This is the fourth episode of our Guadalcanal series with historian and author Dave Holland.
This episodes discusses:
How did the Marines employ the 37 mm gun firing canister at Alligator Creek?
Why did Colonel Ichiki attack without heavy weapons— trading firepower for speed and what was the cost?
What are the myths about scout Jacob Vouza?
How did barbed wire obstacles and coconut-log bunkers employed for to create an engagement zone?
How did pre-registered fires shape the Battle of Tenaru?
What early warnings did coastwatchers and patrols provide before the assault?
How did Marine tanks at dawn finish the fight across the sandbar?
What role did the Cactus Air Force play in the Battle of Tenaru?
Was Ichiki killed in action or by seppuku—what’s the best evidence?
What operational lessons from Tenaru guided both sides at Henderson Field?
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
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
We look at Colonel Achique at the Battle of the Tenaru or Alligator Creek.
This is the Principles of War podcast, professional military education for junior officers and senior NCOs.
This episode, number 138 of the Principles of War looks at how the Marines defended Henderson Field as they were attacked by the Achiki detachment across the Alligator Creek.
(00:39):
We are joined once again by our expert on the Guadalcanal campaign, Dave Holland.
Let's get right into the next battle in the Guadalcanal campaign.
Alrighty.
Welcome back to the podcast, Dave.
Thanks, James, and I'm great to be back.
And once again, now we're on the ground fighting.
So, yeah, I'm in my element now.
So last week we talked about the get you patrol.
(01:00):
How did the Marines respond after the get you patrol's elimination?
Okay, so obviously it was a big shock to the division, especially finding the remains of the Gatchi patrol.
Once the information started coming back, they'd found the original garrison they were looking for.
They said, well, this is the stronghold, the mechanical, and this is probably where the original garrison is.
(01:22):
Went to majority of them apart from some of the construction workers, aimlessly wandering in the jungle.
But the main strength, the main element is there.
So Vandergrift vision commander said, okay, now we've located them.
This is our chance to destroy them and wipe out the regional garrison on the island.
That way we'll have the island to ourselves and we can secure the airfield better.
(01:44):
So they wouldn't call a punitive expedition.
But then again, I will call it a punitive expedition because the regimental commander, hunt of the 5th Marines had been tasked to go and eliminate that threat or eliminate the stronghold and haven't seen it written down.
But there was a number of accounts basically saying there'd be no prisoners taken on this one.
(02:05):
And I think Hunt, one of his comments was, go down and kill every one of the last bastards there.
Kill every one of them.
So that was their intent, was to wipe the garrison out and literally wipe it out.
They basically said, look, they're taking no prisoners.
So fine, we will take no prisoners and we'll play it that way.
So the plan was on the 18th of August, they were going to send three companies down.
(02:29):
So one company was going to go down to the mouth of Matanical and hold there and be a diversion, reforce.
Another one was going to cross about 2, 000 yards upstream in Tanaka.
So the Japanese had a bridge called the one long Bridge and we'll discuss it quite a number of times throughout the podcast.
And basically it wasn't a one long bridge.
It was actually two logs.
They can call it a two log bridge in Japanese.
Actually called the Nippon Bridge guy in Japanese because I don't speak Japanese.
(02:53):
But anyway, it said it was basically covering, we said at the base of Hill 65 it covered a narrow part of the river.
So it's a makeshift constructed bridge.
Anyway, one company was going across there on the 18th and then they were going to go up to Hill 75 which was on the west bank.
The Japanese had been dug.
They dug in along the Matanic island.
(03:13):
Last week we discussed the pre war village there and they had their defenses built around that.
So they had an L shaped right around the mouth of Matanical on the west bank.
So one company was going to hold, another company was going to come around and hit them in the flank, which would be the southern flank of the Japanese right flank.
And another company was going to get an M amphibious assault, a place called Cucumbana, which is about three miles to the west.
(03:38):
So we're going to land at Cucumbana and advance back to the east to trap the Japanese.
So one was holding, one was flanking, one was coming in the rear.
So on the 18th they sent the first company, which is L company 35.
So they crossed up the Matanical.
They're in position.
So Bravo 15 was on the OR B company.
(03:59):
They didn't call them Bravo, they call them Baker.
I get in trouble for using the NATO phonetic Alphabet.
Keep it nice and simple.
So B15 and then I think I company was going to land.
So cut a long story short, both companies attacked.
B couldn't get across.
Malfunction, Matanical and but the Lima company or L Company was able to assault through a village and they trapped the Japanese.
(04:21):
They basically wiped the Japanese out to the man like they promised.
So that was the regional garrison had been basically eliminated apart from a few stragglers.
So at the same time.
So this was on the 19 August, remember?
So now I think that brings us up to the next part we're going to discuss today, which is Battle of the Teneru Bell, Alligator Creek.
(04:43):
So listeners, just hold that in your thought process right now.
Vandergrift.
And the high command or division command says okay now we've eliminated the threat of the garrison and they were going to actually send another reinforce company the day after and just clean up the remnants.
So that's where we're sitting there.
Then it brings us up to Alligator Creek.
And so now it's the Japanese turn.
(05:06):
How did they respond to the Marine landings?
Well, we discussed earlier how they responded through the air.
Naval so obviously had air strikes and we had the Battle of Salvo Island.
So the marines were expecting a major Japanese counter offensive through the land and famous assault.
So they started preparing their defenses mainly for a seaborne attack.
So the main threat was seaborne attack.
(05:28):
So that's where they focused the main defenses.
With 37 millimeter any tank guns for any boat defenses.
I had 50 caliber machine guns, had a 30 calibers that infantry companies lined up.
They refused to both flanks on the east and west.
On the west it was a cocombana place called Cocobana.
Oh, sorry, get my coco bonus and cook them.
(05:48):
A lot of cooking.
I know it started with a cooking anyway.
Yeah, at the west they cook them and on the east it's ILU river or at that time they mis pronounced it or mislabeled it the Tenaru River.
And then imagine a horseshoe shape so that's their defenses.
And then the backside that covered it with outpost from the amphibious tractor battalion, the engineer battalion and the pioneer battalion had outposts scattered about around with roving patrols in between.
(06:16):
So the main threats they thought was from the front flanks.
So that's how they responded.
