow Five, the United States Navy was under orders to<br />
commence an immediate amphibious offensive against the Japanese Central<br />
Pacific Islands, as soon as war with Japan was declared.’ But, at the Joint<br />
Board Meeting of 8 December 1941, because eight battleships of the Pacific<br />
Fleet were out of action, the unhappy decision had to be taken by the Board<br />
“to postpone or abandon the task to capture and establish control over the<br />
Caroline Islands and Marshall Island Areas.” 3<br />
Everyone who had read the Rainbow Five War Plan, and this included<br />
most mature officers in the Navy, knew that this amphibious task against<br />
these Japanese held islands was to be undertaken by the Navy despite the<br />
fact that Rainbow Five clearly stated that Europe was the principal theater<br />
of the war and Germany the major enemy. Hence, it was quite logical that<br />
naval officers would continue to expect that the early 1942 war effort in<br />
the Pacific would encompass amphibious action against Japanese outposts<br />
as part of the effort to strangle Japan, despite the postponement or cancella-<br />
tion of the particular pre-war planned offensive against the Caroline and<br />
Marshall Islands.<br />
‘ Navy Baaic War Plan, Rzinbow Five, WPL–46, part III; ch. 11; sec. 1; pa.ra. 3212, sub:<br />
Tasks of Pacific Fleet.<br />
SJoint Board No. 325, Ser 738,8 Dec. 1941.
WATCHTOWER
232 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
<strong>The</strong> author can record that the Naval War Planners, which Rear Admiral<br />
Turner headed (as F-1 on Admiral King’s Staff), and of which the writer<br />
(as F-II on the Plans Division for the first year of the war) was a very<br />
small cog, were under a great deal of professional pressure to make the<br />
concept of offensive amphibious action, as in the Rainbow Plan, live again.<br />
ARMY PLANNERS POSITION<br />
<strong>The</strong> United States Army Planners in Washington 4 in early 1942 took<br />
a dim view of any large scale diversion of Army resources for counteroffensive<br />
purposes in the Pacific Ocean Area, as long as the over-all direc-<br />
tion for the conduct of the war stated that:<br />
1.<br />
24<br />
3.<br />
Germany is the predominant member of the Axis Powers,<br />
<strong>The</strong> Atlantic and European Area is considered to be the decisive<br />
theater, and<br />
“<strong>The</strong> principal United States military effort will be exerted in the<br />
decisive theater, and operations of United States forces in other<br />
theaters will be conducted in such a manner as to facilitate that<br />
effort ,”5<br />
<strong>The</strong> Army’s official history makes this position clear.<br />
<strong>The</strong> basic Army position was:<br />
. . . to emphasize the need for economy of effort in “subsidiary’ theaters.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y classified as subsidiary theaters not only the Far East but also Africa, the<br />
Middle East, the Iberian Peninsula, and the Scandinavian Peninsula. . . .<br />
to consider all other operations as strictly holding operations, and to regard<br />
with disfavor any proposal to establish and maintain in a ‘subsidiary’ theater<br />
the favorable ratio of Allied to enemy forces, that would be necessary in order<br />
to take the offensive there.e<br />
‘ Senior Army War Planners in late 1941 and early 1942 included Major General L. T. Gerow,<br />
Chief of War Plans Division, General Staff; Major General Carl Spaatz, Army Air Force;<br />
Brigadier General D, D. Eisenhower, Deputy Chief, War Plans Division, General Statf; Brigadier<br />
General J. T. McNarney, War Plans Division, Army Air Force; Brigadier General R. W. Crawford,<br />
War Plans Division, General Staff; Colonel T. T. Handy, War Plans Division, General<br />
StaE. At this time there was no separate Air Force. <strong>The</strong> Air Force was created from the Army<br />
Air Force on 26 July 1947.<br />
s Navy Basic War Plan, Rainbowl%e, WPL-46, app. I, sec. IV, para. 13a, subj: Concept<br />
of the War.<br />
a Maurice Matloff and Edwin M. Snell, Strategic Planningfor Coaii$~onWar/aw 1941–1 942,<br />
Vol. HI in subseries Tbe Wur Department of series UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD<br />
WAR 11 (Washington: Otlice of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1953),<br />
p. 101-02.
WATCHTOWER 233<br />
<strong>The</strong> Army Air Force History indicates the same position for the air arm:<br />
<strong>The</strong> prime factor affecting all Army air forces in the Pacific and Asiatic<br />
theaters was the pre-eminence accorded by the Combined Chiefs of Stafl<br />
(CCS) tothewar against Germany. Because of thepararnount interests of<br />
the U.S. Navy in the Pacific, there was no stinting of naval forces there in<br />
favor of the Atlantic. But during the early part of the war, allocations for<br />
Army air (and ground) forces were strictly conditioned by the needs of the<br />
European <strong>The</strong>ater of Operations (ETO).7<br />
<strong>The</strong>re was no disagreement with the basic Joint Rainbow directive on the<br />
part of the high command of the Navy, or their supporting war planners.’<br />
In fact, the basic philosophy on the concept and conduct of the war, and its<br />
grand strategy, stated above, had been so phrased in the initial versions of<br />
the Rainbow War Plan, as drafted by the Navy War Plans Division. This<br />
particular wording had survived to the final document, and Rainbow Five<br />
had been placed in effect when the war started. Two weeks later, on<br />
22 December 1941, this concept, and the Navy’s overall support of Rainbow<br />
Five, was reailirmed by Admiral H. R. Stark, Chief of Naval Operations.’ It<br />
was in the interpretation of the phrase, “Operations in other theaters will<br />
be conducted in such a manner as to facilitate that effort,” in the European<br />
theater, which brought forth a strong divergence of naval opinion from that<br />
held by many in Army Headquarters.<br />
ARCADIA CONFERENCE<br />
This basic philosophy of Rainbow Five on the grand strategy of the war<br />
was approved at the ARCADIA Conference, held in Washington, D. C.,<br />
from 22 December 1941 to 14 January 1942, between Prime Minister<br />
Churchill, President Roosevelt and their principal military subordinates and<br />
supporting stafls.l”<br />
However, during the ARCADIA Conference, a “clarification,” which<br />
“U.S. Air Force Historical Division, Tbe Pacific: Guadukanal to Saipun, Vol. IV of THE<br />
ARMY AIR FORCES IN WORLD WAR II, eds. Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate<br />
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950), p. x.<br />
a Senior Naval War Planners included (roster of 27 January 1942) Rear Admiral R. K. Turner,<br />
Chief of War Plans Division; Captain Bernhard H. Bieri, Assistant Chief; Captain O. M. Read;<br />
Captain R. E. Davison; Captain B. J. Rodgers; Captain Forrest P. Sherman.<br />
0King’s Record, p. 361.<br />
‘0Proceedings of ARCADIA Conference held in Washington, D. C., 24 Dec. 1941—14 Jan. 1942,<br />
Part 11. Approved Documents, U.S. Ser ABC–4/CS-1, 31 Dec. 1941; subj: American-British<br />
Grand Strategy.
234 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
amounted to a modification, was given to the phrase in Rainbow Five which<br />
read:<br />
Operations of United States forces in other theaters [than the European<br />
theater] will be conducted in such a manner as to facilitate that [European]<br />
effort.<br />
<strong>The</strong> clarification was accomplished despite the similarity strong statement<br />
in the British drafted paragraph in the ARCADIA document which read:<br />
. . . it should be a cardinal principle of American-British strategy that only<br />
the minimum of force necessary for the safeguarding of vital interests in other<br />
theaters should be diverted from operations against Germany.”<br />
<strong>The</strong>se two paragraphs might be literally interpreted to establish a barbed<br />
wire fence against any offensive efforts by the United States Navy in the<br />
Pacific.<br />
Clarification was essential to make indisputable the Naval Planners’ posi-<br />
tion that “facilitating operations against Germany” required that vital interests<br />
in the Far East Area must be safeguarded.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Combined Chiefs of Staff, after stating the “cardinal principle” of<br />
their future strategy, set forth six essential features of this grand strategy.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y then prescribed 18 supporting measures to be taken in 1942 to further<br />
its various aspects. Only the last of the six essential features and the last of<br />
the 18 supporting measures related exclusively to the Pacific.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Combined Chiefs modified, in effect, their “cardinal principle” a bit<br />
by stating one subordinate task so that it was more to the liking of those in<br />
the United States Navy, who were anxious to try to stop the Japanese before<br />
they controlled the whole Pacific Ocean south of the equator. This modification<br />
was contained in subparagraph 4(f) of the Grand Strategy document,<br />
which read:<br />
Maintaining only such positions in the Eastern <strong>The</strong>atre {British term for the<br />
Far East Area] as will safeguard vital interests (See paragtwpb 18) and denying<br />
to Japm access to raw materials vital to her continuous war effort, while<br />
we are concentrating on the defeat of Germany.<br />
<strong>The</strong> “see paragraph 18” and the phrase following, italicized above, appear<br />
as additions to the original British draft. Paragraph 18 in the original draft,<br />
was important to the United States Navy point of view since it had the<br />
sentence: “Secondly, points of vantage from which an offensive against Japan<br />
can eventually be developed must be secured.” “<br />
u Ibid., para. 3.<br />
mIbid., para. 18.
WATCHTOWER 235<br />
<strong>The</strong> secret document containing this general statement of the American-<br />
British strategy was the only one of the 12 papers approved at the ARCADIA<br />
Conference carrying the eye-catching instructions that it was “to be kept<br />
under lock and key” and its circulation “restricted to the United States and<br />
British Chiefs of Staff and their immediate subordinates.” This same docu-<br />
ment mentioned 1943 as the agreed upon year for a “return to the continent<br />
of Europe,” which in effect meant no real counter-offensive against the<br />
Japanese until 1944 or later, since Germany had to be defeated on the<br />
continent of Europe first .13<strong>The</strong> restrictive instructions in regard to this document<br />
were closely observed in the Headquarters of Admiral King with the<br />
result that some echelons of the Staff were unaware for some weeks of this<br />
1943 European invasion provision. Consequently, they kept up pressure for<br />
“seizing points of vantage” in 1942, to be used later in what they anticipated<br />
would be a 1943 offensive against the Japanese.<br />
ADMIRAL KING PERSISTS<br />
It was Admiral Turner’s belief that Admiral King was the persistent<br />
influence at the Joint Staff and Presidential level, which resulted in the initia-<br />
tion of an amphibious counter-offensive in the Pacific Ocean Area during the<br />
late summer of 1942.’4 But Admiral King received welcome and somewhat<br />
unexpected help from the British, and the right nudge at the right time from<br />
the Japanese. Not until the British influence was made felt at the Presidential<br />
level did the Army Planners, in good conscience, wholeheartedly join in the<br />
vital start to eventual amphibious success in the Pacific.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re are many dates to record and events to recall in connection with the<br />
first counter-offensive operation against the Japanese. But the first date<br />
relating to PESTILENCE is 11 January 1942. On this date Admiral King<br />
figuratively stood on his feet at the ninth meeting of the ARCADIA Con-<br />
ference and talked not about Guadalcanal, but about New Caledonia, 800<br />
miles to the southeast of Guadalcanal. Lieutenant General H. H. Arnold,<br />
Chief of Army Air <strong>Corps</strong>, had questioned the high priority assigned to the<br />
Army Air Force contingent of aircraft planned for New Caledonia whose<br />
defense was an accepted Australian responsibility, but one the Australians<br />
could not fulfill. <strong>The</strong> French had agreed, on 24 December 1941, to United<br />
“ Ibid., para. 17.<br />
“ Turner.
. . . .<br />
!36 Atnpbibtans Came To Conquer<br />
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WATCHTOWER 237<br />
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South Pacific Area isiand garrisons.
238 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
States Forces garrisoning New Caledonia, and Army planning for this was<br />
going forward.”<br />
Believing that the 7,000-mile line of communications between San Fran-<br />
cisco and eastern Australia must be held securely, and to do this the Japanese<br />
must be stopped well short of that line, Admiral King pointed out that<br />
New Caledonia was of great importance for this purpose. Not only were<br />
the nickel mines of New Caledonia a tempting bait for the Japanese, but<br />
also, if the island was in Japanese possession, all reinforcements to Singa-<br />
pore, the Dutch East Indies, and Australia would have to take the long sea<br />
route south past New Zealand.”<br />
Admiral King’s statement fitted neatly into three essential features of<br />
our pre-World War 11 naval strategy for fighting Japan. <strong>The</strong>se held that it<br />
was important to deny Japan’s access to raw materials vital to her continuous<br />
war effort, to hold points of advantage from which an amphibious offensive<br />
against Japan could be developed, and to maintain secure lines of air and sea<br />
communication. Admiral King’s statement also fitted into his burgeoning<br />
interest in the Solomon Islands, 800 miles away to the northwest of New<br />
Caledonia.<br />
A straight line on a mercator chart from San Francisco in California to<br />
Townsville, termed the capital of Australia’s North,” passes just south of<br />
the island of Hawaii and just south of Guadalcanal Island in the Solomons.<br />
In Admiral King’s belief, the Japanese should not be permitted to impinge on<br />
this line, if the line of communications from Hawaii to Australia through<br />
Samoa, Fiji, and the New Hebrides was to be secure.”<br />
And there was no demonstrable reason at this time or for months there-<br />
after why the Japanese would not impinge on it.<br />
On the very day Admiral King addressed the ARCADIA Conference, a<br />
Japanese submarine was shelling Pago-Pago, Samoa, the eastern hinge of the<br />
line of communications to Australia, and 1,400 long sea miles to the eastward<br />
of New Caledonia. Twelve days after 11 January 1942, the Japanese were<br />
to land 1,100 miles to the northward of New Caledonia on Bougainvillea in<br />
the Solomon Islands, but only 300 miles north of a position (Tulagi) where<br />
their aircraft might begin to really threaten the line of communications to<br />
Australia.<br />
Three days before this ARCADIA discussion, Admiral King, Admiral Stark<br />
mSEC.NAVto SOP, Bora Bora, letter, Ser 05313 of 19 Jan. 1952, Encl. (A).<br />
mARCADIA Proceedings, 11 Jan. 1’942,p. 9-6.<br />
“ Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. XXII, p. 336.<br />
“ King’s Record, pp. 364, 381.
WATCHTOWER 239<br />
and General Marshall signed a Joint Basic Plan for the “Occupation and<br />
Defense of Bora Bora.” “ <strong>The</strong> purpose of this occupation was to provide in<br />
the Free French Society Islands a protected fueling station for short legged<br />
merchant ships, 4,500 miles along on the 7,500-mile mn from the Panama<br />
Canal to eastern Australia. It also provided a fueling station on a direct run<br />
from California to New Zealand. 3,750 U. S. Army troops were to be<br />
employed to defend the 120,()()0-barrel naval fuel base projected for Bora<br />
Bora.<br />
DEFENSIVE GARRISONS IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC<br />
In the basic Rainbow Fiue Plan, the Navy had responsibility for the<br />
defense of Palmyra Island almost 1,000 miles south of Pearl Harbor and of<br />
American Samoa another 1,300 miles further on in the long voyage to New<br />
Zealand. Samoa was the hinge in the line of communications from both the<br />
West Coast and from Pearl Harbor where the line swung from southerly to<br />
westerly to reach the Southwest Pacific. Small <strong>Marine</strong> garrisons at Palmyra<br />
and American Samoa were considerably reinforced shortly after 7 December<br />
1941 to make more secure the northern flange of the hinge.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Army quickly promised, and provided, garrisons for the two atolls,<br />
Canton ( 1,500 troops) and Christmas (2,OOO troops), located south of<br />
Palmyra on the route to Samoa.’” <strong>The</strong> first big strains on available Army troop<br />
resources came when a 17,000-man defense force sailed from New York<br />
City on 22 January 1942 for New Caledonia, and a 4,000-troop garrison<br />
sailed from Charleston, South Carolina, on 27 January 1942 for Bora Bora.21<br />
<strong>The</strong> establishment of these two defense forces was the first of many forward<br />
steps taken for the “Defense for the Island bases along the Lines of<br />
Communications between Hawaii and Australia.” This was the title of a Joint<br />
Planning Staff paper which brought forth much pointed, and at times<br />
unamiable, inter-Service discussion and underwent many, many changes.z’<br />
<strong>The</strong> Navy War Planners, from January through March 1942, continuously<br />
were pressing their opposite numbers in the Army for additional Pacific<br />
commitments, quoting again and again that ‘
240 A?n@ibians Came To Conquer<br />
the United States to Australia via Hawaii, Palmyra, Christmas Island, Canton,<br />
Fiji and New Caledonia must be secured,” and “points of advantage from<br />
which an offensive against Japan can eventually be developed must be<br />
secured. ” 23<strong>The</strong> Army Planners, with whom Rear Admiral Turner was dis-<br />
cussing the island garrison problem day in and day out, responded by stating<br />
again and again these principles:<br />
1. Forces should not be committed to any more than the minimum number<br />
of islands necessary to secure the Hawaii-Australia lines of communications.<br />
2. Forces committed to any one island should be the minimum needed to<br />
secure that particular island.<br />
AS stated in the Army History, General Marshall’s position was:<br />
To set a limit to future movements of Army forces into the Pacific and find a<br />
basis for increasing the rate at which Army forces would be moved across the<br />
Atlantic became, during February and March, the chief concern of General<br />
Marshall and his advisors on the War Department staff, and the focus of<br />
their discussion of future plans with the Army Air Forces and the Navy.24<br />
Yet, even as the Army troops sailed for Bora Bora and New Caledonia in<br />
late January 1942, Rear Admiral Turner pressed the Army Planners to pro-<br />
vide garrisons h-sthe New Hebrid&, 300 miles north of New Caledonia and<br />
in the Tonga Islands, 400 miles south of <strong>Marine</strong>-held Samoa. It was a<br />
fundamental Navy Planners’ position during this period that<br />
strong mutually supporting defensive positions in Samoa, Fiji, and New<br />
Caledonia are essential for the protection of the sea and air communications<br />
from the United States to Australia and for the defense of the island areas of<br />
the mid-Pacific, and for maintaining a base area for an eventual offensive<br />
against Japan.z5<br />
<strong>The</strong> reasons behind the Navy’s position was the rapidity with which<br />
Japanese were eating up Pacific Islands. Although the Japanese did<br />
declare war on the Netherlands and invade the Netherlands East Indies until<br />
11 January 1942, only 12 days later they were landing forces on Bougainvillea<br />
Island in the Solomons 2,500 miles further to the southeast. As the Japanese<br />
moved in at the head of the Solomon Islands, the chance of their making<br />
another big leap forward (900 to 1,100 miles) to seize one of the islands in<br />
= ARCADIA Proceedings, DoC ABC–4/CS-I paras. 10, 11, 18.<br />
u Matloff and Snell, Strategic Planning, p. 147.<br />
m COMINCH, letter, FF1/A16-3 .% 00191 of 17 Mar. 1942; subj: Basic Plan for Occupation<br />
and Defense of Western Samoa and Wallis Island.<br />
the<br />
not
WATCHTOWER 241<br />
the New Hebrides or Ellice Island groups worried the Naval Planners, New<br />
Caledonia was well within air range from the New Hebrides, being only<br />
300 to 400 miles away to the South. <strong>The</strong> Fijis were at the extreme air range<br />
from Funafuti in the Ellice Islands, 560 miles to the North.<br />
Ten days before Singapore fell, Admiral King forwarded a Navy War<br />
Plans Division paper, d;afted by Rear Admiral Turner, to the Joint Chiefs,<br />
recommending the establishment of an advance base at Funafuti in the Ellice<br />
Islands to provide:<br />
a. an outpost coverage of Fiji—Samoa.<br />
b. a linkage post toward the Solomon Islands.<br />
c. support for future offensive operations in the Southwest Pacific.Z*<br />
Three days after Singapore fell to the Japenese on 15 February 1942,<br />
Admiral King proposed to the Chief of Staff, U. S. Army, that the Tonga<br />
Islands, 200 miles southeast of the Fijis, and Efate, 500 miles to the west<br />
of the Fijis in the New Hebrides, be garrisoned. He asked that the Chief of<br />
Staff<br />
agree to this proposition, and immediately initiate planning and the assembly<br />
of troops and equipment, with a view to dispatching these garrisons as soon<br />
as necessaryshipping can be found.z7<br />
<strong>The</strong> day before Admiral King signed this letter, Brigadier General Eisen-<br />
hower who was to fleet up to be Chief of the Army War Plans Division on<br />
16 February 1942 was recording:<br />
<strong>The</strong> Navy wants to take all the islands in the Pacific-have them held by<br />
Army troops, to become bases for Army pursuit and bombers. <strong>The</strong>n! the Navy<br />
will have a safe place to sail its vessels. But they will not go further forward<br />
than our air (Army) can assure superiority.26<br />
It was Admiral King’s position that the vital line of communications<br />
through Samoa, Fiji, and New Caledonia was “too exposed” to air raids<br />
arising after the anticipated Japanese seizure of intermediate and nearby<br />
islands and that Tongatabu in the Tonga Islands would be the ideal location<br />
for “the principal operating [logistic support} naval base in the South<br />
Pacific.” 2’<strong>The</strong> Tonga Islands were about 1,100 miles along the direct convoy<br />
‘JCS 5.<br />
n COMINCH to C/S <strong>US</strong>A, letter, FF1/A16/c/FI, Ser 00105 of 18 Feb. 1942, and 00149<br />
of 2 Mar. 1942.<br />
a Quoted in Matloff and Snell, S~mtegic Planning, p. 154.<br />
= King’s Record, pp. 377, 383.
242 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
run from New Zealand to Samoa, Hawaii, and San Francisco. Since at that<br />
time the New Zealanders provided the air units for the Fiji Islands and a<br />
fair share of their logistic support, a through convoy could be regrouped at<br />
Tongatabu, and a small section sent to the Fiji Islands. Additionally, the<br />
Tonga Islands would provide a protected anchorage and make possible an<br />
air base, whose air contingent would provide mutual support for those on<br />
Fiji and Samoa, and which would serve as an alternate staging point on<br />
the South Pacific Air Ferry Route.<br />
As for Efate in the New Hebrides, Admiral King opined “it will serve to<br />
deny a stepping stone to the Japanese if they moved South from Rabaul,<br />
New Britain,” and provide a strong point “from which a step-by-step general<br />
advance could be made through the New Hebrides, Solomons and Bis-<br />
marcks. ” 30<br />
<strong>The</strong> Chief of Staff of the U. S. Army was very reluctant to provide Army<br />
forces for more islands along the Pearl to Australia line of communications.<br />
In a memorandum to the Commander in Chief of the U. S. Fleet, dated<br />
24 February 1942, he stated:<br />
It is my desire to do anything reasonable which will make offensive action by<br />
the Fleet practicable.<br />
However, he wanted to know the answers to a lot of questions, including:<br />
What the general scheme or concept of operations that the occupation of<br />
these additional islands was designed to advance?<br />
Were the measures taken purely for protection of a line of communications<br />
or is a step by step general advance contemplated?<br />
<strong>The</strong> Chief of Staff ended by writing:<br />
I therefore feel that, if a change in basic strategy, as already approved by the<br />
Combined Chief of Staff is involved, the entire situation must be reconsidered<br />
before we become more seriously involved in the build up of Army ground<br />
and air garrisons in the Pacific IsIands.31<br />
General Marshall further stated that<br />
Our effort in the Southwest Pacificmust, for several reasons, be limited to the<br />
strategic defensive for air and ground troops,<br />
supporting this with statements that:<br />
W(a) COMINCH, letters, FFI/A16-3/F-1, Ser 00105 of 18 Feb. 1942; (b) Quoted in Samuel<br />
E. Morison, Coral Sea, Midway and Submarine Action.r, May 194.?-,4ug. 1$@, Vol. IV of<br />
HISTORY OF UNITED STATES NAVAL OPERATIONS IN WORLD WAR II (Boston:<br />
Little, Brown & Co., 1954), p. 246.<br />
“ C/S <strong>US</strong>A to CINC<strong>US</strong>, memorandum, 24 Feb. 1942. Modern Milita~ Records, National<br />
Archives.
WATCHTOWER 243<br />
a. the geography and communications of Australia impose serious limitations<br />
on offensive air and ground offensive actions.<br />
b. limitations of tonnage for the long voyage restrict U. S. ground commitments.<br />
c. requirements for U. S. air units in other theatres would seem definitely<br />
to limit for some time to come the extent to which we can provide for a fur-<br />
ther expansion in the Pacific-Australian theater.<br />
In reply to General Marshall’s letter, Admiral King stated that:<br />
<strong>The</strong> scheme or concept of operations is not only to protect the line of com-<br />
munications with Australia, but, in so doing, set up ‘strong points’ from which<br />
a step-by-step general advance can be made through the New Hebrides,<br />
Solomons, and the Bismarck Archipelago. It is expected that such a step-by-<br />
step general advance will draw Japanese forces to oppose it, thus relieving<br />
pressure in other parts of the Pacific and that the operation will of itself be<br />
good cover for the communications with Australia.” 32<br />
Admiral King then answered each question of the Chief of Staff with his<br />
frankly more offensively minded concepts of our future Pacific endeavors:<br />
When the advance to the northwest begins, it is expected to use amphibious<br />
troops (chiefly from the Amphibious <strong>Corps</strong>, Pacific Fleet) to seize and occupy<br />
strong points under the cover of appropriate naval and air forces.<br />
I agree that the time is at hand when we must reach a decision—with the<br />
knowledge of the combined Chiefs of Staff-as to what endeavors the United<br />
States is to make in advance of the general Allied interest.<br />
This difference of opinion at the highest military level led to much ruflling<br />
of feathers at the Joint Planners level. This ruffling was the more apparent<br />
because at the time when this question of essential “land forces required to<br />
hold base areas in the first defensive stage” was being hotly debated at the<br />
Joint Staff planning level, many of the planners who were assigned duty in<br />
both the Combined Staff as well as the Joint Staff were repeating the same<br />
arguments at the Combined Staff planning levels, since the Combined Chiefs<br />
of Staff had directed the Combined Staff Planners to come up with their<br />
recommendations to this same problem.s3<br />
All this talking and memorandum writing and planning took time. <strong>The</strong><br />
Joint planning effort to provide major defensive positions of groups of<br />
islands along the line of communications to Australia was not even partially<br />
agreed upon until the end of March 1942, and it was early May before the<br />
= COMINCH to C/S <strong>US</strong>A, memorandum, Al&3/1/00149 of 2 Mar. 1942.<br />
= (a) Post ARCADIA Vol. 1, minutes of meeting; (b) CC.!+4th Meeting. 10 Feb. 1942.
244 Amphibians Came To Conqner<br />
major part of the 56,000-man garrison force agreed upon (41,000 Army;<br />
15,000 <strong>Marine</strong>s) arrived at their islands .3’<br />
<strong>The</strong> basic disagreement separating the Army and the Navy Planners<br />
during this period was whether holding Australia was vital to the United<br />
States war effort. Rear Admiral Turner believed it was. As late as 28 February<br />
1942, Brigadier General Eisenhower, did not agree. He advised General<br />
Marshall:<br />
<strong>The</strong> United States interest in maintaining contact with Australia and in<br />
preventing further Japanese expansion to the Southeastward is apparent . . .<br />
but . . . they are not immediately vital to the successful outcome of the war.<br />
<strong>The</strong> problem is one of determining what we can spare for the effort in that<br />
region, without seriously impairing performance of our mandatory tasks.35<br />
Rear Admiral Turner believed that maintaining contact with Australia<br />
was a mandatory task in view of the deteriorating British, Dutch and Ameri-<br />
can military situation in the Far East. This, fortunately, was also the view of<br />
President Roosevelt, who on 16 February 1942, advised Prime Minister<br />
Churchill: “We must at all costs maintain our two flanks-the right based<br />
on Australia and New Caledonia and the left on Burma, India and China.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> President did not go along, however, with Rear Admiral Turner’s thinking<br />
that “No further reinforcements {should] be sent to Iceland and the<br />
United Kingdom until Fall.’’”<br />
Not only were Rear Admiral Turner and Admiral King pressuring the<br />
Army during February 1942 for more positive action in the Pacific, but<br />
they were also pressuring Admiral Nimitz, and through him, subordinate<br />
Naval commanders in the Pacific. On 12 February 1942, CINCPAC was told:<br />
= (a) Order Troops Troops<br />
Issued Sailed Arrived<br />
American Samoa (<strong>Marine</strong>) 21 Dec. 41 6 Jan. 42 19 Jan. 42<br />
Bora Bora, Society Islands 8 Jan. 42 27 Jan. 42 12 Mar. 42<br />
Noumea, New Caledonia 17 Jan. 42 22 Jan. 42 12 Mar. 42<br />
Tongatabu, Tonga Islands 12 Mar. 42 10 Apr. 42 9 May 42<br />
Western Samoa (<strong>Marine</strong>) 17 Mar. 42 9 Apr. 42 8 May 42<br />
Efate, New Hebrides 20 Mar. 42 12 Apr. 42 4 May 42<br />
Viti Levi, Fiji Islands 28 Apr. 42 May 42 10 June 42<br />
New Caledonia, 22,000; Bora Bora, 4,000; Christmas Island, 2,000; Canton, 1,100; Tongatabu,<br />
7,200; Efate, 4,9oo; Samoa, 13,5oo (<strong>Marine</strong>s). 32,000 of the 41,000 Army were ““ground troops”;<br />
(b) Matloff and Snell, Strategic Planning, pp. 147-54; Miller, Guadalcanal: <strong>The</strong> FirJt Offensive,<br />
p. 24; (c) COMINCH, memorandum, FF I/Al 6-3/Ser 0019 of 17 Mar. 1942.<br />
= Quoted in Matloff and Snell, Str#egic Planningjp. 157.<br />
M(a) Turner; (b) Roosevelt to Churchill, 16 Feb. 1942 in Robert E. Sherwood, Roofeueh and<br />
Hopkins: An Intimufe Hi~tory (New York: Harper & Bros., 1948), p. 508; (c) Turner to<br />
King, memorandum, 17 Feb. 1942; subj: PacificOcean Area.
WATCHTOWER 245<br />
My 062352 [Februar~] is to be. interpreted as requiring a strong and comprehensive<br />
offensive to be launched soon against exposed enemy naval forces<br />
and the positions he is now establishing in the Bismarks and Solomons.37<br />
And again on 15 February:<br />
Current operations of the Pacific Fleet, because of existing threat, should be<br />
directed toward preventing further advance of enemy land airplane base development<br />
in the direction of Suva and Noumea. . . .38<br />
On 26 February CINCPAC was informed:<br />
our current tasks are not merely protective, but also offensive where practicable.<br />
. . .W<br />
THE BRITISH URGE ACTION IN PACIFIC<br />
<strong>The</strong> British also were in agreement with United States naval opinion,<br />
and began to put political pressure on President Roosevelt and military<br />
pressure at the Combined Chiefs’ level to give increasing protection to<br />
Australia and New Zealand, and to step up American naval action in the<br />
Pacific. Both of these were to be done at the expense of “American Army<br />
action in the European <strong>The</strong>ater of Operations.<br />
On 4 March 1942, Prime Minister Churchill advised President Roosevelt:<br />
I think we must agree to recognize that Gymnast [the varying forms of intervention<br />
in French North Africa by Britain from the east and by the United<br />
States acrossthe Atlantic] is out of the question for several months.40<br />
This despatch gave the Navy Planners a talking point, since the GYM-<br />
NAST Operation had a tentative date of 25 May 1942, and was responsible<br />
for overriding Army troop commitments to the European <strong>The</strong>ater.<br />
On 5 March, Mr. Churchill advised the President:<br />
. . . it should be possible to prevent oversea invasion of India unless the<br />
greater part of the Japanese Fleet is brought across from your side of the<br />
theater, and this again I hope the action and growing strength of the United<br />
States Navy will prevent.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> word “action” was needling in effect, whatever its intent. And again<br />
in the same message:<br />
mCOMINCH to CINCPAC, 122200 Feb. 1942.<br />
= COMINCH to CINCPAC, 151830 Feb. 1942.<br />
= COMINCH to CINCPAC, 261630 Feb. 1942.<br />
a Winston S. Churchill, Tbe Hinge o} Fute, Vol. IV of <strong>The</strong> Second World W& (Boston:<br />
Houghton Mif3in Co., 1950), p. 190.<br />
4’Ibid., p. 192.
246 Amphibians Came To Corzquer<br />
Japan is spreading itself over a very large number of vulnerable points and<br />
trying to link them together by air and sea. . . . Once several good outfits<br />
are prepared, any one of which can attack a Japanese-held base or island and<br />
beat the life out of the garrison, all their islands will become hostages to<br />
fortune. Even in this year, 1942, some severe examples might be made,<br />
causing great perturbation and drawing further upon Japanese resources to<br />
strengthen other points.4Z<br />
This despatch seconded the Naval Planners’ desire for a more positive policy<br />
towards the Pacific War.<br />
<strong>The</strong> President replied on 8 March 1942:<br />
We have beeen in constant conference since receipt of your message of<br />
March 4.<br />
<strong>The</strong>’- President pointed out, among other things, that using ships in the<br />
Pacific rather than in the Atlantic meant that ‘
WATCHTOWER 247<br />
month away from even embarking in the United States, and the <strong>Marine</strong>s were<br />
only in modest strength in American Samoa, it was obvious that nothing<br />
was going to happen soon to start the drive northward into the Solomons.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner was in full agreement with a stand-fast policy for the<br />
present, advising Admiral King on 26 March 1942 that if an attempt was<br />
made at that time to establish bases in the Solomons, “the ventures would<br />
be failures.” 45<br />
But Efate was the camel’s nose under the edges of the Army tent in<br />
getting to the Solomons and no one knew it better than Admiral King and his<br />
Chief Alligator and Head Planner, Richmond Kelly Turner.”<br />
At this same time, Rear Admiral Turner and his boss were keeping<br />
pressure on the Navy’s Pacific forces. Thus, Admiral Nimitz was given a<br />
vehicle to keep his subordinates “up on the step,” when this Turner drafted<br />
despatch was sent off on 30 March.<br />
You are requested to read the article, ‘<strong>The</strong>re is only one Mistake; To do<br />
Nothing,’ by Charles F. Kettering in the March 29th issue of Sutzrday Evening<br />
PoJt and to see to it that it is brought to the attention of all your principal<br />
subordinates and other key officers.A7<br />
Individual task force commanders were also occasionally jigged. One<br />
well-known incident in which Rear Admiral Turner played a part probably<br />
did not endear him to this particular officer, a Task Force Commander and<br />
his senior by six years, who reported to CINCPAC having been at sea for<br />
so long that stocks of provisions in his command were so reduced that<br />
meals would soon be on a ‘
248 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
a. Your 292346 not understood, if it means you are retiring from enemy<br />
vicinity in order to provision.<br />
b. <strong>The</strong> situation in the area where you are now operating requires constant<br />
activity of a Task Force like yours to keep enemy occupied. Requirements for<br />
use of other Task Forces like yours make it necessary to continue your active<br />
operations South of equator until your Force can be relieved.zg<br />
GENERAL EISENHOWER PERSISTS<br />
Despite the practical steps taken toward recognizing that Australia would<br />
be held ~nd a real effort made to stop the Japanese short of the main line of<br />
communications from Hawaii through Samoa to Australia, and although<br />
President Roosevelt informed Prime Minister Churchill on 18 March 1942<br />
that “Australia must be held” and “we are willing to undertake that.”<br />
Brigadier General Eisenhower on 25 March 1942, in a memorandum to the<br />
Army Chief of Staff, still recommended that these objectives be placed ‘
WATCHTOWER 249<br />
Becauseof the consequent urgency of the situation in the Pacific [the Japanese<br />
had just invaded New Guinea and occupied Rangoon, Burma] I assume that<br />
the War Department will give first priority to movement of troops and aircraft<br />
to Australia and the islands in the strength approximately as shown in<br />
the subject paper JCS 23 ‘Strategic Deployment of Land, Sea and Air Forces<br />
of the United States’ as amended by action taken at the meeting held today.sz<br />
On 26 March 1942, Rear Admiral Turner in an official memorandum to<br />
COMINCH pointed out that the Army reply to Admiral King’s memo of<br />
17 March:<br />
. . . (1) made no commitments as to priority of the movement of Army<br />
forces to the islands of the Pacific; (2) markedly lowered the Army Air<br />
<strong>Corps</strong> strength to be supplied to the South Pacific Area islands (75 planes<br />
versus 242 planes ) over that proposed by the approved JCS 23 as well as<br />
the total aircraft for the area (532 planes versus 746 planes).<br />
Rear Admiral Turner further stated:<br />
It is a far different matter attempting to establish advance bases in the<br />
Solomons than in the islands heretofore occupied by the United States and<br />
New Zealand.”<br />
This latter paragraph indicated that the Scdomons venture was beginning to<br />
influence future planning—a landmark in the history of the Solomons<br />
operation.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner in the same memorandum further recommended<br />
that the South Pacific Area be established “as soon as possible” and that<br />
COMINCH<br />
1. appoint a naval commander of the South Pacificarea. . . .<br />
2. send amphibious troops, . . .<br />
3. assign COMSOPAC tasks commensurate with his forces and require<br />
him to carry on a campaign of operations within his power.<br />
DEMARCATION OF AREAS<br />
On 4 April 1942, after discussion and agreement at the highest political<br />
and military levels, the whole Pacific <strong>The</strong>ater was divided into these areas:<br />
Pacific Ocean Area (POA)<br />
Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA)<br />
Southeast Pacific Area (SEPA)<br />
u Admiral King to General Marshall, memorandum M37/A16-3 (4 ) of 17 Mar. 1942. Memo<br />
bears an ink note “General Eisenhower” with the initials GCM.<br />
mDNP to COMINCH, memorandum, 26 Mar. 1942.
250 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
<strong>The</strong> Pacific Ocean Area was further divided into three subareas:<br />
North Pacific Area<br />
Central Pacific Area<br />
South Pacific Area<br />
<strong>The</strong> Pacific Ocean Area was established on 20 April 1942 and the Southwest<br />
Pacific Area on 18 April 1942.<br />
<strong>The</strong> main difference of opinion between Rear Admiral Turner and the<br />
Army Planners in regard to the demarcation of areas and area responsibility<br />
was caused by the Army’s desire to include New Zealand, New Caledonia,<br />
New Hebrides, and the Fijis in the Southwest Pacific Area command under<br />
General MacArthur, instead of in the Pacific Ocean Area command under<br />
Admiral Nimitz. <strong>The</strong> Fijis lie 1,500 miles east of Australia, and New<br />
Zealand lies 1,200 miles to the southeast.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Navy Planners believed that the Fijis and New Caledonia were parts<br />
of the line of communications from Hawaii to Australia, and that the over-all<br />
defense of this line of communications should be under one commander.<br />
This commander should be a naval officer because it was primarily a sea area<br />
line of communications.<br />
hA”uL<br />
TULA GI<br />
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GUAOALCANAL<br />
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8 ISLANDS<br />
NEW REBR/DES . 0 @ORA BORA<br />
AUCKLAND<br />
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&@ WELLINGTON<br />
NEW ZEALAND<br />
South Pacific iines of communication.<br />
EQUATOR<br />
20- SOUTH
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WATCHTOWER 251<br />
DISTANCES-APPROXIMATE ONLY<br />
‘SPIR’TU<br />
~eo g SANTA CRUZ ISLANDS ~<br />
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South Pacific distances.<br />
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252 An.zphibiws Came To Conquer<br />
It appeared also to the Navy Planners that if a Japanese Expeditionary<br />
Force moved towards either of these areas, it would have to do so under the<br />
close protection of the main Japanese Fleet. <strong>The</strong> defeat of the Japanese Fleet<br />
and the turning back of the Japanese Expeditionary Force would depend, as<br />
it did later at Coral Sea and Midway, primarily on the Navy, and therefore<br />
these areas should be within naval command. On the other hand, the movement<br />
of Japanese Expeditionary Forces over short distances of sea area, such<br />
as from Amboy in the Netherlands East Indies to Darwin, Australia (6OO<br />
miles ), might occur before the United States Navy could rise to its responsi-<br />
bility and intervene, and the defeat of the Japanese Expeditionary Force<br />
would be primarily a land-air task.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> Army Planners and General Marshall eventually accepted this rea-<br />
soning, and New Zealand, New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, and the<br />
Fijis were placed in the Pacific Ocean Area of responsibility. This was not<br />
a complete victory for the Naval Planning Staff, however. By agreeing to the<br />
1650 East Meridian as the borderline between the Southwest Pacific Area<br />
and the Pacific Ocean Area south of the equator to 100 South, the Navy<br />
Planners let themselves in for a very diflicult negotiating period when a<br />
couple of months later they started to get the Navy-<strong>Marine</strong> amphibious<br />
team moving northward toward the Solomons in the South Pacific.<br />
THE SCALES TIP AGAIN<br />
Following General Marshall’s return from London, the scales tipped<br />
markedly towards giving BOLERO priority over any further build-up of air<br />
units or ground strong points on the line of communications from Hawaii<br />
to Australia. BOLERO was the general operation of transferring American<br />
Armed Forces to the United Kingdom for future use in the European<br />
<strong>The</strong>ater.<br />
However, the period was seized by Rear Admiral Turner to outline to<br />
Admiral King his concept of the future war to be waged against Japan in<br />
the 25 million square miles of the Western Pacific. This concept is well<br />
worth summarizing:<br />
a. <strong>The</strong> FIRST STAGE in which we are now engaged, envisages building<br />
up forces and positions in the Pacific <strong>The</strong>ater and particularly in the South<br />
Pacific and Southwest Pacific for the purpose of holding these areas, and in<br />
* Admiral King, memorandum for the President, 5 Apr. 1942 (in CCS 57/2).
WATCHTOWER 253<br />
preparation for launching an ultimate offensive against the Japanese; and<br />
for supporting the Fleet forces operating there. During this stage the amphibious<br />
forces necessary tocarry onthis offensive will reassembled in the<br />
areas and trained . . . available air, amphibious and naval forces will make<br />
minor offensive actions against enemy advanced positions and against exposed<br />
naval forces for purposes of attrition. . . .<br />
b. <strong>The</strong> SECOND STAGE; as now envisaged, involves a combined offensive<br />
by United States, New Zealand and Australian Amphibious, naval and<br />
air forces through the Solomons and New Guinea to capture the Bismarck<br />
Archipelago and the Admiralty Islands. Heavy attrition attacks would then be<br />
undertaken against the enemy forces and positions in the Caroline and Marshall<br />
Islands.<br />
c. <strong>The</strong> THIRD STAGE involves seizure of the Caroline and Marshall<br />
Islands and the establishment of Fleet and air advanced bases.<br />
d. <strong>The</strong> FOURTH STAGE involves an advance into the Netherlands East<br />
Indies, or alternately, into the Philippines whichever offers the more promising<br />
and enduring results.s5<br />
This memorandum of Real Admiral Turner had major significance for<br />
the future conduct of the war. Admiral King approved the memorandum,<br />
wholeheartedly. With the addition of annexes containing suitable reference<br />
data on Japanese dispositions and losses and copies of certain Joint Planning<br />
Staff papers and policy dispatches, it became a directive to the Commander<br />
in Chief U. S. Pacific Fleet, titled “Information and Instructions Relative to<br />
the Pacific Campaign” and was keyed to specific paragraphs of the Navy<br />
Basic War Plan, Rainbow Five, WPL-46. <strong>The</strong> letter became a titled part<br />
of the War Plan.sE<br />
One of the annexes to this directive contained the first summary of information<br />
available to the Forces Afloat on the assembly of personnel and<br />
materiel for Main Fleet Advanced Naval Bases called LIONS, and Secondary<br />
Advanced Naval Bases called CUBS, two of the basic ingredients for the<br />
success formula in the Pacific. One could sense that the Navy was starting<br />
to move.<br />
Despite Prime Minister Churchill’s despatch on 17 April 1942, that “a<br />
proportion of our combined resources must, for the moment, be set aside to<br />
halt the Japanese advance,” on 6 May 1942, the President wrote the Joint<br />
Chiefs: “I do not want BOLERO slowed down.” <strong>The</strong> President was still<br />
hoping and pressing hard for action across the English Channel in 1942.<br />
= ACofS (P ) to COMINCH, memorandum, 16 Apr. 1942, subj: Pacific Ocean Campaign Plan.<br />
Modern Military Records, National Archives.<br />
mCOMINCH to CINCPAC, letter, FF1/A16-3 ( 1) of 23 Apr. 1942, WPL+K-PC. Hereafter<br />
WPL–46-PC.
234 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
“<strong>The</strong> necessities of the case call for action in 1942—not 1943.” This meant<br />
SLEDGEHAMMER.”<br />
With this same point of view held strongly in the Army planning staff, it<br />
can be seen how diflicult it was to take the Joint military decision that it was<br />
practical, within United States available resources, to start the offensive-<br />
defensive phase of amphibious warfare in the South Pacific. But this, both<br />
Admiral King, and his tireless subordinate, Rear Admiral Turner, were still<br />
hoping to do.<br />
THE JAPANESE STIR UP THE EAGLE<br />
<strong>The</strong> Joint Staff Planners, in late April 1942, moved to pass on to the Joint<br />
Chiefs their long standing deadlock in regard to “Defense for the Island<br />
Bases along the line of communication between Hawaii and Australia,” when<br />
on 24 April 1942 they agreed that the Joint Staff Plans Committee would<br />
proceed as follows:<br />
Admiral Turner and General Handy will each prepare a memorandum<br />
setting forth their views on certain controversial points, these views to be<br />
incorporated in the paper when forwarded.ss<br />
<strong>The</strong> new draft was ava;lable in the early days of May, and Admiral King<br />
sought General Marshall’s help to resolve the issue since any real acceptance<br />
of the Navy’s position would require a more offensive minded Army Air<br />
<strong>Corps</strong> position, as well as the ground Army, toward the Pacific War.<br />
However, at this point the Japanese came to the support of the Navy<br />
planners’ desire for “action” in the Pacific, particularly a United States move<br />
into the Solomons. <strong>The</strong> 1938 Japanese Basic War Plan, in effect at the start<br />
of the Japanese-United States phase of World War H, called for the occupa-<br />
tion of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Samoa, as a second phase task following<br />
conquest and consolidation in Malaya, Netherlands East Indies and the<br />
Philippines. <strong>The</strong>se second phase occupations were judged necessary by the<br />
Japanese in order to cut the lines of communication between the United<br />
States and Australia and make feasible Japanese occupation of Australia.<br />
As a start on these second phase tasks the Japanese, in April 1942, orga-<br />
nized for seizing the first stepping-stone 350 miles southward toward New<br />
Caledonia. <strong>The</strong>ir then current positions were at Rabaul in New Britain and<br />
m (a) Churchill, <strong>The</strong> Hitrge O} F~e, pp. 320, 34o; (b) Presidential Memoranda to General<br />
Marshall and JCS, 6 May 1942,<br />
= Joint Planning Staff Meetings, minutes, 24 Apr. 1942.
WATCHTOWER 255<br />
at Bougainvillea in the Northern Solomons. A Tulagi Invasion Group<br />
equipped for setting up a seaplane base at Tulagi Island in the Southern<br />
Solomons landed there on 3 May 1942. This forward movement put the<br />
Japanese almost astride the direct sea route from Hawaii to northern<br />
Australia. It also put the planners on COMINCH Staff, who were particu-<br />
larly concerned with the SOPAC area, in the jumping up and down stage.<br />
But it was to be 60 days and 60 nights more before the Joint Chiefs could<br />
agree on a directive governing counter-offensive movements in the SOPAC-<br />
SOWESPAC Area.<br />
And, Admiral King, on the day before the President said ‘‘1 do not want<br />
BOLERO slowed down,” was outlining to the Joint Chiefs the reasons for<br />
doing more to meet the vital military needs of the United States in the<br />
Pacific. He wrote:<br />
MEMORANDUM TO ]OINT U.S. CHIEFS OF STAFF<br />
Subject: J.C.S. 48. Defense of Island Bases in the Pacific<br />
1. In paragraph 5 of the memorandum from the Joint Planners forming<br />
a Paft of J.C.S. 48, the statement appears; ‘<strong>The</strong> Army members of the J.P.S.<br />
are reluctant to recommend any increase in aviation in the Pacific Area at this<br />
time due to the fact that any increase in this area means not only a corresponding<br />
decrease in the main effort but also an inordinate delay in its initiation.’<br />
I agree that there must be no undue delay in the deployment of available<br />
forces in the main effort; but I am not in agreement with the recommendation<br />
that forces in the Pacific be kept at a bare minimum.<br />
2. <strong>The</strong> Pacific <strong>The</strong>ater is an area for which the United States bears full<br />
strategic responsibility. <strong>The</strong> recent Japanese successes in Burma, added to<br />
previous successes, leave the Japanese free to choose any new line of action<br />
they see fit, including an attack in force on Australia, on the Australia-Hawaii<br />
line of communications, on Hawaii or on Alaska. Even now they are massing<br />
strong land, sea, and air forces in the Mandate Area beyond our range of<br />
observation. *<br />
3. <strong>The</strong> basic strategic plan on which we are now operating is to hold in<br />
the Pacific. I am not convinced that the forces now there or allocated to that<br />
theater are sufficient to “hold” against a determined attack in force by the<br />
Japanese, an attack which they can initiate very soon. <strong>The</strong> mounting of<br />
BOLERO must not be permitted to interfere with our vital needs in the<br />
Pacific. I am not convinced that the Japanese are going to allow us to ‘hold’<br />
but are going to drive and drive hard.<br />
4. <strong>The</strong> disastrous consequences which would result if we are unable to<br />
hold the present position in the Pacific Areas are self-evident. We have<br />
already seen, in the Far East and in Burma, the results of being ‘spread out<br />
too thin;’ we must not commit the same error in the Pacific Ocean Areas.<br />
5. Important as the mounting of BOLERO may be, the Pacific problem is
256 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
no less so, and is certainly the more urgent—it must be faced now. Quite apart<br />
from any idea of future advance in this theater we must see to it that we<br />
are actually able to maintain our present positions. We must not permit<br />
diversion of our forces to any proposed operation in any other theater to the<br />
extent that we find ourselves unable to fulfill our obligation to implement<br />
our basic strategy plan in the Pacific theater, which is to hold what we have<br />
against any attack that the Japanese are capable of launching against <strong>US</strong>.SO<br />
E. J. KJNG<br />
<strong>The</strong> Japanese occupation of the Southern Solomons had taken place during<br />
the same period when they made an unsuccessful attempt to occupy Port<br />
Moresby in Southeast New Guinea only 500 miles north of Townsville,<br />
Australia. Air reconnaissance units operating from Tulagi and Port Moresby<br />
would have brought all of the Coral Sea and northeastern Australia under<br />
their conquering eyes.<br />
GENERAL MAcARTHUR HELPS THE NAVAL PLANNERS<br />
General MacArthur, after the 8 May 1!242 Battle of the Coral Sea, which<br />
had luckily turned back the Japanese Port Moresby Invasion Group, joined<br />
forces with the Navy Planners in plugging for stronger action in the Pacific.<br />
His despatch of 23 May 1942 read in p~rt:<br />
Lack of sea power in the Pacific is and has been the fatal weakness in our<br />
position since the beginning of the war.<br />
Continuing, he was so bold as to suggest that the Indian and Atlantic Oceans<br />
be stripped of sea power so as to combine British and American naval<br />
strength and to overwhelm the Japanese Navy:<br />
Much more than the fate of Australia will be jeopardized if this is not done.<br />
<strong>The</strong> United States will face a series of such disasters.d”<br />
This despatch struck a rtiponsive note with Admiral King since an<br />
appreciation of the realities of sea power was not always displayed by Army<br />
Planners at lower levels in Washington. <strong>The</strong> next day, 24 May 1942, Admiral<br />
King sent to General Marshall a paper which he proposed should be<br />
transmitted to the Combined Chiefs of Stall by the Joint Chiefs of Staf-F.<br />
In this paper, Admiral King stated that the Japanese were devoting “practically<br />
their entire naval strength, plus a great part of their air and army<br />
strength for offensive action against the Australia—Noumea—Fi ji—Samoa<br />
mCOMINCH, memorandum, 5 May 1942.<br />
mAustralia Dispatch 199.
lVATCiYTOWER 257<br />
—Hawaii-Alaska line.” “ Admiral King included among his recommendations<br />
that air strength in the Pacific be increased as rapidly as possible and<br />
that the British Eastern Fleet be moved to Colombo as soon as practicable,<br />
for concentration in the Fiji-Australian area by 1 July 1942.’2<br />
Any time Admiral King felt it necessary to call in the British Navy to<br />
shore up the United States Navy in its own bailiwick, the long reaches of the<br />
Pacific, one could surmise thht he considered the situation bordered on the<br />
desperate.<br />
As May drew to a c!ose and the comihg battle for Midway Island became<br />
more imminent with every passing hour, Admiral Nimitz proposed to<br />
General MacArthur that the Pacific Ocean Area <strong>Marine</strong>s try to knock out<br />
the seaplane base the Japanese were evolving at Tulagi in General Mac-<br />
Arthur’s domain. He suggested using the Ist <strong>Marine</strong> Raider Battalion based<br />
in Samoa, 1800 miles to the eastward of Tulagi. <strong>The</strong> object was to deny the<br />
Japanese seaplane reconnaissance south of Tulagi against the South Pacific<br />
major amphibious offensive, hopefully to be inaugurated in accordance with<br />
the COMINCH directive of 3 April.<br />
Had the air base at Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides been complete<br />
or just usable on the day this despatch was sent, 28 May 1942, the reaction<br />
to this offensive proposal in Admiral King’s headquarters would have been<br />
more strongly favorable despite General MacArthur’s negative reaction.<br />
However, the construction forces were just arriving. Tulagi was about equi-<br />
distant from Rabaul and from Espiritu Sante, but the Japanese air base at<br />
Rabaul was operational and well manned by a Japnese air flotilla, while the<br />
Espiritu Santo air base was little more than a gleam in Vice Admiral<br />
Ghormley’s eye. <strong>The</strong> <strong>Marine</strong>s would be subject to air attack mounted from<br />
Rabaul and not under air protection mounted from Espiritu Sante. <strong>The</strong>refore<br />
Admiral King’s approval was limited to a “disabling or destroying raid,” but<br />
no “permanent occupation.” Admiral Nimitz said later this had been his<br />
intention in the first place.’3<br />
THE BRITISH COOL OFF SLEDGEHAMMER<br />
About this same time, the British again cooled off the United States Army<br />
Planners on the immediacy of the cross-channel operation. <strong>The</strong> Prime<br />
61Proposed JCS Memo to CCS, 24 May 1942.<br />
“’COMINCH to COMNAVFOREUR Ser 100046 of Jun. 1942.<br />
= COMINCH 031905 Apr. 1942; CINCPAC to COMSO WESPACFOR, 280351 May 1942;<br />
COMSOWESPACFOR 291335 May 1942; COMINCH 010100 Jun. 1942.
258 Amphibians Canze To Conquer<br />
Minister, on 28 May 1942, in a despatch to the President stated that “certain<br />
difficulties had arisen in the planning,” put in a plug for the occupation of<br />
North Africa and stated that Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten was being<br />
sent to Washington to discuss “a landing in the North of Norway.” 84<br />
Lord Louis arrived on 3 June 1942, by which time the Army Air Force B-175<br />
had already started making near-misses on Admiral Tanaka’s Transport<br />
Group of the Japanese Midway Occupation Force,<br />
However, on 1 June 1942, the President was telling Mr. Molotov, the<br />
Soviet Union’s People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs, in Washington as a<br />
special representative of Commissar Stalin, that he expected to establish a<br />
Second Front in 1942, and giving him a strong commitment to do so.” If<br />
the President’s word was to be his bond, it was apparent to the military<br />
planning stafls that the priority build-up in England of United States troops<br />
and landing craft must continue at maximum rate.<br />
Elated by the Navy’s victory at Midway, on 4 June 1942, the whole<br />
COMINCH Planning Staff was anxious that the United States seize the<br />
Pacific Ocean initiative from the Japanese. This could not be done by sitting<br />
back and congratulating each other on the first real major victory of the<br />
Pacific War. Midway had to be promptly followed by new initiatives in the<br />
Pacific Ocean, and this was the point Rear Admiral Turner stressed as in late<br />
May and early June he progressively handed over his Chief Planner’s billet on<br />
Admiral King’s staff to his relief, Rear Admiral Charles M. Cooke. <strong>The</strong> very<br />
minimum effort necessary to retain the intiative, he believed, would be to<br />
seize island positions essential for disrupting the flow of strategic materials<br />
within the Japanese Co-prosperity Sphere.fifi<br />
By late June 1942, the British Prime Minister was in Washington again,<br />
depressed over the surrender of his 33,000-man garrison at Tobruk. He was<br />
anxious for American help nearly everywhere except on the continent of<br />
Europe. He was ready “to bury ‘SLEDGEHAMMER,’ which had been dead<br />
for some time.” “<br />
ADMIRAL KING STIRS UP A PESTILENCE—<br />
LIGHTS UP A WATCHTOWER<br />
Admiral King seized this moment, when it appeared that United States<br />
U Churchill to Roosevelt, 28 May 1942, in Sherwood, Roosevelt ~nd Hopkins, p. 556.<br />
= Matloff and SnelI, Strategic Planning, pp. 231–32.<br />
mTurner.<br />
mChurchill, Tbe Hinge of Pate, pp. 382, 433.
WATCHTOWER 259<br />
Army and Navy forces being sent to England for SLEDGEHAMMER or<br />
BOLERO might be there a long time before facing combat, to direct<br />
CINCPAC and COMSOPAC to prepare for an offensive against the Lower<br />
Solomons, using United States <strong>Marine</strong>s. He hoped the Santa Cruz Islands<br />
would be occupied before the Japanese got there and Tulagi would be taken<br />
from the Japanese before it could be built up to great defensive strength.”<br />
Rear Admiral Turner prepared to undertake this considerable task and<br />
to bring it to consummation in just 35 days. Even though he was then on<br />
leave in California, the First <strong>Marine</strong> Division was on the high seas enroute to<br />
far away New Zealand and the essential amphibious ships were scattered<br />
all over the eastern and southern half of the Pacific Ocean Area. Only a<br />
leader like Admiral King with great knowledge and great faith in his or-<br />
ganization and the subordinates who were to lead their parts of it, could<br />
have issued such a preparatory order.<br />
When Admiral King’s history-making despatch went out on 25 June 1942,<br />
the undertaking of offensive-defensive amphibious operations hadn’t been<br />
approved by the Joint Chiefs, whose Army representative was the chief re-<br />
vivifier of SLEDGEHAMMER. Much less had it been approved by the<br />
President, who, at the moment, hankered for action on the continent of<br />
Europe and for nothing more than hanging on in the Pacific. How Admiral<br />
King decided he could overcome these two major obstacles, and a not so<br />
minor one of whether the Army or the Navy would command the first<br />
offensive amphibious operation, is not known. It is known, however, that<br />
when the Chief of Staff of the U. S. Army writes a letter to the Commander<br />
in Chief of the United States Fleet and gets an answer the same day, the<br />
question under discussion is hot. This happened on 26 June 1942.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> subject in controversy was who was to command the first real offen-<br />
sive-defensive amphibious operation in the Pacific. <strong>The</strong> Army had the book<br />
partly on its side, since one of the objectives, Tulagi, lay in the area of the<br />
Army Commander of the Southwest Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur.<br />
However, the other objective, the Santa Cruz Islands, was in the area of the<br />
Naval Commander of the South Pacific area, Vice Admiral Robert Ghorm-<br />
Iey. <strong>The</strong> Navy thus had the book partly on its side and Admiral King wholly<br />
on its side, plus the logical military reasons that:<br />
MCOMINCH to CINCPAC, despatch 24 Jun. 1942. Info C/S <strong>US</strong>A, COMSOWESPACFOR,<br />
and COMSOPACFOR.<br />
- (a) C/SA to CINC<strong>US</strong>, memorandum, no ser of 26 Jun. 1942. Modern Military Records,<br />
National Archives; (b) COMINCH to C/S <strong>US</strong>A, letter, Ser 00555, 26 Jun. 1942.
260<br />
1.<br />
2.<br />
3.<br />
Amphibians Came To Conqtier<br />
nearly all the offensive forces directly involved were to be supplied<br />
by the naval Pacific Ocean Area.<br />
the offensive forces must prepare for the operation while within the<br />
naval Pacific Ocean Area.<br />
the offensive forces must be covered during the operation from the<br />
naval Pacific Ocean Area, and then supported logistically from the<br />
naval Pacific Ocean Area.<br />
With this background Admiral King advised General Marshall that the offensive<br />
operation “must be conducted under the direction of the Commander<br />
in Chief, Pacific Fleet.”<br />
It is a tribute to General Marshall’s military judgment that he saw the<br />
validl,~ of the points made, particularly when he read the last sentence “I<br />
thinkit is important that this [the immediate initiation of these operations]<br />
be done, even if no support of Army Forces in the Southwest Pacific be<br />
made available.” Admiral King made this point even clearer by informing<br />
CINCPAC on 27 June that the Navy might have to go it alone and planning<br />
should go forward on that basis.TO<br />
To preserve the validity of area command for posterity, the Joint Chiefs<br />
then agreed to a 60 to 36o mile westward shift of area boundaries between<br />
the Pacific Ocean Area and Southwest Pacific Area in the island cluttered<br />
expanse of the ocean south of the equator between 159° East Longitude and<br />
1650 East Longitude. Effective 1 August 1942, the new boundary would run<br />
south from the equator along 1590 East Longitude. This shifted the boundary<br />
so that it was just 35 miles to the westward of Guadalcanal Island .71<br />
After this westward shift, both of the proposed landings, Santa Cruz and<br />
Tulagi, would be in the Pacific Ocean Area.<br />
With the command issue agreed upon, and without too much further<br />
discussion, the Joint Chiefs received Presidential approval to open the United<br />
States offensive-defensive phase of the amphibious wal in the Pacific.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re are two amazing things about the first offensive amphibious opera-<br />
tion insofar as the Joint Chiefs’ 2 July 1942 directive is concerned.” This<br />
directive listed Task One, Task Two and Task Three objectives. <strong>The</strong> Task<br />
One invasion objectives were:<br />
a. Santa Cruz Islands<br />
‘OCOMINCH 271414 Jun. 1944.<br />
n COMINCH to C/SA, Ser 00555 of 26 Jun. 1942,<br />
“ JCS 00581 of 2 Jul. 1942, Joint Directive for Offensive operations in the Southwest Pacific<br />
Area.
. Tulagi<br />
c. Adjacent positions.<br />
WATCHTOWER 261<br />
Yet, Santa Cruz, first on the list, was not even occupied for months, and<br />
Guadalcanal, where most of the fighting took place, was not even mentioned<br />
by name in the directive. It is a further anomaly that the code name for the<br />
whole Task One operation was PESTILENCE, and the subsidiary Tulagi<br />
operation was named WATCHTOWER and the repeatedly postponed Santa<br />
Cruz Islands operation was designated HUDDLE. <strong>The</strong> only one of these<br />
code words to survive at all is WATCHTOWER, while the code name for<br />
the island of Guadalcanal, CACT<strong>US</strong>, is part of the folklore of all World<br />
War II American adults.<br />
SOUTH PACIFIC AREA AND SOUTH PACIFIC FORCE<br />
When Vice Admiral Robert L. Ghormley, the prospective Commander of<br />
the South Pacific and Kelly Turner’s future boss, arrived in Washington<br />
from London on 17 April 1942 where he had been a highly successful Na-<br />
val Observer, working with the British Admiralty, the determination to try<br />
for seizure of the Santa Cruz Islands and the lower Solomons was strong in<br />
COMINCH Plans Division. However, this was a period when SLEDGE-<br />
HAMMER and BOLERO were riding high. <strong>The</strong>refore, no agreement at the<br />
Joint planning level, or the Joint Chiefs’ level, was practical for a definite<br />
amphibious operation in the South Pacific.<br />
Despite this lack of a specific agreement at the Joint working level,<br />
COMINCH had directed CINCPAC on 3 April 1942 to<br />
prepare for execution of major amphibious offensive against frontiers held<br />
by Japan, initially to be launched from South Pacific and Southwest Pacific<br />
Areas.73<br />
This dispatch would get the Planning Staff at Pearl up on the step.<br />
Draft instructions for Commander South Pacific Area to be issued by<br />
CINCPAC were already in existence in COMINCH Headquarters during<br />
this mid-April period and Vice Admiral Ghormley contributed to their fur-<br />
ther development. On 23 April 1942, Admiral King from Washington and<br />
Admiral Nimitz from Pearl, oficially proceeded under temporary additional<br />
duty orders to San Francisco for a conference. Out of this conference came<br />
the basic CINCPAC directive to Commander South Pacific which also con-<br />
nCOMINCH031905 Apr. 1942.
262 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
tained the magic words; ‘
WATCHTOWER 263<br />
<strong>The</strong>se rear admirals were available without the normal delay entailed in<br />
relieving them from a current job.<br />
About 20 May 1942, the decision of Admiral King to make Rear Admiral<br />
Turner available, in the near future, to CINCPAC for duty afloat in the<br />
Pacific Fleet was passed to the Bureau of Naval Personnel. New orders<br />
were issued on 25 May appropriately modifying the original orders and di-<br />
recting Turner to report to CINCPAC at the end of his leave of absence.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n Admiral King decided he wanted Rear Admiral Turner at hand until<br />
after the Japanese attack on Midway had been met. So a third set of orders<br />
was issued.7T Under this last set, Rear Admiral Turner departed Washington<br />
on 12 June 1942 by automobile for Pacific Grove, California, under<br />
proceed (four days’ delay) orders, ten days’ travel time, and ten days’ delay<br />
to count as leave of absence.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner was delighted to get to the business at hand, fighting<br />
the Japanese, and greatly concerned with his share of the responsibility<br />
for making the first amphibious operation a victory of which the Navy and<br />
Ernie King would be proud.”<br />
Vice Admiral Ghormley had departed Washington on 1 May 1942 and<br />
assumed command of the South Pacific Area and South Pacific Force on 19<br />
June some seven weeks later, although he was in the South Pacific Area for<br />
almost a month before assuming command. Rear Admiral Turner assumed<br />
command of the South Pacific Amphibious Force about a month later, 18<br />
July 1942. This was just 14 days before the initial target date for the first<br />
major United States Navy amphibious landings in WorId War II, and 20<br />
days before the actual landing.<br />
ASSEMBLING THE STAFF OF COMPHIBFORSOPAC<br />
<strong>The</strong> first business of a Flag oficer upon being designated to a new com-<br />
mand is to try to prevail upon the Bureau of Naval Personnel to order a<br />
few top flight ofiicers-the real heavy cream of the crop-into key positions<br />
on his staff, Whether he succeeds or not depends on such factors as:<br />
1. <strong>The</strong> Flag officer flies one, two, three, or four stars.<br />
2. For whom the desired oficer is currently working and how co-<br />
operative this oficer may be in letting him go to another billet.<br />
mBuPers Orders Pers 6312–38970, 20 May 1942, 25 May 1942, and 2 Jun. 1942; (b) Note,<br />
RKT on June 2nd Orders.<br />
7*Turner.
264 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
3. <strong>The</strong> actual availability of the desired officer from the viewpoint<br />
of the Bureau of Naval Personnel.<br />
4. <strong>The</strong> officer’s own personal assessments of the change, and how<br />
hard he tries for the staff billet.<br />
If the Flag officer has worked his way up the ladder through billets in<br />
the Bureau of Personnel, he has a far wider knowledge of officers’ records<br />
and reputations than if he has not, and generally a warmer friendship with<br />
those currently sitting at the detail desks. Rear Admiral Turner had not<br />
been a ,BUPERS bureaucrat. He had been a two-star Flag officer only seven<br />
months. And he had had a few stormy telephone conversations with detail<br />
desks in the process of assembling an adequate planning staif for<br />
COMINCH.<br />
In any case, Admiral Turner remembered that he had had a “hell of a<br />
time” trying to get anyone whom he particularly wanted ordered to his first<br />
afloat staff. In fact, he “fired and fell back.” He batted .000 on the names<br />
he submitted.’e<br />
<strong>The</strong> Bureau then suggested officers and he accepted them. In May 1942,<br />
there was a miniscule number of naval officers with a background of peacetime<br />
amphibious training and none with a background of wartime amphib-<br />
ious operations. Rear Admiral Turner had not touched stays often enough<br />
with any of the few peacetime am~hibiously qualified officers to pinpoint<br />
them as desirable members of his staff. <strong>The</strong> Bureau had a thousand times<br />
more places to billet such oficers in the explosively expanding amphibious<br />
forces than there were officers available.<br />
Consequently, it is regrettable, but not surprising, that, except for the<br />
Flag Secretary, not a single naval oficer selected by the Bureau and ordered<br />
to the staff of the Commander of the Amphibious Force South Pacific, which<br />
was our first amphibious command in World War 11 to enter into large<br />
scale combat with the enemy, had any special amphibious training, or any<br />
recent peacetime amphibious experience. Professional knowledge based on<br />
actual training in amphibious operations, had to come from the <strong>Marine</strong><br />
officers on the staff. As might be expected, the <strong>Marine</strong>s were a first-rate<br />
group.’”<br />
By 9 June 1942, Rear Admiral Turner knew which oficers the Bureau of<br />
Personnel planned to order to his staff, for he drafted a four-page memo-<br />
randum to the Assistant Chief of Staff, Colonel Linscott, on that date,<br />
n Turner.<br />
mIbid.
WATCHTOWER 265<br />
listing them and all the existing COMINCH letters bearing on LONE<br />
WOLF or the establishment of PHIBFORSOPAC.”<br />
. . . I believe that the most difficult and most important task of the Flag<br />
Officer is to select his chief assistant. More hinges on this decision than on any<br />
other.s2<br />
<strong>The</strong> most obvious shortcoming of the Bureau of Personnel was the failure<br />
to provide a Chief of Staff who could report before Rear Admiral Turner<br />
actually arrived in the South Pacific. At that time, Captain Thomas G.<br />
Peyton, U. S. Navy, who had only served a dog watch as Captain of the<br />
Port at Noumea, New Caledonia, reported for this important billet. Peyton<br />
did not seek the duty and was not a personal friend of Rear Admiral<br />
Turner.’a Furthermore, Captain Peyton lacked two of the desirable attributes<br />
for measurable success under Turner. He was not “lightning fast on the up-<br />
take,” and he was not given to fighting back with all his resources, when<br />
picked upon. But Peyton was a very capable naval officer of the highest moral<br />
character. He had a very real degree of humility among a breed of cats,<br />
where the humble were as scarce as typhoons in the Pacific in June.<br />
<strong>The</strong> 1l-man staff 84listed below consisted of seven Naval officers and four<br />
<strong>Marine</strong> officers. All were of the regular service except the assistant com-<br />
munications officer. Only Linscott, Weir, and Harris made contact in Wash-<br />
ington prior to Rear Admiral Turner’s departure. Doyle and Bowling joined<br />
up in San Francisco. Hains joined in Pearl Harbor; Peyton reported in<br />
Auckland; and Lewis could not report until the Task Force was off the<br />
Fiji Islands, in late July. Baskin and Williams did not report in Noumea for<br />
another month, on 19 August 1942.<br />
Captain Thomas G. Peyton Chief of Staff 8’<br />
MCOMINCH, memorandum of 9 Jun. 1942.<br />
❑ Lieutenant Commander H. H, Frost, “Letters on Staff Duty,” Unitedstaler NavalInstitute<br />
Proceeding, Vol. 45 (August 1919), p. 1316.<br />
= Interviews with Commodore Thomas G. Peyton, 22 and 29 May 1961. Hereafter Peyton.<br />
Captain Peyton reported as Captain of the Port, Noumea on 20 May 1942; ordered as Chief of<br />
S@, COMPHIBFORSOPAC by BUPERS on 4 July 1942; detachd as Captain of the Port on<br />
14 July 1942; reported 18 July 1942.<br />
%COMPHIBFORSOPAC, letter, 18 Jul. 1942, subj: Establishment of Amphibious Force South<br />
Pacific Force. Hereafter Establishment Letter, 1942.<br />
= PEYTON (Commodore ) ( 1915); Battleship duty in World War I, then destroyer duty<br />
and command and submarine duty and command; Flag Lieutenant Commander Battleship Division<br />
One; Prior World War II, Command Destroyer Divisions 18 and 60 and Destroyer Squadron 9;<br />
Six months Turner’s staff; Distinguished service in command of battleship Indiunu through New<br />
Georgia campaign and in command of a logistical task group supporting 3rd and 5th Fleets during<br />
Iwo Jima and Okinawa campaign; Commandant Naval Base Guam after World War H.
266 Amphibians Came To Cotiqtier<br />
Colonel Henry D. Linscott, <strong>US</strong>MC Assistant Chief of Staff”<br />
Captain James H. Doyle Operations Oficer”<br />
Lieutenant Colonel Frank E. Weir, <strong>US</strong>MC Assistant Operations<br />
OfKcer (Air) 8’<br />
Lieutenant Colonel Harold D. Harris, <strong>US</strong>MC Intelligence Officer 8’<br />
Lieutenant Commander Hamilton Hains Aide and Flag Secretary 90<br />
Lieutenant Commander Selman S. Bowling Communications OfKcer 9’<br />
Lieutenant Commander Arthur C. W. Baskin Assistant Intelligence,<br />
Serologist”<br />
w LINSCOTT (Lieutenant General) (Commissioned May 1917); Santo Domingo and France<br />
in Worid War I; 1927 Nicaraguan Campaign; postgraduate law 1930–33; Division <strong>Marine</strong><br />
0t35cer BATDIVONE; Operations and Training Officer, Amphibious <strong>Corps</strong>, Atlantic Fleet 1941-<br />
1942; 12 months Turner’s staff; distinguished duty staff 3rd Amphibious Force during Vella<br />
Lavella, Treasury-Bougainville, and Empress Augusta Bay operations; Command Amphibious<br />
Training Pacific Fleet; Director, Landing Force Development Center.<br />
= DOYLE (Vice Admiral) (1920); Battleship, destroyer, tender duty 1919-1926; postgraduate<br />
law (with distinction ) at George Washington University; destroyer duty and command;<br />
staff duty Commander Destroyers, and Aide Commandant 16th Naval District; Command<br />
Re@o, a 10,000-ton, 11.5-knot, 20-year-old non-amphibious cargo ship early 1942; 12 months<br />
Turner’$ staff; distinguished duty Amphibious Section Admiral King’s Headquarters; distinguished<br />
duty in command light cruiser Paudenu during Okinawa campaign; again on Turner’s stti at the<br />
United Nations; Korean War, Commander Amphibious Force Far East during the amphibious<br />
triumphs of the Inchon landing and the Hungnam evacuation.<br />
= WEIR (Major General) ( 1923) (Aviator); amphibious exercises at Culebra 1924; flight<br />
training; Nicaraguan Campaign 1927; various <strong>Marine</strong> Squadron Air Billets; <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> School,<br />
Chemical Warfare School 1934, Army Air <strong>Corps</strong> Tactical School 1938; tactical aviation instructor<br />
at <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> School 194o- 1942; 12 months Turner’s staff; distinguished service Staff,<br />
Commander 3rd Amphibious Force, during Vella Lavella, Treasury-Bougainville, and Empress<br />
Augusta Bay Operations; Command <strong>Marine</strong> Aircraft Group 32 in China in immediate post-World<br />
War 11period,<br />
= HARRIS (Brigadier General) ( 1924); Ecole Superieure de guerre and Army Infantry<br />
Schools; Officer in Charge Intelligence Section of Plans and Policies, <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> Headquarters<br />
1941–42; five months Turner’s staff; Distinguished duty with 1st <strong>Marine</strong>s during the New<br />
Britain Campaign; Command >th <strong>Marine</strong>s at Peleliu; Again on Turner’s staff at United Nationa.<br />
w HAINS (Rear Admiral) ( 1925); battleship and destroyer duty; postgraduate general line<br />
and junior course <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> School 1933-36; destroyer and cruiser duty; 12 months Turner’s<br />
staff; then distinguished duty as Commander Escort Division during Bismarck Archipelago Campaign<br />
and on Staff, Commander Amphibious Group Six, 7th Fleet, during five major landings.<br />
mBOWLING (Rear Admiral) (1927); gunboat, destroyer, light and lx=vy cruiser duty 19z7-<br />
1931i; postgraduate applied communications, radio officer; Statl COMBATDIVTWO, then<br />
Battleship COkmrdO;four months on Turner’s staff; two years distinguished duty in motor torpedo<br />
boats in 7th Fleet during New Guinea, Borneo, and Philippine Campaigns.<br />
= BASKIN (Lieutaant Commander ) (1927); battleship, destroyer, light cmiser duty l.927–<br />
1934; postgraduate general line, then lighter than air training and postgraduate in meteorology at<br />
California Institute of Technology; aircraft carrier Rmsg- and Naval Air Stations; eight months’<br />
duty Turner’s staff;hospitalization and physical retirement 1 May 1944.
WATCHTOWER 267<br />
Lieutenant Commander John S. Lewis Aide and Flag<br />
Lieutenant’3<br />
Lieutenant Robert A. Williams (SC) Supply Officer”<br />
Captain R. A. Nicholson, <strong>US</strong>MCR Assistant Communications<br />
Officer’5<br />
This unmethodical and straggling forming up of the new PHIBFOR-<br />
SOPAC staff stretched over 10 weeks and 10,000 miles of ocean. Only the<br />
marked capabilities of the individual regular officers of that period, their<br />
resourcefulness and acceptance of the principle of doing the best they could<br />
with what was at hand provided a basis for the hope that our first large<br />
scale amphibious invasion of Japanese held positions would go off reasonably<br />
well.<br />
AMPHIBIO<strong>US</strong> PERSONNEL PROBLEMS<br />
This is as good a time as any to discuss the officer personnel problem<br />
which lay like a heavy soaking blanket over the amphibious forces during the<br />
1942 and 1943 period.<br />
As a result of the 1938 Personnel Bill, which the old Bureau of Navigation<br />
urged the Congress to inflict on the Navy, the seagoing officers of the Navy,<br />
upon completing the required years of service in grade, became eligible for<br />
selection to commander and captain. <strong>The</strong> yearly selection board then divided<br />
them into four main categories:<br />
1. Selected as best fitted for promotion.<br />
2. Selected as fitted for promotion and retained on active duty.<br />
3. Selected as fitted for promotion, but not retained on active duty.<br />
4. Not qualified and not selected for promotion.<br />
MLEWIS (Rear Admiral) (1932); battleships and destroyer duty 1932-1936; postgraduate<br />
general line, then heavy cruiser Pordund; 23 months Turner’s staff; then distinguished service<br />
command destroyer Soley; After World War II, duty on Turner’s staff at United Nations; command<br />
light cruiser Astoriu, duty with NATO, and Staff, Commander Amphibious Force, Pacific<br />
Fleet.<br />
WWILLIAMS (Captain Supply <strong>Corps</strong>); Harvard, 1937; Supply School, shore assignments;<br />
five months Turner>s staff; 23 months supply officer heavy cruiser Vincemre~ during Marianas,<br />
Philippine, and Okinawa Campaigns; post.World War II command Naval SUpply Depot Guantanamo,<br />
duty w~th Bureau Supplia and Accounts and Defense Supply Agency.<br />
mNICHOLSON (<strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> Reserve) ; Washington and Lee, 1939, Phi Beta Kappa; <strong>Marine</strong><br />
<strong>Corps</strong> Schools; then 18 months Turner’s staff.<br />
Rank upon retirement and year of Naval Academy or other college graduation shown in brief<br />
summary of service.
268 Anaphibians Came To Conquev<br />
<strong>The</strong> “best fitted” group averaged from 60-70 percent of each Naval<br />
Academy class. <strong>The</strong> two “fitted” groups totaling 25–30 percent contained<br />
many oflicers whose capabilities were judged to be only a small fraction<br />
below those of the “best fitted” group, plus a number who were not carrying<br />
a full head of steam as they moved into their early or late forties. Occa-<br />
sionally a personality idiosyncrasy of an extremely capable oficer caused his<br />
name to appear in the “fitted” list, and from time to time a minor derelic-<br />
tion of duty after many years of highly satisfactory performance led to the<br />
same tagging, although generally such officers just were not deemed qualified<br />
and were not selected.<br />
Fortunately for the Navy, the Congress, disturbed by the approach of<br />
war in Europe, soon authorized the Navy to order a considerable number<br />
of retired officers to active duty, and a little later to retain on active duty all<br />
officers who were slated to be retired upon completion of 21, 28, or 35 years<br />
of service after failure of selection to the next higher rank. <strong>The</strong>se yearly<br />
bench marks were those set by law for automatic retirement of lieutenant<br />
commanders, commanders, and captains respectively when not selected to<br />
the next higher grade.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Bureau of Naval Personnel rated command duty in large combatant<br />
ships-carriers, battleships, cruisers—and command of units of destroyers<br />
as requiring the service of the “best fitted” officers in the senior grades.<br />
For years and years, auxiliary ships and other minor commands had been<br />
rated more than a shade less desirable than large combatant commands.<br />
Amphibious ships started World War II officially titled ‘
WATCHTOWER 269<br />
phibious groups or forces. It was not licked in a month or even in the first<br />
year of World War II. <strong>The</strong>prime billets forthe BUPERS “hot shots” were<br />
the big carriers, and the new battleships, and Rear Admiral Turner’s efforts to<br />
draft some of these “hot shot” officers into the amphibious ship commands<br />
were futile, even after he had acquired three stars on his shoulders. He was<br />
forever grateful to those officers in our Navy who had acquired less than<br />
an ultra plus ultra rating in the peacetime Navy, but who turned in a<br />
superb and winning performance in battling through to the beaches with<br />
their troops and long tons of logistic support.”<br />
Rear Admiral Turner faced the following situation in July-August 1942.<br />
In the three transport divisions of transports and cargo ships (APs and AKs)<br />
in Amphibious Force South Pacific Force, on the day of its formal organiza-<br />
tion, 18 July 1942, there were nine captains and 10 commanders of the<br />
United States Navy either commanding one of the ships or having a division<br />
or squadron command.97 At this time, the most recent rear admiral selection<br />
list extended down through the Class of 1915, and actual promotion to rear<br />
admiral had taken place recently down into the Class of 1913. <strong>The</strong> captain<br />
selection list extended down through the Class of 1920, and actual promotion<br />
had taken place recently down through three quarters of the Class of 1918.<br />
Of the 19 naval officers in command in these transport divisions, only four<br />
were on station and had not missed either the recent selection to the next<br />
higher rank, or a previous one at some time in their naval career. Neverthe-<br />
less, performance of duty of the very highest order in WATCHTOWER and<br />
in subsequent combat operations in the Pacific brought promotion to the<br />
great majority of these 19 oflicers. Three became commodores, one a rear<br />
admiral, and one a vice admiral on the active list of the Navy. Nine of the<br />
10 commanders won promotion to captain on the active list during the war.<br />
Despite Rear Admiral Turner’s strong and repeated recommendations to the<br />
Navy Department, supported by his seniors in the chain of command, he<br />
was unable to obtain promotion to rear admiral of several of the commo-<br />
dores who so ably served him, the Navy, and the nation.es<br />
WHEN, WHERE, WITH WHAT?<br />
Admiral King was pressing his naval subordinates to get on the counter-<br />
MTurner.<br />
m(a) N.R., 1938-43; (b) N.D., 1 Mar. 1942; (c) Establishment letter, 1942.<br />
w (a) Turner; (b) N.R., 1942-45, 1947; (c) COMPHIBFORSOPAC to COMSOPAC 192350<br />
Jul. 1942; COMSOPAC to CINCPAC 210050 Ju1. 1942.
270 Amphibians Canze To Conquer<br />
offensive all during the sec~ffd half of June. At the same time, he was<br />
pressing his co-worker on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Marshall, for<br />
the same purpose:<br />
As you know, it has been my conviction that the Japanese will not stand<br />
still in the South Pacific and will not let us stand still. Either they will press<br />
us with an extension of their offensives, seeking weak spots in order to break<br />
our line of communications, or we will have to be pressing them. It is urgent,<br />
in my opinion, that we lose no time in taking the initiative ourselves.gg<br />
Although Rear Admiral Turner knew when he left Washington on<br />
12 June 1942 that there were going to be combat operations in the South<br />
Pacific, he did not know WHEN the operation was to take place, nor exactly<br />
WHERE, though his personal choices of objectives were the lower Solomons<br />
and Santa Cruz Islands.<br />
He enjoyed his leave of absence, as much as anyone could under the<br />
circumstances. Before his leave was up, he was ordered by a COMINCH<br />
telegram into San Francisco on 29 June 1942 to rendezvous with five of his<br />
staff officers (Linscott, Weir, Harris, Doyle, and Bowling). COMINCH<br />
and CINCPAC were also soon to head towards San Francisco.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner wrote in regard to this period:<br />
I first knew definitely of the Operation on June thirtieth, when staff officers<br />
of mine flew from Washington and met me in San Francisco. I drew up a<br />
project and submitted it to Admiral King and Admiral Nimitz on July third.<br />
This project was approved in general terms. <strong>The</strong>n on July fourth, I flew to<br />
Honolulu; remained three days consulting with Admiral Nimitz, and his staff,<br />
and Admirals Fletcher, Kinkaid, and Admiral Fitch. Admiral Noyes was at<br />
sea, en route from San Diego to the South Pacific with some of the troops.<br />
On July eighth, I departed Honolulu, flew to Auckland, arriving on July<br />
fifteenth. Took command of the Amphibious Forces on July eighteenth and<br />
sailed from Wellington with part of the force on July twenty -second.loo<br />
It was the nation’s and the Navy’s great gain that CINCPAC survived a<br />
crash landing coming into San Francisco on 30 June 1942 for his conference<br />
with Admiral King of 3 July, when his big four-motor Sikorsky amphibian<br />
turned over on its back, killing the co-pilot. Admiral Nimitz had another<br />
WCOMINCH to C/SA, letter, FF1/A16-3 ( 1), Ser 00544 of 25 Jun. 1942, subj: Offensive<br />
Operatiom in the South and Southwest Pacific Area, encl: draft directive for WATCHTOWER.<br />
‘mRKT to Admiral Hepburn, memorandum, Mar. 1943; (b) Colonel Linscott in Washington<br />
telephoned Rear Admiral Turner the day the derision embodied in COMINCH 231255<br />
June was taken, and in guarded language informed him that he would be going to work sooner<br />
than expected but in the general area previously discussed. (Despatch direrted “Seizure and<br />
Occupation of Tulagi, Target Date 1 August.”) Interview with Colonel Lim.cott, 10 Dec. 1962.<br />
Hereafter Linscott,
4,<br />
wATCHTOWER 271<br />
Captain James H. Doyle, <strong>US</strong>N, at Gwdalcana[, 1942.<br />
NH 69105<br />
stroke of good fortune when he heard about the project which Rear Admiral<br />
Turner had spent three days cooking up with the intelligent help of Colonel<br />
Henry Linscott and Captain Jimmie Doyle who were to serve him extremely<br />
well throughout the next year in the South Pacific.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner and his staff had the advantage of seeing General<br />
Marshall’s despatch to General MacArthur which directed that despite any<br />
unhappiness over the command set up for PESTILENCE, “every available<br />
support both Army and Navy must be given to operations against the<br />
enemy,” and of General MacArthur’s reply:
272 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
You may rest assured that every possible resource under my control will be<br />
used to the maximum against the enemy at all times and under any circumstances.<br />
101<br />
<strong>The</strong> project which Rear Admiral Turner submitted to Admiral Nimitz and<br />
then to Admiral King was titled a “Limited Amphibious Offensive in South<br />
and Southwest Pacific.” 102It called for:<br />
a. <strong>The</strong> occupation of Ndeni Island, the largest and most western of<br />
the Santa Cruz Islands. (Ndeni lies about 250 miles north of<br />
Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides and 300 miles east of Guadal-<br />
canal in the lower Solomon Islands.)<br />
b. (1). <strong>The</strong> capture of tiny Tulagi and nearby Florida Island in the<br />
lower Solomons, some 560 miles northwest from Espiritu<br />
Sante,<br />
(2). the occupation of an airfield (or airfield site) on the north<br />
coast of the 90-mile long and 25-mile wide island of Guadal-<br />
canal, and<br />
(3). the establishment of an aircraft warning service on outlying<br />
islands in the lower Solomons (San Cristobal, Malaita, Santa<br />
Isabel, New Georgia, and Choiseul).<br />
c. <strong>The</strong> occupation of Funafati in the Ellice Islands, 800 miles east of<br />
Ndeni2 as an advanced base for temporary occupation of patrol<br />
planes. (Funafati was an atoll, 7 miles long and 150 yards wide.)<br />
d. <strong>The</strong> reinforcement of the Espiritu Santo Army garrisons currently<br />
500 strong and the construction of a landplane base there. Espiritu<br />
Santo was the northernmost and largest island in the New Hebrides.<br />
(It was 75 miles long and 45 miles wide and lay about 400 miles<br />
north of Noumea, New Caledonia. )<br />
On New Caledonia was a strong army garrison numbering 22,000. New<br />
Caledonia was then the
WATCHTOWER<br />
operations should take precedence over units being<br />
[EFATE, NEW HEBRIDES] and other localities.<br />
As a forerunner of later difficulties with some of<br />
Rear Admiral Turner added this view:<br />
assembled for ROSES<br />
his logistic subordinates<br />
that with respect to captured islands, we should set a date of one week for<br />
the establishment of an airfield.104<br />
It is also worth pointing out that Rear Admiral Turner picked Guadalcanal<br />
Island before it was known by the Navy or reported to the Navy by the Army<br />
Air Force that the Japanese had actually started construction of an airfield<br />
in its north central plain area. Thii was the reason for the parenthetical “or<br />
airfield site” in the plan submitted to CIINCPAC and COMINCH in San<br />
Francisco. Definite information that an airfield had actually been started by<br />
the Japanese on Guadalcanal Island did not reach Rear Admiral Turner until<br />
after his arrival in New Zealand.105<br />
As early as 22 May 1942, Army forces on New Caledonia had reported to<br />
the War Department a Japanese photo reconnaissance plane observed over<br />
Guadalcanal and suggested that the Japanese were “planning aerodrome<br />
construction there.” This prophetic G-2 despatch was not given the normal<br />
routing to the Navy or special COMINCH routing which so many incoming<br />
Army informatory dispatches were given.’””<br />
<strong>The</strong> following despatch from New Caledonia to the War Department’s<br />
General Staff (Intelligence) on 25 June 1942 was circulated by G-2 to the<br />
Navy Department on 26 June 1942:<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is no construction at Guadalcanal although the plain is burned off as if<br />
for an airdrome. <strong>The</strong>re are tents and sea activity, and construction of a wharf<br />
at Lunga, but not cargo unloaded.lo?<br />
A group of General Headquarters Southwest Pacific Area dispatches origi-<br />
nating from 22 through 26 June were handled similarly.’”’ <strong>The</strong>se dispatches<br />
reported Japanese naval activity around Guadalcanal and, in bits and pieces,<br />
supplied the information summarized by G-2 in New Caledonia in their<br />
25 June despatch. Several of the CINCSWPA dispatches bear a K indicating<br />
Admiral King saw them and others bear a C indicating Rear Admiral<br />
Turner’s relief, Rear Admiral Cooke, saw them.<br />
‘wNotes on conversations between COMINCH and CINCPAC, 4 Jul. 1942.<br />
‘KTurner.<br />
1~CM_1N_6593 5/23/&, This and &e following Army intelligence dispatches are located<br />
in the Archives Branch of the Washington National Records Center, Srritland, Maryland.<br />
‘mCM-IN-7326, 2/25/42.<br />
‘w (a) CM-IN-7283, 6/22/42; (b) CM-IN-7850; 6/24/42; (.) CM-IN-8307, 6/25/42;<br />
(d) CM-IN-8416, 6/26/42; (e) CM-IN-8607, 6/26/42.<br />
273
274 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
Presumably on the basis of these dispatches, CINCPAC on the 26th of<br />
June asked COMSOWESPACFOR to arrange for photo reconnaissance of<br />
all Japanese airdromes in the Solomons. On 28 June and subsequent days,<br />
Army Air Force planes in General MacArthur’s command made the requested<br />
flights. <strong>The</strong>se were supplemented by reconnaissance planes from COMAIR-<br />
SOPAC’S command.’”’ On 1 July, the Australian intelligence organization in<br />
the Solomon’s titled FERDINAND was alerted to the presence of a good<br />
sized Japanese labor party on Guadalcanal Island, but this information<br />
indicated that actual work on the airfield awaited the arrival “within a week”<br />
of the” 1 Ith and 13th Pioneer Forces.” 110<br />
According to Samuel E. Morison:<br />
On 5 July, Admiral Nimitz, received a bit of news that sparked off the whole<br />
operation. An American reconnaissance plane observed that the Japanese were<br />
starting to build an airfield-the future Henderson Field--on Guadalcanal.111<br />
Actually the information did not come from either an American or an<br />
Allied reconnaissance plane. CINCPAC read a Japanese radio message<br />
stating that the ‘‘Guadalcanal landing was designated ‘AN’ operation, with<br />
4 July as ‘X’ day. Force consisted of naval landing party, plus 1 lth and<br />
13th Pioneer Forces.” From this it was deduced that actual construction of<br />
the airfield would start soon after 4 July.’”<br />
<strong>The</strong> intelligence reports for 4 through 10 July from CINCSWPAC,<br />
COMSOPAC and New Caledonia contain no information in regard to<br />
the start of the building of an airdrome on Guadalcanal but tell of landing<br />
barges and pontoon landing jetties, and of cruisers, destroyers, and small<br />
craft near Lunga Point.’” As late as 17 July, CINCSWPAC reported “no<br />
actual construction work on runway.” 114<br />
m (a) CM-IN-9649 6/29/42; (b) Air Force, Guadalcanal and Saipan, p. 26.<br />
“0 (a) Samuel B. Griffith, <strong>The</strong> Bdtle for Guadalcaml(New York: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1963),<br />
pp. 20-21; (b) Eric A, Feldt, <strong>The</strong> Coast Wutrher$ (Melborne, Oxford University Press, 1946),<br />
P. 83.<br />
m Morison, Coral Sea, Midway a~d Submarine Actionj (Vol. IV), p, 261. On page 12 of<br />
Volume V, Morison states it a bit differmtly: “But on 4 July, an allied reconnaissance pIane<br />
reported the Japanese were starting work on an airfield.”<br />
m COMSOPAC, Op Plan I-42, 16 Jul. 1942, Appendix H, Intelligence Annex A, subj:<br />
Guadalcanal-Enemy information captured by CINCPAC.<br />
m (a) CM–IN-0925 7/3/42; (b) CGSNPA Operations Report of 7/4/42 (without identifying<br />
numbers); (c) CM-IN-1742 7/5/~2; (d) CM-IN-1761 7/5/42; (e) CM–IN-1988<br />
7/6/42; (f) CM-IN–2068 7/6/42 ; (g) CM–IN–2264 7/7/42; (h) CM–lN-2309 7/7/42;<br />
(i) CM-IN-2861 7/9/42; (j) CM-IN-3038 7/9/42; (k) CM-IN-3094 7/9/42; (1) CM-IN-<br />
3439 7/10/42.<br />
u~~–IN-5953 1J171Q
WATCHTOWER 275<br />
<strong>The</strong> day previous, 16 July, when Vice Admiral Ghormley issued his<br />
Operation Plan for WATCHTOWER, the information in regard to the<br />
landing field near Lunga Point on Guadalcanal in the Intelligence Annex<br />
read as follows:<br />
Troops observed burning grass plains behind Lunga, Tenaru, and Kukoom on<br />
July 14, no actual work on runways was observed.<br />
<strong>The</strong> plan further confirmed the lack of definite information on 16 July 1942<br />
by ordering that:<br />
On Dog Day capture and occupy Tulagi and adjacent positions, including<br />
an adjoining portion of Guadalcanal suitable for the construction of landing<br />
fields. Initiate construction of landing fields without delay.<br />
It was not until 25 July, as Rear Admiral Turner was worrying about the<br />
landings soon to be rehearsed in the Fijis, that CINCSWPAC reported<br />
large airdrome nearing completion eight miles east of TENARU.<br />
<strong>The</strong> quite obvious error as to where the airdrome actually was located was<br />
corrected in due time to locate it two miles south of Lungs Point and on the<br />
east side of the Lunga River.115<br />
<strong>The</strong> high powered and presumably all-seeing Joint Intelligence Committee<br />
(JIC) in Washington had no better information on this all important subject.<br />
<strong>The</strong> JIC Daily Summary of 10 July 1942 stated:<br />
G?~adalcat?aI IsLmd. <strong>The</strong>re are indications of construction on an airfield.<br />
Ten days later the JIC noted:<br />
Gt~adalcatzal. Runway completed on 20 July 1942<br />
It might be noted as a lasting memorial to Rear Admiral Turner’s mistaken<br />
desire to keep the Office of Naval Intelligence and all related Army<br />
intelligence activities ignorant of impending naval operations, that in the<br />
28-day period between 10 July and 7 August, when WATCHTOWER was<br />
really being launched, there were only six mentions of Guadalcanal Island<br />
in the JIC Summaries. <strong>The</strong> only other one of particular moment was on<br />
26 July when it was noted:<br />
An enemy airdrome appears to be nearing completion on Guadalcanal Island<br />
and another is under construction .116<br />
<strong>The</strong> failure of both Naval and Army Air Force air reconnaissance to give<br />
to COMPHIBFORSOPAC a clear day-by-day report of progress on the<br />
‘=CM-IN-8926 7/26/42; CM-IN-9973 7/29/42.<br />
‘wJIC Intelligence Summaries, 16 Jun. 1942 to 8 Aug. 1942,
276 Amphibians Came To Cotzquer<br />
building of the airdrome between 17 July and 25 July has never been<br />
satisfactorily explained. But the word finally did get through and it was<br />
clearly stated in the Intelligence Annex of the PHIBSOPAC Operation<br />
Plan issued on 30 July that an “enemy landing field is known to exist in the<br />
Solomons at Guadalcanal.”<br />
In addition to believing that there had been some failure to get routine<br />
air reconnaissance intelligence through to him during a cruciaI period, it was<br />
Admiral Turner’s strong belief that Morison’s History of Naval Operations<br />
in World War 11 gave quite the wrong inference when it stated: “It was the<br />
start of airfield construction there [Guadalcanal], before the end of June,<br />
that sparked off the whole Guadalcanal operation.” It was Admiral Turner’s<br />
belief that it had been “sparked off” long before that.’”<br />
As to planning, the best testimony comes from Fleet Admiral King who<br />
wrote:<br />
<strong>The</strong> planning of the Solomons landings was done in COMINCH Headquarters<br />
by Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, who was then sent to the South<br />
Pacific in command of the amphibious force that was to carry them out.”s<br />
“ (a) Turner; (b) Morison, Coral Sea, Midway and Subma~ine Actions (Vol. IV), p. 256.<br />
“ King’s Record, p. 434. Reprinted by Permission of W. W. Norton & Co., Inc.
