Hell in the Pacific: A Marine Rifleman's Journey From Guadalcanal to Peleliu by Bill Sloan, Jim McEnery Page B
Authors: Bill Sloan, Jim McEnery
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the rest of the ships and was just trying to get the hell out of there.
Anyway, early on the afternoon of August 9, the Jarvis was spotted and sunk by Jap planes 130 miles southwest of Savo. None of her 160-man crew lived to tell about it, and nobody ever knew what happened to her until after the war.
Only three enemy ships—all cruisers—were even hit during the battle, and the damage they suffered was strictly the easy-to-repair kind. Jap casualties were just fifty-eight killed and seventy wounded.
After that terrible night, the brass changed the name of Sealark Channel to Iron Bottom Sound—for obvious reasons. Its floor was now paved with the wreckage of our ships.
T HE ONLY THING that didn’t go the Japs’ way that night was that, by some good maneuvering and maybe a small miracle, Admiral Turner’s transports, which were most likely the Jap strike force’s main target, got away clean.
I found out later that as soon as Turner heard gunfire that night heordered his ships to quit unloading and weigh anchor, and within five minutes they were all under way. To Turner’s credit, though, his ships stayed in the area the rest of the night and part of the next day while he begged Admiral Fletcher again for air support that never came.
Visibility in the channel was close to zero that night, and Turner managed to stay out of harm’s way by keeping his ships circling in the dense fog. The next morning, after the Jap strike force withdrew, his crews were able to unload quite a few supplies on Tulagi.
But any hope Turner had of unloading more stuff on Guadalcanal ended late on the afternoon of August 9, when he got reports of a huge flight of Jap bombers headed his way. About sunset, he gathered up his transports and sailed south as fast as he could go. He didn’t stop till he got to the port of Noumea on the island of New Caledonia.
In case you’re not too familiar with the geography of the South Pacific, New Caledonia lies off the east coast of Australia and more than 1,100 miles southeast of Guadalcanal.
There was no way we were going to see anything else of Turner’s ships and the supplies they carried for a long, long time. We were being left high and dry, like they say.
In The Old Breed , author George McMillan’s classic history of the First Marine Division, he put it this way: “The only sign of the American Navy the men of the First Division got on the morning of August 9 was the sight of burning and damaged ships. And this was more than they were to get for many mornings after that.”
That report on the Jap bombers turned out to be a false alarm, by the way. They never showed up.
O NCE WE FOUND out what had really happened in the big navy battle, our confidence sank down to about the same depth as those sunken hulks in Iron Bottom Sound. Less than a day before, we’d thought we were almost home free. Now we knew we were in trouble up to our eyeballs.
The ships and planes of our Navy had disappeared and left us stranded on Guadalcanal with barely enough supplies to survive on. The Japs were in full control of the air and the sea around us. There was nothing to stop them from sending in as many supplies and reinforcements as they needed to pin us down and bleed us to death.
What it boiled down to was that the First Marine Division was surrounded by the enemy. Beyond our perimeters, the Jap troops already on the island could move freely wherever they wanted to go and hit us whenever and wherever they chose. And we didn’t have anywhere near enough fortifications and fixed defenses to hold off a Jap amphibious landing, even if it was right under our noses.
For the time being, though, there was nothing for K/3/5 to do but follow orders and move west in a hurry. We still didn’t have but one unit of fire per man for our ’03 Springfields. We heard there might be some additional ammo at the Third Battalion command post, but that was a good half-mile away. So we just marched with what we had.
In my
Anyway, early on the afternoon of August 9, the Jarvis was spotted and sunk by Jap planes 130 miles southwest of Savo. None of her 160-man crew lived to tell about it, and nobody ever knew what happened to her until after the war.
Only three enemy ships—all cruisers—were even hit during the battle, and the damage they suffered was strictly the easy-to-repair kind. Jap casualties were just fifty-eight killed and seventy wounded.
After that terrible night, the brass changed the name of Sealark Channel to Iron Bottom Sound—for obvious reasons. Its floor was now paved with the wreckage of our ships.
T HE ONLY THING that didn’t go the Japs’ way that night was that, by some good maneuvering and maybe a small miracle, Admiral Turner’s transports, which were most likely the Jap strike force’s main target, got away clean.
I found out later that as soon as Turner heard gunfire that night heordered his ships to quit unloading and weigh anchor, and within five minutes they were all under way. To Turner’s credit, though, his ships stayed in the area the rest of the night and part of the next day while he begged Admiral Fletcher again for air support that never came.
Visibility in the channel was close to zero that night, and Turner managed to stay out of harm’s way by keeping his ships circling in the dense fog. The next morning, after the Jap strike force withdrew, his crews were able to unload quite a few supplies on Tulagi.
But any hope Turner had of unloading more stuff on Guadalcanal ended late on the afternoon of August 9, when he got reports of a huge flight of Jap bombers headed his way. About sunset, he gathered up his transports and sailed south as fast as he could go. He didn’t stop till he got to the port of Noumea on the island of New Caledonia.
In case you’re not too familiar with the geography of the South Pacific, New Caledonia lies off the east coast of Australia and more than 1,100 miles southeast of Guadalcanal.
There was no way we were going to see anything else of Turner’s ships and the supplies they carried for a long, long time. We were being left high and dry, like they say.
In The Old Breed , author George McMillan’s classic history of the First Marine Division, he put it this way: “The only sign of the American Navy the men of the First Division got on the morning of August 9 was the sight of burning and damaged ships. And this was more than they were to get for many mornings after that.”
That report on the Jap bombers turned out to be a false alarm, by the way. They never showed up.
O NCE WE FOUND out what had really happened in the big navy battle, our confidence sank down to about the same depth as those sunken hulks in Iron Bottom Sound. Less than a day before, we’d thought we were almost home free. Now we knew we were in trouble up to our eyeballs.
The ships and planes of our Navy had disappeared and left us stranded on Guadalcanal with barely enough supplies to survive on. The Japs were in full control of the air and the sea around us. There was nothing to stop them from sending in as many supplies and reinforcements as they needed to pin us down and bleed us to death.
What it boiled down to was that the First Marine Division was surrounded by the enemy. Beyond our perimeters, the Jap troops already on the island could move freely wherever they wanted to go and hit us whenever and wherever they chose. And we didn’t have anywhere near enough fortifications and fixed defenses to hold off a Jap amphibious landing, even if it was right under our noses.
For the time being, though, there was nothing for K/3/5 to do but follow orders and move west in a hurry. We still didn’t have but one unit of fire per man for our ’03 Springfields. We heard there might be some additional ammo at the Third Battalion command post, but that was a good half-mile away. So we just marched with what we had.
In my
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