And they were preparing themselves for the eventual Japanese counter attack from amphibious assault.
And so where did the Japanese land then and what was their plan?
All right, so the Japanese, they recognized immediately that the strategic value of that airfield, they knew they had to retake it as soon as possible issue they had, like Vanderbilt said, you can't bomb the Marines out.
(06:45):
You got to go and physically take them with ground troops.
So trying to find ground troops was pragmatic for the Japanese because the Japanese Imperial army, you read some reports that they didn't.
Wasn't aware that the navy was actually on Guadalcanal, which is false.
I mean a lot of the army didn't, but a lot of navy didn't either.
But the Japanese high commands knew the, the operation because once again we talk about Operation FX where they're going to invade Fiji and Samoa and they had the whole 17th army in earmark for that.
(07:13):
And one of the staging bases for the air support was Guadalcanal.
So they were aware of it, but they didn't have the forces nearby to have an immediate counter attack.
Forces they did have were going into New Guinea, Port Moresby.
That was the main strategic goal of the Japanese at the time.
So the 17th army under Hyakutake, Lieutenant General Hyakutake had based in Rabaul, so he was commanding the New guinea operation.
(07:39):
That was his main focus.
They were gathering forces to go into New Guinea.
For example, they had the 35th Brigade under Major General Kawaguchi.
And everybody in the palaus, which were later in some of the Marine listeners or some of the people might know the battle called Peleliu, which is in Palau, you would see later, unfortunately, in the war, but they were based there.
(07:59):
You had another unit called the 4th Infantry Regiment, Elba Detachment, and they were part of the second Division.
And they were actually in the Philippines at the time.
And you had another regiment called the 28th Regiment.
And they were on the way back to Japan.
They were a guy called Kyona.
I'm proud, mispronouncing his.
His first name.
(08:19):
Always mispronounce the Japanese first name.
But Kyona, Ichiki or Iki.
Some.
Some people refer to him.
He was a colonel.
He was the regimental colonel.
So they had been designated to invade and occupy Midway, assault Midway and occupy.
But that didn't go down.
So they were on the way back to Japan.
So they were the only forces really in the.
(08:40):
Nearby they could use.
When I said nearby, you got one in the Philippines, you got one going back Japan, you got another in the Palau, hundreds and hundreds of miles away.
They had some, I think two battalion strength special naval land forces units that could use out of Rabaul.
But once again, you know, they're not that strong to take back the island.
So that was the.
What the Japanese had available to.
(09:01):
To take it back.
What do we know about Ichiki?
What kind of a commander was he?
What.
What was history?
Okay, cheeky of the 28th Regiment.
Yeah, cheeky's a very interesting guy.
He.
He first came, I guess, to note during the Marco Polo incident.
I think that.
What was that?
30.
39?
No, 37.
37.
Yeah, it was a 37.
(09:22):
So Marco, we won't go into Marco Polo incident.
You know, I encourage the listeners or viewers to.
To check that out because it's quite interesting how that started.
But he was two conflicting reports.
Either the company commander or battalion commander.
I know he was a major, so I'd say potentially he's battalion commander.
So he was the guy on the ground that ordered this to go down with the Marco Polo incident with attacking of the Chinese and potentially started.
(09:46):
Well, it did.
It initiated the 1937 son of Japanese World War.
I'm not an expert in that and there's others who can tell you that.
But yeah, he was the guy on the ground responsible for that, who gave the orders and Ichiki was what you'd expect.
He'd been through the Japanese military academies, he fought in China.
(10:07):
He was very well versed as an instructor.
I mean I think he instructed, I know he instructed a few times at the infantry school, Command of staff college and a few other specialists.
Last courses he was reported to be a very good switched on commander.
Hence why he was picked to lead the assault on Midway.
And his regiment was a highly trained regiment.
(10:29):
Had some great soldiers in it, great equipment.
They were considered shock troops or some of the top in the ija, the Imperial Japanese army at the time.
I think some of his troops had actually fought Nomin Han as well.
So significant combat experience.
Yeah, that's going to come to fruition in the battle of Alligator Creek because in Nomahon as we know that was fought in 1939 that was the first defeat, real defeat of the Japanese Imperial Army.
(10:55):
Destroyed the whole division, the Soviets did and just wiped the whole Japanese division out.
The 20th Regiment was there and like you said some of his people who participated in this battle of Alligator Creek was actually there.
I know at least two company commanders and some of the senior NCOs.
So they were first on modern combined arms.
They understood tanks, they understood artillery.
(11:18):
In fact I think some of the Japanese doctrine changed from Nomahan when they started putting more artillery and some tanks and stuff to support because they were outclassed.
They realized the power of a combined military arms which is the Soviets hit them quite hard.
So they'd learned those lessons but Ichiki member wasn't there.
So he's about to learn a lesson very shortly in the wild.
(11:40):
Let's just say he's about to learn his first and last lesson on modern combat arms.
Do you want to describe the terrain around the area?
So Alligator Creek and the Tenaroo river just flat.
I think we discussed earlier in the first episode how the train Iguana Canal is here.
We weren't dealing with the grass covered coral kunai grass hills which you'd find a lot or even the thick jungles.
(12:06):
What we deal in here is what they were experiencing was the coconut plantations, nice flat coconut plantations interspersed with some thick jungle mainland around the rivers.
There were three or four rivers, small rivers.
So where exactly you were talking about Again, between Alligator Creek, where a cheeky.
(12:26):
Is going to fight where he's going to.
Yeah, when they land at Taboo point, which is 20 miles to the east of Alligator Creek or the perimeter.
Sorry.
So they're basically advancing through coconut plantations.
Nice flat terrain.
Initially, when they started, they had to cross a few rivers and there wasn't a established road.
And then once, probably about two or three miles in, they hit the coastal track or the government track, and that was a nice flat road that basically followed the coast through the coconut plantation.
(12:54):
So it was designed to service the coconut plantations.
So it had a fairly easy walk there.
And then when they approached the Tenaru, that was Tenaru is about a mile, 1800 meters.
So it's a little more than a mile east of Yellow River, Alligator Creek.
So they had to cross a couple of rivers and creeks.
But yeah, it was a pretty flat, easy track for them.
(13:17):
So what intelligence did the Japanese planners have about the American dispositions?
What was Ichiki expecting to find as he advanced?
