September 23, 2025 • 47 mins
This is the third episode of our Guadalcanal series with historian and author Dave Holland.
This episodes discusses:
How the Marines seized conducted the landing and seized Guadalcanal’s decisive terrain.
Red Beach landing bypasses IJA fortifications at Lunga Point.
Vandegrift prioritizes tight perimeter, airfield defense.
Carriers withdraw; logistics halved, myths debunked.
Japanese forces surprised and how they reacted.
Combined arms landings: infantry, artillery, engineers.
What really happened with the Goettge Patrol?
Logistics speed amphibious resupply.
Amtracs and beachmasters enable rapid combat buildup.
Modern littoral operations: enduring risk management lessons.
Dave is an ex-Marine and was posted to Guadalcananal with the Australian Federal Police. He regularly leads battlefield study tours through the area. He is a world-leading expert on the battles of Guadalcanal and author of Guadalcanal's Longest Fight - The Pivotal Battles of the Matanikau Front.
Check out the show notes for this episode.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
The Marine landings on Guadalcanal.
Seizing the Decisive Terrain.
This is the Principles of War podcast.
Professional military education for junior officers and senior NCOs.
This episode, number 137 of the Principles of War podcast, we'll look at the US large scale landings on Guadalcanal.
(00:30):
We will discuss not only this important littoral manoeuvre, but military risk management, the importance of logistics, why the airfield was the decisive terrain and what happened on the Getche patrol and what were the lessons learned from it.
We are joined by our historian, Dave Holland, the author of Guadalcanal's Longest Fight, the Pivotal Battles of the Matanical.
(00:56):
Let's get back right into our interview with Dave as a part of our series on the Guadalcanal campaign.
Welcome back to the podcast, Dave.
Thanks, James.
This is episode three and yeah, I'm really enjoying this.
Now we get into the actual landing of Guadalcanal today, so it's going to be real good.
Yeah, I think this will be a really interesting one.
(01:17):
So the landing at Lunga point happened at 09.10 on 7 August, which was after the landing at Tulagi.
What was the delay for?
Why didn't they aim to get simultaneous landings?
Well, they.
I'll just take a step back there.
They didn't actually land at Lunger Point.
They landed roughly 6,000 yards due east in a place called Red beach, or Beach Red.
(01:41):
It was between Coley Point and Lunga Point.
Ideally, they wanted to land at Lunger Point because if you look at Van Fibs.
Look at it from an amphibious landings perspective.
A Lungar Point is basically convex, so if you land in on a point, you're less susceptible to inflated fire from the sides.
So if you land on a concave beach, then obviously you could be potentially inflated.
(02:04):
And plus two, if you land at Lunga Point, if you look at a map of Guadalcanal, that's a straight shot to the airfield.
There's no obstacles like rivers.
I mean, it's just as soon as you land, you're there like 2,000 yards straight onto it.
But their intelligence had predicted there's around 5,000 Japanese there, including a reinforced Japanese infantry regiment, which potentially dug in on Lunga Point with a machine gun battalion and a few other combat units.
(02:28):
So they thought, well, if we land straight on Lunga Point, where they expect us to potentially land, it's going to be heavy defenses.
So once again, as we spoke about last episode with Tulagi, we'll land where they don't expect us to land.
So that was a gamble that Vande Griff and his planners had taken and it paid off, as we will see.
So they landed about 6000 yards due east.
(02:49):
So it was a 6, 1600 yard beach.
But to get back to the question, why was there a delay?
Now this is one of the questions that's really stopped me a bit.
I've looked at all the resources I could.
I could never lock down a definitive answer why they delayed it for 30 minutes.
Now it was planned.
HR was 08, it's loggy.
(03:09):
And 30 minutes later was going to be the landings on Guadalcanal.
It might have been due to the fact that the air cover resources weren't available.
I did come across a point where some transports were slow, but once again, this is pre planned, so it wasn't one of the last minute things.
Now what about the element of surprise?
And you got to remember too, the airstrikes and the naval gunfire was simultaneous and started at 6 o' clock in the morning.
(03:34):
So they're basically simultaneous.
So the element of surprise, say for example Tulagi is 20 miles across, Ironbottom Sound.
So if they hit there first today, potentially without hitting Guadalcanal by air, the forces on Guadalcanal could be alerted.
Once again, the cat was out of the bag.
They both hit them at the same time simultaneously.
So 30 minute delay.
I'm trying to find that answer.
(03:55):
Obviously if some of the listeners or viewers know that, please let me know.
But I've done some pretty deep research on it and maybe I need to speak to one of my neighborhood historian friends that let me know.
But yeah, definitely occurred when they landed at Red beach, or Beach Reds they called it.
It was supposed to be at 9 o' clock in the morning, but the first elements landed at between 9:10 to 9:13.
(04:16):
Depends on which source you look for.
Were the Japanese expecting them and what forces were there to oppose them?
Okay, well, the Japanese weren't expecting a direct amphibious assault.
The Japanese Imperial General Headquarters had estimated that the Americans or the Allies wouldn't be ready for an offensive in the Pacific until easily early 1943.
(04:38):
So you gotta remember Guadalcanal.
The airfield at Guadalcanal was a staging base.
Initially it was designed as a staging base for Operation fx, which is the invasion of Fiji and Samoa and New Caledonia.
But once that was canceled, they continued building it up.
But it was such a large base now they had roughly about 2,000 construction workers in the two units.
The 13th construction unit and 11th construction units composed primarily of Korean, they're not slave laborers but conscripted.
(05:04):
And some were actually volunteered Korean laborers with a sprinkling of Japanese engineers and some foremen in there.
And plus they had a couple of security companies of special naval landing force, roughly about 500 guys in both companies spread out among those two units.
And it had a number of anti aircraft units there because the Americans had been begun the bombing with the B17s flying out of Australia and Espritio Santos, which is the New Hebrides or Vanuatu as we know it now they were there but they didn't have prepared beach defenses like we spoke about Tulagi.
(05:37):
It was more air defenses, anti aircraft defenses.
Now some of the intelligence was coming back, Japanese intelligence was coming back that a large convoy had left the western United States troop convoy.
They had started picking up radio transmissions and the Japanese intelligence of the 8th Fleet, Japanese 8 fleets are about, were basically sending reports back to Imperial.
(05:58):
General headquarters said look, we think potentially they're going to invade actually named Guadalcanal Angelagi.
They said look, that's, we think they're going to hit here.
Imperial during the headquarters said look, this is probably just reinforcements, troop reinforcements to go to Australia, which that had been sending them there.
And so the other islands, if it's anything, it's going to be like minor raids and they'll just withdraw across the Pacific like they have been doing earlier because they did some carrier raids and a few other raids.
(06:23):
So they kind of just said there's nothing to see here, let's move on.
But once again they, the Japanese did think, some Japanese did think they were going to invite.
But to answer your question, like I said before, the Americans thought they were at least 5,000 Japanese ready to fight.
That wasn't the case.
So what units were the US forces landing on Guadalcanal that morning?
(06:46):
Last episode we discussed what units landed at Tulagi.
So that was under Brigadier General Purdis.
So Vandegroof took the bulk of the division, roughly about 11,000 men.
So you had the complete regiment, the 1st Marines, they call them 1st Marine Regiment or 1st Marines in Marine polants.
That's the way they say it.
And then you had two battalions of the 5th Marines.
(07:07):
She had 1, 5, the way the Marines say it, 1 5.
And you had 3, 5.
And then you had all the other specialist units associated with amphibious division.
You had four battalions.
No, sorry.
Three battalions of artillery.
She had 275 millimeter battalions and a 105 millimeter battalion.
(07:27):
And in fact each Landed battalion had a 75 millimeter pack howitzer battery assigned to them going straight in.
And you know, in the first waves, well probably by the third wave, but they had a specifically a whole battery of 75 millimeters artillery attached to that infantry battalion going in.
And then you had the 1st Special Weapons Battalion which had a number of M3, 75 millimeter half tracks, anti tank guns, anti aircraft guns.
(07:55):
You had the 1st Engineer Battalion, the 1st Pioneer Battalion.
We'll talk about them, those guys in a second.
There's specialist role.
You had two companies of tanks which you had the 1st Marine Tank Battalion but had two companies, had A Company and P Company of M3 tanks.
I know I'm missing a couple here, but yeah, had a good combined arms assault unit going in.
(08:17):
That's quite a balanced force, isn't it?
Yeah, well just like we think we talked about in episode one about how that division, amphibious assault division, the first of its kind in US history, but it was a whole combined arms division for that.
So the commander for the Marines was Alexander Vandegrift.
What was he like?
Yeah, so Vandegrift, I think he joined 1909, Marine Officer.
(08:39):
He did the typical Marine postings.
He missed World War I because he'd assigned to Haiti.
He was in Agenda Arms, he was an advisor in Haiti.
He was fighting at Cacos.
Cacos, I think the way you pronounce it, probably mispronounce it, but the Haitian insurgents or Haitian rebels.
So he was fighting down there and doing some insurgency anti counterinsurgency roles in Haiti during the war.
(09:02):
And after that he went to Nicaragua, he went to China, he served in the staff.
He had a good background with specialty staff and what typical Marine would have at the time when the war broke out, he was the assistant division commander of the 1st Marine Division and then soon took command of the 1st Marine Division.
And Vandy Griff is a man, he was described as a con man, a pretty down to earth type of guy, very personable.
(09:30):
He on the island he would actually, once he'd finished his correspondences for the morning, his routine, he would jump in the jeep with his driver and he would take a tour of the lines or sea Marines.
He'd be speaking anywhere from colonels to privates.
That was what he really liked to do.
And he would stop and just discuss things on the ground and find out what was going on.
He.
He's also gauging the morale, their health and he was doing what a good commander would do and very personable.
(09:55):
He would sit and Talk with them.
And people said they could be.
They felt very comfortable around Smiling Jim, they called him.
He was deaf, I guess, from these years of all the firing and the guns and stuff.
And sometimes people would think he wasn't listening in command meetings because sometimes when we'd go into command meeting, if he went by himself, he would come out and he and his.
(10:16):
His subordinates to say, okay, boss, what did they say?
And he really couldn't describe in detail what they said.
So they've always tried to put someone in with him.
It actually be the.
To get some of the.
All the information.
He had night blindness.
There's a famous photo of him on Guad Canal.
And he's.
He's in his, like his little bush tent.
He's got his field desk.
He's got his flashlight or torches they call in Australia right beside him.
(10:39):
So everywhere he went, he had that flashlight torch with him.
