W E B Griffin – Corp 06 – Close Combat

The comments about Jack (NMI) Stecker’s Mickey Mouse rifle died out after the 2nd Battalion of the Fifth Marines went ashore on Tulagi (at about the same time the bulk of the Division was going ashore on Guadalcanal, twenty miles away). The word spread that the 2nd Battalion’s commanding officer, standing in the open and firing offhand, had put rounds in the heads of two Japanese two hundred yards away.

Jack Stecker put his helmet on his head and slung the Garand over his shoulder.

“I’m going to have a look around,” he said to the G-3 sergeant.

The field telephone rang as he crossed the room. As Stecker reached the entrance, the G-3 sergeant called his name. When Stecker turned, he held out the telephone to him.

Stecker took the telephone, pushed the butterfly switch, and spoke his name.

“Yes, Sir,” he said, and then “No, Sir,” and then “Thank you, Sir, I’ll be waiting.”

He handed the telephone back to the sergeant.

“The look around will have to wait. I’m having breakfast with The General. He’s sending his jeep for me.”

There were several general officers on the island of Guadalcanal, but The General was Major General Alexander Archer Vandegrift, who commanded the First Marine Division.

“Whatever it is, Sir,” the G-3 sergeant said, “we didn’t do it.”

“I don’t think The General would believe that, Sergeant, whatever it is,” Stecker said, and walked out of the command post.

[TWO]

The 1st and 3rd Battalions of the Fifth Marines, First Marine Division, had come ashore near Lunga Point on Guadalcanal, in the Solomon Islands, on 7 August. Simultaneously, the 1st Marine Raider Battalion and the 2nd Battalion of the Fifth Marines had landed on Tulagi Island, twenty miles away; and the 1st Marine Parachute Battalion on the tiny island of Gavutu, two miles from Tulagi.

This operation was less the first American counterattack against the Japanese-since that would have meant the establishment on Guadalcanal of a force that could reasonably be expected to overwhelm the Japanese there-than an act of desperation.

From a variety of sources, Intelligence had learned that the Japanese would in the near future complete the construction of an airfield near Lunga Point on the north side of the island. If it became operational, Japanese aircraft would dominate the area: New Guinea would almost certainly fall. And an invasion of Australia would become likely.

On the other hand, if the Japanese airfield were to fall into American hands, the situation would be reversed. For American aircraft could then strike at Japanese shipping lanes, and at Japanese bases, especially those at Rabaul, on the island of New Britain. A Japanese invasion of Australia would be rendered impossible, all of New Guinea could be retaken, and the first step would be made on what publicists were already calling “The March to Japan.”

General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, South West Pacific Ocean Area, and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander-in-Chief, Pacific, very seldom agreed on anything; but they agreed on this: that the risks involved in taking Guadalcanal had to be accepted. And so the decision to go ahead with the attack was made.

The First Division was by then in New Zealand, having been told it would not be sent into combat until early in 1943. Nevertheless, it was given the task. It was transported to Guadalcanal and Tulagi/Gavutu in a Naval Task Force commanded by Vice Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher.

The initial amphibious invasion, on Friday, 7 August 1942, went better than anyone thought possible. Although the 1st Marine Parachute Battalion on Gavutu was almost literally decimated, both Gavutu and Tulagi fell swiftly and with relatively few American casualties. And there was little effective resistance as the Marines went ashore on Guadalcanal.

But then Admiral Fletcher decided that he could not risk the loss of his fleet by remaining off the Guadalcanal beachhead. His thinking was perhaps colored by the awesome losses the Navy had suffered at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. And so he assumed-not completely without reason-that the Japanese would launch a massive attack on his ships as soon as they realized what was happening.

Admiral Fletcher summoned General Vandegrift to the command ship USS McCawley on Saturday, 8 August. There he informed him that he intended to withdraw from Guadalcanal starting at three the next afternoon.

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