That's a good one.
I always like answering this question.
And when I was writing my book and doing a lot of research on that, I was starting to find a lot of.
A lot of good information on that about how the Japanese and why they're thinking.
(13:38):
And it was kind of contradicting some of the other information I read previously.
It just wasn't there.
And you think we.
The Japanese went in this blindly and they weren't thinking, but they were.
They were thinking.
They were trying to use the best intelligence that could because you got to remember, you had the regional garrison had like a real, like super radio.
They talk to Mars, so to speak, but they had a good quality stuff.
(13:58):
But they'd lost the communications because, remember, the Marines had overran, cook them over, ran their radio station and took their base.
So they were out communications.
So Japanese was scrambling to try to find intelligence.
They were trying to say, okay, well, our guys on the ground are human intelligence.
The garrison, we're not getting anything from them.
So they come up with some pretty interesting and pretty cool ways to communicate.
(14:23):
So Captain Monson was the Japanese garrison commander.
So Japanese had coast watchers too.
People don't know this, but Japanese had coast watchers or, quote, signal stations, and they previously put some on each end of the island and they had the similar four flags and spotting scopes and things, and they're the lookouts.
So what the Japanese submarines did, they sent a number of submarines.
(14:46):
And I think some of your listeners might have known the opening of the campaign there Was a lot of Japanese submarines popping up and using their deck guns and shooting at Marines.
And you had one Marine firing a mortar rounds at them, and you had those 75 millimeters shooting at them.
And there's all kind of cool stories there, but what the Japanese submarines were doing, they were collecting intelligence.
(15:07):
That was the main thing they were doing to find out what was going on.
And the way they were collecting intelligence, they would pop up and they would see if they could look for any activity of the Americans there.
And the way they were communicating with the regional garrison, they would go off the coast and they were using semaphore flags, the signal flags, and they were signaling reports back then, obviously, the submarines were either taking it back or they'd radio it back.
(15:30):
The Japanese are also doing aerial constant flights trying to find out what's going on, what they were saying.
They remember they knew there was a large transport fleet there on the 7th through the night.
And they figured, well, there's a lot of.
A lot of Americans were on these transports at least.
And the intelligence said at least a marine division of 10, 000 men.
They reckon it was 10, 000 Marines there.
(15:52):
But due to the Balasamo Islands and the transports left on the 9th, their intelligence based on Imperial Japanese army, they would say, well, if it was us, we wouldn't be able to offload this amount of troops.
So they figured, well, the Americans probably offloaded about three to four, maybe 5, 000 troops.
But then they've jumped back into the ships and they've left and they've stranded this one group.
(16:15):
Now, how many are there?
So when the planes are flying over, there's one plane reported that the Americans seemed listless and demoralized.
Seen a few boats moving around, seen some, you know, some supplies, but didn't really see many guys moving around because remember, they're all under these two coconuts grow.
So I've got some arrow photos of the 8th and 9th and 10th, and there's a whole Marine division there.
(16:38):
And you can't see any.
Any.
You just seen a few trucks on the beaches, and I see it.
So anyway, they reported by.
In the 8th Fleet or 8th, I think, intelligence group out of Rabaul, I think they flew.
Yeah, they did.
One staff also flew over and he reported goes, I think there's only about 2 or 3, 000Americans there.
There was a major general said, I forgot his name, but he said, no, I think there's about 7, 000 there.
(17:01):
He was kind of overruled.
So ballpark figured they come up at least there's about 3, 000, roughly 3, 000Americans there, dispirited, stranded.
They're just waiting for the fleet to come back and pick them up.
So that was their intelligence they had.
They also had some guys member on the ground, the original garrison giving them some reports back through the semaphore flags.
(17:24):
But it wasn't that great.
But yeah, that was the intelligence they had at the time.
So it wasn't that great.
So there is Ichiki at this stage doesn't even have his entire regiment, does he?
So what sort of combat team, battle group, what is it that he's got that he's advancing to contact with?
Okay, so they're not on the island yet.
So basically he gets, like I said before, they're en route back to Japan.
(17:46):
So I get these orders real quick, okay, stop all movement, go to Guam.
Okay, so they went to Guam for a few days.
Don't offload.
Now your orders are to proceed to truck.
So they proceed the truck.
Once he got the truck, then they were given the plans.
Okay, you're going to take six fast destroyers.
We're limited to amount of spaces we've got.
(18:07):
We're going to do it two echelons.
So what did Cheeky did what he did, he picked the first echelon.
So he stripped down the companies down to I think about 80 guys each.
They picked the best troops they had.
They left their heavy weapons back to the anti tank guns and had some 75 millimeter mountain howitzers guns, the larger guns, artillery pieces.
So they've left them back.
(18:27):
They were going to be the second echelon.
They were going to come in by transport.
Not faster storage because they couldn't get all that on fast storage.
So they loaded 914.
All of some people say 9 14, 917, let's just say 900.
They loaded 900 guys and these six destroyers, they took eight heavy machine guns at two 70 millimeter infantry guns portable.
(18:51):
And they're very much stripped down.
They had about three or four days of rations.
So that was what they were stripped down.
They put them on the island first.
So Cheeky's orders misses another controversial point.
He didn't have a direct orders.
His orders were basically to land, proceed to the perimeter or outside the airfield.
Would do one of two things if he thought he could attack and take the airfield back.
(19:14):
Or preferably which the Japanese wanted to do.
But they didn't say, this is what we want you to do.
We're going to leave the option up to you, but fairly.
You're going to hold and wait for the second echelon and you're going to work wait for the 35th brigade on the Kawaguchi who would be landed two weeks later or a week later.
(19:34):
That was the intent.
In the meantime, if you're going to hold, you're going to.
I forgot the exact wording but harass and perform guerrilla style tactics to delay the building or the completion of the airfield.
So that was his orders.
So cheeky the guy he was basically boasted, I think I've gotten that Major general's name.
When he said he thought he was a bit shocked.
(19:56):
The cheeky basis said, okay, I'm going to take the airfield back and do you want me to take Tulagi also Real boastful.
The arrogant and boastful and Japanese Major general had concerns about that.
But once again no one's directing him though.
You're going to hold.
That was the order from the 17th army under Hikitaki.
That was his order because he was placed under Hikitaki's army at that stage.