And when he would do his rounds visiting the Marines, you'll see in the photos, he's always got like a pith helmet or a sun helmet on because he hated wearing a steel pipe because he gave him a headache.
But he always had his.45 with him.
What was so great about Vandegrift, he had that strategic vision when they first landed.
(10:59):
From minute one, he knew that battle or that campaign was going to be on the Air Force.
So some of the, even the Joint Chiefs of Staff and some of the higher ups thought traditionally you land on Guadalcanal, you take the island.
It's more about grabbing land than it was about the airfield.
Vandergrift recognized that strategic importance of the.
(11:21):
The airfields and how it will be play out in the Pacific War.
It was all about the airfield.
Protect the airfield.
You know, don't spread your forces all around the island because The Guadalcanal is 90 miles long and 25 miles wide.
It's the same size as US state of Delaware.
So you can't spread your guys out like that.
He put them in a nice tight perimeter.
But all is about the airfield.
(11:41):
Protect the airfield.
And Vandergriff had the.
I forgot what famous journal used it, I think on a General George Washington American Revolution.
To win, you must not lose.
I forgot the exact same of that.
But that's what he said.
For us to win, we just can't lose the battle.
If we don't lose battles like a defensive strategy, we'll win because that's what the Marines did initially was the first offensive for the Allies against the Japanese.
(12:07):
Then it quickly switched and changed, pivoted 360 degrees to a defensive posture.
But yeah, that was Vandegrift and very well liked.
He's probably the right man for the right time for the right job in Marine Corps.
He probably couldn't have picked a better commander to command the 1st Marine Division together.
Strategic importance.
(12:27):
But I have to say his staff was great.
They were packed with some good guys.
Especially a guy called.
It was Lt. Col. Gerald Thomas or Jerry Thomas had quickly became a colonel and when they first landed, he was the planning officer.
D3 they call him.
And then in September became the chief of staff and he was the brains of the division.
Then he had a guy called Lt. Col. Merle Twining.
(12:49):
He took over the D3, the planning.
Those guys were some real good planners and they knew basically what they were doing.
I think you bring up a really good point there.
I wonder how many great generals there were or there have been who haven't had a great staff.
And I think to be a great general, one of the things that you need to be able to do is you need to be able to build a strong team around you because you've got a lot of things going on as a divisional commander and you've got to be able to rely on your.
(13:17):
Staff so that, you know, it was down the leadership, I mean company commanders, 10 commanders, battalion commanders.
You always have a good staff below you, good people to work for, civilian world or any job, really.
So do you want to talk us through how the landing proceeded then?
Yeah.
So the first wave or the first unit to land was the 5th Marines.
(13:38):
So you had 15 and 3, 5 and they landed abreast.
Two battalions abreast.
They landed.
Their job was to land, turn to the right or turn to the west and then proceed across three small rivers and go to the airfield.
First Marines were going to push through.
Once the beachhead was formed, they were going to move through the 5th Marines.
They were going to go on a compensated 270 degrees.
(13:58):
Then I forgot something like 4,000 yards.
Take another.
They were going to go.
I don't know what that was.
They're going to go straight to a, a place called the grassy knoll, which we now know is Mount Austin.
So the preliminary, the pre recon information coming in from some of the Australian planters or some of the Australians that were there before.
(14:19):
Talk about the grassy knoll.
They said, oh, it stands out pretty prominent.
And so that was what they're going to do.
They're going to land first Marine is going to push through and take the grassy knoll, the grassy nose roughly three miles away over three rivers.
With four rivers and thick jungle, there would be no way they could take it.
So what they were going to do, they were going to go to cut off the potential retreat.
(14:42):
That was what the plan was.
Yeah, it's hoping to take the airfield by day one, which was the 7th of August.
So Vice Admiral Jack Fletcher withdrew the carriers on the 8th of August.
That night, the Battle of Savo island is fought.
And the next morning, Rear Admiral Kelly Turner withdrew the transports.
What impact did this have on for the Marines in particular in their logistics?
(15:07):
Okay, last episode we discussed a bit about why they pulled out and the coverage and all that.
So I won't go into too much detail there.
That's a big controversy to this day.
And with the whole I declare the abandonment myth and I'll discuss that in a second.
So the impact we mentioned earlier, that the Marines were winning light to start with because they were trying to restrict their weight.
(15:27):
So when the transports and the cargo ships, like left on the morning of the.
Or, sorry, the afternoon of the 9th of August, they probably took.
There's really no definitive.
It's estimated about 50 of the supplies they had with them.
So they left the Marines with 50% of their supplies, which they were going in a lot to start with.
So that was the impact logistically they had on the Marine.
(15:49):
Now, the abandonment myth, I call it the abandonment myth because you hear the Marines and some of them still to this day, even while I was in Marine boot camp, when I was in the Marine Corps, they said all the.
The Navy abandoned.
The Navy abandoned Marines on Guadalcanal.
But every time we're involved in an amphibious invasion, from now on, just be careful because Marines, or started the Navy would leave your.
(16:09):
Leave your rear behind.
That was what was always told.
We just believed it.
It wasn't until I started studying the battle of Guadalcanal.
Sorry.
They're campaigning Guadalcanal.
And deeply that I'm thinking, well, this is not the case.
Did the Marines have a right to perceive that they were abandoned?
Yeah, they did.
A lot of them didn't know.
Some of them didn't even know the.
The losses on the Balisavo island to after the war.
(16:32):
They just know one day the neighbors there, next minute they're going to go, where's their food?
All the Navy left.
Well, they left us.
But abandonment means to completely leave someone and never come back.
When Turner left, yes, he told Vanagar.
So I'LL be back in a week.
And to his credit, they started running small, fast destroyers for supplies in nine days later, always say to the people, said, oh, they abandoned the Marines.
(16:54):
I said, well, if you look, there's 5,000 sailors in iron Bottom sounds still manning their ships.
They didn't leave anybody.
They didn't abandon anyone.
Now for every.
So 3.5 sailors died for every one US army and US Marine on Guadalcanal on the land.
So, yep.
Did the Marines, would they expect it or is it reasonable to think that, okay, they were abandoned?
(17:19):
Yeah, that was a good perception at the time.
But anyway, yeah, so they were left with 50% with their supplies.
This highlights the key dilemma of the campaign.
And you know, should the carriers be risked to protect the transports to offload the supplies for the Marines?
How did Vandegrift respond to the removal of the transports?
(17:39):
Well, he didn't really have much response.
He didn't like it, of course, him and Kelly Tarter, the Trans force commander, but they didn't really have a say in the matter.
Van de Griff, once again, very optimistic guy.
He says, okay, we got what we got and we're here to stay and we'll fight us out.
And one of the Marine officers said, well, you can't dislodge infantry by bombs.
They're going to come back.
The carriers at the time.
(18:00):
Once again, it's another controversy.
Do they sacrifice a Marine division or carriers?
Carriers are very strategic at that stage of the war.
Very well, cagey for the rest of the war, but they didn't have that many to play.
Win or lose.
The risk.
Losing Fletcher was under the.
I wouldn't say it's doctrine, but he'd been told about the calculated risk from Nimmies.
(18:20):
If you think you can take a calculated risk without losing your carriers, take it.
But if you think you potentially lose your carriers, don't take it.
So I think he looked at it, he said, this potentially calculated risk.
And I said, I'd be there.
D +2.
I've done my duty, now I'm pulling out because my cash month, basically carriers are stationary in one position, acceptable air attack.
(18:40):
So he didn't want to lose them because once again, you can leave the infantry there on the island.
They're not going to be dislodged for bomb.
They can stay there for a while.
But it only takes a few bombs to sink a carrier and you lose your strategic asset very quickly.
So, yeah, there was a gamble, or I guess it was a risk, a calculated risk to Leave, and they did.
(19:00):
So they managed to offload 11,000 troops, but not all of the supplies that he wanted.
What did Vande Griff have and how did he deploy the forces that he had to prepare for a Japanese attack?
Luckily for the Marines, it goes back to what I was saying earlier about how the Japanese were building staging base.
So a lot of supplies there, more than enough for 2,000 men.
They were obviously building it up because the Japanese, they're very little weak.
(19:23):
They were going to land a lot of planes on it, and that place would become operational.
So they were getting ready for a few hundred or a few thousand more men to come in.
So the Japanese had a full, basically small city and had their own ice plants, power plants.
They had hangers, they had hundreds and thousands of gallons of fuel.
They had much more importantly, they had all these aircraft or, sorry, airfield construction said bulldozers, rollers, trucks, everything you need to build an airfield.
(19:52):
The Marines were only offloaded one bulldozer.
I think they call it Old Faithful.
They got a lot of work out of it, but they used a lot of Japanese equipment, a lot of Japanese food.
You had rice, you had canned food, you had all kind of stuff.
You had matting.
So once again, the Marines were going to form a defensive perimeter.
So they didn't really arrive with a lot of tools.
(20:13):
They call them trenching tools, sandbags, shovels, picks, barbed wire.
They all offloaded 20x spools of barbed wire.
So they used a lot of these Japanese rice bags as sandbags.
So they improvised quite a bit, too.
So the Japanese stores really assisted Vandegrift and more importantly, assist them in building and completing the airfield.
(20:36):
They had the airfield completed by 16 August.
The Japanese had built about a 3,600 or 3,700 foot airfield.
They started from both ends, and there's only a small portion in the middle that was uncomplated.
So the first Marine engineers actually completed it.
Then the Seabees, we'll talk about later who they were.
They landed on the 1st of September and built it up more.
(20:56):
So the way that Vandergrift deployed his forces, they had four points after they landed.
Four things they had to achieve four major points.
The first one was preparing his defenses for amphibious assault.
Because on the 7th and 8th, the Japanese had started to do some counterattacks.
They had three air raids in two days, and they also had the Battle of Savile Island.
So they had some fierce counterattacks.
(21:17):
So Vandergrift and his planners are expecting a major Amphibious assault.
And a major amphibious assault was going to be on Luna Point.
They were actually getting some reports in Revile that there was some armored landing craft being I think put in ships and they were heading their way.
In fact on August 9th in the battle of Saval island, some of the US transport ships had been moving back and forth unloading supplies and the Marines stopped.
(21:42):
The Japanese were landing.
In fact I think it was two, one or one actually shot up some of the boats coming in.
They stopped and they were not landing.
So their main concern was amphibious assault.
So what Vandergrift did on Lunga Point he put his main defenses, so he's put his two regiments, infantry regiments there.
He refused both flanks, one at Cookham on the west flank and one on Alligator Creek or the Elu river on the right flank to refuse it.