CHAPTER VIII<br />
CACT<strong>US</strong> Bound<br />
THE JAPANESE SUBDUE OUR SERVICES<br />
DIFFERENCES<br />
By early July it was obvious to all the planning staffs in Washington that<br />
the time had arrived when something had to be dcme to really stop the<br />
southward extension of island control and daily air reconnaissance by the<br />
Japanese. Both the Army and the Navy, at long last, were agreed that<br />
offensive air-sea-ground action was the answer. Cooperation by all hands, at<br />
all levels, might lack from practice, but did not lack from willing effort.’<br />
While Rear Admiral Turner was at Pearl Harbor ( 5–8 July 1942) radio<br />
intelligence made it clear that Japanese forces would be found in some<br />
strength on Guadalcanal. If the Japanese after local reconnaissance had<br />
chosen Guadalcanal as the best place to build an airfield, and moved their<br />
Pioneer Forces there to do this essential chore, and antiaircraft units to<br />
protect the site, then Rear Admiral Turner knew the Navy and <strong>Marine</strong>s’<br />
first priority task must be Guadalcanal.<br />
Since the available amphibious forces in the South Pacific were not ade-<br />
quate to land at Ndeni in the Santa Cruz Islands and at the islands, Tulagi,<br />
Gavutu, Florida, and Guadalcanal, in the Solomons all at the same time, the<br />
decision was made at CINCPAC Headquarters to postpone the occupation of<br />
Ndeni, where the enemy was not, until Tulagi and Guadalcanal, where the<br />
enemy was, were in hand. This was considered to be within both the spirit<br />
and letter of the Joint Chiefs of staff directives, which directed the seizure of<br />
Tulagi and ‘
278 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
planners toward offensive amphibious operations, in general, and particularly<br />
toward initiating these from the South Pacific and Southwest Pacific Areas.<br />
This planning assisted mightily in the development of a naval belief in the<br />
practicality of the over-all concept of PESTILENCE.<br />
When AdmiraI Nimitz arrived back in Hawaii after his 23–24 April conference<br />
with Admiral King in San Francisco carrying the specific directive<br />
to COMSOPAC to “prepare to launch a major amphibious offensive against<br />
positions held by the Japanese,” detailed staff studies were undertaken at<br />
CINCPAC Headquarters to carry out this broad task, starting in the Santa<br />
Cruz and lower Solomon Islands. <strong>The</strong>se anticipatory staff studies together<br />
with subsequent CINCPAC and COMSOPAC lively actions, made possible<br />
the telescoping from three months to three weeks of the necessary opera-<br />
tional planning at the amphibious level for the WATCHTOWER Operation.<br />
For four days, 5–8 July, the senior members of Rear Admiral<br />
Turner’s staff, Linscott, Doyle, Weir and Harris, worked alongside members<br />
of CINCPAC staff in the CINCPAC Headquarters.<br />
TurnerCollection<br />
~e~ly Tarrier at Tongatabu, Tongs Islands with Brigadier General Benjamin<br />
C. Lockwood, A<strong>US</strong>, and Commander Charles E. Olsen, <strong>US</strong>N, boand fo~<br />
Guadaicanal, 12 July 1942.
CACT<strong>US</strong> Bound 279<br />
Fleet Admiral Nirnit,z, ip~ecalling the occasion, said:<br />
This was my first opportunity to work closely with Kelly Turner. I never<br />
served in the same ship or organization with Kelly Turner. He was in War<br />
Plans when I was Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, and I used to see him in<br />
Starks office.<br />
I once asked Kelly Turner: ‘Could I look at our War Plans?’<br />
He said: ‘We will tell you what you need to know.’<br />
As an aside, perhaps you would like to hear about my becoming CINCPAC<br />
{Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet].<br />
On 16 December, Colonel Knox sent for me and asked: “How soon can<br />
you travel ? <strong>The</strong> President and I have just clecicled that you are going out to<br />
take command of the Pacific Fleet. . . .’ I asked for Russell Willson or<br />
Kelly Turner to be my Chief of Staff. Neither could be sprung. I decided<br />
it would be foolish of me to try to disrupt the Navy Department.<br />
Our PB2Y plane almost capsized on trying to take off. Finally got off on<br />
24 December and arrived Pearl on Christmas morning.z<br />
Rear Admiral Turner could not actually issue any orders until he took<br />
command of the South Pacific Amphibious Force, but he had the attentive ear<br />
of those who could issue orders.<br />
With every day counting, and with Rear Admiral Turner’s impatience<br />
mounting as a hound dog’s scenting the fox, the flight from Pearl Harbor<br />
to Auckland in rmrthern New Zealand was interminable. Bad weather<br />
delayed the Patrol Wing Two plane a day in Canton and a day in Tongatabu,<br />
Tonga Islands. But Rear Admiral Turner, ever the busy bee and top notch<br />
staff officer and making one hundred percent use of the time available while<br />
at Tongatabu, went “thoroughly into the status of the construction projects,<br />
as regards completion. ” He sent off his opinion that “most of the work<br />
can be done within the next four months,” in a detailed four-page report<br />
to Rear Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, Chief of Staff to CINCPAC.’<br />
Arrival at Auckland and reporting to Vice Admiral Ghormley did not<br />
take place until 15 July, a week out of Pearl, and four days later than Rear<br />
Admiral Turner had planned. <strong>The</strong> last leg had to be made via Fiji rather<br />
than direct because of a weather front.’<br />
On Thursday, 16 July, after receiving a “Can do” from Rear Admiral<br />
Turner, COMSOPAC set the date for the landings as 7 August 1942.5<br />
On Friday, 17 July 1942, Rear Admiral Turner flew south to Wellington,<br />
‘ Interview with Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, LISN, 19 Oct. 1961. Hereafter Nimitz.<br />
‘ Turner to Spruance, letter, 13 Jul. 1942.<br />
‘ Linscott.<br />
‘ (a) Linscott; (b) COMSOPAC to CINCPAC, 160612 Jul. 1942.
280 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
I<br />
ORGANIZATION OF 80UTH PACIFIC FORCE<br />
b<br />
CINCPAC<br />
NIMITZ<br />
COMSOPAC<br />
GHORMLEY<br />
AMPHIBIO<strong>US</strong><br />
FORCES<br />
TF 62<br />
AIR<br />
FORCES<br />
TF 63<br />
ARMY<br />
FORCES<br />
NAVAL<br />
FORCES<br />
TF 61<br />
Turner<br />
McCain<br />
Harmon<br />
Fletcher<br />
I<br />
SERVICE<br />
SQUADRON<br />
Bowman<br />
I<br />
+<br />
ISLAND<br />
BASES<br />
Based on Pacific Fleet confidential notice of August 8, 1942 for<br />
Fleet Units.<br />
New Zealand, and went aboard his flagship, the U.SS McCawley. Saturday<br />
morning he assumed command of Amphibious Force, South Pacific Force.<br />
<strong>The</strong> heat was on him, and he raised the operating temperature all around<br />
him, as he threw himself into detailed planning and last-minute training.<br />
THE SOUTH PACIFIC AMPHIBIO<strong>US</strong> FORCE<br />
Rear Admiral Turner’s amphibious command was the first balanced<br />
amphibious force assembled by the United States Navy ,.in World War IL<br />
<strong>The</strong> backbone of its strength was a <strong>Marine</strong> Division, 13 transports, and five<br />
cargo ships. Temporarily assigned for the purpose of the particular opera-<br />
tions ahead were two <strong>Marine</strong> Defense Battalions tailored for island occupa-<br />
tion and defense, a <strong>Marine</strong> Barrage Balloon Squadron, four destroyer-type<br />
transports and five destroyer-type minesweepers.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner viewed his own duties in the command as purely<br />
operational. Administrative command of the units of the force was vested by<br />
him in the following subordinate commanders: the Commanding General,
CACT<strong>US</strong> Bound<br />
ORGANIZATION OF PERMANENT FORCES OF<br />
I<br />
[ PHI BFORSOPAC I<br />
+<br />
1<br />
PHIBFORSOPAC<br />
MARINE<br />
TRANSPORT<br />
PROVISIONAL CORPS DIVISIONS<br />
Vandegrift<br />
I<br />
Reifsnider<br />
281<br />
> +<br />
As given in establishment letter of July 18, 1942<br />
South Pacific <strong>Marine</strong> Provisional <strong>Corps</strong>, Major General Alexander A. Vande-<br />
grift, <strong>US</strong>MC; Commander Transport Divisions, South Pacific Force, Captain<br />
Lawrence F. Reifsnider, U. S. Navy (Class of 1910) ; and Commander<br />
Minesweeper Group, Commander William H. Hartt, U. S. Navy (Class of<br />
1918). Commander Naval Bases, South Pacific, a direct subordinate of<br />
COMSOPAC, had not been named. This command not yet fully activated<br />
was to administer and train th~ Amphibious Force Boat Pool, initially to<br />
be located “at Wellington. Commander Service Squadron, SOPACFOR,<br />
Captain Mark C. Bowman, U. S. Navy (Class of 1909) another direct<br />
subordinate of COMSOPAC was responsible for logistic support of the<br />
Amphibious Force, South Pacific.’<br />
Transport Division Eight and Transport Division Ten were regularly<br />
assigned to Transport Divisions South Pacific Force. Transport Divisions<br />
Two and Twelve were temporarily assigned. <strong>The</strong> individual transport divi-<br />
sions were organized as follows:<br />
TRANSPORT D1VIS1ONS, SOUTH PACIFIC FORCE<br />
Captain L. F. Reifsnider, U. S. Navy, Commanding (1910)<br />
TRANSPORT DIVISION TWO<br />
Captain Pat Buchanan, U.S. Navy, Division Commander (191 1)<br />
AP- 9 <strong>US</strong>S Zeifin (Flagship) Captain Pat Buchanan (191 1)<br />
AP-40 <strong>US</strong>S Crescent City Captain I. N. Kiland ( 1917)<br />
o (a) COMPHIBFORSOPAC, letter, no Ser of 18 Jul. 1942, sub: Establishment of PHIBFOR,<br />
SOPAC; (b) <strong>The</strong> Alckibti (AK–23 ) (Commander James S. Freeman), which participated in<br />
the WATCHTOWER Operation was assigned administratively to Transport Division Six.
282 Amphibians Came To Conqner<br />
AP-39 <strong>US</strong>S President Hayes Commander F. W. Benson ( 1917)<br />
AP-38 <strong>US</strong>S Pre~ident Adam Commander C. W. Brewington ( 1917)<br />
AP-37 <strong>US</strong>S president ~ackson Commander C. W. Weitzel ( 1917)<br />
AK-26 <strong>US</strong>S Aibend Commander C. B. Hunt ( 1919)<br />
AK-28 <strong>US</strong>S Beleigerise Commander H. D. Power ( 1920)<br />
TRANSPORT DIVISION EIGHT<br />
Captain G. B. Ashe, U, S. Navy, Division Commander (1911)<br />
AP-16 <strong>US</strong>S Neville (Flagship) Captain C. A. Bailey ( 1911)<br />
AP- 14 <strong>US</strong>S Ftdller Captain P.S. <strong>The</strong>iss ( 1912)<br />
AP- 12 <strong>US</strong>S Heywood Captain H. B. Knowles ( 1917)<br />
AP- 13 <strong>US</strong>S George F. Elliott Captain W. O. Bailey ( 1918)<br />
AK- 20 <strong>US</strong>S Beilatvix Commander W. F. Dietrich ( 1917)<br />
AK-22 <strong>US</strong>S Fovnlalbal~t Commander J. D. Alvis ( 1918)<br />
TRANSPORT DIVISION TEN<br />
Captain L. F, Reifsnider, U. S. Navy, Division Commander ( 1910)<br />
AP- 10 <strong>US</strong>S McCau~ey (Force Flagship) Captain C. P. McFeaters ( 1914)<br />
AP- 11 <strong>US</strong>S Bawett Captain W. B. Phillips (1911)<br />
AP-3> <strong>US</strong>S Amevican Legion Captain T. D. Warner ( 1919)<br />
AP-27 <strong>US</strong>S H?/nter Liggett (Flagship ) Commander L. W. Perkins,<br />
U. S. Coast Guard<br />
AK-53 <strong>US</strong>S Libva Commander W. B. Fletcher ( 1921)<br />
TRANSPORT DIVISION TWELVE<br />
Commander H. W. Hadley, Division Commander ( t 922)<br />
APD-4 <strong>US</strong>S Lithe (Flagship) Lieutenant Commander J. B. Loftberg ( 1927)<br />
APD -> <strong>US</strong>S McKean Lieutenant Commander J. D. Sweeney ( 1926)<br />
APD-3 <strong>US</strong>S Gregory Lieutenant Commander H. F. Bauer ( 1927)<br />
APD-2 <strong>US</strong>S Colbofm Lieutenant Commander E. C. Loughead ( 1923)<br />
It should be noted that Transport Division Two was shy a separately<br />
detailed division commander, and that Commander Transport Division<br />
Ten doubled in brass as Commander Transport Divisions.<br />
<strong>The</strong> South Pacific <strong>Marine</strong> Provisional <strong>Corps</strong> had the First <strong>Marine</strong> Division<br />
regularly assigned. <strong>The</strong> First Division was organized around the lst, 5th and<br />
7th Regiments of Infantry and the 1 lth Regiment of Artillery. This division<br />
was without its 7th <strong>Marine</strong> Regiment reinforced, which was on base defense<br />
duty in Samoa. It was to receive from the Second <strong>Marine</strong> Division the 2nd<br />
<strong>Marine</strong> Regiment currently enroute from San Diego, and in addition the<br />
251st <strong>Marine</strong> Observation Squadron.<br />
<strong>The</strong> following <strong>Marine</strong> units were temporarily assigned to PHIBFOR-<br />
SOPAC:<br />
I st <strong>Marine</strong> Raider Battalion—at Noumea, New Caledonia
CACT<strong>US</strong> Bou?hi 283<br />
3rd <strong>Marine</strong> Barrage Balloon Squadron<br />
5th <strong>Marine</strong> Defense Battalion—under orders to reenforce the 2nd Regiment<br />
upon its arrival from the East Coast<br />
<strong>The</strong> 3rd <strong>Marine</strong> Defense Battalion, to sail from Pearl Harbor on 22 July<br />
in the Zedin and Betelgeuse, was due to be assigned to PHIBFORSOPAC<br />
upon arrival.<br />
THE FLAGSHIP<br />
<strong>The</strong> McCawley, named after the eighth Commandant of the <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong>,<br />
was a 13,000-ton, 17-knot diesel-engined merchant ship (SS Santa Barbara)<br />
designated AP-10 (later APA-4). She had been built by the Furness Ship<br />
Building Company in England in 1928. After purchase by the Navy Depart-<br />
ment from the Grace Steamship Line she was commissioned in the United<br />
States Navy in August 1940, after a 25-day “conversion” job. Needless to say,<br />
the McCaw/ey’.r communication capabilities and staff accommodations were<br />
far from what the Solomon Islands’ amphibious operations would show were<br />
needed in an amphibious flagship. At that time, she even lacked a regularly<br />
installed voice radio. But, based on the state of the amphibious art as it<br />
was known in June 1942, she was deemed adequate.7 Furthermore, the<br />
McCaw/ey was available in the South Pacific, having carried <strong>Marine</strong> Observa-<br />
tion Squadron 251 to Pago Pago, Samoa, in early May. That neither Rear<br />
Admiral Turner, nor the drafter of the letter designating the McCawley<br />
as flagship, nor Admiral King who signed it 7 June 1942, had any idea<br />
at that time that COMPHIBFORSOPAC would be landing at Guadalcanal<br />
only 61 days later, on 7 August, is indicated by the fact that the letter<br />
prescribed “Flag Allowances of publications, personnel, and material . . .<br />
should be sent in time to arrive Wellington by 7 August 1942.”<br />
Her skipper, when Rear Admiral Turner broke his flag afloat for the first<br />
time, was Captain Charles P. McFeaters of the Class of 1913. <strong>The</strong> Executive<br />
Officer was Lieutenant Commander George K. G. Reilly. <strong>The</strong>se two officers<br />
struggled constantly to meet the demanding requirements of a stern task-<br />
master and an eager beaver staff, but never quite made the grade.a An<br />
“ (a) MrCawley designated as flagship by COMINCH on 7 June 1942, COMINCH letter<br />
FF1/A3/l/AlcL3, se. 00468 of 7 Jun. 1942; (b) Defects of Conversion in CNO to CINCLANT,<br />
letter Ser 013423 of 15 Feb. 1941. Commander in Chief of the Atlantic Fleet stated that the<br />
MrCawley was not equipped to conduct successful landings in Force.<br />
s (a) Turner; (b) Interview with Rear Admiral John S. Lewis, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret. ) (ex-Flag Lieutenant),<br />
7 Nov. 1962. Hereafter Lewis.
284 Anzphzbz~nJ Came To Conquer<br />
indication of how very busy they were is that no July or August 1942 War<br />
Diary for the ship survives in any of the depositories, and it seems probable<br />
it never was forwarded.<br />
Although the 13,00@ton McCaw/ey had been the Grace Line’s passenger<br />
ship Santa Barbara for some years, and presumably had more than adequate<br />
living accommodations for any naval purpose, this did not prove the case.<br />
Staff officers of the rank of lieutenant commander were crowded together<br />
three in a room, and the more junior ship and communication officers were<br />
stacked up in bunk rooms. <strong>The</strong> McCaw/ey, as one of the 13 transports<br />
designated for WATCHTOWER, had to carry her share of troops and the<br />
boats to land them. This task absorbed communication facilities needed by<br />
the Amphibious Commander.<br />
Of the PHIBFORSOPAC Staff, only the serologist filed a “satisfactory”<br />
report on the particular flagship facilities needed for his efficient func-<br />
tioning.g<br />
PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER<br />
In his San Francisco Memorandum to CINCPAC, Rear Admiral Turner<br />
bluntly stated that “neither the troops, ships, nor aircraft assigned to this<br />
project are adequately trained in amphibious warfare.” <strong>The</strong> Commanding<br />
General of the Amphibious <strong>Corps</strong>, Pacific Fleet, had reported recently:<br />
<strong>The</strong> state of readiness of the First <strong>Marine</strong> Aircraft Wing is such that it is<br />
considered imperative that steps be taken immediately to remedy the situation.<br />
However, Rear Admiral Turner believed that “there is s@cient time to<br />
remedy training deficiencies provided corrective steps are taken at once.” 10<br />
To initiate the corrective steps, he attached to his memorandum to CINCPAC<br />
a prospective training schedule. This schedule included landing <strong>Marine</strong>s<br />
during an actual gun and air bombardment, conducted by the aircraft,<br />
heavy cruisers, and destroyers slated to support the initial landings and controlled<br />
by air controllers and shore fire control parties from these ships.<br />
‘ (a) Interviews and questionnaires from PHIBFORSOPAC Staff, 1961–1963. Hereafter<br />
PHIBFORSOPAC Staff Interviews; (b) A.C.W. Baskin, tetter, 16 Nov. 1962.<br />
10(a) PESTILENCE Memo, para. 2; (b) Commanding General, 1st <strong>Marine</strong> Aircraft Wing,<br />
Pacific Fleet, to Commander Amphibious Force, pacific Fleet, letter, KVIO/A16/CSN-082 of 11<br />
May 1942 and First Endorsement thereon by Commanding Gmeral, Amphibious <strong>Corps</strong>, Pacific<br />
Fleet, 13 May 1942. This was the Wing whose forward erhelon landed on Henderson Field, 20<br />
August 1942.
CACT<strong>US</strong> Bound 285<br />
CINCPAC directed this to be done insofar as ship availability made it<br />
practicable.<br />
As soon as Rear Admiral Turner reached Pearl on 5 July 1942, the dispatches<br />
started to fly from CINCPAC Headquarters.<br />
1. <strong>The</strong> transport Heywood was directed to transfer the Ist <strong>Marine</strong><br />
Raider Battalion from Tutuila, Samoa to Noumea, New Caledonia<br />
to arrive 10 July 1942.<br />
2. Transport Division Twelve (composed of four fast destroyer-type<br />
transports) was ordered to Tutuila, to arrive 15 July 1942. It was<br />
slated to embark the 1st Raider Battalion at Noumea.<br />
3. <strong>The</strong> Zedin (AP-9) Flag of Transport Division Two, and the<br />
Betelgeuse (AK-28) of the same division, under orders to proceed<br />
to Pearl from San Diego, were ordered to sail from Pearl about<br />
20 July 1942, to the South Pacific Area.<br />
4. Air and ground reconnaissance of the Fiji Islands by <strong>Marine</strong>s of<br />
the First Division was directed for selection of an appropriate site<br />
for rehearsal of the prospective amphibious operations.<br />
PROPHETS OF GLOOM<br />
On the same day that Rear Admiral Turner was leaving Pearl for New<br />
Zealand (8 July 1942), full of zest for the dif%cult fight ahead, Vice Admiral<br />
Ghormley, his prospective area boss, was leaving New Zealand for Mel-<br />
bourne, Australia, under order from COMINCH and CINCPAC to confer<br />
with General MacArthur.<br />
Vice Admiral Ghormley had no taste for the conference.<br />
On account of early commencement of Task One and the great detail of<br />
planning necessary, will be accompanied by minimum officers and my stay<br />
must be as short as possible .11<br />
Vice Admiral Ghormley and General MacArthur also had no taste for<br />
the operation, then scheduled to take place only three weeks later.<br />
<strong>The</strong> two commanders are of the opinion, arrived at independently, and<br />
confirmed after discussion, that the initiation of the operation at this time<br />
without a reasonable assurance of adequate air coverage would be attended<br />
with the gravest risk. . . . surprise is now improbable. . . . successful<br />
11Ghormley to MacArthur, message 050011 Jul. 1942. He took only the Flag lieutenant and<br />
one other otlicer from his staff. Conference lasted 0800–1230, 1400–1450 on 8 July 1942.
286 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
accomplishment is open to the gravest doubts, . It is recommended<br />
that this operation be deierred.12<br />
This gloomy and surprising despatch crossed one in which Admiral Nimitz<br />
told Vice Admiral Ghormley: “I have full confidence in your ability to<br />
carry this operation to a successful conclusion. ” 13<br />
Fortunately for Rear Admiral Turner’s peace of mind during the next<br />
week, he did not see the pessimistic dispatches until he arrived in Auckland,<br />
and by that time, General MacArthur’s and Vice Admiral Ghormley’s recommendation<br />
to their respective Chiefs of Service to defer the operation had<br />
been turned down, and the ‘
CACT<strong>US</strong> Bound 287<br />
our heavy bomber force, sb%ecessaryin this area of great distances between<br />
bases. <strong>The</strong> Navy Planners’ stand that these heavy and medium bombers<br />
should be based in the South Pacific ready for action was sound. This was<br />
later demonstrated many times. <strong>The</strong> reason for the Army Planners’ refusal<br />
to agree to the Navy’s proposition was doubtless based on shortage of suitable<br />
aircraft; however this shortage was probably due to the following causes:<br />
a. <strong>The</strong> need for building up a plane reserve for the African invasion.<br />
b. Lend-lease Commitments to Great Britain and Russia.<br />
c. <strong>The</strong> unwillingness of the Army Air <strong>Corps</strong> to place their Squadrons and<br />
groups under naval control.”<br />
It was the plan of the Chief of the Army Air <strong>Corps</strong>, General Arnold:<br />
To hold the bulk of his heavy bomber strength at each end of the Pacific line,<br />
teady for concentration at any intermediate base. One heavy group, then<br />
assigned to Hawaii, would be available outside the Central Pacific on orders<br />
from the Joint Chiefs of Staff .16<br />
During early July 1942, the Chief of Staff, U. S. Army, had directed that<br />
the Hawaiian Mobile Air Force and the Australian Mobile Air Force be<br />
created. This took several weeks for the reluctant Army Air Force to<br />
implement. But, despite reluctance<br />
by July 15th, the 19th Bombardment Group (H) had been designated as a<br />
mobile force in the Southwest Pacific and on the following day the 11th<br />
Group . . . received its designation as Mobile Force, Central Pacific.<br />
Four days later the 1lth Group left Hickam Field for operations from Fiji,<br />
New Caledonia, Efate, and Espiritu Santo.’7<br />
<strong>The</strong> first B-17 from the Hawaiian Mobile Air Force (1 lth Group) landed<br />
on Espiritu Santo on 30 July 1942, However, the Australian Mobile Air<br />
Force was slow to gain its scheduled strength. It “was never called down<br />
[called over would be more accurate] as were the Hawaiian units.” ‘8<br />
General Arnold’s plan to hold the bulk of his heavy bomber strength at<br />
each end of the Pacific line was the one officially approved by the Joint<br />
Chiefs, but the Joint Chiefs implemented the plan by promptly ordering the<br />
Hawaiian Mobile Air Force to the South Pacific Area. This accomplished a<br />
fair share of the Navy’s desire for more airplanes in the South Pacific Area,<br />
prior to the WATCHTOWER Operation.<br />
n Vice Admiral R. L. Ghormley, manuscript covering the early history of the South Pacific<br />
Force and South Pacific Area, 22 Jan. 1943 pp. 34-35.<br />
“ Air Force, Guadalcanal to Saipan, p. 28.<br />
Hereafter, Ghormley manuscript.<br />
‘7Ibid., pp. 28-29. See also COMINCH to CINCPAC and COMSWPACFOR 032255 Jul. 1942;<br />
a–0221-OUT-I Jul. 1942 ; CM–0741–IN–2<br />
18Air Force, Guddll.afl@l ~0.$diptiw, P. 101.<br />
Ju1. 1942; CM–11oo–OUT–4 Ju1. 1942.
288 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
<strong>The</strong> implemention of the Army Air Force plan in this manner did not<br />
mean that General Arnold had a change of opinion in regard to the desira-<br />
bility of increasing the land based air power in the South Pacific. As late as<br />
29 July 1942, the Chief of the Army Air Forces was so little worried with<br />
the upcoming PESTILENCE operations that he strongly recommended that<br />
the nine heavy bombardment groups slated for the Southwest Pacific Area not<br />
be sent there until the requirements of the European <strong>The</strong>ater for the “modi-<br />
fied BOLERO,” the build-up of United States forces and supplies in the<br />
United Kingdom for its cross-channel attack, and for TORCH, the Allied<br />
invasion of North Africa, were “completely implemented.” lD<br />
IN COMMAND AT LONG LAST<br />
On the day that Rear Admiral Turner assumed command of the i4mphib-<br />
ious Force South Pacific, the just published 174-page Operation Plan for<br />
WATCHTOWER from Commander South Pacific Force (No. 1-42 dated<br />
16 July 1942) was flown in. This plan designated his command as “Task<br />
Force 62” for the WATCHTOWER Operation. <strong>The</strong> much shorter designa-<br />
tion, TF 62, found greater favor and use than the longer administrative title,<br />
PHIBFORSOPAC.<br />
During the four days between assuming command and sailing for the<br />
lower Solomons via the Fijis, where there would be a dress rehearsal, Rear<br />
Admiral Turner and his small staff ground out a large part of the 87-page<br />
Operation Plan (and its annexes) which were to govern in detail the first<br />
large-scale United States amphibious offensive operations of World War II.<br />
This was a large chore for a small staff inexperienced in amphibious warfare.<br />
It had to be driven through because radio silence would be an essential<br />
after sailing. Every word in it was checked and nit-picked by the Boss Man<br />
and a goodly share of the important parts written personally by him.zo<br />
Rear Admiral V. A. C. Crutchley, Royal Navy, arrived in Wellington on<br />
1!3 July with Task Force 44, ‘
CACT<strong>US</strong> Bound 289<br />
NH 67107<br />
Rear Admiral Turner with Major Genera! Alexander Vandegrift, <strong>US</strong>MC,<br />
on the Fiag Bridge of <strong>US</strong>S McCawley (APA–4), July-August 1942.<br />
Provisional <strong>Corps</strong>” had been in New Zealand a month when Rear Admiral<br />
Turner arrived. He was tremendously helpful in the necessary orientation,<br />
and in having all ready a “Scheme of Maneuver” quite workable from the<br />
Navy’s point of view.” Transport Division Ten under Captain Reifsnider, at<br />
Auckland since 25 May 1942, had carried out much needed boat training—<br />
while the <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> gear was being unloaded from the transports and<br />
reloaded by the <strong>Marine</strong>s specifically arranged for the WATCHTOWER<br />
combat operation.<br />
<strong>The</strong> staff log of COMPHIBFORSOPAC, in the handwriting of the Chief<br />
of Staff, notes during this four-day period with monotonous regularity and<br />
marked simplicity:<br />
All ships of Transport Group, South Pacific Force, in company, engaged in<br />
reloading and rearranging cargo on basis of projected operations [and_j in<br />
embarkation of troops. As these processes completed, ships anchored in the<br />
harbor in succession.<br />
n Ibid. A Scheme of Maneuver is the tactical plan to be executed by a force in order to seize<br />
assigned objectives.
290 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
INTELLIGENCE CHILLS<br />
One of the first things that Rear Admiral Turner was told upon his<br />
arrival in Wellington, New Zealand, was that Tulagi had already been<br />
named in the local papers as a probable amphibious assault objective. This<br />
perturbed him.”<br />
A Wellington daily newspaper, Tbe Dominion, on 4 July 1942 carried a<br />
long story with a New York City dateline quoting Major George Fielding<br />
Eliot as having said in the New Yo~k Herald Tvibane:<br />
What is needed, is to drive the Japanese out of their positions and convert<br />
them to our own use, <strong>The</strong> only way to take positions such as Rabaul, Wake<br />
Island and Tulagi is to land troops to take physical possession of them.zj<br />
Observation of the amenities of military life seemed the best and simplest<br />
cover plan to disguise the imminence of the combat operation, if not its<br />
destination, so the Governor General of New Zealand, Marshal of the<br />
Royal Air Force, Sir Cyril Newall, E.C.B., O. M., G. C.M.B., C. B.E., kindly<br />
entertained the senior officers at dinner.<br />
Despite the cover plan, on 21 July 1942, the day before sailing, Rear<br />
Admiral Turner, reported to the Area Commander, Vice Admiral Ghormley:<br />
A very disturbing circumstance is that a lot of New Zealand civilians in the<br />
government service seem to know the general features of our plans. We are<br />
having this investigated, but believe the leak occurred in the New Zealand<br />
Intelligence Office, which the <strong>Marine</strong>s consulted in order to obtain information.<br />
However, in a happier mood, he said:<br />
On the whole, I feel well satisfted with the plan, although there are one<br />
or two tough spots in it. I do not underestimate enemy reaction either in the<br />
air or on the surface. On the contrary, the arrangement of force proposed<br />
is designed to take care of these reactions as well as we can. I am trying to<br />
leave as little to chance as possible—but since the operation has been decided<br />
upon, the best thing to do is to assume it will be successful and to push it<br />
through as rapidly as possible.z’<br />
ORGANIZATION FOR WATCHTOWER<br />
<strong>The</strong> command diagram in COMSOPAC’S Operation Plan 1–42 for<br />
WATCHTOWER, dated 16 July 1942, was simplicity itself.<br />
mTurner.<br />
= Herbert L. Merillat, <strong>The</strong> Islutsd (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1944), p. 11. Reprinted by<br />
permission of Harold Ober Associates Inc. Copyright 1944 H. L. Merillat.<br />
z~RKT to Ghor~ley, persona] letter, 21 Ju1. 19.12.
L<br />
I<br />
z<br />
K
292 Anzpbibians Came To Conquer<br />
COMSOPAC<br />
Ghormley<br />
I<br />
Vice Admiral Ghormley placed all his land and water-based aircraft in<br />
TF 63. All other seagoing units with a capability to carry out the operation,<br />
he p~ tin TF 61, the Expeditionary Force.<br />
Task Forces 11, 16, and 18 each were single carrier task forces with<br />
supporting cruisers and destroyers. Task Force 44 from General MacArthur’s<br />
Navy contained four cruisers and nine destroyers. Task Force 62 was a<br />
beefed-up Amphibious Force South Pacific.<br />
In 1!242, Joint Action of the Army and the Navy governed all Joint Over-<br />
seas Expeditions. This publication called for the appointment of a Commander<br />
Expeditionary Force and the naming of all forces assigned to his<br />
use. WATCHTOWER was an Overseas Expedition although not a Joint<br />
one, and it was both necessary and natural for COMSOPAC to designate an<br />
Expeditionary Force Commander and to name the forces assigned, with such<br />
broad organizational guide lines which he believed appropriate.<br />
This left the detailed organizing of Task Force 61, the Expeditionary<br />
Force, up to Vice Admiral Fletcher, who organized it in his Operation<br />
Order 1–42, dated 28 July 1942, as follows:<br />
m<br />
I<br />
AIR SUPPORT FORCES<br />
TG 61.1<br />
AMPHIBIO<strong>US</strong> FORCES<br />
TG 61.2<br />
Noyes Turner<br />
Vice Admiral Fletcher’s Op Order for WATCHTOWER did not indicate<br />
when, nor under what circumstances, the amphibious forces command would<br />
shift from being TG 61.2 to TF 62. However, it made real progress in<br />
welding the amphibious force organizationally by not carrying forward as<br />
a separate entity a Task Group designation, 61.6, previously assigned to the<br />
naval command coming from the Southwest Pacific Area.
He thus made the<br />
follows:<br />
LAND AND WATER<br />
BASED AIRCRAFT<br />
TF 63<br />
McCain<br />
CACT<strong>US</strong> Bound 293<br />
basic naval organization for WATCHTOWER as<br />
ORGANIZATION TOP ECHELON<br />
WATCHTOWER OPERATION<br />
COMSOPAC<br />
Ghormley<br />
r<br />
EXPEDITIONARY FORCE<br />
TF 61<br />
Fletcher<br />
AIR SUPPORT FORCES AMPHIBIO<strong>US</strong> FORCES<br />
TG 61.1<br />
TG 61.2<br />
Noyes<br />
Turner<br />
COMMAND PROBLEMS TF 61 AND TF 62<br />
<strong>The</strong> command problem of the Expeditionary Force (TF 61) and its<br />
integral carrier task forces was complicated by the fact that Rear Admiral<br />
Leigh Noyes, Class of 1906, was the senior carrier task force commander,<br />
while Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, a classmate just three numbers<br />
his junior on the Navy List, was the far more war-experienced, having<br />
commanded naval task forces at the Battles of Coral Sea and of Midway.<br />
Noyes commanded Task Force 18 built around the Wap, while Fletcher<br />
commanded Task Force 16 centered on the Enter@e. On 10 May 1942, and<br />
21 June 1942, CINCPAC recommended to COMINCH that Fletcher be<br />
promoted to Vice Admiral. On 28 June he repeated this recommendation and<br />
added that Fletcher should be given the Expeditionary Force Command.<br />
CINCPAC renewed his recommendation personally on 4 July at the San<br />
Francisco Conference. As late as 14 July Admiral Nimitz, with the carrier<br />
task groups all at sea and headed for a rendezvous north of the Fijis, was<br />
still trying to get approval for the actual promotion or for his request that<br />
“Rear Admiral F. J. Fletcher be authorized to wear the uniform and assume<br />
the rank of Vice Admiral at once. ”<br />
<strong>The</strong> first big hurdle to get by was Admiral King. After this, the promotion<br />
had to be approved by the President and by the Senate. On 15 July 1942,<br />
CINCPAC was notified that this had been accomplished and the promotion
294 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
papers were in the mail. Soon thereafter Fletcher had his three star rank<br />
by radio dating back to 26 June 1942, the date the recommendation l-sad<br />
finally cleared the Navy Department to the President. He became Corn.<br />
mander Expeditionary Force, while Noyes was designated as Commander<br />
Carrier Aircraft of the Expeditionary Force.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> command problem of Task Force 62 was complicated by the fact<br />
that the second senior oficer in the force, Rear Admiral V.A.C. Crutchley,<br />
was from an Allied Navy, the British Navy, which of itself had no ships in<br />
the Task Force. <strong>The</strong> three Australian cruisers present therein had just come<br />
under the command of recently promoted Rear Admiral Crutchley, who, in<br />
June 1942, had been loaned by the British Admiralty to command the<br />
Australian Naval Squadron since the so-year existence of the Australian<br />
Navy had not been long enough to mature many ofiicers to Flag rank.<br />
On 29 July 1942, Rear Admiral Turner notified Rear Admiral Crutchley<br />
that he would be designated as:<br />
Second–in–Command of the Operation. . . . <strong>The</strong> Third–in–Command will<br />
not be named, as the command will automatically pass by seniority in the case<br />
of the United States Service. It would be well for senior Captains to have an<br />
idea of their relative rank, whether British or United States.z8<br />
This did not please Rear Admiral Crutchley. He replied:<br />
I am very honoured to hear that you are contemplating nominating me as<br />
Second-in-Command of what amounts to a very considerable United States<br />
Expeditionary Force. I must say that I doubt the propriety or wisdom of this<br />
suggestion. It is mainly a U.S. Force and you have another U.S. Flag Oficer<br />
on the scene [Rear Admiral Norman Scott}. I have not yet been able to ascertain<br />
his seniority, we are both too junior to appear in our respective Navy<br />
lists. . . . I feel that as long as there is a U. S. Flag Officer present, he should<br />
be in charge.”<br />
Despite this reluctance, Rear Admiral Crutchley was designated as<br />
Second-in-Command, when the final draft of the operation order was<br />
distributed.”<br />
TF 62’s RUN TO THE RENDEZVO<strong>US</strong><br />
<strong>The</strong>re was no pain, no strain on the run to the rendezvous, except the hot<br />
bearings on the recently reduced allowance of typewriters and mimeograph<br />
= (a) CINCPAC to COMINCH, 092219 May 1942, 202013 Jun. 1942, 272251 Jun. 1942,<br />
and 141027 Jul. 1942. COMINCH 151500 Jul. 1942; (b) King papers; (c) Notes on conversations<br />
between CINCPAC and COMINCH, 4 Jul. 1942.<br />
= RKT to Crutchley, letter, 29 Jul. 1942.<br />
* Rear Admiral Crutchley to RKT, personal letter, 30 Jul. 1942.<br />
= PHIBSOPAC, Op Plan A3–42, 30 Jul. 1942, para 5(c).
CACT<strong>US</strong> Bound 295<br />
machines, directed by Admiral King, as they were worked on a 24-hour basis,<br />
grinding out the last version of the rehearsal order. This was distributed the<br />
second and third days after departure from Wellington, together with the<br />
first version of the WATCHTOWER Operation Order.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> Task Force sailed off from Wellington at 0800 on July 22nd to the<br />
southeast at speed 14 knots on course 140”. It did not take up northeasterly<br />
courses toward the rendezvous until late afternoon, in the hope of making<br />
useless to the enemy any intercepted sighting reports of the task force course<br />
by small fishing craft or off-course commercial aircraft.<br />
<strong>The</strong> weather was ideal the first day but by Friday the 24th, the sea was<br />
really rough and the visibility was poor. <strong>The</strong> speed was reduced to 11 knots<br />
to”reduce the seasickness factor and the steady pounding of the heavily laden<br />
ships. (Task Force 62 labeled the weather “quite heavy. ” Several ships<br />
termed the weather “a gale.”)<br />
Copies of the rehearsal plan and first draft copies of the WATCHTOWER<br />
Plan were sent on ahead to Task Force 61 and all others afloat and ashore<br />
in the Fiji area who needed to know, by the workhorse of the Navy, the<br />
destroyer.<br />
Up to the time the ships coming from the north and east assembled at the<br />
rendezvous and received copies of the prospective operation order, most<br />
of the lower echelons did not know where the operation would take place.<br />
<strong>The</strong> War Diaries contain such entries as:<br />
Loading marine equipment and stores for destination unknown. . .<br />
To transport marine personnel stores and equipment to destination unknown.<br />
. .<br />
For operations in the South Pacific. .:{O<br />
THE GATHERING OF THE CLAN AT FIJI<br />
Rendezvous day was Saturday, 25 July 1942, 35o miles south of Suva in<br />
the Fijis. Seventy-six ships were directly involved in the rendezvous and<br />
72 made it on time. Fourteen ships did this via a 1,250-mile detour to<br />
Wellington from Australia; 15 in Task Force 18 came 5,5oo miles via Great<br />
circle course from San Diego; 16 in Task Force 11 and 11 in Task Force<br />
16 rolled down the 3,100 miles from Pearl Harbor, while Rear Admiral<br />
Turner and 26 ships, including 14 from Australia had the shortest run,<br />
1,000 miles from New Zealand. <strong>The</strong> rest came from Pearl Harbor in small<br />
task units.<br />
n (a) PHIBSOPAC, Op Plan A2-42, 22 Jul. 1942; Rehearsal Op Plan AR-42, 22 Jul. 1942;<br />
(b) COMPHIBSOPAC War Diary, Jui. 1942.<br />
m <strong>US</strong>S Betelgeuse War Diary, 20–31 Jul. 1942; <strong>US</strong> Mzzry War Diary, 15 Jul. 1942.
296 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
<strong>The</strong> 2nd <strong>Marine</strong> Regiment (Reinforced) (Colonel John M. Arthur,<br />
<strong>US</strong>MC, Commanding) from the Second <strong>Marine</strong> Division was in the transports<br />
loaded at San Diego, and escorted to the rendezvous, by Task Force 18,<br />
centered on the carrier Wa~p (CV-7 ) (Captain Forrest Sherman). <strong>The</strong><br />
Wa~~, in company with the brand new battleship North Carolina (BB-55)<br />
(Captain George H. Fort) had departed Norfolk, Virginia, for transfer<br />
from the Atlantic to the Pacific Fleet two days prior to the sinking of the<br />
Yorktown (CV-5 ) at Midway (5 June 1942), It had been anticipated that<br />
this transfer would mean a highly desirable increase in carrier air power in<br />
the Pacific Ocean areas, but actually it only made good a severe loss. Departure<br />
of Task Force 18 from San Diego was on 1 July 1942.<br />
Every responsible commander in the Navy thought highly of the <strong>Marine</strong>s.<br />
Commander Task Force 18, Rear Admiral Leigh Noyes, thought so highly<br />
of them that he requested Colonel Arthur to submit a plan for the capture<br />
of the Guadalcanal-Tulagi area, with nothing more than the ground forces<br />
under his command plus one <strong>Marine</strong> raider battalion embarked in four<br />
destroyer transports.3’ Since the 2nd <strong>Marine</strong> Regiment had been aboard the<br />
transports since I June, and were going to be aboard more than another<br />
month, they probably would have been quite willing to undertake this con-<br />
siderable combat task just to get off the transports.<br />
<strong>The</strong> 1st <strong>Marine</strong> Raider Battalion was in Samoa but was to be transported<br />
to Noumea by the Heywood and then picked up by the four fast destroyer<br />
transports in Transport Division 12 currently en route with Task Force 11<br />
from Pearl Harbor.<br />
<strong>The</strong> First <strong>Marine</strong> Division (Reinforced) included the lst, 5th, and 7th<br />
<strong>Marine</strong> Regiments, but only the 1st and 5th were in the transports coming up<br />
from Wellington. <strong>The</strong> 7th Regiment was in Samoa to defend that island, and<br />
was not sprung until 20 August 1942.<br />
<strong>The</strong> 3rd Defense Battalion (Colonel Robert H. Pepper, <strong>US</strong>MC) in the<br />
Zeifin (AP-9) (Captain Pat Buchanan) and Betelgetise (AK-28) (Com-<br />
mander Harry D. Power) was the last <strong>Marine</strong> unit of the 19,000 <strong>Marine</strong>s<br />
the Navy was scheduled to assemble. This essential event did not take place<br />
until 3 August, long days after the dress rehearsal had been completed.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se two ships had sailed from San Diego on 8 July, seven days later than<br />
Task Force 18 which was taking a far more direct Great Circle route for<br />
the rendezvous. <strong>The</strong>y sailed from Pearl Harbor in a six-ship convoy on<br />
21 July, six days after Task Force 16 departed for the rendezvous, and<br />
13 days later than Task Force 11.<br />
31uss WUJp War Diary, 6 Jul. 1942.
CACT<strong>US</strong> Bound 297<br />
Convoy 4120 leaving Pearl had expected to make good 13 knots, but as<br />
luck would have it, one ship of the convoy, the S.$ Nira Lzzckenback, found<br />
it impossible to maintain the anticipated 13-knot speed, so the convoy was<br />
cut back to 12.5 knots, then to 12.25 knots, and even then the Nira Lucken-<br />
buck had “engine trouble.” <strong>The</strong> convoy then ceased zigzagging, adding to<br />
the risk of submarine attack in order to gain greater advance towards its<br />
rendezvous.32<br />
With everybody maintaining a strict radio silence, the heavy cruiser escort<br />
for the convoy, the San Francisco (CA-38) (Captain Charles H. McMorris),<br />
at 0430 in the morning of 1 August went darting over the horizon trying<br />
to locate Task Force 61 to effect the rendezvous. Two hours later she was<br />
back. She had not made contact. So the convoy went in to Suva Harbor<br />
arriving about 1800 and learned that Task Force 61 had departed westward<br />
about 1630 on the 3lst, but that Commander Task Force 62 had left two<br />
destroyers behind for their escort.<br />
Having missed their 30 and 31 July rendezvous with Task Force 61, the<br />
Zeilin and Betelgezzse took up the stern chase at 16 knots, escorted by the<br />
Dewey (DD-349) and the Mtigfo~d (DD-389). <strong>The</strong> Betelgefise, pushing its<br />
top speed, had a fire in the exhaust trunk lagging of the engine room and had<br />
to stop for nearly three hours and put the exhaust trunk plates back together<br />
to stop the leak of carbon monoxide gas.<br />
All this time Rear Admiral Turner was worried, darn worried, because an<br />
essential battalion of <strong>Marine</strong>s was missing. <strong>The</strong> entries in the Staff Log<br />
reveal this:<br />
August 1st Zeilin, Befelgeuse, not yet joined or reported. . . .<br />
August Znd All ships present except Zeilin and Betelgeuse. . . .<br />
But on August 3rd, the log contained this entry:<br />
August 3rd<br />
0555. Sighted ship bearing 1100 true which proved to be <strong>US</strong>S Zeilin<br />
escorted by <strong>US</strong>S Mugford. Betelge~~se-Deweystill absent and unsighted. . . .<br />
1700. Betelgeftse and Dewey joined formation. . . .<br />
AIRCRAFT FOR WATCHTOWER<br />
About 635 aircraft participated in the WATCHTOWER Operation. <strong>The</strong>se<br />
came from the United States Navy, <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong>, and Army Air Force, the<br />
Australian Air Force, and the New Zealand Air Force. Of the 635 aircraft,<br />
some 238 U.S. naval aircraft were on the three carriers in the air support<br />
= (a) UN Zedin War Diary, 21, 22, 27 Jul. 1~42; (b) Hawaiian Sea Frontier Op Order<br />
34-42, 19 Jul. 1942.
298 Amphibians Canze To Conquer<br />
forces and under the control of Rear Admiral Leigh Noyes, CTG 61.1, and<br />
45 in the 10 heavy combatant ships in the amphibious forces, CTG 61.2,<br />
under Rear Admiral R. K. Turner. Some 290 land and water based aircraft<br />
were in Task Force 63 under Rear Admiial John S. McCain’s operational<br />
control, but of these, 145 were in the rear area of the South Pacific (Fiji,<br />
Tonga, and Samoan Islands) and were able to render support to WATCH-<br />
TOWER only by air reconnaissance and by keeping the rear bases secure.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y did not operate in the combat zone. <strong>The</strong> 145 aircraft under CTF 63<br />
operational control which did participate in the early Tulagi-Guadalcanal<br />
combat phase of the operation consisted of 27 B-17s, 10 B-26s, and 38 P-39s<br />
from the Army Air Force; six Hudsons from the New Zealand Air Force; 24<br />
<strong>Marine</strong> scout bombers (SBDS) at Efate, New Hebrides; 17 <strong>Marine</strong> SBDS at<br />
Espiritu Sante, New Hebrides; 22 seaplanes ( PBYs) and three scouting<br />
planes (VSOS) operating from Seaplane tenders.”<br />
From General MacArthur’s command, about 20 B-17s of the 19th Bombing<br />
Group of the Army Air Force were to search the Solomon Sea and the<br />
northern Solomons area to the west of New Georgia ( 158° 15’ E). About 40<br />
reconnaissance aircraft of the 435th Reconnaissance Squadron, including<br />
Australian Air Force planes, assisted by searching the Coral Sea area, eastern<br />
New Guinea and New Britain area.<br />
ADMIRAL TURNER AND THE MARINES<br />
Admiral Turner remembered:<br />
During the first five months of the war in the Pacific our armed forces, and<br />
those of our Pacific Allies, were outfought as well as kept off balance by the<br />
Japanese. I believed then and said so that a realistic effort had to be made<br />
by United States forces, professionally well trained and mentally ready for<br />
battle, to jolt the Japanese off balance, and stop their island eating advance.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Japanese Army and Japanese <strong>Marine</strong>s had been fighting in China for<br />
years. <strong>The</strong>y were battle experienced, tough and capable.<br />
I had the greatest faith in our <strong>Marine</strong>s. I believed that even with their<br />
disadvantage ‘of not having fired any shots in anger for some years, they<br />
could stand up to the Japanese; and outwit them and outfight them.<br />
I thought it essential that a battle trial be held soon, or the millions of<br />
civilians we were training to be soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines would<br />
come into the Military Services with a defeatist attitude, which would be hard<br />
to cure.<br />
= COMAIRSOPAC (CTF 63), Op Plan 1–42 of 25 Jul. 1942. Colonel Clyde Rich, Army<br />
Air Force, CTG 63.1, commanded the 69th Bombing Squadron at Espiritu Sante, along with<br />
the New Zealand Hudsons, the 67th Pursuit Squadron, and several PBYs. Colonel LaVerne G.<br />
Saunders, Army Air Force, CTG 63.2, commanded the 11th Bombardment Group of 16 B-I7s at<br />
Efate.
CACT<strong>US</strong> Bound 299<br />
TurnerCollection<br />
On tbe Iwidge of <strong>US</strong>S McCawley, Flagship of Commander Amphibious<br />
Force Soatb Pacific. Left to right: Rear Admiral Turner; Lieutenant Colone~<br />
Harold D, Harris, <strong>US</strong>MC, Intei[igence Oficer; and Lieutenant Colonei<br />
Frank D, Weir, <strong>US</strong>MC, Assistant Operations Ojicer.<br />
As May turned into June, and June into July, I became more and more<br />
convinced that it was time for ‘our turn at bat.’ H<br />
FIGHTING THE PROBLEM<br />
On Sunday, 26 July 1942, Vice Admiral Fletcher held a conference of<br />
senior officers on board the Expeditionary Force flagship, the Saratoga<br />
(CV-3) near Koro Island about 100 miles south of Suva, Fiji Islands. It<br />
was not only a pre-rehearsal conference for DOVETAIL but the vital con-<br />
ference for WATCHTOWER. DOVETAIL was the code name assigned by<br />
CINCPAC for the rehearsal of the WATCHTOWER Operation.35<br />
It was a large conference. <strong>The</strong> log of destroyer Ha/i (DD-35o) that<br />
picked up and delivered the passengers to the Saratoga indicates that 17<br />
went to the conference from Commander Task Force 62’s flagship, the<br />
McCawley. <strong>The</strong>se included Turner, Vandegrift, Peyton, Linscott, Doyle,<br />
“ Turner.<br />
= CINCPAC to COMSOPAC, 070231 Jul. 1942.
300 Anzpbibians Came To Conquer<br />
Weir, Harris, and Bowling, and all the senior First <strong>Marine</strong> Division staff<br />
officers. <strong>The</strong> junior ones from both staffs attended subsidiary conferences<br />
of intelligence, communication, and Landing Force officers.<br />
During the main conference, the most important decision announced<br />
by Vice Admiral Fletcher was that the carrier task groups built around<br />
the Enterprise, flagship of Rear Admiral Thomas G. Kinkaid; the WCZ~~, flag-<br />
ship of Rear Admiral Leigh Noyes; and the Sa~atoga, flagship of Vice<br />
Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, would not be held in a position where they<br />
could support the Tulagi-Guadalcanal landings for more than two days;<br />
that is, no later than the morning of Sunday, 9 August 1942.<br />
It is easy to say (but not yet proven) that this decision allowed the<br />
Japanese Navy to make an unhampered and largely undetected run at our<br />
seaborne forces gathered north of Guadalcanal Island the night of 8<br />
August 1942. But there is no question that the carrier task force withdrawal<br />
provided the Japanese an unpunished retirement after their glorious<br />
victory at Savo Island.<br />
<strong>The</strong> decision, proven later to have permitted a risky Japanese operation<br />
to thumb its nose at our carriers and escape the dangers of this thumbing,<br />
is not one that anyone present at the conference, with the exception of<br />
Admiral Fletcher and Admiral Kinkaid, still seeks to be associated with.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se two still stated 20 years after the event that, based on our capabilities<br />
then and those of the Japanese, the arrangement was essential.3G<br />
<strong>The</strong> only contemporary written record of the conference now known to<br />
exist was prepared by Rear Admiral Daniel J. Callaghan, Vice Admiral<br />
Ghormley’s Chief of Staff 37 and he apparently was not in sympathy with<br />
the announced decision in regard to the withdrawal of the carrier task<br />
groups, for in advising COMSOPAC of this decision, he wrote:<br />
Task Force must withdraw to South from objective area (i.e. general advanced<br />
position) within two days after D day! 3s<br />
This exclamation point and his dissatisfaction with the decision could<br />
be directly related to the suggestion made by COMSOPAC (Ghormley) to<br />
CTF 61 (Fletcher) several days later of an involved operational arrange-<br />
ment by which carrier aircraft equipped with special belly tanks would<br />
operate from Efate while the carriers huddled in a strip-tease condition<br />
* Fletcher; Kinkaid.<br />
mCallaghan was a fresh caught (three months to the day) and temporary rear admiral, but<br />
he had 32 years of naval service behind him, and according to three senior witnesses (Fletcher,<br />
Kinkaid, Peyton ) very ably represented the strategic commander of the operation.<br />
* Ghormley manuscript, p. 67.
CACT<strong>US</strong> Bound 301<br />
several hundred miles south of Guadalcanal. CTF 61 did not buy this<br />
proposal and COMSOPAC later decided it was impractical.3’<br />
One of the participants interviewed labeled the Saratoga conference<br />
“stormy.” Captain Peyton’s (Chief of Staff to COMPHIBFORSOPAC)<br />
recollection of the conference ran as follows:<br />
<strong>The</strong> conference was one long bitter argument between Vice Admiral<br />
Fletcher and my new boss [Turner]. Fletcher questioned the whole upcoming<br />
operation. Since he kept implying that it was largely Turner’s brainchild,<br />
and mentioning that those who planned it had no real fighting experience,<br />
he seemed to be doubting the competence of its parent.<br />
Fletcher’s main point of view was the operation was too hurriedly and<br />
therefore not thoroughly planned, the Task Force not trained together; and<br />
the logistic support inadequate.<br />
My boss kept saying ‘the decision has been made. It’s up to us to make it a<br />
success.’<br />
I was amazed and disturbed by the way these two admirals taIked to each<br />
other. I had never heard anything like it.<br />
In my opinion too much of the conference was devoted to ‘fighting the<br />
problem,’ as we used to say at the [Naval] War College, and too little time<br />
to trying to solve the problem.’”<br />
A more senior observer and one more used to the sharp give and take<br />
during the councils of the naval great, took a much calmer view of this<br />
conference.<br />
I would calI the mood of the conference animated rather than stormy.<br />
Turner asked for a lot of things, much of which he didn’t get, because they<br />
were not in the realm of the possible.<br />
<strong>The</strong> sharpest divergence of opinicn was in regard to the length of time the<br />
carriers should be held in an area where they could support the landings.<br />
Fletcher insisted that two days was all that could be risked—because of both<br />
the submarine danger and the risk of Japanese shore based air attack.<br />
Other divergences of opinion related to air search and logistics.<br />
After the conference was over, 1 overheard Turner ask Vandegrift ‘How<br />
did I do?’ Vandegrift’s answer was ‘all right.’ That also was my personal<br />
assessment .41<br />
Vice Admiral Fletcher’s remembrance of the conference was that:<br />
Kelly and I spent most of our time picking on Dan Callaghan because<br />
of the poor logistics situation. . . . Fuel was my main consideration.<br />
Kelly was no shrinking violet, and always spoke his piece in conferences.<br />
W(a) COMSOPAC to CTF 61, 020240 Aug. 1912; (b) COMAIRSOPAC to COMSOPAC,<br />
041436 Aug. 1942; (C) CINCPAC to COMAIRSOPAC, 022115 Aug. 1942.<br />
40Peyton.<br />
“ Interview with Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret.), 20 May 1963. Hereafter Kinkaid.
302 Arnpbibians Came To Conquer<br />
But there was no bitterness in the discussion. Plenty of opinions vigorously<br />
expressed as to what or could be done.<br />
One thing I remember particularity well and have been telling it ever since<br />
the Battle of Savo Island. I said: ‘Now Kelly, you are making plans to take<br />
that island from the Japs and the Japs may turn on you and wallop the hell<br />
out of you. What are you going to do then?’ Kelly said: ‘I am just going<br />
to stay there and take my licking.’<br />
Kelly was tough, a brain, and a son-of-a-bitch, and that’s just what he did.”<br />
Vice Admiral Fletcher’s appraisal of the logistical aspects of the conference<br />
is borne out by Rear Admiral Callaghan’s notes. Fourteen of his<br />
23 numbered paragraphs of notes were under the heading of “Logistics.”<br />
In Admiral Ghormley’s “<strong>The</strong> Tide Turns” he states:<br />
I was desirous of attending this conference, but found it impossible to give<br />
the time necessary for travel with possible attendant delays. I, therefore, sent<br />
my Chief of Staff, Rear Admiral Callaghan and my Communication Officer,<br />
Lieutenant Commander L. Hardy.”<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is always the possibility that had Vice Admiral Ghormley attended<br />
the conference, he would have sided with the Commander of the Amphibious<br />
Forces and overruled Vice Admiral Fletcher. But in view of Vice<br />
Admiral Ghormley’s generally cautious approach to operational problems<br />
and operational commanders, this does not seem a likely possibility. In fact<br />
his absence from what should have been a “must” conference, dealing with<br />
the first major naval offensive of the war, and the first in his command<br />
area, is a straw in the wind of his stand-off approach to operations in the<br />
South Pacific Area.<br />
And Rear Admiral Turner did not appeal the decision. When asked<br />
nearly 20 years after the event why he did not, his answer was:<br />
Whom to, and who was I to do so? Fletcher was my old boss, and at that<br />
moment the most battle experienced commander in our Navy. It was his judgment,<br />
and it was my job to live with it. A4<br />
Vice Admiral Fletcher had expected that Vice Admiral Ghormley would<br />
be with him in his flagship Saratoga during the operation.” This was in<br />
accordance with Admiral King’s expressed desires in his message of 022100<br />
July 1942, which stated:<br />
It is assumed Ghormley will be made Task Force Commander at least for<br />
4’Interview with Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret.), 25 May 1963. Hereafter Fletcher.<br />
e Ghormley manuscript, p. 64.<br />
44Turner.<br />
MFletcher,
CACT<strong>US</strong> Boand 303<br />
Task 1 (WATCHTOWER) which he should command in person in operating<br />
area.<br />
Admiral Nimitz’s 0633 of 9 July 1942 followed this up by telling Vice<br />
Admiral Ghormley: “YOU will exercise strategic command in person.”<br />
Admiral Ghormley’s reaction to the CINCPAC order, which did make<br />
him the commander for Task One and in “direct operational control of<br />
combined forces,” from 10 July 1942 on, was to plan to move 1,000 miles<br />
north from Auckland to Noumea, five days before D-Day, but not to lend<br />
his person to the most important conference which took place prior to the<br />
WATCHTOWER Operation in the South Pacific.”<br />
Rear Admiral Callaghan’s notes of the 25 July 1942 conference in the<br />
Sa~atoga throw some further light on this matter:<br />
Admiral Fletcher called me aside and said that he was pleased that you<br />
[Admiral Ghormley] put him in tactical command of this operation. Thought<br />
you were going to exercise that function. Said he hoped you would not hesitate<br />
to change tactical disposition if you thought it necessary, and he would<br />
not take it amiss, as you might be in much better position to see the whole<br />
picture. Told him I thought you would not hesitate to do this if you found<br />
it necessary but hoped that need for such action would not arise. Pointed<br />
out that during radio silence our knowledge of his tactical disposition would<br />
have to be based solely on his operation order and some guessing, unless he<br />
could keep us infcrmed by plane. He promised to do this at every<br />
opportunity .47<br />
FUZZY COMMAND DIRECTIVES<br />
To do justice to Vice Admiral Ghormley, it should be pointed out that<br />
when he was in Pearl Harbor in early May 1942, he had discussed with<br />
Admiral Nimitz a draft policy directive governing task forces of the Pacific<br />
Fleet entering the South Pacific Area prior to its issuance. When issued on<br />
12 May 1942, Admiral Nimitz’s directive read as follows:<br />
When Fleet Task Forces operate in the South and/or Southwest Pacific<br />
Area, my command of them will, unless otherwise specified, be exercised<br />
through you. Under some conditions these forces will be made available<br />
to you to accomplish such of your tasks as you see fit. At present, their tasks<br />
are being assigned by me in broad terms in order that sufficient initiative may<br />
be left to the Senior Task Force Commander, and ordinarily will require<br />
4 (a) CINCPAC Operation Order 34-42, 30 Jun. 19.42; (b) COMSOPAC, 170602 Jul. 1942;<br />
COMSOPAC completed shift of headquarters to No.mea on 8 November 1942.<br />
4’Ghormley manuscript, p. 69.
304 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
little amplification by you. It is expected, however, that you will exercise such<br />
direction as you may consider necessary when changed or unforeseen situations<br />
arise. . . .48<br />
Vice Admiral Ghormley, on 9 May 1942, spelled out his understanding<br />
of this directive in considerable detail in the very excellent COMSOPAC<br />
War Diary as follows:<br />
<strong>The</strong> Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet would order Task Force Commanders<br />
to report to the Commander South Pacific Force for duty. <strong>The</strong><br />
Commander South Pacific Force would direct the Task Force Commander to<br />
carry out his mission (as given by the Commander-in-Chief Pacific Fleet).<br />
<strong>The</strong> Commander South Pacific Force would not interfere in the Task Force<br />
Commander’s mission unless circumstances, presumably not known to the<br />
Commander-in-Chief Pacific Fleet, indicated that specific measures were required<br />
to be performed by the Task Force Commander. <strong>The</strong> Commander<br />
South Pacific Force would then direct the Task Force Commanders to take<br />
such measures.4g<br />
It is certainly deducible from this, that if COMSOPAC felt he had only<br />
limited authority to interfere in the broad mission, then he had even less<br />
authority to interfere in how the mission was carried out tactically.<br />
This CINCPAC directive apparently was so firmly in Vice Admiral<br />
Ghormley’s mind that when the despatch version of the WATCHTOWER<br />
directive from the Joint Chiefs of Staff arrived on the Fourth of July 1942,<br />
stating that COMINCH assumed Ghormley would command in person in<br />
the operating area, he still did not visualize himself as an operational<br />
commander exercising the full range of command authority in an operating<br />
area. This was so even though the word “command” had b?en used by<br />
COMINCH without limiting adjectives and therefore included “the<br />
direction, coordination, and control of military forces.” 50<br />
Admiral Nimitz’s despatch of 9 July that COMSOPAC would exercise<br />
“strategic command in person” was certainIy a modification of the basic<br />
CINCPAC 9 May directive to COMSOPAC, but it was also a modification<br />
of the CINCPAC despatch of 27 June telling COMINCH that ‘lGhormley<br />
will be placed in full command of operation. ” 51 <strong>The</strong> use of the words<br />
“strategic command” by Admiral Nimitz could have been interpreted as<br />
a warning not to step into the immediate tactical field, and certainly left no<br />
mCINCPAC, Instructions to Prospective COMSOPAC, Ser 09000 of 12 May 1942.<br />
“ COMSOPAC War Diary, 9 May 1942.<br />
mJoint Chiefs of Staff, Dictionary of United States Military Terms for Joivt Usage(Washington:<br />
Government Printing Office, 1960).<br />
‘1CINCPAC to COMINCH, 272251 Jun. 1942.
CACT<strong>US</strong> Bound 305<br />
question that Vice Admiral Ghormley would not be the tactical commander.<br />
COMSOPAC might well have assumed also that, if there was a difference of<br />
opinion between Admiral King and Admiral Nimitz as to where in the<br />
grey area between strategical and tactical command he should operate, then<br />
by notifying them both of his personal movement to on board the Argonne<br />
(AG-3I), he had afforded them an opportunity to step in and clarify the<br />
situation .52<br />
If anything further need to be said as to why Vice Admiral Ghormley<br />
should have attended the Koro Island conference in the Sara~oga and been<br />
present “in the operating area” regardless of the side effects his absence<br />
would have had on the administrative command of the South Pacific Force,<br />
he has supplied the necessary quotation:<br />
I did not receive Fletcher’s order for the operations until in September, a<br />
month after the operation had commenced. . . . <strong>The</strong> orders issued by Crutchley<br />
for the naval protection of our forces, I did not see until he and Turner<br />
returned to Noumea after the landing.~s<br />
THE UNSATISFACTORY REHEARSAL<br />
<strong>The</strong> Fijis was the location recommended by Rear Admiral Turner to<br />
CINCPAC for the rehearsal. W~ile not so judged by the military defenders<br />
of the islands, the Fijis were in the process of becoming a rear area ( 1,100<br />
miles from Guadalcanal) from where it would be difficult for the Japanese<br />
or neutral nation agents to collect and transmit intelligence on a large<br />
gathering of U.S. Navy ships. Additionally the Fijis were a practical meeting<br />
point, based on availability and distances of the forces being assembled<br />
from San Diego, Hawaii, New Zealand, and Australia for the actual conduct<br />
of the WATCHTOWER Operation.<br />
<strong>The</strong> period allocated for the rehearsal was 28 to 31 July. Upon recom-<br />
mendation of Rear Admiral Turner, as well as by the Navy Port Director<br />
at Suva, Commander F. S. Holmes, U.S. Navy, and the First Division<br />
<strong>Marine</strong>s who actually reconnoitered the Fiji area, the rehearsal was held<br />
at Koro Island in reef-locked Koro Sea. Koro Island was not one of the<br />
= (a) CINCPAC, 092001 Jul. 1942, 122359 Jul. 1942; (b) COMSOPAC, 311510 Jul. 1942.<br />
WGhormley manuscript, pp. 60–61, Fletcher’s Op Order 1–42 was not issued until 28 July 1942.<br />
Crutchley Op Order does not bear a date but Turner in commenting on it, told him on 29 July,<br />
he “could issue it any time. .“ COMSOPAC was not on Crutchley’s distribution list for the<br />
order.
306 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
150 SOUTH<br />
20- SOUTH<br />
FIJI ISLANDS<br />
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Fiji Islands.<br />
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three islands initially suggested as suitable by CINCPAC, and turned out<br />
on the days of the rehearsal to be quite unsuitable.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> uncertainties involved in this rehearsal related not only to those always<br />
present when bringing together a large number of ships, aircraft, and men<br />
inexperienced in battle, but<br />
at the time the basic order was made out [for the rehearsal], there was some<br />
uncertainty as to the identity of all ships in Squadrons X-RAY and YOKE<br />
specifically {Transport Divisions Two and Twelve] and also uncertainty as to<br />
the identity of the squadron commanders, ~~<br />
On 24 July, Rear Admiral Turner sent a personal letter to Rear Admiral<br />
V. A. C. Crutchley of the Royal Navy, then in the Australian cruiser<br />
AaJtrulia enroute to Koro Island. He commanded the Screening Group of<br />
four heavy and one light cruisers and nine destroyers. <strong>The</strong> letter reveals that<br />
at this late date, Rear Admiral Turner still did not know whether he would<br />
have any minesweepers for use in the operation or any tankers to provide<br />
“ (a) CINCPAC to COMSOPAC, 041844 Jul. 1942; (b) RKT to Deputy CNO Admin, letter,<br />
27 Sep. 19~0.<br />
w RKT to Rear Admiral Norman Scott, prospective Commander Gunfire Support, 25 Jul. 1942.
CACT<strong>US</strong> Bound 307<br />
continuing logistic support. It also made clear that the transport .Zeilitz and<br />
the cargo ship Bete/geuse carrying the 3rd Defense Battalion of <strong>Marine</strong>s<br />
would not join ‘
308 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
g. ‘<strong>The</strong>re is plenty more to talk about when we meet.’<br />
It should be noted that Vice Admiral Fletcher apparently did not agree<br />
with Rear Admiral Turner in three important respects:<br />
said:<br />
1.<br />
2.<br />
3.<br />
No general conference was held after the rehearsal by Commander<br />
Expeditionary Force, CTF 61, a sine qzia non for amphibious opera-<br />
tions. Since Commander Expeditionary Force did not call such a<br />
meeting, a conference of most of the group and unit commanders<br />
of Task Force 62 was held in the H.M.S. Australia on 31 July.5S<br />
Air protection was not provided during the “three to six days” of<br />
the unloading period.<br />
Vice Admiral Fletcher did not direct Rear Admiral Crutchley to<br />
shift his Flag to the Chicago, nor regrettably did Rear Admiral<br />
Turner, who could have done so, but probably encountered reluc-<br />
tance by that oficer to shift to an American ship.<br />
In his letter to Rear Admiral Norman Scott, Rear Admiral Turner had<br />
I foresee considerable difficulty, particularly in the rehearsal, in keeping<br />
the transports in the same locality all day long while loading and unloading.<br />
<strong>The</strong> water is too deep to anchor, of course, and I hope we don’t have a lot of<br />
collisions. However, there will be more important difficulties in the combat<br />
operations, so we can’t worry about these.<br />
<strong>The</strong> rehearsal, from 28 through 31 July, was less than full blown. <strong>The</strong><br />
original plan had been to conduct landing exercises on 28 July, re-embark<br />
the <strong>Marine</strong>s on 29 July, and then conduct further landing exercises on the<br />
30th, with accompanying air bombings and ship gunfire support fire, and<br />
again re-embark the troops on the 31st.<br />
Despite the fact that the sea was smooth, COMPHIBFORSOPAC Staff<br />
Log for 28 July 1942 reads as follows:<br />
0900. Began rehearsal exercises on Koro Island. Beach conditions very<br />
inadequate and hazardous for boats. Landing conducted on beaches Blue and<br />
Green in accordance with plan, but incomplete on beach Red.<br />
<strong>The</strong> COMPHIBFORSOPAC order had said:<br />
Care will be taken to avoid damage to boats, as they cannot be replaced<br />
before being required for combat.<br />
This explains why COMPHIBFORSOPACS War Diary records that:<br />
mPHIBSOPAC (TF 62), Rehearsal Operation Plan AR-42, 22 Jul. 1942. Paragraph X (6)<br />
directed his subordinates to hold conferences on 1 August 1942 prior to issuing their final<br />
operation plans.
CACT<strong>US</strong> Bound 309<br />
Beach condition proved hazardous and endangered future employment of<br />
ship’s boats and tank lighters. Troops not ashore were recalled. Boats were<br />
hoisted in and troops not landed were re-embarked.<br />
<strong>The</strong> personal notes of Rear Admiral Turner on the first day of the re-<br />
hearsal are limited to a page and a half, and mainly directed towards the<br />
planned rewrite of the PHIBFORSOPAC Operation Plan A2-42. <strong>The</strong>y<br />
included such items as:<br />
a. All personnel not required on upper decks must remain below decks as<br />
long as possible, until immediately before debarking.<br />
b. Change task of gunfire support ships to include covering of transports<br />
while unloading.<br />
c. Indicate type number alongside names of ship in Task Organization, thus<br />
Fuller (AP-14).<br />
On Afirm plus one day, there was much concern about the boats, while<br />
the troops on Beach Blue and Beach Green were re-embai-ked. This was<br />
done successfully. On the last two days of the rehearsal, the previously<br />
designated units of troops were put into the boats, but not put on to the<br />
beaches.<br />
Revealing an unanticipated liberty attraction ashore, the COMPHIB-<br />
FORSOPAC Staff Log records for 30 July that:<br />
Three <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> stragglers from American Legion [APA-17] were apparently<br />
left on Koro Island.<br />
A more serious worry:<br />
Fleet tanker <strong>US</strong>S Karka.rkia failed to keep appointed rendezvous with the<br />
force.<br />
And on31 July and 1 August:<br />
<strong>US</strong>S Ka.rka.rkiastill unaccounted for. . . . <strong>US</strong>S Ka.rkaskiustill missing.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is an old Navy saying that:<br />
In every task force there is always some so and so ship that doesn’t get the<br />
word.<br />
On 1 August 1942, it was the Kaska.skis.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Kaskaskia (AO-27 ), Commander Walter L. Taylor, had been in the<br />
same convoy as the radarless Zeiiin and Betelgetise and had arrived Suva,<br />
Fiji, the late afternoon of 1 August. She turned to and fueled 15 small harbor<br />
craft in the next two days, but she did not sail. Her onward orders from<br />
Commander South Pacific did not arrive until 3 August. <strong>The</strong> initial Words<br />
of the despatch tell the story.
310 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
This is a reencipherment of NPM Fox Number 710. Apparently bad set<br />
UP” . . .59<br />
In non-seagoing language this meant that the coding set up for the message<br />
had turned out a garbled product.<br />
REHEARSAL TRIALS, TRIBULATIONS, AND<br />
BENEFITS<br />
Only a little better than one-third of the <strong>Marine</strong>s who were supposed<br />
to have had the benefit of an actual rehearsal for an amphibious landing<br />
had debarkation or shoreside training at Koro. On the other hand, gunfire<br />
support ships and the air support aircraft carried out the pre-landing shelling<br />
and bombings of the rehearsals as planned and derived benefit therefrom.<br />
For the amphibious ship the rehearsal was the cornerstone of later<br />
successes. As related by the Commanding Officer Alhena:<br />
We had hoisted our wooden-hulled Higgins boats {before leaving San<br />
Diego] in and out for so long that we thought that we knew all there was to<br />
know; but always in harbor and never in any sort of landing exercise. Off<br />
Onslow Beach in the early days I had acted as a spare parts supply ship,<br />
doling out engines and propellers as they were burned or beaten up. How<br />
well the others had been trained I do not know, but we all certainly heard<br />
from U-NO-HOO after the first rehearsal in the Fijis. Kelly sounded off in no<br />
uncertain terms and no one was spared. We hoisted the boats in and did it<br />
again. Times were cut about fifty percent but still it was not good enough.<br />
<strong>The</strong> third time we all thought that we did a real bang up job, but not so,<br />
according to the Boss. And he was right. After a conference aboard his ship<br />
that night we went out to sea, came in and did it again in about one third the<br />
time of our first try and with ten times the precision. Here again Kelly was<br />
the perfectionist-not the sundowner—and his driving was certainly needed<br />
and paid off.Go<br />
In May 1943, in making his official report on the WATCHTOWER<br />
Operation, Major General Vandegrift informed the Commandant of the<br />
<strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong>:<br />
Rendezvous was effected on 26 July and from 28 July until 31 July rehearsals<br />
for the forthcoming operation were conducted at Koro. Coral conditions<br />
on the island beaches rendered them impractical for actual landing<br />
operations and to that extent the rehearsal period was unsatisfactory. It<br />
proved invaluable, however, in providing an opportunity for familiarization<br />
mCOMSOPAC, 022340 Aug. 1942<br />
‘0Hunt.
CACT<strong>US</strong> Bound 311<br />
with debarking procedure, ascertaining debarkation intervals and the conduct<br />
and timing of large scale boat movements. . . .<br />
It also permitted the necessary exchange of staff visits and conferences.<br />
. . . during which further details of execution of the attack were agreed<br />
upon and minor changes carried into effect. . . .<br />
In the light of this experience an effective and workable boat pool was<br />
established. . . .<br />
General Vandegrift on 12 March 1948, in talking with the <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong><br />
History Group at Princeton, described the Koro rehearsal as a “complete<br />
bust,” and this terse description caught fire and has been carried forward<br />
into the Official <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> History as well as most unofficial writings<br />
on Guadalcanal.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner was unhappy about the selection of the Koro<br />
beaches and thought the partial rehearsal “unsatisfactory” but he thought<br />
it far, far from being’ ‘a complete bust.”<br />
In retrospect, General Vandegrift agreed with him, writing in 1964:<br />
Although I later described the rehearsal as ‘a complete bust,’ in retrospect<br />
it probably was not that bad. At the very least, it got the boats off the transports,<br />
and the men down the nets and away. It uncovered deficiencies such as<br />
defective boat engines in time to have them repaired and gave both Turner<br />
and me a chance to take important corrective measures in other spheres.<br />
This confirmed again what the General had written officially way back<br />
in March 1943:<br />
<strong>The</strong> ‘unusually successful landings’ reflected the benefits to be obtained from<br />
a Period of<br />
execution.ei<br />
rehearsak of the precise operation immediately prior to its<br />
1100<br />
Admiral Fletcher remembered:<br />
MILES OF WORRY<br />
Fuel was my main consideration &ring the run from the Fijis to the<br />
%lomons.”<br />
And it was a major consideration for all his subordinate naval commanders.<br />
On Thursday, 29 July, CTF 61 (Fletcher) advised COMSOPAC<br />
(Ghormley) and his subordinate commanders that TF 61 would be short<br />
“ (a) Commanding General, First <strong>Marine</strong> Division, WATCHTOWER Operation, Ser 00204,<br />
Phases I-IV; (b) Alexander A. Vandegrift, Once a <strong>Marine</strong> (New York: W.W. Norton, 1964),<br />
p. 122; (c) PHIBFORSOPAC Staff Interviews; (d) RRT to DCNO (Admin), letter, 20 Aug.<br />
1950.<br />
‘aFletcher.
312 Amphibians Ctitne To Conqaer<br />
2.1 million gallons of fuel oil on departure from the Fijis for the Solomons.<br />
CTF 61 considered it “imperative” that his force should be fully fueled on<br />
departure and topped off en route to the landings.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> Ranier (AE-5 ), Platte (AO-24), and the KanuwLa (AO-1 ) worked<br />
at rearming and refueling the fast carrier task forces on 30 and 31<br />
July, but when, at 1630 on the 31st, the Expeditionary Force started its<br />
decoy course to the southward before turning westward to the Coral Sea<br />
and Guadalcanal, three heavy cruisers and seven destroyers of the fast carrier<br />
task forces still were not fueled. <strong>The</strong>se were temporarily detached and<br />
worked at their task throughout the night. All heavy combatant ships and<br />
three transports were fueled by 1000 on 1 August 1942, but some of the<br />
destroyers had not fueled to capacity.”<br />
On 31 July, Task Group 61.2, the designation of the amphibious forces<br />
while part of the Expeditionary Force, also fueled from our oldest tanker, the<br />
28-year-old Kazrawlu (Commander Kendall S. Reed), and from the Platte<br />
(Captain Ralph H. Henkle) and replenished the ammunition expended in<br />
the rehearsal from the Ranier (Captain W. W. Meek).<br />
<strong>The</strong> logistical support forces were inadequate, and the problem was<br />
only beginning to be handled at the highest operational level in the task<br />
forces of the Navy. According to the official history of naval logistics:<br />
<strong>The</strong> vital importance of an adequate supply o,’ fuel, and its timely and<br />
properly allocated delivery to the vessels of the South Pacific for the campaign<br />
about to begin, was clearly recognized by Admiral Ghormley. <strong>The</strong><br />
distances involved, the scarcity of tankers, and the consumption of oil by<br />
task forces operating at high speeds made the solution of this logistic problem<br />
difficult enough if the normal operating consumption was used for estimates.<br />
But what would constitute ‘normal’ when the offensive was underway ? . . .<br />
Furthermore, though Ghormley foresaw the situation, and tried to anticipate<br />
it, his Iogistic planners were too few and had too little experience.65<br />
At the late date, 3I July, the Zeiiin and Betelgeuse, carrying essential<br />
<strong>Marine</strong>s and <strong>Marine</strong> equipment, had not joined and no one in TF 61 knew<br />
where they were, so CTG 61.2 (Turner) directed the heavy cruiser Chicago<br />
(CA-29) (Captain Howard D. Bode) to fly two planes northeast to Suva<br />
to: “ascertain if the Zei[in and Betelgezre are in Suva; if not, does the<br />
Director of the Port know where they are ?“ “<br />
w CTF 61 to COMSOPAC, 280201 Jul. 1942,<br />
“ COMPHIBSOPAC Staff Log.<br />
6’Worrall Reed Carter, Beam, Bullets and Bl~ck Oil (Washington: Government Printing<br />
Office, 1951), p. 24.<br />
WRKT to Captain Bode, letter, 31 Jul. 1942.
CACT<strong>US</strong> Bound 313<br />
Another letter from Rear Admiral Turner carried by these planes was<br />
addressed to the Director of the Port, Suva, and contained the following:<br />
<strong>The</strong> Ka.rkashia,Zeilin and Beteigeuse did not show up. I am much afraid<br />
that they have gone to Koro and are awaiting there for me, in which case<br />
they are sure to be too late to join me. . . . <strong>The</strong> Dewey (DD-352 ) and<br />
Mrzgjord (DD-389) have orders to wait at Suva until nightfall (or longer<br />
if tlsey get orders from COMSOPAC), in order to escort the Zeilin and<br />
Betelgeuse to join me.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> reply via the Chicago’s plane brought good news.<br />
A plane took ofl at about 1015 to Koro to order the Zeilin and Betelgeuse<br />
to the rendezvous off Suva as directed. . . .68<br />
Rear Admiral Turner made every effort to top off his fuel enroute to<br />
the Solomons. On Sunday, 2 August, he sent the Australian light cruiser,<br />
Hobart (Captain H. A. Showers, R.A.N. ), six destroyers of Destroyer<br />
Squadron Four, and five destroyer-type minesweepers, Mine Squadron Two,<br />
to top off at Efate in the Southern New Hebrides.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y were to obtain oil from shore facilities, if they existed, or from the<br />
chartered Merchant Tanker SS Iko Little Rock. <strong>The</strong> latter presumably had<br />
been diverted by COMSOPAC to Efate in the New Hebrides on her run<br />
from the Fijis. However, by mischance the <strong>US</strong>S Wihon (DD-408)<br />
(Lieutenant Commander Walter H. Price), on the northern flank of the<br />
circular cruising disposition of TG 6’1,2, had contacted the Esso Little Rock<br />
during the early morning hours (0200) and seeking to keep the ship clear of<br />
the formation, had directed her to steam north for one and a half hours<br />
before resuming her course for Efate. This unhappy and too extended<br />
diversion ordered by an officer not knowing the urgency of the timing in<br />
E.i~o Little Rock’s mission delayed the arrival of the tanker well past the<br />
hour when Commander Destroyer Squadron Four (Captain Cornelius W.<br />
Flynn) and his flock arrived at Efate. <strong>The</strong> non-exsitence of other oil resources<br />
at Efate made the visit fruitless, and, of course, further deteriorated the<br />
oil situation of the 12 ships involved.<br />
Since no other fuel was available, on 4 August, all 24 of TG 61.2<br />
(Amphibious Forces) destroyer and destroyer-types and the Australian<br />
Hobart, a short-legged cruiser by American standards, were fueled from<br />
the transports and cargo ships of the task group. <strong>The</strong> exception was three<br />
destroyers which completed the emptying of the fleet tanker Cimarron<br />
“’RKT to Commander F. S. Holmes, Director of the Port, Suva, letter, 31 Jul. 1942<br />
esCommander Holmes tO RKT, letter, 31 Jul. 1942.
314 Amphibians Carrie To Conquer<br />
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MALAI TA ISL AND<br />
R<strong>US</strong>SELL S* .,s<br />
ISLANDS a MARIV#SIKE<br />
GIJAU:;:AL ;N<br />
CORAL SEA<br />
SAN CRISTOBAL @sflvlvN~uz<br />
BELLONA<br />
ISLAND<br />
●<br />
q ::::;? THE SOLOMONS<br />
AND<br />
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SOUTHERN APPROACHES<br />
5- SOUTH ESPIRITU<br />
t .Ig:;g —<br />
160- EAST 16 S* EAST<br />
<strong>The</strong> Solomons and Southern Approaches,<br />
(Commander Russell M. Ihrig), which had fueled TG 61.1 (Air Support<br />
Forces) the same day.<br />
On 5 August, Rear Admiral Turner brought his task group to a halt<br />
to transfer 17 newly and prematurely graduated ensigns from the Naval<br />
Academy Class of 1943 and their monumental baggage to their assigned<br />
ships via ship boats, instead of by high line transfers from the Zeilin, the<br />
ship which brought them out from the States. This stopping of the task<br />
group observed from afar disturbed Vice Admiral Fletcher and while Task<br />
Group 61.1 and 61.2 were not cruising together, he stepped in and sent<br />
a message to CTG 61.1 to get underway immediately.<br />
I just figured that Kelly was punch drunk and my short despatch would<br />
snap him out of it. When I next saw him, which was in Noumea, we laughed<br />
together about the incident, and he admitted he might not have been very<br />
bright. But he still said there were no Jap submarines anywhere around.’g<br />
On the morning of 6 August, the day before the landings, the weather<br />
was hazy, visibility was four miles, and later became even less. COMPHIB-<br />
FORSOPAC Staff Log stated the problem and the result:<br />
mFletcher.
CACT<strong>US</strong> Bound 315<br />
No navigational sights possible. . . .<br />
At 0800 reported positions [from ships of the force] differed by 27 miles in<br />
latitude and 15 miles in longitude. . . .<br />
At 1200 dispatched Comdesron Four in Selfridge (DD-357 ) to Bellona<br />
Island, about 60 miles to the northeast, with orders to fix navigational position,<br />
and rejoin disposition by 1800. . . .<br />
Haze closed down, with some rain. . . . Still not zigzagging in order not to<br />
complicate navigational data.<br />
GUESSING THE SUBMARINE MENACE<br />
After deploying 27 submarines in direct connection with the Pearl Harbor<br />
attack, the Japanese Navy made minimal offensive use of their 60-ship<br />
submarine fleet during the first six months of the war.70 But it was gloomily,<br />
and quite erroneously, anticipated by Rear Admiral Turner that as the<br />
United States Navy moved from the defensive to the offensive, the Japanese<br />
Navy would make much more effective use of their submarines. He<br />
thought the Japanese submarines would orient their attacks away from the<br />
fast-moving well-compartmented combatant ships which were fully destroyerprotected<br />
to the far slower and far less watertight compartmented transport<br />
and logistic support ships of the amphibious forces.71<br />
During this July-August 1942 stage of the Pacific War, the Japanese had<br />
the capability to assign 20 submarines in the Solomon Island area, and<br />
in September they reached this standard.’z However, in July and up until<br />
7 August, the best evidence available is that there were only three Japanese<br />
submarines (I-1 23, I-169, I-172 ) actually operating in the almost million<br />
square miles encompassed by the Fiji-New Caledonia-Solomon Island, South<br />
Pacific Area.”<br />
But Rear Admiral Turner did not think that Task Force 62 had much<br />
to worry about from submarines, until after the Japanese had felt the<br />
initial weight of its amphibious attack, and had time to make the command<br />
decision to orient their submarine fleet toward the Solomons and the<br />
~ E. B. Potterand Chester W. Nimitz, Sea Power, A Naval History ( Englewood Cliffs: Prentice<br />
Hall, 1960), pp. 796-800.<br />
n Turner.<br />
= (a) Mochitsura Hashimoto, Sunk; <strong>The</strong> Story of the Japanese Submarine Fleet, 1941-1945.<br />
trans. E.H.M. Colegrave (New York: Henry Holt & Co, 1954), pp. 2, 48, 70, 90, 91, 238.<br />
(b) Morison, <strong>The</strong> S&ggle for Gnaddlranu/ (Vol. V), p. 130. (c) Emanuel Andrieu d’Albas,<br />
Death of a Navy; Japanese Naval Action in World War II (New York: Devin-Adair CO.,<br />
1957), p. 173,<br />
mHashimoto, p. 258.
316 Arnpbibians Canze To Conquer<br />
United States Amphibious Forces therein. So on the 800-mile run from<br />
Auckland to the Fiji Island rendezvous, his 26-ship task force zigzagged<br />
during daylight, but not during dark.<br />
On 29 July 1942, Rear Admiral Turner wrote to Rear Admiral Crutchley,<br />
who was concerned over the task force not zigzagging at night and possible<br />
submarine attacks:<br />
I agree that submarines are a menace in this operation, but not very much<br />
so. <strong>The</strong> Japs have few submarines down here, and it is a very large ocean, so<br />
these few cannot cover much of it. I do not believe we are likely to find any<br />
in this immediate vicinity, though of course, I may be surprised. Ordinarily<br />
we will zigzag during daylight.<br />
I have considerably greater concern over the dangers of an air attack, than<br />
over the dangers of a submarine attack, particularly in the early stages of the<br />
action after arrival in the Tulagi Area.T4<br />
However, Rear Admiral Crutchley was not dissuaded. On the next day<br />
he replied:<br />
As regards the Znd paragraph, your intelligence is probably much more<br />
complete than mine, but we have had persistent reports of growing numbers<br />
of submarines in the Rabaul area as well as reports of large and small<br />
(R.O. Class or even Midget) submarines in the Solomons.<br />
I regard the former as a menace at sea and the latter as a great menace<br />
after we have arrived for their small size makes them very difficult to detect<br />
by ASDIC. I hope that I shall prove wrong.”<br />
Rear Admiral Crutchley very politely did not add that a Japanese submarine,<br />
later learned to be I-169, had just sunk the Dutch Ship Tjingara<br />
close to New Caledonia. <strong>The</strong> survivors had been picked up by the UN<br />
Platte on 27 July 1942. Nor did he add that the Army Air Force had reported<br />
the presence of midget submarines in the Solomons just as the task force<br />
left Auckland, and regular-sized submarines off Santa Isabel Island only<br />
60 miles from Guadalcanal as Task Force 62 moved towards Koro Island<br />
in the Fijis.’e<br />
<strong>The</strong> Japanese Navy reacted with their submarines to the 7 August<br />
landings by ordering seven additional submarines from Truk to the lower<br />
Solomons, and by concentrating in Indispensable Strait, which separates<br />
Guadalcanal Island from Malaita Island to the northeast, those submarines<br />
“ RKT to Rear Admiral Crutchley, RN, personal letter, 29 Jul. 1942.<br />
n Crutchley to RKT, personal letter, 30 Jul. 1942.<br />
m (a) <strong>US</strong>S Platte to COMAIRSOPAC 262010 Jul. 1942; (b) Hashimoto, p. 258; (c) CM-IN-<br />
7335, 7/2 l/42, CM-IN–7634, 7/22/42, CM–IN–8247, 7/24/42. <strong>The</strong> Archives Branch of the<br />
Federal Records Center, Suitland, Md.
CACT<strong>US</strong> Bound 317<br />
already in the South Pacific Area. <strong>The</strong> attack objective of their submarines<br />
was not changed to the amphibious and logistic support forces, as had been<br />
anticipated by Rear Admiral Turner.zi<br />
On the run from Wellington to Koro in the Fijis, there were only two<br />
submarine alarms, but as the COMPHIBFORSOPAC Staff Log indicates<br />
“contact could not be developed, presumed non-submarine.”<br />
On the first days of the six-day run from the Fijis to Guadalcanal, there<br />
were no submarine alerts within Task Force 62, a most unusual occurrence<br />
for a large task force at sea, and indicative that the submarine menace in the<br />
South Pacific had a low evaluation in the minds of the hundreds of alert<br />
sailormen who manned the submarine detection gear.<br />
A WORD OF CONFIDENCE<br />
Just before dark, on the night before the assault landing, Rear Admiral<br />
Turner sent out the following personally written message to Task Force 62.<br />
PUBLISH TO ALL HANDS,<br />
On August seventh, this Force will recapture Tulagi and Guadalcanal<br />
Islands, which are now in the hands of the enemy.<br />
In this first step forward toward clearing the Japanese out of conquered<br />
territory, we have strong support from the Pacific Fleet, and from the air,<br />
surface and submarine forces in the South Pacific and Australia.<br />
It is significant of victory that we see here shoulder to shoulder, the U. S.<br />
Navy, <strong>Marine</strong>s and Army, and the Australian and New Zealand Air, Naval<br />
and Army Services.<br />
I have confidence that all elements of this armada will, in skill and cour-<br />
age, show themselves fit comrades of those brave men who already have dealt<br />
the enemy mighty blows for our great cause.<br />
God bless you all.<br />
R. K. TURNER, Rear Admiral, U. S. N~vy, Commanding<br />
Rear Admiral Turner thought enough of this message to retain it in his<br />
personal files. This was the only one of the many he sent prior to an<br />
operation that he so retained. It was neither a public relations office blurb,<br />
nor a football pep rally speech, but a subdued and serious statement by<br />
a very serious-minded man.<br />
n FromAugustthroughNovember1S142in SOPACAr~ two U.S. carriers,one battleshipand<br />
one anti-aircraftcruiserwere torpedoed:Sdr’aloga(CV-3), 31 Augustby 1–26;lP’tifjJ(cV–7),<br />
15 septemberby 1-19; ~ortb Carolina(BB-55) 15 Septemberby 1–15;Jtmeau (CL–1 19), 13<br />
November by I–26. Juneaz was sunk, and lVu~P disabled was then actually sunk by U. S. forces.<br />
Others were damaged.
318 Amphibiatu Came To Conquer<br />
Compare it with the one sent out from Vice Admiral Ghormley’s Headquarters:<br />
We look to you to electrify the world with news of a real offensive. Allied<br />
ships, planes and fighting men carry on from Midway. Sock ‘Em in the<br />
Solomons.T6<br />
HISTORY FORETELLS<br />
One of the better students of military history, Captain B. H. Liddell Hart,<br />
had written in 1939:<br />
A landing on a foreign coast in the face of hostile troops has always been<br />
one of the most difficult operations of war. It has now become almost impossible,<br />
because of the vulnerable target which a convoy of transports offers to the<br />
defender’s air force as it approaches the shore. Even more vulnerable to air<br />
attack. is the process of disembarkation in open boats. 7S<br />
Admiral Turner later said:<br />
I had read Lidell Hart’s book and that part of it kept coming back to my mind<br />
as we chugged around Guadalcanal in the haze on 6 August.so<br />
“AT LAST WE HAVE STARTED”<br />
With these words CINCPAC advised COMINCH that the WATCH-<br />
TOWER Operation was underway. Where did Admiral Nimitz first learn of<br />
the start ? From COMSOPAC or from Commander Expeditionary Force?<br />
Neither. He learned it from reading Japanese radio traffics’ Six hours later<br />
CINCPAC still had no report from COMSOPAC or Commander Expeditionary<br />
Force, but the Japanese were keeping him informed of the favorable<br />
progress of the WATCHTOWER Operation.s’<br />
<strong>The</strong> first detailed summary report of the operation was sent by COM-<br />
PHIBFORSOPAC to all interested seniors as of 2000, local time on 7 August,<br />
a bit late for a good staff officer. In this summary report, COMSOPAC and<br />
CTF 61 were requested to provide “scouting against approach enemy forces<br />
from westward.” 8’ It was a wise but fruitless request.<br />
78COMSOPAC to TF’s 61, 62, 63, 061040 Aug. 1942.<br />
n B. H. Llddell Hart, Tbe Dejeme of Brkzitr (New York: Random House, 1939), p. 130.<br />
wTurner.<br />
a CINCPAC to COMINCH, 062045 Aug. 1942.<br />
* CINCPAC to COMINCH, 070231 Aug. 1942.<br />
= CTG 61.2 to COMSOPAC and CTF 61,071030 Aug. 1942.