(20:19):
So yeah, they were en route to land and they were going to land on the night of the 19th of August.
So he's certainly aggressive but interestingly enough leaving his heavy weapons behind.
So one wonders what he's really thinking he's going to be finding.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean once again he's left that behind.
That goes to say that, you know, he's a rash decision.
(20:41):
He just said they've never been defeated.
We'll just push through.
This is dispirited.
We've.
We've defeated dispirited enemy before.
There's 3, 000.
They're supposed to be scattered around this basically five mile perimeter or sorry, five miles straight.
The whole perimeter is 15 miles.
They'll be so spread out.
And that's what he said.
We'll hit them with an iron fist or sweep them aside with a iron glove.
(21:05):
I think that's what he said, paraphrasing them basically sweeping aside with an iron glove because it was just hit him at a fixed point.
And Japanese infiltration techniques go straight through, go around.
They'll run or they'll just surrender.
It is interesting though when you put it in the context though.
The Japanese advance had been brilliantly executed and incredibly successful.
(21:25):
Do we know where he fought during the advance after Pearl Harbor?
No, I don't think he hadn't been engaged the 28th and there was only China.
Yep.
And I don't know exactly where they were.
I don't Know if I only think they were in garrison yet, but they wouldn't engage.
Say for example, like the other regiments that went to Guadalcanal, the 2nd Division and the 38th Division, these guys had been fighting in the Philippines, had fought in Hong Kong and fought into the Dutch East Indies.
(21:53):
But not the 28th.
That might be.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure of that.
Maybe, maybe mistaken, but I'm pretty sure that they hadn't had combat experience so far in the war.
So after a cheeky lands, the marines are working with Martin Clemens and his team of local scouts.
What sort of patrolling are they doing?
(22:13):
What sort of early warning are the marines hoping to get?
Yeah, so you had Martin Clemens in his scout.
So Clemens that stage had joined the division and become part of Division D2 of the Intelligence with his scouts.
So they started then working for Lt. Col. Buckley who had been thrust into position after Gadget had been killed.
Buckley was the thing.
(22:34):
It was the.
He was the R2 intelligence officer, 11th Marines artillery.
Next minute, okay, you're hitting the whole divisions are in tail.
So he's thrown straight in there in the deep end.
But anyway, Clemens had started working for Buckley and they were sending patrols out.
A lot of patrols are mainly running to the east because that was where a lot of his scouts had originated from.
(22:56):
They knew that area so they're running patrols in there.
Some of the information is coming back a place called Tavu, which is 20 miles east of the perimeter.
And I talk about these lookout Australian coast or sorry the Japanese coastal hunters and lookout stations.
Apparently intel was coming back from the scouts.
So it was a Japanese radio station or a Japanese lookout point at Taibu, which I was there was.
(23:19):
They marked the beaches later but there was the intelligence coming back from there.
There was some Japanese there and at the same time they were.
They're running some patrols to the west but mainly to the east.
So that was what they were doing out there, running patrols, scouts.
Sometimes they're running by themselves or small teams of three and four.
Which leads us to the famous story of Vuza and the patrol that he was in.
(23:44):
Jacob Vuza or Sir Jacob Vusa now probably most famous Solomon Islander.
He was a pre war British Solomon Protectorate police officer.
He was a sergeant major and he retired his stage.
He was 42.
He was born in 1900, so he was 42 years old.
He just retired and mainly served all this time in Malaita which island just north of the Solomons or the Solomon island north of Guadalcanal.
(24:06):
Sorry.
And he'd returned to his village in 1942, and his village is at Teteri, which is out that area.
It's probably 11 miles east of the perimeter.
So he'd started working for Martin Clemens because Clemens had picked a lot of the former police officers to be his scouts, the better trained.
And plus he knew them and he trusted most of those guys.
(24:28):
So that's what he wanted, the ones he could trust.
So Vuza was.
Was one of his scouts.
So.
So Vuza was out patrolling around the Taterra area.
So on the early mornings of the 19th, the Japanese had landed.
Ichiki and his guys had landed, and it started moving down that area and it captured a visa at roughly at one stage.
(24:48):
I think we're getting probably a little bit ahead of the Brush patrol, I guess the timing.
If you want to talk about the Brush patrol first.
Yeah, let's talk about that one.
Okay, so we'll hold those.
So loses it to Terry.
We'll just leave him there for the moment.
So the Brush patrol, like I said before, the intelligence is coming back.
There was a Japanese radio station at Taiwan Point.
So Brush was Captain Brush, his first name escapes me now, but he was the company commander of A Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines swap.
(25:16):
Brush was tasked.
He took a reinforced patrol, about 60 guys.
They had machine guns and some mortars, 60 mils and some leading machine guns with them.
And they were tasked on the 19th to head to Tavu Point and destroy.
To do reconnaissance in force and destroy that radio station at Tavu Point.
So Remember on the 19th, early morning 19th, Echiki and these guys landed.
(25:39):
So they're on.
They're heading to the west.
And you got Brush and his patrol now heading to the east.
So around Koley Point, which is nine miles away from the perimeter.
What Ichiki had done, he'd sent a forward party, I think about 35 guys, and he had five officers and rest enlisted.
They were actually guided.
And this is another interesting point.
(26:00):
A lot of you don't read a lot of accounts.
They're being guided by two of the members of the regional garrison.
Because, remember, the regional garrison been there for about five, six, about four weeks that stage.
No more than that, about five weeks.
Anyway, they'd been there, so they knew the area.
So they'd met and they'd scattered everywhere.
But you had two of the special naval landing troops, and they were guiding Ichikis down.
(26:21):
So two of them guided these small group reconnaissance party.
Their job was to move forward and had engineers with them, had, like I said, they five officers, their intelligence, they were going to move forward and scout the Marine positions.
So they're moving.
They ran straight into the brush patrol.
So brush patrol got to jump on them, ambushed them and killed the majority of them.
(26:42):
But this was the first time they'd come across Imperial Japanese Army.
So they had a look at them, they go, well, these guys are not the stragglers have been dealing with.
He's not the Navy.
We've been dealing with these guys wearing fresh uniforms and fresh looking troops.
They got the Imperial Japanese army star on helmets.
These are the reinforcements.
We're potentially.
They were talking about.