(22:08):
So you basically had about a three mile line coastline and both sides pulled back about 2,000 yards.
It's like a little horseshoe shape.
And then on the beaches they put 37 millimeter tank guns, ran top boat defense, had 50 cows caliber heavy machine guns, 30 caliber heavy machine guns, 30 caliber medium machine guns.
(22:28):
They took their M3 half tracks with 75 millimeter self propelled guns that put them there.
They had their tanks ready for a quick response counterattack.
They registered all their artillery all on the baits.
They had a pretty strong defense.
Let's go back to the artillery.
I said one battery landed with each battalion.
(22:49):
The first battery was on the baits in 28 minutes and one hour and seven minutes later.
This is code from Pedro Laval which is division artillery commander.
From his notes they fired redstream shot within one hour and seven minutes after landing the artillery.
So they're ready to go.
To me that I thought that was quite impressive, the 75 millimeter pack holes.
So the four key things you had to do.
(23:10):
One, you had to build up the defenses.
Two, remember 6,000 yards to the right was still all their supplies.
I'll talk about the supplies in a second.
But they had to get all their supplies into the secure perimeter.
So that was a major key job they had to do.
Because them supplies built up on the beach, susceptible to air raids or they were thinking potentially a commando raid to take them out.
(23:33):
So the whatever supplies that offloaded they had to move them in.
The third they had to complete the airfield.
And the fourth they had to do active patrolling to try to find the original garrison.
Because when they landed the original garrison and the captain Monson they gave them orders, said okay, I want everyone to flee to the.
To west to Matanical river, to our defense line.
(23:53):
Grab three days with the rations or whatever and take off.
That's what they did.
But they didn't know where the original garrison was.
And plus remember their intelligence said there's 5,000 Japanese here and they didn't really come across any of them.
So they're trying to find them now.
We'll go back to supplies.
Beach Red is a great beach, great landing beach.
A red beach, but it's shallow beach.
A lot of these supplies landed on a shallow beach.
(24:15):
The marines would conduct a lot of landings after Guadalcanal.
What were the key lessons that came out from these first littoral operations?
So both to La De and Guadalcanal.
Go back to Lt. Col. Twining, Division Plant planner, very smart guy.
He said the number one thing about the number one lesson they earned, especially logistics is serialization.
(24:38):
They had learned how to serialize the cargoes.
He said it may not sound important but he said became that was the most important thing they learned and how it come to fruition in all the later campaigns and you see nowadays and loading cargoes on ships, everything's serialized.
I mean you barcodes now but every item has a place.
And it allowed him to organize and efficiently move their supplies quicker and get them offloaded and loaded on boats lot faster.
(25:03):
He said serialization was number one command and control.
Between the amphibious forces and land forces.
There was a.
They ironed out a lot of the kinks in that also the coordination of naval gunfire and close air support.
By placing actually nice.
They were going to fire forward observers in with the landing forces.
(25:24):
They didn't have that before the integrated combined arms in the planning teams and the coordinations and started from the very beginning.
So when you're starting a planning amphibious operation that all elements need to work as a team together.
For example, you don't have the Marines planning team over on the say on this side and Navy on this side and the air on this side.
(25:45):
All elements working together from minute one to integrate in their plans.
Because that hadn't occurred, which we look at it nowadays, you think that's normal.
But in those days it wasn't.
Especially in the very first amphibious assault.
The loads were too heavy initially to go in the planning.
For example, they'd plan for 90 days.
They said in Vivian invasion should have 90 days worth of supply.
(26:07):
So ammunition, food and so forth.
After this they said well they only need 60 days worth of supplies.
And that's what they did.
They initially landed with 60 days.
They'd packed for 90 days.
But in New Zealand, they said, well, we can't take all this, so we'll just cut it down to 60 days.
Naturally went down to 30 days when they actually landed, because that's all they had, food for 30 days and four units of fire.
(26:28):
That's all they had initially when the Navy pulled out, that's supplemented with Japanese rations.
The importance to rapidly build up and defend advanced bases.
That was an importance, and that's a very important, I think, key lesson for today and for littoral operations to quickly grab a base or grab an area and defend it, to build up very quickly and obviously the complete dominance of air and sea space for an amphibious invasion.
(26:56):
I think one of the Marines says after there was no navy around to support them, they said even the greenest second lieutenant would know that you need to control a sea space for effective, infamous operation.
They controlled the sea and air.
So they learned the aspects of that.
Because once again, during, you'll see in the Guadalcanal campaign, the US Navy didn't control the sea, especially at night, didn't have complete control of the sea dominance.
(27:23):
Therefore, if you didn't have that control of that space, that battle space, then it was hard to supply.
And the Japanese found it out too, because they lost control of the battle space too.
And they found it hard to resupply during the day because they're.
The Cactus Air Force stopped them.
That was the main ones.
I think I had another one here.
Radio, comms, communications, more transports to move the supplies off the beach.
(27:48):
Because when they land in one stage on 7 August, there were a hundred landing craft, landing ships, and we're talking about the little Higgins boats full sitting off the beach, getting ready to unload.
There's 50 more out in the surf getting ready to come in.
So the 150 boats, they had to delay it for two, two hours to try to offload some of the supplies.
They were just jamming up.
(28:09):
They need more boats and the more.
And their secret weapon, which Vandergrift later said, this is my secret weapons with amphibious tractors, Amtraks.
At that time, it was a very new that a whole battalion.
In 1st amphibious tractor battalion, they looked at them and in later campaigns that were used as landing craft, assault craft, Guadalcanal, they looked at them as water trucks.
(28:32):
They use them in supply, moving supplies from point A to B.
But they're very effective, those amphibious tractors.
And they had a scheme where they take amphibious tractors, use them as Pontoons.
This is one of the engineers beforehand.
I might have talked about this in the other episode.
They had like a kadura, prefabricated kadura road.
(28:52):
Like a road, a bridge.
They had a big roll on top of an Amtrak and they'd drive these two amphibious tractors in a river or small creek, then unroll this little temporary bridge that allowed them to forward very quickly.
They seen how important that came to be.
So, yeah, they were very shown a lot of innovation here that turned out to really assist them in later campaigns.
(29:13):
Who was actually in control of the beach, who was trying to coordinate what landing craft were going to come in and who was going to take off the supplies and where those supplies were going to go?
I think at one stage Vandergrift was worried because there was a significant ammunition dump and he thought that if the Japanese bombed it, they could lose all of that ammunition.
(29:34):
And he wasn't sure when he was going to get resupplied.
Yeah, so that's another lesson that they learned about beach masters.
They only have one beach master, you know, one beach master control this whole 1600 yard beach.
Jack Clark US Navy Beach Master so he was doing his best he could, but there was really no one completely organizing and controlling the beach because once they landed, the Marines infra guys fanned out and formed a beachhead because you got to remember they were suspecting a reinforced Japanese regiment, so they couldn't help with the offloading.
(30:05):
There was a specific unit made for this landing support battalion and they were called the first Pioneers.
There were part engineers and part landing support battalion.
So it was 450 of those guys.
So they were supposed to assist.
And then he had some of the beachmaster party.
But it was very.
I think it was about 30, 40 guys in that they were supposed to set up the signal flags in the sector and get.
(30:28):
Which is basically fell apart and boats would just come in, unload, dump it in a big pile and take back off.
That was basically how it went.
And there was not enough people to help unload.
Gotta remember, there's no docks there.
They had no rollers, which you see them in the later ones, campaigns we can just.
You've seen like some of the warehouses, modern warehouse, you got like little tracks with rollers on it, and they can just roll boxes straight off.
(30:52):
They didn't have anything like that.
You see them in later in any campaign, but nothing like that.
It would just.
And then a lot of these landing craft didn't have ramps.
So you're throwing this stuff Straight over.
Some of the stuff was hitting the surf and floating in the surf, and he's piling up and it was a big mess.
It was a big cluster, basically, what it.
What it was.
So.
So a few days later, the 12th of August, we have quite a famous patrol, the GY Patrol.
(31:16):
Do you want to talk us through what the GY Patrol was?
Yeah.
So Gatche is lieutenant colonel.
Later colonel on 28 July, became colonel.
You see some of the reports.
He was in Australia.
He was the division intelligence officer.
He was lieutenant colonel.
And then I always wondered, because that's the finest picture of him.
(31:36):
He's on Guadala Canal.
He's got colonel, got eagles, got colonel insignia.
But I'm reading all these primary reports in July that he's signing off lieutenant colonel.
I said, well, how does that work?
And then I came across a report where on 28 July, it was a message on the ship that him and about three other guys were promoted from lieutenant colonel a week before he landed.
(31:59):
He was Colonel Gye.
So GY was the division intelligence officer, famous former football player.
I think he was going to be recruited by the New York Giants, which professional football team.
But he remained in the Marine Corps, Big fella in Gatchi.
When they'd landed, all his estimates said there's 5,000 Japanese here.
When they get there, they can't find them.
So Getche was a guy who always led for the front, and he kind of was very aggressive guy.
(32:24):
I think he was losing a bit of face from the reading the accounts and the reports and some of what the other officers were saying, because they go, what was these 5,000 men get you?
You know, we've got 5,000.
Your intelligence supposed to be great.
What's going on here?
So there were a number of Japanese laborers who escaped to the jungle.
A lot of them with the security forces and some of the Japanese laborers headed to the Matanical West.
(32:46):
But a lot of these Japanese, like there was over 2,000 of them.
It just spread all over the place.
So they're aimlessly walking around in the jungle, in the hills, all around the airfield.
In the first few days, Marines unfortunately killed some of these Koreans, thinking they were Japanese and shooting them on site.
Then it started working out.
These are Koreans laborers, not Japanese soldiers.
And they started capturing them.
(33:07):
Then, of course, on the 11th of August, they captured one Japanese laborer.
But there was another guy with him they described as a sullen man.
He was a warrant officer in the Japanese naval landed forces.
So they get him in, they captured him, they brought him in.
He wouldn't say anything.
They tied him to a tree and a son.
I wouldn't say torturing him, but question him.
(33:30):
Then they gave him some brandy, gave him a lot of brandy.
Then he started singing like a bird.
Anyway, he told him, he said, look, there's about a thousand, I think Japanese on the other side of Point Cruise, which is about six miles to the west past Matanical River.
They want to surrender.
Then it's okay.
And it roughly earlier to that day, the marine patrol had went to the Matanical near some fire and they'd be running patrols through there.
(33:55):
And it took some shots in Matanical, this is some guys here, they want to fight.
So they're coming back.
But at Cookham, the marines had a.
Had captured a anti aircraft gun.