Success, <strong>The</strong>n<br />
WHERE ARE<br />
CHAPTER IX<br />
Cliff Hanging<br />
WE HEADED?<br />
In the first 42 years of the Twentieth Century, the United States Navy<br />
felt that it had visited a fair share of the Pacific Ocean, and IIS islands, and<br />
that it “knew the Pacific.” But somehow the Solomon Islands, although<br />
in friendly British hands, were outside the Navy’s wide ranging sweeps.<br />
During 1941, this had been intentional. In a letter to Admiral Husband<br />
E. Kimmel, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral Harold R.<br />
Stark, Chief of Naval Operations, had written:<br />
We should not indicate the slightest interest in the Gilbert or Solomon or<br />
Fiji Islands at this time. If we do, our future use of them, might be<br />
compromised.1<br />
Until the amphibians and their combatant escorts sailed from Welling-<br />
ton on 22 July 1942, the great majority of the officers and practically<br />
100 percent of the sailormen in Task Force 62 did not even know where<br />
in the South Pacific they were to join with the enemy 16 days later. “When<br />
they were told that this event would take place in the Solomon Islands,<br />
they still didn’t know anything but a name.” z<br />
Admiral Turner reminisced: ‘
320 Amphibians Came To Con4ue?<br />
155” EAST 160” EAST<br />
<strong>The</strong> Solomon Islands,<br />
Support Force were in the same state of geographical ignorance. Ignorance<br />
w~s- not limited to geography alone. When the Saw Francisco (CA-38)<br />
(Captain Charles H. McMorris) joined the Task Force less than a week<br />
before the landings, the captain was bold to officially say that he had “no<br />
orders, dispatches, and little information regarding operations.” 4 Another<br />
officer recalled:<br />
When Admiral Turner talked of Tulagi, GuadalcanaI or the Santa Cruz<br />
Islands, he talked knowledgeably, but the rest of us naval officers were<br />
just plain geographically ~gnorant; learning fast, but at the moment<br />
ignorant. s<br />
SOLOMON<br />
ISLANDS<br />
<strong>The</strong> whole Solomon Island Group stretches southeasterly 600 miles from<br />
Buka Island in the northwest to 300 miles south of the equator and San<br />
Cristobal Island in the southeast, located 1,200 miles due east of the northern<br />
‘ (a) Fletcher;(b) Kink.id; (c) <strong>US</strong>S San Frun.isco to CTF 61, 012115. Aug. 1942.<br />
5Peyton.
Success, <strong>The</strong>n Clijf Hanging 321<br />
tip of Australia. <strong>The</strong> Northern Solomons were under German control from<br />
1899 until early in World War I, when in September 1914, they were captured<br />
by the Australians. This part of the Solomons, primarily the islands<br />
of Buka and Bougainvillea, became an Australian mandate in 1920, under<br />
the League of Nations.<br />
All of the Solomons became an Australian defense responsibility with<br />
the outbreak of World War II. Great Britain had controlled the Southern<br />
Solomons since 1899, and the British resident commissioner resided on<br />
the.island of Tulagi, a sliver of an island nestled under the hills of Florida<br />
Island, 20 miles north of Koli Point in the center of the North Coast<br />
of Guadalcanal.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Australians had chosen the tiny island of Tulagi as their principal<br />
base for the discharge of their defense responsibilities, because between<br />
Tulagi and Florida Island, there was a good medium size ship anchorage<br />
(15-25 fathoms) and a sheltered seaplane operating area, a mile and a half<br />
long and a half mile wide. This was quite suitable for any concentration<br />
of ships of the Australian Navy. Nearby Gavutu Island was judged<br />
particularly suitable for a seaplane base---and just a few more miles away<br />
was Purvis Bay, banana-shaped but deep-watered and adequate for innu-<br />
merable small ships.<br />
From the operation orders, the’ amphibians learned some of these facts.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y also learned from them the hazards of nature as well as the dangers<br />
of a skillful enemy, that had to be endured in the Solomons. <strong>The</strong> transports<br />
were to proceed to an anchorage area where: “uncharted reefs may be<br />
expected,” and where “winds of sufficient velocity to drag anchor over<br />
coral patched holding ground may be expected any day of the year. ”<br />
But come what may, the amphibians were told that they must land their<br />
<strong>Marine</strong>s on the chosen coastal beaches which were “lined with coconut<br />
plantations.”<br />
Fortunately, the landings on this hostile shore about 600 miles south of<br />
the equator were to take place during the “fine weather season,” Only eight<br />
inches of rain generally fell in all of August, and while humidity might be<br />
expected to average an unpleasant 80 percent, temperatures ordinarily<br />
ranged only from a moderate 75 degrees to a somewhat uncomfortable<br />
or hot 85 degrees.6<br />
Rear Admiral Turner’s desire was to keep his task groups in the open sea<br />
as long as possible, and out of sight of any Japanese lookout posts high up<br />
‘ COMSOPAC Op Plan 1-42, 16 Jul. 1942, Intelligence Annex, pp. 14-20.
322 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
C4PE<br />
Guadaicana)-Trdagi.<br />
on the 7,000–8,000 foot razorback mountain chain which ran from north-<br />
west to southeast along the middle of Guadalcanal. <strong>The</strong> shorter route<br />
through Indispensable Strait from the Fijis lying to the southeast could not<br />
be used because of this requirement and because:<br />
Two weeks observation of Japanese air scouting from Tulagi indicated that<br />
one or two seaplanes daily came down the New Hebrides Chain to the<br />
vicinity of Efate; and apparently on alternate days, at least, one seaplane<br />
came about the same distance on a direct line toward the Fijis. . , . <strong>The</strong><br />
Task Force 62 approach route was laid out to pass to the south and west of<br />
known or estimated plane searches.<br />
So Rear Admiral Turner planned to make the approach from the Coral<br />
Sea to Florida island and to Lungs Point around the western end of<br />
Guadalcanal and through the 12-mile wide channel separating that island<br />
and the Russell Islands.’<br />
<strong>The</strong> amphibians and their escort had made the 1,000-mile westward<br />
passage from Koro Island in the Fijis to a position ( 16°34’ S, 159°00’ E)<br />
‘ (a) COMPHIBFORSOPAC Staff Interviews; (b) RKT to DCNO (Admin), letter, 27<br />
Sep. 1950.
Success, <strong>The</strong>n Cliff Hanging 323<br />
400 miles directly south of the Russell Islands without sighting an enemy<br />
plane or submarine, although the Enterpri~e (CV-6) (Captain Arthur C.<br />
Davis) had reported a torpedo wake crossing her bow 50 yards ahead, a<br />
little after 22OOon the night before the landing and the Chicago had reported<br />
a submarine contact on 3 August, later evaluated as a large fish. Army<br />
Air Force bombers and COMAIRSOPAC PBYs had flown over the force<br />
from time to time to protect it and to familiarize lookouts and gun and<br />
director crews with the B-I7, but the voyage still had had its alarms. <strong>The</strong><br />
amphibians had been forcibly reminded that the hazards of mine warfare<br />
were not too far removed when radio reports were received, on 4 August,<br />
that the destroyer Tzcker (DD-374) had had her back broken by a mine<br />
only 150 miles north of their track, at Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Task Force was in a circular cruising disposition maintaining radio<br />
and radar silence and, at night, visual silence. Seventeen destroyers and fast<br />
minesweepers were equally spaced on the three-mile circle from the forma-<br />
tion guide in the center; the cruisers and remaining destroyers were on or<br />
near the two-mile circle; and the 19 transports and cargo ships were in a line<br />
of five divisions spaced one-half mile apart in the center of the disposition.<br />
<strong>The</strong> destroyer-type transports were in line abreast a thousand yards ahead<br />
of the Formation Guide, the Hunter Liggett (AP-27 ), flagship of Captain<br />
Reifsnider, Commander Transport Divisions, South Pacific Force. Five of<br />
the eight protecting cruisers were in division columns in the bow quadrants<br />
at 40 degrees relative, right and left, between the one and two-mile circle.<br />
<strong>The</strong> other three cruisers were astern of the guide, between the two and<br />
three-mile circle.<br />
This formation was well balanced against both submarine attack and<br />
surprise air attack, as it was shepherded along in unfamiliar waters by the<br />
Air Support Force at 13% knots.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Escort Commander, Rear Admiral Crutchley, R.N., was:<br />
responsible for the safety of the Force against enemy action and for maneuvering<br />
the Escort for action against the enemy.8<br />
All ships of Task Force 62, except the transports, were placed under the<br />
command of the Escort Commander for this purpose.<br />
THE DARK OF THE NIGHT<br />
At noon on 5 August, the formation course was changed to No~th and<br />
“COMPHIBSOPAC(CTF 62) Operation OrderAS–42, 30 Jul. 1942, para. 3.
324 Amphibians Came To Conqner<br />
TASK FORCE 62 CRUISING DISPOSITION<br />
2400, .7”.,”.””<br />
\<br />
00<br />
3400 A 200<br />
2000<br />
Idoo<br />
1;00<br />
Po FORCE FLAG ~ CRUISERS<br />
i<br />
‘P<br />
‘~ FORMATION GUIDE<br />
(j AMPHIBIO<strong>US</strong><br />
Task Force 62 Cruising Disposition.<br />
() ANTI SUBMARINE
Success, <strong>The</strong>n Ciiff Hanging 325<br />
Guadaicanal and the RusseU Islands.<br />
the run in to the Russell Islands was started at 13 knots. <strong>The</strong> weather<br />
turned hazy and there were rain squalls.<br />
A 12-mile clearance from outreaching and dangerous Russell Island<br />
rocks on the port hand to outreaching and dangerous Guadalcanal Island<br />
rocks on the starboard hand had looked most adequate on the charts, par-<br />
ticularly as the approach disposition into which the formation would be<br />
shifted in late afternoon narrowed the front of the Task Force from 12,000<br />
yards to 3,5oo yards.<br />
However, the Russell Islands had been reported by “pilots familiar with<br />
these waters” and “information sources in New Zealand” to be four to<br />
five miles eastward of their charted position. If this was true, and acceptance<br />
of the report as valid was sufficient to write it in on the Attack Force<br />
Approach Plan, then the navigational channel between Guadalcanal and<br />
the Russells was only seven miles and the clear and safe channel for night<br />
navigation considering the quirks of current, markedly Iess.g<br />
It was also desirable to have the outboard ships far enough away from<br />
0(a) RKT to Crutchley, letter, 29 Jul. 1942; (b) COMPHIBSOPAC Operation Plan A3-42,<br />
30 Jul. 1942, Annex JIG; (c) Staff Interviews.<br />
—<br />
—
326 Amphibians Carrie To Conquer<br />
the beach on either side, so that an alert Japanese sentry would not spot<br />
the ships passing by and sound the alarm. This hazard dictated splitting the<br />
channel with exact midway piloting of the formation. To accomplish this<br />
task the staff navigator had to know exactly where the formation was by<br />
not later than 1600 on the 6th.10<br />
But, as noted in the previous chapter, the 51 navigators of the 51 ships<br />
were all over the lot in their morning and noon position reports. It was<br />
as though they had all agreed to disagree and worry the Admiral and<br />
the staff navigator.<br />
Perhaps the real reason was that the Coral Sea currents were tricky, the<br />
weather was hazy, and the Solomons were beyond the range of the few<br />
1942 surface radars in Task Force 62. <strong>The</strong> Staff Log for 6 August 1942 tells<br />
the story:<br />
Last [good] sight about 1400, August 5, 1942. . .<br />
During forenoon obtained various sun lines of doubtful value. . .<br />
[No] zigzagging in order not to complicate navigational data. . .<br />
At 1730 Sel/ridge [DD-357, Lieutenant Commander Carroll D. Reynolds<br />
after sighting Bellona Islandj rejoined disposition reporting position of<br />
San Jaan [CL-54, Captain James E. Maher] at 1655 as Latitude 10–58 South,<br />
Longitude 15941 East [115 miles due south of Russell Islands] .“<br />
With this firm position from Selfvidge in hand, an exact approach<br />
through the shoal bound waters ahead was practicable at last for the<br />
5l-ship formation.<br />
Later in the afternoon of 6 August, the carrier groups totaling 26 ships<br />
which had been hovering around and protecting the amphibians, broke off<br />
contact and disappeared to the southward. <strong>The</strong> amphibians were shifted<br />
into a column of squadrons of transports so as to narrow the front of the<br />
formation. Speed was changed to 12 knots and the final die cast.<br />
<strong>The</strong> long day of 6 August and the one preceding it had had their bless-<br />
ings not known or directly recognized at the time. <strong>The</strong> rain squalls and the<br />
haze had been even heavier and thicker further north and closer to the<br />
equator in the area toward which the Expeditionary Force was moving. Thus<br />
Japanese Air reconnaissance flights from Rabaul and fyom the Tulagi-Gavutu<br />
air bases were either washed out, or the pilot’s visibility was limited. <strong>The</strong><br />
‘0Ibid.<br />
“ COMPHIBFORSOPAC Staff Log.
Success, <strong>The</strong>n Ciiff Hanging 327<br />
Japanese land based planes were unequipped with radar. Neither the carriers<br />
nor the amphibians were sighted.’z<br />
that:<br />
At midnight on the sixth on board the flagship, it had been established<br />
<strong>The</strong> force is 3 miles southward or behind planned position with respect<br />
to time.13<br />
<strong>The</strong> Henley (DD-39I ) (Commander Robert Hall Smith) and the<br />
Bagley (DD-386) (Lieutenant Commander George A, Sinclair) led the<br />
ships into what was later called “Iron Bottom Sound.” <strong>The</strong> Henley early<br />
on 7 August had sighted the big high dark mass of Guadalcanal at 0133,<br />
less $han an hour before the moon in its last quarter tried to break through<br />
the murk of the night at 0223. From the force flagship, McCawley, the sky<br />
at midnight on the sixth had appeared<br />
overcast, visibility poor. . . . ships in sight—one ahead, one astern, arrd in<br />
next adjacent columns, only one ship in sight.<br />
However, at 0050 on the seventh, fortune had begun to shine on the<br />
amphibians:<br />
Stars out, visibili~ improving. . . .<br />
0130. Counted eight ships in left-hand column and seven in right. . . .<br />
Betelgeuse and Transdiv Dog widely opened out. Directed these ships to<br />
close up, using blinker tube with reduced iris. . . .<br />
OMO, <strong>The</strong> moon after disclosing Guadalcanal and Savo Island became<br />
obscure. . . .14<br />
For the day of the landing, the seventh, the weather was about all that<br />
could be hoped for at Guadalcanal. <strong>The</strong> sky was mostly cloudy and the<br />
average temperature was 80° F.”<br />
Off Cape Esperance, the northwest cape of Guadalcanal, Task Force 62<br />
had been split, with the lead transports bound for Florida Islands (Group<br />
YOKE, Captain George B. Ashe) passing north of Savo Island and the<br />
much larger Group XRAY (Captain Lawrence F. Reif snider) bound for<br />
Lunga Point, taking the channel to the southward. Savo Island was abeam<br />
just before 0500, with sunrise due about 0633.<br />
M(a) Samuel B. Griffith, Tke Battle jor GuadAcunA, p. 40; (b) U.S. Naval War College,<br />
Tke Battle of SCZUOIrlund ,4r4gti~t 9, 1942 ( 1950), pp. 9–Io. Hereafter War College, Suvo Islund.<br />
18Staff Log.<br />
“ Ibid.<br />
“ <strong>US</strong>S Hull War Diary, 1 Aug. 1942.
328 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
A BEAUTIFUL ISLAND<br />
As darkness turned to light on 7 August 1942, the Lower Solomons came<br />
into view of Task Force 62. <strong>The</strong> sailorman’s first impression on the morning<br />
of 7 August turned out to be so different from that carried in most literature<br />
on Guadalcanal, that this first impression should be noted. A <strong>Marine</strong> combat<br />
correspondent making the initial landing aptly put this impression in these<br />
words:<br />
. . . Guadalcanal is an island of striking beauty. Blue-green mountains,<br />
towering into a brilliant tropical sky or crowned with cloud masses, dominate<br />
the island. <strong>The</strong> dark green of jungle growth blends into the softer greens and<br />
browns of coconut groves and grassy plains and ridges.’o<br />
Admiral Turner put it more briefly:<br />
A truly beautiful sight that morning.1’<br />
Although Task Force 62 at 1600 the previous afternoon had been only<br />
125 miles from the south coast of Guadalcanal, and presumably within the<br />
range of a late afternoon seaplane reconnaissance from both distant Rabaul<br />
or close Tulagi, the first enemy knowledge of the approach of the amphibians<br />
could have come from a routine early morning 7 August Japanese aircraft<br />
search. At 0600 the Staff Log noted:<br />
Observed lights of two planes taking off the water in vicinify of Lunga Point.<br />
At 0609, red flare dropped over [HMAS] Australia.’g<br />
Two minutes before schedule:<br />
At 0613 Quincy [CA-39, Captain Samuel N. Moore] opened fire on the<br />
beaches at GuadaIcanal.<br />
At 0615 destroyers opened fire.<br />
At 0616 ships commenced firing on the Tulagi side.lg<br />
****<br />
It appeared that the approach of Task Force 62 and the subsequent attack<br />
took the Japanese by surprise as no shots were fired, no patrol boats [were]<br />
encountered, no signs of life were evident until Group XRAY opened fire on<br />
Guadalcanal Island objectives across the channel, about hventy miles away.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n a cluster of red rockets went up from the direction of Tulagi Island.zo<br />
IEMe~il]=t, T/W I,)und, p. 20. Reprinted by permission of Harold Ober Associates, Inc. COPY<br />
right 1944 by H. L. Merillat.<br />
‘7Turner.<br />
~ Staff Log. Alcbda (AK-23) ako reported plane with running lights at 0600.<br />
WStaff Log. War College, sum Iflazd, gives one minute later for each of these events.<br />
m <strong>US</strong>S Nevil!e War Diary, 7 Aug. 1942.
Success, <strong>The</strong>n Ciiff Hanging 329<br />
FIRST BLOOD<br />
First blood on the hostile shore was “a large oil fire” at the small village<br />
of Kukum, just to the westward from Lunga Point.<br />
First seagoing blood was drawn at sea by two destroyers in the van of<br />
Squadron XRAY where the Dewey (DD-349) and Hu// (DD-35o) were<br />
on the starboard bow and the Selfridge (DD-3>7) and ]arvif (DD-393 )<br />
were on the port bow. At 0620, the Dewey and the Seifridge opened fire<br />
on a Japanese schooner. <strong>The</strong> Selfridge reported that<br />
‘Selfridge fired 26 rounds 5“/38 common on a small vessel loaded with<br />
gasoline.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Dewey made a low key report:<br />
Dewey expended 20 rounds. . . .<br />
Her consort, the Hull logged<br />
Dewey sank small Japanese schooner.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Transport Group Commander recorded:<br />
At 0630 a destroyer of the screen concentrated gunfire on a small 80-foot<br />
craft directly ahead of the formation. <strong>The</strong> vessel was carrying a deck load of<br />
gasoline in drums and was quickly enveloped in flames.<br />
<strong>The</strong> flagship briefed the action:<br />
Two roasted schooner sunk by leading destroyer.<br />
And finally, one of the cargo ships, the Alchiba reported:<br />
After four salvos from a destroyer in the van at 0630, the small craft ahead<br />
was hit and burst into flame. . . .21<br />
However, the Dewey (Lieutenant Commander Charles F. Chillings-<br />
worth ) magnanimously reported “checked fire when aircraft attacked” and<br />
“one small schooner sunk by own aircraft.” 2’<br />
From the reports of all the witnesses present, it appears that the aircraft<br />
bomb brought a quick end to a schooner already in extremities from the<br />
gunfire of the destroyers despite the Eliet’s (DD-398) opinion that one<br />
destroyer’s shooting was ‘
330 AnzPbibians Came To Conquer<br />
start, a~ least in the minds of those having their first brush with the<br />
Japanese. According to the Staff Log and the final <strong>Marine</strong> report:<br />
0618. sighted unidentified plane on port bow.<br />
0620. AA fire on plane ahead.2i<br />
. . . only one aircraft got into the air and it was destroyed immediately<br />
after takeoff by cruiser anti-aircraft fire, o.fi Lunga Point. Z*<br />
A tiresome check of the war diaries, action reports, and logs of surviving<br />
ships does not reveal which cruiser or destroyer fired anti-aircraft fire at this<br />
hour of the morning. <strong>The</strong> haze of the Solomons was beginning.<br />
THE JAPANESE FIRST REPORT THE ALLIGATOR<br />
Although U.S. ships must have been visible by 0600 and had commenced<br />
firing by 0613, Japanese records indicate that it was not until nearly 40 minutes<br />
later, 0652 on 7 August, that Commander Air Base Tulagi got off a<br />
report to Commander 25th Air Flotilla, his senior at Rabaul, that “enemy<br />
task force sighted.”<br />
This message was not nearly so succinct or so immediate as that of<br />
Commander Logan Ramsey, U. S. Navy, Operations Ofhcer on the staff<br />
of Patrol Wing Two at the Naval Air Station, Pearl Harbor. His 0758<br />
message reporting the 0755 attack by the Japanese on December 7, 1941<br />
read:<br />
Air Raid Pearl. This is not a drill.<br />
It was another 13 minutes before the report of Commander Air Base,<br />
Tulagi was amplified:<br />
Enemy task force of twenty ships attacking Tulagi, undergoing severe<br />
bombings, landing preparations underway; help requested.z’<br />
“Enemy has commenced landing” was reported at 0715.<br />
TULAGI—GAVUTU—FLORIDA<br />
<strong>The</strong> Japanese forces in the Southern Solomons had moved initially onto<br />
Tulagi Island, primarily because they needed a seaplane bake in that area<br />
for aerial reconnaissance in connection with “and subsequent to” Operation<br />
x (a) Staff Log; (b) Commanding General, First <strong>Marine</strong> Division, Final Report on Guadalcanal<br />
Operation, Phase 1 of 24 May 1943.<br />
= Japanese CRUDIV 6, Battle Report.
Success, <strong>The</strong>n Cliff Hanging 331<br />
‘“M-O,” the May 1942 Japanese forward movement which had brought on<br />
the Battle of the Coral Sea.<br />
Prior to May 1942, the British controlled the Solomon Islands pro-<br />
tectorate from Government House on the northeast side of Tulagi, and<br />
the Australians provided the minor defense forces and “Ferdinand,” the<br />
highly effective coast watcher’s organization.*’ On 7 August 1942, ‘Ferdin-<br />
and” began paying extra intelligence dividends. Based on their information<br />
and aerial photographs, Vice Admiral Ghormley had estimated in his<br />
Operation Plan No. 1–42, that some 3,100 Japanese were to be reckoned<br />
with at the <strong>Marine</strong> objectives. Interrogation after the War of senior<br />
Japanese Army oficers directly concerned with the Lower Solomons indi-<br />
cates this estimate was excellent and that there were about 780 Japanese<br />
including labor troops in the Tulagi-Gavutu-Tanambogo area and 2,230<br />
on Guadalcanal. Some 1,700 of the Guadalcanal contingent were labor<br />
troops and the rest largely were Japanese <strong>Marine</strong>s.<br />
Since their initial landings, the Japanese had spread out from Tulagi,<br />
which was only about one-half mile wide and two miles long, to the much<br />
5 Buka and BougainvilleaIslands were part of the Australian Mandated Territory of New Guinea.<br />
%<br />
MA NA MBO<br />
‘ ISLAND<br />
Landing Objectives in Tulagi-Gavt&v Area,<br />
NORTH<br />
!
332 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
larger island of Florida to the immediate north, and to the small hillish<br />
islands of Gavutu and Tanambogo some 3,OOO yards to the eastward of<br />
Tulagi. <strong>The</strong> Japanese had established their seaplane base at Gavutu Island,<br />
which was reef ringed.<br />
All this dispersion complicated mightily the Scheme of Maneuver, and<br />
the gunfire support plan for the attacking forces in the Tulagi area.<br />
Aerial photographs had shown the Japanese defenses were strongest on<br />
the northeast and southeast beaches of Tulagi. So the southwest beach area<br />
was chosen for the initial main landing. This gave the landing craft for<br />
the main Blue Beach landing a rudimentary straight approach from the<br />
transport area and a real break.<br />
To take Gavutu Island, and to land at Halavo Peninsula, Florida Island,<br />
to the eastward of Gavutu, a dificult turning operation was required<br />
of the landing craft, in addition to picking a circuitous path through a<br />
heavily reefed area.<br />
SCHEME OF MANEUVER<br />
During the planning phases, of the approximately 19,500 embarked<br />
<strong>Marine</strong>s, some 11,000 were assigned to the Guadalcanal assault, 4,000 to<br />
take Florida, Tulagi and Gavutu Islands, and the rest composed the<br />
Division Reserve, whose secondary mission was to act as the Ndeni Landing<br />
Force in Phase 3 of Task One of the PESTILENCE Operation, the second<br />
phase of which was WATCHTOWER.<br />
<strong>The</strong> agreed upon Scheme of Maneuver for Guadalcanal which governed<br />
the amphibians’ approach to that enemy-held island was a comparatively<br />
simple one for the untested seagoing amphibians to execute their part. <strong>The</strong><br />
Scheme of Maneuver for Tulagi, Gavutu, Makambo, and F40rida was<br />
considerably more complicated from the naval viewpoint, although markedly<br />
fewer large transports and cargo ships were involved.<br />
<strong>The</strong> assault beach on Guadalcanal was 1,600 yards of the 2,000-yard<br />
wide Red Beach. It lay just to the east of the mouth of the Tenaru River<br />
and five miles east of Lunga Point, a good landmark on the north central<br />
coastline. <strong>The</strong> Japanese air strip was inland a mile, and about half way<br />
between Tenaru and Lunga.<br />
Nine transports and six cargo ships, Transport Group XRAY, under<br />
the command of the second senior naval officer regularly detailed in the
Success, <strong>The</strong>n Ciiff Hanging 333<br />
Amphibious Force South Pacific, Captain Reifsnider, in the Hunter Liggett<br />
(AP-27) were assigned to the Guadalcanal task. <strong>The</strong>y were to initially<br />
anchor in two lines, 1,500 yards apart, with the inshore line just outside<br />
the hundred fathom curve, four and a half miles north of the mouth of<br />
the Tenaru River. As soon as the fast minesweepers could sweep the area<br />
between the initial transport area and the 10 fathom line the transports and<br />
cargo ships were to move closer to the beach.<br />
<strong>The</strong> main assault beach on Tulagi was 500 yards of the 600-yard wide<br />
Blue Beach. It lay in the west central sector of the south coast of Tulagi.<br />
An additional landing was to be made on the east coast of Gavutu Island,<br />
and two small landings at areas five miles apart on Florida Island—Haleta<br />
Harbor to the west and Halavo Peninsula to the east of Tulagi.<br />
Three transports, four destroyer-type transports and one cargo ship,<br />
Transport Group YOKE, under the command of Captain Gecrge B. Ashe,<br />
the third senior officer regularly detailed in the Amphibious Force South<br />
Pacific and in the Neville (AP-16), were assigned to this more complicated<br />
task. <strong>The</strong>y were to initially anchor southwest of Blue Beach, with the<br />
inshore line just outside the hundred fathom curve which in this case again<br />
was about five miles from the beach.<br />
Groups XRAY and YOKE were initially anchored about 11 miles apart.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Lines of Departure from where the assault landing craft were to<br />
initiate their run for the shore in formal formation were two and a half miles<br />
from the designated beaches, both Red and Blue. About two-thirds of the<br />
<strong>Marine</strong>s were embarked in the 36-foot Higgins boat, the LCP(L)<br />
(Landing Craft, Personnel without ramp) and about one-third in the<br />
newer LCV or LCPR with the highly desirable ramp. Tanks and trucks<br />
were to be ferried ashore in medium-sized landing craft, the 45-foot LCMS.<br />
After the first two days of rehearsal at Koro Island, and its accompanying<br />
routine landing mishaps and engine failures, the large transports and cargo<br />
ships of Task Force 62 had been told to signal the number of landing<br />
craft each would have available and ready for the WATCHTOWER landing.<br />
To this was added the number anticipated to be available from the Zeilin<br />
and Beteigerise and the four LCP (L)s in each of the four destroyer trans-<br />
ports, <strong>The</strong> grand total listed was 475 consisting of:<br />
(a) 8 “X” Type (30-foot personnel craft without ramp).<br />
(b) 303 LCP(L) (36-foot Landing Craft, Personnel, without ramp).<br />
(c) 116 LCV or LCPR (36-foot Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel, with<br />
ramp).
334 Amphibians Came To Conqaer<br />
TurnerCollectim<br />
Landing crtift from the Humer Liggett (AP–27), later APA–14, lands its<br />
)ast <strong>Marine</strong>s at Tongs Island in October 1942. Note the lack of la~ding<br />
ramps.<br />
(d) .8 LCM (45-foot Landing Craft, Medium, for tanks and trucks, with<br />
ramp) .27<br />
None of the landing craft were really old and most had been built within<br />
the year. <strong>The</strong> eight oldest type landing craft in the WATCHTOWER Oper-<br />
aticm were the 30-foot “X boats,” four in the flagship McCawley and four<br />
in the Barnett (AP- 11 ). <strong>The</strong> LVTS ( amtracs ) of the Amphibian Tractor<br />
Battalion of the First <strong>Marine</strong> Division were in addition to the craft listed<br />
above.<br />
On 22 June 1942, COMINCH had changed the designations of many<br />
of the landing boats, but his written order was circulated by slow sea mail<br />
to the South Pacific, and was not passed on to Task Force 62 until rnid-<br />
August, so that the official reports of this period all use the earlier designa-<br />
= Annex George to COMPHIBSOPAC Op Plan A3--42, 30 Jul. 1942, listed the craft anticipated<br />
to b available 8/7/42. Up until 22 June 1942, the LCPR had been designated ‘‘TR boats,” the<br />
LCP(L) “T boats;’ and the LCM were “WL lighters.”
NORTH<br />
Success, <strong>The</strong>n Cliff Hanging 335<br />
—. ——— ——— —<br />
,<br />
i<br />
.<br />
LINE OF DEPARTURE<br />
——— —— ——— —.—<br />
2 1/2 MILES FROM RED BEACH<br />
u<br />
t<br />
K<br />
FINAL TRANSPORT AREA<br />
2000-3500 YARDS FROM BEACH )<br />
Transport Area, Gaadalcanal.
336 Amphibians Cume To Conquer<br />
tions. <strong>The</strong> 36-foot “TR boats” with ramp, officially became LCV, but<br />
popularly known as LCPR; “T boats” without ramp became LCP(L) ; and<br />
the 45-foot “WL lighters” became LCM. <strong>The</strong> LCP ( L) had diesel engines,<br />
but all the LCV or LCPR in WATCHTOWER were gas engine craft, as were<br />
part of the LCM.2S<br />
AWAY ALL BOATS<br />
It was 0615 on 7 August 1942 and time for the landing craft to go to<br />
work. <strong>The</strong> boatswain’s mates’ shrill pipes and the crane operator’s skillful<br />
control would soon fill the warm, calm and apathetic anchorage areas with<br />
landing craft. It had taken the Navy a very long eight months since 7<br />
December 1941 to put a full <strong>Marine</strong> division into position before enemy<br />
held islands. It was the first time in the war that the confident <strong>Marine</strong>s were<br />
in a position to make the Japanese start looking over their shoulders to note<br />
how far they had to retreat to reach either their ancestors or their homeland<br />
in Honshu or Kyushu. It was a moment of pride for the amphibians.<br />
At 0637, CTF 62.2 (Captain Ashe) on the Tulagi side had really sent<br />
the amphibians to their tasks when he executed the General Signal “Land<br />
Landing Force, Zero Hour is 0800.” Since the <strong>Marine</strong>s wished one rifle<br />
company, reinforced by one machine gun platoon, landed on Florida Island<br />
at Haleta to the westward of Blue Beach on Tulagi at H minus 20 minutes,<br />
or at 0740, Captain Ashe’s landing schedule was barely off to a good start.<br />
It was not until 0652 that Rear Admiral Turner off Lunga Point executed<br />
the same General Signal, but set Hypo Hour for the Guadalcanal landings<br />
considerably later, at 0910. Captain Reifsnider’s transports had lagged<br />
markedly in coming into position, and H-hour at Guadalcanal was 40<br />
minutes later than planned.<br />
Admiral Turner thought that it was a tribute to the basic competence of<br />
the boatswain’s mates and coxswains manning the 475 rapidly trained and<br />
partially rehearsed landing craft, as well as to the soundness of the training<br />
guidance received from the many echelons of command above them, that<br />
these sailormen put the <strong>Marine</strong>s ashore on the right beaches at the appointed<br />
hour in the WATCHTOWER Operation, His hat was off to the sailormen<br />
and young officers of his command, many of whom were new to the Navy.<br />
= COMINCH, memorandum, FF–1/S2%l, Se. 01170 of 22 Jun. 1942, subj: Designation of<br />
Landing Craft Ships and Vehicles, with endorsement of 18 August 1942 distributing to TF 62.
Success, <strong>The</strong>n Cliff Hanging 337<br />
One ship reported that over 90 percent of the officers and 42 percent of the<br />
men were members of the Naval Reserve.zg<br />
Admiral Turner remembered that he was incredulous that at Guadalcanal<br />
the initial landing at Red Beach was unopposed and it added to his pleasure<br />
that on the Tulagi side, the initial landings at Haleta and Halavo were<br />
unopposed, and at Blue Beach unopposed except for a limited number of<br />
snipers.so<br />
Not that everything at either landing had gone perfectly.<br />
. . . the Nevdle experienced a period of waiting of 41 minutes between<br />
the time all boats were in the water and time to commence loading troops.<br />
<strong>The</strong> APDs were idle 1> minutes. . . .3’<br />
<strong>The</strong> seven-mile approach to the Line of Departure for Gavutu “in a<br />
choppy head sea thoroughly drenched all personnel and equipment.” 32<br />
MINESWEEPING<br />
Since there had been many aerial photographs taken of Japanese naval<br />
and merchant ships in various anchorages off Lunga Point and off Tulagi<br />
in the weeks before the landings, it was known that there were generous<br />
unmined areas in these waters. So despite the fact that the operation order<br />
read
338 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
<strong>The</strong> minesweeping was actually completed, with no mines swept, at 1550,<br />
except for the area immediately off Beach Red which could not all be done<br />
because the transports had moved into the area.<br />
Well before the start of minesweeping, two of these converted destroyers<br />
were to fire concentrated fire on Bungana Island for five minutes and<br />
three ships were to concentrate on Gavutu Island for five minutes. <strong>The</strong>n they<br />
were to act as control ships at the Line of Departure and as salvage ships<br />
for the Halavao, Florida Island landing.<br />
While the minesweepers were proceeding to their initial stations, the<br />
Japanese gunners manning “the 3-inch and smaller guns on or near the<br />
top of Gavutu decided the destroyer minesweepers at 4,OOO yards were<br />
worthwhile targets and opened up with a straddle on the flagship, Hopkinf<br />
(DMS-13), and erratic fire on the others. <strong>The</strong> Hovey (DMS-11) which<br />
“had 30 brand new men aboard who had never heard gunfire” reported:<br />
During the bombardment directed against Gavutu Island by the ship . . .<br />
enemy AA guns fired AA shells with fuses set to explode short and above the<br />
ship. . . .35<br />
<strong>The</strong>re was much counterbattery fire from the fast minesweepers, and some<br />
air bombing of Gavutu before the DMS left to proceed to their initial<br />
minesweeping stations.<br />
<strong>The</strong> sweeping schedule meant that during the initial hours of the<br />
landing, the transports and cargo ships, in Group XRAY, would be dis-<br />
charging <strong>Marine</strong>s and cargo into boats from four and a half to five miles<br />
from the assault beaches if the ships were to await the completion of<br />
sweeping before moving in. This was a serious weakness in Rear Admiral<br />
Turner’s plans, not to be repeated willingly in later operations, and remedied<br />
before the morning was out by prompt action of Captain Reifsnider in<br />
the Red Beach area, whose War Diary noted:<br />
Debarkation positions were 41/2 miles from BEACH RED. Half an hour after<br />
the initial waves had landed, the transports moved 31/2 miles closer to the<br />
beach to reduce the long water ride for the <strong>Marine</strong>s.3G<br />
Commander Transport’s summation was on the optimistic side. <strong>The</strong><br />
detailed record shows ~hat the transport squadron’s mov~ment closer inshore<br />
was individualistic. <strong>The</strong> H.unte~ Liggett moved in at 0942. <strong>The</strong> McCaw)ey<br />
logged: “1045, commenced closing beach, 1121 anchor in 23 fathoms.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> President Adann (AP-38) “shifted inshore and anchored BEACH RED<br />
= Hot,ey, Action Report, 11 Aug. 1’942.<br />
w CTG 62.1 War Diary, 23 Sept. 1942.
Snccess, <strong>The</strong>n Ciiff Hanging 339<br />
‘> 100 FATHOM LINE<br />
@<br />
~tL<br />
Iw@<br />
‘~”B- ~ “D’<br />
MI NESWEPT AREAS<br />
EARLY DAYS OF WATCHTOWER<br />
-~..<br />
~.mw,<br />
--<br />
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~11+ O*L ,- -.<br />
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1000 Yiis<br />
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>.-<br />
A,RE~<br />
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090- LENGO CHANNEL<br />
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!000 vQS,<br />
L ““6”> ‘. 1[%~ 3!!: K&4%4& TOG.AMA PT. . BER.4NDE PZ TAIvI)PT<br />
Mineswept Areas, WATCHTOWER,<br />
1201.” <strong>The</strong> Barnett “at 1045 completed debarkation and proceeded to<br />
anchorage off RED BEACH.” Alcbiba (AK-23) “anchored at 1055.”<br />
Beteigeuse “anchored in 27 fathoms about one mile off RED BEACH at<br />
1108.” <strong>US</strong>S Libra (AK-53) logged: “0950. On despatch from OTC started<br />
maneuvering inshore to 100 fathoms curve. 1125. In compliance with signal<br />
from OCT, moved to anchorage 2000 yards off and parallel to Beach ‘Red’.”<br />
AIAena (AK-26) “at 1130, Moved in to 3,5oo yards from the beach and<br />
anchored.” <strong>The</strong> Beiiatrix logged: “1029. On signal that the intended anchor-<br />
age off RED BEACH was not mined, crossed slowly inside the 100 fathom<br />
curve. 1123 anchored.” 37 But by and large, the transports and cargo ships<br />
moved cautiously to ease the boating problem.<br />
Insofar as the destroyer minesweepers were concerned, their action reports<br />
and other correspondence do not contain any world shaking “lessons<br />
learned’ or “changes recommended” for future operations. <strong>The</strong>y had done<br />
all the chores requested in an effective manner with no fuss or feathers.<br />
Besides being jacks of many trades, gunfire support, control and salvage,<br />
= Ships’ Logs and War Diaries.
340 Amphibians Cane To Conqfier<br />
antisubmarine, antiaircraft, and despatch ship, they had been masters at<br />
their basic trade, minesweeping, at least in this area of no Japanese mines.<br />
STATE OF THE ART<br />
Gunfire support and air support are two of the essential ingredients<br />
of any amphibious landing on a hostile shore.<br />
<strong>The</strong> elementary Japanese air and ground defenses in the Guadalcanal-<br />
Tulagi area closely matched the elementary state of the gunfire support art<br />
in the U. S. Navy on 7 August 1942. And the air bombing art was judged<br />
not too much better than elementary by some, including Rear Admiral<br />
Turner.’s<br />
Rear Admiral Turner had been in Washington when the Battles of the<br />
Coral Sea and Midway were fought. He read the reports of our Army Air<br />
Force and naval aviators’ bombings in some phases of those battles. <strong>The</strong>n<br />
he read the decoded damage reports of Japanese commanders to their<br />
superiors. “<strong>The</strong> difference was so great that it wasn’t even understandable.” 3’<br />
Admiral Turner thought this point could, and should, be illustrated in<br />
this book.<br />
An excellent example involves the Japanese “Tulagi Invasion Group”<br />
which consisted of two minelayers, one transport, two destroyers, two sub-<br />
chaser and four minesweepers .40 <strong>The</strong> transport unloaded and departed.<br />
<strong>The</strong> rest of the force was attacked by carrier aircraft from the Yorktown<br />
on 4 May 1942. <strong>The</strong>y reported having sunk seven ships (two destroyers, one<br />
cargo ship, and four gunboats), forced a light cruiser to beach itself, severely<br />
damaged both a third destroyer and a seaplane tender, which “may have<br />
been a heavy cruiser” and damaged an 8–10,000 ton freighter. As a matter<br />
of record, however, no destroyers and only a total of three very small ships<br />
were sunk. <strong>The</strong> “light cruiser” beached, in fact, was a modest sized 1,320-ton<br />
destroyer, the 17-year-old Kikzzuki of the 1925 class. Her beaching was<br />
fortunately permanent. <strong>The</strong> ‘
Success, <strong>The</strong>n Cliff Hanging 341<br />
but two small 215-ton coastal minesweepers. <strong>The</strong> damaged “seaplane<br />
tender” or “heavy cruiser” was the 4,400-ton minelayer 0kinosbhna.41<br />
SHIPS GUNFIRE SUPPORT<br />
<strong>The</strong> amphibian gunfire support organization provided five fire support<br />
sections at Guadalcanal to make up the Fire Support Group Love, and one<br />
Fire Support Group designated Mike at Tulagi-Gavutu. On the Guadalcanal<br />
side, three of the fire support sections were single ships—a heavy cruiser<br />
with two of its observation planes; the other two sections consisted of two<br />
destroyers each. On the Tulagi side, there were a light anti-aircraft cruiser<br />
and two destroyers, with two observation planes from a heavy cruiser assigned<br />
to work with Commander Landing Force, Tulagi and this gunfire<br />
support group.<br />
Each of the three United States heavy cruisers assigned fire support<br />
chores had five seaplanes. Eight of the aircraft were allocated to control by<br />
the <strong>Marine</strong> commanders for liaison and shore artillery observation. One was<br />
allocated to Commander Screening Group for anti-submarine patrol.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re was a naval gunfire liaison party from each cruiser sent ashore with<br />
the early landing craft boat waves. <strong>The</strong> observation seaplanes were required<br />
to look for and report enemy troop movements or targets, as well as to spot<br />
the gunfire of <strong>Marine</strong> artillery and supporting ships.<br />
Gunfire was to start at daylight.<br />
GUNFIRE-GUADALCANAL<br />
<strong>The</strong> naval gunfire problem on the Guadalcanal side was the simple one<br />
of destroying the anti-aircraft and coast defense guns, all above ground, in<br />
the Kukum, Lunga, and Tetere areas. <strong>The</strong>se had been reported by the Army<br />
Air Force B-17s flying out of the New Hebrides or Australia. Twelve anti-<br />
aircraft guns were reported in the Kukum area. <strong>The</strong>se had been bombed<br />
numerous times by the B- 17s during the past fortnight and they were to be<br />
4’CO Yorktown Action Report, 11 May 1942; (b) U.S. Army, Far East Command, Military<br />
History Section, “<strong>The</strong> Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II” (Japanese Monograph No. 116)<br />
( 1952), pp. 176, 251, 265; (c) Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee, ]apdrzese Nu.ul dnd<br />
Mticbdnt Shipping LosJe~ during World War II by All Causes (NAVEXOS P–468 ) (Washington:<br />
Government Printing Office, 1947).
342 Amphibians Came To Conqaer<br />
further attacked by naval dive bombers from Rear Admiral Noyes’s Task<br />
Group 61.1 at 15 minutes before sunrise, occurring at 0633.’2<br />
<strong>The</strong> locations of these anti-aircraft and coast defense guns were not accu-<br />
rately known to the fire support ships primarily because of the absence of<br />
good photographs and secondarily because the dissemination of photographic<br />
interpretation had not been developed in the amphibious forces to the neces-<br />
sary extent. So all that the ships were told was that there were ‘
Success, <strong>The</strong>n Cliff Hanging 343<br />
toward Red Beach. <strong>The</strong>y ceased fire about 0907, and the first LCVP touched<br />
the beach at about 0910.<br />
Since there was no hostiie fire against the landing troops in the Red Beach<br />
area at Guadalcanal, the second part of the close support fire plan to put<br />
800 rounds of 5-inch supporting fire to the east and west of Red Beach at<br />
Guadalcanal, starting at plus five minutes after the first wave landed, was<br />
cancelled.<br />
GUNFIRE-TULAGI<br />
<strong>The</strong> naval gunfire problem in the Tulagi area was complicated by the lay<br />
of the land, the multiplicity and strength of known Japanese defense posi-<br />
tions, and the fact that the islands of Tulagi, Tanambogo, and Gavutu lay<br />
beneath promontories of the larger Florida Island just to the north and east,<br />
where Japanese guns could be advantageously located.”<br />
It was known from photographic data, that the southeast end of Tulagi<br />
was more heavily defended than other Tulagi areas. However, to prepare<br />
for and cover all the actual <strong>Marine</strong> landings on Florida and Tulagi Islands,<br />
it was necessary to divide the modest early morning gunfire effort between<br />
preparatory fire on the Blue Beach and the Haleta area, and the southeast<br />
end of Tulagi where the known defenses, including antiaircraft guns, were<br />
located.<br />
Preparatory gunfire was also supplied for steep hilled Gavutu and Tanambogo,<br />
with 92 rounds of close fire support from 500 yards by the destroyer<br />
Monnen (DD-436). This gunfire was particularly effective at Tanambogo<br />
the second day after a 200-round” five-minute bombardment from a respectable<br />
4,OOOyards had proven ineffective the first day.47 This close fire support<br />
by the Mcwmen was the first really “close up” use of the 5-inch naval gun<br />
from a thin shelled naval ship to blast Japanese defenders from caves and<br />
well-prepared defense positions.<br />
LESSONS LEARNED<br />
Not too much was said about ship gunfire support in the reports on the<br />
WATCHTOWER Operation. All three of the 8-inch gun ships which had<br />
‘e Staff Interviews.<br />
4’<strong>US</strong>SMonssen War Diary, 7 Aug. 1942.
344 Amphibians Canze To Conquer<br />
specific heavy gunfire support tasks were sunk within 48 hours of the landings.<br />
<strong>The</strong> only remaining United States Navy heavy cruiser, the cbicago, did<br />
not have a specific gunfire support task. So gunfire support was not even<br />
mentioned in her WATCHTOWER action report. <strong>The</strong> Vincenne~ (CA-44)<br />
skipper, in a report written from memory after his ship sank, wrote that the<br />
ship had bombarded only native villages where “possible presence of enemy<br />
had been previously reported.” 48<br />
<strong>The</strong> B.uckanan (DD-484) reported that her preparatory and covering<br />
fire on Blue Beach, Tulagi, was carried out at ranges of 6,OOOto 7,OOOyards,<br />
but by afternoon the Buchanan had moved in to a range of 1,100 yards in<br />
delivering call fire on Tanambogo. <strong>The</strong> Helm (DD-388) delivered 5-inch<br />
fire support at 9,OOOyards on Tulagi.4’<br />
<strong>The</strong> other destroyers and destroyer-types were equally reticent in com-<br />
menting on their firing although the Hovey (DMS- 11) remarked that the<br />
bombardment carried out by the high speed minesweepers was ‘
Success, <strong>The</strong>n Cliff Hangi~g 345<br />
Unfortunately, the initial WATCHTOWER landings provided no real test<br />
of either ships gunfire or the methods of ccmtrcdling ships gunfire by shore<br />
based fire control parties. <strong>The</strong> lack of response to the ships gunfire in the<br />
WATCHTOWER Operation was a dangerous precedent for Tarawa.<br />
CLOSE AIR SUPPORT<br />
Carrier Air Group Three was in the Sura~oga, Carrier Air Group Six was<br />
in the Enterprise, and Carrier Air Group Seven was in the Wasp, On D-Day,<br />
the Wa~p Air Group was assigned to the Tulagi-Gavutu area, and the<br />
Saratoga Air Group to the Guadalcanal area. Four squadrons of aircraft (one<br />
VF and three VSB) were assigned to close air support and two additional<br />
squadrons (one VF and one VSB) were assigned for the initial attack sweeps.<br />
In the early hours of the operation, Commander Air Group Three and<br />
Commander Air Group Six alternated in command of aircraft in the Guadalcanal<br />
area. Commander Air Group Seven initially was over Tulagi.<br />
Sunrise on D-Day was at 0633 and at 15 minutes before sunrise, while<br />
the transports were coming up to position, one fighter squadron was to drop<br />
in on the Japanese seaplane base at Tulagi-Gavutu-Tanambogo. At the same<br />
minute, a second fighter squadron was to sweep over the Point Cruz-Kukum-<br />
Lunga-Koli-Togama Point area, striking any Japanese aircraft, motor torpedo<br />
boats, or submarines.<br />
Two dive bombing squadrons were ordered to attack at the same early<br />
hour, with the tasks of destroying anti-aircraft and coastal defense guns in<br />
or near the two <strong>Marine</strong> assault areas, and any aircraft on airdromes, fuel<br />
and ammunition dumps, or concentration of vehicles. One dive bombing<br />
squadron was assigned to blast the Tulagi hills from minus 10 minutes to<br />
H-hour.<br />
Air Group Six provided a half squadron of fighters for follow through<br />
of the ‘‘15 minutes before sunrise” attack on Guadalcanal airdromes and<br />
AA installations, and a half squadron of dive bombers for follow through of<br />
the Tulagi initial sweep. Forty-four planes comprised the initial sweep at<br />
Guadalcanal and 41 planes struck at Tulagi-Gavutu.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Air Support Group polished off the 18 Japanese seaplanes in the<br />
Tulagi area with its first attack. <strong>The</strong>re were no seaplanes sighted on the<br />
Guadalcanal side and no Japanese land planes on the airstrip.<br />
Subsequent thereto, during daylight, the Air Support Group provided one
346 Amphibians Came To Conqiver<br />
and a half squadrons (18 planes) of dive bombers continuously for striking<br />
gun positions in the assault areas and a varying number of fighters, normally<br />
one-half squadron (6 planes), continuously for air cover. Additionally, the<br />
Air Support Group provided one plane over Guadalcanal and one over<br />
Tulagi for air ground liaison with the forces in those areas, as well as an<br />
artillery spotting plane over Guadalcanal, until it was known that the<br />
<strong>Marine</strong> artillery was not to be used. Both the fighters and dive bombers<br />
carried out close air support of the <strong>Marine</strong>s or dropped their bombs on<br />
targets of opportunity before returning to land on the carriers.<br />
<strong>The</strong> basic plan provided that air support for the <strong>Marine</strong>s during the<br />
amphibious. assault phase would be controlled by an air support group<br />
temporarily attached to the staff of the amphibious force commander.<br />
Fighter cover over the assault area was to be controlled by a fighter director<br />
group attached to the staff of the Second-in-Command to the Amphibious<br />
Force Commander. Specifically this meant that control and coordination of<br />
air units in the assault area was exercised by the Air Support Director Group<br />
in the McCawiey, working through the Senior Carrier Air Group Commander<br />
on station over the assault area, who was in airborne command of the aircraft<br />
from the Air Support Group.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Air Controller of the Fighter Director Group from the Air Support<br />
Director Group, at the last moment, had to be stationed in the heavy cruiser<br />
Chicago rather than in Rear Admiral Crutchley’s flagship, the Australia,<br />
because the Australia had a completely inadequate aircraft radar with a<br />
working range of 15 miles. <strong>The</strong> McCawley could not pick up this additional<br />
chore because of inadequate aircraft radio communication channels.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Air Controller in the McCawley had radio communication with the<br />
home base-the carriers—and up and down the naval chain of command<br />
in the combat area, as well as with the <strong>Marine</strong> chain of command, and with<br />
the Senior Carrier Air Group Commander and the liaison planes in the air,<br />
but in part it was step by step communication. He did not have direct voice<br />
communication with all ships nor with lower echelon <strong>Marine</strong> units. <strong>The</strong>se<br />
<strong>Marine</strong> ground units did not have direct communication with the individual<br />
planes circling overhead.<br />
All scheduled air strikes were delivered on time and largely on target.<br />
Some targets had not been minutely described or pin-pointed and so were<br />
not recognized. <strong>The</strong> carrier pilots, not specially trained for this exacting<br />
and difficult air support chore, did not always come up to the expectations<br />
of the <strong>Marine</strong>s, their own desires, or the desires of the top command.
Success, <strong>The</strong>n C[iff Hanging 347<br />
Japanese bombing attacks at Gzadalcanal, 7-8 Augnst 1942.<br />
Turner Collectmn<br />
<strong>The</strong> Fighter Director Group aboard the Chicago did not function up to<br />
par on 8 August, after having done well the morning before, and the heaviest<br />
enemy air attack of 45 Bettys and escorting Zekes was not intercepted by<br />
our fighters prior to the delivery of torpedo attacks on Task Force 62,<br />
despite an hour’s advance warning from a coast watcher.<br />
<strong>The</strong> lack of separate radio frequencies for the Tulagi and the Guadalcanal<br />
Air Support Groups caused much radio interference at times. Admiral<br />
Turner wrote:<br />
. . . there was a patiial ground or short on the antenna of the McCuwley’s<br />
TBS, which was not discovered and remedied until about November, 1942.<br />
<strong>The</strong> effects of the ground were to cause a rough tone to both reception and<br />
transmission, and to reduce the range of incoming and outgoing messages<br />
from the usual 20 miles to about 8 miles. For example, TBS exchanges<br />
between the McCuwley and ships off Tulagi, 15 miles away, had to be relayed<br />
through a DD of the outer screen of the XRAY Group.sl<br />
<strong>The</strong> most important lesson learned in close air support in the first two<br />
days of the WATCHTOWER Operation was that it was<br />
51RKT to D~O Admin, enclosure to letter of 2CIAug. 1950, P. 18.
348 ArnPbibians Came To Conquer<br />
essential that gro~nd forces in an operation of this type have radio communication<br />
directly with the liaison planes or Air Group Commander in<br />
order that maximum support may be afforded ground personnel.52<br />
<strong>The</strong> second most important lesson learned was that the Air Support<br />
Director Group should not be positioned at limit of voice radio range from<br />
any part of the forces being supported, or there will be constant delays or<br />
failures in air support operations.<br />
THE TRANSPORT NAVY LEARNS ITS LESSONS<br />
<strong>The</strong> first lesson the amphibians learned at Guadalcanal was that they were<br />
going to have to get used to being shot . t. One coxswain reported:<br />
After getting the ramp up, we backed down as far as we could so as to<br />
keep the ramp between us and the line of fire. When we started around a<br />
little knoll, which was lined with trees, we were fired at from these trees.<br />
We spotted the flash from a gun up in one of these trees. I picked up the<br />
<strong>Marine</strong>’s Risen gun and blasted the flash and the Jap fired again and I got a<br />
better bead on him, and fired again and he came tumbling down like a bird.”<br />
Another coxswain reported:<br />
<strong>The</strong> Japs were firing at the four of us as we were cranking up the ramp and<br />
one bullet hit the winch and splattered little pieces of lead in Morgan’s side<br />
along his ribs under the skin but didn’t hurt him much.54<br />
<strong>The</strong> President Adams related that<br />
<strong>The</strong> boat course from the ship to shore was like the letter U. . . . boats<br />
were under sniper fire during about the latter fourth of the trip. <strong>The</strong> final<br />
boat course was opposite to the original, this fact by itself shows the dificuhy<br />
with which our boats were faced.ss<br />
<strong>The</strong> 19 large transports and cargo ships of Task Force 62 that arrived<br />
at Guadalcanal-Tulagi on 7 August were not newly built ships, although<br />
most of them were relatively new to the Navy. All of the large transports<br />
and cargo ships had participated previously in some amphibious exercises<br />
with troops, equipment, and cargo to be unloaded, and a number had participated<br />
in landing the <strong>Marine</strong>s in Iceland, the August 1941 New River<br />
m <strong>US</strong>S Warp Action Report, 14 Aug. 1942, encl. (B), p .4.<br />
= <strong>US</strong>S President Adutm Action Report, 25 Aug. 1942, Encl. (A), Report of G.L.D. Sporhase,<br />
BM2C.<br />
mIbid., Encl. (B), Report of B. W. Hensen, BM2c.<br />
= Ibid., CO’s Report, 15 Aug. 1942.
Success, <strong>The</strong>n Cliff Hanging 349<br />
.,.,<br />
.<br />
TurnerCollection<br />
Japunese bigb-ievei bombing attacks at Guadalcanai, 7 Aagzat 1942.<br />
and the January 1942 Lynnhaven Roads Training Exercises. Several, includ-<br />
ing the McCawley and Hunter Liggett, were veterans of Fleet Landing<br />
Exercise Number 7 in early 1941.<br />
But, by and large, these amphibious ships did not have enough oflicers and<br />
men to continuously unload over a 72-hour period. It was both good and<br />
bad fortune that the Japanese made three air raids and threatened another<br />
during the first 48 hours of unloading. For these gave many of the boat<br />
crews a breathing spell, and also supplied an urgency to the need to get the<br />
unloading job done.<br />
<strong>The</strong> second lesson the amphibians learned at Guadalcanal was they just<br />
had to have more people in their ships and craft.<br />
LINE OFFICERS<br />
To indicate the scarcity of seagoing Line officers in the transports at this<br />
period, it is only necessary to record that a dentist, in the President Adams<br />
(AP-38), was Commander Boat Division Seven in that ship. Lieutenant
350 AnzPbihiuns Came To Conquer<br />
R. E. Schaeffer (DC), U.S. Navy, in a surf boat, a relic of the Pre$ident<br />
Adamu merchant ship days, made a night landing on Gavutu “in pitch<br />
darkness and heavy rain,” leading in three loaded Amtracs via a circui-<br />
tous, unmarked and reef studded approach. Doctor Schaeffer had liis reward<br />
after three grounding enroute, when our <strong>Marine</strong>s fired at him, being<br />
unable to tell friend from foe in the darkness. He salvaged a stranded<br />
and abandoned jeep lighter from Neville (AP-16) on the way back to the<br />
ship. A reserve supply officer had also been trained as boat division officer<br />
in the same transport.”<br />
Other transports were equally undermanned and short of personnel, as<br />
Neviile’s and Alchiba’s reports indicate:<br />
Due to the physical exhaustive nature of the work on transports during<br />
unloading it is essential that transports be fully manned for an operation of<br />
this kind.5T<br />
*****<br />
This vessel, at present, has insufficient personnel to run boats continuously for<br />
any protracted period. 58<br />
<strong>The</strong> skipper of the McCawley, several months later summed up the per.<br />
sonnel situation in his ship succinctly,<br />
<strong>The</strong> Commanding Officer particularly desires to pay the highest tribute to<br />
an undersized crew who performed a superhuman task of completely unloading<br />
this vessel. It really has been a pleasure to serve with such a splendid<br />
crew. Previous recommendations to fill this vessel to a complement of 490<br />
men should be accomplished. . . . At present no reliefs are possible and all<br />
men are served meals on station and in the boats. 59<br />
BEACH TROUBLES-GUAIIALCANAL<br />
<strong>The</strong> third lesson the amphibians learned at Guadalcanal was that the<br />
logistic support of the troops over the beaches in the first 24 hours had to<br />
be both beefed up and streamlined.<br />
In WATCHTOWER, the <strong>Marine</strong> plans provided that about half the 1st<br />
Pioneer Battalion which totaled about 66o men would be attached to the<br />
Support Group which was assigned the task of close-in ground defense of the<br />
beachhead area at Red Beach at Guadalcanal. One platoon of 52 men went<br />
mIbid., 15 Aug. 1942.<br />
“ Neville Action Report, 13 Aug. 1942.<br />
mAlcbiba Action Report, 16 Aug. 1942.<br />
WMcC@wley Action Report, 23 Nov. 1942.
Success, <strong>The</strong>n Cliff Hanging 351<br />
to Tulagi. According to the <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> Monograph: “<strong>The</strong> rest of the<br />
battalion had been parceled out to various regiments as reinforcing elements.”<br />
With this disposition of <strong>Marine</strong> labor resources specially trained and<br />
needed for the unloading of logistic support from ship’s boats, it is not<br />
surprising that logistic chaos took over at the beachhead. This was only<br />
partially alleviated when Captain Reifsnider ordered each transport and cargo<br />
ship to land 15 sailormen to assist in handling supplies at the beachhead.GO<br />
Commander Transports summarized one aspect of the problem:<br />
<strong>The</strong> statement of the Assistant Beachmaster from the George F. Elliott that<br />
literally hundreds of <strong>Marine</strong>s were sitting on the beach watching tKe confusion<br />
mount, while hundreds of others were roaming through the cocoanut<br />
groves etc., is confirmed by reports of officers sent ashore by me to<br />
investigate .61<br />
<strong>The</strong> Boat Group Commander, <strong>US</strong>S Barnett wrote:<br />
<strong>The</strong>re were approximately fifteen or twenty men unloading boats and about<br />
fifty others in swimming. I beached my boat and started looking for the<br />
Beachmaster who could not be found. While looking for the Beachmaster,<br />
I saw about one hundred men lounging around under the palm trees eating<br />
cocoanuts, lying down shooting cocoanuts from the trees; also playing<br />
around and paddling about in rubber boats. All of these men were <strong>Marine</strong>s<br />
that should have been unloading boats.<br />
*****<br />
About 0600 August 8, commenced to notice canned rations floating around<br />
about one mile off the beach. Upon approaching the beach I found that most<br />
of the supplies which had been unloaded during the night had been dumped<br />
at the low water mark, and as the tide came in, these supplies, which consisted<br />
of many items such as sugar, coffee, beans, cheese and lard which were<br />
all over the sides of the boats lying on the beach, were being ruined.62<br />
<strong>The</strong> Captain of the Harzter Liggett reported:<br />
After dark conditions reached a complete impasse. It is estimated that<br />
nearly one hundred boats lay gunwale to gunwale on the beach, while another<br />
fifty boats waited, some of these, up to six hours for a chance to land. . . .<br />
No small share of the blame fo_r this delay, which prolonged by nearly<br />
twenty-four hours the period when the ships lay in these dangerous waters,<br />
would seem to rest with the <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> personnel and organization. <strong>The</strong><br />
““ (a) First <strong>Marine</strong> Division Operation Order 742 of 20 Jul. 1942; (b) First <strong>Marine</strong> Division<br />
Operation Order 5–42 of 29 Jun. 1942; (c) Commanding General, First <strong>Marine</strong> Division, Final<br />
Report on Guadalcanal Operation, Phase 1 of 24 May 1942 Annex K (3); (d) Zimmerman,<br />
Guadalcatral Campaign (<strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> Monograph), p. 46.<br />
0’COMTRANSDIV to SOPACFOR report, FB7–10/A1&3/Ser 063 of 19 Aug. 1942.<br />
e Report of Boat Group Commander, <strong>US</strong>S Banreltj 13 Aug. 1942.
352 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
Pioneers, whose function it was to unload the boats and keep the beach<br />
clear, were far too few in numbers. As a result much of this work was<br />
accomplished by boat crews, and stores which they landed at low water<br />
were frequently damaged or destroyed by the rising tide before the Pioneers<br />
removed them to safety. Meanwhile hundreds of <strong>Marine</strong>s, many of them<br />
truck drivers, tank crews, speciaI weapons and support groups, whose equipment<br />
had not been landed, lounged around the beach in undisciplined idleness,<br />
shooting down coconuts or going swimming. <strong>The</strong>re was no apparent<br />
reason why these men could not have rendered valuable assistance in unloading<br />
the boats.e3<br />
Commander Transport Group XRAY, discussing the delays in unloading<br />
caused by the Japanese air attacks, stated:<br />
Notwithstanding the foregoing interruptions, supplies were piling up on<br />
the beach faster than could be moved and by dark there were about 100<br />
loaded boats at the beach and 50 more lying off waiting. It finally became<br />
necessary to discontinue unloading for the remainder of the night.8A<br />
<strong>The</strong> skipper of the Heywood wrote:<br />
At 0200, 8 August, unloading stopped because of lack of boats, and at<br />
0400 all ships were ordered to stop sending in loaded boats due to great con-<br />
gestion on beach. After daylight, as boats became available, they were loaded<br />
and kept at ship until about 0930, when orders were received to commence<br />
unloading.Gt<br />
<strong>The</strong> Captain of the cargo ship Fotwtaibaut stated:<br />
Discharging cargo on twenty-four hour basis—but very slow procedure due<br />
to shortage of transportation. . . .<br />
. . . unable to have boats unloaded at beach due to working parties there<br />
being engaged in repelling enemy snipers.”<br />
During the night of 7–8 August, the Hivrzter Liggett reported:<br />
Despite the quiet night, the <strong>Marine</strong>s had failed to clear the beach and very<br />
little cargo was worked prior to the air alarm at 1043 [on 8 August}.<br />
And when some fancy cheese broke out of a melted carton, the thought<br />
was expressed:<br />
Weapons, ammunition prime movers, and canned rations are more worth-<br />
while than fancy groceries during the first days or even weeks of such an<br />
operation.’~<br />
a Hunter Liggett War Diary, 7 Aug. 1942.<br />
= Commander Transport Divisions, SOPAC (CTG 62.1) Action Report, 23 Sep. 1942.<br />
= Heywood Action Report, Ser 18, 12 Aug. 1942.<br />
“ Fornralbaut War Diary, 8 and 9 Aug. 1942.<br />
‘7Hunter Ligget~ War Diary, 8 Aug. 1942.
Success, <strong>The</strong>n C~iff Hanging 353<br />
BEACH TROUBLES--TULAGI<br />
Over at Tulagi, according to the transport AJeville’s War Diary<br />
It was not until about midnight that the first word had been received to<br />
send the important food rations and ammunition ashore and from then till<br />
daylight it went slowly due to insufficient personnel to unload and conflicting<br />
orders as to where to land the stores.Gg<br />
Not all the beach trouble was caused by inadequate Pioneer parties. Often<br />
the transports and cargo ships overloaded the landing craft.<br />
A considerable number of landing boats, chiefly ramp lighters, were<br />
stranded on the beach, adding to the confusion. <strong>The</strong>se ramps had been loaded<br />
too deeply by the head, and could not be driven far enough up on their<br />
particular beach to keep from filling and drowning the engine when the ramp<br />
was lowered.Gg<br />
Rear Admiral Turner after the landing wrote:<br />
<strong>The</strong>re were two primary reasons for failure to completely unload. First the<br />
vast amount of unnecessary impediments taken, and second a failure on the<br />
part of the 1st Division to provide adequate and well organized unloading<br />
details at the beach.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner summed up his attitude on all these unloading<br />
problems in this way:<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Marine</strong> officers on my staff feel very strongly on these matters-as<br />
strongly as I do.70<br />
When all was said and done, however, the amphibians in 26 actual hours<br />
of unloading had gotten a very large percentage of the <strong>Marine</strong>s logistic<br />
support out of the holds and on to the beaches. This was accomplished<br />
despite three Japanese air raids, one of 45 planes, and another of 43, and<br />
rumors of other raids which had caused the amphibians to stop unloading<br />
and get underway. But the transports and cargo ships did not get 100 percent<br />
of the logistic support ashore and that was the least that they would have<br />
to do to accomplish their mission and satisfy the <strong>Marine</strong>s.<br />
- Neville War Diary, 9 Aug. 1942.<br />
m Hunter Liggett War Diary, 8 Aug. 1912.<br />
TORKT to colonel James W. Webb, <strong>US</strong>MC, CO 7th <strong>Marine</strong>s, letter, 20 Aug. 1942.
CHAPTER X<br />
Save—<strong>The</strong> Galling Defeat<br />
THE BATTLE<br />
When the Astoria visited Japan<br />
OF SAVO ISLAND<br />
in 1939, with Captain Richmond Kelly<br />
Turner commanding, a Japanese poet drew on the muses for the following<br />
words:<br />
<strong>The</strong> spirit, incarnate, of friendship and love<br />
Deep in the Heart of history.<br />
<strong>The</strong> record of the human world, full of changes and vicissitudes.<br />
<strong>The</strong> people of Japan, where cherries bloom,<br />
In the future far away<br />
Will never forget their gratitude to the AJtoriu.<br />
20 April 1939 Bansui Doi<br />
<strong>The</strong> “changes and vicissitudes” led the Japanese to “forget their gratitude<br />
to the AJtoTiu” on 9 August 1942.<br />
Commander Expeditionary Force (CTF 61) set the radio call authentica-<br />
tor for 9 August 1942, to be used on that same day by all ships in his<br />
command to verify their messages, as “Wages of Victory.” It was a prophetic<br />
choice, for the “Wages of Victory” at Tulagi and Guadalcanal was Savo<br />
Island.<br />
No American can be happy about the Battle of Savo Island. A good many<br />
professional United States naval officers feel a stinging sense of shame<br />
every time the words
356<br />
159940(<br />
!AST<br />
SCALE<br />
F; {<br />
0 MILES 5<br />
Amphibians Came To Conqtier<br />
BATTLE OF SAVO ISLAND<br />
NIGHT OF AUG<strong>US</strong>T 8-9, 1942<br />
TIME ZONE II<br />
LEGEND<br />
160°20<br />
~= EUE’UY SHIPS<br />
~ =EIVEAfYPOS/rlOAI<br />
~ =OWN SHIPS<br />
_ =OWNPOSITION<br />
Battle Area Dispositions, Savo Island.<br />
=AST
Sauo—Tbe Galling Defeat 357<br />
Commanding Officers still alive, as well as gathering a large amount of<br />
documentary evidence.<br />
A two-volume Strategical and Tactical Ana/ysis of the Battle of Savo Island<br />
has been published by the U.S. Naval War College at Newport, Rhode<br />
Island.’ Several full-length books on the battle, one labeling Admiral Turner<br />
“a blacksmith’s son,” have been written for popular consumption.’ Morison<br />
devotes a lengthy chapter to the subject in his 15-volume history of United<br />
States Navai Ope~atiotis in World War 11 and much space in his other<br />
writings about that war.4<br />
It is not the intention to rehash in detail here this sad story of the U.S.<br />
Navy in its first night heavy surface ship fight with the Japanese Navy. If<br />
there are any readers who are not familiar with this night battle, such readers<br />
should consult Morison before going further in this Chapter. Sut%ce it to<br />
record here that it occurred at the Savo Island terminus of a skillfully con-<br />
cealed Japanese dash south from Rabaul. It was carried through by a hastily<br />
gathered eight ship cruiser-destroyer force, which in the early hours of 9<br />
August effected complete surprise and one-sided damage in turn to two<br />
different five-ship Allied cruiser-destroyer units patrolling to protect our<br />
transports at Tulagi and Guadalcanal.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Japanese Navy achieved a stunning victory. It was aggressive in the<br />
planning concept of this operation and it was equally aggressive in carrying<br />
it out. <strong>The</strong>ir night-time operational. ability was far superior to that of the<br />
U.S. Navy ships companies which they encountered. <strong>The</strong>y cleared from<br />
the roster three United States heavy cruisers and one Australian heavy<br />
cruiser with minor damage to their own ships. <strong>The</strong>y placed the waters lying<br />
between the islands of Guadalcanal and Tulagi on the books as “Iron Bottom<br />
Sound” and manned it with an initial complement of United States Navy<br />
and Australian Navy ships.<br />
Admiral Turner’s comment in 1960 on the 1942 battle was as follows:<br />
Whatever responsibility for the defe~t is mine, I accept,<br />
Admiral Hepburn, who, in 1942 investigated the defeat for Admiral King<br />
did a first-rate job. <strong>The</strong> Naval War College in 1950, did the most thorough<br />
analysis possible. 1 had my chance to comment on the Hepburn report to<br />
9 Naval War College, Savo Island, Vols. I and II.<br />
“ (a) Richard F. Newcomb, Savo <strong>The</strong> Incredible Nava! Debacie off Guadalcanal (New York:<br />
HoIt, Rinehart and Winston, 1961); (b) Stan Smith, <strong>The</strong> Butde of Suvo (New York: McFadden-<br />
Bartell Corp., 1962).<br />
‘ (a) Morison, S~.uggIe for Grdulcumzl (Vol V), ch. 2; (b) Samuel E. Morison “Guadalcanal-<br />
1942” S~zrduy Everzing PoJ/, vol. 235 (July 28-August 4, 1962), pp. 22-23, 63–65; (c) Samuel<br />
E. Morison, Two Ocean Wur (Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1963), pp. 167–77.
358 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
Admiral Nimitz, before he placed his comments thereon. My comments contained<br />
the following:<br />
‘I desire to express myself as entirely satisfied with this admirable report.<br />
It is accurate, fair, logical, and intuitive.’<br />
We took one hell of a beating. <strong>The</strong> Japs sank four cruisers, but missed their<br />
greatest opportunity during the war to sink a large number of our transports<br />
with surface ship gunfire. This was at a time when it would have really hurt,<br />
because we didn’t have 50 big transports in our whole Navy. We got up off<br />
the deck and gave the Japs one hell of a beating, and the so and so critics can’t<br />
laugh that off.<br />
For a long time after the ninth of August, I kept trying to fit the pieces<br />
together to change our defeat into a victory. It all boiled down to needing<br />
better air reconnaissance, better communications, better radar, a more combative<br />
reaction, and a greater respect for Jap capabilities.’<br />
In response to a question, if he expected to be relieved of command<br />
because of the disaster, Admiral Turner commented:<br />
Only if the Navy found it necessary to satisfy the desire of the American<br />
people for a goat. Fortunately for me, the Navy resisted any pressure there<br />
might have been for this end.G<br />
In this connection, Admiral Nimitz was asked the question by this writer:<br />
“Did you contemplate having Admiral Turner relieved after the defeat at<br />
Savo Island ?“<br />
He replied, “No, I never did, not for an instant. I thought he did very<br />
well.” 7<br />
This decision not to relieve Rear Admiral Turner was labeled by Samuel<br />
Eliot Morison in 1954 “wise and just.” s<br />
However, Morison’s 1954 appraisal of this decision is hardly supported<br />
by his later writings. In 1962, Morison wrote that Turner made a “bad guess”<br />
that the Japanese were not coming through that night, and that:<br />
This was not Turner’s only mistake that fatal night. He allowed his fighting<br />
ships to be divided into three separate groups to guard against three possible<br />
sea approaches by the enemy. . . . Turner was so certain that the enemy<br />
would not attack that night that he made the further mistake of summoning<br />
CrutcMey in Azatr& to a conference on board his flagship, McCawley,<br />
twenty miles away, in Lunga Roads, Guadalcanal . . . [for a consultation]<br />
‘ Turner. Actually only a total of 41 APs were in commission on 8 August 1942. 16 APs were<br />
assigned to the Pacific Fleet on 8 August 1942. (PACFLT Fleet Notices 18CN~2 of that date).<br />
0Turner.<br />
7Nimitz.<br />
8Morison, Struggle for Guadalcamd, p. 63.
Savo—Tbe Galling Defeat 359<br />
to decide whether the partly unloaded transports should depart that night or<br />
risk repeated Japanese air attacks without air protection [the next day} .g<br />
In 1963, Morison, the great and good god of World War II Naval<br />
History, wrote:<br />
Dogmatically deciding what the enemy would do, instead of considering what<br />
he could or might do, was not Turner’s only mistake on that fatal night. He<br />
allowed his fighting ships to be divided into three separate forces to guard<br />
three possible sea approaches by the enemy .’”<br />
THE HEPBURN INVESTIGATION<br />
<strong>The</strong> reason that Admiral Turner applauded the Hepburn Investigation is<br />
not difficult to find. In it there w~s no direct or implied criticism of Rear<br />
Admiral Turner’s action or decisions.<br />
One can take his pick—either (1) the ever changing appraisals of the<br />
semi-official naval historian; (2) the inordinately biased hocus-pocus of<br />
the popular fiction writer; (3) the analysis of the Naval War College as<br />
to why Savo Island happened and what was the degree of responsibility of<br />
the various seniors present, including Commanding OfKcers of the various<br />
ships; or (4) make up his own mind from the existing official record.<br />
Admiral King, never one to flinch from damning an ofhcer whom he<br />
believed to have erred badly, in his endorsement on Admiral Hepburn’s<br />
Investigation Report said:<br />
I deem it appropriate and necessary to record my approval of the decisions<br />
of and conduct of Rear AdmiLd R. K. Turner, U. S. Navy, and Rear Admiral<br />
V. A. Crutchley, Royal Navy. In my judgment, those two officers were in no<br />
way inefficient, much less at fault, in executing their parts of the operations.<br />
Both found themselves in awkward positions, and both did their best with the<br />
means at their disposal.<br />
Admiral King was thoughtful enough to provide a copy of his endorsement<br />
to Rear Admiral Turner and Rear Admiral Crutchley.<br />
To complete the picture, the following should also be quoted from the<br />
King endorsement:<br />
5. . . . Adequate administrative action has been taken with respect to those<br />
individuals whose performance of duty was not up to expectations.<br />
Captain George L. Russell, at that time Flag Secretary to Admiral King,<br />
sMorison, “Guadalcanal-1942,” Saturday Evening Post.<br />
‘0 Morison, <strong>The</strong> Two-OceanWarp. 169.
360 Amphibians Came To Conqner<br />
and the reviewing ot%cer on the staff of the Commander in Chief, U. S. Fleet,<br />
for the Admiral Hepburn Investigative Report gave more detail on the<br />
administrative action. He later was Judge Advocate General of the Navy and<br />
then a Vice Admiral, U. S. Navy. His review was passed on and concurred<br />
in by the Deputy Chief of Staff, Rear Admiral W. R. Purnell, later Vice<br />
Admiral, U. S. Navy, and the Chief of Staff, Vice Admiral R. S. Edwards,<br />
later Admiral, U.S. Navy.<br />
In this review, Captain Russell pointed out that:<br />
(a) Vice Admiral Ghormley, who was head man in the area, and therefore<br />
answerable for the operation, was relieved not long afterward. Regardless of<br />
the. fact that no reason for his change of duty was announced, there was a<br />
stigma attached to it, with everything indicating that he was relieved because<br />
of this defeat. . . .<br />
(b) Admiral Hepburn mentions the failure of Rear Admiral McCain to<br />
search out the area in which the Japs must have been, after Rear Admiral<br />
Turner, in effect, asked him to do so, but apparently does not feel that he<br />
should be called to account for it. . . .<br />
(c) Admiral Hepburn gives Admiral Turner pretty much a clean bill of<br />
health.<br />
(d) Vice Admiral Fletcher and Rear Admiral Noyes have been relieved of<br />
their commands. Again no reason has been assigned, but the inference is that<br />
the latter, at least, has been tried and found wanting. In other words, something<br />
has already been done, administratively.<br />
*****<br />
It does not necessarily follow that because we took a beating somebody<br />
must be the goat. . . to me it is more of an object lesson in how not to fight,<br />
than it is a failure for which someone should hang. . . .“<br />
<strong>The</strong> two-volume Naval War College analysis, in its 23 pages of “Battle<br />
Lessons,” mentions no personalities, but some of the biting “Lessons” apply<br />
directly to specific actions of specific command personalities. <strong>The</strong>re are 26<br />
Lessons. One of these was pertinent to Rear Admiral Turner personally.<br />
Nearly all of them are pertinent to every naval officer exercising command<br />
in the nuclear age, as well as in World War II, and several will be mentioned<br />
later in the chapter.<br />
THE PRIMARY CA<strong>US</strong>E—INADEQUATE AND<br />
FAULTY AIR RECONNAISSANCE<br />
Admiral Turner, when asked, in 1960, if he would name “the primary<br />
n Hepburn Report Vol. I, no ser of 13 May 1943, Memorandum for Admiral, 31 Jul. 1943,<br />
attached by Reviewing Oflicer.
Savo—Tbe Galling Defeat 361<br />
cause of his defeat at Savo Islands, and the thing about this primary cause<br />
which stuck in his craw the hardest, ” said: “Inadequate and faulty air<br />
reconnaissance and more faulty than inadequate. ” 12<br />
Before making this particular answer, he carefully considered a list drafted<br />
by this<br />
;<br />
c.<br />
d.<br />
e.<br />
f.<br />
&<br />
h.<br />
i.<br />
j<br />
k.<br />
1.<br />
m.<br />
author and discarded the following as not being the primary cause:<br />
Lack of respect for Japanese aggressiveness.<br />
Lack of a specific night action battle plan in the Screening Group<br />
in event of an undetected surprise raid.<br />
Lack of combat reaction at the command level in the cruisers and<br />
destroyers of the Screening Group, or lack of a specific night action<br />
plan for these units.<br />
Delay of Screening Group Commander in rejoining his command.<br />
Withdrawal of Air Support Force.<br />
Command organization.<br />
Personnel fatigue.<br />
Lack of night battle training.<br />
Lack of appreciation of the limitations of radar, or radar failures.<br />
Communication delays, or failures.<br />
Failure to have more picket destroyers.<br />
Division of heavy ships (CA and CLAA) of Screening Force into<br />
three groups.<br />
Failure to maintain the prescribed condition of ship readiness in the<br />
heavy cruisers.<br />
n. <strong>The</strong> United States Navy’s obsession with a strong feeling of technical<br />
and mental superiority over the enemy.<br />
<strong>The</strong> official history of the Army and the monographs of the <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong><br />
as well as Newcombs popular Tbe Incvedibie Naval Debacle, all give the<br />
impression that air reconnaissance, or perhaps osmosis, furnished informa-<br />
tion of such a nature that Rear Admiral Turner knew that a Japanese Naval<br />
Force was app~oac~ing the lower Solomons. <strong>The</strong>se are the words these<br />
books use:<br />
Word of this approaching force reached Admiral Turner at 1800, and when<br />
Admiral Fletcher notified him shortly thereafter that the carrier force was to<br />
be withdrawn, Turner called Vandegrift to the flagship, ZlcCadey, and<br />
informed the general that, deprived of carrier protection, the transports must<br />
leave at 0600 the next day.”<br />
“ Turner.<br />
‘sZimmerman, G.uada],-drrulCtim@r’~//(<strong>Marine</strong> Monograph) p. 259.
362 Avlpbibians Came To Conquer<br />
At 1800 on 8 August, Admiral Turner received word that the Japanese Force<br />
was approaching.14<br />
Turner had it [the despatch] too, and he knew he was in trouble.<br />
Later, they could not say for sure when they first knew it, but for certain the<br />
fleet knew by midafternoon that the Japanese were coming.<br />
Japanese surface forces were heading his way; everybody knew that.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> Army history and the <strong>Marine</strong> monograph cite as their authority the<br />
following entry in the 8 August 1942 War Diary of Rear Admiral Turner<br />
as Commander Amphibious Force South Pacific Force.<br />
About 1800 information was received that two enemy destroyers, three<br />
cruisers, and two gun boats or seaplane tenders were sighted at 102>2 at<br />
5049’ S, 156°07’ E course 120, speed 15 knots.<br />
This entry, except for the first six words and the zone time of the sighting,<br />
was almost a Chinese copy of the first part of a dispatch originated at<br />
General MacArthur’s Combined Headquarters at Townsville, Australia, at<br />
1817 that evening which read:<br />
Aircraft reports at 2325Z/7Z 3 cruisers 3 destroyers 2 seaplane tenders or<br />
gunboats. 05-49 S 15&07 E course 120 true speed 15 knots. At 0027/8Z<br />
2 subs 07–35 S 154-o7 E course 150 true.le<br />
This information was not in fact passed on by the aviator who made the<br />
actual sighting for seven hours and 42 minutes after the sighting, when a<br />
despatch was originated at his home base, after his return thereto, and time<br />
dated in New Guinea at 1807. <strong>The</strong> despatch was then<br />
passed over the Australian Air Force circuit from Fall River to Port Moresby<br />
and thence to Townsville . . . [and thence to Brisbane and thence} over<br />
the Navy land-line circuit to Canberra in COMSOWESPACFOR 081817<br />
[only ten minutes later] for transmission over the air on the Canberra BELLS<br />
broadcast schedule. Canberra then transmitted on the BELLS [broadcast]<br />
schedule to the Australian Forces, and to Pearl Harbor for transmission on the<br />
HOW FOX schedule to the U. S. Forces.lT<br />
Canberra completed its transmission at 081837, and Pearl Harbor com-<br />
pleted its transmission on the Fleet (or FOX) broadcast schedules at 081843.<br />
It was received in the McCau/ey via the FOX broadcast schedule, as the<br />
“ Miller, Guadalcanal: <strong>The</strong> First Offet?jh,e (Army), p. 78.<br />
“ Newcomb, Suto, pp. 80, 82.86.<br />
‘0 COMSOWESPACFOR to All Task Force Commanders. Pacific Fleet, 080717 Aug. 19f2. Cited<br />
in Hepburn Report. Annex T.<br />
“ (a) NaIal War College SUIO J.rlumf. Vol. 1, p. 101; (b) COMSOWESPACFOR Communication<br />
Officer to Commander D. J. Ramsey, memorandum, 19 Feb. 1943. Cited in Hepburn Report,<br />
Annex T.
;,,:{ NEW IRELAND<br />
,.$.. -:-,,; .;. .. ,,,<br />
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.-...:. ;-A-,,,, ~ EAST CAPE<br />
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7<br />
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;R@R FORcE<br />
Savo—Tbe GaIling Defeat 363<br />
155° EAST I 59” EAST<br />
PLANE SIGHTINGS OF vICE ADMIRAL MAKAWA’S<br />
CRUISER FORCE. JAPANESE RECORDED THEY<br />
WERE ABOUT 25 MILES TO THE EASTWARD OF<br />
THE POSITIONS REPORTED BY THE A<strong>US</strong>TRALIAN<br />
PLANES.<br />
5“ SOUTH<br />
TF61 SPECIAL SEARCH<br />
2 B47s FROM ES PIRITU<br />
‘\~SANTo TURN BACK EAR~y<br />
IO” SOUTH<br />
NR & L (M) 37374<br />
Plune sigbti12gs of Vice Adt?ziral Mikau’a’s Cruiser Force. Vice Admiral<br />
Gunicbi Mikaua, I/N.
364 Amphibians Carrie To Conquer<br />
McC~wley had only two transmitters and five radio receivers, and could<br />
not spare one of the receivers to guard the Australian BELLS circuit~S <strong>The</strong><br />
message, not in the air until 1843, was decoded and available on the Flag<br />
Bridge of the AicCawley about 1900, and not about 1800 as the War Diary<br />
entry would indicate.l” Rear Admiral Crutchley in the Australia received<br />
the message via the Australian BELLS broadcast circuit at 1837, since the<br />
Australian ship guarded this circuit in lieu of the American FOX schedule.<br />
He did not pass it to Rear Admiral Turner in the McCawley. This factual<br />
difference of one hour between the times many have assumed the message<br />
was available, and the time it was actually available to Rear Admiral Turner<br />
is important.<br />
<strong>The</strong> sighting of the Japanese task force was some eight and a half hours<br />
old. <strong>The</strong> Japanese ships were 40 miles east of the town of Kieta situated on<br />
the east central shore of the island of Bougainvillea as shown in the map on<br />
page 363. <strong>The</strong>y were not “In the Slot” but well east of it. <strong>The</strong>ir reported<br />
course was not the course “Down the Slot,” nor a course that would put<br />
them “In the Slot.” <strong>The</strong>ir reported speed was far from the 22–26 knots<br />
necessary to get them the 34o miles to Guadalcanal Island the night of 8–9<br />
August.<br />
that:<br />
Instructions governing Army Air Force reconnaissance missions stipulated<br />
A plane making contact at sea is to remain in the vicinity of the sighted target<br />
until recalled or forced to retire.20<br />
<strong>The</strong> pilot of the Royal Australian Air Force Hudson Plane A16/218 on<br />
Search Mission FR623, originating at Fall River Field at Milne Bay, New<br />
Guinea, who sighted Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa’s Cruiser Force headed<br />
south, shall remain unidentified, and alone with his own conscience, as far<br />
as this writer is concerned.z’<br />
He quite erroneously identified the seven cruisers and one destroyer that<br />
were in the waters below him. According to Morison:<br />
‘SNote: <strong>The</strong> five receivers were on circuits of<br />
1. Pearl Harbor FOX (CINCPAC broadcast to all ships)<br />
2. CTF 61 Group Commanders Circuit<br />
3. CTF 62 Immediate Subordinate Commanders who were CTG 62.1, CTG 62.2, 62.3 etc.<br />
4. TF 62 All units tactical circuit<br />
5. Aircraft Warning Circuit.<br />
wHepburn Report, Vol. 3, Communication Log.<br />
mGeneral Headquarters Southwest Pacific Area, Signal Annex to Operation Instruction Number<br />
Two, 25 Apr. 1942.<br />
= COMSOWESPACFOR Communication officer, memorandum, 19 Feb. 1943.
Sauo—<strong>The</strong> Galling Defeat 365<br />
Instead of breaking radio silence to report as he had orders to do in an urgent<br />
case, or returning to base which he could have done in two hours, [he] spent<br />
most of the afternoon completing his search mission, came down at Milne Bay<br />
[tip of Papua] had his tea, and then reported his contact.”<br />
He not only failed to identify what he saw, but he failed to trail his<br />
contact, and he failed to report promptly. Four of the five Japanese heavy<br />
cruisers were sister ships, alike as peas in a pod from a distance.<br />
After the war, an examination of Japanese action reports revealed that<br />
this plane was in sight from various Japanese cruisers of Vice Admiral<br />
Mikawa’s force from 1.020 to 1036, certainly long enough for the Hudson<br />
crew to get a good look at the formation.23<br />
A later sighting of Vice Admiral Mikawa’s Cruiser Force was made at<br />
1101 by another of General MacArthur’s Hudsons on Flight A16/185.<br />
This 1101 sighting suffered an even longer delay before reaching the officers<br />
who needed the information. <strong>The</strong> aviator did not get this sighting on the<br />
air for nine hours and 46 minutes after the occurrence. This 080947 report,<br />
when considered alongside the previous one, further confused the picture<br />
as seen by Rear Admiral Turner.<br />
<strong>The</strong> second despatch read:<br />
Air sighting 00012/8 Position 05–42 South 156-o5 East. Two Cast Affirm<br />
Two Cast Love one small unidentified. One cruiser similar Southampton<br />
class. When plane attempted correct approach ships opened fire. At zero one<br />
two zero slant eight sighted small merchant vessel in 07-02 South 156-25<br />
East course 290 speed 10.2’<br />
<strong>The</strong> Naval War College version of this despatch places an “or” between<br />
the two CAS and two CLS.25<br />
<strong>The</strong> fact that the Australian plane attempted a “correct approach” on<br />
what to the aviator looked like a British heavy cruiser indicated that there<br />
was a question in the aviator’s mind as to whether or not these were Allied<br />
ships. <strong>The</strong> fact that he was fired at probably riveted his attention on the ship<br />
immediately before him rather than the six other cruisers and one destroyer<br />
in the immediate area “and within visual signal distance.” ‘e It should be<br />
mMorison, Struggle for Guadalcarral, p. 25.<br />
= Naval War College, SUvoIsland, Vol. II, p. 383.<br />
“ COMSOWESPACFOR to all Task Force Commanders, 080947 Aug. 1942.<br />
= Naval War College, Savo lJktzd, Vol. I, pp. 101, 383 (18). <strong>The</strong> quoted version is found in<br />
both COMSOPAC War Diary and the Hepburn Report, as well as the Plotting Room Officer,<br />
COMSOPAC, to Admiral Ghormley, memorandum 14 Aug. 1942.<br />
a Ibid., pp. 73–74.
366 A?npbibians Carve To Conquey<br />
Vice Admiral Gunicbi Makawa, I~N.<br />
Victor at Savo
Suvo—Tbe Galling Defeat 367<br />
noted that the Japanese Flagship Chohu’ sighted this aircraft, immediately<br />
after four of the five Japanese heavy cruisers had finished recovering their<br />
seaplanes at 1050, and while the seven large ships were forming up into a<br />
single column. <strong>The</strong> Chokai opened fire on the plane at 1100. <strong>The</strong> plane<br />
retreated and disappeared from sight of the Chokai at 1113. Vice Admiral<br />
Mikawa reported that his ships were on the northwesterly course of 300°<br />
and that the plane was in sight for 13 minutes.z’<br />
How the Japanese ships all in sight of each other sighted the plane, and<br />
the plane did not correctly count the number of ships below it, lacks a ready<br />
explanation, except for the “fog of war.”<br />
This second sighting report added perplexity to the mystification already<br />
existing on the McCawley’s Flag Bridge. <strong>The</strong> position reported indicated<br />
the Japanese force, if it was the same force as reported some 35 minutes<br />
previously, had moved northward and westward 7.5 miles. Since the<br />
Australian aviator, in this second sighting report, had not included a course<br />
and speed of the ships below him and since a plot of the two positions<br />
checked out the previous report by the pilot of A16/218 of a leisurely speed<br />
of 15 knots, Admiral Turner guessed that the seaplane part of the force as<br />
first reported was proceeding on to Rekata Bay and that part of the covering<br />
force was returning to RabauL28<br />
It is an amazing fact, but one showing the vagaries of radio communications,<br />
that Vice Admiral Ghormley apparently was not cognizant of the<br />
1025 sighting of the Japanese Cruiser Force until after Rear Admiral Turner<br />
arrived back in Noumea and told him of it.<br />
A “Memorandum for Admiral Ghormley” prepared jointly on 14 August<br />
1942 by his Staff Aviation Officer and his War Plotting Room Officer, while<br />
listing the 1101 sighting report, does not list the 1025 sighting despatch<br />
among the dispatches received by COMSOPACFOR from COMSOWES-<br />
PACFOR relating to enemy surface units on 7 August and 8 August 1942.2’<br />
No record of the time of receipt of the second Australian plane’s report<br />
survived the flagship McCawley’.r torpedoing and sinking 10 months later.<br />
COMSOPAC radio watch finished copying the second sighting message at<br />
2136, and it still had to be decoded. On 21 February 1943, six months after<br />
Savo Island, Rear Admiral Crutchley in an otlicial report on Savo Island<br />
= (a) Cbokui War Diary; (b) Japanese Eighth Fleet War Diary, CIG 74633, <strong>US</strong>SBS<br />
Interrogation.<br />
2S(a) Turner; (b) Staff Interviews.<br />
wCopy of Memorandum supplied by Captain Charles W, Weaver <strong>US</strong>NR and original then<br />
located in Comsopac files.
368 Amphibians Came To Conqtier<br />
did not list this message as having been received at all by his flagship, the<br />
Az~tralia. In 1960, Admiral Turner and one member of his staff reasoned<br />
that the second sighting report was not available on the Flag Bridge when<br />
CTF 62 (Turner) drafted and sent out his 081055 just before 10 p.m., or<br />
it would have been referenced in that despatch just as the initial sighting<br />
report was referenced. <strong>The</strong> only possible reference in the TF 62 official record<br />
currently available in regard to this second despatch is found in Rear Admiral<br />
Turner’s statement:<br />
All or at least some of these [four highly important] dispatches {from<br />
COMSOWESPACFOR] were brought into my cabin during my conference<br />
with Admiral Crutchley and General Vandegrift.30<br />
General MacArthur’s Combined Headquarters at Townsville drew the<br />
inference from these two aircraft sighting reports of<br />
a possible occupation of Bougainvillea and Buka Islands in strength . . .<br />
[and] possible use of Kieta aerodrome.sl<br />
Rear Admiral Turner had gotten into the guesstimating act at 082155—35<br />
minutes before General MacArthur’s guesstimating despatch sought the air.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner’s guess, influenced by the fact that a Wa~p scout had<br />
shot down a seaplane north of Rekata Bay, was quite as wrong as General<br />
MacArthur’s. He opined:<br />
Estimate from NPM 706 that Force named may operate torpedo planes from<br />
Santa Isabel possibly Rekata Bay. Recommend strong air detachments arrive<br />
Rekata Bay early forenoon. Bomb tenders in manner to ensure destruction.”<br />
When Rear Admiral Turner sent this despatch, he did not know that<br />
CTF 63’s (Rear Admiral McCain) search planes on the eighth of August,<br />
had not covered the Slot areas which TF 63 had been requested to cover.<br />
CTF 63’s report of his air searches for the 8th was not time dated in his<br />
New Caledonia Headquarters on that day until 233+—27 minutes before<br />
midnight .33<br />
<strong>The</strong> special air reconnaissance in the Choisel-Bougainville Slot Area<br />
requested by CTF 62 (Turner) of CTF 6334 failed to provide a contact<br />
90(a) COMSOPAC Action Report; (b) Turner; (c) Staff Interview (d) Undated, but<br />
probably June 1943 Official Statement of Rear Admiral Turner on Admiral Hepburn’s Report.<br />
Made prior to submission of CINCPACS 28 June 1943 endorsement on that Report.<br />
“ COMSOWESPACFOR to CINCPAC and All Task Force Commanders, Pacific Fleet, 081130<br />
Aug. 1942. Hepburn Report, Annex T.<br />
WCTF 62 to COMAIRSOPAC, 081055 Aug. 1942. Hepburn Report, Annex T.<br />
= CTF 63 to CTF 61 into CTF 62, 081233 Aug. 1942 in Hepburn Report, Annex T<br />
~ CTF 62 to CTF 63,070642 Aug. 1942. Hepburn Report, Annex T.