Some of the Marine intelligence had mentioned that because once again, it goes back to the ultra or the magic code intercepts readings because Vandergriff had received about a day before, look, Japanese potentially going to land a small unit or sorry, small a unit there to do a counter attack.
(27:18):
So they're on the lookout for these guys too, potentially.
But now they found them.
Anyway, the intelligence got back, the marines buried the dead.
They had three dead.
Unfortunately they're still there to this day, missing.
They buried them, moved back, reported it.
Then that alerted Vandergriff and rest division.
Okay, now we know they're coming.
They'd already started beefing up the right hand side of the A side around Ely River.
(27:39):
Okay, well I'll just call it Alligator Creek.
So around that side.
Anyway, so I started beefing it up with 37 millimeter tank guns, machine guns, putting in some wire and things like that.
So they started preparing.
But now they confirmed the Japanese were here and they're on the move.
Now how the cheeky reacted to that information.
(28:00):
There were some survivors.
They'd made it back and said our advanced party got wiped out.
So that really chalky cheeky.
So what he did, he formed a company real quick, the first company and sent them straight down to rescue them or the survivors.
Anyway, they found their dead.
They buried their dead along with the three Marines because it was a dark when they got there and they found three larger men wrapped in ponchos larger than the rest of the Japanese.
(28:25):
And they found out what these are, these American marines, they buried them all.
So then a chicky at that stage had the other companies moving.
So they're on the move.
They're heading that way to the Alligator Creek.
They're not going to stop.
And then goes back to voodoo.
Yes.
Okay, now, so at that stage it captured Vuza during that day they captured him patrolling around his own village.
(28:47):
So what they did now, boozy, apparently depends on who you speak to we haven't verified this yet, but Vuza was apparently carrying a American flag on his person.
That, that day he'd rescued an American or he'd rescued American flyer previously, an American flyer gave him that flag.
I think it was actually from the.
(29:09):
I got to take that back.
I don't know when the American fly.
I think he was actually dealing with on Invasion Day when the American flyers were shot down.
I don't think so.
I'll have to double check that one.
But anyway, basically the report is he's got a flag on it.
He got it for an American flyer and apparently the Japanese it caught him and that was.
That triggered him.
Whether that's true or not, I don't think Vuza is going to be running around doing scouting behind lines with a flag wrapped around him or flag in his pocket.
(29:34):
That's just my opinion.
No one got what Vuza was.
But anyway, they kept him and someone identified him, potentially someone identified him as a scout for the Marines.
So they tied him to a tree, tied him with ant nest.
At one stage it beat him up quite severely.
They slashed him with a sword, tried to get him to talk.
Apparently he didn't say a word.
(29:55):
And at that stage, what they did was they untied him from the tree.
His hands were still bound.
They said, fine, you're going to guide us there.
Now this goes against the common story that Jacob Vuza was tied to a tree, beaten, he wouldn't give any information.
They stabbed him repeatedly with a bayonet, left him to die and they took off.
(30:16):
And then at that stage, Boozer would.
This is the known storage and all the books.
Then he was supposed to chew through his hands, the hands, the bindings on his hands.
Escape from the tree, bleeding profusely.
And you gotta remember, well, he was tied to a tree.
He's 11 miles away from Alligator Creek.
Then he was supposed to move 11 miles past the Japanese who move in route, march, bleed profusely, about half dead, make it to the Marines only minutes before the Japanese arrived to see unsuspecting marines and tell them the Japanese are coming, which saved hundreds of Marines.
(30:53):
Well, that's the story that it's commonly told, but that's not the true correct story.
And this story that the version I'm telling is the one that Vuza tales, Martin Clemens tales, a number of other tales, his family tales.
It's been verified, you know, the marines at the time, the intelligence reports all point to this version.
It was more believable version.
(31:14):
The Version that I think the truth true version after voodoos was bleeding hand still bound.
He led the Japanese and then when they were getting close to Alligator Creek the first shots rang out from the outpost.
Vuza says at that stage the Japanese became very angry and they stabbed me several times with a bayonet.
(31:35):
I fell to the ground.
The Japanese, they got down beside me because of seeking cover.
He said they thought I was dead.
They rose up and proceeded on.
He said that stage I crawled off and then I ran down the bank of the Alligator Creek and He went about 700 yards and there he crossed.
If you ever go to Guay Canal is a bridge there now.
(31:56):
And he crossed roughly in the area and he was challenged by a guy called Private Brewery.
Basically said don't move you son of a bitch, I'll kill you.
And he goes me no Japan the boozer or me friend.
He says come in.
So they get those in.
I take booze it to the CP 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Command Post.
He gives his report.
No, I take it back.
(32:16):
He doesn't give his report that stage he's bleeding out and he says he wants to see Clemens, Martin Clemens.
So they go get Clemens and said we got one of your guys here.
Clemens goes to him, Vuza gives his report like a good scout and he says there's at least 2, 000 Japanese coming this way.
And he goes okay.
And he says question so funny when it is kind of funny.
And then Vuza is, remember he's bleeding out, half dead.
(32:39):
They're trying to make him as comfortable as possible.
They haven't given you first day because he thought he's about to die.
He gives his report.
So Clemens just says well you know I'll be there in his last moments and he goes oh, can you take my last will testimony?
He goes yeah, I will.
And he's writing it down.
Vusa goes can you leave aunt so and so this and uncle so and this this.
And he goes on for about, he said about five minutes just talking tight and he goes well maybe Vuz is not as hurt as we think he is.
(33:05):
She calls some Coleman over and they grab him and take him into the battalion A station.
And I've got the Coleman's account.
So this is the first time I ever did a three way blood transfusion on anyone in the division.
So he said we put two lines in his arm and one in his leg and then three blood transfusion going at the same time.
And you know what's so amazing about this Guy.
(33:26):
Two weeks later he's back on his feet running patrols.
And Vuz used to joke, I'm half American because they put all that blood in, all the American blood in.
That's the correct Vuza version, which is more highly believable than the other one.
So, yeah, so that was boozer.
So we're back to Ichiki in his group moving down, about to make contact with the Marines.
(33:48):
Because remember, the Marines are boosted up there defenses.
And plus they've had outposts.
They haven't had outposts to Tennessee.
So it's about between Alligator Creek and the real Tenaroo river is roughly about a mile.