So they're test firing it and shoot it out toward the Matanical, which is three miles or, sorry, five miles out.
And then they thought they seen a white flag.
What did we.
We think it is now.
And the white flag was just a normal Japanese flag, you know, with the red circle in the middle.
(34:20):
They just seen the white flag.
You got to remember this is before the.
They knew the Japanese would generally never surrender.
You know, the common belief and common knowledge.
I don't surrender.
They didn't think about that.
They think they potentially might surrender.
So the information got back to Gye.
They said, look, we've seen a white flag.
We've got this warrant officer saying there's over a thousand Japanese want to surrender and get you.
Goes, oh, okay, here's my garrison potentially.
(34:42):
And you know, here's my chance to just look good and do good and finally clear this island of the Japanese.
So there was going to be a patrol by a guy called first sergeant Custer as a.
Not a direct lineage, but he was actually lineage to the Custer of the custard.
Little big born fight, Stephen Custer.
But he had organized patrol or concert patrol and he had some combat guys on it.
(35:04):
And they were going to go in and infiltrate and look over the Matanical because of the reports from the early patrols that, you know, there's just some fighting at Tanical, some pretty tough guys there.
Don't go there.
And in fact, there's a guy called Colonel Bill Whelan who was the executive officer of the 5th Marines that told G. He goes, just avoid the mouth botanical.
That's a hornet's nest there.
(35:24):
Just avoid that area.
Yes, sir, I will.
No problem.
So what Gadget did.
He thought, well, here's my chance.
So what he's done with Custer's patrol, he's pulled a lot of combat guys out and added his own specialist in because some of these specialists will blow your mind.
One was a guy called Pratt, Dr. Pratt.
He was battalion or sorry, the regimental surgeon.
It fought in the First World War and earned a Navy Cross as a Navy doctor with the 5th Marines actually in the First World War.
(35:51):
So he was spent old.
But he was going to go because they thought, oh, we got all these prisoners going to need a doctor.
I guess Corps was not good enough.
They took the litter graph, their map makers, all the most of the guys from the regimental and division intelligence.
They took a linguist, one of the few linguists they had.
They took him.
They took another guy called Ralph Corey.
(36:13):
Ralph Corey was in his 40 forties.
He'd lived in Japan pre war and he came back in American.
But what Ralph Corey had and what he was involved with pre war, I don't even think Vandergriff even knew he was involved some in a program called Magic, which is the breaking the Japanese codes.
Very super, super top secret.
(36:34):
In fact, Corey shouldn't even been in a combat zombie, much less than going out on combat patrol.
He was put in there because he was a Japanese linguist and he had other non combat types in there too.
So 25 of them jumped on a boat.
They booked out.
I won't go in a lot of detail because my whole episode.
Well, I'll have my episode on the Gadget truck.
(36:54):
Anyway, they left on the 12 August.
So instead of landing, they were going to land on the other side of Point Cruise.
For some reason, whether they got lost or Disorientated, they landed 200 yards due west of the mouth of Matanakau into the Hornet's Nest.
So they landed there.
They landed actually 200 yards out.
(37:16):
They were landed 200 yards from the mouth, about 100 yards out and was hung up on a sandbar or a coral shelf.
The boat went back and forth, making all this noise.
So the Japanese were waiting for them.
So they basically, they landed them.
The boat took back off because G said they didn't need the boat, didn't want to wait around, just take off.
So catchy.
Two others walked in to find out where they were at and they walked straight into ambush.
(37:39):
Gaethje was basically killed automatically and the rest of his men was pinned down on a beach.
And over the course of the night they sent three Marines out to try to get help.
One died at the mouth of the town cow.
The other two started swimming back.
And then when morning time come, I mean, they didn't have a radio, they didn't have anything.
So morning time come, there's only three survivors left, and they try to make a run for it.
(37:59):
Two was shot down and a guy called Frank Few managed to jump into the ocean, strip down and swim back.
By the time he got back, the other two had made it.
And they said, look, the Gatches is getting hit up there, so they're forming up a relief party.
By the time Few got back, he said, they're all dead.
So that.
And then when they did find reef party, it was the first biometanical and a few other things, but the state of the bodies when they did find them.
(38:24):
And then Few actually said when you look back, you could see them being bayoneted and chopped up and things like that and killing the wounded.
So that got back.
And then when the first patrols went up there, they seen the mutilated bodies in all kinds of different forms.
And that word got back to the division.
So that kind of set the mindset because you got to remember division was very young.
(38:45):
The average age was about 19, fellow division compared to say U.S. army with 26.
Because at this stage all these guys were volunteers and most of them were filled up with a lot of the war or the Pearl harbor guys at, you know, 18, 17, 18 years old at joint.
So they had that whole teenage impression line set.
So the word got back.
The Japanese not taking any prisoners.
(39:07):
They're butchering us.
We take no prisoners.
That's the way they want to play.
We'll play the same way.
They, you know, these bastards, they, you know, they fought dirty.
They're just ruthless.
And plus two, they thought that the Japanese had set them up.
Oh, it was a white flag, you know, they set us up.
Oh, the Japanese prisoners gave us a bad information because they took the Japanese prisoner along with them.
(39:30):
In fact, when they started to land at that area, that Japanese start saying, no, no, in Japanese, don't land here.
Don't land here.
You got the wrong place.
Because he knew what they were going into.
They actually had him on a.
Had a rope around his throat on the leash like a dog so he would escape.
So the.
From the first shots fired, there's a guy called Stout, Sergeant Coldwater.
He fired one shot with his.45 into the Japanese head.
(39:52):
He said, well, you've tricked us.
And he killed him on the spot.
But that, but the whole trick rid and the butchery and all that combined form the ethos and the mindset for all these Marines for the Marine division at that stage on, they said, we'll take no prisoners.
If that's the way they want to play this game, we'll take no prisoners.
And then we'll see.
With the ballet area of the creek, that was just reinforced more.
(40:13):
But that was the, I think, the biggest impact of the Gadget Patrol that went through, all through boot camp, all through War ii.
Like Eugene Sledge, he wrote the.
I don't know if you're familiar with Sledge about Peleloo in Okinawa with the Old Breed, he wrote probably one of the best memoirs of the.
I would say the war.
Probably one of the best war memorials memoirs of all time.
(40:33):
He talks about in his boot camp, they talk about the Gatchi Patrol.
He went through it in 43, I think, or 44.
So that was an everlasting impact all through the whole Pacific.
But then obviously the Japanese actions for every battle after that just reinforced that whole perception.
So that was the impact of the Gochi patrol.
And it's interesting because it did have an important cultural impact on the rest of the war, effectively.
(40:58):
What were the maps like?
So, because when you look at Point Cruise, it would be difficult to miss Point Cruise.
And I think so you.
You wonder how they could have got close to the Metanica when they were told not to go close to the Metanica.
It does sound like a navigational error and yet Point Cruise is fairly clear.
(41:20):
Yeah.
And you know, you've been there and Point Close crew stands out.
We got to remember there in the darkness when they were going, it was dark.
And the mouth botanical stands out too.
So they're only 200 yards from.
Well, they're 100 yards out.
They landed 20 yards on the beach, but they were a hundred yards out from the mouth.
I've studied it quite a lot.
I don't only think that they were potentially lost in the darkness and the Cotswin and the boat was moving close to shore to trying to find his bearings and they seen the Alpha Matanical and get.
(41:48):
You probably said, list this land here or they're getting close and they either that or they've hit that sandbar, seen the mechanical and then a bit of lost patience because they're already behind, like hours behind their expected landing because they left cook them for boat base.
They were Operation Bay cook them, they left.
And then about 6 o' clock at night, Robin is starting to get dark and then they seen a flare of light and they had to come back.
(42:12):
It wasn't for them.
But they lost another hour, an hour and a half.
So they're behind the schedule.
Maybe a bit of impatience with get you because he was a very impatient type of guy.
He just always wanted to just take action without potentially thinking a lot that was quite commonly said about G very super brave man.
But yeah, I just think he just was a bit too aggressive.
(42:33):
I think he just lost impatience.
Let's land here and we'll go in.
When you think about the risk assessment for that action, a force of 25, we're going to pick up a theft, thousand prisoners and.
Exactly.
And, and that's another question.
Was that the arrogance or the naivety?
They think it was just okay, I've got 25 men, got one doctor, I got one linguist and unfortunately get you not here now to tell us what he was actually thinking.
(43:02):
He kept a lot of it to himself or their plans.
He didn't write anything down what they had planned to do and he didn't for tell anyone really what his full on plans.
I think he was potentially going to find them, verify and then go back and obviously get more supplies and get more men and things like that.
I think he just wanted to actually verify that what he was saying was true because initially it was going to be a reconnaissance patrol under Custer.
(43:27):
And then once Sketchy got this other information then he basically took control of it.
And I think, well, we'll just keep reconnaissance patrol but we'll go out and see if we can find these thousand men.
Then once we find them, then we'll come back.
Yeah, it is a bold plan.
Yeah, very bold.
Excellent.
Well thank you very much.
Dave's done a fantastic job of bringing out some of the lessons learned for the landings at Guadalcanal.
(43:53):
There's a couple of things that I would add.
Firstly, there's a bit of advice for officers early on in their career who think that they may be struggling.
And this is from the example of General Alexander Vandegrift.
Firstly, in 1909 he wrote a paper, Aviation the Cavalry of the Future.
(44:15):
So that was in 1909.
The Wright Brothers had only flown in December of 1903.
So aviation very much in its infancy and yet he was able to extrapolate out to the important role, the critical role that aviation would play in future combat operations.
However, his first assessment when he was still at the Marine officer school, he was rated as not good.
(44:43):
And these were the remarks that the commander of the Marine Officer School wrote, this officer has not shown that he appreciates the responsibilities of his position as an officer and unless there is decisive improvement, his relations will not be to the advantage of the service he obviously worked on that he received in his next assessment good and tolerable.
(45:08):
Tolerable is probably not the best way of being described, but it's definitely trending upwards.
And his next one after that he was rated as excellent.
He did sterling work as the commander of the 1st Marine Division on Guadalcanal.
He would go on to be the Commandant of the Marine Corps, which is a four star position and part of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
(45:30):
The other lesson I think to reflect on is the planning and risk assessment around the get you patrol.
I think it's important to look at what the mission is and to ask yourself, do I have the resources to be able to do this?
What are the likely tasks that are going to fall out of it?
They were expecting quite a large number of Japanese that were going to surrender to manage the number of prisoners.
(45:56):
They increased the number of people who spoke Japanese rather than thinking about potentially the risk of running into combat.