Save--<strong>The</strong> Galling Defeat 369<br />
with the Japanese cruisers, when the TF 63 Army Air Force planes turned<br />
back at 1215 some 60 miles south of the Japanese cruisers and far, far<br />
short of the 750-mile search which had been expected and of which the<br />
B-17s were capable.<br />
Admiral Hepburn commented:<br />
. . . this important negative information did not become known to Rear<br />
Admiral Turner until the next day. . . .<br />
It is not unreasonable to suppose that timely information of the failure of<br />
the search plan might at least have resulted in a precautionary order to the<br />
Screening Force to maintain the highest degree of readiness. . . .S5<br />
TF 63 AIR RECONNAISSANCE<br />
<strong>The</strong> problem of the undetected approach of the Japanese cruiser squadron<br />
to Guadalcanal was one which could have been solved but was not.<br />
While it is the inadequate performance of the individual Australian<br />
pilots which is more often publicized when pre-Savo Island air reconnaissance<br />
is mentioned, there is also to be considered the record of inadequate search<br />
plans by CTF 63. <strong>The</strong>se plans were a real help to the Japanese cruiser force.<br />
CTF 61 (Vice Admiral Fletcher) had alerted CTF 63 (Rear Admiral<br />
McCain) to the problem of the undetected approach as early as 29 July in<br />
a message to Rear Admiral McCain in connection with Dog Day and Dog<br />
Day minus one.<br />
[In accordance] Your Operation Plan 1-42, assume planes searching sectors<br />
3 and 5 will arrive at outer limit search at sunset searching return leg by radar.<br />
Note that enemy striking group could approach undetected . . . by being<br />
to the northwest of sector 5 and north of sector 3.s8<br />
<strong>The</strong> capabilities of the aircraft and air crews for night flying weighted<br />
CTF 63’s reply:<br />
If weather forecast indicates favorable navigation conditions will comply<br />
your 290857. Otherwise daylight search will be made. . . .3’<br />
<strong>The</strong> Operation Order as issued initially by COMSOPAC on 16 July called<br />
for air reconnaissance by AIRSOPAC to<br />
cover the approach to, al,d the operation within, the TULAGI-GUADAL-<br />
CANAL Area by search<br />
= Hepburn Report, 13 May 1943, paras. 85, 87,<br />
S CTF 61 to CTF 63, 290857 Jul. 1942, Hepburn Report dispatches.<br />
S7~F 63 to ~F 61, 300820 Jul. 1942, Hepburn Report despatch=
370 Anzpbibians Came To Conquer<br />
with<br />
and<br />
scouting from NDENI by about 12 VPB not lat,~r than Dog minus 2 Day,<br />
from east coast MALAITA with about 12 VPB beginning Dog Day.38<br />
As the result of a recommendation from Rear Admiral McCain, Vice<br />
Admiral Ghormley changed his directive so as to reduce the requirement of<br />
12 planes at Ndeni and Malaita to half that number and to delay the com-<br />
mencement of the search 24 hours at each place.Sg<br />
In view of the decreased number and the later initiation of air reconnaissance<br />
by Rear Admiral McCain’s forces, Rear Admiral Turner sought to<br />
better the air reconnaissance by having six VO planes placed directly under<br />
his command. He requested them from COMSOPAC.<br />
As late as the conference in the <strong>US</strong>S Saratoga on 26 July, he was still trying<br />
to get some VO (obsemation) aircraft directly under his command. Rear<br />
Admiral Turner wanted these VO planes based at Tulagi under his imme-<br />
diate control for local search purposes against Japanese surface forces known<br />
to be in the Rabaul area.’”<br />
Rear Admiral Callaghan noted this in his post-26 July conference memo<br />
to Vice Admiral Ghormley.<br />
6. 6 VO planes Turner wanted. Desired them from BLEACHER. [Tongatabuj<br />
Tonga Island.] . . . Much argument how to get them to TULAGI-<br />
AREA. No conclusions. I said, at the moment, could see no ship in sight to<br />
make this move.11<br />
In 1960, Admiral Turner was convinced that if Rear Admiral McCain<br />
had appreciated the problem of the undetected Japanese surface ship ap-<br />
proach more than apparently he did, that initially he would have made more<br />
airtight search plans for his aircraft in TG 63.2 and TG 63.6, and that had<br />
he been more flexible, he would have undertaken late afternoon search<br />
efforts on 8 August by the TF 63 PBY planes tender-based at Maramsike<br />
Estuary, Malaita, only 83 short air miles from Lunga Point.”<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is no operational or action report for the WATCHTOWER Oper-<br />
ation by COMAIRSOPAC (McCain ) in any of the record centers of the<br />
Navy. Nor is there a special COMAIRSOPAC report telling why he or his<br />
MCOMSOPAC Op Plan 1–42, Ser. 0017 of 16 Jul. 1942, para. 3, Annex Baker.<br />
= COMAIRSOPAC to COMSOPAC, 190646, 201300 Jul. 1942. Hepburn Report dispatches.<br />
‘“Turner.<br />
4’Ghormley manuscript, p. 68.<br />
4’Turner.
Savo—Tbe Galling Defeat 371<br />
subordinates did or did not do certain things, filed with Admiral Hepburn’s<br />
investigation of this 7–lo August 1942 period. CTF 63’s story just is not<br />
currently available. <strong>The</strong> War Diaries of COMAIRSOPAC and the <strong>US</strong>S<br />
McFarland, seaplane tender at Maramsike Estuary, Malaita, record only the<br />
incomplete nature of the planned searches.<br />
Admiral Turner desired that the air reconnaissance matter be thoroughly<br />
researched in available records and then presented to him again. He died<br />
before this was done,<br />
In 1960, he believed that CTF 63’s air search despatch report for the eighth<br />
of August was unjustifiably tardy, and that it was inexcusable not to have<br />
told him earlier in the day of the TF 63 failure to search because of weather,<br />
or the extent and results of the special search he had requested. Because of<br />
the tardiness or omission of the air search reports, he did not know that TF<br />
63 planes had not searched the Slot areas to the north of New Georgia. Since<br />
no positive sighting reports by the TF 63 planes in this area were made during<br />
the day, and no report of inability to search was made by Rear Admiral<br />
McCain, Rear Admiral Turner watched the clock on the Flag Bridge move<br />
from 8 to 9 August believing that it was a reasonable deduction that no<br />
enemy surface forces were in the area.t3<br />
CTF 63’s (McCain’s) failure to tell CTF 61 (Fletcher) and CTF 62<br />
(Turner) that his planes were carrying through their assigned searches in a<br />
very limited way because of weather problems or other reasons vitiated the<br />
agreement made by CTF 63 on the Saratoga on 26 July 1942. As related in<br />
the Hepburn Inquiry:<br />
It was specifically arranged by the Commanders Task Force Sixty-One, Sixty-<br />
Two, and Sixty-Three, that if the air scouting could not be made in any<br />
sector, Task Force Sixty-One would fill in for short range scouting, both<br />
morning and late afternoon, to protect against the approach of surface<br />
forces.”<br />
TURNER VERS<strong>US</strong> THE FIELD OF HISTORIANS<br />
Admiral Turner’s reaction in 1960 to the official histories or monographs<br />
stating that he was advised of an “Approaching Force” is informative:<br />
I have been accused of being and doing many things but nobody before<br />
ever accused me of sitting on my awrse and doing nothing. If I had known<br />
“ Turner.<br />
4’CINCPAC, letter, PAC–I I–SN–A17, Ser. 0088s of 28 Jun. 1943, subj: Comments on<br />
Hepburn Report, Annex F to encl. (A), p. 2.
372 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
of any ‘approaching’ Jap force, I would have done something—maybe the<br />
wrong thing, but I would have done something. What they wrote is just a<br />
g.d. distortion, and that sort of thing is why I want you to be g.d. certain<br />
that you don’t distort in what you write.<br />
What I failed to do was to assume that the g.d. pilots couldn’t count and<br />
couldn’t identify and wouldn’t do their job and stick around and trail the<br />
Japs and send through a later report. And I failed to assume that McCain<br />
wouldn’t keep me informed of what his pilots were or weren’t doing. And I<br />
failed to guess that despite the reported composition of the force, and the<br />
reported course, and the reported speed, the Japs were headed for me via a<br />
detour, just like we arrived at Guadalcanal via a detour.<br />
I wouldn’t mind if they said I was too g.d. dumb to have crystal-balled<br />
these things, but to write that I was told of an ‘approaching force’ and then<br />
didn’t do anything, that’s an ~nprintable, unprintable, unprintable lie.<br />
Nobody reported an ‘approaching force’ to me. <strong>The</strong>y reported a force which<br />
could and did approach, but they reported another kind of a force headed<br />
another kind of way.<br />
was a masterful failure of air reconnaissance and my fellow aviators.AS<br />
$%<br />
BRINGING REAR ADMIRAL CRUTCI-ILEY<br />
TO THE FLAGSHIP<br />
In regard to Morison’s labeling as a “mistake” the summoning of Rear<br />
Admiral Crutchley in the Australia to the McCawIey, the fact is that Rear<br />
Admiral Crutchley had sent the following despatch to his immediate senior<br />
shortly after nine o’clock the morning of 8 August:<br />
As Second-in-Command when you have time could I have rough outline of<br />
present situation and future intentions.”<br />
This was a request not lightly to be disregarded or denied. It was received<br />
before the message reporting 40 heavy Japanese bombers heading toward the<br />
Tulagi-Guadalcanal area, which required all the transports, including the<br />
McCawley to get underway.<br />
<strong>The</strong> COMPHIBFORSOPAC Staff members interviewed could not remem-<br />
ber why their Admiral had put off Rear Admiral Crutchley until evening. In<br />
1961–1962 they rationalized that it was probable that CTF 62 (Turner) felt,<br />
at that mid-morning hour, and with no favorable reports in from Tulagi<br />
where the <strong>Marine</strong>s had been held up, that he did not know enough more<br />
than CTF 62.6 (Crutchley) did about the “present situation and future in-<br />
*Turner.<br />
‘“CTF 62.6 to CTF 62,072211 Aug. 1942, Hepburn Report, Annex T.
Sauo—Tbe Gailing Defeat 373<br />
tentions” to justify the conference. In any case, CTF 62 made the decision to<br />
bring CTG 62.6 aboard later.”<br />
Soon thereafter the transports all were underway because of a Japanese air<br />
attack. <strong>The</strong> transports remained underway until just before 5 p.m.<br />
<strong>The</strong> problem of bringing CTG 62.6 aboard before dark was discussed<br />
again by CTF 62 with the Staff .48<br />
Just after 6 p.m. (1807) the message came in wherein Vice Admiral<br />
Fletcher recommended to Vice Admiral Ghormley the immediate withdrawal<br />
of all carriers. Rear Admiral Turner hoped that Vice Admiral Ghormley,<br />
looking at the larger picture and attaching more importance to the success of<br />
the whole operation than to the safety of the carriers, would turn Vice<br />
Admiral Fletcher down. However, now it was essential that the Second-in-<br />
Command be called aboard and the changed situation be discussed. This was<br />
done at 2037 in the evening.” One specific question asked Rear Admiral<br />
Crutchley during his 70-minute stay in the McCawley was whether he “considered<br />
the screening ships could stick it out for one or two more days without<br />
carrier air support .”50<br />
Neither the Hepburn Investigative Report, the Naval War College, nor<br />
this writer think it was a mistake for Rear Admiral Crutchley, the Second-in-<br />
Command, to want a conference with his Commander, nor a mistake for his<br />
Commander to grant such a request. It was a necessity. As Admiral Hepburn<br />
stated: ‘‘CTF 62’s need to confer with his senior commanders cannot be<br />
questioned.” 5’<br />
<strong>The</strong> Naval War College stated: “This action of CTF 62 in calling this<br />
conference was sound.” 52<br />
ENEMYS CAPABILITIES<br />
THE NAVAL WAR COLLEGE SUGGESTS<br />
1. <strong>The</strong> enemy’s capabilities, as well as the enemy’s intentions must be<br />
considered. <strong>The</strong> highest priority must be given by a commander to those<br />
enemy courses of action considered more dangerous to his own force.59<br />
By inference, Commander Task Force 62 did not give adequate weight to<br />
the capabilities of the enemy ‘‘cruiser-destroyer-seaplane force” sighted at<br />
4’Staff Interview.<br />
u Ibid.<br />
49(a) Staff Interview; (b) CTF 62 to CTG 62.6, 080937, Aug. 1942, Hepburn Report,<br />
Annex T.<br />
mRKT to Director Naval History, letter, 1948.<br />
mHepburn Report, para. 84.<br />
MNaval War College, Sduo I-r/drrd, Vol. I, p. 90.<br />
n Ibid.,P. 48.
374 Amphibians Came To Conqzzer<br />
1025 on 8 August, 34o miles northwest of Guadalcanal, on course 1200,<br />
speed 15 knots.<br />
When Admiral Turner had this read to him and was asked to comment<br />
thereon, he said:<br />
It was the inclusion of the words ‘2 seaplane tenders’ in that aviator’s despatch<br />
which threw me for a loss. A seaplane tender-except for the seaplanes<br />
on its elevator platform—looks like a merchant ship. It is a merchant ship<br />
with special seaplane handling gear and stowage space. It doesn’t look like a<br />
cruiser, or a destroyer or a gunboat. We didn’t have very many in our Navy.<br />
By looking at ]titw’~ Fighting ship.r we learned the Japs had about ten—more<br />
or less—basically the same design as ours. Top speed for our seaplane tenders<br />
was about 16 knots. <strong>The</strong> new Jap seaplane tenders were supposed to be a bit<br />
faster. [}une’~ 1942 gives 3 of them credit for 20 knots, others top speed of<br />
17 knots. ] I didn’t think 3 Jap cruisers and 3 destroyers would come to<br />
Guadalcanal and attack our 7 cruisers and 25 destroyers and I didn’t think any<br />
seaplane tenders would be sticking their nose up close to our carriers, when<br />
they couldn’t run any faster than 17 to 20 knots.<br />
I did consider the capabilities of the reported enemy, but I didn’t take these<br />
capabilities and multiply them by three or four and then dirty my trousers. If<br />
every time that a report had come in to Ghormley or Halsey or me during the<br />
next six months that some part of the Jap Navy was at sea 350 miles from<br />
Guadalcanal and their capabilities had been multiplied three or four times, we<br />
would have all died of fright and never would have licked them.<br />
My error was one of judgment, putting faith in the contact report. General<br />
MacArthur’s staff which had, or could have had, the opportunity to talk with<br />
the pilots made the same error.6A<br />
WAS IT A MISTAKE TO DIVIDE THE SCREENING GROUP?<br />
In regard to Morison’s opinion that Rear Admiral Turner made the mistake<br />
of dividing the Screening Group, the following information and opinions<br />
have a bearing on this matter.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Naval War College in commenting on the division of the Screening<br />
Group, said:<br />
While a flat statement that it is unwise to divide a force may contain a<br />
sound element of caution, it is not necessarily unwise to do so for a division<br />
of forces may be necessaryor desirable. Such axiomatic advice to be adequate<br />
should indicate when and in what measure such division may or may not be<br />
necessary or desirable.55<br />
MTurner.<br />
= NavaL War College, Savo Isl~nd, Vol. 1,p. 348
Sauo—<strong>The</strong> Galling Defeat 375<br />
<strong>The</strong> primary reason for the division of screening forces into two main units<br />
and one lesser unit on the nights of 7–8 and 8–9 August was the geographical<br />
lay of the land and the required positioning of the two transport groups to<br />
accomplish the basic TF 62 mission.<br />
A two-ship light cruiser unit, one Australian and one United States, was<br />
stationed in the sector east of the meridian of Lunga ( 1600 04’E) to cover<br />
an unlikely Japanese cruiser approach but possible enemy destroyer or PT<br />
boat approach through the restrictive waters in and surrounding Lengo<br />
Channel or Sealark Channel.<br />
To the westward past Savo Island, there were two entrances to block. <strong>The</strong><br />
northern was 12 miles wide, the southern seven and a half miles wide. <strong>The</strong>se<br />
distances were such that the six heavy cruisers in one station keeping forma-<br />
tion could not accomplish this blocking objective by withdrawing far enough<br />
to the eastward of Savo Island to obtain safe night maneuvering room<br />
without coming up against the northern Transport Area. Here it would be<br />
highly undesirable to fight a night battle, since it would put the transports<br />
within range of the enemy guns and torpedoes. If the heavy cruisers were<br />
projected to the westward and immediately beyond Savo Island, having the<br />
six heavy cruisers in one column formation at a practical night cruising speed<br />
in limited waters, 18 knots, would open up one entrance for the enemy to<br />
slip through when the formation was reaching the extremity of the other<br />
entrance.<br />
It was as simple as that.<br />
A secondary reason for the division of the Screening Group was that Rear<br />
Admiral Crutchley, as Commander Task Force 44, a Combined Force, during<br />
the months prior to WATCHTOWER, had issued special instructions “cover-<br />
ing communications, tactics, including the use of searchlights” to Task Force<br />
44 containing both Australian and United States Ships “to cover various points<br />
of doctrine and procedure. ” He did not issue these special instructions to<br />
Astoria, Vincennes, or Quincy, when these United States ships and numerous<br />
destroyers came under his temporary command off Koro Island and he became<br />
CTG 62.6. This difference of detailed instructions influenced him, in part at<br />
least, to think it wise to employ the Vincenne~ group, from the Combined<br />
United States-Australian ship group “with only general direction as to coop<br />
eration, rather than try to incorporate them within a single tactical unit.” 56<br />
BHepburn Report, para. 92.
376 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
.$bips disposition prior Savo Isk?d Battle.<br />
Rear Admiral Crutchley stated his case as follows:<br />
I would point out that neither Australia nor Canberra were fitted with<br />
T.B.S. [Voice radio} and they had done some night training with Chicago<br />
and Desron 4, but none with the other cruisers, thus it was my firm intention<br />
to avoid handling a mixed force at night.<br />
Speaking generally, I consider heavy ships in groups of more than 4 to be<br />
unwieldy at night.<br />
*****<br />
. . . I therefore decided to block one SAVO entrance with the three CAS I<br />
knew I could command, and leave the other SAVO entrance to the three U. S.<br />
vessels .57<br />
Rear Admiral Turner may be charged by historical theorists with a mistake<br />
in approving this procedure, whereby the Vincennes group operated under<br />
one set of detailed instructions and the Australia group under another,<br />
instead of demanding Combined night training on the way to the battlefield<br />
under the Australian set of instructions. But few salt water sailormen of the<br />
pre-radar, pre-voice radio eras will so charge either him or Rear Admiral<br />
Crutchley who sponsored the procedure.<br />
~ CTG 62.6 to Admiral Hepburn, memorandum,21 Feb. 1943. Hepburn Report,Annex B.
Savo—Tbe Galling Defeat 377<br />
<strong>The</strong> basic task was protection of the transports and cargo ships by the<br />
Screening Group irrespective of the approach route of a Japanese surface<br />
force. A plan which protected only against the particular approach chosen<br />
by the Japanese would not have passed muster.<br />
In this connection, it is worth noting that the Japanese battle plan called<br />
for a division of their attack force into two attack groups and that they did<br />
so divide. As the Japanese stated it:<br />
Crudiv 6 was to attack the transports at GUADALCANAL, while Crudiv 18<br />
was to attack the TULAGI transports.<br />
****<br />
It was the original plan for the FURATAKA group [Crudiv 6] to take the<br />
outer course, but they took the inner course. I do not know why. I was with<br />
the inner group on the TENRYU [Crudiv 18] .58<br />
In March 1943, in response to a long questionnaire from Admiral<br />
Hepburn, Rear Admiral Turner wrote:<br />
<strong>The</strong> difficulty of having two national services in one organization is recognized.<br />
It is believed that this was a mistake, although it was felt at the time<br />
that Admiral Crutchley’s force [Task Force 44] probably was a more effective<br />
tactical unit than the remainder of the force [Task Force 62], which had<br />
never operated together, and whose vessels were from several task forces in<br />
both the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets. In connection with the matter of employing<br />
Admiral Crutchley’s force in Task Force Sixty-Two, I made the specific<br />
recommendation to Admiral Fletcher that all units assigned to me should be<br />
from the U. S. Navy. See my despatch 200135 of July. This recommendation<br />
was not approved. so<br />
Until someone comes forward with a workable alternate plan whereby<br />
the three approaches to the two groups of unloading transports could all be<br />
covered by an undivided Screening Group, labeling the division of the<br />
Screening Group a mistake is an opinion of one uninformed (a) of the<br />
seagoing standards and procedures of the Australian and United States Navy<br />
in August 1942, or (b) that all the cruisers in TF 62 had not been trained<br />
together, or (c) that all the ships of the United States and Australian Navies<br />
in TF 62 were not fitted with both radar and voice radio, or more probably,<br />
(d) of the lay of the land and depths of water in the Savo area.<br />
Admiral Turner’s reaction to Morison’s comment that Rear Admiral Scott<br />
W<strong>US</strong>SBS, Interrogations of Ja@ne$e Oficials,<strong>US</strong>SBS Interrogation No. 255, Vol. I, p. 255.<br />
(Rear Admiral M. Matsuyama). Hereafter only the <strong>US</strong>SBS Interrogation No, and the page from<br />
Irzterrogatiom of Japanese Oficiah will be cited.<br />
rnRKT, Memorandum for Admiral Hepburn, Mar, 1943, p, 10, Hepburn Report, Annex F.
378 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
should have been shifted to the Vincenne~ and placed in command of the<br />
North Area Force was:<br />
TF 62 during the night of August 8 was divided into three important and<br />
valuable task groups: the XRAY (Guadalcanal) Group; the YOKE (Tulagi)<br />
Group; and the Screening Group. <strong>The</strong>se three major groups were tactically<br />
separated by from 15 to 20 miles. All were prosecuting important operations<br />
throughout the night. Three Flag officers were available; Turner, Scott, and<br />
Crutchley. I considered then, and consider now, that the best command arrangement<br />
was for one Flag officer to command each of these major groups.<br />
(Until after the battle, I believed that Crutchley in Ati~truli~had rejoined his<br />
cruiser unit instead of displacing the Hobart in the latter’s assigned position<br />
near the XRAY Group.)<br />
<strong>The</strong>re was another important reason which would have made me reject the<br />
idea, had it occurred to me, of transferring Scott to the Vizzcezwe~. Scott had<br />
been a Flag officer a very short time, and on this expedition was exercising his<br />
first semi-independent Flag command. He and Riefkohl of the Vit.rcemre.r<br />
were Naval Academy classmates, and, until his promotion, Scott had been the<br />
junior. Riefkohl was considered a good officer and apparently was performing<br />
his tasks satisfactorily. To have superseded Riefkohl on his own ship by a<br />
classmate recently promoted over him would have been a heavy blow to<br />
general morale, and would have gone far toward destroying all prospects of<br />
Riefkohl’s future usefulness and chances of promotion. Furthermore, a Flag<br />
officer’s effectiveness is temporarily impaired when suddenly transferred to a<br />
strange flagship.<br />
To my mind, the reasoning that led to the formulation of this criticism is<br />
entirely faulty.eo<br />
As Admiral Hepburn wrote:<br />
<strong>The</strong> one outstanding consideration was that an enemy approaching the transport<br />
group through either of the passages around SAVO ISLAND should be<br />
certainly intercepted and brought to action, and this object was in fact<br />
achieved.el<br />
But, one may add, at the price of a galling defeat.<br />
<strong>The</strong> error in judgment in regard to the Screening Group would not appear<br />
to have been in dividing it into three fighting groups; more realistically the<br />
judgment error was in the split of the destroyer types between picket duty<br />
and anti-submarine duty. This division of strength resulted in an inadequate<br />
assignment of only two destroyer-types to picket duty to the west of Savo<br />
Island.<br />
‘0Admiral Turner to DCNO (Admin ), official letter, 20 Aug. 1950, sub: Comments on<br />
Morison’s Vol. V, pp. 10-11. Note Admiral Turner’s statement that Hoburt was near XRAY<br />
Group.<br />
mHepburn Report, para. 95.
Savo-Tbe Galling Defeat
380 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
Two destroyers, a minimum, were assigned to anti-submarine duty around<br />
each of the three cruiser forces in the North, South, and East. Two other<br />
destroyers were assigned to picket duty. Five destroyers, four destroyer-type<br />
transports and five destroyer-type minesweepers were assigned to anti-sub-<br />
marine duty around the two transport groups (XRAY and YOKE), in an<br />
outer and an inner anti-submarine patrol. This was somewhat more than the<br />
limited sea room called for.<br />
Shifting of the two destroyers in the outer anti-submarine patrol around<br />
the XRAY group of transports to picket duty could have paid big dividends<br />
on the night of 8 August 1942, and still left a strong anti-submarine patrol<br />
of seven anti-submarine craft for XRAY and five for YOKE.<br />
Knowledge in regard to the capabilities and limitations of radar in early<br />
August 1942 was limited.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner, in March 1943, recalled:<br />
<strong>The</strong> only point about which I was uncertain was the use of only two screening<br />
destroyers to the west of SAVO, employing radar. <strong>The</strong> number seemed<br />
small, but after some inquiry, I received assurances that these two vessels<br />
ought surely to detect the approach of any enemy vessels up to twelve to<br />
fourteen miles. Knowledge possessed by me and the staff concerning radar<br />
was practically non-existent. Admiral Crutchley had an officer who was considered<br />
well qualified in radar. I consulted some other officers with experience.<br />
All seemed to think this team was satisfactory.ez<br />
Some may question the desirability of leaving only fast minesweepers in<br />
the XRAY Group outer anti-submarine screen, but it should be remembered<br />
that the destroyer-type fast minesweepers, minelayers, and transports had<br />
retained their destroyer anti-submarine equipment upon conversion and were<br />
used for anti-submarine missions during this and many subsequent operations.<br />
One of these converted destroyers, the Colboza (APD-2), made a submarine<br />
attack on 7 August 1942 and claimed in its special report on the action, that<br />
“numerous observers saw the bow of the submarine keel tip, break water at<br />
an angle of 400 to the horizon.” No Japanese record supports this kill.<br />
However, the Sorztlwrd (DMS-1O) was credited, post-war, with a firm sub-<br />
marine kill on the I-172 on 10 November 1942 and a converted destroyer, the<br />
Gamble (DM-15), was similarly credited on 29 August 1942 with sinking the<br />
I-123. So during this period, these old converted destroyers were capable of<br />
effective anti-submarine action.G3<br />
“2RKT, Memorandum for AdmiraI Hepburn, Mar. 1943, pp. 4-5.<br />
m Colbora Anti-submarine Action Report, 7 Aug. 1942.
Save—<strong>The</strong> Galiing Defeat 381<br />
Rear Admiral Turner had these comments on destroyer deployments:<br />
Without question, subsequent events have shown that it was a grave military<br />
error not to have had more destroyer pickets. However, the picket line<br />
could not have been advanced very far to the front and still have given effective<br />
protection because then they would have uncovered the pass between<br />
FLORIDA and SANTA ISABEL ISLANDS, and the pass between<br />
GUADALCANAL and the R<strong>US</strong>SELLS.W<br />
<strong>The</strong> problem of Commander Screening Group was to provide protection<br />
to Transport Group XRAY and to Transport Group YOKE against air, sub-<br />
marine, and surf ace ship attack. Each of these enemy elements required<br />
diversion from giving fully adequate attention to the others. Enemy air attack<br />
required that the anti-aircraft guns of the whole Screening Group be posi-<br />
tioned close to the transports at least at dawn and dusk as well as throughout<br />
the day. Enemy submarine attack required the 24 hour diversion of adequate<br />
destroyer-types to anti-submarine patrolling close around the transports as<br />
well as in the avenues of submarine approach. <strong>The</strong> threat of surface ship<br />
attack required principally the ready availability of the main and secondary<br />
MRear Admiral Turner to CINCPAC, official comment on Hepburn Report, 8 Jun. 1943.<br />
10” SOUTH<br />
R<strong>US</strong>SEL :> ‘Ab<br />
,+<br />
GUAOALCANA<br />
w17H ONLY TWO PICKETS ASSIGNED, M0vIN6<br />
THEM FROM AREA 0 FuRTHER TOWAROS fiRE4 B<br />
TO COVER SHIPS COMING OOWN THE SLOT WOULD<br />
PERMIT AN UN OETECTECI APPROACH THROUGH<br />
AORC INCREASING THE TOTAL NUMBER OF<br />
ASS,GNED PICKETS TO SIX WOULD HAVE SOLVED<br />
THE PROBLEM,<br />
[AST<br />
ABEL<br />
ITA<br />
4RAMASKI<br />
SAN CRIST06’AL<br />
MuItipie Approach routes; inadequate radar pickets, prior to the Battle of<br />
Savo Isiand.
382 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
batteries of the cruisers, and an early alert to the presence of the enemy ships.<br />
In his 21 February 1943 report on the defeat of his forces, Rear Admiral<br />
Crutchley listed four radio message alerts from higher authority in regard<br />
to submarines in the area prior to 7 August, three more alerts on 7 August,<br />
and three further alerts on 8 August.B5<br />
That those on the spot were convinced of an increasing submarine menace<br />
is indicated by CTF 62’s first post-Savo report in which, based on a Mozmen<br />
report, he reported that one enemy submarine was probably sunk.B6 Rear<br />
Admiral Crutchley in his report to Admiral Hepburn wrote:<br />
from information available, submarines appeared the greater menace<br />
~~han a surface ship attack].”<br />
*****<br />
. . . <strong>The</strong> submarine menace was considered so serious that, by order of<br />
Admiral Turner, all cruiser planes except those assigned to liaison duties with<br />
troops were used on the 8th for A/S screen and search for su~marines.es<br />
A survey of all TF 62 action reports indicates that four submarine contact<br />
reports were made in TF 62 on 7 August and six on 8 August 1942.’g<br />
FIRST REACTION TO DEFEAT<br />
Sometimes first reactions are bitter but truthful. In Rear Admiral Turner’s<br />
files, there is the first letter to his immediate senior following the defeat,<br />
written by the Rear Admiral Commanding H. M. Australian Squadron which<br />
contains this paragraph:<br />
Having been placed in charge of the screening forces by you, I have naturally<br />
been searching for my mistakes which may have led to, or contributed<br />
to, this great loss. I feel that undoubtedly there must be some, but there are<br />
to my mind two main points that stand out-one is that fatigue to personnel<br />
caused lack of warning, In an operation of this kind, this is almost inevitable.<br />
<strong>The</strong> other is, that we, U. S. and British, must have practice in night fighting<br />
‘s (a) Crutchley to Turner, report, 21 Feb. 1943, pp. 4, 5, Hepburn Report, Annex B; (b)<br />
COMSOPAC 071142 Aug. 1942; CINCPAC 062336, 080141 Aug. 1942, Hepburn Report,<br />
Annex C.<br />
m (a) CTF 62 to COMSOPAC, 090815 Aug. 1942, Hepburn Report, Annex T; (b) itfot?JJetz<br />
and San ]uan. Action Reports.<br />
e?HePbu~n Report, Para. 82’<br />
w Hepburn Report, para. 89.<br />
69Action Reports of ColbOUn, MonJJen, San Juan, Mtigford, Wihofr, cre~cent CitY> PreJident<br />
Adamj, Little, Neville.
Savo—Tbe Galling Defeat 383<br />
for we cannot prosecute the kind of offensive required, without welcoming a<br />
night engagement .70<br />
DEFENSIVE DECISIONS<br />
At 1807 local time 8 August, 1942, Vice Admiral Fletcher (CTF 61) sent<br />
this message to COMSOPAC (Ghormley).<br />
Fighter plane strength reduced from 99 to 78. In view of large number of<br />
enemy torpedo planes and bombers in this area, I recommend the immediate<br />
withdrawal of my carriers. Request tankers be sent forward immediately as<br />
fuel running low.<br />
Vice Admiral Ghormley approved this request, thus setting the stage for<br />
the withdrawal of the air support for the amphibians and for the Battle of<br />
Savo Island. <strong>The</strong> background for this crucial withdrawal follows:<br />
(A) <strong>The</strong> Prediction<br />
In the despatch which Vice Admiral Ghormley and General MacArthur<br />
sent on 8 July to their respective Chiefs of Staff opposing the launching of<br />
WATCHTOWER in early August, they said:<br />
<strong>The</strong> Carrier Task Groups will be themselves exposed to attack by land based<br />
air while unprotected by our land based aviation and it is extremely doubtful<br />
that they will be able to retain fighter escort to the transport area, especially<br />
should hostile naval forces approach.?l<br />
(B) <strong>The</strong> Basic Problem<br />
Again on 11 July, Vice Admiral Ghormley had advised his seniors:<br />
I wish to emphasize that the basic problem of this operation is the protection<br />
of surface ships against land based aircraft attack during the approach, the<br />
landing attacks, and the unloading.’2<br />
mV. Crutchley to RKT, letter, 13 Aug. 1942.<br />
n COMSOPAC to COMINCH, 081012 Jul. 1942.<br />
w cOMSOpAC to COMINCH, 112000 Jul. 1942.
38Lf Am@ibians Came To Conquer<br />
(C) Carrier Strength and Husbanding by<br />
Non-Aviator Cornrnanders<br />
Vice Admiral Fletcher was a distinguished Line officer, a wearer of the<br />
Medal of Honor, but not an aviator. He was serving as the commander of an<br />
Expeditionary Force containing 7’5 percent of the battle line carriers in the<br />
United States Navy, the Saratogti, the Enterprise, and the Wasp.73<br />
<strong>The</strong> United States Navy had started the war with six battle line carriers<br />
and the slower and much smaller Ranger of only 16,000 tons. <strong>The</strong> latter<br />
could not be and was not used as a battle line carrier during World War 11.<br />
NO new carriers were due to reach the Fleet for another nine months, until<br />
the spring of 1943. One-third of the large carriers had been lost in action.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Lexington had been sunk on 8 May 1942, at the Battle of the Coral Sea.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Yorktown went down not quite a month later at the Battle of Midway.<br />
Both of these losses occurred in task forces under Vice Admiral Fletcher’s<br />
immediate command. Naval aviators could be heard to say that the losses<br />
would not have occurred, had the Task Force Commander been a naval<br />
aviator. Vice Admiral Fletcher was conscious of these criticisms and deter-<br />
mined that in all future operations full weight would be given to sound<br />
aviation points of view .74<br />
This was one reason he flew his flag in the Saratoga, whose Commanding<br />
Officer, Captain DeWitt C. Ramsay (later Vice Chief of Naval Operations<br />
and then Commander in Chief, Pacific) was known to be up on the step and<br />
rising fast.<br />
(D) Over-Riding Instructions<br />
Admiral Nimitz’s special instructions governing future combat operations,<br />
and issued prior to the Battle of Midway, contained these controlling words:<br />
You will be governed by the principle of calculated risks which you shall<br />
interpret to mean the avoidance of your force to attack by superior force without<br />
good prospect of inflicting, as a result of such exposure, greater darnage to<br />
the enemy, This applies to a landing phase as well as during preliminary air<br />
attacks .75<br />
‘3<strong>The</strong> Horne~, which on 7 July CINCPAC (CINCPAC 070125 July) had indicated to<br />
COMSOPAC might participate in WATCHTOWER, was being held in the Hawaiian Area for<br />
defensive and training purposes.<br />
“ Interview with Admiral Frank J. Fletcher, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret.), 25 May 1963. Hereafter Fletcher.<br />
7’CINCPAC to Commander Striking Force, Letter of Instructions, Al&3/A14–3 GG13 ( 12)<br />
(16), Ser. 0115 of 28 May 1942.
Save—<strong>The</strong> GaUing Defeat 385<br />
It was Vice Admiral Fletcher’s belief that with only Japanese shore f acil-<br />
ities to attack and only Japanese shore based air to fight, there was no pros-<br />
pect of inflicting greater damage on the enemy than the Navy’s three pre-<br />
cious carriers could receive. Additional Japanese submarines had been reported<br />
by CINCPAC enroute to the Guadalcanal area. Japanese land-based air-<br />
craft were active in the area and he had been informed by General MacArthur<br />
that “the Air Force now in sight for the Southwest Pacific Area is not adequate<br />
to interdict hostile air or naval operations against the Tulagi Area.” 7’<br />
Vice Admiral Fletcher felt that he had no choice but to obey his instruc-<br />
tions.7T<br />
(E) <strong>The</strong> immediate Problems–Enemy Carriers and<br />
Fuel Shortages<br />
(1) Enemy carriers<br />
Despite the loss of four carriers at the Battle of Midway, the<br />
Japanese Navy in August 1942, still had as many battle line carriers (J.utzyo,<br />
Sbokaku, Zziibo, Zuikaku ) as the United States Navy.<br />
From the middle of the afternoon of Friday, i’ August, when Japanese dive<br />
bombers hit destroyer Mugford, Vice Admiral Fletcher had been keenly alert<br />
to the possibility of Japanese carriers being in the vicinity. <strong>The</strong>se dive<br />
bombers were from the 25th Air Flotilla land based on Rabaul, but Vice<br />
Admiral Fletcher was not sure of this and they were a type of aircraft which<br />
could have been flown off carriers.<br />
Soon after this dive bomber attack, he suggested to Rear Admiral Noyes,<br />
Commander Air Support Group, that the Saturday morning air search be<br />
toward Rabaul.<br />
Rear Admiral Noyes replied:<br />
ART [code name for ,%terpri~e] has already been told to search. My information<br />
dive bombers probably land based from Rabaul via Buka or Kieta. 7S<br />
Despite this reply containing a very sound deduction as to the source of<br />
the dive bombers, CTF 61 remained unconvinced that there were no carriers<br />
moving in on him. He told CTG 61.1 that “Bombers last seen leaving<br />
“ CINCSOWESPACAREA, COMSOWESPACFOR 081012, Jul. 1942.<br />
n Fletcher.<br />
n CTF 61 (Fletcher) to CTF 61.I (Noyes), 070357 Aug. 1437 (local time). CTF 18<br />
(Noyes) to CTF 61,070527 Aug. 1942.
386 Azvpbibiuns Cunze To Conquer<br />
Tulagi on westerly course,” instead of the northwesterly course that they<br />
would have taken if returning directly to Rabaul.70<br />
This northwesterly direction tied in with a practical position of the carrier<br />
which had been reported (erroneously ) by General MacArthur’s reconnaissance<br />
planes on the day before the landing. <strong>The</strong>se Southwest Pacific planes,<br />
on 6 August, in error had reported an enemy carrier (15,000 tons) and three<br />
destroyers 32 miles south southwest of Kavieng in latitude 03°22’ South,<br />
longitude 150”30’ East, roughly. One hundred twenty miles west of Rabaul<br />
and (56o miles northwest of Guadalcanal, and to compound the error the<br />
carrier sighting had been “confirmed by photographs,” with full data.eo<br />
Adtually only Japanese destroyers were sighted.<br />
Commander Air Support Group in his Operation Order for Saturday, 8<br />
August, issued a few minutes later to the three carriers, directed:<br />
Operations tomorrow Saturday forenoon, IVap search toward Rabaul primarily<br />
for reported Cast Victor [carrier]. . . . Afternoon same, but EYzterprire<br />
replaces lYu@.8’<br />
<strong>The</strong> possibility of Japanese carriers being in the Solornons area continued<br />
to affect the disposition of aircraft all during Saturday, the 8th of August.<br />
Commander Air Support Group continued to refuse requests to divert the<br />
Suratoga’$ fighters to provide additional combat air patrol over the amphibi-<br />
ous forces even when it was known as early as 0957 that “40 large twin<br />
engined planes” were enroute south to attack and that the first United<br />
States ships they would meet would be the transports.<br />
When this large scale torpedo plane attack on the 8th of August was<br />
detected heading southeast, the Fighter Director for the carriers recommended<br />
to Fletcher, the Task Force Commander, the following disposition<br />
of aircraft.<br />
All Safatogu available fighters Tulagi at 1100 plus one half lVa@ fighters.<br />
Over carriers all En~erptire plus one half lVaJ~,<br />
However, the Fighter Director ran into a stone wall, either at the Air<br />
Support Group Commander (Noyes) level or at the Task Force (Fletcher)<br />
level.<br />
<strong>The</strong> following dispatches give the questions and the answers.<br />
Fighter Director requests Saratoga launch 8 VF Combat air Patrol for carriers<br />
at 0830. And at 103o.<br />
*****<br />
m (a) Fletcher; (b) CTF 61 to CTG 61.1, 070500 Aug. 1942.<br />
MONI Summary Information, 8 Aug. 1942, (CINCSOWESPACAREA, COM50 WESPACFOR<br />
C-127, 7 Aug. 1942).<br />
8’CTF 18 to Saratoga, Enterpri$ej }Vasp, 070510 Aug. 1942,
Savo—Tbe Gaiiing Defeat 387<br />
Your . . . not approved. Saratoga must be ready to launch for or in case of<br />
attack. Please carry out my<br />
*****<br />
Saratog~ does not appear to be complying with my orders for today’s operations<br />
which require her until noon to maintain fighters and attack group<br />
ready for launching at all times in case of bombing attack or locating of<br />
enemy CV. Please refer conflicting requests to me.<br />
*****<br />
Red Base again requests eight VF for combat patrol from me. Advise.<br />
*****<br />
Your . . . negative. Invite your attention to present situation if enemy CV<br />
should be located and I ordered your attack group launched. Your fighters<br />
should also be ready for launching for actual bombing attack until noon.az<br />
After the large scale Japanese morning torpedo plane attack against the<br />
amphibious forces on 8 August had been completed, having been met with<br />
devastating surface ship anti-aircraft fire--but a minimum of fighter opposi-<br />
tion—and the results reported to the Expeditionary Force Commander<br />
(Fletcher), he had difficulty being convinced that the Japanese had carried<br />
out such a large scale torpedo plane attack.<br />
He signalled:<br />
Request any information about attack this morning. Were planes actually<br />
carrying torpedoes ?<br />
When assured of the actuality and multiplicity of the torpedoes, including<br />
one that had missed the McCawley’s stern by “about 40 feet,” the Expedition-<br />
ary Force Commander made his decision to recommend withdrawal of the<br />
carriers because of the possibility of new torpedo plane attacks.<br />
If the Expeditionary Force Commander (Fletcher) had not been worried<br />
greatly about there being a Japanese carrier over the horizon, it seems quite<br />
logical that he would have stepped in earlier and suggested to his senior<br />
subordinate ( Noyes ), the Air Support Commander, that 40 Japanese large<br />
twin engine planes were a sufficiently worthy target to justify diversion of<br />
defensive fighters to offensive use.<br />
This Japanese torpedo plane attack was the one which torpedoed the<br />
]arvi~ and directly led to her being sunk the next day, 9 August, by the<br />
Japanese 25th Air Flotilla, with the loss of all hands.<br />
(2) <strong>The</strong> Fuel Problem–Strawman or Real.<br />
Admiral Turner recalled<br />
Enroute from Koro to the Solomons my big worry was OIL, OIL, 01L.E3<br />
= (a) CTF 61,1 to CTF 16,070120, Aug. 1942; (b) CTF 61.I to Samtogu, 0?2225, Aug.<br />
1942; (C) CTF 61.1 to C’Ill 61.1.1, 072315 Aug. 1942.<br />
a Turner.
388 Am@ibians Came To Conquer<br />
At 1200, local time, 8 August, Rear Admiral Kinkaid, Commander Task<br />
Unit 61.1.2 in the Enterprise made an entry in his War Diary reading as<br />
follows :<br />
Fuel situation this Force becoming critical. It is estimated the destroyers have<br />
fuel for about three days at 15 knots, and the heavy ships have little more.<br />
Every naval commander at sea in Word War II suffered from that strange<br />
logistical disease of AFFAG, and the malady affected some officers much<br />
more than others. For AFFAG related to the amount of Ammunition, Fuel<br />
Oil, Food and Aviation Gas, in each of the ships of his command at any<br />
given hour of the day.<br />
On 29 July, Commander Task Force 61 (Fletcher) had reported that his<br />
force would be short over two million gallons of fuel oil after the scheduled<br />
Task Force fueling on that day.”<br />
On 3 August CTF 61 notified COMSOPAC:<br />
If no tankers Efate for Task Force 62, top off situation maybe serious.ss<br />
And COMSOPAC knew the Tanker Emo Little Rock had missed her<br />
rendezvous with Task Force 61 at Ef ate.<br />
Every effort was being made to keep the ships of Task Force 61 full. To<br />
illustrate, the Enterprise fueled on 24 July in Tongatabu Harbor taking about<br />
12,000 barrels of fuel oil (504,000 gallons) and 61,900 gallons of aviation<br />
gasoline, again at sea on 29th July taking 4,OOO barrels of fuel oil (168,000<br />
gallons) and 34,000 gallons of aviation gas, and again on 10 August from<br />
the Ka~4a~kiu (AO-27) taking 20,000 barrels of fuel oil (840,000 gallons)<br />
and 120,000 gallons of aviation gas.’e<br />
On as important and busy a day as 7 August, D-Day, the destroyer Gwin<br />
(DD-433) in Rear Admiral Kinkaid’s task unit was fueled by the battleship<br />
IVortk Carolina (BB-55 ). <strong>The</strong> fueling was conducted during darkness,<br />
which required a new skill for the 1942 United States Navy.e’<br />
<strong>The</strong> actual fuel situation on 8-9 August 1942 for all 16 destroyers in the<br />
Air Support Group and some of the heavier ships, was as follows:<br />
WCTF 61 to COMSOPACFOR, 280201 Jul. 1942.<br />
= CTF ‘1 to COMSOPAC, 030150 Aug. 1942.<br />
MShips’ Logs.<br />
= (a) Kinkaid; (b) Ships’ Logs.
Savo—Tbe Galkg Defeat 389<br />
NOON FUEL REPORT AS INDICATED FOR<br />
TU61.1.1 Received Expended On Hand<br />
DaIe SAT 8– 8–42<br />
SUN 8-9-42<br />
Farr~gut SAT 8– 8–42<br />
SUN 8-9-42<br />
MacDonougb SAT 8– 8–42<br />
MON 8–10–42<br />
PbeIpJ SAT 8– 8–42<br />
SUN 8– 9-42<br />
Worden SAT 8– 8–42<br />
SUN 8-9-42<br />
TU 61.1.2<br />
Enterprise<br />
North Caroiina<br />
Portland<br />
Atlanta<br />
Balcb<br />
Mawy<br />
Gwin<br />
Benham<br />
Grayson<br />
FRI 8– 7-42<br />
SUN 8- 9–42<br />
SAT 8-8-42<br />
MON 8–10-42<br />
SAT 8– 8-42<br />
SUN 8– 9-42<br />
SAT 8– 8-42<br />
SUN 8– 9-42<br />
FRI 8– 7–42<br />
SUN 8– 9--42<br />
SAT 8– 8-42<br />
MON 8–1042<br />
SAT 8– 8-42<br />
SUN 8– 9-42<br />
SAT 8– 8-42<br />
SUN 8– 9-42<br />
SAT 8– 8-42<br />
SUN 8-9-42<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
117760<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
3693<br />
4619<br />
19835<br />
16638<br />
16315<br />
11832<br />
19193<br />
14263<br />
18011<br />
13975<br />
61656<br />
77826<br />
68966<br />
56745<br />
60948<br />
41131<br />
26297<br />
28290<br />
24980<br />
19824<br />
21951<br />
16418<br />
23530<br />
16475<br />
18925<br />
20496<br />
18925<br />
15695<br />
164456<br />
159037<br />
84696<br />
68058<br />
70213=<br />
44568<br />
96382<br />
82119<br />
72850<br />
58875<br />
760116<br />
616602<br />
877570<br />
739774<br />
395328<br />
354294<br />
199556<br />
171266<br />
98227<br />
54271<br />
69814<br />
155806<br />
8766o<br />
71185<br />
67872<br />
46872<br />
39520#<br />
23825<br />
# Low Ship in Group on 8 August, the day the withdrawal recommendation was made.
390 Arnphibiarzs Came To Conqner<br />
NOON FUEL REPORT A.$ INDICATED FOR<br />
TU 61.1.3 Received Expended On Hand<br />
Aaron Ward FRI 8– 7–42 o 12200 128252<br />
SUN 8- 9–42 35481 8309 141801<br />
Farenbolt SAT 8– 8–42 o 16104 68050<br />
SUN 8– 9–42 o 18280 49770<br />
L4afey SAT 8– 8–42 o 13750 93564<br />
SUN 8-9-42 0 12370 81194<br />
Lang SAT 8– 8&42 o 18371 71553<br />
SUN 8-9-42 0 15292 56261<br />
stuck FRI 8– 7–42 o 15088 78676<br />
SAT 8– 8–42 o 14703 63973<br />
Slerrett SAT 8– 842 0 19509 59497#<br />
MON 8–10–42 o 12649 3269188<br />
= Data taken from ships’ logs, When data for 8 or 9 August does not appear in log, data<br />
from 7 or 10 August is listed, Not all the arithmetic checks, but that is the way the logs record<br />
the data.<br />
# Low Ship in Group on 8 August, the day the withdrawal recommendation was made.<br />
With these data in hand, it is appropriate to consider:<br />
THE FIRST DEFENSIVE DECISION—FLETCHER’S<br />
DECISION TO WITHDRAW<br />
At ZS30 local time on 8 August, Commander Task Force Id (Kinkaid)<br />
entered in his War Diary:<br />
Due to enemy air attacks and reduction of fighters in our forces due to losses,<br />
together with critical fuel situation, has caused CTF 61 [Fletcher] to recommend<br />
to COMSOPAC [Ghormley] that carriers be withdrawn.<br />
<strong>The</strong> English in this entry was as questionable as the decision it noted. <strong>The</strong><br />
reduction in number of fighters had been caused by operational losses, as<br />
well as by enemy action.<br />
Indicative of the communication time delays directly affecting operations<br />
is the delay surrounding the CTF 61 despatch requesting retirement. It went<br />
off a few minutes after 6:00 p.m. (081807). It was five and a half hours<br />
before a reply was originated by COMSOPAC and more than nine hours<br />
elapsed before COMSOPAC’S 081144 reply was received in Turner’s flagship,<br />
the McCawiey, and it surely took another half hour to decode, write up, and<br />
deliver to Turner’s Flag Bridge (090330).
Savo—Tbe Gai~ing Defeat 391<br />
In the meantime between 7 p.m. and 4 a.m., many decisions had to be on<br />
a tentative basis, depending upon what turned out to be the final COMSO-<br />
PAC decision.<br />
<strong>The</strong> fundamentals of the withdrawal as Admiral Fletcher recalled them in<br />
1963 were:<br />
a. United States over-all carrier strength was at low ebb-four.<br />
b. No carrier replacements were in sight for another nine monlhsg<br />
c. <strong>The</strong> Japanese Navy could put more carriers in the area than TF 61 had<br />
in the area (4 vs 3).<br />
d. Japanese land based air (high level bombers, dive bombers and torpedo<br />
planes) was present and offensively active.<br />
e. CTF 61’s instructions from CINCPAC were positive and limiting in<br />
regard to risking the carriers in the command.<br />
f. COMSOPAC had informed CTF 61 on 16 July that from ‘captured<br />
documents,’ the early arrival of a submarine division in the New Britain Area<br />
was predicted. ‘Captured documents’ was the euphemism used to obviate the<br />
non-permitted words ‘decoded radio dispatches.’ <strong>The</strong> COMSOPAC submarine<br />
information of 16 July in regard to submarines in the general area had been<br />
followed up by a warning from CINCPAC of submarines moving south<br />
closer to the carrier operating area on 7 August:<br />
Enemy subs are on move to attack Tulagi occupation forces at Tulagi.gO<br />
This in turn had been followed by another despatch from CINCPAC on<br />
the eighth.<br />
One division SUBRON Seven and units SUBRON Three en route Florida<br />
Areas’<br />
On top of these fundamentals was one factor that Admiral Fletcher could<br />
not remember having seen discussed in public print since his 8 August 1942<br />
decision, but which was much in his mind at that time. This factor was that<br />
the Japanese Zero plane and its pilot were given a very high rating in August<br />
1942.<br />
Nobody mentions the matter, for fear of bringing down the wrath of the<br />
aviators upon him, [but at that time] the Japanese Zero’s all wore Seven<br />
League Boots [and] our aviators gave them a lot of g.d. respect.g2<br />
W<strong>The</strong> lh~ex, the next carrier to come into semice was not commissioned until 31 December<br />
1942 and joined the Fleet in May 1943.<br />
W(a) Fletcher; (b) CINCPAC despatch, 062330 Aug. 1942, COMSOPAC despatch, 071142<br />
Aug. 1942, Hepburn Report dispatches; (c) COMSOPAC, Op Plan 1-42, Annex A, para. 1.<br />
“ CINCPAC, despatch, 080141 Aug. 1942.<br />
= Fletcher.
392 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
Support for the existence of this factor at this 1942 date is found in the<br />
following passage by a historian of <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> Aviation:<br />
. . . It is necessary to remember th~t the Japmese Zero at this stage of the<br />
war was regarded with some of the awe in which the atomic bomb came to be<br />
held later. U. S. fighter pilots were apt to go into combat with a distinct<br />
inferiority complex. Tales from the Pacific had filtered back to the U. S. . . .<br />
which attributed to the Zero (and the Japanese pilots) a sort of malevolent<br />
perfection. . . . <strong>The</strong> Japanese fighter plane had not been mastered at Coral<br />
Se~ nor Midway . . . and the Zero certainly lost none of its prowess there.s3<br />
Lieutenant Commander John S. Thach, <strong>US</strong>N, Commanding Fighting<br />
Squadron Three in the Satatoga on 6-7 August 1942 and a veteran of Mid-<br />
way, as well as the Marshall Islands and Salamaua-Lae attacks, said in ‘
Savo—Tbe Galling Defeat 393<br />
them as the reason for the withdrawal. He just said, “Carriers short of fuel<br />
proceeding to fueling rendezvous.” “<br />
This is the despatch which Admiral Fletcher believes has brought unwarranted<br />
censure on him because it assigned a reason for the withdrawal he<br />
had not used. <strong>The</strong> basic decision he considers was justified.97<br />
It should be noted in this connection that on 9 September 1942,<br />
Vice Admiral Fletcher replied to COMSOPAC’S request to supply supporting<br />
evidence for the latter’s use in answering CINCPAC’S questions about the<br />
Air Support Force withdrawal, avowedly due to a low fuel situation. Extracts<br />
from the reply follow:<br />
On 7 August, CTF 16 [Kinkaid] sent a despatch saying his destroyers, except<br />
Gwin, had fuel remaining for two days at a speed of 15 knots.<br />
*****<br />
At noon 8 August CTF 18 [Noyes] reported his destroyers had fuel remaining<br />
for only 31 hours at 2> knots.<br />
*****<br />
At noon 8 August destroyers of Task Force 11 [Fletcher} had fuel remain-<br />
ing for only 35 hours at 25 knots.<br />
*****<br />
It was not practicable to fuel destroyers from cruisers as the latter only had<br />
fuel available for 50 hours at 25 knots.<br />
lt is apparent that the virus of AFFAG was virulent in the Air Support<br />
Force on 7 and 8 August and that the CTF 16 (Kinkaid) despatch, if quoted<br />
correctly by CTF 61, was downright misleading, since TF 16 did not actually<br />
fuel until 1700 on 10 August and the destroyers of TF 16 did steam at<br />
speeds of 15 knots or higher in the meanwhile.<br />
In connection with CINCPAC’S question as to why the Air Support Force<br />
did not proceed post haste to a position where it could launch a dawn air<br />
attack on the retiring Japanese cruiser force, the Commander Expeditionary<br />
Force (Fletcher) stated that he was too far south by that time and that<br />
the first indication of any night ~ttack on Tulagi-Guaddcanal Area was received<br />
by this force at 0400 local time.~~’<br />
<strong>The</strong> first record of the Savo battle in the Air Support Force War Diaries<br />
and Action Reports is at 0300 on g August by CTF 16 (Kinkaid ) in the<br />
Etiterprise, but all indications are that it was not until an hour later that<br />
‘“’COMSOPAC to CINCPAC, 090830.09083 i Aug. 1912, Hepburn Report dispatches.<br />
‘“Fletcher.<br />
08CTF 61 to COMSOPAC, letter AI 6-3 (o039N), subj: Preliminary Report Solomon Islands<br />
Operation.
394 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
the Expeditionary Force Commander’s Staff in Sa~utoga got the word and<br />
Admiral Fletcher insists it was between 0500 and 0600 when he was<br />
awakened and given the word. He was awakened shortly after os 30 on the<br />
9th and told that COMSOPAC had approved the withdrawal of the Air<br />
Support Force. He then approved the change to the previously decided upon<br />
withdrawal course which was to be made at 0400. It was quite obvious that<br />
had the word on Savo been available to the TF 61 Duty Officer in the<br />
Saratoga at that time, it would have been given at that time to the Admiral.<br />
He later said:<br />
Had I known of the attack then, since we were on a northerly course, I<br />
might well have continued on it. But it wasn’t until much later that I was<br />
awakened and given the first indication of Savo.gg<br />
Admiral Kinkaid when asked about the decision of CTF 61 to withdraw<br />
the carriers on 8 August said that it was “a valid decision at the time, but<br />
wouldn’t have been valid later in the war.’””<br />
Scanning the figures in the fuel table given in detail before, from the<br />
safe distance of 25 years, might lead one to observe that on the 8th of<br />
August 1942 when Rear Admiral Kinkaid was making the entry in his<br />
War Diary, only the Gray~on (DD-435 ) (Lieutenant Commander Frederick<br />
J. Bell) justified the critical stage of worry about fuel which undoubtedly<br />
existed in TG 61.1.<br />
Even though not critical, the fuel situation in the Expeditionary Force<br />
was a problem as indicated in the report of the transport P~esident ]uchon<br />
which was landing troops at Tulagi the morning of 7 August.<br />
At oi’>9 rigged ship for fueling destroyers of TRANSDIV 12 (APDs).<br />
At this time fire support groups and planes were shelling and bombing<br />
Tulagi, and<br />
between 1004 and 1239, APDs McKe~n and Little were fueled. At 1304<br />
APD Cohnm prepared to fuel alongside but numerous enemy plane radar<br />
contacts received during the afternoon prevented, so that it was not until the<br />
third attempt that fueling was completed at 175o.1o1<br />
In 1963, Admiral Kinkaid could not remember whether he was asked for<br />
a recommendation by CTF 61, before that officer (Fletcher) went to COM-<br />
SOPAC with his recommendation to withdraw the carriers from the support<br />
area, but he did not believe that he was consulted. He knows that he raised no<br />
m (a) Fletcher; (b) Rear Admiral Harry Smith, a lieutenant commander in 1942 and the Flag<br />
Lieutenant to Vice Admiral Fletcher, related the same story in an interview on 17 May 1963.<br />
‘mKinkaid.<br />
‘“ President Jackson Action Report, 19 Aug. 1942.
Sal ’o—<strong>The</strong> Ga[ling Defeat 395<br />
question at the time in regard to the decision, which in view of the necessity<br />
of conserving our carrier strength he viewed then and continues to view<br />
as sound.loz<br />
However, had information become available to the Commander Task<br />
Force 61 (Fletcher) during the night of the Japanese success at Savo Island,<br />
Admiral Kinkaid thinks that the task Force should have been turned north<br />
and every effort made to make air attacks on the retreating Japanese ships<br />
the next morning.’”3<br />
Admiral Fletcher was told by this scribe:<br />
Forrest Sherman, Commanding Ofi3cer of the W’ap, tried to persuade Admiral<br />
Noyes to recommend to you to turn north after the first word was<br />
received of the Japmese surface ships being in the Guadalcanal Area.<br />
<strong>The</strong> author then asked:<br />
Did anyone try to persuade you to do this? Did this thought occur to you ?<br />
Admiral Fletcher’s answer was:<br />
I didn’t know anything about %vo Iskmd happening until about five to six<br />
the next morning, and I couldn’t get through to Kelly Turner by radio and<br />
get details in regard to the Japs. One or two of my staff recommended that we<br />
go back. I said if I was a Jap, I would have planned on all our carriers coming<br />
back and would hit them with all my land based air.<br />
If I had it all to do over ~glin th;lt morning and know about our losses, I<br />
would leave one carrier group behind to fuel, and would move two carrier<br />
groups up to attack and to continue to provide air support to Kelly Turner.<br />
This did not occur to me at the time as being sound,’”’<br />
Rear Admiral Harry Smith, <strong>US</strong>N, Fletcher’s Flag Lieutenant and Signal<br />
Officer in August 1942, stated in May 1963:<br />
For some reason the Saratogu did not or could not copy CTF 62’s blind desp~tches<br />
sent that night, and it wmn’t until other ships sent us the news by<br />
blinker or infrared that we started to get the word ~bout the Battle of Save.<br />
SUMMARY<br />
Considering all these fundamentals, and particularly Admiral Nimitz’s<br />
instructions, Admiral Fletcher, in 1963, still thought:<br />
A defensive decision was in order on 8 August although perhaps not exactly<br />
the one I made at the time.los<br />
‘mKinkaid.<br />
“oIbid.<br />
‘0’Fletcher.<br />
‘WFletcher.
396 Amphibians Came To Conqner<br />
THE SECOND DEFENSIVE DECISION—VANDEGR:<br />
PERIMETER DEFENSE<br />
~’s—<br />
Admiral Turner recalled that the defensive type naval decision made by<br />
Vice Admiral Fletcher to withdraw the carrier Air Support Forces (CTG<br />
61. 1) from an area where they might soon be subject to concentrated and<br />
coordinated submarine and land based air attacks was followed the next<br />
morning, Sunday, 9 August, by a defensive <strong>Marine</strong> decision made by Majo~<br />
General Vandegrift, which was equally decisive on the flow of the war in<br />
the Lower Solomons during the next four months.’”<br />
Major General Vandegrift at his 0900 conference of regimental commanders<br />
on the 9th directed that the planned ground offensive operations<br />
cease, that “further ground operations be restricted to vigorous patrolling,”<br />
and that “defenses be immediately organized to repel attack from the sea.” 107<br />
On Guadalcanal Island there were nearly 11,000 <strong>Marine</strong>s stranded but<br />
intact. <strong>The</strong> first day on Guadalcanal, as the Army history relates it:<br />
the Guadalcanal forces had landed unopposed and captured the airfield without<br />
casualties.10s<br />
Or as the <strong>Marine</strong> history puts it:<br />
. . . the lack of opposition (on the Guadalcanal side only) gave it somewhat<br />
the characteristicsof a training maneuver. . .109<br />
Contact with the enemy on Guadalcanal the first and second day was<br />
nominal. As the Army history states it:<br />
<strong>The</strong> enemy garrison, composed of 430 sailors and 1,7’00 laborers, had fled<br />
westward without attempt ing to defend or destroy their installations. . ..110<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> history states:<br />
<strong>The</strong>re were hardly enough Japmese fighting men ashore on the island to<br />
bother the Vandegrift force. . . .’l’<br />
But,<br />
if the Japanese struck hard while the landing force was abandoned and without<br />
air support, the precarious first step to Rabaul might well have to be<br />
taken all over again. llZ<br />
‘ffiTurner.<br />
‘mGriffith, <strong>The</strong> Baitle for Guadalcanul, p. 68.<br />
‘M Miller, Gtiadakat~al: <strong>The</strong> FirJ~ Offensive (Army), p. 75.<br />
‘wHough, Ludwig, and Shaw, Pearl Harbor lo Guudaliatzal (<strong>Marine</strong>), p. 257.<br />
1’0Miller, p. 73.<br />
‘u Hough, Ludwig, and Shaw, p, 2S7.<br />
“Ibid., P. 27i.
so,<br />
Suvo-Tbe Gailit~g Defeat 397<br />
estimating a counter landing to be the most probable course of Japanese<br />
action, General Vandegrift placed his MRL [Main Line of Resistance] at<br />
the beach. . . . <strong>The</strong> bulk of the combat forces remained in assembly area<br />
inland as a ready reserve to check attacks or penetrations from my sector. 113<br />
Admiral Turner summarized his current thoughts on this second major<br />
defensive decision of the WATCHTOWER Operation in this way:<br />
It’s at least an ‘itly matter’, as FDR used to characterize tough posers,<br />
whether a hard driving <strong>Marine</strong> offensive against the Guadalcanal Japanese<br />
starting on the %h wouldn’t have destroyed or completely dispersed the<br />
nucleus of Japanese forces on Guadalcanal Island. This WOUId have permitted<br />
an adequate shore welcoming reception party for the first Japanese re-enforcements<br />
{>th Sasebo Special Naval Landing Force] whose advance elements of<br />
about 200 men aboard o single Jap destroyer [the Otie] arrived a week later—<br />
16 August-and made an unsupported daylight kmding of troops and<br />
supplies.<br />
After xll, the 6000 <strong>Marine</strong>s on Tulagi captured that island and a couple<br />
of others from some 750 well dug in md well organized Jap~nese with the<br />
moderate loss of about 1JO killed and 200 wounded.<br />
It’s certainly a question whether if the <strong>Marine</strong>s had been on the offensive,<br />
instead of dug in on the defensive, the Japanese were in enough strength to<br />
fight their way ashore even when on August 18th some !JOO Army troops of<br />
the famous Ichiki Midway Landing Force of the 17th Army arrived.<br />
A proper <strong>Marine</strong> reception committee it appropriate beaches firound Lungs<br />
Point would have made the Japanese think more than once about ‘reinforcing<br />
Gu~dalcanal’ particuldy if there had been no one to reinforce.11’<br />
In a memorandum to COMPHIBFORSOPAC on 2 August 1942, the<br />
Commanding General First <strong>Marine</strong> Division had written:<br />
Operations against outlying Japanese detachments on GUADALCANAL<br />
and the smaller islands will be commenced without delay. . . <strong>The</strong> 1st<br />
RAIDERS BATTALION will be employed for this purpose. That Battalion<br />
has been ordered to reembfirk following seizure of TULAGI. . . This<br />
reembarkztion was ordered for z dual purpose; namely, to have the Raiders<br />
available for oper.~tions against outlying detachments but primarily to have<br />
them available as t highly mobile rapidly striking reserve which could be<br />
Lmded on GUADALCANAL at some point in rem of hostile forces and thus<br />
greatly speed the conclusion of the att~ck on Japanese forces on that island.llr<br />
‘“ Ibid,, p. 275.<br />
‘“ Turner.<br />
‘“ COMGENFIRSTMARDIV to COMPHIBFORSOPAC, Memorandum. ACF?J( f ) 076/222<br />
AE–0020 of 2 Aug. 1942.
398 Amphibians Came To Conq~er<br />
Admiral Turner opined:<br />
<strong>The</strong> Navy made a defensive decision; the <strong>Marine</strong>s made a defensive decision.<br />
Each one helped to bring on months of hard and costly defensive and<br />
then offensive fighting. In the long run, both tights were won.lle<br />
SAVO—RETROSPECT<br />
Considering the number of rear admirals whose performance in action<br />
during World War II failed to reach the high standards set by Admiral<br />
King and Admiral Nimitz and who were peremptorily removed from com-<br />
mand or gently eased into non-battle assignments, it is quite apparent that<br />
had Rear Admiral Turner actually made a major mistake on that fateful<br />
evening of 8 July 1942, that Admiral King or Admiral Nimitz would not<br />
have kept him at sea in one of the more important combat assignments<br />
throughout the war.<br />
When the captains of opposing football teams meet in the center of the<br />
field before the game starts, the referee tosses a coin, the designated captain<br />
calls “heads” and the coin turns up “tails.”’ This captain has made a bad<br />
guess but not a culpable mistake in judgment. <strong>The</strong> coach doesn’t bench him<br />
because of his bad guess.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Battle of Savo Island was primarily a United States Navy defeat.<br />
All of the dozen “causes” listed earlier contributed to this defeat. Beyond<br />
the U.S. Navy, the Australian Navy and Air Force and the United States<br />
Army Air Force also contributed to setting the stage of the defeat.<br />
As Commander of Task Force 61, under the Navy code, Rear Admiral<br />
Turner bore a command responsibility for whatever success was attained<br />
or failure suffered. He did not shrink from his command responsibility. He<br />
vigorously set about correcting those matters of operations, training, materiel<br />
and personnel which were within his purview, and recommending action<br />
in other areas.<br />
Savo Island was a defeat. Guadalcanal was a victory. <strong>The</strong> important thing<br />
was to learn and apply every possible lesson from both. 1I7<br />
‘e Turner.<br />
“7Turner.
Sa[’o—<strong>The</strong> Guliitlg Defeat 399<br />
THE MISSING FINAL REPORT<br />
In writing about Savo Island, Morison says:<br />
Every ship in this battle except /~rzis submitted m Action Report. Admiral<br />
Turner made none, . .“s<br />
To begin with, it should be noted that upper echelon commanders generally<br />
made operation reports on whole operations such as WATCHTOWER,<br />
and group, unit, and ship commanders made action reports on battles<br />
occurring during the operation. So it could as logically be said that Admiral<br />
Turner made no action report on the campaign in the Gilberts, the MarshalIs,<br />
or the Marianas, omitting to state that he made operational reports.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner, as Commander Task Force 62, or as Commander<br />
Amphibious Forces South Pacific originated three written official reports<br />
concerning the WATCHTOWER Operation which included the Battle of<br />
Savo Island. <strong>The</strong> first report, three pages in length plus a track chart, repro-<br />
duced on page 356 was dated 12 August 1942 and titled “Night Action of<br />
Savo Island, August 8-9, 1942.” It described and summarized the action as<br />
known at that early date by CTF 62. It included a “sketch chart, Battle of<br />
Savo Island” and requested any additional information that the Second-in-<br />
Command could furnish. It was addressed to the Second-in-Command, TF<br />
62. A copy was given by hand by COMPHIBFORSOPAC (Turner) to<br />
COMSOPAC (Ghormley) together with 67 pages of reports from subordinate<br />
unit commanders. COMSOPAC sent all of this on to COMINCH<br />
via CINCPAC on 16 August 1942, as part of COMSOPAC’S “Preliminary<br />
Report—WATCHTOWER OPERATION.” <strong>The</strong> initial document penned<br />
by Rear Admiral Turner, together with the track chart and other reports,<br />
was described officially by COMPHIBFORSOPAC as a “fairly comprehensive<br />
preliminary report,” and is just that.<br />
<strong>The</strong> second Amphibious Force, South Pacific report was dated 29 August<br />
1942, and forwarded reports from eleven ships regarding the first three<br />
days of the amphibious landings as well as the night battle off Savo Island,<br />
and stated that
400 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
9, 1942” and was nothing more than a blanket forwarding of reports slowly<br />
extracted from 36 subordinate units and commanders regarding the first<br />
three days of the WATCHTOWER Operation plus a statement that “pres-<br />
sure of operations has, so far, prevented completion of the final report” and<br />
“in view of the forthcoming operations, it seems likely that a final report will<br />
be further delayed.” One could read between the lines that COMPHIB-<br />
FORSOPAC would never get time to make a WATCHTOWER final report.<br />
This was an excellent prognostication. A final comprehensive report on<br />
WATCHTOWER or the Savo Island Battle was never originated by COM-<br />
PHIBFORSOPAC (CTF 62) .’”<br />
In addition to these reports originated by Rear Admiral Turner, on 15<br />
October 1942, COMSOPAC addressed to CINCPAC a supplementary report<br />
to his preliminary report on “Operations in Solomons, 7–9 August 1942.”<br />
This comprehensive report was forwarded to CTF 62 for comment before<br />
forwarding to CINCPAC and COMINCH, and thus gave Rear Admiral<br />
Turner a chance to provide any additional facts, and to express any differ-<br />
ences of opinion that he might have had with COMSOPAC in regard to<br />
the known events or COMSOPACS interpretation of them during the<br />
operations covered.<br />
So it is hardly the correct story to say that “Admiral Turner made none,”<br />
when writing about official reports on the Savo Island battle.<br />
RETROSPECT<br />
Admiral Turner was quite prepared to admit that he had not turned in a<br />
flawless performance in WATCHTOWER or “any other big operation.”<br />
I could always find things I didn’t do or could have done better in any<br />
big operation.<br />
Late on August 8th, and long after Vandegrift and Crutchley had left d-se<br />
McCuruky, I was still waiting for Ghormley’s reply to Fletcher. I was hoping<br />
m (a) CTF 62 to CTG 62.6, letter, FE2S/A16/Ser 0034 of 12 Aug. 1942 included in<br />
COMSOPAC Ser 0053 of 16 Aug. 1942; (b) COMPHIBFORSOPAC to COMINCH, letter,<br />
FE25/Al 6-3(3) Ser 0092 of 29 Aug. 1942 with 11 enclosures; (c) COMSOPAC to COMINCH,<br />
letter, AI&3 (1 )/, Ser 00171 of 15 Oct. 1942 with endorsements, including COMPHIBFORSO-<br />
PAC, A16-3/, Ser 00317 of 24 Oct. 1942; (d) COMPHIBFORSOPAC to COMSOPAC and<br />
CINCPAC, letter, A16-3 (3 ) /, Ser 00126 of 22 Feb. 1943 with 36 enclosures; (e) COMPHIB-<br />
FOR, SOPAC, letter, A16-3 ( 3) /, Ser 231 of 6 Apr. 1943. Forwarding copy of lost report of CTG<br />
62.6 dated 13 Aug. 1942 re First BattIe of Savo Island; (f) COMSOPAC to CTF 62, letter,<br />
AI&3/, Ser 0058 of 30 Aug. 1942 rek+tkrg to ClNCPAC’s Ser 32576 of 23 Aug. 1942, re<br />
Preliminary Report, Solomon Islands Operations.
Save—<strong>The</strong> Galling Defeat 401<br />
against hope that Ghormley would say ‘No’ to Fletcher and tell him to stay<br />
around for another 24 hours. I had no idea that Fletcher had been heading<br />
southeast all late afternoon and evening and was well south of San Cristobal<br />
by 2300. That information would have been most valuable to me and to all<br />
the Screening Group. But Fletcher didn’t send it to me, Ghormley’s reply<br />
approving Fletcher’s withdrawal didn’t come in until about 0330, and by<br />
that time Iron Bottom Sound had its first contingent [of our ships] .’2”<br />
Admiral Turner believed that the major effect of Vice Admiral Fletcher’s<br />
announced intention of withdrawal on the actual Battle of Savo Island was<br />
that it resulted in Rear Admiral Crutchley not being with his Screening<br />
Group at the particular time the Japanese struck. It was his opinion that<br />
this was a serious loss of command ability, command cohesion, command<br />
knowledge of the situation, and command offensive response,<br />
As for the effect after the Battle of Savo Island, Rear Admiral Turner<br />
had said frequently during the war, and the man continued to say in 1$)60,<br />
that the withdrawal permitted Mikawa’s Cruiser Force “to live and enjoy<br />
their victory.” ‘“<br />
Admiral Turner thought that there were a number of major lessons which<br />
he had learned out of the WATCHTOWER Operation, but that not every-<br />
body would agree with him. His key thoughts in 1960 related to organization.<br />
<strong>The</strong> basic task force organization established by COMSOPAC placed Commander<br />
Expeditionary Force and the Commander Aircraft Force, South<br />
Pacific at the same level in the command echelon. At the next lower level<br />
were Commander Air Support Force and the Commander Amphibious Force.<br />
Over the years, Admiral Turner came to believe that the basic task organization<br />
established by COMSOPAC was faulty in at least one respect and<br />
that was:<br />
at the top level, where the major element of air reconnaissance in the SOPAC<br />
area was not under the operational control of the Commander Expeditionary<br />
Force.<br />
To this was added a grasping at might-have-been straws:<br />
Had TF 63 [the air reconnaissanceforce] been included in the Expeditionary<br />
Force, perhaps Frank Jack {Fletcher] would have felt more like an Expeditionary<br />
Force commander and assumed a greater responsibility for sticking<br />
with the whole Force through to a success.<br />
Finally, Admiral Turner commented:<br />
Unity of command increases the chances for victory. <strong>The</strong> shore-based aircraft<br />
under General MacArthur’s commmd was ir large percentage of the total<br />
‘a Turner.<br />
‘q Turner.
402 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
reconnaissance aircraft searching the operational area. In WATCHTOWEI$<br />
uniiy of operational command might have produced a greater feeling of responsibility<br />
on the part of the individual reconnaissance aircraft pilot to get his<br />
intelligence of enemy forces through to his top operational commanders<br />
promptly, as well as more direct communication channels. {Between air<br />
reconnaissance and the top operational commanders. } W’<br />
<strong>The</strong> lesson to be drawn from these remarks is that defeat in battle early<br />
in a war can quickly gain adherents to sound principles which will produce<br />
future victories.<br />
‘=~urner.
CHAPTER XI<br />
Logistics<br />
<strong>The</strong> Heart of the Six Months Battle<br />
August 1942–February 1943<br />
<strong>The</strong> two sectors of the Navy which were quite inadequately developed<br />
on 7 December 1941 were logistics and intelligence.<br />
<strong>The</strong> primary reason for the logistical deficiency was that the officers of<br />
the Line of the Navy had taken only a cursory interest in logistics in the<br />
years just before World War II. This occurred because in the day by day<br />
peacetime Fleet operations, there were few really large difkult logistical<br />
problems demanding command decisions.<br />
Consequently, logistical matters were handled mainly by oficers of the<br />
various excellent Staff corps, particularly the Supply <strong>Corps</strong>. So the command<br />
corps, the Line, lacked skill and experience in handling logistical matters<br />
on a large scale.<br />
<strong>The</strong> secondary reason for the logistical deficiency in the Navy was that<br />
no one had ever been able to free the seagoing Navy from the thinking<br />
that its operations should be on an austere basis in the field of logistics. It<br />
was quite unprepared mentally for wartime operations with their tre-<br />
mendous actual expenditures and waste, or to use the cover-up word for<br />
waste, “slippage.”<br />
Both the intelligence and logistical sectors received a great war influx<br />
of citizen sailors. <strong>The</strong>se citizen sailors soon found that their sectors were<br />
rated by the professional officers of the Line as markedly less important<br />
than the command and operational sectors of the naval effort.<br />
<strong>The</strong> penalty for the failure of the professional oficer to adequately<br />
evaluate intelligence and logistics in pre-World War II days was a massive<br />
take over of these important wartime functions by officers with little or<br />
no naval knowledge or experience in the vast waterlands of the world to<br />
provide balance to their technical judgments.<br />
403
404 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
It was Admiral Turner’s belief that:<br />
GUADALCANAL LOGISTICS<br />
a. <strong>The</strong> United States Navy’s concept of logistics broadened mightily<br />
during the early months of World War 11.<br />
b. In no part of naval combat operations did logistics require a larger<br />
part of a commander’s attention than in our early amphibious operations.1<br />
<strong>The</strong> pre-World War II experience in logistical austerity, combined with<br />
the multiple handlings arising from the nature of amphibious operations<br />
and the juxtaposition of waves, coral, sand and hot sun, provided the pertinent<br />
background for the Navy’s initial logistical inadequacies in the Lower<br />
Solomons.<br />
In the early amphibian operations, there were no LSTS or LCTS and very<br />
few DUKWS.2 <strong>The</strong> guts of logistical support for the first phase of WATCH-<br />
TOWER had to be winch-lifted out of the deep, deep holds of large trans-<br />
ports and cargo ships, and loaded like sardines into small landing craft<br />
dancing on the undulating seas, and then hand-lifted and piled at a snail’s<br />
pace onto the beaches by tired sailormen or by combat oriented <strong>Marine</strong>s<br />
who, with rifle in hand, might better have been pressuring the retreating<br />
and scattered Japanese.<br />
Admiral Turner said:<br />
Eighty percent of my time was given to logistics during the first four months<br />
of the WATCHTOWER operation [because] we were living from one<br />
logistic crisis to another.g<br />
Many of the transport Captains in the WATCHTOWER Operation<br />
became distressingly familiar with one phase of the complex logistics prob-<br />
lem when their ships in July had to unload all <strong>Marine</strong> supplies and equip-<br />
ment in New Zealand and then load them right back aboard so that they<br />
would be available in the order in which they would be needed when the<br />
<strong>Marine</strong>s hit the beach. This “combat loading” was never quite so efficient<br />
‘ Turner.<br />
9L.YI-Landing Ship Tank; LCT-Landing Craft Tank. In the 1943 operations these landing<br />
ships and craft ran dirertty up onto the beaeh and waterproofed wheeled vehicles or tanka unloaded<br />
through bow doors. When depth of water or beach gradient did not permit this type of<br />
unloading, they ran up onto hastily constructed ““hard” ramps or dropped their nose doors onto<br />
beaeh grounded pontoon barges. DUKWS. <strong>The</strong>se amphibious trucks could be loaded aboard<br />
ship, unloaded by winch or launched out of bow doors and move throwgh he water up onto the<br />
beach and inland surmounting the surf and riding over reefs or through swamps.<br />
aTurner.
Logistics: Angust 1942–February 1943 405<br />
in the utilization of all available cargo space as “commercial loading” but<br />
was essential. And the transport Captains learned a second phase of the<br />
complex problem at Guadalcanal and Tulagi. For no matter how hard the<br />
planners had planned and how skillfully the Transport Quartermaster had<br />
loaded, it was almost inevitable that actual operations would turn out to<br />
be different than planned operations, and real and pressing needs would<br />
arise for changes in the <strong>Marine</strong>s’ priorities for unloading the logistical<br />
support.<br />
LOGISTIC>THE BUGBEAR<br />
Admiral Kinkaid, when asked if he had talked with Rear Admiral Turner<br />
during the August to November 1942 period during which Kinkaid was<br />
CTF 16, replied:<br />
Only once. That was after the Battle of Santa Cruz. (26-27 October 1942]<br />
He was mainly concerned with logistical matters at Guadalcanal then.’<br />
Logistics got off to a bad start in the South Pacific and in WATCH-<br />
TOWER, the area’s first operational venture. This occurred because of<br />
several questionable logistical decisions made outside the South Pacific Area,<br />
relating to time and distance, as well as because of an inadequate apprecia-<br />
tion of logistical problems by those within the SOPAC Area. A particular<br />
problem was the need to move logistical support bases forward as opera-<br />
tions were undertaken to halt the enemy and, if possible, move him backward<br />
toward Japan,<br />
During the early months of 1942, the naval activities of South Pacific<br />
island bases, even though they fell within the CINCPAC command area,<br />
generally made direct application to the logistic agencies in the United<br />
States for their support. <strong>The</strong>y did this rather than apply to Pearl Harbor<br />
since Pearl Harbor did not have material resources to spare or even personnel<br />
to handle the heavy logistical communication load.<br />
In April 1942, the Army directed that its forces in the South Pacific Area<br />
should be supplied directly by the Port of Embarkation, San Francisco. At<br />
the same time the Commander Service Force Pacific Fleet indicated a<br />
willingness to handle logistic requests from all bases—Army or Navy-in<br />
the South Pacific Area. Since both Army and Navy bases and their com-<br />
4Kinkaid.
406 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
manders were on the same island, these cliffering instructions from the<br />
higher echelons were confusing.<br />
At the Navy Department end:<br />
<strong>The</strong> various Joint plans [for the establishment of defense and logistic support<br />
of island bases] did not, however, constitute a general supply procedure, nor<br />
did they stipulate in any detail the channels through which supply would be<br />
furnished.’<br />
In other words the assigned Army, Army Air <strong>Corps</strong>, Naval, <strong>Marine</strong>, and<br />
New Zealand korces for these island bases did not have Unified, or Joint,<br />
logistic support, Each Service at each island base had individual procedures<br />
for its logistic support.<br />
In general, the Army will furnish and transport its own logistic support, plus<br />
rations for Navy personnel, and the Navy its own, plus fuel, diesel and aviation<br />
gasoline.”<br />
At Pearl, before WATCHTOWER was much more than a gleam in<br />
Admiral King’s eye, CINCPAC recommended to COMINCH a definite<br />
division of responsibility between the Army and the Navy for logistic support<br />
of each individual base in SOPAC by categories of supply.’ In other words,<br />
he wanted a system wherein every island base received its bailing wire from<br />
the Navy and every island base received its coffee from the Army.<br />
From SOPAC, Vice Admiral Ghormley, came the recommendation in<br />
late July 1942 that Auckland, New Zealand, be used for unloading and<br />
resorting material for all Advanced Bases in the SOPAC Area.s Admiral<br />
King, in February 1942, had said that Tongatabu in the Tonga Islands<br />
would serve for this purpose.”<br />
It is presumed the SOPAC recommendation was made because COMSO-<br />
PAC as well as his senior logistical commander, COMSERVRONSOPAC,<br />
and a Joint Purchasing Board were all physically located in Auckland at the<br />
time. It apparently was approved by higher echelons because Auckland<br />
was the only SOPAC base considered safe from Japanese attacks at that<br />
date. But Auckland was 1,100 miles further from San Francisco than<br />
Tongatabu; it was 1,825 miles from Guadalcanal and 250 miles farther<br />
from Guadalcanal than the Tonga Islands.<br />
Commencing in mid-April 1942, the South Pacific Service Squadron under<br />
=Ballantine, U. S. Naval Logi~tics in #be Second World W~cW,<br />
P. 99.<br />
‘ COMSOPAC Op Plan I-42, Logistic Annex.<br />
‘ CINCPAC to COMINCH, 250225 Jun. 1942.<br />
s COMSOPAC to CINCPAC, 260551 Jul. 1942.<br />
0COMINCH to C/S <strong>US</strong>A, letter, FFI A16/CFl Ser 00105 of 18 Feb. 1942.
Logistics: A~gust 1.942–February 1943 407<br />
Captain Mark C. Bowman, U. S. Navy ( 1909), had been established with<br />
its headquarters at Auckland, New Zealand. When COMSOPAC’S recom-<br />
mendation making Auckland the Supply Center for SOPAC was approved,<br />
requests from the island bases, which were all north and northeast of Auckland,<br />
had to be sent, most by airmail, the thousand or more miles south to<br />
Auckland where they were coordinated and sent on north again, many via<br />
airmail, past the various bases on to Subordinate Command, Service Force,<br />
U.S. Pacific Fleet in San Francisco.<br />
When the request could be filled, the supplies then moved (the bulk of<br />
them at 10 or 12 knots) in the same perverse and time consuming manner,<br />
southwest the entire 5,680 miles down to Auckland from San Francisco<br />
and then back north and northeast 1,000 or more miles to the island bases.<br />
This was the roundabout way by which the <strong>Marine</strong>s on Guadalcanal received<br />
their rations as late as October 1942.’0<br />
In mid-July 1942, the Army and INavy in Washington agreed upon and<br />
promulgated a ‘
408 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
McCawley on the 8th of August, it was decided that the latter, with Captain<br />
Peyton and Colonel Linscott of the TF 62 Staff, would visit Tulagi, ascertain<br />
the situation there militarily and logistically and then CTF 62 would confirm<br />
or change the departure hour for the transports already tentatively set<br />
for 0600 of the 9th.<br />
Major General Vandegrift did not get back aboard the McCawley until<br />
0908 on August 9th at which time it was mutually agreed that the transports<br />
would depart about 1330. This was only the first of many difficult opera-<br />
tional decisions based on logistical factors which Rear Admiral Turner<br />
would make in the next six months.<br />
Not knowing that Rear Admiral Turner, his senior subordinate at Guadal-<br />
canal, had already started TF 62 forces south toward Noumea, Vice Admiral<br />
Ghormley had ordered the withdrawal of all surface ships at Guadalcanal<br />
by 1830 local time on the $)th,” and informed his subordinates and superiors<br />
that there were indications Japanese Landing Forces were proceeding toward<br />
Guadalcanal on 9 August.” This latter despatch, it is believed, did nothing<br />
to ease the mental strain on the amphibians, or to quiet the mind of the<br />
Commanding General of the First <strong>Marine</strong> Division.<br />
Despite the fact that the transports had done a commendable job within<br />
the limited hours of unloading available, Rear Admiral Turner knew that<br />
the <strong>Marine</strong>s would be unhappy that they were not getting 100 percent of<br />
the logistic support which had arrived for them off Red Beach and Blue<br />
Beach.” It was apparent that the problem of getting to the <strong>Marine</strong>s the<br />
supplies not landed would be the first order of business.<br />
<strong>The</strong> first entry in the TF 62 Staff Log on 14 August after recording<br />
arrival at Noumea reads:<br />
Commenced preparation for the hospitalization of wounded, transferring and<br />
equipping of survivors, and logistics plans for supply of forces in the<br />
CACT<strong>US</strong>-RINGBOLT [Guadalcanal-Tulagi] Area. Transports and AKs<br />
proceeding with unloading and rearrangement of cargo in order that essential<br />
supplies may be forwarded to CACT<strong>US</strong> {Guadalcanal] for quick unloading.<br />
It was not until six days after the McCawley arrived in Noumea on 13<br />
August that the only Supply <strong>Corps</strong> Officer on the PHIBFORSOPAC Staff,<br />
a senior lieutenant, reported for duty, and thus made available on the stafl<br />
of Rear Admiral Turner an officer trained in the techniques and techni-<br />
U COMSOPAC tO CINCPAC, 090830 Aug. 1942.<br />
mCOMSOPAC to CTF 62, 090551 Aug. 1942.<br />
mTurner.
Logistics: August 1942–February 1943 409<br />
Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, <strong>US</strong>N, taken at sea, 1942.<br />
80-G-216636
410 Amphibians Came To Conq~er<br />
calities of logistics support .14 <strong>The</strong> lack of such a logistically trained officer<br />
during the previous month was another contributory factor to the inadequate<br />
logistic plans for WATCHTOWER.<br />
<strong>The</strong> first letters in Rear Admiral Turner’s personal file after his arrival<br />
at Noumea, New Caledonia, deal with logistics—and the great majority of<br />
letters in this file dated during the next four months deal with the same<br />
subject. According to the Staff, they worked at and slept with and dreamed<br />
logistics. Even the Flag Lieutenant grew out of being a Flag Lieutenant<br />
and became a Logistics Oficer in all but title.”<br />
‘Major General Vandegrift’s first post-Guadalcanal landing letter to his<br />
immediate Naval Commander, sent to Noumea by the first plane, a Navy<br />
PBY-5A, to land on Guadalcanal, reported, as of 12 August 1942: “We are<br />
all well and happy.” But it mainly dealt with the priority of a number of<br />
logistic support items needed. In addition he suggested: “That if we are to<br />
hold this place that the 7th {Regiment] be sent up.” “<br />
THE BEST LAID PLANS OF MEN AND MICE<br />
Rear Admiral Turner had planned tentatively to shift his flag ashore at<br />
Guadalcanal, when the McCawley was withdrawn to Noumea, after unloading<br />
during WATCHTOWER.<br />
. . . Command of this Force shall be shifted to a land base in the Tulagi-<br />
Guadalcanal area, after establishment ashore by the <strong>Marine</strong> forces. All Stall<br />
functions will be conducted from this land base until such time as the permanent<br />
garrison is established and the Amphibious Force is released to proceed<br />
with further operations.<br />
A partial draft order in pencil, from which the above is quoted, is contained<br />
in the files of Commander Amphibious Force, SOPAC.17<br />
At the time this draft was written, it was assumed that the communica-<br />
tion facilities of the McCawiey would be available at Guadalcanal long<br />
enough for CTF 62 to conduct the initial stages of the HUDDLE (Santa<br />
Cruz) Operation as well as to follow through on the anticipated initial<br />
surge of dispatches regarding logistic support of WATCHTOWER.<br />
‘4 (a) McCuwley Ship’s Log; (b) Staff Log, 19 Aug. 1942.<br />
“ Staff Interviews.<br />
mCommanding General First <strong>Marine</strong> Division (Vandegrift) to RKT, letter, 12 Aug. 1942.<br />
“ (a) COMPHIBFORSOPAC, Tentative Command Order, no date; (b) CTF 62, Op Plan<br />
A3-42, para. 5(c); Annex K, para. 2.
<strong>The</strong> CTF 62 Op Plan stated:<br />
Logistics: August 1942-February 1943 411<br />
<strong>The</strong> [TF 62] HEADQUARTERS radio station will be established using the<br />
FIRST MARINE DIVISION TBW radio equipment.<br />
<strong>The</strong> McCazuley’s communication facilities were meager enough, but they<br />
were several times larger than the two TBW’S which would be available<br />
on Guadalcanal for use by CTF 62 if he went ashore and the McCawley<br />
departed. So at the same time the decision was made to withdraw all surface<br />
amphibious forces from Guadalca~al, Rear Admiral Turner made the hard<br />
decision to withdraw himself and TF 62 Staff.’8<br />
Support that this ‘second guess’ decision was correct and that the radio<br />
facilities being taken into Guadalcanal were inadequate, even without CTF<br />
62’s communication load, is found in the extracts below from a four-page<br />
mailgram picture of the Guadalcanal communication situation on 28 August<br />
1942.<br />
From RDO Guadalcanal<br />
To COMAMPHIBFORSOPAC<br />
220400<br />
Naval communication facilities available in the Solomons on 20 August<br />
1942.<br />
*****<br />
Radio facilities are daily becoming more inadequate.<br />
*****<br />
Captured Jap receiver utilized to copy FOX.<br />
*****<br />
We hope to improve our situation somewhat by the repair of a Japanese<br />
2 kilowatt transmitter.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner was grateful thereafter that he had withdrawn<br />
because he was able to do a far more comprehensive job of logistic support<br />
from Noumea than he could have done from Guadalcanal, although he<br />
knew that some <strong>Marine</strong>s thought and said he had run away.”<br />
Guadalcanal logistics over the long haul centered on troops, planes, food,<br />
ammunition, and aviation gas, but during the first two weeks, getting the<br />
airfield into condition to operate aircraft received highest priority. This<br />
latter chore the Japanese had not quite accomplished.<br />
From the aerial photographs, an estimate had been made that the airfield<br />
being built by the Japanese would be ready to operate aircraft on 15 August<br />
1942. This was an excellent estimate and does ~ome unknown photographic<br />
M(a) Turner; (b) Staff Interviews.<br />
WTurner.
412 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
intelligence cdiicer great credit. But to make ready the airfield by this date<br />
certainly put the heat on the <strong>Marine</strong>s who landed on Guadalcanal-Tulagi<br />
on 7 August. By 12 August the landing strip was usable and by 20 August,<br />
Henderson Field with two squadrons of operating <strong>Marine</strong> aircraft was in<br />
business and would remain so throughout the war.<br />
AUG<strong>US</strong>T-SEPTEMBER 1942<br />
<strong>The</strong> days and nights of August and September 1942 were full of TF 62<br />
logistics and of fighting to permit the flow of TF 62 logistics through to its<br />
most important element—the <strong>Marine</strong>s on Guadalcanal.<br />
It is necessary to recount just a few of the main events for background.<br />
Task Force 61, under Vice Admiral Fletcher, acting as a Covering Force<br />
for the cargo ships Fotwzalbaut and Albena carrying the first large load of<br />
logistic support to Guadalcanal, fought the indecisive Battle of the Eastern<br />
Solomons on 24 August 1942, which resulted in the Enterprise being bombdamaged.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Saratoga unfortunately was damaged by a submarine torpedo<br />
on 31 August.<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Marine</strong>s, within their perimeter on Guadalcanal, were placed under<br />
heavy attack at the Battle of the Bloody Ridge on 12–14 September. Task<br />
Force 65 under Rear Admiral Turner’s command with 4,000 <strong>Marine</strong> reinforcements,<br />
the 7th <strong>Marine</strong> Regiment, made a delayed landing on 18 Sep-<br />
tember on Guadalcanal, but battleship Nortk Carolina, carrier Warp and<br />
destroyer O’13~ien from the Covering Force all were torpedoed by submarines<br />
on 15 September. <strong>The</strong> wa~p was lost, and the O’Brien went down<br />
more than a month later while enroute to the United States for battle repairs.<br />
<strong>The</strong> delivery of the 4,OOO <strong>Marine</strong>s and the logistic support that went<br />
ashore with them on 18 September were a real satisfaction to Rear Admiral<br />
Turner, CTF 65.20<br />
<strong>The</strong> worry and concern over the logistical situation at Guadalcanal and<br />
the heavy naval losses sustained in maintaining the flow of logistic support<br />
extended up and down the command chain of the Navy, and to the Army<br />
and its air arm.<br />
On 16 September 1942, Admiral King was reported as having told the<br />
Joint Chiefs of Staff that “the Navy is in a bad way at this particular<br />
moment .”21<br />
~ Turner.<br />
%Henry Harley Arnold, Globcd MisIiorz, p. 338.