So they had outposts out to a mile that far out.
So they've got Marine outposts waiting for them because they knew they're coming.
So they're waiting for them is at night when the first elements kind of meet.
(34:10):
So Achiki's got his lead elements in contact.
How does he proceed?
What's his plan?
Yeah, so at this stage, Nakagawa river thinks what's what?
The Japanese actually had the Illu River, Nakagawa River.
So the Nakagawa river was going to be their assembly point.
Before they moved into the line of departure, they were going to attack the former construction unit camp, which is another 5 or 600 meters to the west near the airfield.
(34:36):
They didn't know the Americans are that far up Alligator Creek.
They had reports and some of the documents they captured showed some of the defenses.
We read some accounts that they showed individual machine gun positions, which are not true.
They showed the American defenses in that horseshoe shape.
But the defenses really didn't cover all of Alligator Creek.
It showed some elements around Alligator Creek.
(34:59):
What they were going to do is right before they got to the east side, that was going to be their assembly point and they were going to move from there.
So they didn't expect Americans that far east.
Now the first elements, the Cheeky's not in with the first elements.
They're moving in columns.
The Cheeky's like two cop.
He's like, you got the lead company, second company, the Cheeky's in the middle.
(35:19):
You got two whole companies of Japanese in front of him moving in column.
So Cheeky's not in there in the front.
Front elements.
So the fart elements.
This is a night.
Remember, the first platoon moves in, they encounter the outpost.
Fire them up.
They see the outpost and they proceed after the outpost.
They see the outpost run across the Sandbine, which is Alligator Creek sandbar.
Now remember, the sandbar is roughly 100ft wide, sorry, 100ft long.
(35:43):
50 foot wide at the time.
So 100ft by 50.
So that's the sandbar.
That was the area where the coastal road crossed the river with the coastal road.
They generally did that.
High tide, the sandbar and they could drive over.
Anyway, they crossed the sandbar and they seen him run across and he thought the lead, this is a platoon commander.
He goes, well I'm advance because I'll wait for my company commander to come up, see what's going on before I advance.
(36:08):
Company commander comes up, he goes, we think there's some Americans over there.
He goes, okay, first platoon go across.
Remember cheeky's not even there yet.
First platoon goes across and they get hit pretty hard.
37 millimeter.
Any tank gun, machine guns, man, they had a 50 cal and a 37 right on the sandbar.
But then you had 30 cows and all in up and down the river inflated fire.
(36:31):
So they've ran across, they got hit pretty hard and actually some actually made it to the other side and jumped in a marine fault cells.
But they got wiped out.
So the company commander, this company commander was at Nomahon and he goes, okay, I'm just going to wait to, I'll bring some our heavy guns up, bring machine guns up.
So obviously there's a lot of Americans got a lot of firepower over there.
(36:52):
Let's just bring machine guns up.
Let's bring our two 70 millimeter infantry guns up.
Then we'll provide a base of fire support because that was Japanese tactics.
You know, provide a fire support base, hit them with supporting arms, then move up close and use their strength of close combat, which they loved.
You know, the speed, surprise, stealth, the close combat in guys, the enemy, because they didn't think that the Americans or the any enemy like close combat.
(37:19):
So that was whole Japanese tactics.
Either infiltrate, get them in close combat and hit them hard.
So at that stage they're waiting.
Now a cheeky comes up.
Cheeky speaks to this captain.
Captain advises a cheeky, this is what we got.
Sir, this company's got no, sorry, I take that back.
Battalion commander Major comes up, this is for.
Cheeky comes and he goes, sir, this is what we got.
(37:39):
Tag commander says, let me go check out myself.
I'm gonna do a personal connaissance.
So him and his staff officer, I think another went up, they got hit and they killed.
So battalion commander is killed off the bat.
Then the cheeky thing comes up.
He goes, what do you got?
He goes, well 1st platoon got wiped out there's a lot of American firepower, the battalion commander is dead.
And Cheeky goes, instead of thinking, you know, this is why I said, yes sir, let's wait till the guns come up, Gee.
(38:05):
He goes, nope, let's just, we'll push your company over.
So they pushed a second company over or the rest of the company over and yeah, they were all shot down.
Then the Cheeky says, okay, I should have listened, but they're telling me the truth.
Okay, second company, before I send you over, let me bring the guns up.
(38:25):
So they brought eight heavy machine guns up and they tried to bring the two 70 millimeter infra guns up.
They all brought one up because remember, these things are man packed so it takes a while to get them up there.
One was stuck in the same.
So yeah, they started firing a base of fire and support fire and the best they could.
And then what Ichiki wanted to do, instead of going across the mouth of the river, which I know that was a death zone, he goes, okay, I'll send the engineers and the next company we'll go upstream and push across the river.
(38:55):
Because this is a alligator creek's a tidal lagoon at that stage it was over their heads.
The chest were over the heads.
So yeah, his next assault tried to go across the river then and it didn't.
It met with fire also.
How were the marines laid out on the ground to defend and what sort of manoeuvre were they performing then in response to Achiki's attack?
(39:17):
So initially it was at night and they had a strong defensive line set up.
They had the barbed wire and I think I mentioned another episode with the barbed wire they had.
They only offloaded 28 spools of barbed wire.
So they were using a plantation, a coconut plantation wire, the Sabine wire.
And they've had a couple of strands over the mouth of the sandbar, one end, one on the other.
(39:39):
But they'd had coconut log bunkers that built in.
They took two of their anti tank guns and they faced them toward the sandbar.
Had a 50 cal on the sandbar like 100 meters to their 100 yards to the right was a machine gun post with a 30 caliber heavy machine gun.
The brown and water cools and then they had two or three more up the river from that.
(40:00):
They had the place pre registered on it for a 75 millimeter artillery battery.
It pre registered that whole area.
They had 81 millimeters registered that a 60 millimeter mortars.
So they had the whole place wired in Ready to go.
They had two companies on the river and had another company in reserve ready to back them up.
This is from the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, 2, 1.
(40:21):
So they were ready to go.
It was a pretty very strong position because everything's channelized or funneled straight down that 50 foot wide, 100 foot long sandbar, open sandbar.
On the other side is just coconut plantation.
On both sides it was open coconut plantations.
We can see straight down the rows, nice and neat.