But it's important to admire G's initiative, definitely his bravery.
Had they been able to pull off that mission successfully, it would have been a huge coup for the Marines.
(46:18):
And the last point of that, I think highlights the fact that the Marines were only just getting to know their enemy.
They were unsure of the culture of the Japanese that they were fighting.
And this is why those initial lessons learned when fighting a new enemy are absolutely critical.
We'll leave it there.
We'll be back next week with the Battle of the Tenaru.
(46:40):
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(47:06):
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The Marine landings on Guadalcanal.
Seizing the Decisive Terrain.
This is the Principles of War podcast.
Professional military education for junior officers and senior NCOs.
This episode, number 137 of the Principles of War podcast, we'll look at the US large scale landings on Guadalcanal.
(00:30):
We will discuss not only this important littoral manoeuvre, but military risk management, the importance of logistics, why the airfield was the decisive terrain and what happened on the Getche patrol and what were the lessons learned from it.
We are joined by our historian, Dave Holland, the author of Guadalcanal's Longest Fight, the Pivotal Battles of the Matanical.
(00:56):
Let's get back right into our interview with Dave as a part of our series on the Guadalcanal campaign.
Welcome back to the podcast, Dave.
Thanks, James.
This is episode three and yeah, I'm really enjoying this.
Now we get into the actual landing of Guadalcanal today, so it's going to be real good.
Yeah, I think this will be a really interesting one.
(01:17):
So the landing at Lunga point happened at 09.10 on 7 August, which was after the landing at Tulagi.
What was the delay for?
Why didn't they aim to get simultaneous landings?
Well, they.
I'll just take a step back there.
They didn't actually land at Lunger Point.
They landed roughly 6,000 yards due east in a place called Red beach, or Beach Red.
(01:41):
It was between Coley Point and Lunga Point.
Ideally, they wanted to land at Lunger Point because if you look at Van Fibs.
Look at it from an amphibious landings perspective.
A Lungar Point is basically convex, so if you land in on a point, you're less susceptible to inflated fire from the sides.
So if you land on a concave beach, then obviously you could be potentially inflated.
(02:04):
And plus two, if you land at Lunga Point, if you look at a map of Guadalcanal, that's a straight shot to the airfield.
There's no obstacles like rivers.
I mean, it's just as soon as you land, you're there like 2,000 yards straight onto it.
But their intelligence had predicted there's around 5,000 Japanese there, including a reinforced Japanese infantry regiment, which potentially dug in on Lunga Point with a machine gun battalion and a few other combat units.
(02:28):
So they thought, well, if we land straight on Lunga Point, where they expect us to potentially land, it's going to be heavy defenses.
So once again, as we spoke about last episode with Tulagi, we'll land where they don't expect us to land.
So that was a gamble that Vande Griff and his planners had taken and it paid off, as we will see.
So they landed about 6000 yards due east.
(02:49):
So it was a 6, 1600 yard beach.
But to get back to the question, why was there a delay?
Now this is one of the questions that's really stopped me a bit.
I've looked at all the resources I could.
I could never lock down a definitive answer why they delayed it for 30 minutes.
Now it was planned.
HR was 08, it's loggy.
(03:09):
And 30 minutes later was going to be the landings on Guadalcanal.
It might have been due to the fact that the air cover resources weren't available.
I did come across a point where some transports were slow, but once again, this is pre planned, so it wasn't one of the last minute things.
Now what about the element of surprise?
And you got to remember too, the airstrikes and the naval gunfire was simultaneous and started at 6 o' clock in the morning.
(03:34):
So they're basically simultaneous.
So the element of surprise, say for example Tulagi is 20 miles across, Ironbottom Sound.
So if they hit there first today, potentially without hitting Guadalcanal by air, the forces on Guadalcanal could be alerted.
Once again, the cat was out of the bag.
They both hit them at the same time simultaneously.
So 30 minute delay.
I'm trying to find that answer.
(03:55):
Obviously if some of the listeners or viewers know that, please let me know.
But I've done some pretty deep research on it and maybe I need to speak to one of my neighborhood historian friends that let me know.
But yeah, definitely occurred when they landed at Red beach, or Beach Reds they called it.
It was supposed to be at 9 o' clock in the morning, but the first elements landed at between 9:10 to 9:13.
(04:16):
Depends on which source you look for.
Were the Japanese expecting them and what forces were there to oppose them?
Okay, well, the Japanese weren't expecting a direct amphibious assault.
The Japanese Imperial General Headquarters had estimated that the Americans or the Allies wouldn't be ready for an offensive in the Pacific until easily early 1943.
(04:38):
So you gotta remember Guadalcanal.
The airfield at Guadalcanal was a staging base.
Initially it was designed as a staging base for Operation fx, which is the invasion of Fiji and Samoa and New Caledonia.
But once that was canceled, they continued building it up.
But it was such a large base now they had roughly about 2,000 construction workers in the two units.
The 13th construction unit and 11th construction units composed primarily of Korean, they're not slave laborers but conscripted.
(05:04):
And some were actually volunteered Korean laborers with a sprinkling of Japanese engineers and some foremen in there.
And plus they had a couple of security companies of special naval landing force, roughly about 500 guys in both companies spread out among those two units.
And it had a number of anti aircraft units there because the Americans had been begun the bombing with the B17s flying out of Australia and Espritio Santos, which is the New Hebrides or Vanuatu as we know it now they were there but they didn't have prepared beach defenses like we spoke about Tulagi.
(05:37):
It was more air defenses, anti aircraft defenses.
Now some of the intelligence was coming back, Japanese intelligence was coming back that a large convoy had left the western United States troop convoy.
They had started picking up radio transmissions and the Japanese intelligence of the 8th Fleet, Japanese 8 fleets are about, were basically sending reports back to Imperial.
(05:58):
General headquarters said look, we think potentially they're going to invade actually named Guadalcanal Angelagi.
They said look, that's, we think they're going to hit here.
Imperial during the headquarters said look, this is probably just reinforcements, troop reinforcements to go to Australia, which that had been sending them there.
And so the other islands, if it's anything, it's going to be like minor raids and they'll just withdraw across the Pacific like they have been doing earlier because they did some carrier raids and a few other raids.
(06:23):
So they kind of just said there's nothing to see here, let's move on.
But once again they, the Japanese did think, some Japanese did think they were going to invite.
But to answer your question, like I said before, the Americans thought they were at least 5,000 Japanese ready to fight.
That wasn't the case.
So what units were the US forces landing on Guadalcanal that morning?
(06:46):
Last episode we discussed what units landed at Tulagi.
So that was under Brigadier General Purdis.
So Vandegroof took the bulk of the division, roughly about 11,000 men.
So you had the complete regiment, the 1st Marines, they call them 1st Marine Regiment or 1st Marines in Marine polants.
That's the way they say it.
And then you had two battalions of the 5th Marines.
(07:07):
She had 1, 5, the way the Marines say it, 1 5.
And you had 3, 5.
And then you had all the other specialist units associated with amphibious division.
You had four battalions.
No, sorry.
Three battalions of artillery.
She had 275 millimeter battalions and a 105 millimeter battalion.
(07:27):
And in fact each Landed battalion had a 75 millimeter pack howitzer battery assigned to them going straight in.
And you know, in the first waves, well probably by the third wave, but they had a specifically a whole battery of 75 millimeters artillery attached to that infantry battalion going in.
And then you had the 1st Special Weapons Battalion which had a number of M3, 75 millimeter half tracks, anti tank guns, anti aircraft guns.
(07:55):
You had the 1st Engineer Battalion, the 1st Pioneer Battalion.
We'll talk about them, those guys in a second.
There's specialist role.
You had two companies of tanks which you had the 1st Marine Tank Battalion but had two companies, had A Company and P Company of M3 tanks.
I know I'm missing a couple here, but yeah, had a good combined arms assault unit going in.
(08:17):
That's quite a balanced force, isn't it?
Yeah, well just like we think we talked about in episode one about how that division, amphibious assault division, the first of its kind in US history, but it was a whole combined arms division for that.
So the commander for the Marines was Alexander Vandegrift.
What was he like?
Yeah, so Vandegrift, I think he joined 1909, Marine Officer.
(08:39):
He did the typical Marine postings.
He missed World War I because he'd assigned to Haiti.
He was in Agenda Arms, he was an advisor in Haiti.
He was fighting at Cacos.
Cacos, I think the way you pronounce it, probably mispronounce it, but the Haitian insurgents or Haitian rebels.
So he was fighting down there and doing some insurgency anti counterinsurgency roles in Haiti during the war.
(09:02):
And after that he went to Nicaragua, he went to China, he served in the staff.
He had a good background with specialty staff and what typical Marine would have at the time when the war broke out, he was the assistant division commander of the 1st Marine Division and then soon took command of the 1st Marine Division.
And Vandy Griff is a man, he was described as a con man, a pretty down to earth type of guy, very personable.
(09:30):
He on the island he would actually, once he'd finished his correspondences for the morning, his routine, he would jump in the jeep with his driver and he would take a tour of the lines or sea Marines.
He'd be speaking anywhere from colonels to privates.
That was what he really liked to do.
And he would stop and just discuss things on the ground and find out what was going on.
He.
He's also gauging the morale, their health and he was doing what a good commander would do and very personable.
(09:55):
He would sit and Talk with them.
And people said they could be.
They felt very comfortable around Smiling Jim, they called him.
He was deaf, I guess, from these years of all the firing and the guns and stuff.
And sometimes people would think he wasn't listening in command meetings because sometimes when we'd go into command meeting, if he went by himself, he would come out and he and his.
(10:16):
His subordinates to say, okay, boss, what did they say?
And he really couldn't describe in detail what they said.
So they've always tried to put someone in with him.
It actually be the.
To get some of the.
All the information.
He had night blindness.
There's a famous photo of him on Guad Canal.
And he's.
He's in his, like his little bush tent.
He's got his field desk.
He's got his flashlight or torches they call in Australia right beside him.
(10:39):
So everywhere he went, he had that flashlight torch with him.
And when he would do his rounds visiting the Marines, you'll see in the photos, he's always got like a pith helmet or a sun helmet on because he hated wearing a steel pipe because he gave him a headache.
But he always had his.45 with him.
What was so great about Vandegrift, he had that strategic vision when they first landed.
(10:59):
From minute one, he knew that battle or that campaign was going to be on the Air Force.
So some of the, even the Joint Chiefs of Staff and some of the higher ups thought traditionally you land on Guadalcanal, you take the island.
It's more about grabbing land than it was about the airfield.
Vandergrift recognized that strategic importance of the.
