War Stories II (35 page)

The effectiveness of the new Japanese night reinforcement strategy was felt almost immediately. Sustained contact with Japanese infantry patrols operating around the airfield increased significantly. On 3 September, Brigadier General Roy Geiger flew in from Espiritu Santo to take command of the Marine squadrons operating from Henderson Field and the nearby auxiliary strip known as “Fighter One.” That night, the newly arrived commander of the 1st Marine Air Wing was treated to a naval gunfire barrage by a Japanese destroyer, a strafing attack by a Mitsubishi Zero seaplane nicknamed “Louie the Louse,” a high-altitude bombing raid by a solo long-range bomber the Marines had dubbed “Washing Machine Charlie,” and, finally, a probe of the airfield's perimeter defenses by Japanese infantry. The following morning Geiger discovered that only eleven of the fifty Wildcats delivered to the island were still flyable, due to the nightly bombardments.

Things were no better for the ground troops, who were literally rotting in their foxholes on less than half rations. On the night of 4–5 September, a Japanese destroyer in Ironbottom Sound sank two U.S. ships attempting to deliver food, fuel, and ammunition to the beleaguered Leathernecks.

By 10 September, the Tokyo Express runs had brought Japanese troop strength on Guadalcanal up to more than 6,000. The next day, the naval gunfire and regular nightly air raids by land-based bombers from Rabaul, Bougainville, and the Bonin Islands forced General Vandegrift to move his command post, repair facilities, and hospital away from the beach to a high ridge leading upwards from the south to its crest, directly overlooking Henderson Field.

The Leathernecks had nicknamed the ridge after the 1st Marine Parachute Battalion commander, Merritt “Red Mike” Edson. “Red Mike” was
Edson's radio call sign and his troops used the name affectionately. Since his tough, parachute-trained Marines were protecting the division command post on the side of the mountain, the name Edson's Ridge stuck.

By 12 September, General Kiyotaki Kawaguchi, the senior Japanese officer on Guadalcanal, had concluded that the 6,600 troops he had ashore were sufficient to dislodge the Marines protecting Henderson Field and to retake the airstrip. His reconnaissance patrols had pinpointed the relocated Marine command post on Edson's Ridge. Kawaguchi reasoned that if he overran the post, confusion would ensue in the Marine ranks and the battle would be decided in his favor. But when he launched his attack that evening to force the Marines off the ridge, Edson's Raiders were ready with massed machine gun, mortar, and artillery fire.

The battle along the ridgeline—some of it hand-to-hand—raged for more than twenty-four hours. When it was over—just after dark on 13 September—more than 1,500 of Kawaguchi's troops were dead. The Marines had 40 killed in action and 103 wounded. From then on, they would call the scene of the battle “Bloody Ridge.”

For those in this and numerous other battles on the high ground overlooking Henderson Field, the suicidal enemy charges were horrific. There was nothing in the experience of these young Americans to prepare them for the carnage of massed bayonet charges by waves of Japanese soldiers, attacking through minefields and throwing themselves against machine guns. Captain John Sweeney, of Columbus, Ohio, was one of those who fought with Edson on Bloody Ridge, where he and his fellow Marines were outnumbered 600 to 1.

When it was over, Edson and his Marines had somehow managed to hold their ground. Their raw courage in the face of overwhelming odds saved Henderson Field. “Red Mike” Edson was awarded the Medal of Honor for his efforts, and Captain John Sweeney was awarded the Navy Cross.

A day after “Bloody Ridge,” the carrier
Wasp
, the brand-new battleship
North Carolina
, and the destroyer
O'Brien
were all torpedoed by Japanese subs. The
North Carolina
managed to limp back to Pearl Harbor for repairs, but the
Wasp
and
O'Brien
both went down—fortunately after most of their crews managed to abandon ship. These losses left only one operational carrier, the
Hornet
, and one battleship, the USS
Washington
, at sea in the Pacific—and made Admiral Chester Nimitz wonder if Guadalcanal could be saved. Within a month he would have even more reason to doubt the outcome.

The loss of half his operational carriers and battleships on 15 September stunned Nimitz and his staff in Hawaii. Ashore on Guadalcanal, the Marines were, however, heartened by the safe arrival of 4,200 more Marines from Samoa. These new arrivals were immediately fed into the narrow perimeter around Henderson Field and Fighter One. More than 1,000 of Vandegrift's sickest and most seriously wounded casualties were evacuated.

Unfortunately, the Japanese were also adding to their forces. On 18 September the Imperial General Staff ordered that retaking Guadalcanal be
given strategic priority over the effort to seize Port Moresby. From that point on, the Tokyo Express landed between 500 and 1,000 fresh troops and supplies nightly on Guadalcanal. By 10 October, the Japanese had nearly 12,000 Imperial Army soldiers on the island—roughly the strength available to Vandegrift.

The reinforcements General Kawaguchi received convinced him that he had sufficient strength to overwhelm the Henderson Field defenses—providing the Imperial Fleet could deliver enough fire to support his advance and keep the “Cactus Air Force” from launching against his troops. The attack was carefully planned for the night of 11–12 October, and a surface action group of three heavy cruisers and two destroyers commanded by Rear Admiral Aritomo Goto was dispatched from Rabaul. Once the cruisers opened fire on Henderson Field and Vandegrift's command post on Bloody Ridge, Kawaguchi would launch his ground assault.

Fortunately, in Hawaii, Station Hypo had succeeded in breaking enough of the new Japanese naval code to warn Admiral Ghormley of the impending attack. Ghormley immediately dispatched the only forces he had available—a cruiser-destroyer flotilla commanded by Rear Admiral Norman Scott—and ordered him to interdict the Japanese before they could open fire on the Marines.