Logistics: August 1942-Febraary 1943 413<br />
One of the many high ranking visitors to the SOPAC Area, Lieutenant<br />
General Henry H. Arnold, U. S. Army, Chief of the Army Air <strong>Corps</strong>, and<br />
a single-minded advocate of using the resources of the Army Air <strong>Corps</strong> to<br />
“exert direct pressure against Germany,” appraised the SOPAC situation<br />
in late September 1942 with pithy comments as follows:<br />
. . . <strong>The</strong> Navy was hard-pressed at Guadalcanal. <strong>The</strong>y needed a ‘shot in the<br />
arm’-and needed it badly; but I was not sure that the way to give it to them<br />
was by sending airplanes that might better be used against the Germans from<br />
England.”<br />
*****<br />
It was obvious to me that the Naval Officers in this area were under a<br />
terrific strain. It was also obvious that they had chips on their shoulders.”<br />
*****<br />
. . . Ghormley and other Naval officersin that area—Admiral John (’Slew’)<br />
McCain and Admiral Daniel Callaghan—were very worried about the situation<br />
there.<br />
*****<br />
It was obvious the Navy could not hold Guadalcanal if they could not get<br />
supplies in, and they could not get supplies in if the Japanese bombers continued<br />
to come down and bomb the ships unloading supplies.<br />
*****<br />
. . . General Patch [Commanding General Americal Division at Noumea}<br />
was very insistent that the Navy had no plan of logistics; that the <strong>Marine</strong>s and<br />
the Navy would both have been in one hell of a fix had he not dug into his<br />
reserve stock and furnished them with supplies.24<br />
*****<br />
My estimate, upon leaving Admiral Ghormley’s headquarters, was this:<br />
So far, the Navy had taken one hell of a beating and at that time was hanging<br />
on by a shoestring. <strong>The</strong>y did not have a logistic setup efficient enough to<br />
insure success.z5<br />
But fortunately one of the chips on the shoulders of Uncle Sam’s Navy<br />
was to get at the Japanese and pay them back for Savo Island. As General<br />
Arnold put it, although he (as did others from far, far away Washington)<br />
misidentified the SOPAC area through which he was traveling:<br />
As I traveled through the Southwest Pacific, it was impossible not to get<br />
the impression that the Navy was determined to carry on the campaign in that<br />
theater, and determined to do it with as little help from the Army as possible.<br />
‘Ibid., P. 337.<br />
=Ibid., p. 34o.<br />
=Ibid., p. 34I.<br />
%Ibid., p. 342.
414 Amphibians Canze To Conquer<br />
It was their fight, the Navy’s fight; it was their war against the Japanese; and<br />
they were going to clean it up if they could.’”<br />
<strong>The</strong> Chief of the Army Air <strong>Corps</strong> carried news of the worried state of<br />
the naval commanders in the South Pacific Force back to Washington, where<br />
he arrived on 2 October 1942, having covered 21,000 miles in 12 days. While<br />
his solution to the Admirals’ problems was far from being similar to theirs,<br />
he served a most valuable purpose in alerting the home folks in Washington<br />
that there were SOPAC and Pacific problems crying for early assistance.<br />
Lieutenant General Arnold’s appraisal of the state of the logistic art<br />
in the Navy was conveyed in a memorandum to General Marshall which<br />
said:<br />
Naval planning and operations to date have demonstrated a definite lack of<br />
appreciation Of the logistic fa~or> and aS a consequence, operations to date<br />
have lacked continuity by reason of the shortage of essential supplies and<br />
installations to support military operations.z7<br />
And to this statement many naval Iogisticians would say “amen.”<br />
Lieutenant General Arnold’s round of briefings of important people in<br />
Washington included the President, which probably played a real part in<br />
the President’s memorandum to the “Eyes Only of the Joint Chiefs” on 24<br />
October 1942, which in turn played such a vital part in the Guadalcanal<br />
victory. <strong>The</strong> President wrote:<br />
My anxiety about the Southwest Pacific is to make sure that every possible<br />
weapon gets into the area to hold GuadaIcanal, and that having held in this<br />
crisis, munitions, planes and crews are on the way to take advantage of our<br />
success.<br />
This memorandum came just 12-13 days after the Battle of Cape Espe-<br />
rance during which the surface combatant forces of the Japanese Navy and<br />
the United States Navy had traded punches and losses in the Iron Bottom<br />
Sound area, and just nine days after Admiral Nimitz was recording in his<br />
15 October Daily Command Summary:<br />
It now appears that we are unable to control the sea area in the Guadalcanal<br />
Area. Thus our supply of the positions will only be done at great expense to<br />
<strong>US</strong>.<strong>The</strong> situation is not hopeless, but it is certainly critical.<br />
* Ibid., p. 348. Time late September 1942.<br />
m C/S AAF to C/S <strong>US</strong>A, memorandum, 6 Oct. 1942. OPD 38.5. Modern Military Records<br />
Division, National Archives.
Logistics: August 1942-Febrziary 1943 415<br />
IMPROVING THE LOGISTICAL SUPPORT SYSTEM<br />
It did not take the stress and strain of active operations very long after<br />
9 August 1942 to demonstrate that the naval logistical organization in the<br />
South Pacific was inadequate both in concepts and in capabilities.<br />
On 23 August, Rear Admiral Turner in a long six-page letter to Major<br />
General Vandegrift wrote:<br />
This whole <strong>Marine</strong> and Navy supply system down here seems to be bad, and<br />
I am trying to get them to reorganize it so it will function.’s<br />
By 30 August 1942, COMSOPAC accepted this estimate of the logistic<br />
situation and was convinced that:<br />
Our supply set up is not right under present conditions. For operations such<br />
as this, logistics and operations must go hand in hand.zg<br />
This last statement is a basic logistical principle and it actually took only<br />
three weeks to have it fully accepted by all echelons in SOPAC which could<br />
be some kind of a record. However, accepting the principle in a command<br />
9,000 miles from Washington, and actually applying it to logistic support<br />
largely under the control of other naval commands or to logistic support on<br />
a Joint or Combined basis, were quite different things.<br />
And the fact was that logistics had not gone hand in hand with operations;<br />
the WATCHTOWER Operation had gone ahead with logistical sup-<br />
port hurrying along well behind. For logistical support in the South Pacific<br />
to flow evenly and adequately, the Navy needed Advanced Bases that were<br />
reasonably stocked. <strong>The</strong>se did not exist on 7 August 1942.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Advanced Base at Efate, 285 miles north-northeast of Noumea,<br />
started on 4 May 1942, had gotten a good head start on Noumea and a<br />
two months’ head start on Espiritu Sante—but it was 1’00 miles from Guadal-<br />
canal. Efate was a small but going concern in early August 1942, the airfield<br />
having been used since 28 May 1942, and its underground aviation gas<br />
tanks shortly thereafter, but it could not begin to support WATCHTOWER<br />
all by itself.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Advanced Base at Espiritu Sante, started on 8 July 1942, was in<br />
early August 1942, a small shadow of its later size, although commencing<br />
30 July bombers operated from the first airstrip built there. It was not until<br />
14 August, when with the approval of COMSOPAC, COMPHIBFORSO-<br />
~ RKT to Major General Vandegrift, letter, 23 Aug. 19-f2, p. 2.<br />
= COMSOPAC to COMSERVRONSOP-4C, 301110 Aug. 1942.
416 Arn@ibians Came To Conquer<br />
PAC directed the establishment of a branch of the First <strong>Marine</strong> Division<br />
Base Depot at Espiritu Sante, utilizing the services of the Quartermaster<br />
of the 2nd <strong>Marine</strong> Regiment, that the <strong>Marine</strong>s on Guadalcanal could begin<br />
to plan on having at some long-distant date back-up logistical support only<br />
500 to 600 miles away. It was not until LION One arrived on 10 February<br />
1943 that major realistic steps were underway to make Espiritu Santo into a<br />
full-fledged Advanced Base Supply Depot.<br />
From May through July 1942, Noumea functioned as a logistical staging<br />
area for Efate and Espiritu Santo after making a false start as a fuel depot<br />
for an Advanced Naval Base in late June 1942. Beginning in mid-August,<br />
it then grew like Topsy. On 11 November 1942 the Navy started major<br />
construction of an Advanced Base Construction Depot at Noumea and the<br />
necessary port development to permit the proper functioning of the nearly<br />
all-inclusive logistic support facilities projected.<br />
In summary it can be said that, in mid-August 1942, logistic support of<br />
Guadalcanal from naval sources had to be provided through:<br />
1.<br />
2.<br />
3.<br />
4.<br />
<strong>The</strong> established, but largely not built and not stocked, main Supply<br />
Base at Auckland, New Zealand, 1,825 miles to the south.<br />
A small Advanced Air Base without supply support facilities at<br />
Efate in the New Hebrides, 700 miles southeast of Guadalcanal.<br />
A considerably larger Advanced Naval Air Base at Espiritu Santo<br />
560 miles southeast of Guadalcanal in the earliest throes of being<br />
built and stocked.<br />
Direct shipment from continental United States.<br />
Shortly after inid-August, on 20 August 1942 to be exact, CTF 62 (Rear<br />
Admiral Turner), an operational commander, acting with the oral authority<br />
of COMSOPAC, directed the establishment of <strong>Marine</strong> Advanced Supply<br />
Depots at Noumea and at Espiritu Santo even though this was an adminis-<br />
trative act.’”<br />
No one denied that the rear area logistic effort for support of the fighting<br />
<strong>Marine</strong>s was strenuous, not only by the amphibious command, but by all<br />
the logistic support forces of both the Services. Yet despite this effort, the<br />
tail tale carried back to the United States was that the <strong>Marine</strong>s were hungry<br />
and that:<br />
For three months the <strong>Marine</strong>s fought without substantial supplies or reinforcements<br />
and cursed the Navy.31<br />
wCTF 62 to TF 62, letter, FE 2j/NT6/A4–2/Ser 0056 of 20 Aug. 1942. Subj: Establishment<br />
of <strong>Marine</strong> Advanced Supply Depots.<br />
= Time Magazine, 7 February 19M.
Logistics: August 1942-Febraary 1943 417<br />
<strong>The</strong> facts were a bit different at least in one respect.<br />
On 15 August a week after landing, the Landing Force had 17 days of<br />
regular field rations available in addition to three days of Type C rations<br />
and 10 days of captured Japanese rations.32<br />
By the second half of September, according to General Vandegrifts’<br />
report:<br />
During this period, six weeks after the initial attack, rations were adequate<br />
and three full meals were served daily, . ..33<br />
Actually, then, it took only half of three months, until September 18th,<br />
before the <strong>Marine</strong>s were placed on full U. S. rations. No <strong>Marine</strong> or Army<br />
soldier ever seemed to have quite enough logistic support during WATCH-<br />
TOWER, but the major essentials of battl~adequate men, rations, air-<br />
craft, bullets, bombs and aviation gasoline-were always present on Guadal-<br />
canal although the reserve stocks rode the sine curve roller coaster with<br />
distressing speed.<br />
Noumea was a logistical bottle neck. It lacked berthing space, storage<br />
space, unloading equipment and adequate numbers of skilled or unskilled<br />
longshoremen. <strong>The</strong> port was not organized on a Joint basis, and until this<br />
was done in November 1942, each Service competed at Noumea for use<br />
of each ingredient of logistical support.<br />
Cargo ships to make the run to Guadalcanal were another bottleneck.<br />
This was true from Dog Day on, and to make matters worse, on 9 Septem-<br />
ber 1942 the word came in from CINCPAC that COMINCH desired a<br />
regiment of experienced amphibious troops and a division of transports and<br />
cargo ships made ready for transfer to General MacArthur’s command in<br />
the Southwest Pacific Area for his use in forthcoming offensive operations.<br />
This led to some soul searching at the SOPAC level, and when passed down<br />
to Rear Admiral Turner for a recommendation, he came up with a long-<br />
-winded despatch which, in effect, said:<br />
No ships available now or later, and no <strong>Marine</strong>s until I October, and then<br />
only the 8th Regiment of <strong>Marine</strong>s, who aren’t combat trained.3q<br />
At the same time, the Pacific Fleet was meeting an earlier call on its<br />
inadequate resources to provide amphibious ships for the TORCH Novem-<br />
ber 1942 landings in North Africa. CINCPAC looked to the SOPAC Area<br />
for replacements. COMPHIBFORSOPAC pleaded his case noting that his<br />
“ COMGENFIRSTMARDIV Final Report on Guadalcanal Operation, Phase III, Annex C.<br />
= (a) Ibid., Phase V, Annex T; (b) Hough, Ludwig, Shaw, Pearl Harb.r to Gnada!catzal<br />
(<strong>Marine</strong>s), pp. 311-13.<br />
u COMPHIBFORSOPAC to COMSOPAC, 092300 Sep. 19~2 and referenced dispatches.
418 Amphibians Came To Conqaer<br />
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Logistics: Augnst 1942-February 1943 419<br />
cargo ships finally were down to four in number through losses from<br />
Japanese submarines and air attacks.35<br />
<strong>The</strong> lack of unloading facilities at Guadalcanal Island was one more<br />
logistical problem. All logistic support had to be lightered to the beaches,<br />
where it was painfully and slowly unloaded, then reloaded on to some type<br />
of moving vehicle, and moved to the <strong>Marine</strong> or Army Supply dumps.<br />
But the biggest logistic bottleneck, in this scribe’s opinion, was the basic<br />
lack of know-how by the Navy concerning logistical support for a big<br />
operation six thousand miles away from a United States source of supply.<br />
<strong>The</strong> only consolation to be derived from this is that, had the logistical<br />
problem been fully appreciated, it is doubtful whether the WATCHTOWER<br />
Operation would have been undertaken when it was, which was just in time<br />
to obtain success.<br />
When discussing the problem of logistic support on Guadalcanal, it is<br />
worth mentioning that both the United States Navy and the Japanese Navy<br />
had problems in providing it from their nearest advanced base area. To<br />
accomplish this support the United States Navy had about a 50 percent<br />
longer sea run than the Japanese Navy until, after long months, a sup-<br />
porting base was created and stocked at Espiritu Sante.<br />
During the first week of the WATCHTOWER Operation, the Japanese<br />
Forces on Guadalcanal were without logistic support, since the <strong>Marine</strong>s had<br />
captured the Japanese living and supply areas. <strong>The</strong> United States Navy<br />
provided the first of many, many contingents of men and supply support<br />
the early evening of 15 August—only six days after TF 62 had left—using<br />
four destroyer transports, carrying a total of 120 tons of aviation gasoline,<br />
lubricating oil, bombs, spare parts, and 120 aviation ground personnel mostly<br />
from CUB One.”;<br />
<strong>The</strong> Japanese Navy on the same day provided supplies in woven baskets<br />
to both the United States <strong>Marine</strong>s and to the Japanese, the <strong>Marine</strong>s getting<br />
four out of six air drops. It was the next day before the Japanese landed<br />
200 troops and their logistic support from a single destroyer.<br />
Broad scale but irregular logistic support for the <strong>Marine</strong>s commenced<br />
= (a) COMSOPAC to COMPHIBFORSOPAC 082140 Sep. 1942 and related dispatches;<br />
(b) COMINCH, letter, FF1/A3-1, Ser OO1OO6of 18 Sep. 1942; COMINCH 261302 Sep. 1942;<br />
CINCPAC 120635 Nov. 1942; (c) COMPHIBFORSOPAC, letter, A3–I Ser 00394 of 17 Nov.<br />
1942, subj: Proposed return to Pacific Coast of APs and AKs temporarily assigned the South<br />
Pacific Force.<br />
“ (a) COMAIRSOPAC to cOMGENGUADALCANAL, 130623 Aug. 1942; (b) RDO<br />
Tulagi to RDO Auckland. 150159 Aug. 1942: (c) CO~fsOpAC to CINCPAC 231301 Aug<br />
1942.
420 Amphibians Came To Conqaer<br />
when the store ships Alheva (AK-26) and Forrmdbaut (AK-22), the<br />
McFarland ( AVD-14) loaded with aviation gasoline drums, and six APDs<br />
loaded with rations arrived at Guadalcanal on 21–22 August 1942, and<br />
landed over 2,OOO tons of logistic support including 200 tons of rations,<br />
some personnel of the 2nd <strong>Marine</strong> Regiment, and their equipment and<br />
supplies.<br />
During October 1942 logistic support ships were unloading at Guadal-<br />
canal-Tulagi on 13 days of the month. By December there were one or more<br />
support ships unloading on 31 days of the 3l-day month. But during the<br />
last 20 days of August, the <strong>Marine</strong>s had seen this pleasant sight only on<br />
six davs.<br />
It i~ a logistic truism that there is nearly always a conflict between those<br />
who ship and those who ask for the shipment, and this was re-emphasized<br />
at Guadalcanal.<br />
In war, logistics is always a worry factor. Many times it is the chief worry<br />
factor and at times it is the only worry factor. Quotes from Rear Admiral<br />
Turner’s letters support this truth.<br />
In a letter to Captain W. G. Greenman in early November dealing with<br />
the logistic situation, Rear Admiral Turner wrote:<br />
All the Amphibious Force ships, all my staff, and I myself are working our<br />
hearts out to keep you going, and to try to get men and supplies to you. One<br />
of our troubles is to get decisions on matters I do not have under my control,<br />
and to get material to you which is available, but for which we have no<br />
transportation. 37<br />
In a letter to Major General Vandegrift:<br />
Your situation as regards food, fuel, and ammunition as you well know,<br />
gives me the greatest anxiety. This is still a hand-to-mouth existence. By now,<br />
I had hoped that you would have some reasonable reserves. However, the<br />
enemy has held up our deliveries so continuously that our cash-in-bank is very<br />
low. You can rest assured that every ship I can get my hands on will be used<br />
to relieve this critical situation.3s<br />
No longer than ten days after arrival at Noumea, recommendations for<br />
improvement in the logistic area of amphibious operations were sought<br />
from all commands in TF 62, and a proposed reorganization of the Shore<br />
Party and Beach Party drafted by the Staff of CTF 62 was forwarded for<br />
comment by the amphibians. It was on the basis of the recommendations<br />
WRKTto Captain W. G. Greenman, letter, 7 Nov. 1942.<br />
* RKT to C,eneral Vandegrift, letter, 16 Nov. 1942.
Logistics: August 1942-Febwwy 1943 421<br />
received from this letter that Commander Amphibious Forces SOPAC made<br />
proposals for revision in the Amphibian Bible, FTP 167.3’<br />
When Vice Admiral Halsey made the decision, shortly after assuming<br />
command of SOPAC, to shift the building up of a Main Fleet Base in the<br />
South Pacific from Auckland, New Zealand, to Noumea, New Caledonia,<br />
he accomplished more in cutting the Gordian Knot of the SOPAC logistical<br />
problem, than any of the many of hundreds of other actions taken for this<br />
purpose. His recommendation to this end went forward on 21 October<br />
1942.’0 While negotiations to obtain buildings and area for this purpose<br />
had to be carried out with the Free French via General De Gaulle in London<br />
who controlled New Caledonia, the approval for the move was not too long<br />
in arriving.<br />
On 8 November 1942, SOPAC Headquarters was established ashore, and<br />
Noumea commenced striving to fulfill the logistical mission and functions<br />
previously assigned to Auckland.<br />
Espiritu Santo and Efate in the New Hebrides were rapidly built up as<br />
Advanced Bases and depots of material. An Advance Base Construction<br />
Depot was established at Noumea. By December 1942, Noumea was becom-<br />
ing a Main Fleet Base in the South Pacific in more than name. Support ships<br />
were daily landing the requirements of the Army and <strong>Marine</strong>s at Guadal-<br />
canal, and the troops were eating some refrigerated food. Logistical support<br />
was largely in hand.”<br />
BUILDING UP THE GUADALCANAL BASE<br />
<strong>The</strong> saga of the building of the Guadalcanal-Tulagi base area has yet to<br />
be written, but this base area played a vital role in the logistic support<br />
furnished by COMPHIBFORSOPAC to the <strong>Marine</strong>s and Army troops on<br />
Guadalcanal and to the later operations in the middle and upper Solomon<br />
Islands. So, because of the importance of bases in connection with amphibi-<br />
ous operations, the story of its early trials and tribulations should be told<br />
in some detail.<br />
Plans for an Advanced Naval Base in the Tulagi-Guadalcanal area to<br />
M (a) CTF 62, letter, FE 25/A 16/Ser 029 of 23 Aug. 1942 and replies thereto from transports<br />
and cargo ships and commands; (b) COMSOPAC, letter, A163/(00 ) Ser 00936 of 4 Dec.<br />
1942; (c) TIJ 66.3 Op Orders J–1, K–1, K–2, H–1, incorporating trial revisions.<br />
w COMSOPAC to CINCPAC, 210517 Oct. 1942.<br />
4’FIRSTMARDIV Final Report on Guadalcanal Operations, Phase V, Annex T, p. 2.
422 Ampbibia?zs Cdtne To Conquer<br />
contain units to meet aviation, hospital, and minor supply needs were pa~t<br />
and parcel of the short hectic advance planning for WATCHTOWER.4’<br />
Way back on 15 January 1942, when Rear Admiral Turner was in the<br />
War Plans Division, he had initiated a plan calling for the establishment<br />
of Advanced Base units to build and operate four Main Fleet bases<br />
(LIONS) and 12 secondary bases (CUBS) .4’<br />
Despite this advance planning, neither COMSOPAC nor COMPHIB-<br />
FORSOPAC mentioned a prospective Advanced Naval Base at Guadal-<br />
canaI-Tulagi in their WATCHTOWER Operation Orders. COMSOPAC’S<br />
Op Order had no section on logistics. COMPHIBFORSOPAC Op Order<br />
had a Logistic Section, but did not include any information about an Advanced<br />
Base. <strong>The</strong> nearest mention was when COMPHIBFORSOPAC pro-<br />
vided for a Naval Local Defense Force with a lieutenant commander of<br />
the Coast Guard in command at a headquarters ashore. Lieutenant Com-<br />
mander D. H. Dexter, <strong>US</strong>CG, actually did go ashore with the <strong>Marine</strong>s, but<br />
his command included only picket boats (landing craft), a harbor signal<br />
station and a small landing craft repair crew.<br />
COMSOPAC rectified the omission in his Operation Order on the day<br />
after the initial landings by directing:<br />
For construction and administration and operation of Advance Air Base<br />
Guadalcanal-Tulagi, COMAMPHIBFORSOPAC initially in charge.”<br />
This created the certainty that Rear Admiral Turner would step on the<br />
toes of the <strong>Marine</strong>s.<br />
CUB One, containing the essential units from which an Advanced Base<br />
could be built, left San Francisco on the day before Rear Admiral Turner<br />
left Pearl Harbor. Its orders were to report to Commander South Pacific<br />
and its destination was New Caledonia, but enroute the four ships carrying<br />
CUB One were diverted to Espiritu Santo Island in the New Hebrides.<br />
According to the Chief of Naval Operations’ directive:<br />
CUB bases are to be equipped to care for the logistic support of a small Task<br />
Group of Light Forces with no repair facilities on shore. Aviation repair,<br />
operation and maintenance facilities for 105 planes are included. [Personnel<br />
requirements are 138 officers and 3,200 men, of which 59 officers and 1,528<br />
men are in the aviation service unit] .4s<br />
“ CINCPAC Basic Supporting Plan for Advanced Air Bases Santa Cruz Island and Tulagi-<br />
Guadalcanal, Ser 09910 of 8 Jul. 1942.<br />
4*Ballantine, p. 57.<br />
‘4COMSOPAC to COMPHIBFORSOPAC, 080826 Aug. 1942.<br />
MCNO letter, Ser 018753 of 25 Aug. 1942, subj: LION and CUB bases.
Logistics: Atigu.rt 1942-Febrnary 1943 423<br />
Commander James P. Compton (1916), who had served with Vice Admiral<br />
Ghormley in the Naval Observer Unit in London, England, was the<br />
Commanding Officer of CUB One. He took command on 8 July 1942 at<br />
Moffett Field in California, the day the unit sailed for the South Pacific in<br />
two transports and two merchant ships via Pago Pago, Samoa. It arrived<br />
at Espiritu Santo on 11 August 1942.<br />
When he departed San Francisco, Commander Compton had no knowl-<br />
edge that the WATCHTOWER Operation was immediately pending. He<br />
had been shown, but did not have a copy of an order from CNO directing<br />
that CUB One and CUB 13 (just being formed up) were to build three bases<br />
in the South Pacific, including one on the Santa Cruz Islands at Ndeni.46<br />
Compton’s story runs as follows:<br />
Upon arrival at BUTTON [Espiritu Sante] I reported by despatch to<br />
COMSOPAC. No immediate orders from him. After I had been there a<br />
couple of days, I was ordered by COMSOPAC to fly to Noumea. He was<br />
aboard ship. I talked to Ghormley and his C/S Callaghan and to Colonel<br />
Peck on the Staff. I was told the base was to be built at Guadalcanal-Tulagi—<br />
no instructions as to when to go forward. . . . I did not even know that I was<br />
to work for Kelly Turner. He was in the harbor when I was there, about<br />
14--15 August, and had I known I was to work for him, I would have gone to<br />
see him. I did not then or later receive any orders to report to COMPHIB-<br />
FORSOPAC. I did not know anything about Savo happening and I was not<br />
told when I got back to Espiritu Sante.<br />
I assumed that I was sent out with the CUB-One equipment so as to help<br />
any way I could in the South Pacific. I had some aviation equipment so I<br />
landed gasoline trucks etc., to help out at BUTTON, plus gasoline drums.<br />
My arrival at Espiritu Santo resembled the arrival of Santa Claus on a playground<br />
with a full bag. <strong>The</strong> staff of General Rose [commanding at Espiritu<br />
Sante] assembled in my tent daily to determine the items they wanted.<br />
<strong>The</strong> primary purpose of CUB One, as I understood it, was to estabIish air<br />
bases and supporting facilities. This was in accordance with CINCPAC’S supporting<br />
plan, which was about the one piece of official paper I received upon<br />
arrival at BUTTON. First people in CUB One to go to Guadalcanal—an<br />
Ensign George Washington Polk—two Seabee warrant officers and a 100 plus<br />
men—arrived on 15 August 1942.<br />
After a short time in Espiritu Santo (observing the complete lack of personnel<br />
at the Air Base there from which Colonel Saunders’ B- I 7s were operating),<br />
I originated a despatch to CNO recommending that the full aviation<br />
complement of CUB One be sent as soon as possible. Apparently this caused<br />
consternation in OPNAV because dispatches received indicated that to pro-<br />
‘“(a) Interview with Captain James P. Compton, 1 Feb. 1962; Memorandum from Captain<br />
Compton, 17 Jun. 1969. Hereafter Compton; (b) COMSOPAC, 022310 Aug. 1942.
424 Amphibians Canze To Conquer<br />
vide CUB One with the aviation personnel set up in the allowance list would<br />
have required stripping personnel from all available sources. It was the first<br />
indication to me that I had command of a paper tiger.<br />
At about this time a radio order from COMSOPAC was received to<br />
establish a base at Espiritu Sante. COMCUBONE was an action addressee.<br />
I got a despatch from Kelly Turner to go up to Guadalcanal on the fast<br />
transports-Hugh Hadley’s ships [Transport Division 12]. I gave him<br />
machine guns from CUB One to mount on his ships. I took some doctors . . .<br />
communicators and pay clerk and the CO of Seabee Battalion Six [Lieutenant<br />
Commander Paul Blundon (CEC)<strong>US</strong>NR]. On 27 August 1942, I embarked<br />
for Guadalcanal and arrived 29 August. . . . My people were scared. Everybody<br />
was scared. I set up my headquarters near Henderson Field where the<br />
earlier elements of CUB One had been established.<br />
We moved our camp after the shelling of the airfield, toward the beach.<br />
[Later to be at Lever Brothers plantation house on the co;lstal lagoon<br />
between Lunga Point and Kukum.]<br />
<strong>The</strong> Seabees had most of their equipment on a civilian ship, the S~])taAlla,<br />
a Grace Line Ship. I sent a despatch to Kelly Turner to have the SS Sa~~taAria,<br />
the ship I thought best suited for tie Guadalcanal situation, to come to<br />
Guadalcanal but he thought no civilian manned ships should go up at that<br />
time.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Seabees aided the building and repair work at Henderson Field and<br />
my aviation personnel acted as ground crews and fueled the planes. Aviation<br />
gas drum storage records were kept and with this information, I was the only<br />
one in Guadalcanal that really knew [the amount of] gasoline available.<br />
My unit gradually took over Island Communications. We, plus Dexter’s<br />
original outfit, operated landing craft, housed units such as <strong>Black</strong> Cats, transients,<br />
and maintained a base at Tulagi.<br />
My job personally as I saw it when I first arrived was to be useful around<br />
the airfield. <strong>The</strong> overriding mission was the defense of CACT<strong>US</strong> [Guadalcanal]<br />
.47<br />
Rear Admiral Turner expected the skipper of CUB One to start building<br />
an Advanced Naval Base as soon as possible and this required him to<br />
develop a specific plan for the Guadalcanal-Tulagi area soon after his<br />
arrival.<br />
On 23 August 1942 Rear Admiral Turner wrote to Major General Vande-<br />
grift:<br />
Commander Compton, who is the Commanding Officer of CUB One, will<br />
probably move into CACT<strong>US</strong> within a few days on the lVi/lianz ~ar~<br />
lkrvzw [AP-6]. If you and he will plan the development which is needed<br />
there, and send out your recommendations, we will do the best we can to<br />
‘7(a) Compton; (b) C/S COMPHIBFORSOPAC to RKT, Memorandum of 26 Aug. 1942.
Logistics: August 1942-Febvaary 1943 425<br />
support your plans. Just as soon as possible, I will fly in to see you in order to<br />
be able better to help you out. Up to the present I have not been able to come,<br />
since we have all been working night and day to get things moving toward<br />
you and I have thought it better for me to stay here in charge.”<br />
However, Commander Compton’s written orders from CINCPAC centered<br />
around an air base, and Compton had landed during a period when<br />
the airfield had no steel matting and hence was vulnerable to rain, as well<br />
as to bombing and shelling. Keeping the airstrip in shape and building up<br />
communications took Compton’s time. Although requested by despatch on<br />
a number of occasions and by letter on 15 September, his first plan for<br />
development of an Advanced Naval Base in the Guadalcanal-Tulagi area<br />
went forward about 28 September 1942.4’ In a subsequent letter Com-<br />
mander Compton stated:<br />
My main difficulty has been the lack of qualified officers to whom I could turn<br />
over details so that I would be free to proceed with more general plans. so<br />
Captain Compton’s present remembrance is supported by the few official<br />
documents located. On 27 September 1942, as Commanding Officer of CUB<br />
One, he wrote to $$)MAIRSOPAC:<br />
I have, in the employment of CUB One, endeavored to carry out the spirit<br />
of CINJCPAC serial 09$)10 [supporting plan] for which CUB One and Thir-<br />
teen were sent out. This involved the construction, operation, administration<br />
and maintenance of a land plane base at CACT<strong>US</strong>, seaplane base at RING-<br />
BOLT; radio, harbor defense, hospital and other facilities. I consider that still<br />
my mission.51<br />
His remembrance of his aspects of the logistic support problem on<br />
Guadalcanal was:<br />
<strong>The</strong> basic difference between Kelly Turner and me was: Why were the CUBS<br />
in SOPAC—to build bases or to support troops? 52<br />
Rear Admiral Turner, upset by the supply support difficulties of the first<br />
month of improvised logistic support of the <strong>Marine</strong>s and the lack of any<br />
real start toward the development of bases in the Guadalcanal-Tulagi area,<br />
became convinced in early September 1942, that there had to be a Flag officer<br />
whose primary duty was the planning, the development, and the perform-<br />
48RKT to AAV, letter, 23 Aug. 1942,<br />
40(a) C/S COMPHIBFORSOPAC to RKT, rnemorandurn of 26 Aug. 1942; (b) COMSOPAC,<br />
dispatches 072206, 231326 Sep. 1943; (c) COMPHIBFORSOPAC to COMADVBASE CACT<strong>US</strong>-<br />
RINGBOLT, letter, 15 Sep. 1942.<br />
wJPC to RKT, letter, 8 Oct. 1942.<br />
“ COMCUBO to COMAIRSOPAC, letter, 27 Sep. 1942.<br />
‘2Compton.
426 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
ante of the Advanced Naval Bases of the forward areas in the South<br />
Pacific. This officer would be a subordinate to the officer who had these<br />
tasks in addition to many other logistic tasks for the whole SOPAC area,<br />
the Commander Service Squadron, South Pacific Force.<br />
Besides the pre-WATCHTOWER bases of SOPAC started in the Society,<br />
Samoan, Fiji and Tonga Islands, there were the newer Advanced Naval Bases<br />
at Efate and Espiritu Santo in the New Hebricles and now bases at Tulagi and<br />
GuadalcanaI physically separated but working together in the Southern<br />
Solomons. In early September 1942, Commander Service Squadron SOPAC-<br />
FOR, Rear Admiral Calvin H. Cobb ( 1911), had just been given the over-all<br />
task of building up and supporting all bases in the SOPAC Area. Vigorous<br />
discussion in Noumea also centered around the need to stop building a major<br />
base way down south in Auckland and to start to build up a main base at<br />
Noumea.”<br />
Rear Admiral Turner also became convinced that there should be established<br />
an Advanced Naval Base at Guadalcanal-Tulagi, not just an Advanced<br />
Air Base, and that an officer with some seniority should be ordered to it.<br />
On 5 September 1942, he committed his views to paper,” including recom-<br />
mendations that Commander James P. Compton, U. S. Navy, the Command-<br />
ing Officer of CUB One, be ordered as Commander Advance Bases CACT<strong>US</strong>-<br />
RINGBOLT (Guadalcanal-Tulagi) and that an officer of appropriate rank<br />
be ordered to command each of the two bases in this base complex. Both<br />
of these recommendations were carried into effect by COMSOPAC, Com-<br />
mander Compton being ordered as Commander Advanced Bases CACT<strong>US</strong>-<br />
RINGBOLT on 11 September 1942 and to the command of all Naval<br />
Activities in the area on 13 September 1942. It was more than another two<br />
months, however, before Commander H. L. Maples ( 1917) arrived, in<br />
December 1942, to command Naval Base, Lunga, which by May 1943 grew<br />
into the Advanced Naval Base-Guadalcanal.<br />
In early August 1942 when Lieutenant Commander D. H. Dexter of the<br />
Coast Guard went ashore at Guadalcanal to head up the Local Defense<br />
Force, and become Port Director, Guadalcanal, Lieutenant R. W. Pinger,<br />
D-V, <strong>US</strong>NR, was ordered to take charge of the Gavutu-Tulagi Sub Base<br />
Local Defense Force.” Dexter was Port Director Tulagi-Gavutu. Under<br />
the principle of unity of command, he reported to Major General Vandegrift<br />
mStaff Interviews.<br />
= COMPHIBFORSOPAC to COMSOPAC, letter, Ser 00116 of 5 Sep. 1942.<br />
mCTF 62, letters, PlG4/00, Ser 0027 of 5 Aug. 1942; and P16-4/00, Ser 0023 of 5 Aug. 1942,<br />
subj: Lieutenant Pinger’s orders to the Local Defense Force, Sub-Area.
Logistics: August 1942-February 1943 427<br />
for duty. This sound principle was extended to Gavutu-Tulagi on 28 Oc-<br />
tober 1942 when Pinger’s relief, Lieutenant Commander John C. Alderman<br />
( 1928), was given orders to report to Brigadier General William H.<br />
Rupertus, <strong>US</strong>MC, the senior officer present on Tulagi. On 27 November<br />
1942, Commander William G. Fewell (1921) took over the Advanced<br />
Base at Tulagi from Alderman and only a month later, on 26 December<br />
1942, he, in turn, was relieved by Commander Oliver O. Kessing (1914),<br />
soon to be promoted to captain.<br />
Thus at the Gavutu-Tulagi Base, there were four different guiding influences<br />
in less than five months. At Guadalcanal, where the commander of<br />
the two bases in the area had his headquarters, there were three changes of<br />
command at this level in the same period. <strong>The</strong>re were also three changes at<br />
the Lunga Base command level since the first two over-all commanders also<br />
commanded what in effect was the Lunga Base.<br />
It was two months more and then after another plea from COMSOPAC<br />
that “planning and development bases this area is a major problem,” before<br />
Captain Worrall R. Carter ( 1908) was ordered as Commander Naval Bases,<br />
South Pacific Force, and only after COMINCH had added his approval to<br />
the creation of this echelon of command. In January 1943, Captain Carter<br />
issued a Basic Organization of Naval Bases SOPAC.5G<br />
Rear Admiral Turner proceeded by air on 11 September to Guadalcanal,<br />
together with Rear Admiral McCain (COMAIRSOPAC) and the Commanding<br />
Officer 7th <strong>Marine</strong> Regiment and members of their staffs. <strong>The</strong><br />
group returned to Espiritu Santo on 13 September and CTF 62 departed by<br />
transport on 14 September for Guadalcanal with the 7th <strong>Marine</strong> Regiment.<br />
Captain Compton recalled:<br />
In September, Turner came to Guadalcanal. I was asked to have dinner by<br />
General Vandegrift together with General Geiger, Jock McCain and Colonel<br />
Wood. Kelly broke out a bottle of bourbon. During the evening General<br />
Vandegrift suggested that Turner was giving me a hard time. Kelly said:<br />
‘If I kick him around a bit, he will do a better job.’<br />
<strong>The</strong> second night Kelly was on Guadalcanal we took a big pasting. That<br />
morning we had a big bombing. Our radio shack was hit. Kelly drove up in<br />
a jeep. I tried to explain that I was taking care of things like that {getting the<br />
communications flowing again] .57<br />
An examination of the <strong>Marine</strong>s’ log of events at Guadalcanal shows that<br />
W(a) COMSOPAC 072206 Sep., 061345 Nov. 1942; (b) COMGENCACT<strong>US</strong>, letter, 13 Sep.<br />
1942; (c) CNO, OP–30–B3, letter Ser 0291930 of 7 Nov. 1943, 1942 and references.<br />
‘7Compton.
428 Amphibians Came To Cozquer<br />
a 42-plane Japanese air strike occurred at 1150, 12 September, and put the<br />
main radio receivers on Guadalcanal out of commission for 32 hours. <strong>The</strong><br />
night of 12 September, Guadalcanal was shelled by a Japanese light cruiser<br />
and three destroyers, and the first probing actions of the Battle of the Ridge<br />
occurred. On the 13th of September, Japanese planes made passes at Henderson<br />
Field just before and after Rear Admiral Turner departed Guadalcanal.<br />
CUB ONE MOVES FORWARD SLOWLY<br />
On 29 August, 357 officers and men of the Sixth Naval Construction<br />
Battalion (part of CUB One) embarked in the cargo ship Be.telgeuse for<br />
Guadalcanal. This meant that two weeks after the initial landings about<br />
480 personnel of CUB One had been started forward.<br />
On 28 September 1942, in a letter to Major General Vandegrift, Rear<br />
Admiral Turner wrote in regard to preparing Guadalcanal as “our Major<br />
invasion base:”<br />
I am not satisfied with the number of men Compton has taken in there. He<br />
should have all of the CUB One and the Sixth Construction personnel, excepc<br />
a very small contingent at BUTTON [Espiritu Sante, New Hebrides] to act<br />
as a forwarding agency.sg<br />
On 30 September 1942, Commander Compton reported that 47 officers<br />
and 878 men of CUB One were still in Espiritu Sante, and he furnished a<br />
list of the tasks they were engaged in.” On 5 August 1942, CUB One had<br />
reported a strength of 139 officers and 1,828 men,<br />
On 24 October 1942, Rear Admiral Turner sent to COMSOPAC an<br />
eight-page letter dealing with the ‘
Logistics: Augr@ 1942–Febrnary 1943 429<br />
Rear Admiral Turner, it is pointed out that in his letter of about 28 September<br />
1942 Commander Compton had stated:<br />
Much of CUB One material is already installed at BUTTON [Espiritu Sante,<br />
New Hebrides]. . . . Unless material of CUB 13 at WHITE POPPY<br />
[Noumea, New Caledonia] is carefully preserved for such use it will be<br />
difficult if not impossible to properly fit out RINJGBOLT [Tulagi}.”<br />
Commander Compton also stated that his activities on Guadalcanal were<br />
divided into two classes:<br />
a. Services and operations immediately required by the current tactical<br />
situation.<br />
b. Development of naval facilities as required by CINCPAC Secret<br />
Serial 09910 of 8 July 1942.<br />
In other words, Commander Compton, for what he believed made very good<br />
reasons, still was not moving towards the building of an Advanced Naval<br />
Base, but rather toward an Advanced Air Base.<br />
In his letter of 24 October, COMPHIBFORSOPAC recommended that<br />
a new title, Commander Advanced Naval Bases, Solomons, be given to Com-<br />
mander Compton and that he be provided with a six-man staff. COMSOPAC<br />
agreed that a new title was desirable but decided that the new title should<br />
be Commander Naval Bases, Forward Area. This got away from the limited<br />
concept of an Air Base.<br />
COMPHIBFORSOPAC felt that leaving approximately 40 percent of<br />
the totaI number of officers and men in CUB One at Espiritu Santo for over<br />
two months was a diversion of effort from the main task at hand. In his<br />
mind, Commander Compton had not acquired a clear idea of the very large<br />
naval base needed at Guadalcanal-Tulagi to serve for the future assembling<br />
of large invasion forces and their logistic support which would be needed<br />
to move into the Middle and Upper Solomons. He decided that a new and<br />
more senior officer was needed for the job.G2<br />
While Rear Admiral Turner was unhappy with results achieved up to<br />
that time, it is most evident that Commander Compton well pleased his<br />
<strong>Marine</strong> Seniors. <strong>The</strong> Commanding General, First <strong>Marine</strong> Air Wing, Briga-<br />
dier General Roy S. Geiger, who arrived on Guadalcanal on 3 September<br />
1942, wrote of Captain Compton:<br />
His wholehearted cooperation in placing all the facilities of his command at<br />
“’ Ibid.<br />
‘2 Turner.
430 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
the disposal of the Commanding General, First <strong>Marine</strong> Air Wing aided the<br />
aviation units in repelling air and surface attacks.<br />
And Major General Vandegrift wrote:<br />
You took over immediately the multiplicity of duties connected with the<br />
preparation and maintenance of the Naval and Air facilities at this station.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se duties you have discharged in an outstanding manner. By your unceasing<br />
efforts, complete cooperation and willingness, you have made an invaluable<br />
contribution to the success of operations in this area.<br />
In early November 1942, Rear Admiral Turner applied to COMSOPAC<br />
for the services of Captain W. G. Greenman (1912), the Captain of the illfated<br />
Artoria (sunk at Savo Island) who was still in the SOPAC area.<br />
COMSOPAC ordered Captain Greenman as Commander Naval Bases,<br />
Forward Area, and Commander Compton as his Chief Staff Ofiicer.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner sat down and wrote Captain Greenman a long<br />
letter:<br />
Congratulations on being assigned to your new job. You may or may not<br />
like it—so you should know that I recommended you for it, worked like hell<br />
before we got you, and am now trying to have you made a Flag officer so you<br />
have appropriate rank as Commander Advanced Naval Base, CACT<strong>US</strong>-<br />
RINGBOLT. ‘Advanced Naval Bases Solomons’ does not seem to be acceptable<br />
to the boss, nor does ‘Commander Naval Activities, Solomons’ fit<br />
the bill. . . .<br />
I personally drafted the plan for the development of the SOLOMON base<br />
. . . because I was unable to get a satisfactory program from Compton, and not<br />
even any member of my staff really knew the story .63<br />
Captain Greenman lasted but a month (7 November-12 December 1942)<br />
as he developed pneumonia and had to be shipped back to Pearl Harbor.<br />
Personal letters indicated that Captain Greenman was trying hard to get<br />
officers of appropriate seniority ordered in as Commanding Officers RING-<br />
BOLT and CACT<strong>US</strong>.<br />
<strong>The</strong> next over-all commander of these two Advanced Bases started out<br />
as Commander Advanced Naval Base CACT<strong>US</strong>, but soon had a new title-<br />
Commander Naval Bases Solomons. He was Captain Thomas M. Shock<br />
(1913), who well satisfied his Boss and the Army who awarded him a<br />
Distinguished Service Medal, but in the spring of 1943, after serving from<br />
12 December 1942 to 11 May 1943, he had to be invalided home.”<br />
WRKT to Captain W, G, Greenman, letter, 7 Nov. 19.12.<br />
M(a) Commander Naval Bases South Solomons Sub-Area, Conzrnmzd History, p. 79; (b)<br />
Personal letters COMSOPAC to CINCPAC.
Logistics: August 1942-February 1943 431<br />
Your interesting letter of December twentieth has been received. It is just<br />
the kind of letter I would have expected you to write, and if any proof were<br />
needed, proves that we now have the right man in the very difficult position of<br />
Commander Advanced Naval Base, CACT<strong>US</strong>.’5<br />
Captain William M. Quigley (1911), the next Commander Naval Bases,<br />
Solon-ions, did not arrive until 12 May 1943, and eventually received the pro-<br />
motion to Commodore which had been urged but never approved for his<br />
predecessors. Under his able command, the Naval Bases of the Southern<br />
Solomons further developed and provided highly effective support, both<br />
operational and logistic, for the New Georgia Campaign.ss<br />
Guadalcanal was a tough area for the health of oldsters. Captain Green-<br />
man was 54, and Captain Shock, 50. Commander Compton was only a bit<br />
younger, at 47.<br />
In comparison with the speed and efficiency with which the Navy built<br />
many other Advanced Bases during its sweep up the Solomons and across<br />
the Pacific, it cannot be denied that the building of the CACT<strong>US</strong>-RING-<br />
BOLT Base suffers badly. In second guessing the reasons for the slowness<br />
with which the Advanced Base CACT<strong>US</strong>-RINGBOLT took shape, the four<br />
most apparent reasons are:<br />
1. <strong>The</strong>re was no adequate Base Plan developed by higher echelons<br />
of command prior to the assault landing.<br />
2. <strong>The</strong> Base Area was under Japanese gunfire or air attack a far greater<br />
number of times during the first four months of building than other<br />
bases. <strong>The</strong>re was a definite lack of appreciation by the officer in<br />
over-all charge, Rear Admiral Turner, of the part that defensive<br />
tasks were playing in absorbing the time and energies of the Base<br />
Commander.<br />
3. <strong>The</strong> lack of a clear mission at the Base Commander’s level, with the<br />
immediate senior in command (Major General Vandegrift) being<br />
primarily concerned with work which would contribute promptly<br />
or directly to his offensive or defensive potentialities, and the next<br />
senior in the chain of command (Rear Admiral Turner) keeping a<br />
constant eye to the future use of the Base.<br />
4. A large amount of fuzziness in command lines with five seniors<br />
(COMSOPAC, COMGENFIRSTMARDIV, COMAIRSOPAC,<br />
mRKT to Captain T. M. Shock, letter, 24 Dec. 1942.<br />
WSouth Solomons Sub-Area, Conrmdnd History.
432 Amphibians Came To Conqzer<br />
COMPHIBFORSOPAC, COMSERONSOPAC) all sending dispatches<br />
and letters direct to the Base Commander.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner, far from seeking to enlarge his area of responsi-<br />
bility, or believing in the desirability of his being the appropriate responsible<br />
senior, or enjoying his responsibility to build up the Advanced Base at<br />
Guadalcanal-Tulagi, was anxious to transfer the responsibility to a more<br />
appropriate commander. Less than a month after he had been handed the<br />
hot potato, he felt strongly enough in the matter to seek a change.<br />
On 5 September 1942, COMPHIBFORSOPAC recommended to his im-<br />
mediate seniors<br />
that Commander Amphibious Force South Pacific be relieved of his present<br />
responsibilities in connection with the upbuilding of this base, at a time<br />
deemed appropriate by the Commander South Pacific Force; and that the administration<br />
of the base be handled in a manner similar to the administration<br />
of the other Naval Advanced Basesin the PacificOcean.er<br />
OPINIONS ON THE COURSE OF THE<br />
LOGISTIC DIFFICULTIES<br />
After Vice Admiral Ghormley had left his SOPAC command, and had<br />
time to consider the broader aspects of his duty in that area, he wrote that<br />
he believed that there was in the Navy Department<br />
a marked failure in appreciation of the time element necessary for transportation<br />
to the South Pacific, for base construction and for airfield construction.es<br />
Vice Admiral Halsey soon learned, as he told his seniors in a message of<br />
November 1942:<br />
Planning and development bases this area is a major problem.eo<br />
In June 1943, when Major General Vandegrift moved up to command of<br />
the Amphibious <strong>Corps</strong> South Pacific with Headquarters in Noumea, he<br />
opined:<br />
My biggest problem concerned supply, a field in which, at this point, the<br />
Navy did not excel.’”<br />
A fighting <strong>Marine</strong> and a keen observer who served throughout this period<br />
of logistic difficulties in the Southern Solomons thought that:<br />
‘“COMPHIBFORSOPAC to COMSOPAC, letter, Ser 00116 of 5 Sep. 1942.<br />
WGhormley manuscript, p. 13.<br />
w COMSOPAC, 061345 NOV. 1942.<br />
* Vandegrift, p. 221. Reprinted from Once a <strong>Marine</strong> with permission of W.W. Norton &<br />
Co., Inc.
Logistics: August 1942-February 1943 433<br />
<strong>The</strong> guilty parties were behind snug desks in their Department in Washington.71<br />
Commodore Peyton, the Chief of Staff TF 62, observed:<br />
<strong>The</strong> Navy was unprepared logistically to conduct operations at the end of a<br />
6,OOOmile pipe line. <strong>The</strong> logistic pipe line existed, but it was largely empty.<br />
Great effort was devoted to such commonplace items as oil and ammunition.<br />
To illustrate—we never were really full of fuel for the Guadalcanal Operation.<br />
We were supposed to fill up at the Fijis, but there wasn’t enough fuel<br />
for all ships to fill full. We were supposed to top off at Efate. <strong>The</strong>re was no<br />
fuel there.”<br />
From the safe distance of 27 years, it may be pointed out that none of the<br />
operation orders dealing with WATCHTOWER issued by naval command<br />
echelons prior to the landing provided for scheduled or automatic resupply<br />
over the first 30 to 60 days of the operation. <strong>The</strong>se orders contained no<br />
particular details regarding the follow-up movements for the tremendous<br />
logistic support which would be involved in building an Advanced Air Base,<br />
or the other essential facilities of a small Naval Operating Base at an overseas<br />
location. CINCPAC issued his orders for building the Advanced Air Base by<br />
CUB One on 8 July 1942 but the Commanding Oflicer of CUB One did not<br />
receive a copy of it until after the landings of 7 August 1942. This is logistics<br />
at its very worst, when the support forces are a month late in getting the<br />
word about the operations.<br />
That the Line of the Navy, even those at the top echelon, learned fast<br />
about logistics is evidenced by this testimony of its senior officer in 1944:<br />
This war has been variously termed a war of production and a war of<br />
machines. Whatever else it is, so far as the United States is concerned, it is a<br />
war of logistics . . . <strong>The</strong> profound effect of logistics problems on our strategic<br />
decision are not likely to have full significance to those who did not have<br />
to traverse the tremendous distances in the Pacific.73<br />
That the <strong>Marine</strong>s occasionally contributed to the logistics problem at<br />
Guadalcanal is indicated by the following extract from an official report<br />
dated Christmas Day 1942 and covering the support operation of 17-18 De-<br />
cember 1942:<br />
<strong>The</strong> straw that nearly tipped the balance was the box of cargo that broke<br />
n Griffith, p. 138.<br />
7’Interview with Commodore Thomas G. Peyton, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret.), 22 May 1961. Her=fter<br />
Peyton.<br />
n Admiral Ernest J. King to SECNAV, 23 Apr. 1944.
434 AmPbibiatzs Came To Conquer<br />
open in #3 hold and displayed the contents as tennis rackets and tennis balls.<br />
Of all items to waste ship space on in transport to CACT<strong>US</strong>, this seems to be<br />
near the top.74<br />
74Commander Transport Division Eight (Captain George B. Ashe) Report of Operations,<br />
17–18 Dec. 1942.
CHAPTER XII<br />
HUDDLE Slowly Scuttled<br />
SANTA CRUZ ISLANDS (HUDDLE)<br />
One of the factors influencing the ‘when’ and ‘where to’ United States<br />
forces would move from Guadalcanal, was the Santa Cruz Island operation,<br />
code named HUDDLE,<br />
It is customary these days to beat Admiral Turner about the head<br />
because he did not chuck the HUDDLE Operation the day the <strong>Marine</strong>s ran<br />
into their first real opposition on Tulagi—Guadalcanal. <strong>The</strong>se critics blame<br />
him for not committing, with finality, the 2nd <strong>Marine</strong> Regiment resources,<br />
designated for occupying and defending Ndeni in the Santa Cruz Islands,<br />
to augment those on Guadalcanal.<br />
His reasons for delaying sending off a recommendation to scuttle<br />
HUDDLE to his many seniors, all the way up to the Joint Chiefs of Staff,<br />
all of whom had directed the occupation and defense of the Santa Cruz<br />
Islands, were three in number. Rear Admiral Turner believed that:<br />
1. <strong>The</strong> Japanese reaction to the loss of the lower Solomons as a base for<br />
air reconnaissance of the Coral Sea and air attacks on New Caledonia, could<br />
well be a try at outflanking the lower Solomons, and reducing their usefulness<br />
in United States hands by a seizure of the Santa Cruz Islands, and the building<br />
of airfields thereon. In other words, the Santa Cruz Islands offered an alternativeroute<br />
to the New Hebrides and New Caledonia which should be denied<br />
to the offensive-minded Japanese. It was learned from the natives that the<br />
Japanese had built a temporary air base on the Santa Cruz Islands and<br />
conducted a war game therefrom in 1940.I<br />
2. In the early days of the WATCHTOWER Operation a despatch had<br />
come in from COMSOPAC on 28 July 1942 indicating that from cryptographic<br />
sources, it had been learned that the Japanese were planning to<br />
commence an operation on 29 July from the New Britain Area. Rear Admiral<br />
Turner thought that whatever objective this Japanese operation had been<br />
planned for, that it might well be diverted to the Santa Cruz Islands to balance<br />
off, in Japanese eyes, the American movements into the Southern Solomons.<br />
1See CO Znd <strong>Marine</strong>s to COMSOPAC 140148 Aug. 1942.<br />
435
436 Amphibians Canze To Conquer
HUDDLE Slowly Scuttled 437<br />
3. <strong>The</strong>re was a very real positive value to be obtained from the establishment<br />
of United States air bases in the Santa Cruz Islands and their use for<br />
air seareh to locate any Japanese Expeditionary Force movements from the<br />
Marshall Islands southeastward towards the Fiji and Samoan Islands.’<br />
It is interesting that COMSOPAC’S reaction to this cryptographic infor-<br />
mation seemingly was the same, since based on this despatch he told CTF 61<br />
(Fletcher) to give consideration to an early end of Phase One and the<br />
commencing of Phase Two (HUDDLE) of Operation Plan 1–42.3<br />
As early as 14 June, Vice Admiral Ghormley had advised COMINCH<br />
that he desired “to initiate an advance through New Hebrides, Santa Cruz<br />
and Ellice Island.” He was still of the opinion that the Santa Cruz Islands<br />
were important when Rear Admiral Turner talked with him in Auckland in<br />
mid-July 1942 and he remained convinced of it up to the day of his detach-<br />
ment as COMSOPAC.4<br />
At the 26 July conference regarding WATCHTOWER which Fletcher<br />
(1906), Noyes (1906), McCain (1906), Turner (1908), Kinkaid (1908),<br />
Vandegrift, <strong>US</strong>MC, Crutchley (Royal Navy), and Callaghan (1911) held<br />
at sea off Koro on 26 July, the questions of the forces to be finally assigned<br />
HUDDLE and the D-Day for the HUDDLE Operation were discussed.<br />
Callaghan’s notes to the Area Commander in regard to these points were as<br />
follows :<br />
Movement to Ndeni to be started night of D-Day if possible. Much argument<br />
about need of whole Znd <strong>Marine</strong>s. Brought up Peck’s point of using<br />
one battalion for this purpose-was voted down as all agreed that this must<br />
be held strongly account of its position and probability of major attack on it.’<br />
This planning in regard to Ndeni had gone forward despite the fact that<br />
on 6 July 1942 COMAIRSOPAC had reported that actual reconnaissance of<br />
the Santa Cruz Islands and the islands to the south had disclosed that air-<br />
field sites were going to be hard to come by. Only two heavily wooded<br />
areas, one on Ndeni and one on Trevanion Island, were possibilities.e<br />
When the <strong>Marine</strong>s were having real difficulties at Tulagi-Gavutu on<br />
D-Day, Major General Vandegrift requested from CTF 62 (Turner) the<br />
release of one battalion from the Force Reserve, the 2nd <strong>Marine</strong> Regiment,<br />
‘Turner.<br />
*COMSOPAC to CTF 61, 272211 Jul. 1942.<br />
‘ (a) COMSOPAC to COMINCH, 140614 Jun. 1942; (b) Turner<br />
‘ Ghormley manuscript, p. 67.<br />
nCOMAIRSOPAC to COMSOPAC, 060145 Jul. 1942.
438 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
to reinforce the Assault Force. He got not only one battalion, but two-all<br />
the battalions there were in the Force Reserve.’<br />
On 10 August and after having received the first reports of the Savo<br />
disaster, COMSOPAC stated that he intended to use Espiritu Santo as a<br />
strong point for the “occupation [of} Santa Cruz Islands.” 8 This despatch<br />
indicated that Vice Admiral Ghormley was still bent on carrying out the<br />
Joint Chiefs of Staff directive. <strong>The</strong>refore his subordinate, Rear Admiral<br />
Turner, should be planning and moving toward this end.<br />
It was not within CTF 62’s area of authority to tell the <strong>Marine</strong>s that they<br />
could forget about his seniors’ plans for the use of the 2nd Regiment of<br />
<strong>Marine</strong>s, nor could he personally forget about these plans. <strong>The</strong> <strong>Marine</strong>s, the<br />
Amphibious Forces, and the South Pacific Force Commander all had protested<br />
setting D-Day for WATCHTOWER on August lst, and had<br />
said it could not be done. <strong>The</strong> JCS acting through Admiral King had then<br />
tinkered with August 4th and when that day appeared impracticable and<br />
further protests and pleas against it had been sent all the way to Washington,<br />
August 7th had been set as D-Day with the understanding of no further<br />
delay, no matter what.<br />
It would appear that Rear Admiral Turner was wise in not rushing into<br />
another exchange of pungent dispatches asking for a further modification of<br />
COMSOPAC’S, CINCPAC’S, COMINCH’S, and the Joint Chiefs’ orders<br />
regarding HUDDLE, when the practicalities and necessities would settle the<br />
issue.<br />
Back in early June, COMINCH had planned for the 7th Regiment of the<br />
First <strong>Marine</strong> Division, temporarily in Samoa, to rejoin its division.’ <strong>The</strong> relief<br />
for the 7th Regiment, the 22nd <strong>Marine</strong> Regiment, was to leave San Diego<br />
as soon after 10 July 1942 as they were loaded aboard transports. <strong>The</strong>re was<br />
a reasonable possibility that the 7th Regiment might be available to rejoin<br />
the First <strong>Marine</strong> Division by mid-August. In this case, the 7th Regiment could<br />
either undertake the Ndeni task or relieve the 2nd Regiment on Tulagi-<br />
Guadalcanal. Both arrangements would leave the First Division at full<br />
strength.<br />
On 14 August, the Commanding Officer of the 2nd Regiment, after a<br />
visit to Ndeni, reported that the Jap airfield on Ndeni was overgrown but<br />
that Ndeni could be occupied.’”<br />
‘ Vandegrift, pp. 125, 126.<br />
“COMSOPAC to COMAIRSOPAC, 092120 Aug. 1942.<br />
0COMINCH Picador Plan, FF1/A163 ( 15), Ser 00464 of 6 Jun. 1942.<br />
MCO 2nd <strong>Marine</strong>s to COMSOPAC, 140148 Aug. 1942.
HUDDLE Slowly Sczzttled 439<br />
On 15 August COMINCH transmitted a despatch from the Joint Chiefs<br />
to COMSOPAC (which COMPHIBFORSOPAC also received) containing<br />
these words:<br />
based upon the successful progress of Task One, it should be practicable to<br />
mount immediately that part of Task Two. . . . CINCPAC urges such<br />
actions. . . .ll<br />
It was apparent from this despatch that at the JCS, COMINCH, and<br />
CINCPAC level, it was anticipated that Task One, a major part of which<br />
was HUDDLE, would be successfully completed.<br />
On 17 August COMSOPAC informed CINCPAC and COMINCH that<br />
Ndeni “will be occupied as soon as practicable.” ‘z<br />
On 20 August 1942, Rear Admiral Turner at Noumea, issued his second<br />
Op Plan for the occupation and defense of Ndeni in the Santa Cruz Islands.13<br />
He was in a vise. His immediate seniors, Nimitz and Ghormley, were<br />
urging him to get on with HUDDLE. His immediate <strong>Marine</strong> junior (Vandegrift)<br />
was urging him to scuttle HUDDLE.<br />
That, at this date, Turner was just a bit on the fence is apparent from<br />
the fact that his Op Plan A9–42 was delivered to those who had tasks to plan<br />
and to do if the operation was carried out, but the copies for COMINCH,<br />
Naval Operations, the Commanding General First <strong>Marine</strong> Division, and<br />
others were marked: “Deferred Distribution (After execution of Plan) .“<br />
<strong>The</strong> deferred distribution of Op Plan A9-42 was never made.<br />
On 23 August, Rear Admiral Turner informed Major General Vandegrift:<br />
<strong>The</strong> present plan is to send this regiment (i’th) plus Fifth Defense Battalion<br />
(less your share) to Ndeni as a garrison, but of course that will be changed,<br />
if it becomes necessary .14<br />
On 28 August 1942, by agreement between Rear Admirals McCain and<br />
Turner, Lieutenant Colonel Weir, the Assistant Operations Officer (Air) on<br />
the Amphibious Staff, flew up to Ndeni Island and made a ground reconnais-<br />
sance of nearby Trevanion Island, our proposed airfield site.<br />
. . . What may not be so well known is the fact that the project was opposed<br />
with equal violence by COMAIRSOPAC (Rear Admiral McCain ). He ob-<br />
jected to the diversion of aircraft and construction forces. . . . I reported<br />
that the maximum runway which could be built was about 4000 feet. Also<br />
that because of irregular terrain and heavy woods, the project was impossible<br />
u COMINCH to CINCPAC, COMSOP.4CFOR, 151951 Aug. 1942.<br />
n COMSOPAC to CINCPAC, 170230 Aug. 1942.<br />
‘S CTF 62 Op Plan A9–42, 20 Aug. 1942.<br />
“ RKT to Vandegrift, letter, 23 Aug. 1942.
440 A?n.pbib&ns Came To Conquer<br />
with construction troops and equipment available in the foreseeable future.<br />
,.. No one in SOPAC had then seen a SeabeeBattalion. . . .ls<br />
On 29 August, COMSOPAC informed CINCPAC and COMINCH:<br />
When the 7th <strong>Marine</strong>s are embarked and if the situation then permits, I<br />
intend to seize Ndeni, the occupation of which and the establishment of an<br />
airfield thereon will greatly strengthen my position. . . .16<br />
<strong>The</strong> actual deferment of HUDDLE became possible at the COMPHIB-<br />
FORSOPAC level only after the Joint Chiefs of Staff approved CINCPAC’S<br />
recommendation of 3 September that the JCS Directive of 2 July<br />
be modified to permit occupation Santa Cruz Islands to a later phase [of<br />
PESTILENCE] at discretion of COMSOPAC.17<br />
On 9 September 1942, the modification having come through from the<br />
Joint Chiefs, COMSOPAC, in his Op Plan 3-42, took cognizance of this<br />
new authority and directed CTF 62 to “prepare to occupy Ndeni Island on<br />
further directive.” ‘8 This was at least a step towards cancellation of the<br />
hperation.<br />
On the same day, with the 7th Regiment of the First <strong>Marine</strong> Division en-<br />
route from Samoa to a rendezvous with a detachment of <strong>Marine</strong>s from<br />
New Caledonia, the needs of Guadalcanal rose up and demanded that the<br />
7th Regiment proceed to Guadalcanal and that the 2nd Regiment remain<br />
there.<br />
Also on 9 September, Rear Admiral Turner wrote Rear Admiral Leigh<br />
Noyes, Commander Task Force 18 in the lVa~p:<br />
We have pending a decision as to whether or not to undertake an operation<br />
for the reinforcement of the <strong>Marine</strong> garrison at CACT<strong>US</strong>. . . .<br />
*****<br />
Final decision as to whether or not to make this landing at Taivu Point, will<br />
depend on Ghorrnley’s decision after Vandegrift and I have had a conference<br />
within the next two or three days. . . ,<br />
*****<br />
I expect to go up to CACT<strong>US</strong> the eleventh, return to BU~ON the thirteenth,<br />
and remain there until the move forward.lg<br />
ISMajor GeneraL F. D, weir, <strong>US</strong>MC (Ret. ) to GCD, letter, 14 May 1969<br />
10COM.SOPAC to CINCPAC, 290310 Aug. 1942.<br />
IT CINCPAC to COMINCH, 032013 Sep. 1942.<br />
m (a) COMSOPAC Op Plan 3-42; (b) COMSOPAC, 091016 Sep. 1942.<br />
WRKT to Rear Admiral Leigh Noyes, letter, 9 Sep. 1942.
HUDDLE Slowly Scuttled 441<br />
On 11 September Rear Admiral Turner informed COMSOPAC that he<br />
hoped availability of forces in SOPAC would be such as to permit an alloca-<br />
tion of forces for the HUDDLE Operation because<br />
It is essential that we occupyNdeni as soon as possible.zo<br />
But that did not necessarily mean now, nor necessarily with the 7th Regiment.<br />
It did mean that the JCS directive and the CINCPAC directive still contem-<br />
plated the occupation of Ndeni.<br />
On 12 September, and after a personal visit to Guadalcanal, Rear Admiral<br />
Turner definitely swung to the priority of Guadalcanal over Ndeni as the<br />
objective for the 7th <strong>Marine</strong> Regiment, and wrote:<br />
Personal reconnaissance and a careful review of the situation with COMGEN<br />
1st MARDIV confirms opinion . . . one more regiment is essential to defense<br />
CACT<strong>US</strong> now. . . . Recommend approval my departure from Espiritu Santo<br />
for Guadalcanal, morning 14th . . with i’th <strong>Marine</strong>s. . . .“<br />
<strong>The</strong> COMPHIBFORSOPAC Staff Log tells the story of the next few days:<br />
13 September. [At Espiritu Sante] 0015. Received secret despatch from Adm.<br />
Turner {who was on Guadalcanal] to COMSOPAC recommending irmnediate<br />
reinforcement of CACT<strong>US</strong> [Guadalcanal] by the 7th <strong>Marine</strong>s.<br />
*****<br />
0400. Anchored as before, standing by to get underway on half hour’s notice.<br />
AA Battery in Condition TWO.<br />
*****<br />
0800: COMAIRSOPAC reported morning search failed to reveal presence<br />
enemy ships this area and indicates no immediate threat to BUTTON<br />
[Espiritu Sante] today.<br />
*****<br />
1130. CTF 62, Assistant Chief of Staff, and the Staff Aviation Officer returned<br />
from a conference at CACT<strong>US</strong> with Commanding General First<br />
<strong>Marine</strong> Division, and COMAIRSOPAC.<br />
*****<br />
14 September<br />
0048. Radio Guadalcanal reported in plain language being shelled by at<br />
least one cruiser and two destroyers.<br />
0515. Units of Task Force 62 underway.<br />
*****<br />
0800. CACT<strong>US</strong> garrison engaged all night at rear and right flank. Now<br />
[0800] engaged left flank. Bringing over one battalion 2nd <strong>Marine</strong>s from<br />
RINGBOLT [Tulagi_J.<br />
rnCOMPHIBFORSOPAC to COMSOPACFOR,092300 Sep. 1942.<br />
n COMPHIBFORSOPAC to COMSOPAC, 120530 Sep. 1942.
442 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
<strong>The</strong> Staff Log for the afternoon watch on 15 September 1942 contains the<br />
following entry in the Chief of Staff’s handwriting:<br />
IS September<br />
Information of enemy shows strong concentration of Japanese Naval strength<br />
within 300 mile radius of CACT<strong>US</strong>. One group of 3 BB, 4 CA, 4 DD at<br />
7–5oZ, 164E bombed by B-17s, 2 possible hits. 1 CV, 3 cruisers, 4 DD at<br />
06-30S, 164–17E, another carrier group North of Kolombangara Island<br />
[180 miles NW from Guadalcanal.] Enemy attacks, land and naval forces<br />
throughout the night at CACT<strong>US</strong>. . . . All factors of situation caused a<br />
decision on the part of CTF 65 [Turner] temporarily to withdraw in hopes<br />
of more favorable opportunity for reinforcement and also in order to rendezvous<br />
Bellatrix to take in [to Guadalcanal} large quantity AV Gas. . . .<br />
<strong>The</strong> Staff Log continues:<br />
16 September<br />
*****<br />
1818: <strong>The</strong> strategical situation is doubtful. Practically no plane contacts<br />
today and practically no information of enemy. Covering Force of carriers, our<br />
Task Force 61, has withdrawn to BUTTON. Task Force 65 maintaining itself<br />
in vicinity of CINCPAC grid position 4794 in order to be prepared to take<br />
advantage of any favorable opportunity to enter CACT<strong>US</strong> either east or west<br />
of San CristobaL . . .<br />
17 Septembev<br />
0000: En route to CACT<strong>US</strong>.<br />
1200: Visibility reduced by haze. Nothing sighted.<br />
*****<br />
Considerable concentration of [Japanese] naval escort force, transport and<br />
landing craft at Faisi [250 miles NW Guadalcanal] indicates that a major<br />
effort will soon be made by enemy, either as direct landing attack or in building<br />
up Faisi as a base from which future operations may be projected.<br />
Decision was made to proceed with plan for reinforcement of CACT<strong>US</strong>.<br />
18 September<br />
*****<br />
0625: First <strong>Marine</strong> troops Ianded.zz<br />
<strong>The</strong> reinforcement moved forward, although the second try cost us the<br />
carrier ~a~p and the destroyer O’Brietz. But the 7th Regiment was success-<br />
fully landed.<br />
However, putting the 7th Regiment on Guadalcanal did not mean that<br />
COMSOPAC was relieved of his responsibility for carrying out his directive<br />
to occupy Ndeni in the Santa Cruz Islands “as soon as possible.” <strong>The</strong> desira-<br />
= COMPHIBFORSOPAC Staff Log.
HUDDLE S[ouJy Scuttled 443<br />
bility of the operation was noted, on 22 September, by CINCPAC who in<br />
a despatch to COMINCH referred to the “necessity to occupy Ndeni.” 23<br />
Various alternative forces in the rear areas were suggested by COMSOPAC<br />
and COMPHIBFORSOPAC as possible forces for the task, including one<br />
battalion of the Znd Regiment on Guadalcanal, the 8th Regiment of the<br />
Second <strong>Marine</strong> Division in Samoa, and the 147th Regiment of the U.S. Army<br />
in the Tonga Islands.24<br />
When COMPHIBFORSOPAC suggested as a possibility including the<br />
Army$’ 14i’th Regiment in the required troops for the Ndeni Mission, COM-<br />
GEN, SOPAC (Major General Millard F. Harmon, U. S. Army) stepped<br />
in, and on 6 October 1942 recommended strongly against HUDDLE being<br />
undertaken until “the Southern Solomon’s were secured.” 25<br />
Vice Admiral Ghormley was still intent on HUDDLE and turned down<br />
the recommendation of his senior Army advisor to cancel. <strong>The</strong> <strong>Marine</strong>s on<br />
Guadalcanal went through another crisis in early October, and all troop<br />
resources in SOPAC were pointed towards our holding operation there. Rear<br />
Admiral Turner landed 2,850 Army troops from the 164th Infantry Regi-<br />
ment on 13 October along with 3,200 tons of cargo.<br />
Shortly after Vice Admiral William F. Halsey took over command in<br />
SOPAC on 18 October 1942, the heat came off Rear Admiral Turner to<br />
undertake HUDDLE, although the operation was not actually dead until<br />
March 1943 when the Joint Chiefs of Staff cancelled their 2 July 1942 PESTI-<br />
LENCE Plan and issued their new plan of operations for the seizure of the<br />
Solomon Islands-New Guinea-New Britain-New Ireland areas to make possible<br />
the “ultimate seizure of the Bismarck Archipelago.” “<br />
It was Admiral Turner’s belief that it was quite natural for the <strong>Marine</strong>s,<br />
as long as they were maintaining a perimeter defensive position on Guadal-<br />
canal, to want every <strong>Marine</strong> in the South Pacific within that perimeter; but<br />
that he had to view the situation in a broader spectrum, and that he naturally<br />
was more responsive than the <strong>Marine</strong>s to the overriding JCS directives and<br />
his immediate senior’s requirements.27<br />
Probably the root of the clifference of opinion between COMSOPAC and<br />
= CINCPAC to COMINCH, 222327 Sep. 1942.<br />
“ (a) RKT to AAG, letter, 28 Sep. 1942; (b) COMSOPAC to COMPHIBFORSOPAC, 290206<br />
Sep. 1942; (c) COMPHIBFORSOPAC to COMSOPAC, 010430 Oct. 1942.<br />
= (a) COMSOPAC to COMPHIBFORSOPAC, 290206 Sep. 1942; (b) Miller, Grwdalcanul<br />
(Army), p, 141 and Appendix A; (c) COMPHIBFORSOPAC to COMSOPAC, 010430 Oct.<br />
1942,<br />
3 JCS 238/5/D of 23 Mar. 1943.<br />
n Turner.
444 Arnpbibians Came To Conquer<br />
COMPHIBFORPAC with the Commanding General First <strong>Marine</strong> Division<br />
was that Vice Admiral Ghormley and Rear Admiral Turner could not get<br />
out of their minds that all the early directives from higher authority listed<br />
taking the Santa Cruz Islands ahead of the Solomon Islands in the missions<br />
to be accomplished, and it had only been the imperatives resulting from the<br />
Japanese fast progress in building an airfield on Guadalcanal which had<br />
shifted the Santa Cruz Islands from number 1 to number 2 on the JCS chore<br />
list,<br />
<strong>The</strong> original despatch to COMSOPAC gave him tasks having the:<br />
Immediate objective of seizing and occupying Santa Cruz Islands and positions<br />
in the Solomon Islands, with the ultimate objective of occupying<br />
Eastern New Guinea and New Britain.<br />
Vice Admiral Halsey came into command of SOPAC without the background<br />
of a chore long assigned and not discharged, and, making an on the<br />
spot estimate of the situation, decided that HUDDLE could stand aside.<br />
Admiral Turner’s belief was that the HUDDLE planning had served<br />
a very useful purpose throughout, and that it had helped the <strong>Marine</strong>s<br />
on Guadalcanal, rather than hindered them, in that it provided a hook upon<br />
which to hang urgent requests for additional troops in the SOPAC area.28<br />
RELIEF OF MARINES BY ARMY TROOPS<br />
<strong>The</strong> major problem of the <strong>Marine</strong>s on Guadalcanal was the Japanese.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re were two other <strong>Marine</strong> problems toward whose solution Rear Admiral<br />
Turner was working, although not always to the satisfaction of the <strong>Marine</strong>s.<br />
<strong>The</strong> first was support of the <strong>Marine</strong>s, both combat and logistic, and the<br />
second was their relief by Army troops.<br />
Admiral Turner felt that he had incurred the displeasure of his comrades<br />
in arms over the relief of the <strong>Marine</strong>s by the Army on Guadalcanal. He<br />
thought that:<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Marine</strong>s were unhappy because they weren’t relieved sooner, and the<br />
Army was unhappy because they were thrown onto Guadalcanal before they<br />
were fully ready.zg<br />
JCS 23, approved by the Joint Chiefs on 16 March 1942, had lumped the<br />
South Pacific and Southwest Pacific into one area and provided for 416,000<br />
= Ibid,<br />
= Turner.
HUDDLE Slowly Scuttled 445<br />
United States troops to be stationed thereby the end of 1942, and had stated<br />
that 225,000 were already so positioned. This figure of 225,000 troops possi-<br />
bly plagued all the Washington planners’ memories, for it was a major<br />
factor influencing when and where United States forces would move on from<br />
Guadalcanal, and constantly was brought up at the COMINCH level as an<br />
ingredient of the relief of the <strong>Marine</strong>s on Guadalcanal by Army troops. For<br />
the Navy planners believed that if the Army could relieve the <strong>Marine</strong>s from<br />
land warfare on Guadalcanal, the <strong>Marine</strong>s could carry out an amphibious<br />
operation directed by the Joint Chiefs against the Santa Cruz Islands.<br />
When General MacArthur’s area boundary was shifted westward of Gua-<br />
dalcanal on 1 August 1942, his pain was eased by telling him that the bound-<br />
ary shift was made so that COMSOPAC would be required to furnish garrison<br />
forces for the Solomons.30 This represented a change from the initial draft<br />
directive which had provided:<br />
permanent occupation of Islands seized on the Solomons—New Guinea<br />
Area will be accomplished by the movement of garrisons from Australia under<br />
the direction of COMSOWESPACAREA.<br />
<strong>The</strong> 2 July PESTILENCE three-phase directive issued by Joint Chiefs of<br />
Staff accordingly had provided that Army troops presently in the SOPAC<br />
area<br />
would be used to garrison Tulagi and adj scent island positions.’l<br />
Actually, there were only 32,000 United States Army troops in the<br />
SOPAC area at this time.” In Washington that number still seemed like a<br />
great many troops. In SOPAC, that number seemed quite inadequate to<br />
permit any enlargement of current responsibilities to garrison islands pro-<br />
tecting the line of communications from Samoa to Australia.<br />
Vice Admiral Ghormley raised the question of obtaining additional Army<br />
troops from the United States or from New Zealand on 13 July.” He was<br />
immediately informed:<br />
It is not the intention of the Army to provide garrison troops from the<br />
United States for Santa Cruz-Tulagi-Guadalcanal.94<br />
mC/S <strong>US</strong>A to CINCSWPA, Msg. 334, 3 Jul. 1942, OPD 381, SWPA ??85. Modern Military<br />
Records Division, National Archives.<br />
n COMINCH to CINCPAC, COMSOPAC, 022100 Jul. 1942.<br />
* Miller, Guadalcanal (Army), p. 24.<br />
= COMSOPAC to CINCPAC, 190414 Jul. 1942.<br />
w COMINCH to COMSOPAC, 142226 Jul. 1942.
446 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
In regard to obtaining New Zealand troops, COMINCH flashed a caution<br />
light:<br />
only if you believe you can handle without upsetting arrangements made<br />
re Fiji.<br />
Admiral King referred to the prospective New Zealand take over in Fiji of<br />
troop defense responsibilities from the United States.<br />
Vice Admiral Ghormley was upset also by a directive 35 from CINCPAC<br />
which required that authority be obtained from the Joint Chiefs of Staff for<br />
any plan involving the shift of Army troops in his area to relieve the <strong>Marine</strong>s.<br />
He asked for “full authority to employ the forces in this area in accordance<br />
with his judgment in furtherance of the directives he has received.” 30<br />
Since the governing publication ~oint Action of the Army and the Navy<br />
provided that Army troops would relieve the <strong>Marine</strong>s, as soon as there was<br />
judged to have occurred a change from amphibious warfare to land war-<br />
fare, it was obvious to COMSOPAC that this particular decision was one<br />
which properly could and should be made in the immediate operational<br />
area and not in Pearl Harbor or Washington.<br />
Both Vice Admiral Ghormley and Major General M. F. Harmon, the<br />
Commanding General, United States Army Forces, South Pacific Area were<br />
strongly convinced that they could not move forward forces recently arrived<br />
as island defense forces in the Fiji and New Caledonia Area to become<br />
garrison forces on the Solomons. <strong>The</strong> prowess of the Japanese in amphibious<br />
operations, and their ability to overcome locally superior United States and<br />
British Forces in the Philippines and in the Malay Peninsula, was too fresh<br />
in the minds of these commanders to permit them to take an offensive attitude.<br />
As Vice Admiral Ghormley wrote:<br />
<strong>The</strong> Japs might break through any minute and these ground forces were<br />
necessary to defend our bases which were supporting and controlling the<br />
line of communications.37<br />
Starting in early September 1942, Commanding General First Division<br />
<strong>Marine</strong>s kept pressing his immediate naval senior for relief of his <strong>Marine</strong>s<br />
by Army troops, and in almost every letter there is some reference to it.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner in replying to one letter in late September wrote:<br />
<strong>The</strong> question of the relief of <strong>Marine</strong> troops by the Army is a very large<br />
one; as is also the question of where you would go for reorganization when<br />
= CINCPAC to COMSOPAC, letter, A4-3/FF 12/AI 6-(6) Ser 01994 of 8 JuI. 1942.<br />
w COMSOPAC to CINCPAC, 222245 Jul. 1942.<br />
87Ghormlq manuscript, p. 76.
HUDDLE Slowly Scuttled 447<br />
relieved. I have given it a great deal of thought; the only conclusion I have<br />
come to is that we cannot, at present, reach a decision on that point. I<br />
sympathize entirely with your pcint of view and hope we can do the job the<br />
way you wish.ss<br />
According to the Chief of the Army Air Force, in late September 1942:<br />
. . . <strong>The</strong> <strong>Marine</strong>s on Guadalcanal wanted to know when the Army was<br />
going to relieve them. <strong>The</strong> <strong>Marine</strong>s had understood they were to be there<br />
for a few days only, and then were to be relieved. Where was the Army? w<br />
It was not until 6 October 1942 that the Army Commander in the South<br />
Pacific offered Army troops for Guadalcanal. <strong>The</strong>y were not offered as a<br />
relief for part of the <strong>Marine</strong>s on Guadalcanal but as an augmentation in<br />
time of need and as a far more desirable use of Army resources than on<br />
Ndeni.<br />
<strong>The</strong> 164th Infantry Regiment of the Americal Division was landed by<br />
Rear Admiral Turner from the McCawfey and Zeili+z, commencing 13 Oc-<br />
tober 1942, with their 3,200 tons of logistic support, bringing the total<br />
strength on Guadalcanal to over 23,000. Some 4,5oo more troops were still<br />
on the Tulagi side. At the same time the <strong>Marine</strong> 1st Raider Battalion departed<br />
Guadalcanal for the rear area and this movement reaffirmed the principIe<br />
of <strong>Marine</strong> relief by Army troops. And it was on 13 October, that the<br />
Japanese surprise bombed Henderson Field from the comparatively safe<br />
height of 30,000 feet, where our fighters could not reach them at all or<br />
else (F–4F) so slowly that the attackers were gone when the fighters reached<br />
that altitude. <strong>The</strong> same day the Japanese took the <strong>Marine</strong>-Army defensive<br />
forces under fire with their 15 long range 105-millimeter howitzers, which<br />
were positioned out of retaliatory range.<br />
<strong>The</strong> success of the 164th Infantry Regiment in meeting the heavy Japanese<br />
attacks on 24–25 October, and the repeated pleas of Major General Vande-<br />
grift for more and more reinforcements to be followed by the relief of his<br />
<strong>Marine</strong>s, made at the Noumea conferences of this same October period, led<br />
to an early decision for the landing of a battery of 155 guns from the 244th<br />
Coast Artillery Battalion, which was accomplished on 2 November 1942.<br />
This was followed by movement of the 147th Infantry Regiment which<br />
landed at Aola Bay on 4 November. From 12 November 1942 on there was<br />
a planned flow of relieving Army Troops, initially from the Americal<br />
Division.<br />
~ RKT to AAG, letter 28 Sep. 1942.<br />
* Arnold, Global Mi~~ion, p. 348.
448 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
It was not only Vice Admiral Ghormley and Rear Admiral Turner who<br />
found it difficult to produce Army troops to relieve the <strong>Marine</strong>s as soon as<br />
the official prescribed instructions and sound doctrine called for them to be<br />
produced, or when the <strong>Marine</strong>s desired them. Vice Admiral Halsey, a month<br />
after he became COMSOPAC, wrote:<br />
It is not practical at this time to definitely settle the question of promptly<br />
relieving amphibious forces after a landing operation. It is a principle that<br />
should be followed, but the question is one hinging on the availability of<br />
troops and the practicality of the relief under varying situations which<br />
cannot be foreseen.40<br />
On 7 December 1942 COMPHIBFORSOPAC was relieved of his operational<br />
command responsibility for the defense of Tulagi-Guadalcanal.<br />
Admiral Turner was delighted that by this date all the arrangements had<br />
been completed for the personnel of the First <strong>Marine</strong> Division who had<br />
landed on 7 August to depart for other shores.”<br />
On 9 December 1942, the ground command at Guadalcanal changed from<br />
a <strong>Marine</strong> to an Army commander and the First <strong>Marine</strong> Division commenced<br />
its movement to Australia.<br />
MARINE CRITICISM<br />
Admiral Turner’s reaction to the written post-war <strong>Marine</strong> criticism of his<br />
command activities during the early August to early November 1942 period<br />
was mild:<br />
<strong>The</strong> written record will show that I was charged with operational command.<br />
No officer fulfills his duty, if he doesn’t exercise his command responsibilities.<br />
If you are in command, and do your job under diffm.dt circumstances, you<br />
are bound to break a few eggs, even if they are good <strong>Marine</strong> eggs.42<br />
Admiral Turner felt that any argument over the basic command question<br />
would be enlightened by quoting the documents in regard to the opera-<br />
tional command set-up established for WATCHTOWER by the Joint Chiefs<br />
of Staff and reaffirmed by COMINCH and COMSOPAC (see Chapter VI).<br />
When the Joint Chiefs of Staff directed that<br />
direct command of the tactical operations of the amphibious forces will<br />
remain with the Naval Task Force Commander throughout the conduct of<br />
all three tasks,<br />
a COMSOPAC to COMGENFIRSTMARDIV, PHIBFOR, letter, P16-3 ( 16), Ser oolo6b of<br />
22 NOV.1942.<br />
“ Turner.<br />
a Ibid.
HUDDLE Slowly Scutt~ed 449<br />
the naval chain of command assumed that “direct command of tactical opera-<br />
tions” meant just that, and when on 18 August 1942 COMSOPAC issued his<br />
post-WATCHTOWER landing Op Order 2–42, CTF 62 (Turner) was<br />
assigned tasks as follows:<br />
Defend seized areas with <strong>Marine</strong> Expeditionary Force. Expedite movement<br />
food and ammunition Guadalcanal-Tulagi Area.43<br />
When COMSOPAC issued a further directive on 9 September 1942,<br />
assigned the following specific tasks to CTF 62.<br />
Defend and strengthen Guadalcanal-Tulagi positions and expedite development<br />
of airfield CACT<strong>US</strong> [Guadalcanal]. Mop up adjacent enemy<br />
outposts. Prepare to occupy Ndeni on further directive. Maintain the flow<br />
of supplies.44<br />
It was not until the First Anniversary of Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1942,<br />
that COMSOPAC informed Rear Admiral Turner:<br />
COMAMPHIBFORSOPAC relieved responsibility [for} defense [Guadalcanal]<br />
but retains responsibility for transportation of reinforcements, relief<br />
units, supplies and equipment. . . ,45<br />
This same despatch established a Commanding General, Guadalcanal and<br />
assigned him command of the base and all troops and installations in the<br />
Guadalcanal-Tulagi Area.<br />
Admiral Turner’s view was:<br />
I exercised command of the <strong>Marine</strong>s, when I had orders to do so. When<br />
they asked for my opinion regarding a change, I recommended a change.<br />
When I was no longer their commander, I so acted.”<br />
<strong>The</strong>re were several minor matters which Admiral Turner felt might be<br />
“cleared up” by presenting the record in some detail. One of these related<br />
to the <strong>Marine</strong>s who did not get landed in the early echelons of the assault<br />
forces at Guadalcanal-Tulagi.<br />
In the <strong>Marine</strong> monograph and the later history of the Guadalcanal<br />
Operation, the story of the <strong>Marine</strong>s who did not get ashore at Tulagi or<br />
Guadalcanal on D-Day through D plus two is told in these words:<br />
<strong>The</strong> sudden withdrawal of the transports carried these units, which<br />
totaled about 1,400 officersand men, back to Espiritu Santo when they were<br />
used to ‘reinforce the garrison there,’ according to the reports of Admiral<br />
‘3COMSOPAC to CTF 61, 62, 63, 64, I 80916 Aug. 1942; COMSOPAC OP Order 2–42.<br />
4’ (a) COMSOPAC to CTF 61, 62, 64, 091016 Sep. 1942; COMSOPAC Op Order 3-42.<br />
= COMSOPAC to CTF 62,070446 Dec. 1942.<br />
a Turner.<br />
he
450 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
Turner. On 14 August Turner ordered Colonel Arthur to report for duty<br />
with the Commanding General, Espiritu Sante. . . .<br />
<strong>The</strong>re seemed no question in Turner’s mind about his unrestricted claim<br />
of ‘possession’ of the <strong>Marine</strong>s in his area. . . .47<br />
<strong>The</strong> fact of the matter, readily available to all in COMSOPAC’S War<br />
Diary, was that COMSOPAC had directed CTF 62 late on 9 August after<br />
the disastrous battle of Savo Island, to<br />
Divert ,2nd <strong>Marine</strong>s to Espiritu .Santo to land and reinforce the garrison<br />
there.4X<br />
COMSOPAC followed this up in a memo to COMPHIBFORSOPAC on<br />
14 August which directed:<br />
All Znd <strong>Marine</strong>s now at Espiritu Santo to disembark and reinforce garrison.ig<br />
Thus, Rear Admiral Turner ordered Colonel Arthur, Commanding the 2nd<br />
<strong>Marine</strong>s, to report for duty with the Commanding General Espiritu Sante,<br />
because the boss man of the area had made that decision and told him to<br />
do SO.<br />
When Brigadier General Rupertus sent on Colonel J. M. Arthur’s request<br />
for the urgent return of this part of his command—800” men of the 2nd<br />
<strong>Marine</strong> Regiment—to Tulagi, Admiral Turner wrote on his Assistant Chief<br />
of Staff’s memo:<br />
Col. Linscott.<br />
For the time being, this is out of our hands, as COMSC)PAC ordered these<br />
units ashore in BUTTON. Keep in mind pending further developments.<br />
<strong>The</strong> other matter which Admiral Turner thought needed a bit of ‘
HUDDLE Slowly Scuttled<br />
the benefits sought with the <strong>Marine</strong>s currently available in<br />
Area but not on Guadalcanal, he reported to COMSOPAC:<br />
. . . In order to prosecute promptly the operations required by prospective<br />
tactical situations, the Commander Amphibious Force South Pacific, will,<br />
451<br />
the South Pacific<br />
unless directed to contrary, proceed with the organization of Provisional<br />
Raider Battalions in the Second, Seventh and Eighth <strong>Marine</strong>s, and give these<br />
already trained troops such additional specialized training as seems appropriate.’”<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Marine</strong> Officer on COMSOPAC Staff took a whack at the recommendation<br />
and at its originator. <strong>The</strong> <strong>Marine</strong>s had their eyes set not only on<br />
divisions of <strong>Marine</strong>s, but on corps of <strong>Marine</strong>s, and Rear Admiral Turner<br />
had really stuck his hand in the vice when he wrote:<br />
<strong>The</strong> employment of divisions [in future operations} as a landing unit seems<br />
less likely.<br />
This was more than an overstatement in support of the proposal being<br />
made. It was a poor judgment of the future, and few <strong>Marine</strong>s forget to<br />
mention a distortion of the statement when Admiral Turner’s name is<br />
brought up.<br />
<strong>The</strong> other error in connection with Admiral Turner’s proposal regarding<br />
Raider Battalions was that COMPHIBFORSOPAC failed to consult the<br />
Commanding General, First <strong>Marine</strong> Division, in the matter before going to<br />
higher authority. But he did not, as General Vandegrift recalled that he was<br />
later informed by the Commandant of the <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong>, seek to limit<br />
<strong>Marine</strong>s to Raider Battalion-sized units. According to General Vandegrift:<br />
ently.<br />
. . . Turner’s attempts to break up certain regiments into battalion-size<br />
raider units, recommending to Nimitz and King in the process that <strong>Marine</strong>s<br />
be limited to such size units in the future. . .“<br />
<strong>The</strong> official letter from Rear Admiral Turner, in fact, reads quite differ-<br />
[<strong>The</strong> originator] . . . recommends that <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> Headquarters issue<br />
directions for the permanent organization of Raider Battalions as integral<br />
units of all the <strong>Marine</strong> Regiments now attached to, or ultimately destined<br />
for the Amphibious Force, South Pacific. . .“<br />
<strong>The</strong> letter was addressed to COMSOPAC, who readdressed it and sent it<br />
to CINCPAC, who sent it direct to the Commandant of the <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong>.<br />
wCOMPHIBFORSOPACto cOMSOF’AC,<br />
letter, FEz5/Al~h3(~) %r 0093 Of29 Aw. 1942.<br />
‘1vandegrift, p. 183. Reprinted from Once ~ Matine with permission of w.~. Norton &<br />
Co., Inc.<br />
5’COMPHIBFORSOPACFOR to COMSOPAC, letter, 29 Aug. 1942.
452 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
<strong>The</strong> Commandant returned it to CINCPAC and sent COMINCH a copy of<br />
his reply and of the basic letter and previous endorsements.<br />
COMSOPAC approved the organization of a provisional Raider Battalion<br />
from the 2nd <strong>Marine</strong>s, but disapproved it for the 7th and 8th <strong>Marine</strong>s.<br />
CINCPAC disapproved the basic recommendation that Raider Battalions<br />
be integral units of <strong>Marine</strong> Regiments, and indicated that the organization<br />
of a provisional Raider Battalion should be undertaken only in case of “due<br />
necessity.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> Commandant of the <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong> agreed with CINCPAC. He re-<br />
ported that as a result of recommendations from the Naval forces in the<br />
field, two additional Raider Battalions were being organized and added that:<br />
Steps have been taken to intensify training of all units destined for the<br />
South Pacific for the type of operations being conducted there.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Commandant noted, with regret, that the basic letter did<br />
not contain the views of the Commanding General 1st <strong>Marine</strong> Division in a<br />
matter in which he is particularly qualified, and concerned. w<br />
Without ever having discussed this matter with Admiral Turner, since he<br />
died before it was researched, the author can only guess as to whether there<br />
was any background reason for this unsuccessful foray into <strong>Marine</strong> organiza-<br />
tional matters. But an earnest belief that the Japanese could be dislodged<br />
from their various placements in the Lower Solomons by landings in their<br />
rear, perhaps played a part. Before the initial WATCHTOWER landings,<br />
Major General Vandegrift had concurred in such a plan.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner received strong support in his concept of using<br />
<strong>Marine</strong>s in flanking operations or taking the enemy in the rear, rather than<br />
in frental attacks when, in November 1942, Admiral King addressed a<br />
message to COMSOPAC which contained the following:<br />
<strong>The</strong> final decision canceling the Aola Bay project brings to climax my<br />
uneasiness lest we continue to use up our strength in virtual frontal attacks<br />
such as now involved in expulsion of enemy from Guadalcanal.<br />
Admiral King suggested that the <strong>Marine</strong>s could be more profitably em-<br />
ployed in a flanking operation in which the <strong>Marine</strong>s would seize the base,<br />
where the enemy had an airfield, and from where he was currently operating<br />
in support of Guadalcanal.s’<br />
“,(a) Commandant, <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong>, letter, 003A/27642, 3 Oct. 1942; (b) COMSOPAC, letter,<br />
Ser 0094b, 6 Sep. 1942; (c) CINCPAC, letter, Ser 0208 of 24 Sep. 1942.<br />
‘4COMINCH to COMSOPAC, CINCPAC, 301915 NOV. 1942.