(11:21):
The airfields and how it will be play out in the Pacific War.
It was all about the airfield.
Protect the airfield.
You know, don't spread your forces all around the island because The Guadalcanal is 90 miles long and 25 miles wide.
It's the same size as US state of Delaware.
So you can't spread your guys out like that.
He put them in a nice tight perimeter.
But all is about the airfield.
(11:41):
Protect the airfield.
And Vandergriff had the.
I forgot what famous journal used it, I think on a General George Washington American Revolution.
To win, you must not lose.
I forgot the exact same of that.
But that's what he said.
For us to win, we just can't lose the battle.
If we don't lose battles like a defensive strategy, we'll win because that's what the Marines did initially was the first offensive for the Allies against the Japanese.
(12:07):
Then it quickly switched and changed, pivoted 360 degrees to a defensive posture.
But yeah, that was Vandegrift and very well liked.
He's probably the right man for the right time for the right job in Marine Corps.
He probably couldn't have picked a better commander to command the 1st Marine Division together.
Strategic importance.
(12:27):
But I have to say his staff was great.
They were packed with some good guys.
Especially a guy called.
It was Lt. Col. Gerald Thomas or Jerry Thomas had quickly became a colonel and when they first landed, he was the planning officer.
D3 they call him.
And then in September became the chief of staff and he was the brains of the division.
Then he had a guy called Lt. Col. Merle Twining.
(12:49):
He took over the D3, the planning.
Those guys were some real good planners and they knew basically what they were doing.
I think you bring up a really good point there.
I wonder how many great generals there were or there have been who haven't had a great staff.
And I think to be a great general, one of the things that you need to be able to do is you need to be able to build a strong team around you because you've got a lot of things going on as a divisional commander and you've got to be able to rely on your.
(13:17):
Staff so that, you know, it was down the leadership, I mean company commanders, 10 commanders, battalion commanders.
You always have a good staff below you, good people to work for, civilian world or any job, really.
So do you want to talk us through how the landing proceeded then?
Yeah.
So the first wave or the first unit to land was the 5th Marines.
(13:38):
So you had 15 and 3, 5 and they landed abreast.
Two battalions abreast.
They landed.
Their job was to land, turn to the right or turn to the west and then proceed across three small rivers and go to the airfield.
First Marines were going to push through.
Once the beachhead was formed, they were going to move through the 5th Marines.
They were going to go on a compensated 270 degrees.
(13:58):
Then I forgot something like 4,000 yards.
Take another.
They were going to go.
I don't know what that was.
They're going to go straight to a, a place called the grassy knoll, which we now know is Mount Austin.
So the preliminary, the pre recon information coming in from some of the Australian planters or some of the Australians that were there before.
(14:19):
Talk about the grassy knoll.
They said, oh, it stands out pretty prominent.
And so that was what they're going to do.
They're going to land first Marine is going to push through and take the grassy knoll, the grassy nose roughly three miles away over three rivers.
With four rivers and thick jungle, there would be no way they could take it.
So what they were going to do, they were going to go to cut off the potential retreat.
(14:42):
That was what the plan was.
Yeah, it's hoping to take the airfield by day one, which was the 7th of August.
So Vice Admiral Jack Fletcher withdrew the carriers on the 8th of August.
That night, the Battle of Savo island is fought.
And the next morning, Rear Admiral Kelly Turner withdrew the transports.
What impact did this have on for the Marines in particular in their logistics?
(15:07):
Okay, last episode we discussed a bit about why they pulled out and the coverage and all that.
So I won't go into too much detail there.
That's a big controversy to this day.
And with the whole I declare the abandonment myth and I'll discuss that in a second.
So the impact we mentioned earlier, that the Marines were winning light to start with because they were trying to restrict their weight.
(15:27):
So when the transports and the cargo ships, like left on the morning of the.
Or, sorry, the afternoon of the 9th of August, they probably took.
There's really no definitive.
It's estimated about 50 of the supplies they had with them.
So they left the Marines with 50% of their supplies, which they were going in a lot to start with.
So that was the impact logistically they had on the Marine.
(15:49):
Now, the abandonment myth, I call it the abandonment myth because you hear the Marines and some of them still to this day, even while I was in Marine boot camp, when I was in the Marine Corps, they said all the.
The Navy abandoned.
The Navy abandoned Marines on Guadalcanal.
But every time we're involved in an amphibious invasion, from now on, just be careful because Marines, or started the Navy would leave your.
(16:09):
Leave your rear behind.
That was what was always told.
We just believed it.
It wasn't until I started studying the battle of Guadalcanal.
Sorry.
They're campaigning Guadalcanal.
And deeply that I'm thinking, well, this is not the case.
Did the Marines have a right to perceive that they were abandoned?
Yeah, they did.
A lot of them didn't know.
Some of them didn't even know the.
The losses on the Balisavo island to after the war.
(16:32):
They just know one day the neighbors there, next minute they're going to go, where's their food?
All the Navy left.
Well, they left us.
But abandonment means to completely leave someone and never come back.
When Turner left, yes, he told Vanagar.
So I'LL be back in a week.
And to his credit, they started running small, fast destroyers for supplies in nine days later, always say to the people, said, oh, they abandoned the Marines.
(16:54):
I said, well, if you look, there's 5,000 sailors in iron Bottom sounds still manning their ships.
They didn't leave anybody.
They didn't abandon anyone.
Now for every.
So 3.5 sailors died for every one US army and US Marine on Guadalcanal on the land.
So, yep.
Did the Marines, would they expect it or is it reasonable to think that, okay, they were abandoned?
(17:19):
Yeah, that was a good perception at the time.
But anyway, yeah, so they were left with 50% with their supplies.
This highlights the key dilemma of the campaign.
And you know, should the carriers be risked to protect the transports to offload the supplies for the Marines?
How did Vandegrift respond to the removal of the transports?
(17:39):
Well, he didn't really have much response.
He didn't like it, of course, him and Kelly Tarter, the Trans force commander, but they didn't really have a say in the matter.
Van de Griff, once again, very optimistic guy.
He says, okay, we got what we got and we're here to stay and we'll fight us out.
And one of the Marine officers said, well, you can't dislodge infantry by bombs.
They're going to come back.
The carriers at the time.
(18:00):
Once again, it's another controversy.
Do they sacrifice a Marine division or carriers?
Carriers are very strategic at that stage of the war.
Very well, cagey for the rest of the war, but they didn't have that many to play.
Win or lose.
The risk.
Losing Fletcher was under the.
I wouldn't say it's doctrine, but he'd been told about the calculated risk from Nimmies.
(18:20):
If you think you can take a calculated risk without losing your carriers, take it.
But if you think you potentially lose your carriers, don't take it.
So I think he looked at it, he said, this potentially calculated risk.
And I said, I'd be there.
D +2.
I've done my duty, now I'm pulling out because my cash month, basically carriers are stationary in one position, acceptable air attack.
(18:40):
So he didn't want to lose them because once again, you can leave the infantry there on the island.
They're not going to be dislodged for bomb.
They can stay there for a while.
But it only takes a few bombs to sink a carrier and you lose your strategic asset very quickly.
So, yeah, there was a gamble, or I guess it was a risk, a calculated risk to Leave, and they did.
(19:00):
So they managed to offload 11,000 troops, but not all of the supplies that he wanted.
What did Vande Griff have and how did he deploy the forces that he had to prepare for a Japanese attack?
Luckily for the Marines, it goes back to what I was saying earlier about how the Japanese were building staging base.
So a lot of supplies there, more than enough for 2,000 men.
They were obviously building it up because the Japanese, they're very little weak.
(19:23):
They were going to land a lot of planes on it, and that place would become operational.
So they were getting ready for a few hundred or a few thousand more men to come in.
So the Japanese had a full, basically small city and had their own ice plants, power plants.
They had hangers, they had hundreds and thousands of gallons of fuel.
They had much more importantly, they had all these aircraft or, sorry, airfield construction said bulldozers, rollers, trucks, everything you need to build an airfield.
(19:52):
The Marines were only offloaded one bulldozer.
I think they call it Old Faithful.
They got a lot of work out of it, but they used a lot of Japanese equipment, a lot of Japanese food.
You had rice, you had canned food, you had all kind of stuff.
You had matting.
So once again, the Marines were going to form a defensive perimeter.
So they didn't really arrive with a lot of tools.
(20:13):
They call them trenching tools, sandbags, shovels, picks, barbed wire.
They all offloaded 20x spools of barbed wire.
So they used a lot of these Japanese rice bags as sandbags.
So they improvised quite a bit, too.
So the Japanese stores really assisted Vandegrift and more importantly, assist them in building and completing the airfield.
(20:36):
They had the airfield completed by 16 August.
The Japanese had built about a 3,600 or 3,700 foot airfield.
They started from both ends, and there's only a small portion in the middle that was uncomplated.
So the first Marine engineers actually completed it.
Then the Seabees, we'll talk about later who they were.
They landed on the 1st of September and built it up more.
(20:56):
So the way that Vandergrift deployed his forces, they had four points after they landed.
Four things they had to achieve four major points.
The first one was preparing his defenses for amphibious assault.
Because on the 7th and 8th, the Japanese had started to do some counterattacks.
They had three air raids in two days, and they also had the Battle of Savile Island.
So they had some fierce counterattacks.
(21:17):
So Vandergrift and his planners are expecting a major Amphibious assault.
And a major amphibious assault was going to be on Luna Point.
They were actually getting some reports in Revile that there was some armored landing craft being I think put in ships and they were heading their way.
In fact on August 9th in the battle of Saval island, some of the US transport ships had been moving back and forth unloading supplies and the Marines stopped.
(21:42):
The Japanese were landing.
In fact I think it was two, one or one actually shot up some of the boats coming in.
They stopped and they were not landing.
So their main concern was amphibious assault.
So what Vandergrift did on Lunga Point he put his main defenses, so he's put his two regiments, infantry regiments there.
He refused both flanks, one at Cookham on the west flank and one on Alligator Creek or the Elu river on the right flank to refuse it.
(22:08):
So you basically had about a three mile line coastline and both sides pulled back about 2,000 yards.
It's like a little horseshoe shape.
And then on the beaches they put 37 millimeter tank guns, ran top boat defense, had 50 cows caliber heavy machine guns, 30 caliber heavy machine guns, 30 caliber medium machine guns.
(22:28):
They took their M3 half tracks with 75 millimeter self propelled guns that put them there.
They had their tanks ready for a quick response counterattack.
They registered all their artillery all on the baits.
They had a pretty strong defense.
Let's go back to the artillery.