(40:41):
So in the first large set piece battle of the Guadalcanal campaign, already the Marines are very competent at developing a combined arms effect.
Well, at that battle, yeah.
But in fact, they had some great commanders.
They had Clifton Cates.
Colonel Clifton Cates.
He was very.
He was the regimental commander and he was a World War I vet.
(41:03):
Very famous World War I vet.
Actually.
He'd done quite well in the Balam Belleau Wood as a company commander.
I think I forgot his famous.
I think day two of the battle, at one stage he said he made into a village, only something like 10 guys with him because what's your situation?
He goes, you know, I don't have anyone left.
(41:23):
He goes, basically that there's no one left, no ammunition.
I'm in the village, you know, there's no support to my left, no support to my right, but I will hold.
That became quite famous.
But he's a pretty tough guy.
He was, I think after they said during that battle that night, he had Pollock too.
Lt. Col. Pollock, he was the battalion commander.
He was pretty switched on guy too.
So I think once Cates gave his orders, he said, do this.
(41:47):
Send the reserve company up.
He goes, calling the 75s.
He goes in late in the morning, he said, just hold.
He told battalion commander, said, just hold in the morning we'll wop them out.
Because he had his 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, his Reserve battalion, ready to go.
They're going to do an envelopment the next morning.
He said, just hold them and the next morning we'll kill them all.
We'll wipe them out.
Then apparently step back in his chair and lit a cigarette and just kick back a bit.
(42:14):
Pretty cool guy.
It's good to have that confidence.
Yeah, he was.
He'd probably thought, well, I listen.
Nothing compared to the Great War.
The war won.
Yeah.
So August 20th, there's 31 aircraft that land on Henderson Airfield from the USS Long Island.
And two days later there's some P400 Airacobras.
(42:34):
What sort of impact did they have on the fighting in the Battle, not.
So much impact in the fighting, but the impact on the morale and the whole impact for the campaign was just phenomenal because basically what these guys did, you had to unsinkable aircraft carrier.
Because the 1st Engineer Battalion had basically completed the airfield officially by the 16th of August.
(42:57):
There was actually a PBY Catalina landed on the 12th and that's another story.
It snuck in there and landed.
He was the a Navy flyer.
But anyway, suit was ready to go, so the plane started landing on the 20th.
So there were 18 Wildcats and 12 SPD dive bombers, so two squadrons.
So they landed.
As soon as they landed the Marines were like weeping and jumping up and down because support had finally arrived.
(43:20):
So that really changed the campaign because at that stage the Japanese had ruled the.
They can unload their ships in day and night at free will that total control of the sea space around the Guadalcanal.
But once those planes arrived, that unsinkable aircraft carrier, now you had a force that potentially could dominate the sea or can very much well contest the sea space and the airspace around it because the bombers were flying.
(43:47):
Japanese bombers are doing their daily runs at 20, 000ft and bombing the airfield and the Tojo time they call it.
But now he had something that it could fight back.
And the Marines morale boosted dramatically.
So their contribution to the battle the next day when the daylight came, there was some Japanese around and the Wildcats did their strafing runs.
(44:10):
So they didn't really contribute much to that battle, but to the overall campaign was just amazing and huge impact.
So after daylight they really sort of.
How many Japanese are left at daybreak?
It's hard to check.
Well, cheeky.
At that stage they'd done a third assault and the third assault they said, well, we can't go through the river.
We tried to go through the river, it's too deep.
(44:30):
Tried to go across the sandbar and we just got wiped out.
So typical Japanese infiltration techniques.
They're trying to infiltrate around, but there's really not much to infiltrate.
So they said, well, let's just go.
And they went.
The third wave at night went out into the surf and tried to circumvent or come around the sandbar.
You gotta remember the Marines had an L shape.
(44:52):
So down to ILU and to the left was all down the coastal defenses.
So the machine gun bunkers and anti tank bunkers.
So the Japanese tried to infiltrate around, which they did.
They come straight into the 70 or 80 meters down, come straight into the other machine guns and basically got wiped out.
There's a famous time laugh photo.
I remember seeing it when I was a kid the very first time and had to time off war II books.
(45:17):
It shows these Japanese looks like they're sleeping, dead Japanese.
And they got sand.
They're like in the sand and they're like, they're sleeping.
So that was that group.
It got wiped out.
So when the morning time come, the Japanese are a bit.
Wouldn't have been.
They were disorganized and.
And I think the marines basically said there's.
They're kind of like moving around.
And they really wasn't making any organized attempts organized efforts.
(45:42):
So just like Kate said, in the morning we'll get them out of there.
I think he actually said were not gonna let them hold up there all day.
We're gonna wipe them out, get them out.
So he sends one battalion to do a flank.
So they went down to the south of the river, a thousand yards down, and they basically started flanking the Japanese, enveloping them to the Japanese left flank on the southern flank.
(46:05):
At the same time they started pounding the Japanese because Japanese were called in the coconut grove.
And they started pounding them with the mortars and the 75 millimeter artillery started pounding them.
The Wildcats were strafing them.
Some of the Japanese are trying to escape out to sea.
And at that stage it was daylight.
Marines are shooting them in the ocean.
At one stage they sent five M2 tanks, tank platoon from A Company, the first tank battalion, they sent them over to the sandbar with the Marines platoon and they started taking out the Japanese there.
(46:39):
When the tank infantry assault and the enveloping battalion basically closed in.
So they wiped the Japanese out of pocket.
They left125 Japanese back at the base reserve base as a rear guard.
They captured something like 15 Japanese and 30, I think 30 Japanese made it back to the rear guard.
(46:59):
So roughly about 800 Japanese died.
2750.
800 Japanese died in that attack.
So basically wiped the whole unit out to the man.
All died, none wounded.
They didn't like suffer.
30% casually suffered 90% casualty.
And American casualties total about 41 dead.
I forget the number of head wounded.
I never say only.
(47:21):
I hate that term, only one dead or only two dead.
That doesn't.
It's not really respectful, especially if you're one of the one or two dead.
Absolutely.
So once again we've got the.
So they're using armor in the attack.
And Vandergriff wrote that the rear of the tanks look like meat grinders.
So it gives you an idea of Just how fierce the fighting was and how confined the Japanese positions were.