HUDDLE Slowly Scuttled 453<br />
DIVERSIONARY EFFECT<br />
Available personal RKT letters of this period are few in number. One<br />
addressed to the editor of the Call Bulletin of San Francisco, acknowledging<br />
receipt of a letter two months old which had just arrived by sea mail, included<br />
the comments:<br />
. . . Ever since I came into the Navy, I have always wanted to campaign<br />
in the tropics in an elephant hat, and now at last, it has to be in one made<br />
of tin.<br />
We are not having a particularly easy time down here. Starting from<br />
scratch; fighting in the jungle using boys that never saw jungle; our ships<br />
lying in ports that never saw ships; creating bases and facilities out of<br />
nothing; drawing our supplies from six thousand miles away. <strong>The</strong>se are our<br />
problems, and they are difficult. But we hope to solve them. From the way our<br />
boys are acting, nothing will ever be too much for them.”<br />
NEW CHIEF OF STAFF<br />
When Captain Peyton, the Chief of Staff, pressed Rear Admiral Turner<br />
to be relieved, setting forth the COMINCH and BUPERS policy that all<br />
captains must have a successful big ship command under their belts before<br />
being eligible for selection to Flag rank, Rear Admiral Turner sought to<br />
obtain for Captain Peyton a first-rate command and luckily did so. This was<br />
the big and new battleship, the <strong>US</strong>S Indiana ( BB-58), whose first Commanding<br />
Officer, Captain A. Stanton (Tip) Merrill, had just been promoted to<br />
command a cruiser division operating in the Solomons.<br />
Commodore Peyton opined:<br />
Kelly Turner was an officer with the highest mentaI capacity. He was a<br />
tireless worker and had tremendous drive. His mental capabilities were such<br />
that he did all the brain work for the Staff. <strong>The</strong> Staff carried out the<br />
mechanics of operations and filled in all the details of the operation orders.<br />
He was a one-man staff.<br />
I was not qualified to be his Chief of Staff, as I was not on the same<br />
intellectual level with him.<br />
Commodore Peyton also remembered:<br />
Admiral Spruance visited the Amphibious Force several times between<br />
July and December 1942. Turner used to go ashore about six and hoist a<br />
couple. Spruance did not participate nor concur. Turner would return, have<br />
dinner and work half the night or all the night. <strong>The</strong> cocktail hour seemed<br />
= RKT to Edmond D, Coblentz, letter, 23 Dec. 1942.
454 Amphibians Came To Conquev<br />
to sharpen his mind and give him his second wind, if in fact he needed any<br />
second wind.se<br />
Peyton’s relief was Captain Anton Bennett Anderson, Class of 1912, a<br />
graduate of the logistically oriented Army Industrial College, and “as nice<br />
a guy as one could wish to serve with” according to staff members of the<br />
PHIBFORSOPAC.<br />
Captain Anderson came from duty on Vice Admiral Halsey’s Staff, where<br />
he had served very, very briefly as Head of the Board of Awards, COMSO-<br />
PAC. This followed a tour of shore duty in the Office of the Chief of Naval<br />
Operations, primarily as Head of the War Plans section of the Fleet Maintenance<br />
Division, and as the senior working Navy member of the Army-Navy<br />
Munitions Board. Rear Admiral Anderson recalled:<br />
. . . <strong>The</strong> day after I took over [on SOPAC Staff] Admiral Turner dropped<br />
into my officeand asked me if I would like to be C/S on his Staff. I was elated<br />
to get into a more active job and said that I would. He told me that his C/S<br />
Peyton had the opportunity of getting command of the <strong>US</strong>S Indiana (then in<br />
the harbor) and he didn’t want to stand in his way and had let him go a day<br />
or two previously. He also told me that he had gotten Rear Admiral George<br />
Fort to take command of the Landing Craft Flotillas of the Amphibious<br />
Force, then being organized. . . .<br />
I went out to the <strong>US</strong>S McCawley flagship that same afternoon, January 21,<br />
1943 and reported to Admiral Turner as C/S.<br />
Prior to his becoming Chief of Staff, Anderson<br />
had never served with Admiral Turner and seldom saw him when he was<br />
in War Plans in OPNAV. <strong>The</strong> day after I reported for duty, Admiral Turner<br />
and I went over to visit Peyton aboard his new command. We stayed for about<br />
an hour. This is the only time I saw Captain Peyton.<br />
In answer to the author’s question of whether he functioned primarily<br />
in the logistic field or in the operational field as Kelly Turner’s Chief<br />
of Staff, COMSOPAC AMPHIBIO<strong>US</strong> FORCE, Rear Admiral Anderson<br />
answered:<br />
Mostly I was learning my job. However, I did work a little in both fields.<br />
I would say my work was more of an administrative nature.b7<br />
Captain Anderson, like his Admiral, prior to reporting to the Amphibious<br />
Force, SOPAC, “had no up-to-date amphibious training or experience,”<br />
although he had observed various tests of amphibious craft at Cape Henry<br />
and worked with the board which had come up with the nomenclature for<br />
various types of amphibious craft.<br />
~ interviewwith CommodoreThomasG, Peyton,<strong>US</strong>N, zz May 1961.HereafterPeyton.<br />
67Interviewwith RearAdmiralAntonB. Anderson,<strong>US</strong>N (Ret.), Mu. 1%2.
Rear Admiral Anderson opined:<br />
HUDDLE Slowly Scatded 455<br />
In general, I think my services were satisfactory to Turner most of the<br />
time, but in retrospect, I realize that during the six months I was with him,<br />
was for him an uncertain, unhappy and trying time.<br />
First, he had to remain in his flagship at anchor in Noumea harbor most of<br />
the time while some of his force made only the necessary trips to Guadalcanal.<br />
And again, I believe that it rankled him in that he thought some officers<br />
(higher-ups) believed that he was somewhat responsible for the loss of the<br />
three cruisers around Savo Island during the initial landing at Guadalcanal in<br />
August 1942.<br />
I also believe that he foresaw that the days of the Amphibious Force<br />
SOPAC were coming to an end, and he wanted new fields to work in. He<br />
often told me that an advance through the Central Pacific should be started<br />
soon.<br />
I really think that he was tired and somewhat bored. He didn’t have any<br />
contemporaries to go around with and seldom saw Admiral Halsey outside of<br />
the 9 a.m. conferences. . . .58<br />
<strong>The</strong> members of the PHIBFORSOPAC Staff were all of a mind that<br />
Captain Anderson was a very pleasant individual to have on the Staff, but<br />
he was not cut from the same tempered steel as Richmond Kelly Turner.<br />
In any case, he was in completely over his head. His mind was too slow to<br />
follow Admiral Turner whose mind turned over on the step at about 1000<br />
RPM, while Andy was airborne at about 100 RPM.<br />
*****<br />
Tom Peyton was unable to keep up with the Admiral’s thinking. Andy Ander.<br />
son was even slower. ‘g<br />
Rear Admiral Turner was just too damned impatient to deal with his staff<br />
through his Chief of Staff. He wanted to tend to the matter and get it over<br />
with and then get on to something else. When the Chief of Staff was unacquainted<br />
with operational matters, which the Admiral already was 98 per-<br />
cent up on, he just wouldn’t wait. Thus,<br />
by the time Andy joined the Staff, the Admiral was as familiar with arnphibious<br />
operations as any one who had spent six months working twenty hours<br />
a day on the subject could be. Andy just never could catch up to be on a par<br />
operationally with the Admiral.GO<br />
Commodore Peyton remembered that<br />
Turner was not a well man and during this period was always on edge for<br />
* Rear Admiral Anderson to GCD, letter, 2 May 1962.<br />
WStaff Interviews.<br />
60Ibid.
456 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
fear his enemies would get him relieved during a spell of illness. . . . It was<br />
not possible for him to have a proper day-to-day diet.Gl<br />
In support of this opinion in regard to the health of Rear Admiral Turner,<br />
during this 1942–43 period, the following extracts from a recent letter<br />
by the Medical Officer of the PHIBFORSOPAC Staff, Rear Admiral Ralph E.<br />
Fielding (Medical <strong>Corps</strong>), U. S. Navy, Retired, are pertinent:<br />
Before leaving Noumea for Guadalcanal (and prior to the Rendova landing)<br />
Admiral Turner had a recurrence of malaria and presumably an attack of<br />
dengue. He finally consented (with an affirmative from Jack Lewis) to go to<br />
the hospital ship, Commodore Reifsnider had command of the flotilla going<br />
to Guadalcanal. Admiral Turner told me I could shoot anyone who was caught<br />
without clothing coverage over his entire body [Because of the incidence of<br />
malaria among the troops taken into Guadalcanal, who did not observe antimalarial<br />
discipline].<br />
Admiral Turner had a mild coronary attack at Camp Crocodile. He wouldn’t<br />
be transferred to Mobile 8 hospital, so we got a hospital bed moved from a<br />
nearby Station Hospital, and put it in his tent. But he insisted on seeing every<br />
incoming despatch while being treated.ez<br />
“ Peyton.<br />
“’Rear Admiral Ralph E. Fielding (MC), <strong>US</strong>N (Ret.) to GCD, letter, 28 Mar. 1969.
Polishing<br />
CHAPTER XIII<br />
Skills in the Russells<br />
MOVING UP THE SOLOMONS<br />
<strong>The</strong> first real move north was to Rendova Island in the New Georgia<br />
Group about 180 miles northwest of Lunga Point, but this most worthwhile<br />
step was preceded by an advance a stone’s throw away to the Russell Islands<br />
lying only 30 miles northwest of Guadalcanal Island.<br />
It was more than several months after Rear Admiral Turner arrived at<br />
Noumea from Guadalcanal for the first time, on 13 August 1942, before<br />
he started to think about, and his staff started to plan, the first offensive step<br />
forward from Guadalcanal to Rabaul.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Amphibians had learned a good deal from the August landings at<br />
Tulagi and Guadalcanal, and they continued to learn a great deal during the<br />
long, hard five months’ struggle to maintain logistic support for these two<br />
important toe holds in the Southern Solomons. By January 1943, marked<br />
changes had occurred in their thinking about the techniques of support<br />
through and over a beachhead, and new amphibious craft were just becom-<br />
ing available. <strong>The</strong>y were anxious to test these changes and the new craft<br />
on a strange shore.<br />
Ten days after the 13th of August arrival at Noumea, recommendations<br />
for improvement in the logistic area of the landing phases of amphibious<br />
operations had been sought from all commands in TF 62 by Rear Admiral<br />
Turner. It was on the basis of the recommendations received, that Com-<br />
mander Amphibious Forces SOPAC made proposals for revisions in Fleet<br />
Training Publication (FTP) 167, the Amphibians’ Bible, and it was on<br />
the basis of these recommendations and those coming in from the Atlantic<br />
Note: With the closeof ChapterX11,AdmiralTurner disappears,with very minorexceptions<br />
duly noted, as a direct source of information, comment and opinions not only of this work, but<br />
of the events related,<br />
<strong>The</strong> author, due to Admiral Turner’s sudden death, did not have the opportunity to discuss<br />
with him, in detail, any of the later operations of the World War II amphibious campaigns of<br />
the Pacific.<br />
457
458 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
Fleet after the North African Landings that COMINCH issued on 18 Janu-<br />
ary 1943, ship to Shore Movement U. S. Fleet FTP 211.<br />
This new publication brought into step the differing procedures used by<br />
amphibious ships trained separately in the Atlantic and the Pacific Fleet. It<br />
expanded markedly the Naval Platoon of the Shore Party, and more clearly<br />
defined its duties during the crucial early hours of logistic support of an<br />
assault Ianding.1<br />
THE R<strong>US</strong>SELLS<br />
<strong>The</strong> last of the Japanese troops evacuated Guadalcanal on 7–8 Febru-<br />
ary 1943, at which time WATCHTOWER could be marked in the books<br />
as completed. <strong>The</strong> pressure was immediately on the amphibians to get<br />
moving.<br />
Thirteen days later the amphibious forces of the South Pacific Area landed<br />
in major strength on the Russell Islands.<br />
This landing, on 21 February 1943, if it did not do anything else, fulfilled<br />
Major General Vandegrift’s requirement that<br />
. . . landings should not be attempted in the face of organized resistance<br />
if, by any combination of march or maneuver, it is possible to land unopposed<br />
and undetected. . . .2<br />
<strong>The</strong> Russell Islands landings were made unopposed and undetected. Since<br />
there was no blood and gore associated with the operation, it has been<br />
brushed off lightly in most historical accounts of the period.<br />
THE PLANNING STAGE<br />
Admiral Nimitz visited the South Pacific in late January 1943 in company<br />
with Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox. At a COMSOPAC conference of<br />
principal commanders and their planning officers on 23 January 1943, COM-<br />
SOPAC had Brigadier General Peck of his staff present to Admiral Nimitz<br />
a concept for a Russell Islands operation. COMSOPAC received from CINC-<br />
PAC a tentative and unoficial approval, tempered by a cautionary ‘
Polishing Skiils in the Rzssells 459<br />
decision will be reached’ which really meant “go ahead with the planning<br />
while my staff back in Pearl takes a hard look at the proposition.” 3<br />
In this connection, the memory of the COMPHIBFORSOPAC’S Chief of<br />
Staff at the time is that:<br />
. . . Admiral Turner conceived the idea of taking over the Russell Islands,<br />
some 60 or 70 miles N.W. of Henderson Field, and up towards “<strong>The</strong> Slot.’<br />
Admiral Halsey was lukewarm on the idea—he wanted something on a<br />
larger scale. However, he said ‘go ahead, as some kind of action is better<br />
than none.’ 4<br />
Shortly thereafter, on 28 January, COMSOPAC informed CINCPAC that<br />
if the reconnaissance then underway indicated the Russell Islands were unde-<br />
fended, he planned immediate occupation. After CINCPAC gave his formal<br />
approval (29 January) and despite somewhat misleading information re-<br />
ceived from the coastwatcher intelligence organization about
460 Amphibians Came To Conquet<br />
5-43 for the landings, code named CLEANSLATE, on 12 and 15 February<br />
1942.5<br />
<strong>The</strong> Russell Islands are 60 miles west-northwest of Henderson Field on<br />
Guadalcanal. <strong>The</strong> two main islands of the Russells are Pavuvu and Banika,<br />
the former being about twice the size of the latter which is nearest Guadalcanal.<br />
<strong>The</strong> first named island, mainly a 1,500-foot jungled foothill in 1943,<br />
is fanged in shape and about eight miles north and south by seven miles<br />
east and west. <strong>The</strong> latter island is about eight miles by two miles and is<br />
slotted by two comfortable inlets, one on its east coast, the other on its west<br />
coast. While there is a 400-foot high knob in the southern part of Banika,<br />
the rest of the island is low and in 1943 was clear of jungle although with<br />
many beautiful coconut trees. It was judged suitable for an airfield.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se two main islands, separated by Sunlight Channel half a mile<br />
wide, are surrounded by dozens of small islands extending to ten to twelve<br />
miles off shore, particularly to the eastward. <strong>The</strong> most vivid remembrances<br />
of those who touched stays with the Russells were of “rain, mud, and magnificent<br />
coconuts. ”<br />
When Commander South Pacific Area issued his final CLEANSLATE<br />
Operation Plan, he initiated an action with a major resemblance to its prede-<br />
cessor, the WATCHTOWER Operation, in that there was to be no long<br />
planning period available to Rear Admiral Turner’s staff prior to the actual<br />
landing just nine days away.<br />
<strong>The</strong> major purposes assigned by COMSOPAC for the operation were:<br />
1. to strengthen the defense of Guadalcanal, and<br />
2. to establish a staging point for landing craft preliminary to further<br />
forward movement.<br />
<strong>The</strong> mission also included establishing an advanced motor torpedo base, an<br />
advanced air base, and radar installations.G<br />
Rear Admiral Turner, COMPHIBSOPAC, was named as the Commander<br />
of the Joint Force designated Task Force 61, “with the Commanding General<br />
43rd Division, Major General John H. Hester, U. S. Army, being the Com-<br />
mander Landing Force.<br />
Despite the fact that in February 1943 none of the Landing Force troops<br />
were in the Guadalcanal area except the Army Regiment designated as Troop<br />
Reserve, and the anti-aircraft contingent of the 1lth <strong>Marine</strong> Defense Bat-<br />
talion, Task Force 61 was tailored for a “shore to shore” amphibious task.<br />
5C,OMSOPAC, 282239 Jan; 060636, 070506, 112230, 150247, Feb. 1943.<br />
‘ COMSOPAC, 070506, 112230 Feb. 1943.
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Pohbing Skilis in the RusseUs 46 I
462 Amphibians Came To Conqner<br />
In the language of the amphibians this meant that the assault movement of<br />
personnel and materiel would move direct from a shore staging area to the<br />
landing beaches of the assault objective, involving no further transfers be-<br />
tween types of landing craft or into landing boats during the assault movement.<br />
<strong>The</strong> shore staging area designated for CLEANSLATE was Koli Point,<br />
Guadalcanal. Gavutu Island in Purvis Bay would handle the overflow.<br />
Such a ‘
Poiisbing Skills in the Rzisse!h 463<br />
Hovey (DMS-11 ) Lieutenant Commander Edwin A. McDonald<br />
(1931)<br />
*Gridley (DD-38o) Commander Fred R. Stickney (1925)<br />
Zune (DMS-14) Lieutenant Commander Peyton L. Wirtz (1931)<br />
TU 61.1.4 TRANSDIV Em~—Commander Thomas J. Ryan (1921)<br />
Wikm (DD-408 ) Lieutenant Commander Walter H. Price<br />
(1927)<br />
Lmsdowne (DD-486) Lieutenant Commander Francis J. Foley<br />
(1931)<br />
LCT-158 Lieutenant Edgar M. Jaeger, <strong>US</strong>NR, LCT–58, LCT–60<br />
LCT-159 Lieutenant ( jg) Frank M. Wiseman, <strong>US</strong>NR, LCT 156,<br />
LCT 369<br />
LCT-181 Lieutenant Ashton L. Jones, <strong>US</strong>NR, LCT-62, LCT-322<br />
LCT-63 Lieutenant (jg) Ameel Z. Kouri, <strong>US</strong>NR, LCT-323,<br />
LCT-367<br />
Each destroyer type except Hopkins, Wilson, and Lmsdowne towing 1 LCM,<br />
1 LCV and 2 LCP.<br />
(b) TU 61.1.5 Service Groz&Lieutenant James L. Foley (1929)<br />
Bobolink (AT- 131 ) with 1000-ton flat top lighter in tow.<br />
TG61.2 Attuck Group—Lieutenant Allen H. Harris, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron TWO (THREE)<br />
PT-36 PT-144<br />
PT-40 PT-145<br />
PT-42 PT-146<br />
PT-48 PT-147<br />
PT-109 PT-148<br />
PT-llo<br />
8 of the 11 boats in the Squadron were to be picked for the operation.<br />
(c) TG 61.3 OccivputionForce—Major General Hester<br />
TU 61.3,1 Landing Force—Major General Hester<br />
43rd Infantry Division (less 172nd Combat Team)<br />
3rd <strong>Marine</strong> Raider Battalion (temporarily attached)<br />
one-third 1lth <strong>Marine</strong> Defense Battalion<br />
one platoon of Company B, 5i’9th Aircraft Warning Battalion<br />
(Radar)<br />
one regiment from CACT<strong>US</strong> Force (when assigned )<br />
TU 61.3.2 iVuvulB~e—Commander Charles E. Olsen (1919)<br />
Naval Advance Base Force<br />
ACORN Three<br />
one-half 35th Construction Battalion<br />
Naval Communication Units<br />
CLEANSLATE Boat Pool (50 boats)<br />
* Gridey substitutedfor Houey in initial movement.
464 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
AT THE LANDING CRAFT LEVEL<br />
<strong>The</strong> Landing Craft, Tank (LCT) of 1942–43 was 112 feet over-all, had a<br />
32-foot beam, and a draft of a little over three feet. It was normally expected<br />
to carry four 40-ton tanks or to load 150 to 180 tons or about 5,760 cubic<br />
feet of cargo. Its actual speed, loaded and in a smooth sea, was a bit more<br />
than six knots, although it had a designed speed of ten knots. <strong>The</strong>se large<br />
tank landing craft, which shipyards in the United States started to deliver<br />
in large numbers in September and October of 1942, were the first of their<br />
kind to be used offensively in the South Pacific.<br />
<strong>The</strong> LCT had but one commissioned officer and 12 to 14 men aboard them<br />
when they, arrived in the South Pacific. <strong>The</strong> LCTS were not commissioned<br />
ships of the Navy, the one officer being designated as the Officer in Charge.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y had insufficient personnel to keep a ship’s log, much less a war diary,<br />
and by and large they passed in and out of their service in the Navy leaving<br />
no individual record, except in the memories of those who served in them or<br />
had some service performed by them. Presumably, the LCT Flotilla and<br />
LCT Group Commanders kept a log and a war diary, but if they did so, by<br />
and large they have not survived to reach the normal repositories of such<br />
documents.<br />
<strong>The</strong> first mention of the LCT in Rear Admiral Turner’s Staff Log occurs<br />
on 19 December 1942, when 6 LCT (5) were reported at Noumea loading<br />
for Guadalcanal. Presumably the LCT arrived on station earlier that month.<br />
Through the leadership efforts of Rear Admiral George H. Fort (1912),<br />
his Chief of Staff, Captain Benton W. Decker (1920), and after arrival in<br />
SOPAC his senior landing craft subordinate, Captain Grayson B. Carter<br />
(1919), the Landing Craft Flotillas, PHIBFORSOPAC, were trained under<br />
forced draft. After only 12 months of war, the landing craft were manned<br />
to a marked extent with officers and men who had entered the Navy after<br />
the attack on Pearl Harbor. To assist in the training, Commander Landing<br />
Craft Flotillas in due time issued a comprehensive Doctrine full of instruc-<br />
tions and information for the dozens of landing craft moving into the SOPAC<br />
command during the January to June period in 1943.8 <strong>The</strong> LCT “Veterans”<br />
of CLEANSLATE became the nuclei for this massive training effort.<br />
As a matter of record, the first 12 LCTS to get their bottoms crinkled in<br />
war operations in the South Pacific were 1.CT-58, 60, 62, 63, 156, 158, 159,<br />
181, 322, 323, 367, 369, organized administratively as follows:<br />
‘ Commander Landing Craft Flotillas, PHIBFORSOPAC Doctrine, May 1943.
Polishing Skills in the Rassells 465<br />
LCT Flotilla Five—Lieutenant Edgar M. Jaeger, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT Group 13—Lieutenant Ashton L. Jones, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT Division 25—Lieutenant Ashton L. Jones, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-58-Ensign Edward H. Burtt, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-60—Ensign Austin H. Volk, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-156--Ensign Richard T. Eastin, Jr., <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-158-Ensign Edward J. Ruschmann, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-1 59—Ensign John A. McNiel<br />
LCT DiviJion 26—Lieutenant ( jg) Ameel Z. Kouri, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-62—Ensign Robert T. Capeless, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
L,CT-63—Ensign Lunsford L. Shelton, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT Groap 14—Lieutenant Decatur Jones, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
L.CT Division 27—Lieutenant Decatur Jones, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-322—Ensign Carl M. Barrett, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-323-Ensign Carl T. Geisler, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT Division 28—<br />
LCT-367-Ensign Robert Carr, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-369-Ensign Walter B. Gillette, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT Grotip 1.5-Lieutenant Laurence C. Lisle, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT Division 29—Lieutenant Laurence C. Lisle, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-181-Ensign Herbert D. Solomon<br />
LCT Division 3&—-Lieutenant (jg) Frank M. Wiseman, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
Most of the senior oficers in this organization (Jaeger, A. L. Jones, Kouri,<br />
and Wiseman ) participated in CLEANSLATE. <strong>The</strong>y got the LCTS off to a<br />
good start in the South Pacific.<br />
<strong>The</strong> largest landing craft carried by the amphibious transports and cargo<br />
ships was the Landing Craft, Medium (LCM). <strong>The</strong> LCM could carry 30<br />
tons or 2,2oo cubic feet of cargo. Amongst the smaller shipborne landing<br />
craft, both the Higgins Landing Craft, Personnel (LCP) and the ramp LCV<br />
could transport 36 men or one medium tank. <strong>The</strong> destroyers which had been<br />
converted into fast transports could carry 200 troops and limited amounts of<br />
these troops’ equipment. <strong>The</strong> converted fast minesweepers could carry somewhat<br />
fewer troops.<br />
THE SPIT KIT EXPED1TIONARY FORCE<br />
Task Force 61, in effect the Joint Expeditionary Force, consisted of the<br />
Army troops and <strong>Marine</strong>s in the 9,OOO Landing Force, seven destroyers<br />
(Craven, Gridley, Landsdowne, Mawy, McCall, Saujley, Wilson), four fast<br />
destroyer-type transports (Stringbanz, Man~ey, Humpbreys, Sands), four fast<br />
minesweepers, the logistic service ship Bobolink, eight motor torpedo boats
466 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
(PTs) of Torpedo Boat Squadron Two, and twelve LCTS of Landing Craft<br />
Tank Flotilla Five.<br />
<strong>The</strong> TF 61 Operation order for CLEANSLATE indicates that the 12<br />
LCTS were from LCT Group 13, but as a matter of fact there were seven<br />
LCTS from Group 13, four LCTS from Group 14, and one from Group 15,<br />
all temporarily assigned to LCT Group 13 for operational control.<br />
Of the 16 ships, 108 large and small landing craft and 8 motor torpedo<br />
boats in the spit kit amphibious force and CLEANSLATE, only the fast<br />
minesweepers Hopkins, Trever, Southward, and Zane, and the destroyer<br />
IYihon of the ships in the original WATCHTOWER invasion task force<br />
shared with Rear Admiral Turner the satisfaction of participating in the<br />
initial phase of the first forward island jumping movement of the South<br />
Pacific Area. <strong>The</strong> Hovey (DMS- 11 ) lost out on this high honor when she<br />
did not arrive at Guadalcanal in time to load and the GridIey (DD-380)<br />
was substituted for her in the initial phase of CLEANSLATE.<br />
In addition to the 43rcl Infantry Division (less its 172nd Regimental<br />
Combat Team) the major units named to participate in the operation were<br />
the <strong>Marine</strong> Srd Raider Battalion, anti-aircraft elements of the <strong>Marine</strong><br />
1 lth Defense Battalion, half of the 35th Naval Construction Battalion and<br />
ACORN Three, and the naval unit designated to construct, operate, and<br />
maintain the planned aircraft facilities on Banika Island. An ACORN was<br />
an airfield assembly designed to construct, operate, and maintain an advanced<br />
land plane and seaplane base and provide facilities for operation. <strong>Marine</strong><br />
Air Group 21 and the loth <strong>Marine</strong> Defense Battalion were enroute to<br />
the South Pacific Area and were to be assigned to the Russells upon arrival.<br />
CLEANSLATE was the first major amphibious island jumping operation<br />
where radar-equipped planes, “<strong>Black</strong> Cats,” were used to cover all of the<br />
night movements of our own ship and craft against the approach of enemy<br />
surface and air forces.<br />
SUPPORTING FORCES<br />
CTF 63, COMAIRSOPACFOR, Vice Admiral Fitch, was ordered to provide<br />
long-range air search, anti-aircraft cover, anti-submarine screen and<br />
air strikes. If needed, he would supply direct air support during the landing<br />
and advance from the beaches.<br />
Cruiser Division 12, at the moment commanded by Captain Aaron S. (Tip)<br />
Merrill, about to be elevated to Flag rank, was ordered to provide immediate
Polishing Shills in the Rrisseiis 467<br />
support to TF 61, and the fast carrier task forces were ordered to be within<br />
,*<br />
supporting distance of the Russells on D-Day to deal with any major Japanese<br />
Naval Forces entering the lower Solomons.<br />
When COMSOPAC issued his despatch Operation Order for CLEAN-<br />
SLATE on Lincoln’s birthday, 1943, the 43rd Division troops, ACORN<br />
Three, and the naval base personnel were in New Caledonia 840 miles south<br />
of Guadalcanal, while the <strong>Marine</strong> raiders and the construction battalion<br />
were in Espiritu Santo 560 miles to the south.<br />
By the time the unanticipated needs and expressed desires of the Com-<br />
mander Landing Force, who doubled as Commander Occupation Force,<br />
had been met, the Landing Force totaled over 15,000. CINCPAC’S Staff,<br />
after receiving COMSOPAC’S list of CLEANSLATE participating forces,<br />
noted in their Daily Command Summary:<br />
<strong>The</strong> forces planned for this operation are greatly in excess of those mentioned<br />
in the recent conference between Admirals Nimitz and Halsey. [i.e. one<br />
Raider Battalion and part of a Defense Battalion_J 9<br />
<strong>The</strong> staging movement of Army troops and <strong>Marine</strong>s, Seabees, and other<br />
naval personnel into Guadalcanal and Gavutu was accomplished in large<br />
transports and cargo ships, six echelons arriving before D-Day, 21 February,<br />
and four follow-up echelons moving through after the 2 lst.<br />
PRELIMINARIES<br />
During the nine-day period between the issuance of COMSOPACS<br />
CLEANSLATE Operation Order and the actual landing, two groups of<br />
observers from TF 61 visited the Russells and reported that the islands<br />
had recently been evacuated by the Japanese. <strong>The</strong>se parties obtained detailed<br />
information in regard to landing beaches and selected camp locations and<br />
anti-aircraft gun sites. <strong>The</strong> second group remained to welcome the Task<br />
Force, and marked the landing beaches to be used. This was a task later to be<br />
taken over under more diflicult and dangerous conditions by the Underwater<br />
Demolition Teams.<br />
<strong>The</strong> main movement of the amphibians from the staging areas to the<br />
Russells was planned and completed in four major echelons. Over 4,OOO of<br />
these were landed in the Russells from the first echelon ships and craft on<br />
the first day.<br />
0CINCPAC, Command SUmvnmy,Book Three, 8 Feb. 1943, p. 1390.
468 ArnPbibians Came To Conqtzer<br />
<strong>The</strong> over-wate~ movement from Koli Point, Guadalcanal, to the Russells<br />
for the initial landings was planned and largely carried out as shown on the<br />
accompanying movement chart.<br />
During the preliminary movement when the first echelon of the 43rd<br />
Division was being staged the 840 miles from New Caledonia to Koli Point,<br />
Rear Admiral Turner moved with them in the McCawley which carried<br />
part of the amphibian troops. On 16 February 1943, he shifted his operational<br />
staff ashore to Koli Point from the McCawley. During the first phase<br />
of the CLEANSLATE landing operations he flew his flag in the fast minesweeper<br />
Hopkin~, and commanded the Transport Group, TG 61.1.<br />
On 19 February 1943, one task group (4 APA, 1 AO, 6 DD) carrying the<br />
second echelon of the amphibians and their logistic support from Noumea<br />
to the Koli staging area on Guadalcanal was subjected to a seven aircraft<br />
Japanese torpedo plane attack when about 20 miles east of the southern tip<br />
of San Cristobal Island. By radical maneuver, the transports and their<br />
destroyer escorts escaped damage, and by spirited anti-aircraft fire accounted<br />
for five Japanese aircraft lost. Otherwise, the ten-day preparation period was<br />
largely unhampered by the Japanese.<br />
THE LANDINGS<br />
Rear Admiral Turner’s (CTF 61 ) and Commander Landing Force’s orders<br />
called’ for three simultaneous landing at dawn on 21 February 1943. <strong>The</strong>se<br />
were (1) on the north of Pavuvu Island at Pepesala Bay, (2) at Renard<br />
Sound on the east coast of Banika Island, and (3) at Wernham Cove on<br />
the southwest coast of Banika Island. According to Rear Admiral Turner’s<br />
Operation Order:<br />
<strong>The</strong> landing beaches in the Russells are bad, with much coral. Euery precaution<br />
wilt be taken to prevent damage to botits, pavticzdariypropellers. lo<br />
For the initial landings totaling 4,o3o officers and enlisted 1’ on Pavuvu<br />
and Banika, more than 200 men were ferried on each of the seven destroyers,<br />
four destroyer transports, and four fast minesweepers. Additionally, all<br />
the destroyers except the Wiison (DD-408) and the Lazrsa!owne (DD-486),<br />
which were designated for anti-submarine patrolling around the task units,<br />
and all the fast minesweepers (less the Hopkitn, designated both as Flagship<br />
m CTF 61 Op Order Plan A4-43, 15 Feb. 1943, p, 6,<br />
u CTF 61 to COMSOPAC, 210551 Feb. 1943.
Pohbing Skiiis in the R.vsseiis 469<br />
<strong>The</strong> CLEANSLATE Objective.<br />
and for anti-submarine patrolling) towed four landing craft: two Landing<br />
Craft, Personnel (LCP) and two Landing Craft, Vehicle (1 LCV and 1<br />
LCM). <strong>The</strong> four fast transports each carried, in addition to troops, four<br />
LCVPS and 1s rubber landing boats. <strong>The</strong> mighty Boboiink (AT-I21 ) towed<br />
a 1,000-ton flat top lighter for use at Wernham Cove.<br />
For the initial landings:<br />
<strong>The</strong> plan was for destroyers carrying a naval base unit and a certain number<br />
of troops to tow LCVS and LCVPS from naval bases at Guadalcanal and<br />
Gavutu (near Tulagi). . . . I can remember the Operations Officer, Captain<br />
Doyle, designing towing bridles for these small craft and ordering several of<br />
our vessels to make up a number of them.lz<br />
*****<br />
During three nights prior to the first movement, special pains were taken to<br />
obtain radar information as to the detailed night movement of enemy planes<br />
near GUADALCANAL and especially along the route from there to the<br />
IWSSELLS. <strong>The</strong> radar showed enemy planes were operating every night in<br />
areas to the westward of SAVO ISLAND from shortly after dark until about<br />
an hour before midnight. Consequently, movements of the CLEANSLATE<br />
force to the westward of SAVO were withheld until after that hour on<br />
MAnderson.
470 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
February 20th, and [after final] decision was made to effect the first landing<br />
at daybreak the 21st.ls<br />
CLEANSLATE went off with precision, but without fanfare or publicity<br />
since it was believed that the Japanese were unaware of the preparations for<br />
the operation or its execution. So besides radio silence, there was press and<br />
public relations silence, All the ships and landing craft, except one LCT with<br />
engine<br />
D-Day.<br />
trouble, departed for their return passages to Guadalcanal by 1230 on<br />
<strong>The</strong> 800 men of the 3rd <strong>Marine</strong> Raider Battalion, which had missed out<br />
on the WATCHTOWER Operation, were loaded onto four destroyer<br />
transports at Koli Point and at 0600 on 21 February landed on Beach Red in<br />
Pepesala (Paddy) Bay, Pavuvu Island, where the Japanese formerly had<br />
their main strength and where Major General Hester, Commander Landing<br />
Force, in his Operation Order expressed the opinion “definite possibilities<br />
exist that enemy patrols and small units may be located.”<br />
Rear Admiral Turner, Major General Hester, and their operational staffs<br />
went ashore from the Hopkitu onto Beach Yellow in Wernham Cove, Banika<br />
Island. <strong>The</strong>y landed just after 800 troops from two DDs and two DMSS<br />
and additional troops ferried in by eight LCTS had landed. <strong>The</strong> Naval Base<br />
Headquarters was established on the north side of Wernham Cove.<br />
Another 800 troops from three DDs and one DMS and additional troops<br />
aboard four LCTS landed at Beach Blue, Renard South. Most of the Banika<br />
Island troops came from the 103rd Regimental Combat Team of the 43rd<br />
Infantry Division.<br />
A follow-up landing of 800 troops from the 169th Infantry Regiment of<br />
the 43rd Division, U. S. Army, took place on the sandy beaches of Pepesala<br />
(Paddy) Bay in northern Pavuvu Island, early on the morning of 22 February,<br />
the day after the <strong>Marine</strong>s had landed in this area. At the same time<br />
1,400 more troops landed at Beach Yellow in Wernham Cove.<br />
<strong>The</strong> second to fourth follow-up echelons moved on D plus 2, D plus 3, and<br />
D plus 4. <strong>The</strong> ships and craft continued to make most all their movements<br />
between Guadalcanal and the Russells at night, so as not to alert the Japanese<br />
to the operation. <strong>The</strong> destroyer-types made a complete round trip at night,<br />
while the LCTS largely made one-way passage each night. No public dis-<br />
closure of the landing was immediately made and the base at CLEANSLATE<br />
maintained radio silence.<br />
u COMPHIBFORSOPAC,<br />
Reportof Occupationof Russell Islands ( CLEAN SLATE Operation ),<br />
21 Apr. 1943, para. 19. Hereafter CLEANSLATE Report.
Polishing Shills in the Russeih 471<br />
In two days 7,OOO troops were landed. By 15 March, 15,500 troops were<br />
in the Russells and by 18 April when, at long last, command passed to the<br />
Commanding General, Guadalcanal, 16,000 men were busy there and no<br />
less than 48,517 tons of supplies had arrived there by amphibious effort. <strong>The</strong><br />
Japanese did not react to the occupation for 15 days. On 6 March 1!943,<br />
they made the first of a series of air raids.<br />
Commander Charles Eugene Olsen (1919), who had successfully skippered<br />
the early base building efforts at Tongatabu, and who had impressed Rear<br />
Admiral Turner when he had flown through the Tonga Islands in July 1942,<br />
was brought down and given the task of building the Advanced Naval Base<br />
in the Russell Islands. By the end of March, on Banika Island, there was a<br />
good airfield with three fighter squadrons on <strong>Marine</strong> Air Group 21, a motor<br />
torpedo base (at Renard Sound) and a growing supply activity.<br />
Old Man Weather and his twin, navigational hazard, unhappily put three<br />
destroyer-types (Lansdowne, Stringbanz, Sands) on the beach on February<br />
26th. <strong>The</strong> landing craft had a normal ration of unintentional grounding<br />
and breakdowns, but none of the destroyer-types became permanent additions<br />
to the Russells.
472 Amphibians Came To Conqner<br />
COMPI-HBFORSOPAC report of the operation stated that:<br />
AS soon as all forces had landed, the airfield constructed, and stocks of ten<br />
units of fire and sixty days supplies built up, command was to pass to the<br />
Commanding General at Guadalcanal.<br />
Long before this blessed event occurred, Rear Admiral George H. Fort<br />
relieved Rear Admiral Turner as Commander Task Force 61 (on 3 March<br />
1943 ) and Rear Admiral Turner returned to Noumea to continue his favorite<br />
chore of planning the next operation.<br />
RESULTS ACHIEVED<br />
This CLEANSLATE Operation, with its most appropriate code name<br />
for the Southern Solomons, has been both praised and superciliously sneered<br />
at. Time Magazine, for example, said the<br />
operation went more smoothly [than Guadalcanal]. <strong>The</strong> Japs had evacuated.14<br />
A week after the initial landings in the Russells, CTF 61 (Turner) sent<br />
out a routine logistical support despatch report to his superiors. Rear Admiral<br />
Turner listed the considerable number of troops and quantities of material<br />
already in the Russells and the extensive logistic support movements planned<br />
for the Russells during the next weeks. <strong>The</strong> sending of the despatch was<br />
prompted by COMSOPAC’S urgent desires to begin to get ready to move<br />
further up the Solomon Islands chain toward Rabaul, and by the desire of<br />
one of his subordinates (Turner) to give him some heartening news of<br />
logistic readiness.”<br />
This despatch came into COMINCH’S Headquarters at a time when the<br />
question of Phase Two operations following Phase One of PESTILENCE<br />
operations was under daily review. Admiral King, as always, was against<br />
diversionary use of limited resources. So he reacted sharply. And while he<br />
very possibly set COMSOPAC and CINCPAC back on their heels for an<br />
instant, he also gave them an opportunity to enlighten the big boss on what<br />
they were hoping and planning to do reasonably soon.”<br />
Although it ‘has been inferred by several authors that Admiral King questioned<br />
the worth of the CLEANSLATE Operation by this despatch, this is<br />
14 T;me M~@ne, 31 Jan. 1944’<br />
‘6Staff Interviews.<br />
1’CTF 61, 270628 Feb. 1943, and related COMINCH, CINCPAC, and COMSOPAC<br />
dispatches.
Polishing SkiIls in the Rrmelis 473<br />
not SO.l’ What Admiral King questioned was the extent and purpose of the<br />
build-up in the Russell Islands following CLEANSLATE. His despatch con-<br />
tained these questioning words:<br />
What useful purpose is being served by operations on scale indicated by CTF<br />
61’s 270628 ? . . .<br />
Admiral Nimitz and Vice Admiral Halsey supplied these satisfying<br />
answers to Admiral King:<br />
Halsey is planning to take Vila-Munda with target date April 10.<br />
Troops and material [are] headed in proper direction and thus completing<br />
first stage of next movement.<br />
In June 1943, Rear Admiral Turner made a simple exposition to news-<br />
paper correspondents as to why we needed the Russells, before moving into<br />
the central Solomons:<br />
. . . It was simply because we must have fighter coverage for Rendova. . . .<br />
We couldn’t have fighters from Guadal [canal]. It’s that extra little distance<br />
west that makes coverage possible for Rendova [from the Russells].<br />
*****<br />
. . . From Rendova to the Russells is 125 miles, from Guadal to the Russells<br />
60 miles.’s<br />
When the Russell Islands logistical support movements were completed,<br />
COMSOPAC took note of this and smartly changed the code name of the<br />
Russells to EMERIT<strong>US</strong>.<br />
SUMMARY<br />
From the point of view of both COMSOPAC and COMPHIBFORSOPAC,<br />
the Russells had two great advantages over any and all other immediately<br />
possible objectives necessary to carry out the 2 July 1942 Joint Chiefs of<br />
Staff directive. <strong>The</strong> Russells (1) were on the direct line from Guadalcanal to<br />
Rabaul and (2) they lay within COMSOPAC’S command area, so that high<br />
level arrangements in kegard to command did not have to be negotiated,<br />
a process taking weeks or months. It is merely a guess but the latter reason<br />
surely carried the greater weight with COMSOPAC in choosing a spot where<br />
a quick operation could be carried out when WATCHTOWER was completed.<br />
“ (a) Morison, Breaking the Bismarcks Bawier (Vol. V), p. 98; (b) Henry I. Shaw and<br />
Douglas T. Kane, Isolation o~ Rabuul, Vol. II of HISTORY OF U.S. MARINE CORPS OPERA-<br />
TIONS IN WORLD WAR II (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1963), p. 26.<br />
1’Joseph Driscoll, Pticijc Victory 1945 (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1944), p. 66.
474 Amphibians Cm.ze To Conquer<br />
A complementary benefit, however, was operational. <strong>The</strong> amphibians had<br />
an excellent opportunity to put together the dozens of suggestions arising<br />
out of WATCHTOWER for the improvement of amphibious operations and<br />
test them under conditions far more rugged than any rear area rehearsal<br />
could provide. <strong>The</strong> Russells added not only skill but confidence to the<br />
amphibians. As Rear Admiral Turner pointed out:<br />
During the course of the operation a technique was developed for the<br />
movement of troops and cargo from a forward base to a nearby objective<br />
without the use of APAs and AKAs. It is expected that the experience of<br />
this operation will prove useful in planning future offensives.<br />
<strong>The</strong> CLEANSLATE Operation again demonstrated that the overwater<br />
movement and landing of the first echelon of troops is only the initial step<br />
in a continuous amphibious series, all of which are integral parts of the same<br />
venture. Success of the venture depends upon the ability to deliver safely not<br />
only the first, but also the succeeding echelons of troops, engineers, ancillary<br />
units, equipment and operating and upkeep supplies and replacements. <strong>The</strong><br />
aggregate of personnel and cargo for the later movements is far greater than<br />
that carried initially. Each movement requires protection, and losses in transit<br />
from the logistic bases to the combat position must be kept low enough to be<br />
acceptable. It is particularly when small vessels are used that an uninterrupted<br />
stream of them must be maintained.<br />
<strong>The</strong> first movement for the seizure of a position; the exploitation on shore<br />
of that position; the long series of succeeding movements of troops and material,<br />
together form a single operation. All parts must be accomplished, under<br />
satisfactory security conditions if the whole operation is to be successful.lg<br />
INTERLUDE<br />
From the period of its activation in July 1942 to the completion of its<br />
first major tasks in January 1943, the Amphibious Force, South Pacific had<br />
about the same number of ships and landing craft assigned with replacements<br />
being supplied for ships sunk or worn out in war service. But there<br />
was a steadily growing prospect of a real increase in size when the coastal<br />
transports and larger landing craft, building or training on the East and West<br />
Coasts of the United States, were finally cut loose and sailed to the South<br />
Pacific to fulfill their war assignment.<br />
By late January 1943, the ships and landing craft assigned to the Amphibi-<br />
ous Force South Pacific had grown sufficiently so that a new organization<br />
was established as follows:<br />
“ COMPHIBFORSOPAC CLEANSLATE Report, 21 Apr. 1943, p. 14.
Polishing Skills in the Russeiis 475<br />
<strong>US</strong>S McCaw)ey. (APA-4) FORCE FLAGSHIP<br />
Commander R. H. Rodgers (1923)<br />
TRANSPORT GROUP, SOUTH PACIFIC AMPHIBIO<strong>US</strong> FORCB<br />
Captain L. F. Reifsnider (1910)<br />
COMTRANSDIV TWO<br />
Captain 1. N. Kiland (1917)<br />
APA-18 l+e~ident ]uckmn (F)<br />
Commander C. W. Weitzel (1917)<br />
APA-20 President Hayes<br />
Commander F. W. Benson (1917)<br />
APA- 19 President Adams<br />
Captain Frank H. Dean (1917)<br />
. AKA-8 Algorab<br />
Captain J. R. Lannon (1919)<br />
COMTRANSDIV Eight<br />
Captain G. B. Ashe (1911)<br />
APA-17 American Legion (F)<br />
Cornrnander R. C. Welles (1919)<br />
ApA-27 George Ciymer<br />
Captain A. T. Moen (1918)<br />
APA-21 CreJcent City<br />
Captain J. R. Sullivan (1918)<br />
AKA-12 Libra<br />
Commander W. B. Fletcher (1920)<br />
INCA-6A[cbiba<br />
Commander H. R. Shaw (1929)<br />
COMTRANSDIV Ten<br />
Captain Lawrence F. Reifsnider ( I91o)<br />
APA-14 Hunter Liggett (F)<br />
Captain L. W. Perkins, <strong>US</strong>CG<br />
APA-23 [obn Penn<br />
Captain Harry W. Need (1918)<br />
AKA-9 Aihena<br />
Commander Howard W. Bradbury (1920)<br />
AKA-Y Formalbaut<br />
Commander Henry C. Flanagan (1919)<br />
COMTRANSDIV 12<br />
Commander John D. Sweeney (1926)<br />
APD-6 Stringham (F)<br />
Lieutenant Commander Adolphe Wildner (1932)<br />
APD-1 Manley<br />
Lieutenant Otto C. Schatz ( 1934)<br />
APD-5 McKean<br />
Lieutenant Ralph L. Rarney ( 1935)
476 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
APD-7 Talbot<br />
Lieutenant Commander Charles C. Morgan, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
APD-8 Waters<br />
Lieutenant Charles J. McWhinnie, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
APD-9 Dent<br />
Lieutenant Commander Ralph A. Wilhelm, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
COMTRANSDIV 14<br />
Captain Paul S. <strong>The</strong>iss (1912)<br />
APA-15 Henry T. Alien (F)<br />
Captain Paul A, Stevens (1913)<br />
APA-7 Fuller<br />
Captain Henry E. Thomhill (1921 )<br />
APA-4 McCawley (FF)<br />
Commander Robert H. Rodgers (1923)<br />
AKA-13 Thnia<br />
Commander Victor C. Barringer (1918)<br />
COMTIWNSDIV- 16<br />
Lieutenant Commander James S. Willis (1927)<br />
APD-10 BfOOkJ(F)<br />
Lieutenant Commander John W. Ramey (1932)<br />
APD-11 Giimer<br />
Lieutenant Commander John S. Homer, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
APD-14 Humpbrey~<br />
Lieutenant Commander Maurice J. Carley, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
APD-13 sands<br />
Lieutenant Commander John j. Branson (1927)<br />
LST Fiotilid Five<br />
Captain Grayson B. Carter (1919)<br />
LST Groups 13, 14, 15<br />
LANDING CRAFT FLOTILLAS<br />
Rear Admiral George H. Fort (1912)<br />
LST GROUP 13<br />
Cmnmander LST Group 13 Commander Roger W. Cutler, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
L$T Division 25<br />
LST-446<br />
LST-447 (FF)<br />
LST-448<br />
LST-449<br />
LST-460<br />
LST-472<br />
LST Divi$ion 26<br />
LST-339<br />
LST-340(FF)<br />
Lieutenant William A. Small<br />
Lieutenant Frank H. Storms, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
Ensign Charles E. Roeschke<br />
Lieutenant Carlton Livingston<br />
Lieutenant Everett Weire<br />
Lieutenant William O. Talley<br />
Lieutenant John H. Fulweiller, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
Lieutenant William Villella
Pohbing Skiiis in the Russeils 477<br />
LST-395 Lieutenant Alexander C. Forbes, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LST-396 Lieutenant Eric W. White<br />
LST-397 Lieutenant Nathaniel L. Lewis, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LST-398(F) Lieutenant Boyd E. Blanchard, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LST GROUP 14<br />
Commander LST Group 14 Commander Paul S. Slawson (1920)<br />
LST Divi5ion 27 L-STDivision 28<br />
L-ST-166 LST-71<br />
LST-167 LST-172<br />
LST-334 LST-203<br />
LST-341 LST-207<br />
LST-342(GF) LST-353<br />
LST-390 LST-354<br />
LCI Flotilla Five<br />
Commander Chester L. Walton (1920)<br />
LCI Groups 13, 14, 15<br />
LCI GROUP 13 (LCI-67 Flag)<br />
Commander LCI Group 13 Lieutenant Commander Marion M. Byrd (1927)<br />
LCI Division 25<br />
LCI-61 (F)<br />
LCI-62<br />
LCI-63<br />
LCI-64<br />
LCI-65<br />
LCI-66<br />
LCI Division 26<br />
LCI(L)-21<br />
LCI(L)-22<br />
LCI-67(F)<br />
LCI-68<br />
LCI-69<br />
LCI-70<br />
Lieutenant John P. Moore, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
Lieutenant (jg) ) William C. Lyons (12570)<br />
Lieutenant ( jg) John H. McCarthy, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
Lieutenant Herbert L. Kelley, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
Lieutenant ( jg) Christopher R. Tompkins, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
Lieutenant Charles F. Houston, Jr., <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
Ensign Marshall M. Cook, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
Lieutenant ( jg) Spencer V. Hinckley, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
Lieutenant ( jg) Ernest E. Tucker, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
Lieutenant Clifford D. Older, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
Lieutenant Frazier L. O’Leary, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
Lieutenant ( jg) Harry W. Frey, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI GROUP 14 (LCI–327 Flag)<br />
Commander LCI Group 14<br />
Lieutenant Commander Alfred V. Janotta, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI Division 27<br />
LC1-327(F) Lieutenant ( jg) North H. Newton, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
1.C1-328 Lieutenant Joseph D. Kerr, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LC1-329 Lieutenant William A. Illing, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-330 Lieutenant ( jg) Homer G. Maxey, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-331 Lieutenant Richard O. Shelton, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LC1-332 Lieutenant William A. Neilson, <strong>US</strong>NR
478 Amphibians Came To conquer<br />
LCI DiIJiJiOW 28<br />
LCI(L)-23 Lieutenant Ben A. Thirkfield, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI(L)-24 Lieutenant (jg) Raymond E. Ward (12444)<br />
LCI-333 Lieutenant Horace Townsend, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-334 Lieutenant ( jg) Alfred J. Ormston, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-335 Lieutenant (jg) John R. Powers, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-336 Lieutenant (jg) Thomas A. McCoy, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI GROUP 1><br />
Commander LCI Group 15 Commander J. McDonald Smith (1925)<br />
LCI Division 29 LCI Divisiov 30<br />
LCI-222 Ensign Clarence M. Reese, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-223 Lieutenant Frank P. Stone, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT Flotilla Five<br />
Lieutenant Edgar Jaeger, <strong>US</strong>N<br />
LCT Groups 13, 14, 15<br />
LCT GROUP 13<br />
Commander of LCT Group 13 Lieutenant Ashton L. Jones, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT Divi.rion 25<br />
Lieutenant A. L. Jones, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT Division 26<br />
Lieutenant ( jg) AmeeI Z. Kouri, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT GROUP 14<br />
Commander of LCT Group 14 Lieutenant Decatur Jones, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT Divi.rion 27<br />
Lieutenant Decatur Jones, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT Division 28<br />
Lieutenant ( jg) Thomas B. Willard, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT GROUP 1><br />
Commander of LCT Group 15 Lieutenant Laurence C. Lisle, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT DiviJion 29<br />
Lieutenant Laurence C. Lisle, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT Division 30<br />
Lieutenant (jg) Frank M. Wiseman, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT Flotilja Six<br />
LCT Groups 16, 17, 18<br />
By counting on one’s fingers, it is obvious that among the large work horses<br />
of PHIBFORSOPAC there were now 18 ships (11 APAs and 7 AKAs)<br />
against 19 ships (14 APAs and 5 AKAs ) six months earlier. However, there<br />
were 11 destroyer transports versus four at the earlier date and a definite<br />
promise of 127 landing ships and craft versus none at the earlier date.<br />
Eventually, it was planned that the Landing Craft Flotillas, SOPAC, would<br />
include 127 large landing ships and craft, i.e. 37 LSTS, 36 LCIS, and 54
Polishing Skiils in the Russells 479<br />
LCTS. However, in late January 1943, only a few of the early birds had been<br />
formed up organizationally in the United States, much less trained in<br />
amphibious operations and pushed at speeds of eight knots or less across<br />
the wide spaces of the Central Pacific to the South Pacific.<br />
Additional to the ships and craft listed above, four more APDs and 50<br />
coastal transports (APCS) were under order to report to COMPHIBFORSO-<br />
PAC, but they had not even reached the stage of paper organization into<br />
divisions and squadrons. When they reported, the force would consist of<br />
more than 200 ships and large landing craft.’”<br />
It is interesting to note from this roster list that the fast learning officers<br />
of the Naval Reserve had learned enough by January 1943 to take over<br />
command of some of the destroyer transports. And it is a commentary on how<br />
slowly the sky rocketing wartime promotion system spread to the Amphibi-<br />
ous Force SOPAC, to note that a year after the Pacific War started, a fair<br />
number of the captains of the large and important transports of PHIBFOR-<br />
SOPAC had 23–25 years of commissioned service but were still wearing the<br />
three stripes of a commander.<br />
n COMPHIBFORSOPACletter, FE25/A3–l/Ser 007 of 20 Jan. 1943,subj: Organizationand<br />
Staff of AmphibiousForce, South Pacific,FE25/A3–l/Ser of 20 Jan. 194s, and CINCPACS<br />
OrganizationalRosterdated29 Jan. 1943.
CHAPTER XIV<br />
Planning for Paring the<br />
Japanese Toenails in New Georgia<br />
NEW GEORGIA—TOENAILS<br />
TOENAILS was the code name given to the New Georgia Operation.<br />
<strong>The</strong> New Georgia landings in the Central Solomons commenced on<br />
30 June 1943. Rear Admiral Turner was relieved of command of the Am-<br />
phibious Forces, Third Fleet (South Pacific) by Rear Admiral <strong>The</strong>odore S.<br />
Wilkinson (1909), on 15 July 1943. <strong>The</strong> New Georgia operation was com-<br />
pleted on 25 August 1943. This chapter will deal with the planning phase<br />
and the chapter following will deal with the amphibious operations occurring<br />
prior to 15 July 1943.<br />
LONG RANGE PLANNING-BREAKING THE<br />
BISMARCK BARRIER<br />
<strong>The</strong> thinking of most planners in late 1942 was that in order to break the<br />
Bismarck Barrier, Rabaul had to be seized. To seize Rabaul, the United States<br />
had to have airfields within fighter plane range of Rabaul. To get such air-<br />
fields, the United States must seize central, then northern islands in the<br />
Solomon chain as well as a position at the western end of New Britain<br />
Island, at whose eastern extremity Rabaul was located.<br />
on 8 December 1942 the Chief of Staff COMSOPAC (Captain M. R.<br />
Browning) sent a memorandum to Rear Admiral Turner and to the Com-<br />
manding General Amphibious <strong>Corps</strong> directing:<br />
Planning Sections initiate a preliminary examination of the possibility of our<br />
seizing this area [Roviana Lagoon, New Georgia] in the near future.<br />
On 16 January 1943, a large conference was held by COMSOPAC for:<br />
481
nfrrt wtmm -<br />
Amphibians Canze To Conquer<br />
THE BISMARCK BARRIER<br />
gl?OBR/AAID<br />
~BuKA ISLAM<br />
‘ w<br />
NEW GEORGIA●.<br />
SOUTH<br />
WEST<br />
PACIFIC<br />
AREA I<br />
I<br />
SOUTH<br />
PACIFIC<br />
AREA<br />
W b@OIUARK<br />
-- “q:<br />
If<br />
-<br />
SOLOMON<br />
SEA<br />
AilSIMA<br />
t?LfSSEL s<br />
I ?<br />
GUADALCAAIAL<br />
T<br />
1<br />
I<br />
*qAGULA<br />
<strong>The</strong> Bistnarck Barrier.<br />
LONGITUDE<br />
159” EAST
planning for paring the japanese Toenails 483<br />
An informal discussion as to availability of units and supplies for offensive<br />
operations--objective Munda.1<br />
In this latter memorandum it was assumed for “discussion purposes” that<br />
the movement would be a “shore to shore movement” from Guadalcanal to<br />
New Georgia of one Regimental Combat Team and two Raider Battalions.<br />
At the same time that Rear Admiral Turner and COMSOPAC planners<br />
were focusing on Munda and New Georgia, CINCPAC planners were focus-<br />
ing on Rekata Bay and Santa Isabel Island. <strong>The</strong>y opined:<br />
<strong>The</strong> choice between Munda and Rekata, for our next objective in the Solomons,<br />
is a close one, but hydrography makes the latter preferable-even<br />
though we have to build a field there ourselves.’<br />
With the choice such a close one, and with SOPAC opting strongly for<br />
Munda, CINCPAC in due time gave his approval for this objective.’<br />
OBJECTIVE—THE NEW GEORGIA GROUP<br />
<strong>The</strong> New Georgia Group in the Middle Solomons covers an area 125 miles<br />
in length and 40 miles in width. It contains 12 large islands. COMSOPAC<br />
had a particular and immediate interest in four of the largest of these, New<br />
Georgia, Rendova, Kolombangara and Vangunu. Munda airfield located on<br />
New Georgia, the largest island in the group, was approximately 180 miles<br />
northwest from Guadalcanal and about 30 hours running time for an LCT.<br />
Thoughts of possession of Munda’s 4,700-foot runway brought pleasant<br />
smiles to the planners’ faces, for while the New Georgia Group was only a<br />
first step, one-third of the way to Rabaul, it was a step everyone at the time<br />
said was necessary.<br />
All the charts of the pre-World War II period have all the larger islands<br />
in the New Georgia Group labeled “densely wooded.” Those few who had<br />
visited them in pre-World War II days declared them heavily jungled. New<br />
Georgia Island was about 45 miles long and 30 miles wide, and the only<br />
really large low flat area on the island was around Munda airfield at the<br />
southern end of its northwest corner.<br />
‘ COMSOPAC, memoranda, A1/A16-l/Ser 00121C of 8 Dec. 1942; A1/A16-3/00202 of 16<br />
Jan. 1943.<br />
=CINCPAC, Command Summtiry, Book Three, 15 Jan. 1943, subj: Estimate of the Situation,<br />
p. 1301.<br />
aCOMINCH131250Feb. 1943; CINCPAC 142357 Feb. 1943; COMSOPAC 161445, 250616<br />
Feb. 1943.
484 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
Kolombangara across Kula Gulf to the northwest of New Georgia Island<br />
reached an elevation of 5,45o feet, while New Georgia Island itself topped<br />
out much lower at 2,690 feet, However, all the islands in the New Georgia<br />
Group were rugged with numerous peaks. <strong>The</strong>re were no roads and few trails<br />
through the jungle growth. <strong>The</strong> islands were surrounded by an almost con-<br />
tinuous outer circle of coral reefs and coral filled lagoons. <strong>The</strong> trees and<br />
undergrowth came right down to the beaches over a large part of the islands<br />
making it difficult to choose an area where it would be possible to move any<br />
logistic support inland.<br />
It is desirable to recall that while the Joint Chiefs had prescribed that<br />
CINCPAC and COMSOPAC were to be the immediate commanders for<br />
Phase One (PESTILENCE) of the initial offensive move into the Solomon<br />
Islands, Phase Two which was the capture of the rest of Japanese-heId Solo-<br />
mons and positions in New Guinea and Phase Three, the capture of Rabaul,<br />
were to be accomplished under the command of CINCSWPA, General<br />
Douglas MacArthur~<br />
On 6 January 1943, Admiral King had made a very definite attempt to<br />
have the naval tasks of these prospective Phase Two and Phase Three operations<br />
continue under the command of CINCPAC and his area subordinate,<br />
COMSOPAC, by limiting General MacArthur to the strategic direction of the<br />
campaigns. This did not evoke a favorable response from his opposite num-<br />
ber in the Army, but it did stir the Joint Chiefs, on the 8th of January 1943,<br />
to ask General MacArthur how and when he was going to accomplish the<br />
unfinished task of Phase Two of PESTILENCE.5<br />
At the Casablanca Conference, held from 14-23 January 1943, the Task<br />
Three decision in the 2 July 1942 Joint Chiefs PESTILENCE directive, which<br />
ordered the seizure of Rabaul in New Britain Island at the head of the Solo-<br />
mons, was reaffirmed. When this good news reached the South Pacific, where<br />
the concern was that the area might draw a later and lower priority than the<br />
Central Pacific, Vice Admiral Halsey on 11 February sent his Deputy Com-<br />
mander, Rear Admiral <strong>The</strong>odore S. Wilkinson, to consult and advise with<br />
General MacArthur. Rear Admiral Wilkinson also carried COMSOPACS<br />
comments on CINCSWPA’S plans for Phase Two which were contained in<br />
CINCSWPA’S dispatches to the Joint Chiefs, information copies of which<br />
had been sent to CINCPAC and COMSOPAC.<br />
4COMINCH, 022100 Jul. 1942.<br />
‘ (a) CINCPAC to COMINCH, letter, A16-3/Ser 0259 W of 8 Dec. 1942; (b) COMINCH<br />
to C/S <strong>US</strong>A, memorandum, 6 Jan. 1943 and reply thereto; (c) JCS despatch 192 of 8 Jan. 1943.
Planning for Paring the ~apanese Toenails 485<br />
Just a few days before Rear Admiral Wilkinson flew off to Australia,<br />
Admiral King on 8 February 1943 sent another memorandum to General<br />
Marshall, commenting on General MacArthur’s reply to the Joint Chiefs of<br />
Staff despatch of 8 January 1943 and indirectly commenting on the command<br />
problem in his area.’<br />
On the day before Lincoln’s Birthday 1943, Vice Admiral Halsey informed<br />
COMINCH that the rapid consolidation of Japanese positions in the New<br />
Georgia Group emphasized the need for early United States seizure of these<br />
islands, He recommended that pressure on the Japanese be continued in the<br />
Southern Solomons, and that the occupation of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands<br />
(specifically Makin and Tarawa) in the Central Pacific, suggested by<br />
COMINCH as the next appropriate task after CLEANSLATE, be deferred<br />
until later.’<br />
CINCPAC went along with this COMSOPAC recommendation.<br />
On 14 February 1943, when there were many who believed the Japanese,<br />
now ousted from the Southern Solomons, would strike at some other island<br />
group in the South Pacific, Admiral Nimitz made the very shrewd estimate<br />
that the withdrawal of the Japanese from Guadalcanal probably indicated<br />
that the Japanese would shift to the strategical defensive in the South Pacific.<br />
Post-war Japanese records indicate that this is what happened.s<br />
On 17 February 1943, the CINCPAC Staff Planners “assumed” that COM-<br />
SOPAC “will attack Munda next and will employ one <strong>Marine</strong> Division.”<br />
This represented some beefing up from the earlier concept of one Regimental<br />
Combat Team and two Raider Battalions, but still was a fair step away from<br />
the realities of the operation insofar as the landing forces are concerned.<br />
<strong>The</strong> planners reported to CINCPAC:<br />
It seems entirely feasible to make a simultaneous thrust up the Solomons, and<br />
in the Gilberts. Capture of objectives seems probable. Holding in Gilberts<br />
seems doubtful. . . . Because of preparation time required, May 15, 1943,<br />
is selected as the target date.g<br />
<strong>The</strong> guesstimate of a Dog Day of 15th of May by the CINCPAC Staff was<br />
missed by more than a long month, for it was the 21st of June before two<br />
companies of <strong>Marine</strong>s were landed ahead of schedule at Segi Point, New<br />
‘ (a) COMINCH to C/S <strong>US</strong>A, memoranda, Ser 0040 of 6 Jan. 1943; Ser 00195 of 8 Feb. 1943<br />
and replies thereto; (b) JCS despatch 192 of 8 Jan.1943.<br />
7 (a) COMINCH to CINCPAC, 092200 Feb. 1943; (b) COMSOPAC to COMINCH, 110421<br />
Feb. 1943; (c) CINCPAC to COMINCH, 112237 Feb. 1943.<br />
8 (a) CINCPAC to COMSOPAC, 142357 Feb. 1943; (b) Japanme Imperial General Headquarters<br />
(IGHQ), Army Directives, Vol. II, Agreement of 22 March 1943, p. 43.<br />
‘ CINCPAC CornmrandS~mmcvy, Book Three, 17 Feb. 1943, p. 1398.
486 Arnpbibiuns Came To Conquer<br />
NEW GEORGIA AND REND OVA ISLANDS<br />
New Georgia and Rendova Isiands.
Planning for Paring the ~apanese Toenaiis 487<br />
Georgia, and the 30th of June before Rendova and other islands in the New<br />
Georgia Group were invaded on schedule.<br />
But in the four months from late February to late June 1943, much new<br />
meat was put in the grinder for future operations by the Joint Chiefs, only a<br />
small portion directly concerned with the South and Southwest Pacific. So it<br />
was not until the end of March 1943 that the Amphibious Force of the South<br />
Pacific, and other interested commands learned just what they were to do,<br />
although even then no definite time schedule was provided.<br />
TALKING IT OVER AT A HIGH-LEVEL<br />
On 12 March 1943, the Pacific Military Conference opened in Washington,<br />
D. C., with considerable talent present from the major commands of the<br />
Pacific. <strong>The</strong> chore was to examine, discuss, and if possible, decide upon<br />
ELKTON, which was General MacArthur’s plan for carrying out Phase Two<br />
and Phase Three of the Joint Chiefs’ 2 July 1942 directive for PESTILENCE.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Navy planners sat back and drooled as General MacArthur’s Chief<br />
of Staff set forth the considerable forces, particularly Army Air Forces,<br />
needed to carry out the ELKTON Plan. All during Phase One of the PESTI-<br />
LENCE Operation,’” the SOPAC Navy felt that the Army Air Forces had<br />
short changed their needs in the South Pacific in favor of the bomber offensive<br />
against Germany. It was a distinct pleasure to hear the Army planners,<br />
in effect, saying that in order to move forward toward Rabaul, it would take<br />
about twice the then current allocation of air strength in the SOPAC-SOU-<br />
WESPAC Areas.<br />
Out of nearly ten days of proposal and counter-proposal and a meeting of<br />
some of the Pacific planners with the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 21 March 1943<br />
came, in effect, a reaffirmation of Phase Two of the Joint Chiefs’ PESTI-<br />
LENCE directive of 2 July 1942 and a requirement that it should be accom-<br />
plished during 1943.<br />
However, the Joint Chiefs made it clear that a new start was being made<br />
by canceling the old 2 July 1942 directive. <strong>The</strong>y issued a new directive for<br />
an operation labeled CARTWHEEL, an operation for ( 1) the seizure of<br />
the Solomon Islands up to the southern portion of Bougainvillea and (2)<br />
driving the Japanese out of certain specific areas in New Guinea and in<br />
Western New Britain. <strong>The</strong> Joint Chiefs made it equally clear that only a<br />
‘“COMINCH, Memo for General Marshall, 2 Feb. 1945.
488 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
small proportion of the additional forces requested by General MacArthur<br />
would be supplied from the United States.<br />
THE PROBLEM OF COMMAND SETTLED<br />
<strong>The</strong> Joint Chiefs directed that the operations in the middle Solomons be<br />
conducted under the direct command of COMSOPAC, operating under the<br />
general (strategic) directives of CINCSWPA. Ships and aircraft from the<br />
Pacific Fleet, unless assigned by the Joint Chiefs to CARTWHEEL tasks,<br />
would remain under the control and allocation of the CINCPOA.11<br />
It was a happy fact, from the Navy’s viewpoint, that command during<br />
the CAR’IWHEEL Operation was to be exercised very much along the<br />
lines recommended by COMINCH to the Army Chief of Staff on 6 Janu-<br />
ary 1943.<br />
ON THE OTHER HAND-THE JAPANESE<br />
<strong>The</strong> Japanese had largely by-passed the New Georgia Group in their<br />
giant strides towards New Caledonia until the struggle for Guadalcanal<br />
was in its later stages. <strong>The</strong>n they landed at Munda Point, New Georgia,<br />
on 14 November 1942 and, starting a week later, built a 4,700-foot airstrip<br />
during the next month. Following this, a Japanese airfield was built at Vila<br />
on Kolombangara Island just a scant 25 miles to the northwest of Munda.<br />
Two Special Naval Landing Forces (SNLF) were provided and the Japanese<br />
turned to and rapidly built up defenses around these two very usable and<br />
supporting airfields.<br />
Further north up the Solomons, the Japanese also expanded their air facili-<br />
ties. <strong>The</strong>re was an airfield at the south end of Vella Lavella Island, fifty<br />
miles to the northwest of Munda, and there were five airfields on Bougainvillea<br />
Island commencing with one 125 miles northwest of Munda. In<br />
addition, there was Ballale Island airfield in the Shortland Islands just<br />
south of Bougainville Island, and another airfield on Buka Island just north<br />
of Bougainvillea Island. All were backed up by the five airfields around<br />
Rabaul, 375 miles northwest of Munda. <strong>The</strong> Japanese worked diligently<br />
n (a) JCS to CINCPAC, 232327 Mar. 1943; (b) JCS 5/9, 28 Mar. 1943; (c) JCS to<br />
CINCPAC-COMSOPAC, 291803 Mar. 1943; (d) CINCPAC to C~MSOPAC, 302013 Mar.<br />
1943 and reply thereto.
Pianning for Paring the ~apanese Toenails 489<br />
TOENAILS Operation Area.<br />
for six months to perfect their defenses in the New Georgia Group. During<br />
a major part of these six months, the SOPAC forces planning to land in<br />
the New Georgia Group waited for the questions of high command and<br />
of concurrent operations in the Southwest Pacific Area to be settled before<br />
really being able to plan definite steps to push the Japanese out at a reason-<br />
ably sure date.<br />
Not that the problem of bringing available United States air power to<br />
bear in the Central Solomons was overlooked during this delay. Soon after<br />
capturing Henderson Field on Guadalcanal, a second airstrip on Guadal-<br />
canal had been started. Now there were four airstrips on Guadalcanal and<br />
two more in the Russells were being made ready. Planes from these fields,<br />
by regular bombing raids, kept the Japanese alert and particularly busy<br />
filling up holes on the Munda and Vila airfields. To show the extent of<br />
the air effort, CINCPAC reported that during June 1943, 1,455 SOPAC<br />
planes dropped 1,156,075 pounds of bombs on Japanese objectives in the<br />
solomons.” Surface task groups had bombarded Munda and Vila on 6<br />
March and again on 13 May 1943.<br />
“ CINCPAC, lettec, AI 6-3, Ser 001100 of 6 Sep. 1943, subj: Operations in Pacific Ocean<br />
Areas, June 1943, encl. (A).
490 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
JAPANESE AREA COMMAND STRUCTURE<br />
<strong>The</strong> Japanese Area Command structure was quite different from that of<br />
United States forces. However, just as the United States Joint Chiefs, in<br />
due time, recognized that for immediate command purposes the operations<br />
in the Buns-Gona area of New Guinea must be quite separate from those<br />
along the Solomons chain of islands, the Japanese high command recognized<br />
the same necessity. <strong>The</strong> Japanese met the problem in a different way<br />
than the United States. <strong>The</strong>y assigned prime responsibility in the New<br />
Guinea-New Britain-New Ireland area of operations to their Eighth Area<br />
Army, and the prime responsibility for the Central Solomons Island Area<br />
to the Southeastern Fleet of their Navy, with command lines running in<br />
separate Service channels all the way back to Tokyo. No one Japanese<br />
military officer in the area of operations had overall strategic control.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Japanese then threw in another hurdle to smooth command lines for<br />
their defense of the Solomons as a whole. <strong>The</strong> Commanding General 17th<br />
Army, a major command of the Eighth Area, was given the responsibility for<br />
defense in the Northern Solomons and his command lines flowed upward<br />
through his Army superior in Rabaul. So the Japanese Navy was responsible<br />
for the Middle Solomons, and the Japanese Army for the Northern Solomons.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Navy Commander of the Japanese Southeastern Fleet and of the 1lth<br />
Air Fleet, wearing the two hats, was Vice Admiral Jinichi Kusaka. Vice<br />
Admiral Kusaka’s immediate superior was Admiral Mineichi Koga, Com-<br />
mander in Chief Combined Fleet, with headquarters in Truk. Kusaka’s<br />
immediate junior was Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa who commanded the<br />
Eighth Fleet. Kusaka had orders to pursue an “active defense” in the Solo-<br />
mons. Mikawa’s on the spot subordinate in the Central Solomons was Rear<br />
Admiral Minoru Ota, who with “primary responsibility” coordinated the<br />
efforts of the Joint Army-Navy Defense Force in the New Georgia Group.<br />
He did just that. He did not command. <strong>The</strong> Japanese Army Commander on<br />
New Georgia was Major General Noboru Sasaki, Commander New Georgia<br />
Detachment, Southeastern Army.<br />
When Major General Noboru Sasaki in late June was directed to take<br />
over from Rear Admiral Ota the “primary responsibility” for the efforts of<br />
the Joint Army-Navy Defense Force in the New Georgia Group, he and<br />
Ota were continued on a “cooperation” basis rather than Sasaki being placed<br />
in “command.” <strong>The</strong> only change was in the man who held the hot potato<br />
of “primary responsibility” in a cooperative effort.
Planning for Paring the ~apanese Toenaih 491<br />
JAPANESE ORGANIZATION FOR DEFENSE OF BISMARCK BARRIER<br />
I<br />
EIGHTH AREA<br />
I<br />
I<br />
IMPERIAL GENERAL HEADQUARTERS<br />
Army Chain of Command<br />
1<br />
I<br />
Naval Chain of Command<br />
I<br />
I<br />
COMBINED FLEET<br />
I<br />
I SOUTHEASTERN FLEET<br />
K<strong>US</strong>AKA, RABAUL<br />
ARMY COMMANDS 17th ARMY<br />
AT<br />
NEW BRITAIN<br />
NEW GUINEA<br />
SHORTLANDS<br />
I r I<br />
I<br />
I<br />
MADANG<br />
ARMY<br />
8th FLEET llth AIR FLEET<br />
AIR OIVISION<br />
6th DIVISION MI KAWA K<strong>US</strong>AKA<br />
BOUGAINVILLEA SHORTLANDS RABAU L<br />
I 1<br />
1 I 1 I<br />
ARMY<br />
SOUTHEASTERN<br />
DETACHMENT<br />
New Georgia<br />
Sasaki<br />
8th COMBINED<br />
SN LF<br />
New Georgia<br />
Ota<br />
7th COMBINED<br />
SNLF<br />
Santa Isabel<br />
1<br />
BASE<br />
FORCES<br />
It would appear that the United States forces had a real command advan-<br />
tage in seeking to break through to the Bismarck Barrier over the Japanese<br />
seeking to defend its approaches, since one military officer, General Mac-<br />
Arthur, who was actually in the area of operations, had over-all strategic<br />
control, and could time the movements of his subordinates in the two-pronged<br />
offensive.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Japanese commanders, being on the strategic defensive, naturally<br />
had to react individually depending on the time and place they were attacked.<br />
But there was no Japanese area commander whose primary duty included the<br />
concentration of reserve forces prior to attack, and shifting these forces as the<br />
enemy attack developed.<br />
JAPANESE DEFENSE PREPARATIONS<br />
<strong>The</strong> New Georgia Group lay on the direct route from Guadalcanal to<br />
Rabaul, and had two good air bases, so the Japanese assigned to this group<br />
about 70 percent of their defensive troop strength available in the Central
4$)2 Amphibians Came To Conqtier<br />
Solomons. <strong>The</strong>ir Navy sent the 7th Special Naval Landing Force (the<br />
<strong>Marine</strong>s of the Japanese Navy) to Kolombangara and the 6th Special Naval<br />
Landing Force to New Georgia. Together these units formed the 8th Com-<br />
bined Special Naval Landing Force of about 4,OOOmen. <strong>The</strong>se naval fighting<br />
units were gradually reinforced with Army troops of the Southeastern Army<br />
until the total strength in the New Georgia Group reached 10,500, about<br />
half of whom were on New Georgia Island. <strong>The</strong> Japanese also had the 7th<br />
Combined Special Naval Landing Force of about 3,OOOmen on Santa Isabel<br />
Island and 2,OOOmore on Choiseul in the Central Solomons. <strong>The</strong>re also were<br />
about 10,000 Japanese Army troops in the Northern Solomons.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Japanese had lookout stations scattered along the coasts of the islands<br />
of the New Georgia Group. Defensively, they had major subordinate commands<br />
and troops at Munda Point and Kolombangara, and minor troop units<br />
at Viru Harbor in southwest New Georgia, along eastern Vangunu Island<br />
opposite Wickham Anchorage and on Rendova Island. In trying to defend<br />
everywhere, there was some splintering of the forces available. <strong>The</strong> Japanese<br />
made it possible for Task Force 31 of the South Pacific Force to render<br />
ineffective a sizable proportion of the total Japanese defensive troop strength,<br />
by containing, scattering or capturing these various outpost contingents,<br />
which served no useful defensive purpose insofar as Munda and Vila air-<br />
fields were concerned.<br />
A professional post-war estimate based on available Japanese documents<br />
is that the Japanese had about 25,000 troops in all of the Solomons in June<br />
1943 with larger contingents in both the Bismarck Archipelago (43,000)<br />
and in eastern New Guinea (55,000) .13 Presumably these allocations of<br />
troop strength roughly indicated how the Japanese evaluated the degree of<br />
danger to each area, and their own desires to retain them.<br />
Just as the United States in the earlier days of the war did not know<br />
where the next enemy amphibious offensive might be headed or assault<br />
landed, the Japanese did not know where our offensive was headed nor<br />
where the assault stepping stones might be picked. With the Japanese in<br />
the middle Solomons, the immediate problem was whether United States<br />
eyes were lighting on the New Georgia Group of islands or on Santa Isabel,<br />
which the CINCPAC planners had favored. Santa Isabel contained the<br />
highly usable seaplane base at Rekata Bay, where unfortunately Rear Admiral<br />
mJohn Miller, CARTWHEEL: Tbe Reduction of Rab.ul, Vol. VIII of subseries Tbe W~r in<br />
& Pacific in Series UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR 11 (Washington: Office of the<br />
Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1959), p. 47.
Poiisbing Skills in the Russells 493<br />
Turner had focused his eyes on the disaster-tinged evening of 8 August 1942.<br />
But Santa Isabel lay northeastward of the direct route to Rabaul from<br />
Guadalcanal and presumably so seemed to the Japanese a less likely objective<br />
for a United States attack than the New Georgia Group. In any case the<br />
Japanese had but 3,OOOdefenders on Santa Isabel compared to 10,500 in the<br />
New Georgia Group.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Japanese in the Central SoIomons pressed their defensive preparations<br />
with their typical military energy throughout the first six months of<br />
1943, despite harassment from the air ?md sea. More particularly in the New<br />
Georgia Group, and in the Munda area, the Japanese believed that a major<br />
attack was most likely to come overland from Bairoko Harbor, seven miles<br />
to the north of Munda, and so a fair share of their defensive artillery was<br />
sited to meet an offensive from that direction.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y also knew that an attack on the Munda airstrip might come from<br />
the Roviana Lagoon which Vice Admiral Halsey’s planners had named<br />
back in December 1942, or over the Munda Bar. But they knew that Roviana<br />
Lagoon was blocked from seaward by islands, coral reefs, and shallow surfridden<br />
entrances, suitable only for landing boats, or at best, an LCT. So<br />
they sited their seacoast guns to protect from an attack over Munda Bar,<br />
which to the United States Navy had looked like a near impossible obstacle.<br />
That the degree of readiness of the Japanese in the Munda area to provide<br />
“an active defense” was high, is attested to by the length of the struggle<br />
before the Munda airstrip was captured on 5 August, and by the large<br />
reserve U.S. Army forces that had to be brought in to overwhelm the 5,000<br />
defenders on New Georgia Island.<br />
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGES<br />
Admiral King felt that part of the Navy’s command difficulties with the<br />
Army arose from the fact that many of the organizational groupings of<br />
ships of the United States Fleet, called task forces, were identified by the<br />
areas where there were naval tasks to be accomplished on a continuing basis.<br />
Examples are: Panama Patrol Force, Northwest Africa Force, Southwest<br />
Pacific Force. <strong>The</strong>refore, an officer of the Army exercising “area command”<br />
might logically expect to exercise direct control on a continuing basis over<br />
the ships carrying his area name tag. This led to area efforts to limit these<br />
task forces to minor offensive and defensive chores to the neglect of the<br />
broader, more important, and specific Naval and Fleet mission to “maintain<br />
control of the sea. ”
494 Amphibians Canze To Conqrier<br />
To alleviate this problem, on 15 March 1943, all the ships of the United<br />
States Fleet were changed from an area command nomenclature and put<br />
into numbered Fleets, the Fleets operating in the Pacific being allocated<br />
odd numbers. PHIBFORSOPAC became PHIBFORTHIRDFLT, or THIRD-<br />
PHIBFOR. Rear Admiral Turner lost his well-known designation as CTF<br />
62 and became CTF 32.’4 Despite this ordered change, for some months<br />
Vice Admiral Halsey, Commander Third Fleet, continued to use his COM-<br />
SOPAC title.<br />
DELAY AND MORE DELAY<br />
On 3 March 1943 COMSOPAC informed COMINCH and CINCPAC<br />
that the tentative D-Day for the next offensive was April loth.” <strong>The</strong> actual<br />
major movement of SOPAC forces into the Middle Solomons was 50 long<br />
days later. This delay beyond a date when the Area Commander reported<br />
his forces would be ready to move, marked the TOENAILS operations as<br />
different from all others in which the Turner staffs participated, since in<br />
previous and subsequent operations, the amphibious forces had great diffi-<br />
culty making the desired readiness date.lG<br />
On 28 March COMSOPAC dismounted from his galloping white charger<br />
long enough to tell the Joint Chiefs that he concurred with delaying major<br />
operations by SOPACFOR against New Georgia until the air base on<br />
Woodlark Island in SOWESPACS domain was commissioned.”<br />
It was quite obvious that since General MacArthur had been given the<br />
strategic direction of the operation, Vice Admiral Halsey could not move<br />
his invasion forces until General MacArthur approved. Admiral King was<br />
breathing hotly on the neck of COMSOPAC (later known as Commander<br />
Third Fleet) and Vice Admiral Halsey was breathing hotly on the neck of<br />
Rear Admiral Turner, but no final Dog Day could be set until after the<br />
staff representatives of Commander Third Fleet and CINCSWPA returned<br />
from Washington on 8 April 1!243.’s<br />
On 15–16 April 1943, soon after the return of the Third Fleet representa-<br />
tives from Washington, Vice Admiral Halsey had a conference with Gen-<br />
“ COMSOPAC to SOPAC, 030407 Mar. 1943.<br />
“ COMSOPAC to COMINCH, CINCPAC 020450 Mar. 1943.<br />
‘“ (a) JCS 238/1, 18 Mar. 1943; (b) Staff Interviews.<br />
“ COMSOPAC to JCS, 280137 Mar. 1943.<br />
“ (a) COMINCH to COMSOPAC, 011810 Apr. 1943; (b) COMTHIRDFLT to COMINCH,<br />
020720 APr. 1943; (C) COMSOPAC to COMINCH, 142303 Apr. 1943.
Pianning for parirag the ~apanese Toenai[s 495<br />
NR & L (MOD) 31940<br />
Training Seabees at Noumea, New Caiedonia, for impending operations,<br />
April 1943. Rear Adnzirai Turner, Commander Third Amphibious Force,<br />
with his sta~.<br />
eral MacArthur. Vice Admiral Halsey happily agreed with General<br />
MacArthur’s desire for setting Dog Day on 15 May in order that SOPAC<br />
Operations would start on the same day as the operations in the Southwest<br />
Pacific Area. <strong>The</strong>se latter operations were for the seizure of Woodlark Island<br />
210 miles west from the airfields in the south of Bougainvillea, as well as for<br />
the seizure of the Trobriand Islands further west, Soon General MacArthur<br />
delayed his readiness date to 1 June and eventually he said that his forces<br />
could not be ready before a 30th June date. When Commander Third Fleet<br />
was subjected to further Navy high command urging to get General Mac-<br />
Arthur to set an earlier date, Vice Admiral Halsey responded by proposing<br />
that SOPACFOR charge up the Solomons and make a night landing on<br />
Rendova. However, he finally ended the high-level kibitzing by informing<br />
his superiors on 26 May that after much discussion and a reappraisal of<br />
the specific effort required by each subordinate command in the Third Fleet,<br />
a 30 June D-Day was agreeable to him also.lg<br />
1sCOMSOPAC to COMINCH, 160420, 260545 May 1943 and related dispatches.
496 Anzpbibi~ns Came To Conqtier<br />
NR & L (MOD) 31936<br />
Rear Admiral Turner with Seabee oficers after witnessing tr~ining operation~.<br />
Back on 9 March, the level of naval operations in the lower Solomons<br />
had so dropped off that COMSOPAC, u~on Rear Admiral Turner’s urging,<br />
directed the commencement of a three-week period of training of new units<br />
and of specific preparations for the next offensive.zo With no specific Dog<br />
Day to plan for, this seemed a most desirable stopgap measure.<br />
THE FIRST DEFINITE PLAN<br />
About a month after the Third Fleet planners returned from General<br />
MacArthur’s Headquarters, COMSOPAC issued his first definite planning<br />
directive for the TOENAILS Operation. This was on 17 May 1943 and he<br />
directed that:<br />
Forces of the South PacificArea will seize and occupy simultaneously positions<br />
in the southern part of the NEW GEORGIA Group preparatory to a full<br />
scale offensive against MUNDA-VILA and later BUIN-FAISI [the southern<br />
end of Bougainvillea].21<br />
* (a) COMSOPACOE06>0Mar. 1943; (b) COMPHIBFORSOPAC, letters, Ser 055 of 30 Jan.<br />
and 059 of 3 Feb. 1943, subj: Amphibious Training and Joint Training.<br />
a COMSOPAC, Warning Instructions, Ser 00859 of 17 May 1943.
Planning jot’ Paring the ~apanese Toenails 497<br />
<strong>The</strong> specific tasks were to seize, hold, and develop:<br />
1.<br />
2.<br />
3.<br />
Dog<br />
a staging point for small craft in:<br />
a. the Wickham Anchorage Area in the southeastern part of<br />
Vangunu Island and 50 miles from Munda airstrip.<br />
b. Viru Harbor on New Georgia Island 30 miles southeast of<br />
Munda airstrip.<br />
a fighter airstrip at Segi, New Georgia, 40 miles from the Munda<br />
airstrip.<br />
Rendova Island, whose northern harbor was just 10 short miles<br />
south of Munda, as a supply base, advanced PT Base, and an<br />
adequate support base to accommodate amphibians prior to their<br />
embarkation for an assault on Munda and/or Vila.<br />
Day was set for June 15th “or shortly thereafter.” This date was in<br />
accordance with the good old Navy practice of getting everyone pressing<br />
to be ready ahead of the real date when they bad to be ready.<br />
Between the day when this order was issued and June 3rd when COM-<br />
SOPAC issued his Operation Plan 14-43, there were several changes made<br />
in the planning, but the most important, at Rear Admiral Turner’s working
498 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
level, was the change of Dog Day to 30 June 1943, and the change in Task<br />
Force designation for the Assault Force from Task Force 32 to Task Force 31.<br />
COMSOPAC’S Warning Instructions contained no information or instruc-<br />
tions in regard to the components or the command of the New Georgia<br />
Occupation Force. Neither did his Operation Plan 14–43 issued two weeks<br />
later.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner’s (CTF 31) Operation Plan A8–43 gave the components<br />
of the New Georgia Occupation Force and indicated Major General<br />
Hester was the Commander, but stated in a separate subparagraph that<br />
command would pass from CTF 31 to other military authorities when so<br />
directed by Commander Third Fleet. Presumably, but not explicitly stated,<br />
this would occur when Major General Hester was established ashore on<br />
New Georgia Island and was ready to assume the command responsibility.<br />
Under these circumstances he would notify Commander Third Fleet and<br />
Rear Admiral Turner, CTF 31, would make his recommendation to Commander<br />
Third Fleet in the matter and, the latter would decide whether, or<br />
when, the command should pass.<br />
<strong>The</strong> failure of Vice Admiral Halsey’s Operation Plan to spell out the<br />
command matter, after his experience in regard to the same problem in the<br />
latter phases of WATCHTOWER, is not understood.”<br />
LOGISTICS COMES OF AGE IN SOPAC<br />
In February 1943, COMSOPAC launched logistics operation DRY-<br />
GOODS. This was the supply part of the logistic support needed to conduct<br />
the next big operation in the Middle Solomons. DRYGOODS called for<br />
building up on the Guadalcanal-Russell Islands some 50,000 tons of supplies,<br />
80,000 barrels of gasoline (and storage tanks to hold this amount)<br />
and the tens of thousands of tons of equipment for the various units slated<br />
to participate in this next operation, which in due time was named TOE-<br />
NAILS. Rear Admiral Turner had drafted a memorandum to COMSOPAC<br />
on 14 January 1943, recommending this essential logistic step for future<br />
operational success. Despite all that could be said against the inadequacy<br />
of the unloading and storage facilities to be available at Guadalcanal in<br />
the spring of 1943, Vice Admiral Halsey gave the proposal a green light and<br />
thus made a major contribution to the success of TOENAILS. Since every-<br />
= (a) COMSOPAC Op Plan 14-43, 3 Jun. 1943; (b) CTF 31 Op Plan A8-43, 4 Jun. 1943,<br />
para 5(b).
Planning for Paring the ~apanese Toenaiis 499<br />
one m the United States with an alert ear knew by this time that Guadalcanal’s<br />
code word was CACT<strong>US</strong>, Guadalcanal received a change of code<br />
name from CACT<strong>US</strong> to MAINYARD for the purpose of the DRYGOODS<br />
Operation.<br />
On 20 May 1943, COMSOPAC created a Joint Logistic Board, composed<br />
of:<br />
1. Commander Service Squadron, SOPAC,<br />
2. Commanding General, Services of Supply, SOPAC, Army,<br />
3. Commanding General, Supply Service, First <strong>Marine</strong> Amphibious<br />
<strong>Corps</strong>, and<br />
4. Commander Aircraft, SOPAC (represented by COM Fleet Air,<br />
Noumea).<br />
<strong>The</strong> Board was charged with keeping the appropriate departmental au-<br />
thorities in Washington informed of present and future Service require-<br />
ments, with providing inter-change of emergency logistical support within<br />
SOPAC, and with recommending to Washington appropriate levels of<br />
supply within SOPAC.<br />
THE LANDING CRAFT<br />
SOPAC planning for TOENAILS was’ predicated upon the arrival in<br />
the South Pacific of an adequate number of LSTS (Landing Ship Tank),<br />
LCIS (Landing Craft Infantry) and LCTS (Landing Craft Tank). When<br />
delay succeeded delay in the delivery of these new landing craft, some being<br />
built by commercial shipyards themselves newly built, it became apparent<br />
t~at there would be little time to break them in to the hazards of the Solomons<br />
before they would have to load for TOENAILS. In this respect, it is obvious<br />
that Vice Admiral Halsey’s desire for an April or May D-Day for TOE-<br />
NAILS was constantly tempered by the constant slippage of the arrival<br />
dates of the landing craft.<br />
<strong>The</strong> first LSTS assigned to the South Pacific were built at three East<br />
Coast yards and were commissioned in December 1942 and January 1943.<br />
<strong>The</strong> LST used in the South Pacific had an overall length of nearly 328<br />
feet, a 50-foot beam, and a draft of 14 feet when it displaced 3,776 tons<br />
fully loaded. Presumably when the LST blew its ballast tanks, its draft was<br />
3 feet, 1 inch forward and 9 feet, 6 inches aft, but this desirable state for<br />
unloading <strong>Marine</strong> or Army tanks through the bow doors on the perfect
500 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
beach gradient was rarely realized. All the large landing craft were dieselengined.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Landing Craft Infantry (LCI) was 157 feet overall, had a beam of<br />
23 feet, and a displacement of 380 tons. <strong>The</strong> LCI was the fastest of the<br />
large landing craft with a designed maximum speed of 15 knots which<br />
permitted these craft to cruise at about 12 knots in a generally smooth sea.<br />
<strong>The</strong> LCI could carry 205 troops and 32 tons of cargo in addition to the<br />
ship’s company and normal stores. <strong>The</strong> draft when loaded for landing was<br />
never less than 3 feet, 8 inches forward and 5 feet, 6 inches aft, but con-<br />
stant purges of stores and gear had to be held to even approach this desir-<br />
able draft. <strong>The</strong> LCI discharged troops and equipment by means of gangways<br />
hinged to a platform on the bow, and lucky were the troops who got ashore<br />
in water less than shoulder high. <strong>The</strong> LCI complement was two officers<br />
and 22 men, but when they had that number they were equally fortunate.<br />
<strong>The</strong> first LST which made news in the Landing Craft Flotillas, South<br />
Pacific Force was the LST-446 which arrived in the South Pacific about 6<br />
March 1943. <strong>The</strong> Commanding Officer LST-446 in a loud howl sent off to<br />
OPNAV, CINCPAC, B<strong>US</strong>HIPS, and half-a-dozen afloat commands, enumer-<br />
ated the trials and tribulations of a new type of ship operating in the<br />
Southern Solomons, and objected strenuously to his ship “being loaded”<br />
while the ship was beached.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Commanding Officer continued:<br />
An LST is the only ship in the world of 4000 tons or over that is continuously<br />
rammed onto and off of coral, sand and mud.z3<br />
Despite this dim view of what became a very routine function, the arrival<br />
of LST-446 was a very real advance in the readiness of Rear Admiral Turner<br />
to conduct TOENAILS. Admiral Turner said:<br />
<strong>The</strong> LST was and is still a marvel, and the officers and men who manned them<br />
hold a high place in my affections.2A<br />
Captain G. B. Carter, Commander Landing Ship Flotilla Five, arrived in<br />
Noumea on 14 May 1943 with the first large group of the Landing Ship<br />
Tanks destined to see action in SOPAC. <strong>The</strong> officers and men of the 12<br />
newly commissioned LSTS he brought with him, all carrying an LCT on<br />
board for launching upon arrival at destination, had learned “to go to sea”<br />
during their 67-day, 9,500-mile passage at 7 to !3 knots from the East Coast of<br />
= (a) LST-446/L2-6 Ser No. 9 of 11 Mar. 1943; (b) Commander LST Group 1% letter, LST/<br />
A9/ Ser 10 of 22 Mar. 1943.<br />
= Turner.
Planning for Paring the ]apanese Toenails 501<br />
the United States to Noumea. For many of them, this long cruise was also<br />
their first.<br />
<strong>The</strong> LSTS in the South Pacific wore no halos. But, because these large<br />
and ungainly ships overcame dozens of engine and electrical casualties, and<br />
even ended up by towing their escorts and a coastal transport part way<br />
across the Pacific, they engendered a certain respect from the older units<br />
of the Fleet in that area.<br />
Due to the almost complete absence of war &aries, the exact date of the<br />
arrival of the various units of LCI Flotilla Five in the South Pacific is<br />
unknown. LC1-328 arrived in Noumea from Panama on 2 April 1943.<br />
LCI-63 arrived in Noumea also from Panama on 14 April and went along-<br />
side LCI-64. On 14 April 1943 the TF 63 War Diary reported seven LCIS<br />
at Noumea. On 15 April it was noted that 23 LCIS of Flotilla Five (all<br />
except LC1-329 ) were present in SOPAC in an upkeep status.25<br />
Both the LSTS and the LCIS, upon arrival in the South Pacific, were given<br />
a two-week period of upkeep and maintenance by Rear Admiral Turner to<br />
correct the many ailments arising during their arduous passage across the<br />
wide Pacific.<br />
It can be observed that the written records located of LCTS and LCI (L)s<br />
of this period are few. <strong>The</strong> memories of the few seasoned officers who are<br />
still above ground and who made the passage aboard these landing craft<br />
are faint. Despite these handicaps, it can be written with certainty that the<br />
LCI’S had less than eight weeks and the LSTS fewer than four weeks for<br />
the multiple tasks of operational amphibious training, movement to the<br />
staging areas 800 miles away, and then specific preparation and rehearsal<br />
loadings for TOENAILS.<br />
ORGANIZATIC)N-THIRD FLEET AMPHIBIO<strong>US</strong> FORCE<br />
On D-Day for TOENAILS Rear Admiral Turner, COMPHIBFOR, Third<br />
Fleet, still using his SOPAC title, issued an administrative organization chart,<br />
which showed that a considerable number of the more senior wATCH-<br />
TOWER Commanding officers were available to carry their acquired skills,<br />
burdens and satisfactions into the TOENAILS Operation. At long last their<br />
5 (a) CTF 32 V.@, Diury, Apr. 1943; (b) Captain Chester L. Walton, U. S. Navy (Ret.) to<br />
GCD, letter, Apr. 1965; (c) LCI-63 and LCI–328 WUYDiaries, Apr. 1943.