I said one battery landed with each battalion.
(22:49):
The first battery was on the baits in 28 minutes and one hour and seven minutes later.
This is code from Pedro Laval which is division artillery commander.
From his notes they fired redstream shot within one hour and seven minutes after landing the artillery.
So they're ready to go.
To me that I thought that was quite impressive, the 75 millimeter pack holes.
So the four key things you had to do.
(23:10):
One, you had to build up the defenses.
Two, remember 6,000 yards to the right was still all their supplies.
I'll talk about the supplies in a second.
But they had to get all their supplies into the secure perimeter.
So that was a major key job they had to do.
Because them supplies built up on the beach, susceptible to air raids or they were thinking potentially a commando raid to take them out.
(23:33):
So the whatever supplies that offloaded they had to move them in.
The third they had to complete the airfield.
And the fourth they had to do active patrolling to try to find the original garrison.
Because when they landed the original garrison and the captain Monson they gave them orders, said okay, I want everyone to flee to the.
To west to Matanical river, to our defense line.
(23:53):
Grab three days with the rations or whatever and take off.
That's what they did.
But they didn't know where the original garrison was.
And plus remember their intelligence said there's 5,000 Japanese here and they didn't really come across any of them.
So they're trying to find them now.
We'll go back to supplies.
Beach Red is a great beach, great landing beach.
A red beach, but it's shallow beach.
A lot of these supplies landed on a shallow beach.
(24:15):
The marines would conduct a lot of landings after Guadalcanal.
What were the key lessons that came out from these first littoral operations?
So both to La De and Guadalcanal.
Go back to Lt. Col. Twining, Division Plant planner, very smart guy.
He said the number one thing about the number one lesson they earned, especially logistics is serialization.
(24:38):
They had learned how to serialize the cargoes.
He said it may not sound important but he said became that was the most important thing they learned and how it come to fruition in all the later campaigns and you see nowadays and loading cargoes on ships, everything's serialized.
I mean you barcodes now but every item has a place.
And it allowed him to organize and efficiently move their supplies quicker and get them offloaded and loaded on boats lot faster.
(25:03):
He said serialization was number one command and control.
Between the amphibious forces and land forces.
There was a.
They ironed out a lot of the kinks in that also the coordination of naval gunfire and close air support.
By placing actually nice.
They were going to fire forward observers in with the landing forces.
(25:24):
They didn't have that before the integrated combined arms in the planning teams and the coordinations and started from the very beginning.
So when you're starting a planning amphibious operation that all elements need to work as a team together.
For example, you don't have the Marines planning team over on the say on this side and Navy on this side and the air on this side.
(25:45):
All elements working together from minute one to integrate in their plans.
Because that hadn't occurred, which we look at it nowadays, you think that's normal.
But in those days it wasn't.
Especially in the very first amphibious assault.
The loads were too heavy initially to go in the planning.
For example, they'd plan for 90 days.
They said in Vivian invasion should have 90 days worth of supply.
(26:07):
So ammunition, food and so forth.
After this they said well they only need 60 days worth of supplies.
And that's what they did.
They initially landed with 60 days.
They'd packed for 90 days.
But in New Zealand, they said, well, we can't take all this, so we'll just cut it down to 60 days.
Naturally went down to 30 days when they actually landed, because that's all they had, food for 30 days and four units of fire.
(26:28):
That's all they had initially when the Navy pulled out, that's supplemented with Japanese rations.
The importance to rapidly build up and defend advanced bases.
That was an importance, and that's a very important, I think, key lesson for today and for littoral operations to quickly grab a base or grab an area and defend it, to build up very quickly and obviously the complete dominance of air and sea space for an amphibious invasion.
(26:56):
I think one of the Marines says after there was no navy around to support them, they said even the greenest second lieutenant would know that you need to control a sea space for effective, infamous operation.
They controlled the sea and air.
So they learned the aspects of that.
Because once again, during, you'll see in the Guadalcanal campaign, the US Navy didn't control the sea, especially at night, didn't have complete control of the sea dominance.
(27:23):
Therefore, if you didn't have that control of that space, that battle space, then it was hard to supply.
And the Japanese found it out too, because they lost control of the battle space too.
And they found it hard to resupply during the day because they're.
The Cactus Air Force stopped them.
That was the main ones.
I think I had another one here.
Radio, comms, communications, more transports to move the supplies off the beach.
(27:48):
Because when they land in one stage on 7 August, there were a hundred landing craft, landing ships, and we're talking about the little Higgins boats full sitting off the beach, getting ready to unload.
There's 50 more out in the surf getting ready to come in.
So the 150 boats, they had to delay it for two, two hours to try to offload some of the supplies.
They were just jamming up.
(28:09):
They need more boats and the more.
And their secret weapon, which Vandergrift later said, this is my secret weapons with amphibious tractors, Amtraks.
At that time, it was a very new that a whole battalion.
In 1st amphibious tractor battalion, they looked at them and in later campaigns that were used as landing craft, assault craft, Guadalcanal, they looked at them as water trucks.
(28:32):
They use them in supply, moving supplies from point A to B.
But they're very effective, those amphibious tractors.
And they had a scheme where they take amphibious tractors, use them as Pontoons.
This is one of the engineers beforehand.
I might have talked about this in the other episode.
They had like a kadura, prefabricated kadura road.
(28:52):
Like a road, a bridge.
They had a big roll on top of an Amtrak and they'd drive these two amphibious tractors in a river or small creek, then unroll this little temporary bridge that allowed them to forward very quickly.
They seen how important that came to be.
So, yeah, they were very shown a lot of innovation here that turned out to really assist them in later campaigns.
(29:13):
Who was actually in control of the beach, who was trying to coordinate what landing craft were going to come in and who was going to take off the supplies and where those supplies were going to go?
I think at one stage Vandergrift was worried because there was a significant ammunition dump and he thought that if the Japanese bombed it, they could lose all of that ammunition.
(29:34):
And he wasn't sure when he was going to get resupplied.
Yeah, so that's another lesson that they learned about beach masters.
They only have one beach master, you know, one beach master control this whole 1600 yard beach.
Jack Clark US Navy Beach Master so he was doing his best he could, but there was really no one completely organizing and controlling the beach because once they landed, the Marines infra guys fanned out and formed a beachhead because you got to remember they were suspecting a reinforced Japanese regiment, so they couldn't help with the offloading.
(30:05):
There was a specific unit made for this landing support battalion and they were called the first Pioneers.
There were part engineers and part landing support battalion.
So it was 450 of those guys.
So they were supposed to assist.
And then he had some of the beachmaster party.
But it was very.
I think it was about 30, 40 guys in that they were supposed to set up the signal flags in the sector and get.
(30:28):
Which is basically fell apart and boats would just come in, unload, dump it in a big pile and take back off.
That was basically how it went.
And there was not enough people to help unload.
Gotta remember, there's no docks there.
They had no rollers, which you see them in the later ones, campaigns we can just.
You've seen like some of the warehouses, modern warehouse, you got like little tracks with rollers on it, and they can just roll boxes straight off.
(30:52):
They didn't have anything like that.
You see them in later in any campaign, but nothing like that.
It would just.
And then a lot of these landing craft didn't have ramps.
So you're throwing this stuff Straight over.
Some of the stuff was hitting the surf and floating in the surf, and he's piling up and it was a big mess.
It was a big cluster, basically, what it.
What it was.
So.
So a few days later, the 12th of August, we have quite a famous patrol, the GY Patrol.
(31:16):
Do you want to talk us through what the GY Patrol was?
Yeah.
So Gatche is lieutenant colonel.
Later colonel on 28 July, became colonel.
You see some of the reports.
He was in Australia.
He was the division intelligence officer.
He was lieutenant colonel.
And then I always wondered, because that's the finest picture of him.
(31:36):
He's on Guadala Canal.
He's got colonel, got eagles, got colonel insignia.
But I'm reading all these primary reports in July that he's signing off lieutenant colonel.
I said, well, how does that work?
And then I came across a report where on 28 July, it was a message on the ship that him and about three other guys were promoted from lieutenant colonel a week before he landed.
(31:59):
He was Colonel Gye.
So GY was the division intelligence officer, famous former football player.
I think he was going to be recruited by the New York Giants, which professional football team.
But he remained in the Marine Corps, Big fella in Gatchi.
When they'd landed, all his estimates said there's 5,000 Japanese here.
When they get there, they can't find them.
So Getche was a guy who always led for the front, and he kind of was very aggressive guy.
(32:24):
I think he was losing a bit of face from the reading the accounts and the reports and some of what the other officers were saying, because they go, what was these 5,000 men get you?
You know, we've got 5,000.
Your intelligence supposed to be great.
What's going on here?
So there were a number of Japanese laborers who escaped to the jungle.
A lot of them with the security forces and some of the Japanese laborers headed to the Matanical West.
(32:46):
But a lot of these Japanese, like there was over 2,000 of them.
It just spread all over the place.
So they're aimlessly walking around in the jungle, in the hills, all around the airfield.
In the first few days, Marines unfortunately killed some of these Koreans, thinking they were Japanese and shooting them on site.
Then it started working out.
These are Koreans laborers, not Japanese soldiers.
And they started capturing them.
(33:07):
Then, of course, on the 11th of August, they captured one Japanese laborer.
But there was another guy with him they described as a sullen man.
He was a warrant officer in the Japanese naval landed forces.
So they get him in, they captured him, they brought him in.
He wouldn't say anything.
They tied him to a tree and a son.
I wouldn't say torturing him, but question him.
(33:30):
Then they gave him some brandy, gave him a lot of brandy.
Then he started singing like a bird.
Anyway, he told him, he said, look, there's about a thousand, I think Japanese on the other side of Point Cruise, which is about six miles to the west past Matanical River.
They want to surrender.
Then it's okay.
And it roughly earlier to that day, the marine patrol had went to the Matanical near some fire and they'd be running patrols through there.
(33:55):
And it took some shots in Matanical, this is some guys here, they want to fight.
So they're coming back.
But at Cookham, the marines had a.
Had captured a anti aircraft gun.
So they're test firing it and shoot it out toward the Matanical, which is three miles or, sorry, five miles out.
And then they thought they seen a white flag.
What did we.
We think it is now.
And the white flag was just a normal Japanese flag, you know, with the red circle in the middle.
(34:20):
They just seen the white flag.
You got to remember this is before the.
They knew the Japanese would generally never surrender.
You know, the common belief and common knowledge.
I don't surrender.
They didn't think about that.
They think they potentially might surrender.
So the information got back to Gye.
They said, look, we've seen a white flag.
