Hell in the Pacific: A Marine Rifleman's Journey From Guadalcanal to Peleliu by Bill Sloan, Jim McEnery Page A
Authors: Bill Sloan, Jim McEnery
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on August 9, D-plus-2, we found out what really happened. As I remember hearing it, it went like this:
After the Jap air raid on August 8, Admiral Frank J. Fletcher, commander of the carrier task force providing air cover for the Guadalcanal operation, received some news that got him seriously worried. Reliable reports from Navy reconnaissance pilots to the northwest warned Fletcher about that large, mean-looking Jap strike force that was headed our way.
Fletcher notified Admiral Richmond K. Turner, the man in charge of the landings on Guadalcanal and the other islands, and told him that all U.S. aircraft carriers supporting the landings were going to be withdrawn that night. Fletcher said the carriers had to leave because they’d lost a bunch of planes and their supply of gasoline was running low.
But the main reason Fletcher was pulling his carriers out was this new threat from the approaching Jap strike force. Plus, there were other reports that a flock of Jap submarines was heading into the area.
Admiral Turner wasn’t happy at all when he found out what was about to happen. In effect, he told Fletcher, “Hey, I’m not leaving my transports here as sitting ducks if you bug out and take away all our air cover.”
Unless Fletcher changed his mind by 6 AM on August 9, Turner said he was ordering all his supply ships to safer waters, and they wouldn’t be back till they were guaranteed to have air support. Whatever hadn’t been unloaded by the time they left would just have to go with the ships.
At this point, close to half of the First Marine Division’s total supplies and equipment were still aboard those ships in the channel. So you can imagine how upset General Vandegrift, our division commander, was when Turner broke the news to him at a meeting that night on Turner’s flagship, the attack transport USS McCauley .
Vandegrift stayed aboard the McCauley arguing with Turner till almost midnight. The general said later he was “most alarmed” by Turner’s decision. He said he did everything he could to make Turner realize what a disaster it would be for the Marines ashore if the transports pulled out half-unloaded and with several Marine units still aboard. But Turner refused to budge. He wouldn’t change his mind.
Vandegrift felt like the Marines were being sold out—and rightly so—but Turner did have a point. If he hung around long enough to finish the job, he could lose every transport in the convoy. But his decision to pull out sure played hell with our hopes of making short work of the Guadalcanal campaign.
Fletcher took a lot of flak later on for not keeping his air cover in place, but maybe he had a point, too. The Navy had already lost one carrier at Midway and another one in the Battle of the Coral Sea, and Fletcher was scared shitless of losing a third one. If he had, it would’ve left only three U.S. carriers in the whole Pacific and given the Japs a big edge in naval airpower.
Still, it was pretty damn obvious that Fletcher thought more of his carriers than he did of the Marines he was leaving marooned in the middle of enemy territory.
As it happened, it was our fighting ships, not our transports, that took a battering from the Japs on the night of August 8–9 in what came to be called the Battle of Savo Island. Savo is a round chunk ofland near the west end of Sealark Channel and about ten miles off the northwestern tip of Guadalcanal.
The Japs sank three of our heavy cruisers, the Vincennes, Astoria, and Quincy , and one Australian heavy cruiser, the Canberra , that night. A fourth U.S. heavy cruiser, the Chicago , was badly damaged, along with two of our destroyers, the Patterson and Ralph Talbot . A total of 1,077 American and Allied sailors and Marines were killed, and another 700 were wounded.
For some unknown reason, another damaged U.S. destroyer, the Jarvis , limped away alone from the Savo Island battle that night. I guess the Jarvis ’s captain had lost radio contact with
After the Jap air raid on August 8, Admiral Frank J. Fletcher, commander of the carrier task force providing air cover for the Guadalcanal operation, received some news that got him seriously worried. Reliable reports from Navy reconnaissance pilots to the northwest warned Fletcher about that large, mean-looking Jap strike force that was headed our way.
Fletcher notified Admiral Richmond K. Turner, the man in charge of the landings on Guadalcanal and the other islands, and told him that all U.S. aircraft carriers supporting the landings were going to be withdrawn that night. Fletcher said the carriers had to leave because they’d lost a bunch of planes and their supply of gasoline was running low.
But the main reason Fletcher was pulling his carriers out was this new threat from the approaching Jap strike force. Plus, there were other reports that a flock of Jap submarines was heading into the area.
Admiral Turner wasn’t happy at all when he found out what was about to happen. In effect, he told Fletcher, “Hey, I’m not leaving my transports here as sitting ducks if you bug out and take away all our air cover.”
Unless Fletcher changed his mind by 6 AM on August 9, Turner said he was ordering all his supply ships to safer waters, and they wouldn’t be back till they were guaranteed to have air support. Whatever hadn’t been unloaded by the time they left would just have to go with the ships.
At this point, close to half of the First Marine Division’s total supplies and equipment were still aboard those ships in the channel. So you can imagine how upset General Vandegrift, our division commander, was when Turner broke the news to him at a meeting that night on Turner’s flagship, the attack transport USS McCauley .
Vandegrift stayed aboard the McCauley arguing with Turner till almost midnight. The general said later he was “most alarmed” by Turner’s decision. He said he did everything he could to make Turner realize what a disaster it would be for the Marines ashore if the transports pulled out half-unloaded and with several Marine units still aboard. But Turner refused to budge. He wouldn’t change his mind.
Vandegrift felt like the Marines were being sold out—and rightly so—but Turner did have a point. If he hung around long enough to finish the job, he could lose every transport in the convoy. But his decision to pull out sure played hell with our hopes of making short work of the Guadalcanal campaign.
Fletcher took a lot of flak later on for not keeping his air cover in place, but maybe he had a point, too. The Navy had already lost one carrier at Midway and another one in the Battle of the Coral Sea, and Fletcher was scared shitless of losing a third one. If he had, it would’ve left only three U.S. carriers in the whole Pacific and given the Japs a big edge in naval airpower.
Still, it was pretty damn obvious that Fletcher thought more of his carriers than he did of the Marines he was leaving marooned in the middle of enemy territory.
As it happened, it was our fighting ships, not our transports, that took a battering from the Japs on the night of August 8–9 in what came to be called the Battle of Savo Island. Savo is a round chunk ofland near the west end of Sealark Channel and about ten miles off the northwestern tip of Guadalcanal.
The Japs sank three of our heavy cruisers, the Vincennes, Astoria, and Quincy , and one Australian heavy cruiser, the Canberra , that night. A fourth U.S. heavy cruiser, the Chicago , was badly damaged, along with two of our destroyers, the Patterson and Ralph Talbot . A total of 1,077 American and Allied sailors and Marines were killed, and another 700 were wounded.
For some unknown reason, another damaged U.S. destroyer, the Jarvis , limped away alone from the Savo Island battle that night. I guess the Jarvis ’s captain had lost radio contact with
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