502 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
Transport Commodore was a Commodore in fact.” <strong>The</strong> organization was<br />
as follows:<br />
Amphibious Force, South Pacific<br />
Commander Amphibious Force South Pacific<br />
Rear Admiral R. K. Turner (1908)<br />
Chief of Staff,, ..,...,,,..,.captain Anton B. Anderson (1912)<br />
APA-4 McCuw/ey (Flagship). .,....Commander Robert H. Rodgers (1923)<br />
TRANSPORTS, SOUTH PACIFIC AMPHIBIO<strong>US</strong> FORCE<br />
Commander Transports, PHIBFORSOPAC<br />
Commodore Lawrence F. Reifsnider (1910)<br />
APA-14 Hunter L.iggett (Flagship)<br />
Trdnspo?’tDivision Two<br />
Commander Transport Division Two<br />
Captain Paul S. <strong>The</strong>iss (1912)<br />
ApA-18 President ]ackson (F)<br />
Captain Charles W. Weitzel (1917 )<br />
APA-20 President Hayes<br />
Captain Francis W. Benson (1917)<br />
APA-19 PreJident Adams<br />
Captain Frank Dean (1917 )<br />
AKA-8 Aigorab<br />
Captain Joseph R. Lannom ( 1919)<br />
Transport Division Eight<br />
Commander Transport Division Eight<br />
Captain George B. Ashe (1911)<br />
APA-17 American “Legion (F)<br />
Commander Ratcliffe C. Welles ( 1921)<br />
APA-27 George Clymer<br />
Captain Arthur T. Moen (1918)<br />
APA-21 Crescent City<br />
Captain John R. Sullivan ( 1918)<br />
AKA-12 Libra<br />
Captain William B. Fletcher (1921)<br />
AKA-6 Alcbiba<br />
Commander Howard R. Shaw (192 1)<br />
Trun@ort Division Ten<br />
Commander Transport Division Ten<br />
Commodore Lawrence F. Reifsnider ( I91o)<br />
Captain R. S. Patch, U.S. Coast Guard<br />
WCOMPHIBFORSOPAC, letter, Ser 0217 of 30 Jun. 1943, subj: Organization and Staff of<br />
Amphibious Force, South Pacific; (b) COMTHIRDPHIBFOR, letter, Ser 00256 of 29 May 1944,<br />
subj: Ships and Units of this Force participating in New Georgia Group Operations.
Planning for Paring the Japanese Toenails 503<br />
APA-14 Hunter Liggett (F)<br />
Captain R. S. Patch, <strong>US</strong>CG<br />
APA-23 Jobfl Penn<br />
Captain Harry W. Need (1918)<br />
AKA-9 Albena<br />
Commander Howard W. Bradbury (1921 )<br />
AKA;5 Formalbaut<br />
Captain Henry C. Flanagan (1921)<br />
Transport Division Twelve<br />
Commander Transport Division Twelve<br />
Commander John D. Sweeney (1926)<br />
APD-6 Stringbam (F)<br />
Lieutenant Commander Joseph A. McGoldrick ( 1932)<br />
APD- 1 Manley<br />
Lieutenant Robert T. Newell, Jr. (<strong>US</strong>NR)<br />
APD-5 McKean<br />
Lieutenant Commander Ralph L. Ramey (1935 )<br />
APD-7 Talbot<br />
Lieutenant Commander Charles C. Morgan (<strong>US</strong>NR)<br />
APD-8 WdterJ<br />
Lieutenant Charles J. McWhinnie (<strong>US</strong>NR)<br />
APD-9 Dent<br />
Lieutenant Commander Ralph A. Wilhelm (<strong>US</strong>NR)<br />
Transport Division Fourteen<br />
Commander Transport Division Fourteen<br />
Captain Henry E. Thornhill (1918)<br />
APA-7 Fuller<br />
Captain Melville E. Eaton ( 1921)<br />
APA-4 McCawley (FF)<br />
Commander Robert H. Rodgers (1923)<br />
AKA-13 Titaniu<br />
Commander Herbert E. Berger (1922)<br />
Trun@ort Divifion Sixteen<br />
Commander Transport Division Sixteen<br />
Lieutenant Commander James S. Willis (1927)<br />
APD-10 Brook~ (F)<br />
Lieutenant Commander John W. Ramey (1932)<br />
APD-11 Gilmer<br />
Lieutenant Commander John S. Homer (<strong>US</strong>NR)<br />
APD-12 Hum~brey~<br />
Lieutenant Commander Maurice J. Carley (<strong>US</strong>NR)<br />
APD- 13 SutrdJ<br />
Lieutenant Commander John J. Branson ( 1927)
504 Atnpbibians Came To Conquer<br />
APD-18 Ktme<br />
Lieutenant Commander Robert E. Gadrow (1931 )<br />
Transport Division Twenty-Two<br />
Commander Transport Division Twenty-Two<br />
Lieutenant Commander Robert H. Wilkinson (1929)<br />
APD-15 Ki[ty (F)<br />
Lieutenant Commander Dominic L. Mattie (1929)<br />
APD-17 Crosby<br />
Lieutenant Commander Alan G. Grant (<strong>US</strong>NR)<br />
APD-16 Ward<br />
Lieutenant Frederick W. Lemley (<strong>US</strong>NR)<br />
APD-14 Scfiley<br />
Lieutenant Commander Horace Myers (1931 )<br />
MINESWEEPER GROUP, SOUTH PACIFIC FORCE<br />
(TEMPORARY ASSIGNMENT)<br />
Commander Stanley Leith, <strong>US</strong>N, Commanding (1923)<br />
DMS-13 Hopkim (F)<br />
Lieutenant Commander Francis M. Peters, Jr. (1931)<br />
DMS-10 Soutbard<br />
Lieutenant Commander Frederick R. Matthews (1935)<br />
DMS-11 Hovey<br />
Lieutenant Commander Edwin A. McDonald (1931)<br />
DMS-14 Zme<br />
Lieutenant Commander Peyton L. Wirtz (1931)<br />
DMS-16 Trerwr<br />
Lieutenant Commander William H. Shea, Jr. (1936)<br />
LANDING CRAFT FLOTILLAS, SOUTH PACIFIC FORCE<br />
Commander Landing Craft Flotillas-Rear Admiral George H. Fort (1912)<br />
Chief of Staff,..., ..... .. .. ................Captain Benton W. Decker (1920)<br />
.LST FlotiUu Five—captain Grayson B. Carter ( 1919)<br />
LST Groap Thirteen-Commander<br />
LST Division 2S<br />
Roger W. Cutler, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LST-446(GF) Lieutenant Robert J. Mayer, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LST-447 Lieutenant Frank H. Storms, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LST-448 Ensign Charles E. Roeschke, <strong>US</strong>N<br />
LST-449 Lieutenant Laurence Lisle, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LST-460 Lieutenant Everett E. Weire, <strong>US</strong>N<br />
LST-472<br />
LST Division 26<br />
Lieutenant William O. Talley, <strong>US</strong>N<br />
LST-339 Lieutenant John H. Fulweiler, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LST-340 Lieutenant William Villella, <strong>US</strong>N<br />
LST-395 Lieutenant Alexander C. Forbes, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LST-396 Lieutenant Eric W. White, <strong>US</strong>N
Pbning for paring the !apanese Toenaiis 505<br />
LST-397 Lieutenant Nathaniel L. Lewis, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LST-398 Lieutenant Boyd E. Blanchard, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
L-STG#ou~ Fowteetz---comrnander Paul S. SIawson ( 1920)<br />
LST Division 27<br />
LST-341 Lieutenant Floyd S. Barnett, <strong>US</strong>N<br />
LST-342 Lieutenant Edward S. McCluskey, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LST Division 28<br />
LST-353 Lieutenant Luther E. Reynolds, <strong>US</strong>INR<br />
LST-354 Lieutenant Bertram W. Robb, <strong>US</strong>NJR<br />
LST Group Fifteen<br />
L-STDivision 29<br />
LST-343 Lieutenant Harry H. Rightmeyer, <strong>US</strong>N<br />
LST-399 Lieutenant George F. Baker, <strong>US</strong>N<br />
L.C1(L.) Flotilla Five-Commander James McD. Smith ( 1925)<br />
L.CI(L) Group ThiYteen—Lieutenant Commander Marion M. Byrd ( 1927)<br />
LCI Division 2><br />
LCI-61 Lieutenant John P. Moore, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-62 Lieutenant (jg) William C. Lyons, <strong>US</strong>N<br />
LCI-63 Lieutenant ( jg) John H. McCarthy, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-64 Lieutenant Herbert L. Kelly, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-65 Lieutenant ( jg) Christopher R. Tompkins, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-66 Lieutenant Charles F. Houston, Jr., <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI Division 26<br />
LCI-21 Ensign Marshall M. Cook, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-22 Lieutenant (jg) Spencer V. Hinckley, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-67 Lieutenant (jg) Ernest E. Tucker, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-68 Lieutenant Clifford D. Older, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-69 Lieutenant Frazier L. O’Leary, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-70 Lieutenant (jg) Harry W. Frey, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
Z,CI(L) Gror@ Fourteetz-Lieutenant Commander Alfred V. Jannotta,<br />
<strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI Division 27<br />
LCI Divi~ion 28<br />
LC1-327 Lieutenant (jg) North W. Newton, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LC1-328 Lieutenant Joseph D. Kerr, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LC1-32$1 Lieutenant William A. Illing, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-330 Lieutenant (jg) Homer G. Maxey, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-331 Lieutenant Richard O. Shelton, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
1.C1-332 Lieutenant William A. Neilson, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LC1-23 Lieutenant Ben A. Thirkfield, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-24 Lieutenant ( jg) Raymond E. Ward, <strong>US</strong>N<br />
LCI-333 Lieutenant Horace Townsend, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-334 Lieutenant (jg) Alfred J. Ormston, <strong>US</strong>NR
506 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
LCI-335 Lieutenant (jg) John R. Powers, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-336 Lieutenant (jg) Thomas A. McCoy, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI(L) GYozp Fi}jeen—Commander James McD. Smith ( 1925)<br />
LCI Division 29<br />
LCI-222 Ensign Clarence M. Reese, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-223 Lieutenant Frank P. Stone, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT (5) Flotilla Five—Lieutenant Commander Paul A. Wells, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT Group 13—Lieutenant Ashton L. Jones, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT Division i?j-Lieutenant Ashton L. Jones, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-58 Ensign James E. Jones, <strong>US</strong>PJR<br />
LCT-60 Boatswain John S. Wolfe, <strong>US</strong>N<br />
LCT-I 56 Ensign Harold Mantell, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT- 158 Ensign Edward J. Ruschmann, <strong>US</strong>NJR<br />
LCT-I 59 Ensign John A. McNiel, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT- 180 Ensign Sidney W. Orton, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT Division 26—Lieutenant Ameel Z. Kouri, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-62 Ensign Robert T. Capeless, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-63 Ensign Joseph R. Madura, UsNR<br />
LCT-64 Ensign Kermit J. Buckley, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-65 Ensign Grant L. Kimer, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-66 Ensign Charles A. Goddard, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-67 Ensign William H. Fitzgerald, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT Grozip 14—Lieutenant Decatur Jones, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT DiviJio}z27—Lieutenant Decatur Jones, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-321 Ensign Robert W. Willits, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-322 Ensign Frederick Altman, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-32 3 Ensign Carl T. Geisler. <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-324 Ensign David C. Hawley, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-32 5 Ensign John J. Crim, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-326 Ensign Harvey A. Shuler, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT Division 28<br />
LC’I’-367 Ensign Robert Carr, <strong>US</strong>PJR<br />
LCT-369 Ensign Walter B. Gillette, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-370 Ensign Leonard M. Bukstein, <strong>US</strong>NJR<br />
LCT-375 Ensign Richard I. Callomon, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-376 Lieutenant (jg) Francis J. Hoehn, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-377 Ensign Thomas J. McGann, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT GroY@ 15—Lieutenant Frank M. Wiseman, <strong>US</strong>NJR<br />
LCT Division 2%—Lieutenant Frank M. Wiseman, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-181 Lieutenant (jg) Melvin H. Rosengard, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT- 182 Ensign Jack E. Johnson, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
Note: LCI-21 and LCI-22 at this time were temporarily attached to LCI Division 26 in lieu of<br />
LCI not yet reported. LCI-222 and LCI-223 were temporarily attached to LCI Division 25 and<br />
Division 26 respectively.<br />
<strong>The</strong> LCT organization in the Third Fleet had filled cut considerably since CLEANSLATE.
P/arming for Paring the Japanese Toenaih 307<br />
LCT-327 Ensign James L. Caraway, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-330 Ensign Leon B. Douglas, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-351 Ensign Robert R. Muehlback, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-352 Lieutenant ( jg) Winston Broadfoot, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT Division 30—Lieutenant ( jg) Pickett Lumpkin, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-68 Ensign Edward H. Burtt, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT’-69 Ensign Austin N. Volk, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-70 Ensign C. M, Barrett, <strong>US</strong>JNR<br />
LCT-71 Ensign Richard T. Eastin, <strong>US</strong>FJR<br />
LCT-481 Ensign George W. Wagenhorst, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-482 Boatswain Herbert F. Dreher, <strong>US</strong>N<br />
LCT (5) F/otilld Six—Lieutenant Edgar M. Jaeger, <strong>US</strong>N<br />
LCT (5) GYo//p 16—Lieutenant Wilfred C, Margetts, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
L.CT Divi.ricw31—Ensign Robert A. Torkildson, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT- 126 Ensign Philip A. Waldron, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT- 127 Ensign Robert A. Torkildson, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-128 Ensign Joseph Joyce, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-129 Ensign Emery W. Graunke, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT- 132 Ensign Milton Paskin, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-133 Ensign Bertram Meyer, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT Division 32—Lieutenant ( jg) Donald O. Kringel, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-134 Ensign James W. Hunt, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT- 139 Ensign Ralph O. Taylor, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT- 141 Lieutenant (jg) Donald O. Kringel, <strong>US</strong>NJR<br />
LCT- 144 Ensign E. B. Lerz, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT- 145 Ensign Willard E. Goyette, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT- 146 Ensign William W. Asper, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
Coatal Transport Flotilla Five—Lieutenant D. Mann, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
APC Division .2J-Lieutenant Dennis Mann, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
Apc-23(q Lieutenant Dennis Mann, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
APC-24 Lieutenant Bernard F. Seligman, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
APC-25 Lieutenant John D. Cartano, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
APC-26 Ensign James B. Dunigan, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
APC-27 Lieutenant Paul C. Smith, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
APC-28 Lieutenant ( jg) Austin D. Shean, <strong>US</strong>PJR<br />
APC Division 26-- (provisional) Lieutenant Arthur W. Bergstrom,<br />
<strong>US</strong>NR<br />
APC-37(F) Lieutenant James E. Locke, <strong>US</strong>NJR<br />
APC-29 Lieutenant ( jg) Eugene H. George, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
APC-35 Lieutenant Robert F. Ruben, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
APC-36 Lieutenant (jg) Kermit L. Otto, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
All of the above amphibious units were in the initial echelons of TOE-<br />
NAILS except for LST Division 25 (minus LST-472, which did participate),<br />
LCI-32 and LCTS 68 through 71 and LCT-321. <strong>The</strong> latter arrived Tulagi
508 Amphibians Came To Conquev<br />
Courtesyof Major GeneralFrankD. Weir, <strong>US</strong>MC (Ret.)<br />
~o~onel Henry D. Linscott, <strong>US</strong>MC, Assistant Chief of Staj, Commander<br />
4mphibious Force South Pacific, in front of his tent at Camp Crocodile,<br />
Guadalcanal, lute Spring, 1943.<br />
Harbor on 16 July 1943, and was logged in as “the newest arrival this area,”<br />
and together with LST-475, LCTS 68, 69, 70, and a number of APCS<br />
participated in later phases of the South Georgia Group operations.<br />
At the time the TOENAILS movement to the New Georgia Group began,<br />
there were 11 LSTS, 23 LCIS, 35 LCTS and 10 APCS (coastal transports)<br />
from Flotilla Five and Flotilla Six available in PHIBFORTHIRDFLT. On<br />
D-Day nearly all of these were either unloading in the Middle Solomons<br />
or loaded in the Gadalcanal-Russell Island area and waiting for orders.<br />
During the month before TOENAILS was kicked off, the Landing Craft<br />
Flotillas were far from idle. <strong>The</strong>y delivered 23,775 drums of lubricants and<br />
fuel, 13,088 tons of miscellaneous gear and 28 loaded vehicles to the Russell<br />
Islands alone. All cargo requirements for the TOENAILS Operation were<br />
loaded by 22 June 1943.<br />
In this connection, Lieutenant General Linscott, who had been the very<br />
skillful and highly appreciated Assistant Chief of Staff for the Commander
Planning for Paring the Japanese Toenaiis 509<br />
Amphibious Force South Pacific during its very critical first year of existence,<br />
wrote:<br />
I feel that Commodore L. F. Reifsnider should receive some recognition<br />
for handling the ‘Guadalcanal Freight Line’ after Admiral Turner moved<br />
north from Noumea. <strong>The</strong>se duties were in addition to his assignment as<br />
Commander Transport Group, South Pacific. His principal assistants were<br />
Commander John D. Hayes, Lieutenant Colonel W. B. McKean (who acted<br />
as Operations OfIicer) and Commander ‘Red’ [W. P.] Hepburn. All should<br />
be recognized for the effectivemanner in which they handled the task.”<br />
FIRST MOVE ON THE TOENAILS CHECKERBOARD<br />
As April inched into May, and D-Day for TOENAILS began to assume<br />
reality, it became apparent that Rear Admiral Turner would be on top of his<br />
job much better if he were personally located at Koli Point, Guadalcanal,<br />
where a large part of the Expeditionary Force was starting to gather, rather<br />
than at Noumea 840 miles to the southward and subject to all the delays and<br />
vagaries of encrypted radio communications.<br />
<strong>The</strong> volume of radio traffic had steadily increased as the number of am-<br />
phibious ships steadily increased, and traflic delays of 10, 12 and more hours<br />
for “operational” traflic were usual. Events were flowing far faster than<br />
the radio traffic.<br />
In mid-May it was planned that on 27 May 1943, Rear Admiral Turner<br />
as CTF 32 and the McCawley as a unit of TU 32.8.2 which would consist<br />
of four transports, five merchant cargo ships, six motor torpedo boats, two<br />
small patrol craft and seven escorting destroyers, would depart from Noumea<br />
for Koli Point, Guadalcanal, which, wlh the Russell Islands, were to be<br />
used as staging points for TOENAILS. Task Unit 32.8.2 would carry a<br />
<strong>Marine</strong> Raider Battalion, three naval construction battalions, a coast artillery<br />
regiment and other smaller detachments. Upon arrival at Koli Point, Rear<br />
Admiral Turner and the operational staff would shift their headquarters<br />
ashore.zs<br />
However, as the 27 May departure date drew near, it was decided to sail<br />
the large Navy transports separately from the merchant ships, the latter<br />
sailing first. Thus, the date for the separation of Rear Admiral Turner from<br />
the ear of Vice Admiral Halsey was postponed until 7 June 1943.<br />
n Lieutenant General Henry D. Linscott, <strong>US</strong>MC (Ret. ) to GCD, letter, 18 Apr. 1969.<br />
= (a) CTF 32 Movement Order A6-43, 23 May 1943; (b) CTF 32 Movement Order A7-43,<br />
29 May 1943.
510 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
Just before departure on 7 June, Rear Admiral Turner came down with<br />
malaria, and the doctors insisted on transferring him to the hospital ship<br />
Solace. His temporary separation from active command of Task Force 32<br />
and Task Unit 32.8.2 is referred to in the War Diary of his command only<br />
in these terms “Rear Admiral Turner was detained in Noumea.” According<br />
to an author who was in the South Pacific at the time:<br />
Admiral Turner was a sick man before the New Georgia campaign started;<br />
he ‘shoulda stood in bed,’ as they say in the Bronx. A fortnight before D-Day,<br />
he was stricken with malaria and dengue fever and hoisted aboard the hospital<br />
ship Solace. . . .Zo<br />
Rear Admiral Anderson, Turner’s Chief of Staff at the time, remembered:<br />
a Driscollj Pttcific Victory, p. 69.
Pianning for Paring the Japanese Toenaih 511<br />
Admiral Turner didnotsail inthe McCuwley upto Guadalcanal . . . just<br />
prior to the New Georgia Operation, He became suddenly sick with both<br />
dengue fever and malaria and went aboard the hospital ship Solute then<br />
anchored in Noumea Harbor. He was a patient there for over a week. I went<br />
out to see him every forenoon and took him important dispatches and correspondence<br />
for him to read. On several successive days he asked me to bring<br />
out to him a bottle of liquor, I wouldn’t do it. Several times he really begged<br />
me to do it.so<br />
Commander Landing Craft Flotillas recalls:<br />
[Turner’s} health was apparently good until just before ‘Toenails,’ when<br />
he was at Noumea planning the operation with General Hester. I was in<br />
Guadalcanal . . . when I was informed that Turner was on the hospital ship<br />
in Noumea with both malaria and dengue fever. I was somewhat worried that<br />
I might be called upon to do that show, being No. 2 at that time, with no<br />
preparation at all. However, he bobbed up serenely and got up to Guadalcanal<br />
just in time. . . .31<br />
Administration of Task Force 32 during this period when Rear Admiral<br />
Turner was busy in Guadalcanal was to be exercised by Captain A. B.<br />
Anderson, Chief of Staff, CTF 32, who with a small portion of the staff would<br />
remain in Noumea at the Administrative Headquarters of Commander<br />
Landing Craft Flotillas, Third Fleet (Rear Admiral George H. Fort).<br />
Rear Admiral Anderson, in 1962, recalled:<br />
I set up the office in two quonset huts in the city. One was used to house<br />
part of the enlisted personnel. I, with Merck [Flag Secretary] moved into a<br />
house on the outskirts of Noumea formerly used by George Fort and Benny<br />
Decker {who] stayed with us for a couple of weeks, then went afloat.<br />
<strong>The</strong> McCdwjey, with other ships of the Force, was to pick up troops and<br />
train them in forward areas preparatory to the New Georgia Operation.<br />
Admiral Turner saw no reason for a number of officers and a large clerical<br />
force to be in the flagship when space was required for personnel of the<br />
Landing Force. Also, when the flagship was away, he wanted an office in<br />
Noumea to handle the day to day things that came up. Shipments of landing<br />
craft were arriving and he wanted them indoctrinated and trained before<br />
being sent forward. Admiral Fort had already gone forward with some of his<br />
Flotilla. Benny Decker (his C/S) was left in Noumea to train new additions.<br />
I was to work with him on this.sz<br />
While enroute to Guadalcanal on 10 June, 1943, TU 32.8.2 made up of<br />
five transports with six destroyers to guard them, and under the command<br />
mABA to GCD, letter, 2 May 1962.<br />
mVice Admirai George H. Fort, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret. ) to GCD, letter, Apr. 1965. Hereafter Fort.<br />
“ Anderson.
512 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
of Captain Paul <strong>The</strong>iss, Commander Transport Division 14 in the President<br />
]ahon, was harassed by Japanese snooper planes for six hours. It was<br />
attacked by seven Japanese bombing planes at deep dusk and again, after a<br />
half moon dark, with flares (luckily faulty) dropped to aid the planes. No<br />
ships were hit due to the well-timed and continuous radical maneuvering<br />
of the Task Unit, executed for two hours in the best Turner tradition, and<br />
by the heavy anti-aircraft fire of the destroyers.”<br />
THE REHEARSAL<br />
When Rear Admiral Turner arrived in Guadalcanal from the Solace,<br />
the day after a big Japanese air raid, Task Force 31 took over the TOENAILS<br />
invasion task from Task Force 32 and was promptly formed up at 1500 on<br />
17 June 1943 with 12 LSTS, 12 LCIS, 28 LCTS, 10 APCS, three APDs, two<br />
DMs, and two ATs. <strong>The</strong> number of ships and landing craft assigned to Task<br />
Force 31 increased daily thereafter; Task Force 32 continued with shrinking<br />
strength to accomplish general administrative and support tasks.<br />
<strong>The</strong> large majority of landing ships and landing craft for the TOENAILS<br />
Operation trained for their forthcoming operation in the Guadalcanal-<br />
Tulagi-Russell Islands area, but there was no overall dress rehearsal for<br />
TOENAILS with air support, gunfire support ships, and the large transports<br />
present. This omission of an overall dress rehearsal was a violation of the<br />
Amphibious Doctrine, as well as the lesson of WATCHTOWER which<br />
showed considerable advantage could be gained from a dress rehearsal. In<br />
trying to run down why there was no full-scale dress rehearsal for TOE-<br />
NAILS, the written record is scanty, and memories pretty dim. It seems that<br />
the Staff believed the danger from alerting the Japanese to the nearness of<br />
an invasion, should they detect the rehearsal from an unusually heavy volume<br />
of radio traffic, was greater than the danger from the loss of coordinated<br />
training.34<br />
When Vice Admiral George H. Fort, <strong>US</strong>N (Retired), who was Secondin-Command<br />
of the Amphibious Forces in TOENAILS, was asked the ques-<br />
tion “Why didn’t TOENAILS have a dress rehearsal ?,” his reply was,<br />
‘
Pianning for Paring the Japanese Toenaiis 513<br />
<strong>The</strong> rehearsal by the large transports for the TOENAILS Operation was<br />
held at Fila Harbor, Efate, in the New Hebrides, 560 miles to the southeast<br />
from Guadalcanal. This harbor area was quite acceptable since preparatory<br />
ships’ gunfire was not required for the TOENAILS Operation. <strong>The</strong> large<br />
transports arrived at Efate on 16 June 1943, and remained there for ten days<br />
of training and rehearsal. This training was prescribed on 29 May 1943 when<br />
CTF 32 issued his Movement Order A7-43.<br />
<strong>The</strong> large transports for the operation did not arrive up at Guadalcanal<br />
until 1000 on the 29th, when they were reassigned from Task Force 32 to<br />
Task Force 31.<br />
<strong>The</strong> decision not to have the large transports in the Guadalcanal area<br />
in the first part of June proved an extremely wise one when the Japanese<br />
swept over the Iron Bottom Sound area, on 7, 12, and 16 June, with from 40<br />
to 60 bombers and their escorting fighters. <strong>The</strong> last of these three raids hit<br />
and burned out the LST-340 and the Celeno (AK-76).<br />
<strong>The</strong> War Diary of LST-340 for the 16 June incident included the following<br />
flesh and blood account by a newly trained amphibian:<br />
Another Condition Red came by radio. Each one scrambled into his life<br />
jacket and helmet and made for his battle station. Those were tense moments.<br />
<strong>The</strong> blood in one’s very veins turned cold. <strong>The</strong>re were many scared<br />
people. . . .<br />
In the evening to quiet the nerves of the bombed and fire weary sailors and<br />
officers, there was a beer party staged just off the ramp of the burned ship.<br />
It was for the personnel who participated in the disaster which befell the<br />
340. . . .“<br />
<strong>The</strong> Japanese surprisingly enough failed to pay a daily complimentary<br />
bombing visit to the staging areas of Guadalcanal and the Russells during<br />
the last two weeks before TOENAILS.<br />
<strong>The</strong> late arrival at Guadalcanal of these large transports was purposeful<br />
even though it led to some grousing on the part of troops, Seabees and naval<br />
base personnel who had to be loaded aboard the transports with marked<br />
speed on Dog Day minus one. It was an effort to shorten the interval<br />
between the time Japanese air might sight and report these large transports,<br />
the Japanese high command might sense an invasion effort and start the<br />
Japanese Combined Fleet south from Truk, and when the transports would<br />
necessarily arrive in the New Georgia Group .37<br />
By keeping the large transports out of the staging areas until the day<br />
mLST Flotilla Five War Diary, 17, 18 Jun., 1943.<br />
= Staff Interviews.
514 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
before the invasion, it is logical to assume that Rear Admiral Turner had<br />
deceived the Japanese of the imminence of the New Georgia effort, if not<br />
its immediate objectives. Conclusions in regard to the objective logically<br />
could have been drawn from our almost daily bombings of Munda and Vila<br />
airfields. (Munda was bombed on four out of five days and Vila on three<br />
out of five days beginning on 25 June, while no other base in the Central<br />
or Northern Solomons, i.e. Rekata Bay, Kahili, Ballale or Buka, was bombed<br />
more than twice. ) ‘s<br />
THE SOPAC FINAL TOENAILS PLAN<br />
<strong>The</strong> general concept of Vice Admiral Halsey’s plan was that movements<br />
of the amphibians on 30 June 1943 into the New Georgia Group were the<br />
necessary prelude to capturing in succession Munda airfield on New<br />
Georgia, Vila airfield on Kolombangaru, and other enemy positions in the<br />
New Georgia Group.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> only deadlines set by COMSOPAC were 30 June when the initial<br />
amphibious landings were to take place, and following which, at “any<br />
favorable opportunity,” a flank assault on Munda airfield was to be launched,<br />
by landing at Zanana Beach on New Georgia, five miles east of Munda.<br />
Vice A~miral Halsey’s Opetation Plan 14–43 divided the forces available<br />
to him for TOENAILS into four main segments and directed that the surface,<br />
air, and submarine elements would all support the amphibious element,<br />
which Rear Admiral Turner would command.<br />
Specifically, the three elements supporting the amphibious forces were:<br />
wCOMAIRSOPAC~~tirDi#ry, Jun. 1943,<br />
m Commander Third Fleet Op Plan 14–43, 3 Jun. 1943.<br />
THE OVERALL NAVAL ORGANIZATION FOR TOENAILS<br />
COMSOPAC<br />
Halsey<br />
I<br />
[ I I I<br />
TF 31 TF 33 TF 36 TF 72<br />
AMPHIB AIR SURFACE SUBS<br />
Turner Fitch Halsey Fife<br />
,
Pianning for Paring the Japanese Toenaiis 515<br />
a. Task Force 33 which under Vice Admiral Aubrey Fitch controlled<br />
all the land based aircraft and tender based aircraft in the South<br />
Pacific Area.<br />
b. Task Force 36 which under Vice Admiral Halsey’s own command<br />
and coordination consisted of (1) two Carrier Task Groups, (2)<br />
three surf ace ship task groups, one including fast minelayers and<br />
(3) the Ground Force Reserve, and<br />
c. Task Force 72 which under Captain James Fife, provided eleven<br />
submarines from the Seventh Fleet based on Australia.<br />
Task Force 33, the SOPAC Air Force, was directed to:<br />
a. Provide reconnaissance air cover and support.<br />
b. Neutralize enemy air flying out from the New Georgia Group and<br />
Bougainvillea.<br />
c. Arrange with and provide CTF 31 with air striking groups for use<br />
in the immediate vicinity of TF 31.<br />
Task Force 36, the Covering Force, was directed to ‘
516 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
Rear Admiral Marc A. Mitscher who under Vice Admiral Aubrey W. Fitch,<br />
Commander TF 33 and Air Force south Pacific, commanded the Solomon<br />
Islands Air Force, reported that 455 planes in his Force were ready to fly.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se were 213 fighters, 170 light bombers and 72 heavy bombers. In con-<br />
trast, the Japanese at Rabaul had but 66 bombers, and 83 fighter aircraft<br />
on this day, with an undetermined small number at Buka, Kahili, and Ballale,<br />
their three main operational airfields in the Northern Solomons.40<br />
<strong>The</strong> main submarine unit of Task Force 72, commanded by Captain James<br />
Fife (1918), was Submarine Squadron Eight, commanded by Captain Wil-<br />
liam N. Dowries (1920). Captain Dowries acted as Liaison Officer to Com-<br />
mandsr Third Fleet and was positioned in Noumea from the latter part of<br />
June ~ntil mid-July 1943. Six to eight submarines of this squadron were on<br />
station in the Solomons from mid-June to mid-July.<br />
For Dog Day, the carrier task force was told to operate in an area nearly<br />
500 miles south of Rendova—well out of range for any close air support<br />
and well clear of enemy shore based air.<br />
One cruiser-destroyer force was assigned an operating area 300 miles<br />
south-southwest of Rendova, while another cruiser-destroyer-minelayer force<br />
was given the chore of laying a minefield 120 miles north of Rendova<br />
and bombarding various airfields north of New Georgia.<br />
<strong>The</strong> planes from the escort aircraft carriers called “jeep” carriers;’ were<br />
to be flown off to augment the shore-based aircraft of CTF 33, COMAIR-<br />
SOPAC. One division of battleships was kept in a 2-hour ready status in<br />
far away Ef ate,750 miles from the New Georgia objective.<br />
AIRSOPAC would provide the aircraft umbrella, and the submarines<br />
would provide any unwelcome news of the approach of major units of the<br />
Japanese Fleet towards or past the Bismarck Barrier.<br />
It should be noted that COMSOPAC’S Plan:<br />
1. provided that a shore-based commander, Vice Admiral Halsey,<br />
retained immediate personal control of the operation.<br />
2. did not provide for the coordination of the various SOPAC task<br />
forces under one commander in the operating or objective area,<br />
should a Japanese surface or carrier task force show up to threaten<br />
* James C. Shaw, ‘“<strong>The</strong> Japanese Guessed Wrong at New Georgia,” Tbe <strong>Marine</strong> Corpf Guzette,<br />
xxxiii (Dec. 1949), pp. 36-42.<br />
4’<strong>The</strong> escort aircraft carrier was a smalI carrier fashioned out of a merchant ship hull. It had<br />
low speed, modest plane carrying capacity and inadequate water-tight subdivision for a man-of-war.<br />
Like the Army jeep, it was called upon to do practically every type of task, hence its nickname<br />
,!. Jeep.”
Pianning for Paring the ]apanese Toenails 517<br />
Courtesyof Capt. CharlesStein,<strong>US</strong>N (Ret.)<br />
<strong>The</strong> AdmiraVs Head, Camp Crocodile, Guadalcanal Island.<br />
or attack the amphibious force, i.e., did not provide an Expeditionary<br />
Force Commander.<br />
3. Did not provide any aircraft under the control of the Amphibious<br />
Task Force Commander for dawn or dusk search of the sea ap-<br />
proaches immediately controlling the landing areas.<br />
4. Did not provide in advance the conditions for the essential change<br />
of command from the Amphibious Task Force Commander to the<br />
Landing Force Commander, merely stating: “<strong>The</strong> forces of occupa-
518 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
tion in New Georgia Island will pass from command of CTF 31<br />
on orders from COMSOPAC.”<br />
COMSOPAC’S Plan did provide for:<br />
1. Air striking groups, under the control of the amphibious task force<br />
commander, for use in the immediate vicinity of that Force.<br />
2. Commander Amphibious Force having the authority to ensure ‘
Planning for Paring the Japanese Toenails 519<br />
Courtesyof Maj. Gen. F,D. Weir, <strong>US</strong>MC, (Ret.)<br />
Lieutenant Colonel Frank D. Weir, <strong>US</strong>MC, Assistant Operations (Air),<br />
before his tent at Camp Crocodile, GuadaIcanai.<br />
STAFF OF COMMANDER AMPHIBIO<strong>US</strong> FORCE,<br />
SOUTH PACIFIC<br />
(COMPHIBFORTHIRDFLT )<br />
Chief of Staff,...,.,,. .. .. .. .... Captain A. B. Anderson, <strong>US</strong>N (1912)<br />
Assistant Chief of Staff..,... Colonel H. D. Linscott, <strong>US</strong>MC (1917)<br />
Operations Officer . . .. Captain J. H. Doyle, <strong>US</strong>N (1920)<br />
Assistant Operations Oflicer (Air),.., ....Colonel F. D. Weir, <strong>US</strong>MC ( 1923)<br />
Communications Officer Commander G. W. Welker, <strong>US</strong>N (1923)<br />
Assistant Operations Officer<br />
(Serologist) Commander W. V. Deutermann, <strong>US</strong>N<br />
(1924)<br />
Gunnery Officer .,,.., Commander D. M. Tyree, <strong>US</strong>N (1925)<br />
Medical Officer. Commander R. E. Fielding (MC), <strong>US</strong>N<br />
(1928)<br />
Aide and Flag Secretary.. Commander Hamilton Hains, <strong>US</strong>N (1925)<br />
Assistant Flag Secretary Lieutenant Commander Carl E. Mor&<br />
<strong>US</strong>NR (1929)
520 Amphibians Canre To Conqzzer<br />
Aide and Flag Lieutenant<br />
Lieutenant Commander J. S. Lewis, <strong>US</strong>N<br />
Assistant Operations<br />
Intelligence Officer<br />
officer “’’’””””’””””””” ( 1932)<br />
)<br />
......Major F. A. Skew (CE), A<strong>US</strong><br />
Transport Quartermaster Major W. A. Neal, <strong>US</strong>MCR<br />
Assistant Operations Officer Major A. W. Bollard (GSC), <strong>US</strong>A<br />
Assistant Communications Officer Major R. A. Nicholson, <strong>US</strong>MCR<br />
Supply Officer ..Lieutenant C. Stein, Jr., (SC) <strong>US</strong>N (1937)<br />
OFFICERS ATTACHED TO STAFF FOR SPECIAL DUTIES<br />
Captain John E. Merrill, <strong>US</strong>MCR............................. Assistant Intelligence Officer<br />
Captain Richard A. Gard, <strong>US</strong>MCR Assistant Intelligence Officer<br />
Lieutenant Leo M. Doody, <strong>US</strong>ER ........................... Assistant Gunnery Officer<br />
Lieutenant (jg) Leonard te Green, <strong>US</strong>ER ....... Assistant Flag Secretary<br />
Lieutenant (jg) Jeff N. Bell, <strong>US</strong>ER ....... .,.........Communication Watch Officer<br />
Lieutenant (jg) August J. Garon, <strong>US</strong>NR,.. Assistant Intelligence Officer<br />
Lieutenant (jg) George G. Gordon, <strong>US</strong>NR,..,.. Assistant Intelligence Officer<br />
Lieutenant ( jg) Clifford R. Humphreys, <strong>US</strong>ER ................. Assistant Operations Officer<br />
Lieutenant (jg) Henry 1. Cohen, <strong>US</strong>ER, .......... .,,..Communication Watch Officer<br />
Lieutenant (jg) Roger S. Henry, <strong>US</strong>ER,..,...,., Communication Watch Officer<br />
Lieutenant ( jg) Howard H. Braun, <strong>US</strong>NR Communication Watch Officer<br />
Lieutenant (jg) Thomas A. Dromgoolj <strong>US</strong>NR, .,.., .Communication Watch Officer<br />
Lieutenant (jg) William C. Powell, <strong>US</strong>NR .Communication Watch Officer<br />
Ensign John P. Hart, <strong>US</strong>ER.,, .... ....Communication Watch Ofllcer<br />
Ensign Gordon N. Noland, <strong>US</strong>NR ., ...Communication Watch Officer<br />
Ensign Harry D. Smith, <strong>US</strong>NR,. ,.Communication Watch Officer<br />
Ensign John G. Feeley, <strong>US</strong>ER.,,...,. ..,,,,,...............................................Comunication Watch Officer<br />
Radio Electrician Paul L. Frost, <strong>US</strong>N . .............. Radio Electrician<br />
Staff rosters available from March 1943 to July 1943 indicate that Captain<br />
Anderson, Lieutenant Commander Merck, Lieutenant (junior grade) John<br />
C. Weld, <strong>US</strong>NR and Acting Pay Clerk Melvin C. Amundsen were assigned<br />
with the Administrative Command at Noumea, New Caledonia, during this<br />
period. Lieutenant (junior grade) Henry D. Linscott, Jr,, <strong>US</strong>NR, one of the<br />
Assistant Operations Officers, was temporarily with the Guadalcanal Freight<br />
Line on the Staff of Commodore Lawrence F. Reifsnider, and Lieutenant<br />
Leo W. Doody, <strong>US</strong>NR, was away on temporary duty in connection with<br />
gunfire support training. Consequently only 32 of the 38 officers (including<br />
Rear Admiral Turner) were available when the Staff picture was taken. 30<br />
of these 32 appear in the picture.<br />
All 15 members of the regular Staff quartered on Guadalcanal have been<br />
positively identified by three or more of its present living members. Of the
planning for Paring the Japanese Toenails 521
522 Amphibians Came To Cotiqtier<br />
15 other officers in the picture six: Captain John C. Erskine, <strong>US</strong>MCR,<br />
whom Merrill relieved, Gard, Gordon, Smith, Dromgrool, and Bell, have<br />
been identified by two or more members. Three more: Braun, te Green,<br />
and Henry have been identified or guessed at by one or more members.<br />
Numbers 9, 12, 19, and 25 in the photograph have not been identified.<br />
One <strong>Marine</strong> otlicer, Captain Gard, was placed in three different positions,<br />
before he was located in Hong Kong and identified himself.<br />
AMPHIBIO<strong>US</strong> FORCE GENERAL PLAN<br />
<strong>The</strong> amphibious plan changed a number of times as the information or<br />
intelligence brought in by the reconnaissance patrols in regard to the New<br />
Georgia Group expanded or changed. To a tnarked extent, the Scheme of<br />
Maneuver agreed upon by Rear Admiral Turner and Major General Harmon<br />
and later by Major General Hester was determined by such hard physical facts<br />
as depth of water, reefs, beach gradients, numbers of troops or amounts of<br />
supplies which could be landed on narrow beaches, possible beach exits into<br />
dense jungle, jungle trails, jungle clearings, or possible bivouac areas.”<br />
A major problem with the new large landing craft (LSTS and LCTS)<br />
was in finding beach gradients where they could land their cargo through<br />
the bow doors, and in finding breaks in the mile-long reefs. Munda Bar was<br />
another mental and physical hazard which tempered a desire to make a<br />
frontal attack on the airfield as had been done at Guadalcanal. Older British<br />
charts dating back to 1900 had shown three to seven fathoms over Munda<br />
Bar which would have permitted comfortable passage by destroyer-type fast<br />
transports and large landing craft, but more recent reports cast doubt on<br />
these depths and the best information was that there was only an unmarked<br />
300-foot wide passage over the bar with 18 feet of water at high tide and<br />
15 feet at low tide.”<br />
Major discussion during the early part of the long planning period before<br />
Vice Admiral Halsey issued his Op Plan 14–43 centered on:<br />
a. whether a frontal assault on Munda could be attempted.<br />
b. the provision of close air and gun support during the first couple<br />
of days of an assault landing.<br />
Close air support by land-based planes directly from Ckadalcanal was<br />
“ CTF 31 Op Plan A8-13, i Jun. 19.13; Op Order A9–13, 15 Jun. 1943; and Op Plan AI I–43,<br />
28 Jun. 1943 and all changes thereto.<br />
44Intelligence Map, Munda Point, Sheet 2, HO, 2907, Pack III. NHD.
Planning for Paring the /apanese Toenails 523<br />
difficult to impossible because of the distanc~180 miles. Close air support<br />
from the Russells, 125 miles away, was limited by there being room for only<br />
two airstrips on Banika Island in the Russells.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Third Fleet Commander, Vice Admiral Halsey, was reluctant to<br />
maintain carriers in a position to provide a major portion of such close air<br />
support over a period of more than two or three days. His position in this<br />
apparently was no different than Vice Admiral Fletcher’s had been prior to<br />
and during the WATCHTOWER landings.<br />
As the CINCPAC planners wrote in their estimate of the situation:<br />
A frontal landing from the south would require landing craft to approach<br />
through openings in the coral reef which can be covered easily from ashore,<br />
and which are narrow so as to prevent a broad approach.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Amphibious Force Commander was reluctant to test his large landing<br />
craft over Munda Bar, in their first assault landing, and the Landing Force<br />
Commander was reluctant to give a firm guarantee of success for a frontal<br />
assault against Munda airfield within the short period of two to three days.<br />
As soon as the decisions were made that neither the fast carrier task forces<br />
nor the jeep carriers would provide close air support for TOENAILS and<br />
that the amphibians would not risk an initial all out frontal assault over<br />
Munda Bar, an alternative plan was evolved and accepted by all hands.<br />
This plan included making the major assault on Munda airfield from its<br />
eastern flank while simultaneously landing a holding assault against its<br />
seaward (southern) front and closing off its support lines to the north by a<br />
small landing on Kula Gulf. <strong>The</strong> plan also provided for building an airstrip<br />
at Segi Point, New Georgia, to provide close air support for the impending<br />
assault on Vila airstrip, and the making of Rendova Island into a combination<br />
staging point and artillery support position for the Munda assault.<br />
Thus the Navy was relieved of the night time hazards of Munda Bar and<br />
the inhospitable coral-studded approaches to Munda Point beaches, and the<br />
Army of an assault without some semblance of its own artillery support.<br />
But the plan was not a prescription for quick victory.<br />
<strong>The</strong> limited experience of CLEANSLATE had indicated that the tank<br />
landing craft, with their small crews, frequent breakdowns and slow speed<br />
in even moderate weather, required ports or protected anchorages at about<br />
6W-nile intervals where they could receive repairs and daytime rest, while<br />
they approached the landing beaches at night. This led to a search for<br />
protected harbors or anchorages in thd Middle Solomons and to the selection
524 Atnpbibians Came To Conquer<br />
of Viru Harbor, New Georgia, and Wickham Anchorage, at the eastern<br />
approaches to Vangunu Island, as areas to be seized.<br />
Viru Harbor was, in the early planning, also a location where sizable<br />
forces could be profitably and safely disembarked from landing ships and<br />
then moved by small landing craft closer to Munda to assist in the flank<br />
assault on Munda airfield. Segi Point was selected because it was the only<br />
area where a fighter strip might be built to assist in the assault on Vila<br />
airfield or even on Munda, if success there was long delayed.<br />
<strong>The</strong> small contingent of Japanese troops at Viru and Wickham, in each<br />
case, was a magnet as well. If the Japanese needed these locations to control<br />
and safeguard the islands, then we might need them also.<br />
Rice Anchorage, upon Kula Gulf, almost directly north of Munda, was<br />
selected as the location where the troops whose task would be to seal off<br />
the northern flank of Munda would be landed.<br />
ASSIGNING THE TASKS<br />
<strong>The</strong> amphibians had one major task and four minor ones to accomplish<br />
the morning of 30 June, and a further task four or more days later.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner divided the amphibious assault force of Task Force<br />
31 into two major groupings for 30 June. <strong>The</strong> division was based on whether<br />
the tasks were to be accomplished in the eastern or western part of the<br />
New Georgia Group. Appropriately, he labeled them the Eastern Force and<br />
the Western Force.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Rice Anchorage Landing Group was separately organized using the<br />
destroyer type transports and minesweepers assigned to the 30 June landings.<br />
It was called the Northern Landing Group.<br />
CTF 31 (Rear Admiral Turner) retained immediate command of Task<br />
1<br />
I I I I 1<br />
WESTERN FORCE SCREEN EASTERN FORCE<br />
TG 31.1 TG 31.2 TG 31.3<br />
Turner Ryan Fort<br />
RESERVE<br />
MTS GROUP<br />
TG 31.4<br />
Calveft<br />
NEw GEORGIA<br />
OCCUPATION FORCE<br />
Hester
Pianning for paring the Japanese Toenai[s >25<br />
Group 31.1, an organization of all the large transports and cargo ships,<br />
part of the destroyer-type transports and minesweepers, most of the larger<br />
landing craft ( LSTS) and the necessary protecting destroyers. Rear Admiral<br />
Turner assigned his senior subordinate, Commander Landing Craft Flotillas,<br />
Rear Admiral George H. Fort (1912), to command Task Group 31.3, an<br />
organization of destroyer-type transports and minesweepers, infantry and<br />
tank landing craft and coastal transports.<br />
Task Group 31. I, which in violation of Naval War College doctrine for<br />
terminology, was named the Western Force instead of the Western Group,<br />
with Commander Transport Division Two, Captain Paul S. <strong>The</strong>iss ( 1912),<br />
as Second in Command, was assigned the Rendova Island task.<br />
Task Group 31.3 which was erroneously named the Eastern Force instead<br />
of the Eastern Group, with no designated Second-in-Command, was assigned<br />
the three assault chores at ( 1 ) Viru Harbor, New Georgia, (2) Segi Point,<br />
New Georgia, and (3) at Wickham Anchorage which lies between \7anguna<br />
and Gatukai Islands, the first two large islands to the southeast from New<br />
Georgia. <strong>The</strong>se three places all could serve as first aid stations for tank<br />
landing craft or PT boats making the run from the Russells to Rendova or<br />
Munda.<br />
<strong>The</strong> main Landing Force carried in the Western Force was to be put<br />
ashore in four echelons, the largest number of troops going in the first<br />
echelon aboard the transports and cargo ships. <strong>The</strong> second to fourth echelons<br />
were to be carried by the LSTS and LCIS.<br />
<strong>The</strong> various occupation units carried in the Eastern Force were also to<br />
be landed in four echelons. <strong>The</strong> first echelons at Viru Harbor and Wickham<br />
Anchorage included destroyer transports, with coastal transports, LCIS, and<br />
LCTS making up the succeeding echelons at these points and the first echelon<br />
at Segi Point. Most landing craft had assigned tasks in more than one echelon.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re was to be a four-destroyer fire support unit and another four-<br />
destroyer anti-submarine unit in the Rendova area to keep down fire from<br />
Japanese shore batteries near Munda, to provide anti-aircraft protection and<br />
to keep submarines away from the unloading transports and cargo ships.<br />
When CTF 31 departed Rendova to return to Guadalcanal at the end of<br />
D-Day, the 12 motor torpedo boats in the New Georgia MTB Squadron were<br />
to be under the immediate operational control of Commander Naval Base,<br />
Rendova. <strong>The</strong>y had orders to set up their initial base on Lumbari Island in<br />
the western reaches of Rendova Harbor.<br />
<strong>The</strong> New Georgia Occupation Force consisted of all the troops in the
526 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
Western Landing Force (mainly the 43rd Infantry Division), the Eastern<br />
Landing Force, the Reserve Force (mainly the 1st <strong>Marine</strong> Raider Regiment),<br />
the Naval Base Force, the New Georgia Air Force, and the Assault Flotillas<br />
(18 LCIS and boats from Boat Pool No. 8).<br />
<strong>The</strong> Naval Base Force was a large force. It included one and one-half<br />
construction battalions, an ACORN, the boat pools, and the administrative<br />
and other units to operate the naval bases to be built as well as the New<br />
Georgia Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron. Altogether, it included over 250<br />
officers and 4,OOO men.<br />
<strong>The</strong> 1st Echelon of the Western Force was organized as follows:<br />
I<br />
1st ECHELON<br />
WESTERN GROUP (FORCE)<br />
TU 31.1.3<br />
Turner<br />
I<br />
3mmE<br />
<strong>The</strong> Eastern Force task organization was:<br />
EElm E!!El<br />
Captain Benton C. Decker’s regular assignment was Chief of Staff to<br />
Commander Landing Craft Flotillas. Commander Stanley Leith’s regular<br />
assignment was Commander Minesweeper Group.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Army troops came from the 14th <strong>Corps</strong>,<br />
General Oscar W. Griswold, <strong>US</strong>A. Major General<br />
who commanded the 43rd Infantry Division, was<br />
Admiral Turner worked with during CLEANSLATE.<br />
commanded by Major<br />
John H. Hester, <strong>US</strong>A,<br />
the same officer Rear
Planning jor Paring the Japanese Toenaiis 527<br />
OPERATIONAL FIRSTS<br />
<strong>The</strong> TOENAILS Operation was the first major Pacific amphibious landing<br />
wherein ( 1) “transport planes were used to drop supplies and needed mate-<br />
rial, including shells and water to our combat troops” and (2) large tugs<br />
were available to salvage landing craft and landing boats.45<br />
It also was the first amphibious operation where a Flag or General officer<br />
with a small staff was set up to control all aircraft in the objective area. In<br />
TOENAILS, Brigadier General Francis R. Mulcahy, <strong>US</strong>MC, Commander,<br />
Headquarters and Forward Echelon, 2nd <strong>Marine</strong> Aircraft Wing, was desig-<br />
nated Commander Air New Georgia. He was positioned in the McCawIey<br />
together with CTF 31 until the prospective Commander Occupation Force<br />
moved his command post ashore to Rendova Island. When that event<br />
occurred on D-Day, Mulcahy was to shift ashore to work under the command<br />
of that of-liter. Direction of fighters over Task Force 31 on D-Day initially<br />
was in the destroyer }enkitzs, which had a fighter director group aboard.<br />
Close air support direction initially was in the McCawley which had a close<br />
air support group aboard. Both of these latter groups were under orders to<br />
shift ashore as soon as practical.4c<br />
INTELLIGENCE<br />
<strong>The</strong> Intelligence Annexes of CTF 3 1’s two Operation Plans (A8–43 and<br />
A9–43 ) for TOENAILS contained over 60 maps and drawings. Otherwise<br />
they were sketchy to an extreme. But even this was better intelligence than<br />
SOPAC’S Operation Plan 14–43 for TOENAILS which had no Intelligence<br />
Annex at all.<br />
Despite the sketchiness of the intelligence data supplied, the overall<br />
guesstimate of Japanese naval strength in the Solomons on 13 June 1943, by<br />
post-war Japanese account, was reasonably conservative: “6 destroyers and<br />
5 submarines versus actually 1 cruiser, 8 destroyers and 8 submarines in the<br />
8th Fleet with Headquarters in the Shortlands.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> 30 May 1943 estimate of Japanese air strength in the Solomons and<br />
at Kavieng and Rabaul—393 planes—also was low, on the date it was made,<br />
4’ (a) CTF 31 Op Plan A8-43, Annexes (E) and (F); (b) CINCPAC Operations in the Pacific<br />
Ocean Areas, July 1943. P. 13.<br />
‘0 (a) CTF 33 Op Plan 7-43, 18 Jun. 1943; (b) Commander New Georgia Air Force (Brigadier<br />
General Mulcahy, <strong>US</strong>MC), Special Action Report covering the 1st phase of the New Georgia<br />
Operations, 29Jun.–l3 Aug. 1943. No ser, undated,
528 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
which was prior to the three Japanese air raids on Guadalcanal carried out<br />
on 7, 12, and 16 June 1943, which led to heavy air losses for the Japanese.<br />
As to Japanese troops, it was estimated that there were 3,OOOat Munda,<br />
5,oOO to 7,000 at Kolombangara across Kula Gulf to the north from Munda,<br />
200 to 300 at Wickham Anchorage, and 30 to 100 at Viru Harbor. This<br />
was quite low for Munda, where there were probably 5,OOOtroops on 30<br />
June.47<br />
In February 1943, a small reconnaissance patrol of <strong>Marine</strong>s visited the<br />
Roviana Lagoon area of New Georgia, and after that date other reconnais-<br />
sance patrols had visited Segi, Viru Harbor, Wickham Anchorage areas and<br />
Rendova Island and brought back important intelligence and hydrographic<br />
information, including sketched shore lines. Air photographs were extensively<br />
taken and a major effort was made to improve the information<br />
available from British charts of the period 1912-1937. In May 1943, the<br />
Hydrographic Ofice in Washington ran off special reprints of charts of<br />
the New Georgia Group and they were carried by special messenger to the<br />
South Pacific. On 13 June, the last reconnaissance patrols were landed,<br />
some of whose members remained to guide or greet elements of the Landing<br />
Force.<br />
LOGISTICS<br />
<strong>The</strong> SOPAC’S Operation Plan 14-43 covering the TOENAILS Opera-<br />
tion had no logistic annex, but his amphibious subordinate again picked up<br />
some of the slack and at least issued a sparse logistic plan. Best of all, aided<br />
and abetted by Captain Charles E. Olsen, an informative ‘
Planning for Paring the Japanese Toenails 529
530 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
all Services must consider themselves part and parcel of SOPAC forces and<br />
that there be communal use of all supplies and facilities. Additionally, the<br />
Army now placed in charge, and with time and more adequate personnel<br />
on its side, brought order out of chaos in the port at Noumea. <strong>The</strong> port at<br />
Espiritu Santo was also gradually beginning to function satisfactorily. On<br />
23 June 1943, COMSOPAC advised the Vice Chief of Naval Operations<br />
that abnormal delays of shipping there were no longer anticipated.”<br />
Commander Eastern Force was given the logistic responsibility for “em-<br />
barking troops and supplies from the Russells destined for the support of<br />
TOENAILS” after the initial movement, and for all movements to Viru<br />
Harbor, Segi Point, and Wickham Anchorage. Commander Western Force<br />
controlled other logistic support movements into the objective area, and<br />
was responsible overall for the movement of troops and supplies to New<br />
Georgia Island. <strong>The</strong> Commanding General Guadalcanal was directed to<br />
support the operation by making available supplies in the Guadalcanal-<br />
Russell Islands area and furnishing the necessary labor details for loading<br />
or transshipment. And finally, in contradistinction to WATCHTOWER,<br />
there were 1st Echelon, 2nd Echelon, 3rd Echelon, and 4th Echelon logistic<br />
support movements set up for the TOENAILS Operation, prior to Dog Day.<br />
THE JAPANESE<br />
During the pre-invasion period,<br />
CHANGE OUR PLANS<br />
on 20 June, Rear Admiral Turner learned<br />
by radio from a coastwatcher that three barge loads of Japanese troops had<br />
landed at Segi Point and that the coastwatcher needed help to stay out of<br />
their clutches. In order to provide the help and ensure that the enemy would<br />
not have an opportunity to dig in, Rear Admiral Turner made the immediate<br />
decision to land <strong>Marine</strong>s at Segi Point the next morning (21 June). This<br />
was nine days before D-Day for the main landings at Rendova. <strong>The</strong> change<br />
was considered necessary to ensure possession of this particularly desirable<br />
fighter-airstrip real estate and to be able to proceed promptly to build the<br />
ah-strip to provide for close fighter aircraft air support during the landing<br />
operation against Munda or Vila.<br />
<strong>The</strong> need for this close air support had to be balanced against the<br />
disadvantage of possibly tipping off the Japanese on the nearness of the<br />
impending Rendova attack. While the airstrips at the Russell Islands were<br />
“ COMSOPAC to VCNO, 230006 June 19.i3.
Piaw.?ing fo~ Paring the ]a~unese Toenails 531<br />
very helpful, they were 130 miles away from Munda and our fighter aircraft<br />
of that day could remain on staticn near Munda only a short time when<br />
taking off from the Russells.4’<br />
Much to the surprise of TF 31 Staff and others, the Japanese did not react<br />
to the landings on Segi Point. <strong>The</strong>re did not seem to be any increase of air<br />
search nor any movement of the main Japanese Fleet out of Truk to the South.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re were no more heavy air raids on the Guadalcanal area in the next<br />
nine days.<br />
THE NIGHT BEFORE D-DAY<br />
On the rainy and largely moonless night before D-Day, Cruiser Division<br />
12 [Montpelier (CL-57), C/eve/and (CL-55), Coizmbia (CL-56), and<br />
Denver (CL-58 ) ] and Destroyer Division 43 [Wailer (DD-466), Saa/ley<br />
(DD-465), Philip (DD-498), and Rensbaw (DD-499) ], led by Rear<br />
Admiral A. S. Merrill (1912), bombarded the Vila-Stanmore Area on the<br />
southeast coast of Kolombangara Island and the Buin Area at the southeast<br />
end of Bougainvillea Island, while three minelayers, Gamble (DM- 15 ),<br />
Breeje (DM-18), and Preble (DM-2o), shepherded by the Pringle (DD-<br />
447), with Commander Destroyer Squadron 22 aboard, laid 336 mines off<br />
Shortland Harbor, 230 miles north of the Russell Islands.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Task Units retired without loss, but without having inflicted any<br />
Savo Island in reverse. Still, they were on the flank of any Japanese surface<br />
force that might have been headed for the transports at Rendova on the<br />
night before D-Day:<br />
<strong>The</strong> TF 33 aircraft which were due to bomb the Bougainville-Shortland<br />
airfields had their flights washed out on this rainy, stormy night but 99<br />
other aircraft from TF 33 did bomb Munda and Vila on 29-30 June with<br />
more than 70 tons of bombs.50<br />
Just as the tired and wet sea watch of TF 31 was being relieved at midnight<br />
of the 29th of June, Japanese submarine RO-103 guarding the channel<br />
between Gatukai Island and the Russells reported to headquarters in Rabaul<br />
that an enemy task force was headed northwest.5’<br />
“ (a) CTF 31 Op Plan AS-43, 4 Jun, 1943; (b) COMSOPAC to COMINCH, 160420 May<br />
1943; (c) COMSOPAC to COMSOWESpAC, 2109.i2 Jun. 1943; (d) Staff Interviews.<br />
M(a) CINCPAC, Operations in Pacific Ocean Areas, June 1943, Appendix I; (b) Staff<br />
Interviews.<br />
51Japanese Monograph No. 99, Southeast Area Naval Operations, Part II, Feb,-Ott. 1943, p. 26.
532 Amphibians Canze To Conquer<br />
OPERATIONAL READINESS OF AMPHIBIANS<br />
Ten months had faded into the propeller wash since the SOPAC Amphibious<br />
Force landed at Tulagi and Guadalcanal. New types of landing<br />
craft had joined the amphibians with untried personnel manning them, but<br />
of the six big transports and cargo ships, only the Algorab (AK-12) was<br />
not a veteran of the initial landings of WATCHTOWER. Three of the<br />
WATCHTOWER destroyers, Ralph Tufbot (DD-39o), BucAunan (DD-<br />
484), and Farenbolt (DD-491 ) had survived the holocaust of the Slot<br />
battles and were back to do their escorting, fire support and anti-aircraft<br />
chores.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re’ had been time to season under strong leadership since August<br />
1942, and the naval amphibious forces of Rear Admiral Turner moving<br />
toward New Georgia were well trained and confident they would handle<br />
TOENAILS and the Japanese defenders.”<br />
“ (a) Fort; (b) Anderson;(c) StaffInterviews.
CHAPTER XV<br />
Tough Toenails Paring<br />
30 JUNE 1943 TO 15 JULY 1943<br />
PROSPECTS<br />
<strong>The</strong>re were many in the TOENAILS Operation, who, having been told<br />
to be ready to commence the assault on Munda airfield on D plus four,<br />
hoped, like General Grant before Vicksburg to make a glorious announce-<br />
ment on the 4th of July. <strong>The</strong>ir announcement would be that Munda airfield<br />
had been taken on that historic day. <strong>The</strong>se optimists had not read carefully<br />
the operation orders nor heeded Commander Third Fleet dispatches. <strong>The</strong><br />
plans of the Landing Force Commander, Major General Hester, did not<br />
even contemplate an attack on Munda airfield until 8 July, when the sup-<br />
porting waterborne assault over Munda Bar was scheduled.’<br />
Rear Admiral Turner carefully refrained from putting any such hope or<br />
prediction into print. His “Concept of Operation” in Op Plan 8-43 merely<br />
echoed Vice Admiral Halsey’s directive which called for the initial movement<br />
of <strong>Marine</strong>s and Army troops onto New Georgia Island “at the first favorable<br />
opportunity.”<br />
Forces should be ready to initiate the movement against Munda by D plus<br />
Four Day, to take advantage of especially favorable opportunities. <strong>The</strong> date<br />
of the movement will depend upon circumstances. z<br />
At a pre-invasion press conference, Rear Admiral Turner reputedly opined:<br />
. . . [Munda] is a most magnificent defensive area from the sea. <strong>The</strong>re<br />
is a dense jungle behind. In front is the Munda Bar. . . . <strong>The</strong> water is<br />
chock full of reefs. . . .<br />
*****<br />
Some people think Munda’s not going to be tough. I think it’s a very<br />
tough nut to crack. I know we can do it.3<br />
‘ COMGEN New Georgia Occupation Force, Field Order 3–43, 28 Jun. 19.43, para. 1 (b).<br />
2CTF 31 Op Plan 8–43, Annex A, para. 5e.<br />
3Quoted in Driscoll, Pacific Vic~ory, pp. 66,67.<br />
533
534 Amphibians Canze To Conquer<br />
.-<br />
New Georgia Gfoap.<br />
I
Tough Toenads Paring 535<br />
Vice Admiral Halsey had directed that no assault landing on Munda<br />
airfield or surface ship bombardment of Munda airfield could be carried out<br />
without his personal permission prior to D plus nine (July 8). <strong>The</strong>n he had<br />
changed this restrictive date to D plus ten.3’ This order was issued long<br />
days before the infiltrating troops on New Georgia Island started to run<br />
into major difficulties, but despite this the spirit of optimism for early major<br />
success pervaded the whole Task Force and its accompanying newspaper<br />
correspondents.<br />
TOENAIL PARING<br />
<strong>The</strong> operations of the Task Group designated the Western Force in<br />
TOENAILS during the first two weeks will be detailed first and then those<br />
of the Task Group designated Eastern Force. Following<br />
operations of the Northern Landing Group will be told.<br />
THE MAJOR ASSAULT FORCE ORGANIZATION<br />
r<br />
this, the landing<br />
I<br />
I I I<br />
ONAIAVISI RENDOVA ❑1st ECHELON 2nd ECHELON 3rd ECHELON<br />
OCCUPATION UNIT ADVANCE UNIT MOVEMENT MOVEMENT MOVEMENT<br />
TU 31.1.1 TU 31.1.2 TU 31,1.3 TU 31.1.5 TU 31.1.6<br />
Morgan Sweeney Turner Carter Slawson<br />
‘<br />
I<br />
4th ECHELON NEW GEORGIA SERVICE<br />
MOVEMENT MTB GROUP UNIT<br />
TU 31.1.7 TU 31.1.4 TU 31.1.8<br />
Cranshaw Kelly Stadman<br />
Since much has been made of the lack of a complete wrap-up operational<br />
report by COMPHIBFORSOPAC on the Guadalcanal Operation, let it be<br />
stated that also there was not a complete wrap-up operational report on<br />
TOENAILS by COMPHIBFORSOPAC, whose title had become COMPHIB-<br />
FOR, Third Fleet. Neither Rear Admiral Turner, who left the area 15 July,<br />
“ COMTHIRDFLT to CTF 31, 020050, 022300 Jul. 1943.
536 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
when TOENAILS was just hot on the griddle and half cooked, nor Rear<br />
Admiral Wilkinson, who, on the 15th of July, became the chief line backer<br />
rather than the quarterback for TOENAILS, ever submitted an Operational<br />
Report on TOENAILS. To polish off the report picture a final bit, Vice<br />
Admiral Ghormley, the immediate senior in command, did make an operational<br />
report on WATCHTOWER, but Vice Admiral Halsey, the immediate<br />
senior in command, made none on TOENAILS. So the top level reports and<br />
seasoned judgments regarding TOENAILS from the naval operational commanders<br />
at the time of the assault are more than a bit scanty. <strong>The</strong>y are<br />
nonexistent.4<br />
THE WEATHER<br />
Bad weather was a major hindrance for military operations in the Central<br />
Solomons on 30 June 1943, D-Day for TOENAILS. Commander Aircraft<br />
Solomons (COMAIRSOLS) had reported late on the 29th that he could<br />
carry out no bombing operations on the 30th, “unless the weather clears,”<br />
and that his information of enemy movements in the area was Iimited.s<br />
LCI (L) -333, the day before the actual landing, reported “sea rough; wind<br />
force 9“ and that there were heavy swells, which would indicate that some<br />
young man was vastly underrating what a force 9 wind would and could do.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner, in his War Diary, wrote:<br />
Weather enroute to Rendova—low ceilings, moderate showers, poor visibility<br />
in showers, surface wind SE, force four, shifting and gusty in showers,<br />
choppy seas.<br />
Logs of the larger ships participating in the TOENAILS landings on 30<br />
June show that it rained hard off and on during the night, then poured<br />
during the landings and on into the morning.<br />
Stormy and rainy weather continued to plague the landing craft during<br />
the early days of TOENAILS. On July lst, 2nd, and 3rd the seas were<br />
moderate to heavy with a force 4 wind. LCT-129 lost its ramp in the heavy<br />
seas and arrived back at the Russells with three feet of water on her tank<br />
deck. <strong>The</strong> LCIS had to reduce their speed from 12 knots to 8.5 knots due to<br />
head-on seas on the 2nd of July.<br />
Task Unit 31.3.24, made up of LCIS and LCTS, was dispersed by the storm<br />
‘ Commander Third Fleet, Narrative Account of the South Pacific Campaign, Ser 021 of 3 Sep.<br />
1944.<br />
6 COMAIRSOLS to CTG 36.2,290835 Jun. 1943.
Torzgb Toenaiis Paring 537<br />
on 3 July but all craft made it independently into Oleana Bay, New Georgia.<br />
LCT-322 broached and was carried high and dry on the beach, where she<br />
remained until 6 July when she was refloated by the aid of tugs.<br />
On the 4th of July, seas started to moderate and by 6 July they were<br />
calm, but the heavens were not. “<strong>The</strong> second week of occupation brought<br />
torrential downpours that bemired virtually all mobile equipment, rendering<br />
doubly difficult the task of unloading the landing craft as they beached.” ‘<br />
THE WESTERN FORCE (GROUP) TASK<br />
<strong>The</strong> basic plan (CTF 31 Op Order A8–31 ) contemplated putting ashore<br />
about 16,500 troops in the Rendova area in the first four days. To accomplish<br />
this task, the following organization was established:<br />
Western Task Group Organization TG 31.1<br />
(a) Onaiavisi Occtipation Unit TU 31.1.1 Lieutenant Commander C. C.<br />
Morgan<br />
Tcdbot (APD-7 ) Lieutenant Commander C. C, Morgan<br />
Zme (DMS- 14) Lieutenant Commander P. L. Wirtz<br />
(b) RetrdovaAdvance Unit TU 31.1.2 Commander J. D. Sweeney<br />
IVater~ (APD-8 ) Lieutenant Commander C. J. McWhinnie<br />
Dent (APD-$z) Lieutenant Commander R, A. Wilhelm<br />
(c) lJt Echelon Movement lVe~tem Group ~ 31.1.3 Rear Admiral<br />
Turner<br />
(1) Trun~port Divi.zion TU 31.1.31 Captain P. S. <strong>The</strong>iss<br />
McCazuley (APA-4) Commander R. H. Rodgers<br />
Pre.rident ]uchon (APA-18 ) Captain C. W. Weitzel<br />
l+e~ident Admu (APA-19) Captain Frank Dean<br />
PreJiderztHdye$ (APA-20) Captain F. W. Benson<br />
A~gor#b (AKA-8) Captain J. R. Lannon<br />
Libru (AKA-I 2 ) Captain W. B. Fletcher<br />
(2) Screening Grotip TG 31.2 Captain T. J. Ryan, Jr.<br />
Fire Support Unit TU 31.2.1 Captain Ryan<br />
Rul/zb Talbot (DD-39o) Commander J. W. Callahan<br />
lilf~chman(DD-484) Lieutenant Commander F. B. T. Myhre<br />
McCulla (DD-488 ) Lieutenant Commander H. A. Knoertzer<br />
Farenbolt (F) (DD-491 ) Lieutenant Commander A. G.<br />
Beckman<br />
‘ (a) LCI Flotilla Five War Diary, 29 Jun. 1943; (b) Landing Craft Flotillas, SOPAC, War<br />
Diary Jul. 1943; (c) LCI Group 13 War Diary, Jul. 1943.
538 Amphibians Carrie To Conquer<br />
Anti-Subrnurine UnitTU31.2.2. Commander J. M. Higgins<br />
Gwin (DD-433 ) Lieutenant Commander J. B. Fellows<br />
Rudford (DD-446) Commander W. K. Romoser<br />
]enkim (DD-447) Lieutenant Commander M. Hall<br />
lVoodzvoYth(DD-46o) Commander V. F. Gordinier<br />
(3) Motor Torpedo Boat Sqz/adro~zTU 31.1.4 Lieutenant Commander<br />
R. B. Kelly<br />
MTBs 118, 151, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161,<br />
162<br />
(4) 1st EcAelon UJ’eftern Landing Force Major General John W. Hester<br />
43rd Infantry Division (Designated units)<br />
%h <strong>Marine</strong> Defense Battalion<br />
1st Fiji Infantry (Designated unit)<br />
136th Field Artillery Battalion<br />
4th <strong>Marine</strong> Raider Battalion (Designated units)<br />
Naval Base Force Captain C. E. Olsen<br />
24th Construction Battalion (less designated units)<br />
Naval Base Units<br />
Headqzzarters, Assutdt F[otilk, Captain Paul S. <strong>The</strong>iss<br />
Headquarters, New GeoYgia Ai~ Force, Brigadier General Francis<br />
P. Mulcahy, <strong>US</strong>MC<br />
(d) 2nd Echelon Movement WeJtem Group TU 31.1.5 Captain G. B.<br />
Carter<br />
LST Unit Captain G. B. Carter<br />
LST-354 (F) Lieutenant B, E. Robb, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LST-395 Lieutenant A. C. Forbes, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LST-396 Lieutenant E. W. White, <strong>US</strong>N<br />
LST-397 Lieutenant N. L. Lewis, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI Unit Commander J. MacDonald Smith<br />
LCI-61 Lieutenant J. P. Moore, <strong>US</strong>N<br />
LCI-64 Lieutenant H. L. Kelly, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-66 Lieutenant C. F. Houston, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-70 Lieutenant ( jg) H. W. Frey, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-222 (F) Ensign C. M. Freese, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
,?nd Echelon We.rtern Landing Force Lieutenant Colonel Hill<br />
43rd Infantry (Designated units)<br />
9th <strong>Marine</strong> Defense Battalion (Designated units)<br />
192nd Field Artillery (Designated units)<br />
(e) jrd Echelon Movement We.r;ern Group TU 31.1.6 Commander P. S.<br />
Slawson<br />
LST Unit Commander P. S. Slawson<br />
LST-342 (F) Lieutenant E. S. McClusky, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LST-353 Lieutenant L. E. Reynolds, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LST-398 Lieutenant B. E. Blanchard, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LST-399 Lieutenant J. W. Baker, <strong>US</strong>NR
Tongb Toezuils Paring 539<br />
jr~ Echelon Western bnding Force<br />
24th Construction Battalion (Designated units )<br />
9th <strong>Marine</strong> Defense Battalion (Designated units)<br />
(f) 4tb Echelon Movement We.rtem Gro#p TU 31.1.7 Captain J. S.<br />
Crenshaw<br />
LST Unit Lieutenant W. O. Talley<br />
LST-343 (F) Lieutenant H. H. Rightmeyer, <strong>US</strong>N<br />
LST-472 Lieutenant W. O. Talky, <strong>US</strong>N<br />
LCI Unit Lieutenant H. L. Kelly<br />
LCI-61 Lieutenant J. P. Moore, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-62 Lieutenant ( jg) W. C. Lyons, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-64 Lieutenant H. L. Kelly, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-65 Lieutenant (jg) C. R. Tompkins, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-66 Lieutenant C. F. Houston, Jr., <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-222 Ensign C. M. Freese, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
(g) 17e~erveMTB Group TG 31.4 Commander Allen P. Calvert<br />
12 MTBs<br />
(h) Service Unit TU 31.1.8 Lieutenant (jg) C. H. Stedman<br />
Vireo (AT-144) Lieutenant ( jg) C. H. Stedman<br />
Rail (AT-1 39) Ensign L. C. Oaks<br />
PAB 4, PAB 8 (A PAB was a Pontoon Assembled Barge or<br />
lighter, a bit smaller than the “Rhino Barge” of the Normandy<br />
landings. )<br />
Several differences will be noted between the amphibious ships and craft<br />
listed above and on later pages for the various tasks and echelons and those<br />
listed in Samuel E. Morison’s account of the invasion of New Georgia.<br />
Morison’s listings appear to have been taken from the basic operation orders,<br />
while the listings herein were made up from the issued revisions to the<br />
basic orders, war diaries, action reports, and dispatches, and are believed<br />
far more accurate since last minute changes were made.’<br />
TASKS<br />
<strong>The</strong> major task of the amphibians of the Western Force was to get the<br />
6,3oo troops in the 1st Echelon ashore at Rendova Island on D-Day.<br />
<strong>The</strong> minor task was to put ashore two companies of troops to seize the<br />
small islands guarding the most direct approach from Rendova Harbor to<br />
Zanana Beach on New Georgia Island. Zanana Beach was the spot where<br />
7Morison,Brea~irzgtbe Bisrnarcks Barrier (Vol. VI), pp. 144–46.
540 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
-t-<br />
I (7 ) -%s..)<br />
W E<br />
$ ALL ARMY MAPS GIVE THE ISLAND TO THE “’74N&eL<br />
SOUTHWEST OF BARAULU ISLANO AS SASAVELE,<br />
PRE-ATTACK NAVY CHARTS SHOW IT AS DUME<br />
ISLAND. MODERN CHARTS SHOW IT AS SASAVELE,<br />
New Georgia Island, Onaiavisi Entrance.<br />
the troops from Rendova were to land to commence their flank attack on<br />
Munda airfield.<br />
Since the minor task was to be undertaken first, it is described here first.<br />
ONAIAVIS1 ENTRANCE (TU 31. I .1 )<br />
Two miles east of the eastern end of the Munda airstrip on New Georgia<br />
Island is Ilangana Point, and the western end of the 25-mile long Roviana<br />
Lagoon. Onaiavisi Entrance, a block-busting name even for the South Pacific,<br />
separates Dume (Sasavele) Island and Baraulu Island, which together with<br />
Roviana Island and many smaller islands and long coral reefs, guard the<br />
western end of Roviana Lagoon and mark the northwestern boundary of<br />
Blanche Channel which separates Rendova and New Georgia Islands.<br />
Laiana Beach, just north of Ilangana Point, was a fair beach and a logical<br />
place to land to start an assault on Munda airfield. However, Laiana Beach<br />
reportedly was defended, while equally good Zanana Beach, two and a<br />
half miles, several rivers and creeks and some densely jungled area to the<br />
eastward, was not defended.
Tough Toenails Paring 541<br />
So again following Major General Vandegrift’s requirement that<br />
landings should not be attempted in the face of organized resistance, if, by<br />
any combination of march or maneuver, it is possible to land unopposed and<br />
undetected<br />
the Scheme of Maneuver called for the ground attack on Munda airfield to<br />
be initiated following deployment to the westward after troop landings on<br />
Zanana Beach.’<br />
Having accepted this Scheme of Maneuver, it was essential for the amphib-<br />
ians also to land troops on the islands controlling the direct approach to<br />
Zanana Beach.<br />
<strong>The</strong> destroyer transport Ta/bot (APD 7) and the destroyer minesweeper<br />
Zane (DMS-I4) each picked up a company of the 169th Infantry Regiment<br />
and an LCVP at the Russells on the 29th of June and landed their troops<br />
unopposed on Dume and Baraula Islands commencing about 0225 on the<br />
30th. Each ship lost its landing craft tow before dark due to steaming at<br />
too high speed in the moderate swell. To top this off, the Zane, soon after<br />
arriving in the debarkation area, ran aground forward during the heavy<br />
rain squalls about 0257. After much effort she backed herself off with a<br />
final desperate four bells and a jingle about 0523, and almost immediately<br />
grounded again, this time aft. Despite her own and the Talbot’s efforts she<br />
stayed aground untiI the tug Rail (AT-139) pulled her off nine hours later<br />
(1419). <strong>The</strong> Rail logged receipt of the order to go help at 0942. She was<br />
enroute at the rear of the amphibious movement, but bent on an extra<br />
knot. She passed her towline to the Zane at 1342. <strong>The</strong> Zane banged up<br />
her propellers when she grounded aft and ended up a sad sight by being<br />
towed to Tulagi.’<br />
However, it can be said in behalf of these two ships that they landed<br />
their troops at the appointed hour and at the appointed beach. No alert<br />
Japanese artillery man hauled up a battery to take the Zane under fire when<br />
she was a stranded duck only five miles from Munda Airfield, and no alert<br />
Japanese pilot picked out the Zane for a bombing or strafing run when<br />
heckling the transports on the 30th of June. <strong>The</strong> troops of the 169th<br />
Infantry were in a position to hold Onaiavisi Entrance against the hour when<br />
Major General Hester would want to begin the shore to shore movement<br />
of the New Georgia Occupation Force to Zanana Beach.<br />
‘ CGFIRSTMARDIV, Final Report ou Guadalcanal Operation, Phase V, p. 6.<br />
‘ Talbot, Zane, Rai[, Ships’ Logs.
542 Amphibians Came To Conqzzer<br />
RENDOVA ISLAND<br />
Rendova Harbor was actually only a well-protected cove fronting about a<br />
mile and a half of beach area where the shoreline curved inland about threequarters<br />
of a mile at the northwestern tip of Rendova Island. <strong>The</strong>re were<br />
numerous unmarked shallow areas in the cove, and the beach gradient was<br />
very gentle. Bau Island and Kokurana Island guarded the principal narrow<br />
northern entrance to Rendova Harbor, and Lumbari Island guarded the<br />
harbor to the westward.<br />
While Rendova Harbor did not have much to recommend it for large-<br />
scale naval use, Rendova Island had three advantages if a side door entrance<br />
was to be used by the troops bound for Munda airstrip:<br />
1. <strong>The</strong> 3,4oo feet at which the island peaked out would make a fine<br />
observation post for all activity within a range of 20 miles.<br />
2. <strong>The</strong> short seven miles separating its outlying islands from Munda<br />
airfield would permit 155mm artillery emplaced on Kokurana Island<br />
just north of Rendova Harbor to deny the Japanese use of the air-<br />
field.<br />
3. Lever Brothers’ 584 acre plantation would provide a reasonably<br />
good staging area for the troops who would move by small landing<br />
craft and boats from Rendova to Zanana Beach on New Georgia<br />
Island to strike at Munda Airfield.<br />
As late as 15 June it was planned to have two pre-dawn landings on<br />
Rendova Island by the following forces:<br />
1. the Ugeli Attack Unit, which was to land its troops on the north-<br />
east coast near Ugeli Village and capture the 22-man Japanese garri-<br />
son reported there in late May.<br />
2. the Rendova Advance Unit, which was to land its troops on beaches<br />
southeasterly and southwesterly from the Renard Entrance to Ren-<br />
dova Harbor to act as a covering force for the major landing of the<br />
43rd Division troops on these same beaches.<br />
However, by 21 June it had been decided to use the Ugeli Attack Unit<br />
to seize both sides of Onaiavisi Entrance to Roviana Lagoon, since it was<br />
believed our unplanned for pre-D-Day landing on Segi Point at the eastern<br />
tip of New Georgia Island would lead the Japanese to build up their defenses<br />
along the coastline between Munda and Segi Point. This build-up would<br />
lead them to appreciate the importance of Onaiavisi Entrance for a landing<br />
on Zanana Beach, and to secure the islands guarding it.
NOR TH<br />
1<br />
Tough Toenads Paring 543<br />
0<br />
-2<br />
MILES<br />
SHOAL AREA ENCLOSED BY DASH LINES<br />
&<br />
●<br />
~<br />
&<br />
Rendova Harbor.
544 Amphibians Came To Conq~er<br />
While paying much attention to New Georgia Island, the Japanese had<br />
paid scant attention to the island of Rendova during the six months prior<br />
to our landings there. On 30 June they had only about 150 troops, including<br />
a signal detachment and some engineers on this heavily wooded 20-mile<br />
long squash-shaped island.<br />
Some of these Japanese were manning lookout stations 8 to 12 miles from<br />
Rendova Harbor, but the majority formed a very surprised and ineffective<br />
reception party for the Army troops landing on Rendova.<br />
THE RENDOVA ADVANCE UNIT<br />
<strong>The</strong> Dent (APD-7) and the Water~ (APD-9) were told off by CTF 31<br />
as the Rendcwa Advance Unit, TU 31.1.2, for landing the first Army troops.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se consisted of two jungle-trained and physically hardened companies of<br />
the 172nd Regiment, called Barracudas after the voracious pike-like fish<br />
dangerous to man.
Tough Toenails Paring 545<br />
Our reconnaissance party, on Rendova Island since 16 June, was to make<br />
navigation easier for the two destroyer-transports and their landing craft by<br />
placing on Bau Island a white light, showing to seaward and marking<br />
Renard Entrance. Each of these destroyer-transports had on board not only<br />
two members of the very valuable Australian coastwatchers organization,<br />
but also Solomon Islanders, all presumably knowledgeable or qualified as<br />
pilots for the Rendova area.<br />
Despite all these assists, the Rendova Advance Unit managed to get<br />
started off on the wrong foot, and to stay on it.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Water~, scheduled to have troops on the beach by 0540, logged her<br />
landing craft as just leaving her side at a very tardy 0606, and the I?ent<br />
logged an even later departure of troops at 0615. Neither ship logged the<br />
fact that their presumably highly knowledgeable pilots did not guide their<br />
Barracudas in the landing craft to the correct beach areas on the first try.<br />
<strong>The</strong> result of these nautical derelictions was that the specially trained<br />
Barracudas arrived at the specified assault beaches on Rendova Island after<br />
the regular troops from the large transports who were put ashore right on<br />
time and at the correct beaches.<br />
Since neither the Water.r nor the Dent submitted an action report on their<br />
performance in TOENAILS, the cause of the delay in getting their landing<br />
craft away or how they missed the correct beaches by miles is unrecorded in<br />
the oflicial records. An excuse, which would be hard to accept, would be<br />
‘flow visibility and rain squalls.”<br />
When Rear Admiral Turner, in the McCawley, learned of the great delay<br />
of the destroyer-transports in getting their Barracudas away and to the<br />
correct beach areas, he immediately gave the troops in the leading landing<br />
craft from the large transports (by voice radio from the flagship at 0646)<br />
the surprising message:<br />
You are the first to land, you are the first to land. Expect opposition.l”<br />
THE MAIN RENDOVA LANDINGS<br />
<strong>The</strong> four large transports and two cargo ships, with the 6,3oo embarked<br />
troops that made up the 1st Echelon Landing Force at Rendova, mostly<br />
had the benefit of a rehearsal period, although not of an over-all TF-31 dress<br />
rehearsal. <strong>The</strong>y had had a rainy, gusty but uneventful passage from Guadal-<br />
‘0CTF 31 War Diary, 30 Jun. 1943.
546 Amphibians Came To conquer<br />
*<br />
BAANGA<br />
ISLAND<br />
*%*4<br />
;:iW;A<br />
e4~<br />
FROM CHART 2907<br />
CORRECTED<br />
TO JUNE 1943<br />
MUNDA PT.<br />
ILANGANA<br />
PT.<br />
8“20’SOUTH<br />
flp;t4:;DKUhIDU BLANCHE CHANNEL<br />
o<br />
@<br />
Rendova—New GeorgiaAre~.<br />
KOf?ARANA IS.
Tough Toenads Paring 547<br />
canal to Rendova, where they arrived on 30 June, hove-to close to Renard<br />
Entrance, and started to unload about 0640.<br />
<strong>The</strong> transports McCawlcy and President Adams landed their troops at<br />
East Beach, and the President Hayes and Pvesident Jackson on West Beach.<br />
<strong>The</strong> cargo ships Algorab and Libra landed their troops and support on East<br />
Beach. <strong>The</strong> transport area was about one and a half miles from the prescribed<br />
landing beaches.<br />
<strong>The</strong> McCawley logged her first troop landing at 0656, 16 minutes after the<br />
first boat left the side. <strong>The</strong> first boat was smartly back alongside to pick up<br />
logistic support at 0709, 13 minutes later.” “All troops, except working<br />
parties on board ship, were ashore within thirty minutes after the landing<br />
of the first wave. ” 12<br />
In this respect the large transports and cargo ships had done well. Lieu-<br />
tenant General Harmon sent a despatch to General Marshall saying:<br />
Nearly perfect was main convoy ship to shore operation.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Army reported that:<br />
105 Howitzers firing on Munda from Kokurana Island within two hours<br />
after initial debarkation.13<br />
PROTECTING THE TRANSPORTS<br />
During passage to Rendova, the eight destroyers assigned to Task Group<br />
31.1 were in a circular anti-submarine, anti-aircraft defense screen around<br />
the six large transports and cargo ships which were in two columns of three<br />
ships each. Upon arrival at Rendova, the Gwin (DD-433 ), Woodwort~<br />
(DD-46o), Jenkins (DD-447) and Radford (DD-446) were placed in a<br />
Screening Unit and the other four destroyers in a Fire Support Unit, TU<br />
31.2.1.<br />
About 0708, half an hour after the transports reached their unloading<br />
stations to the eastward of Renard Entrance to Rendova Harbor, the Japanese<br />
shore batteries on Kundu Kundu Island, south of Munda Point, opened fire<br />
on two destroyers of the Fire Support Unit of Bzchanan (DD-484) and<br />
Farenboh (DD-491 ) and two destroyers of the Anti-Submarine Unit, Gwin<br />
and ~enkin~. <strong>The</strong>se four ships were in the sea areas to the immediate west of<br />
the transports.<br />
“ Ibid.<br />
“ Miller, Tbe Redxction of Rabaril (Army), p, 88.<br />
‘s New Caledonia to War, No. 1133 of 1 Jul. 1943.
548 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
<strong>The</strong> Buchanan from the Fire Support Unit, which was designated by CTG<br />
31.1 to silence the batteries so that the anti-submarine units could continue<br />
their patrol, reported:<br />
. . . there were six guns of 3“ to 4.7” firing at this vessel. . . . 15 salvos<br />
were observed to be fired and as many splashes were observed close aboard.<br />
(5o to 300) yards. . . . A total of 223 rounds were fired in this first phase<br />
[by Buclumar]. <strong>The</strong> enemy appeared to fire an estimated 50 rounds. . . .<br />
At 0832 one gun of Baanga Point opened up on the Z?ucbanan again. . . .<br />
At 1030 one shore battery on Baanga Point opened fire again using the<br />
Bzzckdnun as target. . . .<br />
At 1315 single gun in Munda Point Area opened fire. . . . Buchanan<br />
. . . poured 64 rounds into the immediate area. No guns from any sector<br />
m ~re heard thereafter.<br />
It is believed that a total of seven guns were silenced [by fire by Bti-<br />
Chvrdn].14<br />
<strong>The</strong> Gzuin was hit in the engine room by a 4.7 inch projectile during<br />
the early Japanese salvos at about 0710. <strong>The</strong> Furenbolt and the ]enkinf<br />
in the Anti-Submarine Unit reported near-misses. <strong>The</strong> Buchanan continued<br />
to offer herself as a target until the troops were all landed.<br />
Since Kundu Kundu Island is about two and a half miles south of Munda<br />
Point and only six miles from Renard Entrance to Rendova Harbor, the<br />
local Japanese officer controlling the guns rendered a major assist to TF 31<br />
when he disclosed the presence of his guns to the destroyers. <strong>The</strong> 4.7-inch<br />
guns were silenced without taking real advantage of a good opportunity<br />
to shoot at much larger and nearly stationary targets—the large transports<br />
and cargo ships hove-to unloading off Renard Entrance to Rendova Harbor.<br />
WESTERN FORCE AIR DEFENSE<br />
On D-Day, aircraft from TF 33 had three clashes with Japanese aircraft<br />
during which the defensive effort of these United States planes made a major<br />
contribution to the successful landing. During the eight hours covering the<br />
period from 0645 to 1445 on 30 June when the large transports were unloading<br />
troops and impedimenta in the Rendova area, the Japanese mounted<br />
only one ineffective air attack on the large transports. However, they did<br />
delay the unloading.<br />
Many bogies were reported to CTF 31 at 0856. TU 31.1.31 immediately<br />
‘4Bticbamm Action Report, Ser 00124 of 11 Jul. 1943, pp. 3–4.
Tough Toenails Paring 549<br />
got underway. <strong>The</strong> destroyers rejoined and assumed positions in an antiaircraft<br />
cruising disposition. By the time the formation was formed up, the<br />
number of bogies reported had been reduced to one. <strong>The</strong> bogy continued to<br />
close until about 0908 and then gradually disappeared from the radar<br />
$creens. By O$MOthe transports and cargo ships were back in the Transport<br />
Area, and starting to unload again. TF 33 aircraft did not make contact<br />
with any Japanese planes at this time and post war Japanese records indicate<br />
that the Japanese aircraft were on a “look-see” mission.15<br />
Another rash of bogies showed up at 1103. <strong>The</strong> transports got underway<br />
and formed up with the destroyers commencing at 1112. Twenty-seven<br />
Japanese bombing planes and their fighter escorts were reported. Dog fights<br />
were visible from the transports. <strong>The</strong> air defense was perfect and no planes<br />
came close to the transports. By 1214 the amphibians were back unloading<br />
again. Only a little over one hour’s time had been lost in unloading because<br />
of this first attack, partially due to the fact that the ships had not anchored<br />
to unload, but just hove-to.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Japanese aircraft did not return again until just after the large trans-<br />
ports had completed their unloading chores about 1510 and headed for<br />
Guadalcanal. This time their attack was more damaging. <strong>The</strong>y torpedoed the<br />
flagship of the Amphibious Force Commander, the McCaw)ey, immobilized<br />
her, and left her a sitting duck for an unwitting coup de grace by our own<br />
PT boats. <strong>The</strong> third and last Japanese air attack of the day took place about<br />
1715.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Japanese aircraft were a bit late (1100) arriving for their first D-Day<br />
attacks on the transports. But the 1100 sweep probably contained over one<br />
hundred aircraft and was a very creditable Japanese effort. Nearly half as<br />
many aircraft made the sweep ( 1545) which started the McCawley towards<br />
the bottom. <strong>The</strong> late afternoon attack (17 15) was a dog-tired and minor one<br />
of perhaps 15 aircraft.’”<br />
On 30 June 1943, the aviators on both sides gave glowing reports of<br />
their successes. <strong>The</strong> Japanese reports were particularly outlandish—claiming<br />
a cruiser and two destroyers sunk, and two destroyers and eight transports<br />
damaged, besides fifty planes destroyed, against an actual loss of one trans-<br />
port (the McCawley) sunk, none damaged and 17 aircraft shot down. Our<br />
aviators initially claimed 65 Japanese planes downed and the amphibious<br />
K (a) COMAIRSOPAC War Diary, Apr.-J.n, 1943; (b) COMAIRSOLS 301252 Jun. 1943.<br />
‘e (a) Shaw and Douglas, Isolation of Rabaul (<strong>Marine</strong>), pp. 82, 83; (b) Mt-Cdw/ey War Diary;<br />
(c) CTF 31 War Diary.
550 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
ships claimed half as many more from their anti-aircraft fire. <strong>The</strong> Japanese,<br />
at the time, admitted to losing 30 planes and post-war accounts indicate a<br />
loss of 49.17<br />
During the early days of TOENAILS, CTF 33 sought to keep 32 fighter<br />
aircraft (VF) on station over Rendova between 0700 and 1630 daily.” This<br />
was a real chore. Rendova was about equidistant from the Japanese air bases<br />
in Bougainvillea and our own air base in the Russells, so the defensive problem<br />
in the air was far more difficult than that of an air attacker, who could<br />
choose his own moment to strike. CTF 33 had only a remote chance of massing<br />
a larger number of defensive aircraft over Rendova than the Japanese<br />
could bring to bear against him.<br />
Making the defensive problem of the naval aircraft even more diflicult,<br />
in the five days prior to D-Day bad flying weather had reduced markedly<br />
the number of offensive flights from General MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific<br />
Fifth Air Force. This command had the task of bombing the airfields at<br />
Rabaul and in the Bougainville-Shorthands Area prior to D-Day in order<br />
to reduce the number of Japanese aircraft available for attack in the New<br />
Georgia Group.<br />
FIGHTER DIRECTION<br />
On D-Day and D plus one the air cover missed intercepting the approaching<br />
Japanese aircraft several times, but generally only briefly. <strong>The</strong> amphibians<br />
fared well, losing only the McCawley.<br />
<strong>The</strong> fighter direction team for the amphibious assault force was aboard<br />
the <strong>US</strong>S ]enkin~ during the approach and landing of 1st Echelon troops.<br />
<strong>The</strong> ]enkin~ reported that the team performed “remarkably well,” but added<br />
the obvious remark that the “Fighters made interception a little too late on<br />
the group” which torpedoed the McCauley.”<br />
On July 2nd, however, the fighter cover over the Rendova Area was with-<br />
drawn temporarily due to bad weather at home base. Shortly after this withdrawal,<br />
about 1330, some two dozen Japanese aircraft made an undetected<br />
and unopposed attack and caused considerable loss of shoreside personnel<br />
(64 killed, 89 wounded) and damage to supplies still jam-packed on the<br />
‘7 (a) CINCPAC Command Summary, Book Four, 1 Jul. 1943, p. 1613; (b) COMTHIRDFLT<br />
010630 Jul. 1943; (c) President JackJon, McCawley, CTF 31, CTF 33 War Diaries, Jun. 1943.<br />
~ COMAIRSOPAC Op Plan 7–43, 18 Jun. 1943 and related dispatches.<br />
“ ]etzkins Action Report, Ser 0336 of 9 Jul. 1943.