We've got this warrant officer saying there's over a thousand Japanese want to surrender and get you.
Goes, oh, okay, here's my garrison potentially.
(34:42):
And you know, here's my chance to just look good and do good and finally clear this island of the Japanese.
So there was going to be a patrol by a guy called first sergeant Custer as a.
Not a direct lineage, but he was actually lineage to the Custer of the custard.
Little big born fight, Stephen Custer.
But he had organized patrol or concert patrol and he had some combat guys on it.
(35:04):
And they were going to go in and infiltrate and look over the Matanical because of the reports from the early patrols that, you know, there's just some fighting at Tanical, some pretty tough guys there.
Don't go there.
And in fact, there's a guy called Colonel Bill Whelan who was the executive officer of the 5th Marines that told G. He goes, just avoid the mouth botanical.
That's a hornet's nest there.
(35:24):
Just avoid that area.
Yes, sir, I will.
No problem.
So what Gadget did.
He thought, well, here's my chance.
So what he's done with Custer's patrol, he's pulled a lot of combat guys out and added his own specialist in because some of these specialists will blow your mind.
One was a guy called Pratt, Dr. Pratt.
He was battalion or sorry, the regimental surgeon.
It fought in the First World War and earned a Navy Cross as a Navy doctor with the 5th Marines actually in the First World War.
(35:51):
So he was spent old.
But he was going to go because they thought, oh, we got all these prisoners going to need a doctor.
I guess Corps was not good enough.
They took the litter graph, their map makers, all the most of the guys from the regimental and division intelligence.
They took a linguist, one of the few linguists they had.
They took him.
They took another guy called Ralph Corey.
(36:13):
Ralph Corey was in his 40 forties.
He'd lived in Japan pre war and he came back in American.
But what Ralph Corey had and what he was involved with pre war, I don't even think Vandergriff even knew he was involved some in a program called Magic, which is the breaking the Japanese codes.
Very super, super top secret.
(36:34):
In fact, Corey shouldn't even been in a combat zombie, much less than going out on combat patrol.
He was put in there because he was a Japanese linguist and he had other non combat types in there too.
So 25 of them jumped on a boat.
They booked out.
I won't go in a lot of detail because my whole episode.
Well, I'll have my episode on the Gadget truck.
(36:54):
Anyway, they left on the 12 August.
So instead of landing, they were going to land on the other side of Point Cruise.
For some reason, whether they got lost or Disorientated, they landed 200 yards due west of the mouth of Matanakau into the Hornet's Nest.
So they landed there.
They landed actually 200 yards out.
(37:16):
They were landed 200 yards from the mouth, about 100 yards out and was hung up on a sandbar or a coral shelf.
The boat went back and forth, making all this noise.
So the Japanese were waiting for them.
So they basically, they landed them.
The boat took back off because G said they didn't need the boat, didn't want to wait around, just take off.
So catchy.
Two others walked in to find out where they were at and they walked straight into ambush.
(37:39):
Gaethje was basically killed automatically and the rest of his men was pinned down on a beach.
And over the course of the night they sent three Marines out to try to get help.
One died at the mouth of the town cow.
The other two started swimming back.
And then when morning time come, I mean, they didn't have a radio, they didn't have anything.
So morning time come, there's only three survivors left, and they try to make a run for it.
(37:59):
Two was shot down and a guy called Frank Few managed to jump into the ocean, strip down and swim back.
By the time he got back, the other two had made it.
And they said, look, the Gatches is getting hit up there, so they're forming up a relief party.
By the time Few got back, he said, they're all dead.
So that.
And then when they did find reef party, it was the first biometanical and a few other things, but the state of the bodies when they did find them.
(38:24):
And then Few actually said when you look back, you could see them being bayoneted and chopped up and things like that and killing the wounded.
So that got back.
And then when the first patrols went up there, they seen the mutilated bodies in all kinds of different forms.
And that word got back to the division.
So that kind of set the mindset because you got to remember division was very young.
(38:45):
The average age was about 19, fellow division compared to say U.S. army with 26.
Because at this stage all these guys were volunteers and most of them were filled up with a lot of the war or the Pearl harbor guys at, you know, 18, 17, 18 years old at joint.
So they had that whole teenage impression line set.
So the word got back.
The Japanese not taking any prisoners.
(39:07):
They're butchering us.
We take no prisoners.
That's the way they want to play.
We'll play the same way.
They, you know, these bastards, they, you know, they fought dirty.
They're just ruthless.
And plus two, they thought that the Japanese had set them up.
Oh, it was a white flag, you know, they set us up.
Oh, the Japanese prisoners gave us a bad information because they took the Japanese prisoner along with them.
(39:30):
In fact, when they started to land at that area, that Japanese start saying, no, no, in Japanese, don't land here.
Don't land here.
You got the wrong place.
Because he knew what they were going into.
They actually had him on a.
Had a rope around his throat on the leash like a dog so he would escape.
So the.
From the first shots fired, there's a guy called Stout, Sergeant Coldwater.
He fired one shot with his.45 into the Japanese head.
(39:52):
He said, well, you've tricked us.
And he killed him on the spot.
But that, but the whole trick rid and the butchery and all that combined form the ethos and the mindset for all these Marines for the Marine division at that stage on, they said, we'll take no prisoners.
If that's the way they want to play this game, we'll take no prisoners.
And then we'll see.
With the ballet area of the creek, that was just reinforced more.
(40:13):
But that was the, I think, the biggest impact of the Gadget Patrol that went through, all through boot camp, all through War ii.
Like Eugene Sledge, he wrote the.
I don't know if you're familiar with Sledge about Peleloo in Okinawa with the Old Breed, he wrote probably one of the best memoirs of the.
I would say the war.
Probably one of the best war memorials memoirs of all time.
(40:33):
He talks about in his boot camp, they talk about the Gatchi Patrol.
He went through it in 43, I think, or 44.
So that was an everlasting impact all through the whole Pacific.
But then obviously the Japanese actions for every battle after that just reinforced that whole perception.
So that was the impact of the Gochi patrol.
And it's interesting because it did have an important cultural impact on the rest of the war, effectively.
(40:58):
What were the maps like?
So, because when you look at Point Cruise, it would be difficult to miss Point Cruise.
And I think so you.
You wonder how they could have got close to the Metanica when they were told not to go close to the Metanica.
It does sound like a navigational error and yet Point Cruise is fairly clear.
(41:20):
Yeah.
And you know, you've been there and Point Close crew stands out.
We got to remember there in the darkness when they were going, it was dark.
And the mouth botanical stands out too.
So they're only 200 yards from.
Well, they're 100 yards out.
They landed 20 yards on the beach, but they were a hundred yards out from the mouth.
I've studied it quite a lot.
I don't only think that they were potentially lost in the darkness and the Cotswin and the boat was moving close to shore to trying to find his bearings and they seen the Alpha Matanical and get.
(41:48):
You probably said, list this land here or they're getting close and they either that or they've hit that sandbar, seen the mechanical and then a bit of lost patience because they're already behind, like hours behind their expected landing because they left cook them for boat base.
They were Operation Bay cook them, they left.
And then about 6 o' clock at night, Robin is starting to get dark and then they seen a flare of light and they had to come back.
(42:12):
It wasn't for them.
But they lost another hour, an hour and a half.
So they're behind the schedule.
Maybe a bit of impatience with get you because he was a very impatient type of guy.
He just always wanted to just take action without potentially thinking a lot that was quite commonly said about G very super brave man.
But yeah, I just think he just was a bit too aggressive.
(42:33):
I think he just lost impatience.
Let's land here and we'll go in.
When you think about the risk assessment for that action, a force of 25, we're going to pick up a theft, thousand prisoners and.
Exactly.
And, and that's another question.
Was that the arrogance or the naivety?
They think it was just okay, I've got 25 men, got one doctor, I got one linguist and unfortunately get you not here now to tell us what he was actually thinking.
(43:02):
He kept a lot of it to himself or their plans.
He didn't write anything down what they had planned to do and he didn't for tell anyone really what his full on plans.
I think he was potentially going to find them, verify and then go back and obviously get more supplies and get more men and things like that.
I think he just wanted to actually verify that what he was saying was true because initially it was going to be a reconnaissance patrol under Custer.
(43:27):
And then once Sketchy got this other information then he basically took control of it.
And I think, well, we'll just keep reconnaissance patrol but we'll go out and see if we can find these thousand men.
Then once we find them, then we'll come back.
Yeah, it is a bold plan.
Yeah, very bold.
Excellent.
Well thank you very much.
Dave's done a fantastic job of bringing out some of the lessons learned for the landings at Guadalcanal.
(43:53):
There's a couple of things that I would add.
Firstly, there's a bit of advice for officers early on in their career who think that they may be struggling.
And this is from the example of General Alexander Vandegrift.
Firstly, in 1909 he wrote a paper, Aviation the Cavalry of the Future.
(44:15):
So that was in 1909.
The Wright Brothers had only flown in December of 1903.
So aviation very much in its infancy and yet he was able to extrapolate out to the important role, the critical role that aviation would play in future combat operations.
However, his first assessment when he was still at the Marine officer school, he was rated as not good.
(44:43):
And these were the remarks that the commander of the Marine Officer School wrote, this officer has not shown that he appreciates the responsibilities of his position as an officer and unless there is decisive improvement, his relations will not be to the advantage of the service he obviously worked on that he received in his next assessment good and tolerable.
(45:08):
Tolerable is probably not the best way of being described, but it's definitely trending upwards.
And his next one after that he was rated as excellent.
He did sterling work as the commander of the 1st Marine Division on Guadalcanal.
He would go on to be the Commandant of the Marine Corps, which is a four star position and part of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
(45:30):
The other lesson I think to reflect on is the planning and risk assessment around the get you patrol.
I think it's important to look at what the mission is and to ask yourself, do I have the resources to be able to do this?
What are the likely tasks that are going to fall out of it?
They were expecting quite a large number of Japanese that were going to surrender to manage the number of prisoners.
(45:56):
They increased the number of people who spoke Japanese rather than thinking about potentially the risk of running into combat.
But it's important to admire G's initiative, definitely his bravery.
Had they been able to pull off that mission successfully, it would have been a huge coup for the Marines.
(46:18):
And the last point of that, I think highlights the fact that the Marines were only just getting to know their enemy.
They were unsure of the culture of the Japanese that they were fighting.
And this is why those initial lessons learned when fighting a new enemy are absolutely critical.
We'll leave it there.
We'll be back next week with the Battle of the Tenaru.
(46:40):
The Principles of War Podcast is brought to you by James Ealing.
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(47:06):
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