Tough Toenails Paring 551<br />
Rendova beaches. Ammunition dumps and laboriously constructed fuel<br />
depots were blown up. In the morning before the attack, the Army radars<br />
were out of commission and the only <strong>Marine</strong> aircraft search radar set up<br />
ashore had stopped operating due to someone filling the motor generator’s<br />
gas tank with diesel oil. <strong>The</strong>se radar deficiencies combined with a lack of<br />
visual observation of the approaching aircraft permitted the attack to be a<br />
complete surprise.’”<br />
LOGISTICS AGAIN<br />
<strong>The</strong> big problem at Rendova on the first day—as it had been at Guadal-<br />
canal—was not the enemy. It was logistics. This time the transports got the<br />
logistic support out of their holds and onto the beaches in double quick<br />
time, but Mr. Rain and Mr. Mud were the overseers on the Lever Brothers’<br />
Plantation where the landing was made that day. <strong>The</strong>y really fouled up<br />
the logistic support for the troops. <strong>The</strong> heavy trucks and tanks soon were<br />
bogged down, and even hastily Seabee-built, coconut log roadbeds did not<br />
cure the logistical quagmire.<br />
It was quite obvious to the amphibians that the marked changes and<br />
increases made since the Guadalcanal landings in the Shore Party, and in<br />
the Naval Platoon of the Shore Party, paid real dividends, even when they<br />
received no cooperation from unfriendly natural elements. <strong>The</strong> big transports<br />
left Rendova bragging about the high tons per hour they had unloaded<br />
on the beaches.zl<br />
By beefing up the unloading parties on each transport and cargo ship to<br />
150 men—and by beefing up the Shore Party to 300 men—saving of time<br />
had been gained during the critical unloading period.<br />
But it is quite apparent from reading the Action Reports of the transports<br />
and the reports of the observers on the beach, that the transports did not<br />
fully appreciate the logistical mess which they had left on the beaches,<br />
particularly when the rain continued to come down. <strong>The</strong> red clay mud was<br />
adequately stirred up and wheeled vehicles could not haul from the beaches<br />
to the supply dumps.”<br />
Things became so bad in this respect that, on 3 July, Major General<br />
‘“ (a) Shaw and Douglas, Isolation of Rabard (<strong>Marine</strong>), pp. 85, 87; (b) Miller, Reduction Of<br />
Rabard (Army), p. 91.<br />
n McCawley, President Jackson, War Diaries.<br />
= Shaw and Douglas, Rabuul (<strong>Marine</strong>), p. 82.
352 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
Hester requested that the 5th Echelon of heavy logistic support for Rendova<br />
beheld up.”<br />
SUPPORTING ECHELONS<br />
While the large transports and their destroyer escorts were returning to<br />
Guadalcanal, the succeeding echelons of the Western Force were loading<br />
there and in the Russells.<br />
As the LST-354 saw it on 1 July:<br />
Sky was overcast, low ceiling, with prolonged heavy rain showers throughout<br />
the day. . . . Embarkation of troops and cargo was handicapped by rains and<br />
heavy mud. . . .’4<br />
At 1800 on D-Day, the 2nd Echelon-Landing Ship Tanks and Landing<br />
Craft Infantry under the command of Captain Carter—departed for Rendova<br />
Harbor, which was something less than an amphibian’s dream of the perfect<br />
landing place, as the following report shows:<br />
East beach [Rendova Harbor] was extremely unsatisfactory. <strong>The</strong> approach<br />
involved a very narrow, tortuous channel with a sharp, short turn to the<br />
beach behind Pago Pago Island. <strong>The</strong> beaching had to be made at dead slow<br />
speed and vessels were unable to plow their way through the mud to the beach<br />
proper. Vehicles could be operated only with difficulty because of deep mud<br />
and many had to be abandoned. . . .<br />
Discharge of cargo . . . was accomplished under extreme difficulties . . .<br />
with the men wading through water and mud knee deep. . . . Discharge<br />
. . . was accomplished by dark by virtue of back-breaking, exhaustive, and<br />
almost super-human efforts of all the men involved.25<br />
Besides the unmarked channels, the sharp turns required to miss coraI<br />
heads and the mud just back of the beaches, the landing craft had to contend<br />
with the Japanese, who mounted a number of air attacks on the amphibians<br />
during the days ahead.<br />
<strong>The</strong> 2nd Echelon beached at Poko Plantation, Rendova Island, about<br />
0735 on July 1st. <strong>The</strong>y learned years later that five Japanese destroyers<br />
on a mission to locate them during the night, had failed to push into<br />
Blanche Channel. By 1015 the LSTS and LCIS had been properly greeted by<br />
several small strafing waves of Japanese aircraft which did no important<br />
damage.<br />
aCTF 31 to CTG 31.3, 022150 Jul. 1943.<br />
x LST Flotilla Five War Diary, 1 Jul. 1943.<br />
mIbid.
Tongb Toenaiis Paring 553<br />
JAPANESE AIR ATTACK<br />
JULY 4,1943<br />
1410-1425 LCT<br />
NORTH<br />
SCALE: IINCH=250YARDS [APPROX.)<br />
Location of LC1(L) GrczJp 14 Lmding craft participating in anti-aivcraft<br />
action, 4 Jdy 1943, Rendova Havbor.
554 Amphibians Came To Conqner<br />
<strong>The</strong> 4th Echelon was not quite so fortunate as the 2nd. While it was<br />
enroute to Rendova, the LCI-66 and LCI-70 had a bow-on collision during<br />
execution of change of course, and there was the usual rash of bogies, which<br />
sent them to their guns. <strong>The</strong>se amphibians beached about 0730 on the 4th<br />
of July.<br />
Before the 4th Echelon completed their unloading, sixteen Japanese<br />
bombing planes, in tight formation, swept low over the beached landing<br />
craft dropping their bombs. On Independence Day 1943, LCIS 23, 24 and<br />
65 picked up their war wounds, but the landing ships and craft had the<br />
satisfaction of assisting in putting no less than ten Japanese aircraft to final<br />
rest.<br />
TU 31.3.12, the 2nd Echelon for Viru Harbor, with one APC and three<br />
LCTS, was diverted to Rendova and arrived in Rendova Harbor four hours<br />
after the LCIS, as part of the 4th Echelon for Rendova, <strong>The</strong> interesting and<br />
exciting experience of these amphibians was described by one of them as<br />
follows:<br />
At about 1413, although no warning had been received over the only<br />
frequency we were guarding, 3000 KCS, it was seen that the guns of the two<br />
LSTS near us were being put on battery, Our guns were on battery and had<br />
been fcom before daylight so it was only necessary to warn the gun crews<br />
that there might be a condition red. General quarters was called and the<br />
ammunition passers and reloaders hurried to their stations, when some bombers<br />
were sighted.<br />
As the planes approached, they could be identified as Japanese, probably<br />
twin-engine heavy bombers of the Mitsubishi 96 type. <strong>The</strong> planes were in a<br />
tight V, flying at from 2500 feet to 3000 feet. Staff Sergeant Biggerstaff,<br />
correspondent of the News Service Division of the <strong>Marine</strong> <strong>Corps</strong>, who had<br />
just come aboard for passage to the Russell Islands, agrees about the height<br />
of the planes.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y were coming almost out of the sun which bore about 115 “T. <strong>The</strong><br />
planes were coming directly at us a little off our starboard bow. <strong>The</strong>y dropped<br />
a few bombs, which as far as we could tell did little darnage, most of them<br />
striking harmlessly in the water. <strong>The</strong> guns on the <strong>US</strong>S APC-24 opened fire<br />
when the planes were at a range of about 4000 feet. <strong>The</strong> planes approached<br />
in our direction and passed almost overhead. Our guns, four 20 MM<br />
Oerlikons and two 50 caliber Browning Navy type machine guns fired<br />
steadily at the planes and tracers could be seen hitting squarely in the<br />
fuselage, wings and tail assembly. Some of the tracers from the 50 caliber<br />
could be seen passing through the wings.<br />
<strong>The</strong> lead ship in the formation which took the fire from three 20 MM<br />
machine guns and one 50 caliber machine gun was fatally hit by our guns.
Tough Toenails Paring 355<br />
<strong>The</strong> plane burst into flames near the right engine, the tail assembly and main<br />
fuselage were blown off lJy an explosion, and the wings and forward cockpit<br />
with one side flaming fluttered like a leaf down toward us. Our gunners, in<br />
the meantime, shifted their attention to the second plane from the outside on<br />
the left of the V. Our other 20 MM and 50 caliber machine guns had been<br />
concentrating their fire on this plane and had it already limping when the<br />
additional fire was turned toward it. One motor was smoking. With all six<br />
guns riddling it back and forth, the plane suddenly exploded and fell in<br />
many blazing pieces into the harbor. In the meantime, the first plane we hit<br />
fell into the water about two or three hundred yards astern of us. By then it<br />
was impossible to direct the guns to fire at any individual plane. Our tracers<br />
could be seen going into several other planes and undoubtedly they assisted<br />
in the destruction of some more of the enemy bombers. By this time planes<br />
were falling so fast it was hard to keep track of them. A number of the enemy<br />
bombers fell in the direction of Bau Island and Pau Island. Some seemed to<br />
fall in the direction of the northeastern corner of Bau Island or in the sea on<br />
the other side.<br />
It was impossible, in the short period of the action to count the number<br />
of bombers that fell. We believe we saw nine, but it may have been more.<br />
Only three out of the original sixteen returned in a tight formation and<br />
passed to the south of us out of range. Although out of range by then of<br />
anything but 40 MM and $)0 MM, all ships in the harbor fired in their<br />
direction. We saw no other signs of the sixteen, and as there were so many<br />
being knocked out of the air, we figured on a possible thirteen of sixteen<br />
planes knocked down.<br />
It is my personal opinion and the opinion of my other officers, and the<br />
<strong>Marine</strong> Correspondent Staff Sergeant Biggerstaff, that all of the planes<br />
knocked down were hit by the fire of various Landing Craft Flotilla vessels<br />
in the harbor. As far as we could determine, the shore batteries were not<br />
responsible for the downing of one plane.<br />
This vessel ceased firing at 1425.<br />
<strong>The</strong> surprising thing was the tight formation and low altitude the Japanese<br />
were using. It was as if they expected no opposition from anti-aircraft fire.<br />
Even though planes were being knocked out of their tight formation they<br />
held right on with it until they themselves were knocked out of the air.<br />
In reporting on his gun crew, the Commanding Officer said:<br />
Previous to this action, they had never fired their guns on enemy planes.<br />
<strong>The</strong>ir entire experience being a four day course of 20 MM practice at Point<br />
Montara, California, where they were unable to fire because of fog, a four<br />
day course at Noumea and a practice firing at a sleeve on the first day out of<br />
Noumea.26<br />
= APC-24 Action Report, 15 Jul. 1943.
556 Amphibians Came To Conqtier<br />
Commander LCI Group 15 gleefully recorded for his War Diary subsequent<br />
to the heavy attack, the spirited antiaircraft fire, and the efforts of<br />
our fighters, which left<br />
pyres of burning Mitsubishi visible on the surface of harbor.’r<br />
Between building a temporary caisson needed to make possible replace-<br />
ment of a lost propeller on the LCI-223 and firing their guns in anger for<br />
the first time, the LCI amphibians of the 4th Echelon had a busy and<br />
glorious Fouth of July.<br />
Unloading parties of 150 men on each LST, 50 men on each LCT and<br />
25 men for each LCI absorbed a lot of men but numbers worked marvels<br />
in getting cargo out of the ships onto the beaches and then inland to the<br />
supply dumps, and speeded the amphibians away to calmer areas.<br />
‘<strong>The</strong> story of the Western Force would not be complete without detailing<br />
the major happenings of the return to base of the large transports and<br />
cargo ships.<br />
RETURN TO BASE<br />
As has been mentioned before, the amphibian ships at Rendova had only<br />
two welcome hours to land their troops and equipment before radar contacts<br />
with an unidentified aircraft about 0900 on 30 June sent the crews hurrying to<br />
their anti-aircraft batteries, and the ships scurrying to their positions in a<br />
protective anti-aircraft cruising disposition. An actual attack did not develop,<br />
nor did actual bombing of the transports develop from a further radar alert<br />
about 1100, but in each case there was a period of about an hour of cruising<br />
about near the transport area when no unloading could be accomplished.<br />
After these two interruptions, and having smartly completed the lion’s<br />
share of their unloading and established new records of tons per hour<br />
winched out of their holds, the transports and cargo ships were underway<br />
in an anti-aircraft defensive formation about 1510 to withdraw to base.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re were eight destroyers in the circular screen, the six large amphibians<br />
being in division columns abreast.<br />
Shortly after 1545, there commenced a large scale “do or die” Japanese<br />
torpedo bombing attack on the formation, which washed out a fair share<br />
of the oflice files of the Commander Amphibious Force Third Fleet on the<br />
McCawley and about 20 of the 23 attacking planes.<br />
a LCI Group 15 War Diary, 4 Jul. 1943.
Totigb Toenads Paring 557<br />
<strong>The</strong> McCawley was torpedoed about 1553 when in Blanche Channel<br />
about 12 miles east by south from Rendova Harbor. At that time, she was<br />
steaming at 14 knots and was the lead ship in the left-hand column with the<br />
President Hayes and the President {ackson astern. <strong>The</strong>re was a rabbit’s foot<br />
in the pocket of the Captain of the escorting Farenbo)t, <strong>The</strong> torpedo which<br />
hit the destroyer was a dud.<br />
An hour and a quarter later, with the McCaw/ey making heavy weather<br />
from her hit, her port engine room flooded and the rudder still jammed<br />
hard right, and while being taken under tow by the Libra (AK-53), the<br />
Japanese came back with eight dive bombers and some fighter escorts. <strong>The</strong>y<br />
scored no hits on their wounded victim nor on the two escorting destroyers<br />
nor on the Libra.<br />
In the WATCHTOWER Operation the iarge transport George F. Elliott<br />
(AP-13) had been sunk off Guadalcanal. <strong>The</strong> South Pacific amphibians were<br />
about to offer their TOENAIL sacrifice, and this time it was to be their<br />
flagship,
558 Amphibians Came To Conquer
Tough Toenails Paring 559<br />
THE END OF THE WACKY MAC<br />
For the Rendova landings of TOENAILS, the McCawley, Commander<br />
Robert H. Rodgers (1923), commanding, carried 1,100 troops and 604<br />
tons of equipment as well as the senior Army and Navy commanders in<br />
the Amphibious Force and their staffs.<br />
<strong>The</strong> McCawiey did not survive the day, and since the story of her demise<br />
has been variously reported, the official reports of her Commanding Officer<br />
and others are of interest, indicating, at least, that both information of our<br />
own forces and intelligence of” enemy forces carry a premium value in<br />
wartime:<br />
After the completion of the unloading which was accomplished by the<br />
McCawIey in record-breaking time, the task force got underway and pro-<br />
ceeded for Guadalcanal.<br />
While entering Blanche Channel Task Force 31.1 was attacked by about<br />
WentY-three Mitsubishi ’01’ torpedo bombers. <strong>The</strong> Task Force had just<br />
executed a ninety degree turn to the right and opened fire when a torpedo<br />
was seen approaching McCawley’s port side on a collision course. <strong>The</strong> rudder<br />
was put hard right. . . . This torpedo hit [at 1553] port side amidships in<br />
the engine room spaces, track angle about one hundred ninety degrees [one<br />
hundred and eighty would be from dead stern]. McCawley took a violent<br />
port list, but righting immediately still swinging right with rudder jammed<br />
hard over, all engines stopped, ship having lost all power. Two torpedoes<br />
then passed down the starboard side very close aboard, track angle one<br />
hundred eighty degrees.<br />
<strong>The</strong> attack ended with all enemy planes shot down by AA fire of Task<br />
Force 31.1, Mccdwley claiming four planes. Rear Admiral Turner ordered<br />
the VSS Libra (AK-53) to take McCawley in tow and Ralph Talbot (DD-<br />
390) and McCallu (DD-488 ) to stand by to assist. Admiral Turner and<br />
staff then at (1625) shifted to the <strong>US</strong>S Furetzholt (DD-491 ) and proceeded<br />
with remainder of Task Force, leaving Rear Admiral Wilkinson in McCawley<br />
as OTC [Officer in Tactical Command] of salvage group.<br />
At 164o, upon orders of Admiral Turner, Ralph Tulbot came alongside<br />
and removed all personnel from McCawley except for a salvage crew. . . .<br />
[at 1717] McCawley was heavily strafed by attacking planes.<br />
At 1722 Libra swung clear and proceeded at five knots with McCawiey<br />
in tow. <strong>The</strong> draft of the McCaw[ey was then 2I ‘O@ forward, 35’oo” aft. . . .<br />
At 1850, the draft aft was reported as thirty eight feet. Admiral Wilkinson<br />
then ordered McCaUa alongside and gave the order for “all hands” to<br />
abandon ship. At 1920, McCa~/d came alongside and the entire salvage crew<br />
had left the ship by 1930 when McCalla pulled clear. At 2023 McCawley
560 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
was struck by three torpedoes fired by enemy submarine and sank stern lirst<br />
in thirty seconds in 340 fathoms of water. . . .28<br />
This report is dated 4 July 1943. Commander Rodgers reported:<br />
If requisitioned damage control materiel had been delivered, damage control<br />
might have been accomplished. However, due to low priority, delay up to 18<br />
months has been experienced.<br />
In the last sentence of this report, “Speed” Rodgers added a spirited plea<br />
that there be:<br />
Full realization that attack transports are combat ships and they should be<br />
so classified.<br />
A senior Army observer of the torpedoing of the McCawley, Lieutenant<br />
General M. F. Harmon, oilicially reported his observances to COMSOPAC<br />
as follows:<br />
1 was standing on the port wing of the bridge and at about this time<br />
( 1555-1600) observed torpedo release against the AP just astern of McCuwley<br />
in our column. It looked like a perfect attack and I was anxiously awaiting<br />
the subsequent detonation when someone said ‘Here it comes.’ I glanced out to<br />
port, saw the approaching track and soon realized that it was going to be a<br />
hit—I thought just aft of the bridge. Glancing back at the next ship in line,<br />
I saw she had apparently not been hit, ducked away from the rail, crouched<br />
down with a yeoman-like grip on a stanchion and awaited the explosion. It<br />
came after a longer interval than I had anticipated; the ship gave quite a<br />
lurch, something big went over the port side from high above (maybe the<br />
top of the funnel) together with some odd bits and pieces and we listed<br />
quickly and sharply to port, Instinctively I moved starboard direction and<br />
heard the command ‘Trim Ship.’ On reaching the starboard rail a torpedo<br />
track was running about forty feet out at a slight converging angle to our<br />
bow and across our bow. It cleared us handily and missed the ship ahead<br />
though it looked bad for a moment or two.2g<br />
On the day before the McCawley report was written, Rear Admiral<br />
Wilkinson submitted his oficial report to COMPHIBFOR, Third Fleet:<br />
At 1900 I concluded that the chances of McCawley surviving the night<br />
were slim, that I would remove the remaining personnel, but that I would<br />
tow until she actually sank. . . . Unfortunately the Pmvzee lost the tow at<br />
2000. . . . At 2023 the McCawley was struck by two torpedoes. . . . She was<br />
seen to sink by the stern shortly thereafter.<br />
<strong>The</strong> source of the torpedoes was not seen, but within a few seconds after<br />
McCawley was struck, two torpedo wakes were seen approaching McCaila.<br />
* McCuwley Action Report, Ser 002a of 4 Jul. 1943.<br />
a COMGENSOPAC to COMSOPAC, memorandum, 11 Jul. 1943.
Tough Toenaih Paring 561<br />
By turning to parallel, both torpedoes were avoided, one passing ahead, one<br />
astern.<br />
Since we had DF [Direction Finder] reports of a Japanese submarine generally<br />
off the sourthern entrance to BLANCHE CHANNEL, I concluded that<br />
the torpedoing was done by a submarine, and after the f%fccdh had dodged<br />
the torpedoes, I directed the Commanding Officer to turn to their apparent<br />
reverse course and attack the submarine, . . , A number of boats, apparently<br />
PT boats were then sighted well ahead and, to avoid fouling them, although<br />
not suspecting any of them had fired the torpedoes, I abandoned further<br />
search for the submarine, and directed McCaIla to overtake the Pawnee and<br />
Libra. . . . I have, of course, since learned that PT boats made the attack.so<br />
In these days when every naval craft larger than a rowboat seems to have<br />
one or more radars, it is perhaps well to record that eighteen months after<br />
the United States entered World War II that the McCawley was the only<br />
transport equipped with radar and when she was sunk, the large transports<br />
necessarily depended upon the destroyers for their radar information.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Commander Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Nine, Lieutenant Commander<br />
Robert B. Kelly (1935), in PT-153 during the night of 30 June 1943,<br />
reported on 1 July 1943 to the Commander Naval Base, Rendova Island:<br />
At 2014 PT 153’s radar detected a very large target distance 800 yards<br />
surrounded by eight smaller targets, apparently landing craft. <strong>The</strong> first section<br />
closed range to about 600 yards. Targets appeared to be a large destroyer, a<br />
7OOO–10,OOOton transport and a small destroyer or transport. [<strong>The</strong>y] were<br />
seen to have converged. <strong>The</strong> large transport was lying to, and the other ships<br />
were slowly circling behind it. At 2016, PT 153 fired four torpedoes at the<br />
transport and radioed for all boats in the first and second sections to press<br />
home the attack. PT 153 continued on same course and at same speed to allow<br />
other boats to fire undetected. When PT 153 was 300–400 yards from the<br />
transport, four torpedoes were seen to strike it in succession; one forward,<br />
two amidships and one aft. PT 153 then reversed course to the left and<br />
retired at slow speed. <strong>The</strong> first two torpedoes hit 4-5 seconds apart; the last<br />
two simultaneously. . . .<br />
PT 118 on the starboard quarter of PT 153 fired two torpedoes at a small<br />
transport or destroyer and observed two direct hits. As the PT 118 retired<br />
following PT 153, her target appeared to be sinking by the stern.<br />
PT 158... fired two torpedoes . . . . no hits observed . . . changed<br />
her course . . . and fired her last two torpedoes . . . . these torpedoes were<br />
seen to straddle the target. PT 160 . . . fired one torpedo . . . but it missed.<br />
PT159 . . . fired two torpedoes . . . both of which missed.”<br />
mRear Admiral T, S. Wilkinson, <strong>US</strong>N, to CTF 31, Report on loss of McCuu,/ey, 3 Jul. 1943.<br />
a COMMTBRON Nine to Commander Naval Base, Rendova, Action Report, Ser 00I of 1 Jul.<br />
1943.
562 Anzpbibims Came To Conquer<br />
Fortunately for the United States Navy, the motor<br />
Topedo Boat Squadron Nine were poor shots, and they<br />
carnage amongst the amphibious ships and escorts of the<br />
they so earnestly, unwisely, and unskillfully attempted.<br />
torpedo boats of<br />
did not cause the<br />
Third Fleet which<br />
<strong>The</strong> McCalla (DD-488), and the target for one of the salvos of torpedoes<br />
(the torpedoes passed ahead and astern) reported that the PT boats did not<br />
respond to blinker tube challenge, which was made at 2043 just before one<br />
of them fired torpedoes.32<br />
When Rear Admiral Turner’s Flag Captain was asked what Kelly Turner’s<br />
immediate reaction was when his flagship was torpedoed, he wrote:<br />
To get the Brass {his staff] and himself to a ship where he could continue<br />
to command the Assault Force. I put his LCVP barge in tie water, and ten<br />
mirnttes after the torpedo hit, they were being transferred.<br />
I saw him the next morning at his headquarters in Guadaicanal. He gave<br />
me a bottle of ‘Old Granddad,’ said he would get me another command, and<br />
praised my work in not losing any more than the 14 original casualties. He<br />
never told me that Bull Kelly’s PT boats gave the coupe de grace to the<br />
McCawley. I didn’t know about this until 3~2 months later. <strong>The</strong> McCawley<br />
was down to 12 inches of freeboard, all holds astern flooding and was sinking<br />
slowly at the time the PT torpedoes were fired.ss<br />
WESTERN FORCE (GROUP) TG 31.1 SIJMMARY<br />
Despite the loss of the amphibious flagship, and despite the logistical<br />
difficulties, the major mission of the Western Force had been accomplished.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Landing Force Commander, his initial echelon of troops and their<br />
impedimenta had been established ashore on D-Day. <strong>The</strong>y were pretty wet<br />
and a bit unhappy about the rain and the mud, but they were where they<br />
had asked to be put.<br />
EASTERN FORCE (GROUP) TG 31.3<br />
<strong>The</strong> basic CTF 31 Op Order A9-31 contemplated the Eastern Group<br />
putting ashore about 7,7oo troops from the first four echelons of amphibious<br />
movements at three widely separated landing beaches: Viru Harbor, Segi<br />
Point and Wickham Anchorage.<br />
mMrcd)[a Action Report, Ser 33 of 2 Jul. 1943.<br />
a Rear Admiral Robert H. Rodgers, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret. ) to GCD, letter, 29 Nov. 1965. Hereafter<br />
Rodgers.
Tough Toenails Paring 563<br />
Rear Admiral Fort retained direct command of the Wickham Occupation<br />
Group, and flew his flag in the destroyer-type minesweeper Trever. He<br />
withdrew his two senior subordinates from their normal assignments and<br />
placed one of them in command of the task units carrying troops to Viru<br />
Harbor and the other in command of the follow-up landing at Segi Point.<br />
His Chief of Staff, Captain Benton W. Decker (1920), commanded the<br />
Segi Occupation Group and Commander Stanley L. Leith (1923), Comman-<br />
der Minesweeper Group, drew the more interesting Viru Harbor assignment.<br />
No one of these three task units polished off its operational tasks exactly<br />
“according to plan.” <strong>The</strong>ir trials, tribulations and eventual success will be<br />
related in some detail in the following pages.<br />
<strong>The</strong> over-all task organization established was as follows:<br />
I<br />
VIRU HARBOR<br />
OCCUPATION GROUP<br />
TU 31.3.1<br />
Lelth<br />
I<br />
I<br />
I<br />
SEGI POINT<br />
OCCUPATION GROUP<br />
TU 31.3.2<br />
Decker<br />
<strong>The</strong> detailed composition of the task units was as follows:<br />
I<br />
I<br />
WICKHAM ANCHORAGE<br />
OCCUPATION GROUP<br />
TU 31.3.3<br />
EASTERN TASK GROUP ORGANIZATION TG 31.3<br />
VIRU HARBOR, SEGI, WICKHAM ANCHORAGE<br />
(a) VIRU<br />
Leith<br />
HARBOR OCCUPATION GROUP TU 31.3.1 Commander<br />
(1) Achmce Unit, Lieutenant Colonel Michael S. Currin, <strong>US</strong>MC<br />
4th <strong>Marine</strong> Raider BattaIion (Designated companies)<br />
(2) l~t EchelonTU31.3. 11 Commander Leith<br />
llopkim<br />
<strong>US</strong>N<br />
(DMS-13) (F) Lieutenant Commander F. M. Peters<br />
Kilty (APD- 15 ) Lieutenant Commander D. L. Mattie, <strong>US</strong>N<br />
Cro~by (APD-17) Lieutenant Commander A. G. Grant, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
(3) 2zzd Echelon—TU 32.3.12 Lieutenant B. F. Seligrnan, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
APC-24 Lieutenant B. F. Seligrnan, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-134 Ensign J. W. Hunt, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
Fort
564 Amphibians Carrie To Conqner<br />
LCT-330 Ensign L. B. Douglas, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-369 Ensign W. F. Gillette, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
(4) 3Ya’EcLelon TU 31.3.13 Lieutenant D. Mann, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
APC-23 Lieutenant Dennis Mann, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
APC-25 Lieutenant J. D. Cartano, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-139 Ensign Ralph Taylor, <strong>US</strong>FJR<br />
LCT-180 Ensign S. W. Orton, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LC’I’-326 Ensign H. A. Shuler, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-327 Ensign J. L. Caraway, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-351 Ensign R, R. Muelhback, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
(5) 4th Ecbelon TU 31.3.14<br />
1 APC and 2 LCTS combined and sailed with the 3rd ECHELON,<br />
and are listed in (4) above.<br />
(6) Lmding Force<br />
103rd Infantry Regiment (designated company)<br />
20th Construction Battalion (designated company)<br />
70th Coast Artillery (designated battery)<br />
Naval Base Units<br />
(b) SEGI POINT OCCUPATION GROUP TU 31.3.2 Captain B. W.<br />
Decker<br />
(1) l~t Echelon Tl_J 31.3.21 Captain Decker<br />
First Section<br />
APC-23 (F) Lieutenant D. Mann, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-21 Ensign M. M. Cook, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-22 Lieutenant ( jg) S. V. Hinckley, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-67 Lieutenant (jg) E. E. Tucker, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-68 Lieutenant C. D. Older, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-69 Lieutenant F. L. O’Leary, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
Second Section<br />
LST-339 Lieutenant J. H. Fulweiller, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LST-341 Lieutenant F. S. Barnett, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
(2) 2nd Echelon TU 31.3.22 Lieutenant W. C. Margetts, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
APC-27 Lieutenant P. C. Smith, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-58 Lieutenant ( jg) Pickett Lumpkin, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-62 Ensign R. T. Capeless, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-129 Ensign E. W. Graunke, <strong>US</strong>IIJR<br />
LCT-323 Ensign C. T. Geisler, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
<strong>The</strong> LCT-129 lost her ramp, but did not founder.<br />
(3) 3rd EcLelon TLJ 31.3.23 Lieutenant E. M. Jaeger, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
ApC-28 Lieutenant (jg) A. D. Shean, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-66 Ensign C. A. Goddard, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-67 Ensign W. H. Fitzgerald, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT- 128 Ensign Joseph Joyce, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-324 Ensign D. C. Hawley, <strong>US</strong>N’R
Tough Toenads Paring 565<br />
(4) 4tA Echelon TU 31.3.24 Lieutenant (jg) E. H. George, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
APC-29 Lieutenant (jg) E. H. George, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-146 Ensign W. W. Asper, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-156 Ensign Harold Mantell, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT- 159 Ensign J. A. McNeil, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-322 Ensign Frederick Altman, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
(5) Landing Force<br />
103rd Regimental Combat Team (designated units)<br />
ACORN Seven<br />
70th Coast Artillery (designated units)<br />
Naval Base Units<br />
(C) WTtKHAM ANCHORAGE OCCUPATION GROUP TU 31.3.31<br />
Rear Admiral Fort<br />
(1) l.rt Eche/orz TU 31.3.31 Rear Admiral Fort<br />
First Section<br />
Trever (DMS-16) (F) Lieutenant Commander W. H. Shea, <strong>US</strong>N<br />
McKeun (APD-5) Lieutenant Commander R. L. Ramey, <strong>US</strong>N<br />
ScMey (APD-14) Lieutenant commander Horace Myers, <strong>US</strong>N<br />
LCI-24 Lieutenant (jg) R. E, Ward, <strong>US</strong>N<br />
LCI-223 Lieutenant F. P. Stone, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-332 Lieutenant W. A. Neilson, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-333 Lieutenant Horace Townsend, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-334 Lieutenant (jg) A. J. Ormston, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-335 Lieutenant ( jg) J. R. Powers, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCI-336 Lieutenant (jg) T. A. McCoy, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
Second Section<br />
APC-35 Lieutenant R. F. Ruben, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-63 Ensign J. R. Madura, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT- 133 Ensign Bertram Meyer, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-482 Boatswain H. F. Dreher, <strong>US</strong>N<br />
(2) 2nd Echelon TU 31.3.32 Lieutenant (jg) K. L. Otto, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
APC-36 Lieutenant (jg) K. L. Otto, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-60 Boatswain J. S. Wolfe, <strong>US</strong>N<br />
LCT-I 27 Ensign R. A. Torkildson, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-144 Ensign E. B. Lerz, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-367 Ensign Robert Carr, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-367 developed engineering difficulties and turned back to Wernharn<br />
Cove, Russell Islands, and became part of TU 31.3.33.<br />
(3) 3rd Ecbelo~zTU31.3.33 Lieutenant A. W. Bergstrom, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
APC-37 Lieutenant J. E. Locke, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT- 132 Ensign M. Paskin, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-145 Ensign W. E. Goyette, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-325 Ensign J. H, Grim, <strong>US</strong>NR
566 Amphibians Came To Conqzier<br />
LCT-367 Ensign Robert Carr, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-461 Ensign G. W. Wagenhorst, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
(4) 4th Echelon TU 31.3.34 Lieutenant Parker<br />
APC-26 Ensign J. B. Dunigan, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-158 Ensign E. J. Ruschmann, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-352 Lieutenant ( jg) Winston Broadfoot, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
LCT-377 Ensign T. J. McGann, <strong>US</strong>NR<br />
(5) Landing Force<br />
103rd Regimental Combat Team (designated unit)<br />
4th <strong>Marine</strong> Raider Battalion (designated unit)<br />
20th Construction Battalion (designated unit)<br />
70th Coast Artillery Battalion (designated anti-aircraft units)<br />
152nd Field Artillery Battalion (designated unit)<br />
(d) R<strong>US</strong>SEL.L MTB SQUADRON–Lieutenant A. P. Cluster (1940)<br />
12 MTBs<br />
TOENAILS was the first major operation in the SoUth Pacific in which the<br />
small coastal transport, the APC, participated. <strong>The</strong>se small and slow woodenhulled<br />
craft were 103 feet long, displaced 258 tons, and made 10 knots with<br />
a fair breeze at their sterns.<br />
VIRU HARBOR TU 31.3.1<br />
<strong>The</strong> commander of the small task unit assigned to the seizure and occupation<br />
of landlocked Viru Harbor on the southern side of New Georgia Island<br />
had the difficult chore of joining an overland movement with a sea movement<br />
at the scene of battle at a given hour of a given day.<br />
<strong>The</strong> original assault plan was modified after the <strong>Marine</strong>s from the 4th<br />
<strong>Marine</strong> Raider Battalion moved into Segi, ten air miles to the east of Viru<br />
Harbor, on 21 June 1943. This was done in an effort to take advantage of<br />
the <strong>Marine</strong>s’ position ashore and on the flank of Viru Harbor.<br />
<strong>The</strong> revised plan called for a company of <strong>Marine</strong>s in an Advance Unit<br />
to proceed from Segi by boat a mile and a half toward Viru Harbor, landing<br />
at Nono during darkness on 28 June. From this position, the <strong>Marine</strong>s were<br />
to advance overland to a position from where, at about 0700 on D-Day,<br />
they could launch a grand assault on the Japanese troops guarding the<br />
entrance to Viru Harbor at the same time the Army troops in the Landing<br />
Force from the ships launched their water-borne assault.g’<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Marine</strong> Raiders were to alert the ships when they were in position<br />
to launch their attack by firing a white parachute flare. When this was<br />
a TG 31.3 Op Order ALIo-43, 21 Jur.. 1943, para 3.
Tough Toenails Paring 567<br />
seen, Commander Viru Harbor Occupation Group was to start the troops<br />
from the 103rd Infantry toward their landing beach.<br />
<strong>The</strong> TF 31 reconnaissance patrols had reported, in early June, that there<br />
were 30 to 100 Japanese soldiers at Viru. An even smaller estimate of only<br />
25 to 30 Japanese defenders at Viru Harbor was distributed by the prospec-<br />
tive Commander New Georgia Occupation Force, Major General Hester,<br />
as late as 24 June.35 But, in fact, during the last week of June, the Japanese<br />
were beefing up their troops in the southeastern end of New Georgia Island<br />
trying to run down a pesky Australian coastwatcher, Mr. Donald G. Kennedy,<br />
in the Segi Point Area. So perhaps the Japanese had as many as 300<br />
defenders in this area on 30 June 1943. A reported 170 survived the <strong>Marine</strong><br />
attack to participate in the defense of Munda.3s<br />
Information in detail about Viru Harbor was scarce, and available charts<br />
of the area were a bit sketchy and inaccurate in some details. This inaccuracy<br />
is illustrated by the difference between the upper and lower charts on the<br />
next page, <strong>The</strong> top one is taken from pre-invasion charts and the lower one<br />
from post-invasion maps.<br />
However, there were some fine aerial photographs taken during the pre-<br />
paratory periods. <strong>The</strong>se indicated that the small pier in Viru Harbor near<br />
which it was hoped to land the Army troops, could not be seen during a<br />
seaward approach until ships were right at the harbor entrance, This was<br />
true (1) because thousands of trees lined the high cliffs on either side of<br />
the harbor entrance, and (2) the 30()-yard wide coral-studded channel<br />
veered steadily to the right for the better part of a mile before opening into<br />
the long narrow harbor.<br />
On the western side of the harbor entrance, near Tetemara, the Japanese<br />
had mounted a 3-inch naval gun to protect the harbor approaches, together<br />
with four 80-millimeter anti-aircraft guns to protect the naval gun against<br />
air attack.<br />
A late change of orders from CTG 31.3 directed the <strong>Marine</strong> Advance<br />
Unit to move from Segi westward during the night of 27 June, instead of<br />
28 June, and to land at Regi, two miles nearer to Viru than Nono. This<br />
not only provided 24 additional hours for the <strong>Marine</strong>s to get into position<br />
but shortened the overland march to less than seven miles by the map.<br />
Commander Leith with the Hopkim, Crosby and Kilty arrived at a point<br />
= COMGEN, New Georgia Occupation Force Field Order 3–43, 28 Jun. 1943, Annex 2.<br />
m (a) Shaw and Douglas, I.rdztion of Rzb#ul (<strong>Marine</strong>), p. 72; (b) Miller, Red.zctiotr o~ Rubutil<br />
(Army), note 9, p, 137.
568 Amphibians Came To Conquer
Tough Toenaiis Paring 569<br />
two miles due south of the entrance to Viru Harbor at about 0610 on 30<br />
June, and inched forward as the dawn brightened between showers.” <strong>The</strong><br />
ships were unable to raise the <strong>Marine</strong> Advance Unit by radio. Nor did they<br />
raise the Japanese until about 15 minutes after sunrise when, at 0703, the<br />
Japanese opened fire with their single 3-inch gun. <strong>The</strong> Kilty and Crosby<br />
returned the fire with their 3-inch guns and skedaddled out of range. <strong>The</strong><br />
Cro~by reported that:<br />
After the 10th round, several stations reported seeing an explosion in the<br />
vicinity of the Japanese gun emplacement.3s<br />
In any case, the enemy ceased fire, and the ships did likewise as they moved<br />
out of range. <strong>The</strong> Japanese major commanding at Viru reported to his<br />
seniors at Munda that a landing attack had been repulsed, and in fact it<br />
had been.<br />
In mid-morning, CTU 31.3.1 reported to TG 31.3 the lack of contact with<br />
the Advance Unit. He recommended against an assault landing from the<br />
sea because<br />
the entrance to Vim Harbor is through a narrow passage with sheer cliffs<br />
about 100 feet high.ss<br />
By early afternoon, approval had been received for landing designated<br />
units of the Army troops with their light equipment from the Kilty and<br />
Cro~by back at the Choi River to the eastward. At 1630 the Army troops<br />
were put ashore not at the Choi River as ordered, but for some unknown<br />
reason four miles farther from Viru to the eastward, at Segi Point, and<br />
those two ships then returned to base, joining the Hopkins enroute.’”<br />
<strong>The</strong> Advance Unit of <strong>Marine</strong>s had been delayed at the Choi River by<br />
the Japanese, and had been delayed by the very thick jungle covering the<br />
difficult terrain all the way between Regi and the two towns (Tombe and<br />
Tetemara) guarding the sea approaches to Viru. Part of the Advance Unit<br />
was headed for Tombe and part was headed for Tetemara. That part of the<br />
Advance Unit headed for Tetemara, the village on the west bank of Viru<br />
Harbor entrance, had three more rivers to cross after the Choi River before<br />
reaching the objective. <strong>The</strong>se were the Viru, Tits and Mango rivers. In<br />
= (a) Interview with Rear Admiral Stanley Leith, <strong>US</strong>N (Ret.), Jan. 1961. Hereafter Leith; (b)<br />
Deck Logs.<br />
= Crosby Deck Log, 30 Jun. 1943.<br />
W(a) Guadalcanal to COMINERON Two. 290805 Jun. 1943; (b) COMINERON Two,<br />
letter, Ser 00121 of 10 Jul. 1943, subj: Viru Occupation; (c) CTF31 to COMSOPACFOR, 010035<br />
Jul. 1943.<br />
a Crosby Deck Log, 30 Jun. 1943.
addition there were mangrove swamps to overcome just outside of Regi<br />
and again on the far side of the Mango River. By great perseverance the<br />
<strong>Marine</strong>s made it only a day late and captured the 3-inch naval gun guarding<br />
Viru Harbor, in mid-afternoon of I July.<br />
Despite a CTF 31 operational priority despatch to hold the 2nd Echelon<br />
of the Viru Occupation Force at the Russells until informed that Viru<br />
Harbor had been captured, the heavy radio traflic of 30 June prevented the<br />
message getting through in time. This mighty force of one APC and four<br />
LCTS chugged along unaware that the port was still in enemy hands.<br />
<strong>The</strong> LCTS in the 2nd Echelon for Viru Harbor arrived off the harbor<br />
entrance on schedule on 1 July, witnessed one mid-morning six plane air<br />
attack on Japanese-held Tetemara, then proceeded to land their supplies as<br />
soon as the <strong>Marine</strong> attack ended, with the surviving Japanese escaping toward<br />
Munda.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Hopkim and C~o~by arrived back at Viru Harbor at an early 0230<br />
on 2 July but it was 0705 before they landed their Army troops, naval base<br />
units, Seabees, and logistic support for the Occupation Group, two days later<br />
than originally scheduled. <strong>The</strong> usual problems of the amphibians were<br />
present:<br />
Boats deIayed in unloading because of small crowded beach. . . .<br />
*****<br />
Boats reported being fired on by Japanese snipers.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> llopkin~ after completing its chores, picked up the <strong>Marine</strong> wounded<br />
and sped them back to the Russells.<br />
Viru Harbor was indicative of what happened to operational time tables<br />
when land movements through the densely wooded areas of New Georgia<br />
were involved.<br />
None of the ships made action reports. None of them kept war diaries.<br />
<strong>The</strong> logs of the Officers of the Deck and the report of Commander Leith<br />
were the only naval documents located. None of these documents explain<br />
why the Japanese gun positions were not worked over by the three destroyer-<br />
type ships on D-Day, using surface spot. None of them explain how one<br />
lone Japanese 3-inch gun chased away three destroyer-type ships that mounted<br />
a total of twelve 3-inch, albeit the ships were loaded with troops. And<br />
while the despatch instructions were for the troops to be landed at the<br />
Choi River, which would have given the troops a far shorter march, the<br />
‘1(a) Crosby Deck Log, 2 Jul. 1943; (b) COMINERON to CTF 31, 012358 Jul. 1943.
Tough Toenaiis Paring 571<br />
ship’s logs indicated the Army troops were disembarked at Segi Point on<br />
D-Day.<br />
DIVIDENDS<br />
<strong>The</strong> original plan for the establishment of a PT boat base at Viru<br />
Harbor was abandoned because the harbor was found unsuitable. <strong>The</strong> best<br />
dividend out of the occupation of Viru Harbor came from a small marine<br />
railway at Viru, built by the Seabees. It was useful in repairing the PT<br />
boats which all too frequently grounded in the months ahead while boiling<br />
along at high speed in poorly charted waters.<br />
SEGI<br />
Segi had been much in the planners’ eyes. In the first place the planners<br />
knew something about the area because Segi home-ported a plantation and a<br />
coastwatcher. Reconnaissance patrols were frequently landed there. Very<br />
early planning at the SOPAC level had visualized landing the main body<br />
of troops for the flank assault on Munda at Segi and moving them through<br />
the dense woods to make the attack.<br />
Second thoughts proved better. <strong>Marine</strong> troubles in getting two companies<br />
from Segi to Viru Harbor on 27, 28, 29, 30 June were harbingers of future<br />
difficulties when <strong>Marine</strong>s and Army troops would attempt to move through<br />
the dense woods against Japanese-held positions around Munda air base.<br />
Since Segi Point and its immediate surroundings had been taken by the<br />
<strong>Marine</strong>s on 21 June, there was no problem for Commander Segi Occupation<br />
Group beyond piloting his 1st Echelon ships and craft, through largely<br />
unmarked channels to a specific beach area on a dark, rainy and windy<br />
night, and moving the troops into the boats and ashore in the choppy seas.<br />
<strong>The</strong> problems of all the landing ships and craft are illustrated by the<br />
recorded experience of AK-27, which led the 2nd Echelon into Segi Point.<br />
1 July 0030. In order to notify LCTS astern of change in convoy speed to<br />
five knots, swung out of lead position and notified first LCTS in column<br />
astern. Proceeded approximately one mile astern of these first three LCTS to<br />
notify the fourth which was straggling.<br />
0946. Ran aground on reef in Panga Bay, said reef not charted on secret<br />
chart prepared from various sources for use in invasion operation. Unable to<br />
work free under own power.
572 Amphibians Came To Conqaer<br />
1123. Came off reef with no apparent damage to ship.<br />
2 July 0600. Making extremely slow headway due to slow speed main-<br />
tained by reason of strong head winds and seas, coupled with fact that one<br />
LCT lost her ramp and was difficult to control.4’<br />
AI?C-27 was not the only landing ship which unintentionally ran aground<br />
during TOENAILS. <strong>The</strong> LCT-322 in the 4th Echelon for Segi grounded on<br />
3 July and was pulled off by the tug Rail on 4 July.<br />
DIVIDENDS<br />
Segi paid far more real and speedy dividends than either of the other<br />
diversionary assaults made by the Eastern Force on 30 June.<br />
Beginning 10 July, it was possible to provide fighter support for all bomb-<br />
ing missions against Munda from the Seabee-built 3,300-foot long Segi<br />
airstrip. By 15 July, when Rear Admiral Turner reluctantly took his depar-<br />
ture from TOENAILS, our aircraft from Segi were providing daylight<br />
protection to amphibious craft during the last lap of their passage from the<br />
Russells or Guadalcanal and at the beachheads.<br />
WICKHAM ANCHORAGE<br />
Early in the planning stages of TOENAILS, it was hoped that an<br />
airstrip might be built on Vangunu Island to provide fighter and close air<br />
support for later phases of operations in the Middle Solomons. When actual<br />
reconnaissance indicated there were no really good airstrip sites available,<br />
Vangunu Island stayed in the plans because Wickham Anchorage off<br />
O1eana Bay on the southeast coast, two-thirds of the way from the Russells<br />
to Rendova, looked like a good place for the landing craft to bide-a-wee<br />
should they encounter very heavy weather or have engine failure beyond<br />
the capacity of their limited engineers’ force to repair. At Wickham<br />
Anchorage landing craft could remain during the daytime and be given<br />
anti-aircraft protection.<br />
<strong>The</strong> fact that the Japanese had a company and a half of troops in the<br />
vicinity of Vuru, a mile south of Wickham Anchorage, led to beefing up<br />
the Landing Force but did not change the basic intention.<br />
Rear Admiral Fort, Second-in-Command of Task Force 31, commanded<br />
u APC-27 War Diary, 1–2 Jul. 1943
““’”Au o<br />
Toizgb Toenails Paring 573<br />
Q<br />
Vangunu Is~and and Wickhum Anchorage.<br />
L..<br />
*4<br />
(WICKHAM<br />
ANCHORAGE<br />
the Wickham Anchorage Occupation Group, by far the largest of the three<br />
task organizations of the Eastern Task Force. His flagship was the destroyer-<br />
type minesweeper Treuer (DMS-16), chosen because presumably she had<br />
a good surface radar, a scarce commodity in June 1943. <strong>The</strong>re were two<br />
companies of <strong>Marine</strong>s, a battalion of Army troops, a battery of 90-millimeter<br />
anti-aircraft guns, part of a battery of 40-millimeter and 50-caliber anti-<br />
aircraft guns, as well as the Seabees and naval base units to be landed. Two<br />
destroyer-type transports were available to land the <strong>Marine</strong>s.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Scheme of Maneuver called for the destroyer transports to put the<br />
<strong>Marine</strong>s ashore during darkness at Oleana Bay three miles to the south<br />
south-westward of Wickham Anchorage, and for the <strong>Marine</strong>s to march<br />
overland to make a daylight attack on the Japanese troops, reportedly num-<br />
bering about 100 at Vuru. <strong>The</strong> Army troops, landing from seven LCIS, would<br />
follow close behind.<br />
Vuru unfortunately lay between Oleana Bay where there was a good<br />
500-yard-wide sandy beach which was not patrolled by the Japanese and<br />
Wickham Anchorage where the staging area base was to be established.<br />
MlLE<br />
I<br />
1
574 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
Wickham Anchorage had only a narrow beach which was patrolled by the<br />
Japanese.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re were several trails between Oleana Bay and Vuru. It was anticipated<br />
that the <strong>Marine</strong>s could be in position to make a surprise daylight attack on<br />
the Japanese. A complete surprise probably could not be hoped for if the<br />
landing took place at Wickham Anchorage since the noise of lowering boats<br />
and loading troops into them could be expected to alert the Japanese<br />
patrols.”<br />
While a night landing was planned for, the plans did not contemplate the<br />
miserable weather encountered.<br />
Commander Eastern Force submitted no action report on this operation,<br />
nor did the Trever, McKean nor ScbIey. None of the ships kept a war diary<br />
and the AlcKetzn never even bothered to write up the Ship’s Log for the<br />
morning watch on the eventful morning of June 30th, when the landings<br />
took place. <strong>The</strong> Scbley did the best writing job of all and her Ship’s Log<br />
records the following items which tell the highlights of the sad story of<br />
what happened after the Trever, Scbley and McKean hove-to at about 0230,<br />
hopefully off of Oleana Bay.<br />
0256. Heavy seas running, making embarkation of <strong>Marine</strong>s extremely<br />
difficult.<br />
0303. Sighted light on beach.<br />
0316. Launched all boats.<br />
*****<br />
0434. Landing made at wrong beach-about 6000 yards northwest of<br />
western end of Oleana Bay.<br />
0435. Commenced steering various courses and speeds proceeding to<br />
Oleana Bay. Boat #3 and LCV following ship; unable to contact other boats.<br />
*****<br />
0701. Boat #2 returned to ship with officers and crews of boats #1 and<br />
#4, and crews from two McKeutz boats. Ensign Rodner reported that boats<br />
#I and #4 hopelessly beached on wrong beach. <strong>Marine</strong>s landed.<br />
*****<br />
0731. Sighted four boats high and dry on beach about 65OO yards west of<br />
Oleana Bay. Recovery of boats not deemed feasible due to rough seas, daylight<br />
and proximity of enemy forces.<br />
0745. Returned to Oleana Bay, Resumed disembarking <strong>Marine</strong>s.<br />
0808. All <strong>Marine</strong>s off ship.<br />
4 (a) Staff Interviews; (b) Fort.
Tough Toenaiis Paring 575<br />
<strong>The</strong> McKean Log indicates that at 0325 she began disembarking troops.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re are no entries for her 0400 to 0800 watch. At 1000 it is logged that<br />
all her <strong>Marine</strong>s were landed. <strong>The</strong> Trever logged all her <strong>Marine</strong>s landed by<br />
0925. Commander Task Group 31.3 and CTU 31.3.31 (Rear Admiral Fort)<br />
logged his arrival at 0230 and added (despite the contrary fact) “did not<br />
land troops.” <strong>The</strong> troop landing was logged at 0630.<br />
Putting together the pieces of evidence, it is apparent that those who read<br />
the radar screen on the Trever that night did not recognize Oleana Bay<br />
so the flagship and the two following APDs hove-to some three miles to<br />
the westward of the bay. Some of the landing boats shoved off in a down-<br />
pour of rain. Darkness and choppy seas complicated the coxswain’s tasks.<br />
<strong>The</strong> boats landed well to the westward of the chosen beach areas. <strong>The</strong><br />
markers on the beach were some three miles to the eastward, so they could<br />
not be seen from shipboard.<br />
<strong>The</strong> seven LCIS were scheduled to land their Army troops thirty minutes<br />
after the <strong>Marine</strong>s went ashore. This brought the LCIS steaming through the<br />
area where the Trever and the two APDs were hove-to since the LCIS were<br />
proceeding far more expertly than the larger ships to the correct debarkation<br />
area. <strong>The</strong>re was much confusion, but by skillful seamanship, no collisions.<br />
Rear Admiral Fort ordered the <strong>Marine</strong>s landing deferred until first light<br />
or until contact with the beach ‘was established, but the decision was not<br />
carried out by the APDs for reasons unrecorded. <strong>The</strong> receipt of the order<br />
does not appear in the log books of his flagship, the Trever or the Sch/ey, and<br />
as mentioned before, the McKean Officer of the Deck did not keep a log at<br />
this particular hour. At 0700 the LCIS landed their soldiers in good order,<br />
although a bit drenched, with all their communication equipment too wet to<br />
operate.44<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Marine</strong>s once ashore learned that the Japanese contingent was not<br />
at Vuru but at Kaeruka, one-half mile closer to Wickham Anchorage and<br />
somewhat more numerous than the initially reported 100 troops. It was<br />
not until 3 July and after a stiff fight by the <strong>Marine</strong>s and Army troops,<br />
assisted by a shelling of Chere Point just to the south of Wickham Anchor-<br />
age by the TreveY, that Commander Wickham Occupation Force could report<br />
to his impatient senior that Wickham Anchorage had been secured.45<br />
u Fort.<br />
4’CTF 31 to COMSCOFOR, 031255 Jul. 1943.
576 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
DIVIDENDS<br />
Even when Wickham Anchorage was secured, the beach was found to<br />
be no bonanza. APC-35 at Wickham reported that beach conditions were<br />
very bad and that there was great difficulty and delay in unloading two<br />
LCTS at one time. As a result, the 4th Echelon for Wickham was held at<br />
the Russells pending improvement of unloading conditions.”<br />
THE DAY AFTER THE NIGHT BEFORE<br />
As detailed before, while the Rendova and Onaiavisi Entrance landings<br />
were smartly accomplished and Segi Point was little more than a training<br />
exercise in difficult piloting, on 30 June the other minor occupations were<br />
having problems.<br />
During the late morning of the 1st of July, Rear Admiral Turner reported<br />
to the Commander Third Fleet that he still had no progress report to make<br />
in regard to the Wickham Anchorage operation and no information from<br />
the <strong>Marine</strong> Advance Unit headed for Viru Harbor. At noon, he reported that<br />
the situation at Viru and Wickham “was obscure.” Viru Harbor was cleared<br />
up when, about sunset on 1 July, a message came in saying that place was<br />
secured, but it was not until the morning of 3 July that the situation at<br />
Wickham Anchorage finally brightened.”<br />
Wickham Anchorage faded rapidly into obscurity. Although a subordinate<br />
naval base unit and a part of a construction battalion were landed there,<br />
neither left a written record, nor did their parent organizations think their<br />
efforts at Wickham worthy of mention. So other than as a harbor of refuge,<br />
Wickham Anchorage served no useful purpose in the New Georgia cam-<br />
paign.”<br />
JAPANESE REACTIONS TO RENDOVA<br />
<strong>The</strong> Japanese did not attempt a Savo Island-type raid on our amphibians<br />
for nearly three days after our troops went ashore at Rendova. <strong>The</strong>n, at<br />
4aCTG 31.3 to CTF 31,0200>5 JuL 1943,<br />
‘7 (a) CTF 31 to COM 3rd Fleet, 01003> Jul.; (b) COM 4th Raiders to CG 43rd, 010600 Jul.;<br />
(C) CTF 31 to CTU 31.2.2, 01213S Ju[.<br />
4’ U.S. Bureau of Yards and Docks, Building the Nuvy’. Btire$ in Worki l~zur 11, Vol. H<br />
(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1947).
Tough Toenails Paring 577<br />
0145 on 3 July, the Japanese light cruiser Ytibari and nine destroyers swept<br />
down to the western approaches of Blanche Channel and carried out a bombardment<br />
of Rendova Harbor and the beach areas. <strong>The</strong>re was negative<br />
damage to the logistic support ships still resting there. A radar-equipped<br />
night flying patrot aircraft called a “<strong>Black</strong> Cat” made contact with the<br />
Japanese task force and dropped a bomb on it without results, except probably<br />
to add to their worry factor.<br />
Our early morning search and bombing mission by 12 B-25s with P-38s<br />
for air cover failed to locate the retiring Japanese squadron. About all the<br />
Japanese accomplished by the attack was to hammer home to us the lesson<br />
that defensive air search aircraft must be located at and controlled from the<br />
assault landing area, if fast moving light forces were to be located and<br />
turned back before reaching the assault landing areas.’g<br />
To bolster the Munda defenders the Japanese immediately moved about<br />
3,000 troops from Kolombangara to Munda. Additional troops from the<br />
Northern Solomons were moved to Kolombangara and thence to Munda by<br />
almost nightly small barge movements. On 9, 11, and 12 July, another large<br />
group of 5,7oo Japanese troops from the 13th Regiment were moved from<br />
Kolombangara to Bairoko and were added to those defending the Munda<br />
area.<br />
All this troop reinforcement was accomplished despite Allied knowledge<br />
of many of the impending Japanese movements and offensive forays by our<br />
cruiser-destroyer forces into Kula Gulf on 5-6 July and 12–13 July.<br />
TO ZANANA BEACH AND TROUBLE<br />
Patrols moved from the islands astride Onaiavisi Entrance to Zanana<br />
Beach on 30 June and 1 July. During the night of 2 July the first large<br />
contingent, a battalion of the 43rd Division, was embarked by the amphibians<br />
at Rendova and landed at Zanana Beach. Landing craft which towed<br />
troop-loaded rubber boats behind did the chore. At Onaiavisi Entrance native<br />
guides in canoes took position at the head of columns of landing craft and<br />
piloted the lead craft around the numerous shoals and small islands to the<br />
beach. <strong>The</strong> problem of getting from Onaiavisi Entrance to Zanana Beach as<br />
it appeared prior to the actual landings is illustrated by the accompanying<br />
chart.<br />
wAIRSOPAC War Diary, 3 Jul. 1943.
578 Amphibians Carrie To Conquer<br />
Onaiavisi Entrance and approach to Zanana Beach, New Georgia Is)and.
TougA Toenails Pafing 579<br />
By 3 July, CTF ? 1 had reported to Vice Admiral Halsey that Major General<br />
Hester was well satisfied with the beach at Zanana and that the Rice<br />
Anchorage landing would be carried out the night of 5 July.’”<br />
By dark of 5 July, two regiments of troops were ashore on the south<br />
coast of New Georgia Island, five miles from the Munda airfield. During<br />
the night the Northern Landing Group went ashore at Rice Anchorage, on<br />
the northwest coast of New Georgia Island 15 miles north of the Munda<br />
airfield.<br />
By 9 July, the shuttling amphibians had disembarked a fair share of<br />
another division of Army troops, the 37th Division, in the Rendova area.<br />
Early on that day our destroyers poured nearly 2,500 J-inch shells on<br />
Japanese-held positions at Munda in a total gun effort of some 5,800 rounds<br />
for that morning. Nearly a hundred planes also dropped bombs on enemy<br />
defenses around Munda airfield. All this was done without opening for the<br />
troops an easy path through the jungle, that was a combination of jungle,<br />
swamps and steep ridges, defended by well chosen strong points manned by<br />
Japanese willing to die.<br />
By 11 July, Major General Hester had decided to use Laiana Beach, where<br />
early plans had called for landing, in lieu of Zanana Beach, three miles to<br />
the westward. By 19 July, Laiana Beach was secured and the amphibians<br />
landed <strong>Marine</strong> tanks and Army troops there.<br />
RICE ANCHORAGE LANDINGS<br />
Mid-June plans had called for a July Fourth amphibious landing at Rice<br />
Anchorage, 15 miles north of Munda Point, and on the New Georgia side<br />
of KuIa Gulf. <strong>The</strong> actual Ianding was delayed untiI July 5th due to a neces-<br />
sary troop unit shift. <strong>The</strong> 4th <strong>Marine</strong> Raider Battalion lost the assignment,<br />
having been delayed by the time required to secure Viru Harbor, and was<br />
replaced by the 3rd Battalion 145th Infantry.<br />
<strong>The</strong> tasks of the Landing Force of the Northern Landing Group were<br />
(1) to close the back door to Munda and prevent its reinforcement from<br />
Kolombangara Island by seizing Enogai Inlet and Bairoko Harbor and (2)<br />
to prevent the escape of the Munda garrison when it was placed under<br />
heavy attack from the flank and front. Rice Anchorage was chosen rather<br />
than Enogai Inlet or Bairoko Harbor because Japanese troops at these two<br />
ports were closer to Munda, and hence easier to support or reinforce.<br />
MCTF 31 to COMSOPAC, 022225 Jul. 1943.
580 Ampbibiuns Came To Conqaer<br />
By and large, the purposes of the landing were not accomplished, since reinforcements<br />
from Kolombangara were continuous until the last days of the<br />
siege of Munda. When that flow ended, the Munda defenders slithered out<br />
to the west to little Baanga Island and then on to big Arundel Island, and<br />
from thence the 1,200 yards to Kolombangara.<br />
<strong>The</strong> mission of the Northern Landing Group was to embark 2,600 <strong>Marine</strong>s<br />
and Army troops at Guadalcanal and to land them at Rice Anchorage. <strong>The</strong><br />
Escort Group Commander was Rear Admiral Ainsworth, CTG 36.1, and<br />
the Landing Force Commander was Colonel Harry B. Liversedge, <strong>US</strong>MC.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Transport Group Commander was Commander Stanley Leith. CTF 31<br />
had Airected that all transports must leave the Transport Area by 0700 on 5<br />
July, .n order to reduce the chance of daylight air raids during the return<br />
to base. <strong>The</strong> converted transports could make only 23 knots since they had<br />
but two boilers.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> twelve ships making up the Transport Unit were of three different<br />
types, seven destroyer transports, two destroyer minesweepers and three<br />
RICE ANCHORAGE<br />
Tho <strong>US</strong>S WOODWORTH IOD4601 ,,::”<br />
subalNuMd for the <strong>US</strong>S ZANE,<br />
.“(<br />
.’”s<br />
.,.5 y).”<br />
L(GHv KULA GULF<br />
“1.,bl. fm,n 328°T-0080T<br />
T. b, dlqi.ay,d 0200 to 0230 .,<br />
Love, O PI”, 4 6. Y,. :.- .<br />
?nosl *’M In 4’*”*%<br />
1 ,.. . !<br />
Rice Anchorage on the northwest coast of New Georgia Island.<br />
m (a) CTG 36.1 Op Order 10-43, 1 JuI. 1943; (b) CTF 31020242, 020422, 020556, JuL<br />
1943; (c) CTG 31.1 Op Order, AI I–43, 10 Jul. 1943.
Tough Toenai[s Paring 581<br />
destroyers. <strong>The</strong> Woodwortb’ (DD-46o) substituted for the damaged Zmze<br />
(DMS-14). None of the destroyer transports or destroyer minesweepers was<br />
fitted with an SG (surface) radar, but the three destroyers in the formation<br />
would make up for the deficiency.<br />
<strong>The</strong> radar of the Ralph Talbot identified Rice Point and Wharton Point<br />
and coached the formation to the Transport Area, where they hove-to about<br />
0125.<br />
About 0130 on 5 July, in a driving rainstorm the amphibians immediately<br />
launched all boats and began embarking the <strong>Marine</strong>s and Army troops. <strong>The</strong><br />
lights on the beach, as shown on the accompanying chart, were not due to<br />
be turned on until 0200, so the coxswains did not even have these feeble aids<br />
to assist them in the heavy rain when the first boats left for the beach at 0145.<br />
In the hurry to unload the transports, some of the ships overloaded their<br />
landing boats with the result that the landing boats could not clear the reef<br />
blocking the entrance to Wharton River. <strong>The</strong>se boats had to return to their<br />
transports to lighten their loads and make a second try. It was a case of<br />
“haste makes waste.” One amphibian landed its Army company to the north<br />
of Rice Point and failed to correct the error which became known before<br />
departure. Coxswains reported a large group of native New Georgians as<br />
a welcoming party on the beach and much confusion off the beach as boats<br />
maneuvered for the best position to land next.52<br />
As Commander Transports logged the matter:<br />
<strong>The</strong> entrance to Rice Anchorage unloading beach is over a narrow shallow<br />
bar. Many of the boats touched bottom crossing it. It was therefore found<br />
necessary to decrease the normal carrying load of the boats. <strong>The</strong> river is only<br />
seventy yards wide. It was thought that the beach was one hundred yards<br />
wide; however, only four boats at a time could land at it. <strong>The</strong>re were twenty-<br />
eight ramp LCP employed in unloading twelve ships.<br />
Soon after arrival in the Transport Area the amphibians were surprised to<br />
be illuminated by star shell and to come under fire from coastal defense<br />
guns in the Enogai Area. While Japanese guns were known to protect Bairoko<br />
Harbor, no such guns had been reported by the natives supposedly familiar<br />
with the Japanese defenses in the Enogai Area. <strong>The</strong> transports were ordered<br />
not to return this fire but to leave this chore to the two destroyer escorts, and<br />
to concentrate on disembarkation of the troops and their impedimenta.<br />
As ships completed their unloading tasks, they cleared the anchorage area.<br />
mShip’s Logs.
582 Amphibians Came To Conquer<br />
<strong>The</strong> Radford and the Gzuin expended some 1,100 rounds of counter-battery<br />
fire, but since they had only the flashes of the Japanese guns as a point of<br />
aim, the Japanese batteries were still shooting at 0559---dawn-when Com-<br />
mander Transports, unloading having been reported completed about 0555,<br />
directed the last of the ships underway to return to base.<br />
After their capture five days later, it was determined the Japanese guns<br />
were four 5,5-inch guns. It was discovered much sooner that one APD had<br />
failed to unload an essential radio transmitter belonging to the 3rd Battalion<br />
of the 145th Infantry of the 37th Division and that the Trever had two<br />
Army oficers and 64 men left aboard out of seven Army officers and 209<br />
men embarked.53<br />
,<strong>The</strong> Northern Landing Group’s initial landing and its further logistic<br />
support brought on several gun fights between United States and Japanese<br />
cruisers and destroyers in Kula Gulf. <strong>The</strong>se gun fights have gained considerable<br />
historical interest. In one, the Task Group Commander claimed the<br />
sinking of eight Japanese ships when he had actually sunk but two.54 On<br />
the other hand, the prosaics of the amphibians and logisticians have largely<br />
been swept under the historical rug. <strong>The</strong> Landing Force Commander disappeared<br />
into the jungle and was so little heard from that when on 8 July,<br />
Rear Admiral Turner inquired of Major General Hester:<br />
What is Liversedge’s situation?<br />
he received back no answer until the next day, and then it read:<br />
No contact with Liversedge.s~<br />
On 12 July three fast transports of Transport Division 22 (Kdty, Crosby<br />
and Scbiey) with the destroyers Woodworth and Taylor as screen, returned<br />
to Rice Anchorage with further troop and logistic support. Unloading commenced<br />
about 0120 and was stopped about 0430 because of a firm desire<br />
to be under our air cover by daylight. Only a partial unloading job was done<br />
under difficult but somewhat less difficult circumstances than the first am-<br />
phibious landing at Rice Anchorage.<br />
Commander Transport Division 22 recorded his problems and disappointments<br />
as follows:<br />
<strong>The</strong>re has been no challenge from the beach, no boats to meet us, no signs<br />
of life whatever. . . . Boats had difficulty in finding channel and some ran<br />
a Tyever Log.<br />
u COMTHIRDFLT to CINCPAC 070626 Jul. 1943.<br />
m (a) CTF 31 to Rendova, 070320 Jul. 1943; (b) Rendova to COMSOPAC to CTF 31, 080121<br />
Jul. 1943.
Tozgb Toenaih Paring<br />
aground. . . . [Boat officer] reports that our arrival was totally unexpected<br />
and the first boats were nearly fired upon. He reports great difficulties in<br />
unloading. . . . <strong>The</strong>re is room for only four boats to unload at a time. . . .<br />
All unloading will have to be done by such troops as we brought with us plus<br />
boat crews and personnel sent by ships, . . . Unloading proceeding more<br />
slowly as boats become damaged and more seriously grounded. . . . Many<br />
ships’ boats have not returned. . . . Have arrived at the decision to leave at<br />
0430 regardless of the boat situation, primarily to get down into air support<br />
area by dawn. . . . All personnel have been disembarked and eighty five<br />
percent of the cargo. . . .“<br />
DEPARTURE FROM THE SOLOMONS-<br />
WITH A BAD TASTE<br />
<strong>The</strong> last newsworthy act of the TOENAILS Operation in which Rear<br />
Admiral Turner personally participated was in connection with the relief<br />
of Major General John H. Hester, U. S. Army, from his prospective com-<br />
mand of the New Georgia Occupation Force.<br />
In order to detiil Rear Admiral Turner’s advisory part in this difficult<br />
decision taken by Vice Admiral Halsey, a bit of background is essential. In<br />
the Turner personal files, there are seven dispatches bearing on the matter<br />
and that is all. In the PHIBFORTHIRDFLT files, no reference to the matter<br />
could be located.<br />
As far back as 13 June 1943, Admiral Nimitz had proposed to Admiral<br />
King that Rear Admiral Turner be relieved by Rear Admiral Wilkinson<br />
“after completion first stage New Georgia Operation,” and be ordered to<br />
command the Amphibious Forces, Central Pacific and the Fifth Amphibious<br />
Force being formed up for the Central Pacific campaign.<br />
In the planners ‘ “future book,” the first stage of the New Georgia opera-<br />
tions was the capture of Munda, anticipated to be completed about mid-<br />
July 1943.<br />
This future employment of Rear Admiral Turner received a favorable<br />
nod from COMINCH, and COMSOPAC was directed to issue the necessary<br />
orders to Rear Admiral Turner “at the appropriate time.” 57<br />
On 24 June, COMINCH had directed CINCPAC that an amphibious<br />
command with its planning staff located at Pearl Harbor “must be estab-<br />
W (a) COMTRANSDIV 22 War Diary, 12 Jul. 1943; (b) CTF 31, 110370 Jul. 1943.<br />
6’ (a) CINCPAC to COMINCH, 130507 J... 1943; (b) BUPERS to CINCPAC and COMSO-<br />
PAC 140833 Jun. 1943.<br />
583
584 Amphibians Came To Conqaer<br />
SO-G-295179<br />
Construction of Bairoca Road looking north from ACORN 8 Camp efitrance,<br />
leading to Munda, New Georgia.<br />
lished at the earliest possible time,” for the development and integration<br />
of amphibious plans, under Vice Admiral Spruance’s command for the<br />
Central Pacific Operation,” Vice Admiral Halsey and Rear Admiral Turner<br />
were thus alerted that desires existed at higher levels of command for<br />
Turner’s presence at Pearl Harbor at an early date.<br />
ARMY PROBLEMS ON NEW GEORGIA<br />
<strong>The</strong> Japanese defense of the Munda airfield approaches had been spirited.<br />
<strong>The</strong> attacks by the troops of the 43rd Division which Major General Hester<br />
commanded had not been sufficiently spirited to overcome Japanese resistance.<br />
Very large numbers of the troops of this division had “unusual medical<br />
problems.” Some 90 men had been killed by the Japanese up to 17 July,<br />
w (a) CINCPAC to COMINCH, 130507 Jun. 1943; (b) COMINCH to CINCPAC, 241501<br />
Jun. 1943; (c) CINCPAC Command Summary, Book Three, 24 Jun. 1943, p. 1610
Tongb Toenails Paring 585<br />
but “over 1,000 men were out of action” due to these medical problems.<br />
According to the Army’s history:<br />
An especially large number of casualties was caused not by wounds or infectious<br />
disease but by mental disturbance. Between fifty and a hundred men<br />
were leaving the line every day with troubles which were diagnosed as “war<br />
neuroses.’ . . .59<br />
Major General Oscar W. Griswold was the Commanding General of the<br />
XIV <strong>Corps</strong> and Major General Hester’s immediate superior since the 43rd<br />
Division was a major part of that <strong>Corps</strong>. Lieutenant General Millard F.<br />
Harmon was the Commanding General U. S. Army Forces in SOPAC,<br />
mustering altogether about 275,000 men.eo<br />
When the troop offensive ashore on New Georgia gave its first evidence<br />
of slowing down, calls were made by Major General Hester for additional<br />
troops. As early as 5 July, Rear Admiral Turner was in conference on<br />
Guadalcanal with Major General Griswold and Lieutenant General Harmon<br />
in connection with moving forward part of the 37th Division, which was<br />
sailed for Rendova on the 7th and 9th of July.<br />
Each of these four officers was directly involved in the current phase of<br />
TOENAILS as well as in planning and preparation for the assault landing<br />
on Kolombangara, and the capture of the Vila airfield which were planned<br />
to follow soon after the capture of Munda.<br />
On this same day, 5 July, Lieutenant General Harmon recommended to<br />
Commander Third Fleet that as soon as Munda airfield was captured, the<br />
XIV <strong>Corps</strong> Commander, Major General Griswold, should take over command<br />
of the New Georgia Occupation Force, and that Major General<br />
Hester continue in command of the 43rd Division and conduct the attack<br />
on Vila.<br />
Rear Admiral Turner immediately put in his oar backing up Major<br />
General Hester, saying that superseding Hester would be undesirable and<br />
“a severe blow to morale.” He expressed his regret at having to disagree<br />
with Lieutenant General Harmon. At the same time he sent Colonel Linscott,<br />
who in the forward operational area and in the absence of Captain Anderson,<br />
was an “acting Chief of Staff ,“ to Rendova and New Georgia to look into<br />
what the amphibians could do to ease the difficulties the +my troops were<br />
encountering in taking Munda airfield, as well as to move forward with<br />
the planning for taking Vila airfield.<br />
* Miller, Reduction of Rabard (Army), p. 120.<br />
mIbid., p. 69.
586 Atnpbibian~ Came To Conquer<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is no radio message available in which Major General Hester<br />
reported to COMSOPAC that he was ready to take over command of the<br />
New Georgia Occupation Force, and no despatch to COMSOPAC from<br />
CTF 31 suggesting that from his point of view such a moment had arrived.<br />
<strong>The</strong> ground rules for the appropriate circumstances when either commander<br />
would originate such a despatch had not been established by their common<br />
superior, Vice Admiral Halsey. This again accentuates the incompleteness<br />
of this part of the over-all Operation Plan 14–43 issued by Vice Admiral<br />
Halsey.<br />
By 8 July the original plan for a combined assault on Munda airfield<br />
from the sea and from the flank, which earlier had been postponed, was now<br />
abandoned since the troops of the 43rd Division had not reached their<br />
jump-off positions by 8 July, and there appeared no real prospect of this<br />
happening soon.<br />
When word of this postponement decision by Major General Hester<br />
reached Guadalcanal, Lieutenant General Harmon flew off to Noumea and<br />
a conference with Vice Admiral Halsey.<br />
As a result of Lieutenant General Harmon’s personal presentation of his<br />
views and of the continued lack of marked success of the troops on New<br />
Georgia, COMTHIRDFLT on the afternoon of 9 July sent a despatch to<br />
CTF 31 which directed that when Major General Griswold arrived in the<br />
combat area and when he was prepared to assume command,<br />
on orders of COMSOPAC, all ground forces, including naval units attached<br />
to the forces of occupation, will pass from the Command of CTF 31 to the<br />
<strong>Corps</strong> Commander who will assume the title of COMGEN New Georgia.Gl<br />
Late on 13 July, Major General Griswold, who had flown up to the<br />
combat area in order to prepare himself for his operational command, added<br />
the final push to any lingering doubts Vice Admiral Halsey may have had<br />
as to the desirability of Major General Hester continuing on as a ‘‘prospective”<br />
Commander New Georgia Occupational Force, by reporting that:<br />
Things are going badly, and the Forty Third Division is about to fold up.GZ<br />
Rear Admiral Turner, having received reports from Colonel Linscott,<br />
added his push by saying:<br />
I regret that I am compelled to agree with Griswold. From my own private<br />
advices received today from my staff officers returning from Rendova. . . .<br />
“’COMSOPACto CTF 31, 090502 Jul. 1943.<br />
= RDO Rendova to COMGENFORCES SOPAC, 130820 Jul. 1943.
Tough Toenails Paring 587<br />
Recommend immediate transfer of New Georgia Occupation Force to<br />
Griswold.’s<br />
At the same time, Rear Admiral Turner advised Major General Griswold:<br />
I agree with you and have so told Halsey. Request you take command as soon<br />
as you are able to exercise it.’4<br />
Upon the receipt of Major General Griswold’s despatch and of CTF 31’s<br />
concurring despatch, COMSOPAC came immediately to the decision that<br />
“the appropriate time” had arrived and issued orders:<br />
a. for the turn over of the command of the New Georgia Occupation<br />
Force from CTF 31 to Major General Griswold at midnight on 14 July;<br />
b. for Rear Admiral Turner to proceed to the Central Pacific turning over<br />
to Rear Admiral Wilkinson on 15 July.G5<br />
This latter change occurred despite CTF 31‘s plea made some nine hours<br />
before the COMSOPAC detachment despatch reached the air:<br />
In fairness to Wilkinson and me, recommend that I retain command of this<br />
operation until affairs are again going smoothly.”<br />
Vice Admiral Halsey advised his subordinate who wanted to stay until<br />
affairs were going more smoothly:<br />
Your relief by Wilkinson will be effected on 15 July as planned in view of<br />
CINCPAC’S requirement for your services.G7<br />
(A) Logistic Support<br />
TOENAILS’ LESSONS AND PROFITS<br />
<strong>The</strong> Navy had been much condemned for its inadequacies in logistic<br />
support during the first months of WATCHTOWER. Unlike the Guadal-<br />
canal Operation, there were lst, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Echelon logistic support<br />
movements set up for the TOENAILS Operation and a dozen support<br />
echelons had sailed in the first 15 days of TOENAILS.<br />
Just as Rear Admiral Turner was leaving SOPAC, Commander Landing<br />
Craft Flotillas made a report to him on the performance of landing craft<br />
in which was written the heartening logistic words:<br />
68~F 31 to COMSOPAC, 131400 Ju1. 1943.<br />
“ CTF 31 to Radio Rendova, 131510 Jul. 1943.<br />
= CTF 31 to COMSOPAC, 131400 Jul. 1943.<br />
WCOMTHIRDFLT to CINCPAC, 132320 Jul. 1943.<br />
a COMTHIRDFLT to CTF 31, 132220 Jul. 1943.
388 Amphibians C~me To Conqner<br />
. .<br />
.’ 1<br />
TurnerCollection<br />
A ccvgo of Quonset buts and ~refabvicated wavebouses and buts unloaded<br />
(in the wrong way) at Munda.<br />
It appears for the first time in modern warfare that supplies have arrived<br />
with or immediately behind the Assault Troops. A good example is the air-<br />
strip at Segi, <strong>The</strong>re, bulldozers were clearing a strip forty (4o ) minutes after<br />
the first echelon LST had beached. <strong>The</strong> flow of supplies to the front has been<br />
greater than the Advanced Bases could handle. All have requested that the<br />
flow of supplies be reduced.”<br />
Enemy action, grounding and modified plans had forced many changes<br />
in the ships and landing craft originally designated for specific supporting<br />
echelon tasks. <strong>The</strong> important lesson from all this was that in order for<br />
logistic support to be delivered by amphibious ships and craft on time, a<br />
large excess of ships and craft is required over the computed space require-<br />
ments for the total of personnel and tons of equipment to be moved.<br />
For the TOENAILS Operation 36 LSTS, 36 LCIS, 72 LCTS and 28 APCS<br />
had been scheduled to be available. Fortunately plans were not based on<br />
* Commander Landing Craft Flotillas to COMPHIBFORSOPAC FE 2S–2/A3/Ser 002 of 13 Jul.<br />
1943, subj: Performance of Landing Craft.
Tongb Toenads Paring 589<br />
this number as only 12 LSTS, 26 LCIS, 43 LCTS and 16 APCS were in the<br />
area on 30 June 1943. This number was barely adequate.Ge<br />
(B) Landing Ships and Craft<br />
<strong>The</strong> personal worry bug to be overcome by every amphibian, coxswain,<br />
officer in charge or commanding officer was the coral shelf and the many<br />
coral heads off the few and generally narrow beaches. In due time, these<br />
coral heads would be dynamited. <strong>The</strong> beaches would be augmented with<br />
landing piers, which would be coconut log bulkheads backed up by crushed<br />
coral. But the first few days in poorly or uncharted waters were real tests.<br />
When the first surge of TOENAILS was over, it was apparent from the<br />
reports that both landing ships and craft had turned in better than a satisfactory<br />
performance.<br />
<strong>The</strong> LCTS had been the most useful of all b]pes. However, low speed (6<br />
knots) limits their daily staging in combat areas to about 100 miles per<br />
night. . . . It is still advisable to have them underway only at night. Against<br />
a head sea, their speed is greatly reduced, sometimes to two knots. . . . <strong>The</strong><br />
crews and officers have been standing up well in spite of operating two out of<br />
every three days.<br />
Some LSTS have transported 400 men each for short periods. . . . [LCTS]<br />
have carried as many as 2>0 men overnight, but in exposed positions. . . .<br />
<strong>The</strong> LCIS carry about I i’o combat troops. . . . For unopposed short runs of<br />
a few hours, 350 men have been transported on a single LCI. . . . <strong>The</strong>y are<br />
ideaI for night landings on good beaches.<br />
<strong>The</strong> APCS, besides having proved useful as escorts, have been used to trans-<br />
port small groups of men. . . .<br />
<strong>The</strong> arrival of a nmbile landing craft repair base unit with a floating dock<br />
has been expected for months, but they still have not arrived.TO<br />
(C) Night Landing Operations<br />
Night landings on foreign shores look very well on paper and over the<br />
long history of amphibious operations have been resorted to many times.<br />
Our Navy had carried out such operations on a large scale in the North<br />
African Invasion on 8 November 1942. <strong>The</strong> Sicilian Invasion commencing<br />
10 July 1943, eleven days after D-Day for TOENAILS was to include a<br />
large successful night landing of the assault troops.<br />
“ CTG 31.1 Loading Order 14-43 IZ Jul. 1943.<br />
m Commander Landing Craft Flotillas, letter, 13 Jul. 1943
590 Amphibians Came To Conqzier<br />
Rear Admiral Turner took a dim view of night landings prior to TOE-<br />
NAILS but had not closed his mind to their use. He was willing to experi-<br />
ment on a small scale. So the Eastern Force scheduled a night landing at<br />
Wickham Anchorage and the Western Force scheduled night landings for<br />
the Onaiavisi Entrance Unit and for the Advance Unit on Rendova.<br />
One lesson which Admiral Turner stated he had vividly relearned during<br />
the TOENAILS Operation was the great hazard of night amphibious opera-<br />
tions. In fact, his lack of success with them during TOENAILS soured him<br />
on night landings for any large contingent of amphibians for the rest of<br />
the war.”<br />
In this connection, frequently the question has been raised as to why the<br />
major World War II amphibious assault landings in the South and Central<br />
Pacific were launched at daylight while those in the European <strong>The</strong>ater were<br />
largely launched during darkness.<br />
It may be that the answer lies in the above observation of Admiral Turner<br />
and in the writings of Sir Roger Keyes. He was the Chief of Staff to the<br />
naval commander at the Gallipoli amphibious landing disaster in 1915.<br />
He later became an Admiral of the Fleet in the British Navy, and before<br />
and after retirement wrote extensively. His opinion was that it was “folly<br />
to storm a defended beach in daylight.” A good many United States naval<br />
officers had read and been impressed by what Sir Roger Keyes wrote. In a<br />
measure, the opinion of General Vandegrift previously quoted, supports<br />
this conclusion.<br />
In the Mediterranean, where the British influence and command lines<br />
were strong, the principle of night landings was observed during the North<br />
African, Tunisian, Sicilian and Italian campaigns.<br />
In the South Pacific there were jungle bordered beaches (with no access<br />
roads) to contend with. In the Central Pacific there was a greater confidence<br />
in the etliciency of naval gunfire, in the dive bombing by carrier aircraft,<br />
in the quality of the close air support provided to the <strong>Marine</strong>s, as well as<br />
a deeper appreciation of the essentiality of landing the troops at the ap-<br />
pointed time and spot to facilitate the <strong>Marine</strong> and Army Scheme of Maneuver.<br />
(D) Landing Where the Enemy Ain’t<br />
Admiral Turner later commented on Samuel Eliot Morison’s statement<br />
7’ Turner.
To~gh Toenails Paring 591<br />
about the “folly of not taking Laiana first,” and added that the decision to<br />
land at Zanana Beach instead of Laiana Beach was predicated on an accept-<br />
ance, at that stage of the war, of General Vandegrift’s often repeated statement<br />
that<br />
landings should not be attempted in the face of org.nized resistance, if, by<br />
any combination of march or maneuver it is possible to land unopposed and<br />
undetected.72<br />
(E) Weather<br />
Other officers pointed out that bad weather blotted out the special lights<br />
needed to guide landing craft to beaches. Special lights had been provided<br />
at Rendova, Oleana Bay and Rice Anchorage. None were visible in the<br />
manner planned.73<br />
(F) Wshore Toe Holds<br />
During the New Georgia amphibious operation an operational technique<br />
was developed which carried through the Central Pacific campaigns and on<br />
into the planning for the final attack on the Japanese homeland. This technique<br />
was pointed towards seizing toe holds on nearby islands close to but<br />
not so well defended as the main objective and making a key part of the<br />
major assault on the main objective direct from these toe holds rather than<br />
from far across the sea. <strong>The</strong>y also provided a place from where artillery<br />
support could be supplied from on a round-the-clock basis.<br />
(G) Shore Party<br />
<strong>The</strong> Shore Party had been much condemned for its inadequacies on 7<br />
August 1942 at Guadalcanal. Much effort had gone into making more<br />
definite its duties and increasing the number of warm bodies to carry out<br />
these duties during the next three months. On 16 October 1942, COM-<br />
PHIBFORSOPAC issued a new trial operating procedure for the Shore<br />
n (a) Turner; (b) Morison, Tbe Ri,itig Sun in tbe P~.ific (Vol. 111), p. 199; (c) COMGEN-<br />
FIRSTMARDIV, Final Report on Guadalcanal, Phase V, p. 6.<br />
- (a) Staff Interviews; (h) CTF 31 Op Order A9-43, I> Jun. 1.943. Appendix (1) to<br />
Annex G.
592 Amphibians Came To Conq~er<br />
Party. But in November 1942, the Commander Transport Division Eight<br />
still thought:<br />
<strong>The</strong> bottleneck of unloading is still the Shore Party. . , . At Aola Bay, the<br />
Shore Party was 800 strong (200 per ship). 400 Army, 100 <strong>Marine</strong>s and<br />
100 ACO~, personnel. . . . Unloading boats on a beach is extremely<br />
strenuous physical Jabor and the Shore Party must be organized into reliefs<br />
if the unloading is to extend over 12 hours.?l<br />
Further increases in personnel as well as cleaner command lines were<br />
again tried in TOENAILS. <strong>The</strong>y paid off.<br />
(H) Force Requirements<br />
<strong>The</strong>re was one sobering lesson from TOENAILS which carried forward<br />
into future planning of assault and follow up forces for the island cam-<br />
paigns of the Pacific. It was expressed in a COMINCH planners memo-<br />
randum of 6 August 1943:<br />
2. At the termination of Japanese resistance in Munda, there were seven<br />
regimental combat teams, totaling more than 30,000 troops in our assault<br />
forces. No information differing from our initial estimate of 4 to 5,oOO<br />
troops on Munda, to which reinforcements were believed to have been added<br />
for a time, has been received. However, of the Japanese on Munda only 1,671<br />
are known to be dead and 28 captured. <strong>The</strong> overwhelming superiority of our<br />
forces in numbers and equipment had to be applied for 12 days despite air<br />
bombing and naval bombardment support before a force not more than one-<br />
seventh its size had been overcome. If we are going to require such overwhelming<br />
superiority at every point where we attack the Japanese, it is time<br />
for radical change in the estimate of the forces that will be required to defeat<br />
the Japanese now in the Southwest and Central Pacific.”<br />
A STEP AWAY FROM WANTLESSNESS<br />
How was Rear Admiral Turner holding up during the second six months<br />
of his year in the tropics? His Chief of Staff recalls:<br />
Most every afternoon about 5 p.m. Admiral Turner, Doyle, and Lewis went<br />
ashore for drinks before dinner. I went several times as did Hamilton Haines.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y did not go to the Officers Club Bar that <strong>Marine</strong> General ‘Barney’ Vogel<br />
had !-milt in the city-but went to a small restaurant run by a French woman,<br />
@ COM~ANSDIV Eight to COMPHIBFORSOPAC, letter, NOV. 1942.<br />
“ Captain Clarence E, Olsen, <strong>US</strong>N, to ACS (Plans ), memorandum, 6 Aug. 1943.
Tough Toenails Paring 593<br />
where they had a more or less private drinking room. [<strong>The</strong> Admiral Turner<br />
Room in the Circle de Noumea, a cobwebby French Club.]<br />
Walking there and back and walking from the dock to Admiral Halsey’s<br />
morning conference is about the only exercise that Turner had, as far as I<br />
could observe while I was with him around Noumea, 76<br />
Regarding this period, his Flag Captain reports as follows:<br />
<strong>The</strong> Kelly Turner Club in Noumea was where Turner and his staff drank<br />
heavily and relaxed. I was a member of this club, also its liquor supplier.<br />
Turner was lots of fun and forgot his problems here.TT<br />
A war correspondent who was in Noumea and in Guadalcanal at this<br />
time wrote about Rear Admiral Turner:<br />
. . . [He] gives forth an impression of extreme weariness . . . . solemn<br />
owlish expression . . . . skinny and gaunt . . . . a chain smoker down to<br />
the last soggy half-inch . . . . face leathery and lined with Character.’s<br />
When all was said and done, Rear Admiral Turner worked his head off<br />
in the logistical battle of the Lower Solomons and in the move to the Middle<br />
Solomons. <strong>The</strong> record of dozens of letters indicates this. It was after this<br />
initial phase of a rough and tumble contest with a first-class fighting<br />
Japanese Navy was over and won, that Rear Admiral Turner started to find<br />
in a nip at the bottle the necessary uplift to willingly wrestle another four<br />
or five hours of work each clay after completing a normal 12 hours.<br />
Like any newcomer to the tropics, he found it difficult to put in his long<br />
accustomed 18-hour working day. He had bouts with malaria, his bones<br />
ached, at times his head spun. But he kept going.’g<br />
Not all the members of the COMPHIBFORSOPAC Staff have the same<br />
remembrance of Rear Admiral Turner’s imbibing habits in all the details.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y all agree that this habit of taking a swig at a bottle, in contradistinc-<br />
tion to a late afternoon cocktail ashore, did not take hold until after the<br />
Russells had been seized and the final planning for TOENAILS was well<br />
underway. One placed it definitely as just after his first serious bout with<br />
malaria which sent him to the hospital ship Solace.so<br />
No member of his staff interviewed had ever seen him under the weather<br />
from drinking during this period and the majority say that the change from<br />
mAnderson.<br />
“ Rodgers.<br />
“ Driscoll, Paci/ic Victory, pp. 58, 59.<br />
WRKT Medical Record, 1942–1943.<br />
mStaff Interviews.
594 Anzphibians Came To Conquer<br />
a couple of late afternoon martinis to a swig at the bottle did not start until<br />
after Tarawa.Sl<br />
His senior subordinate in the Solomons penned his remembrances as<br />
follows:<br />
He was drinking ‘off hours.’ On a couple of occasions it came to my atten-<br />
tion. However, I do not believe it affected his efficiency the next day, except<br />
to make him more irritable than usual.<br />
On one of these occasions, just before TOENAILS, he was having an<br />
important presentation by an Army Brigadier who planned the Artillery setup<br />
for TOENAILS. Turner was ‘bright eyed and bushy tailed at the 0800 con-<br />
ference, quickly pointed out several glaring defects in the plans and had it all<br />
done over.sz<br />
That was par for the course.<br />
PROBLEMS IN NEW GEORGIA PLANNING<br />
It should be noted here that some of COMINCH planning assistants did<br />
not think l’ice Admiral Halsey’s final plan for TOENAILS was bold<br />
enough and made their concern a matter of record. A draft JCS despatch,<br />
calling for assault landings at Vila and Munda airfields with an attached<br />
supporting memorandum, was sent up the line in the COMINCH Plans<br />
Division to Admiral King some six weeks before the landings.<br />
<strong>The</strong> War Plans Officer (Rear Admiral C. M. Cooke) placed his comments<br />
on this memorandum:<br />
We called on Halsey for some action. He has forwarded his plan. I do not<br />
feel that at this distance, we are in a position to insist on a bolder plan, to<br />
which Halsey has already given consideration and presumably rejected.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re are obvious advantages to immediate seizure of Munda and Vila air-<br />
fields, which from the spot, I might personally advocate.sa<br />
Admiral King agreed.<br />
It also might be added that CINCPAC had preferred that the large<br />
transports not be employed for the assault landing in TOENAILS, because<br />
of the lack of strong air cover over the landing areas and a decent respect<br />
for Japanese air capabilities.<br />
mIbid.<br />
= Fort.<br />
m (a) COMINCH to COMSOPAC, 081329 May 1943; (b) COMSOPAC to COMINCH<br />
090501 and 160420 May 1943; (c) Assistant Chief of Staff Plans to Admiral King, memorandum<br />
of 21 May 1943; subj: COMSOPAC TOENAILS plan.
Tough Toenails Paring 595<br />
Vice Admiral Jimmy Doyle repeats this yarn of the early days of the<br />
planning for the New Georgia Operation:<br />
Major General Harmon, COMGENSOPAC, came to see Rear Admiral<br />
Turner with a first draft of the Scheme of Maneuver for the New Georgia<br />
Operation Plan. General Harmon said, ‘Admiral, will you look at this plan?’<br />
<strong>The</strong> Admiral took the plan and studied it hard and silently for seven or<br />
eight minutes. At the same time, I was seeing General Harmon’s plan for<br />
the first time and I was galloping through a copy. When the Admiral finished<br />
going through it, he looked up and General Harmon asked, ‘What do you<br />
think of the plan?’ My boss replied simply but firmly, ‘It stinks,’ and after a<br />
pause, ‘Who wrote it?’ General Harmon replied, ‘Admiral I did.’ My boss’s<br />
face lighted up and, with a twinkle in his eye, he said: ‘It still stinks.’ 84<br />
<strong>The</strong> Washington Post, in commenting on this story at the time of Admiral<br />
Turner’s death, said he showed “more tenacity than tact.” 85<br />
His Chief of Staff remembered that during most of the period when TOE-<br />
NAILS was being planned:<br />
Every morning at 0900, COMSOPAC (Admiral Halsey), who was based<br />
ashore, held a conference in his office, attended by his C/S and other Com-<br />
mands ashore (Service Commands, for instance), Senior <strong>Marine</strong> Ashore and<br />
Unit Commanders Afloat. I accompanied Admiral Turner to these conferences<br />
as did Jack Lewis and Jimmy Doyle.<br />
In general, I would say that the period from January to May 1943 was one<br />
of enforced marking time as far as the Amphibious Force was concerned.<br />
Everyone wanted to get beyond Guadalcanal but the time didn’t seem propi-<br />
tious, mostly because of the lack of the material that was needed. . . .<br />
Both Admirals Halsey and Turner were eager to get going and make<br />
further advances to the North. Admiral Turner, however, would not set any<br />
time for such an operation as he felt that we did not have the ships or mate-<br />
rial at hand to make any such advance successfully. . . .<br />
I think it was early March that part of our Force was taken away from <strong>US</strong>.<br />
COMSOPAC received orders from COMINCH to transfer 2 APs and 2<br />
AKAs and I division of troops to General MacArthur. <strong>The</strong> ships were to<br />
augment the Amphibious Force being built up by Dan Barbey in the SW<br />
Pacific. . . .<br />
Admiral Halsey wanted a target date of 1 April for the landings in New<br />
Georgia. This worried Admiral Turner a lot—for he felt that it would not be<br />
done with reasonable success with what we had, so it was postponed until<br />
later.s’<br />
wJ. H, Doyle.<br />
= WaJbington PoJt, 14 Feb. 1961.<br />
= Anderson.
596 Amphibians Came To Conq~ev<br />
DYING ON THE VINE<br />
In view of the successes achieved and lives saved, no more popular stra-<br />
tegical concept came out of the P@.cific War than that of by-passing Japanese-<br />
held islands or positions and letting the Japanese threat “die on the vine,”<br />
while our forces directed their efforts at Japanese closer to the Japanese<br />
homeland.<br />
<strong>The</strong> popularity has led to many claims as to who was the originator.<br />
This researcher has no idea who was the originator, but having read many<br />
thousands of dispatches relating to the Pacific War, the first despatch in<br />
which he saw the expression used was in a despatch of Vice Admiral Halsey’s<br />
(COMSOPAC’S 110421 of July 1943) addressed to Rear Admiral Turner<br />
and asking his comments and recommendations thereon.<br />
* U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1998-437-018/58558
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