(47:44):
And also too, the meat grinder, because they had to go across the sandbar.
They were just stacks and stacks of bodies.
In Colonel James Caper.
James was the chief of staff.
He was kind of like booted out in September.
But this guy called Carl Sewell, who was the division's photographer officer, there's some famous photos of the Alligator Creek and the Japanese dead.
(48:05):
But Sewell says he was going to take the photos of the Japanese dead on the sandbar.
And they were basically, you can imagine getting hit point blank range with canister shots from 37 millimeter cannons.
These things fired 128, 30 caliber lead steel balls straight out and you're running straight in that and it's just bits and pieces.
So there was just mangled bodies all over the place.
(48:27):
James told him, remember, this is the first battle they're fought and this is the very start of the war.
He goes, don't take photos of those.
There's too graphic, too gruesome.
You know, we can't take photos of them.
So take photos of these guys over here of the group that infiltrated and they were hit with machine gun rifle fire.
So not blew to pieces.
And plus also at that stage, the tanks had drove over a lot of the bodies on the sandbar.
(48:49):
They were in bits and pieces too.
So that's just a little side fact about Guadalcanal a lot of people don't know about.
And Sewell actually said this because all my friends used to know him quite well and used to correspond with him all the time.
So the Marines, all of the elements of combined arms, what did both sides take out of the battle?
Like, did the Japanese learn anything from this?
(49:10):
And how did the Marines develop their fighting techniques for the.
Future battles in the scheme of things?
Well, on the scale of other battles in the Guadalcanal campaign, the battle itinerary, or Alligator Creek, whatever you want to call it, was a small localized battle.
I mean, it was only a battalion level fight.
They never fought in that area again.
But the impact it had, especially combined with the GY patrol, lasted throughout the war.
(49:33):
Basically show, because you've seen it in the Pacific, HBO specific series shows, a good example.
But after the battle, when the Marines are moving through and the American, the Navy corpsmen are trying to tend to some of the Japanese wounded and they're trying to take some of the Japanese prisoners, but the Japanese wouldn't surrender.
But when they did kind of surrender, sometimes they blow Themselves up a hand grenade or try to kill Americans with hand grenades.
(49:55):
So at that stage, the Americans had really encountered the Japanese not surrendering.
I mean, yeah, Tulagi, they did, but you gotta remember a lot of American information coming back.
Well, it wasn't coming back because the Americans had been fighting.
The Japanese were either prisoners or dead.
Then a lot of information hadn't been filtered back.
So this is kind of the first times Americans are really experiencing the Japanese fighting and the Japanese capacity to not surrender and not take prisoners.
(50:23):
That started to set the tone that in the especially Gaeta patrol, the gate patrolmen were there not taking prisoners and.
And they'll butcher you and they're not surrendering.
Then you have the tricky Japanese at Alligator Creek and blow themselves up and try to kill you.
So it set the stage.
They said, good, these guys are not taking prisoners, they're not surrendering.
(50:43):
So we'll kill them all.
We won't take prisoners either.
And that was kind of the unwritten rule.
And that was a bit of an eye opener for the Americans, Marines or the Americans, especially the Marines.
And also proved as a big confidence builder for the marines, especially the 1st Marine Regiment.
Because I think we discussed in the first episode, this regiment was about 70% brand new green recruits.
(51:05):
This is the first fight for most of them.
And these guys remember they graduated boot camp in January, April, they had a little bit of training.
They're on ships.
And this is August, six months later, they're fighting the facing elite.
But now, so I don't use fanatical for Japanese, very determined, disciplined troops, you know, highly trained.
(51:27):
And these are just green kids, but in defense positions backed up with modern weapons, with good leadership.
So, yeah, and it's a great boost for them.
It was actually a great blooding, as you want to call it, for these guys to fight in the defensive position.
So if they're on the offensive, it might be a different story.
But this is a good confidence boost and also the confidence boost for the morale of the American public.
(51:51):
This is the first time that fought the Japanese and defeated the Japanese.
So this is the first.
The whole Japanese base wiped out.
The whole battalion was wiped out.
These guys had never met defeat.
This is, remember, this is August 21st.
They'd never met defeat yet.
So this is a bit of a.
Bit of a big morale boost for the American public.
Japanese, initially, when the report started coming back from the rear guard, they radioed back and said they're being annihilated.
(52:17):
The Japanese don't.
That's that can't be true.
You know, it's obviously false information.
These guys don't know what you're talking about.
So after about two or three days, it started working out.
Hey, these guys are wiped out.
So it made the Japanese think, okay, well maybe we need to send more troops there.
Which they had them en route.
Remember, Kawaguchi is 35th Brigade.
(52:38):
These are the guys who initially was going into Port Moresby or the port Moresby campaign.
35th Brigade.
So they were diverted from that campaign to go.
And the fourth was diverted too.
So they're all diverting from New guinea get to going in the Guadalcanal.
So, yeah, the Japanese said, okay, now we'll.
We'll get whatever we got there and take these guys back.
(53:00):
But they still haven't recognized that their strategic value or.
Or, sorry, they'd recognize strategic value, but hadn't recognized the Americans had intended to fight.
This is where the Americans had intended to fight.
The Japanese hadn't really clued on at that stage.
The Americans had drew the line in the sand.
This is where they wanted to do their attritional fight right now.
(53:22):
So what happened to Ichiki then?
Yeah, that's another controversy.
Or one of those.
We don't exactly know.
So the report, it came back when you read quite often, either killed himself or.
Or he died in battle.
I tend to think he died in battle.
The Japanese version during the war was Ichiki, due to the loss of his regimen and loss of face, he did the honorable thing, committed seppuku, what they call it, basically killed himself.
(53:53):
And before he did that, he burned the colors, the regimental colors, then he killed himself.
So that was the wartime narrative and that became kind of accepted after the war.
But then some of the survivors and their accounts after the war basically stated that there's four survivors on four different accounts, said the last they seen Ichiki was in late in the morning, late that evening, early in the morning, however you want to say it, about 4 o' clock during the last assault, the third assault, they seen a cheeky going forward toward the.
(54:23):
The fight.
And no one reported him coming back.
So I tend to believe he died in battle.
He died in that last assault.
Now one is, it goes in line with his character, you know, leading from the front, you know, died to front of his men, very aggressive.
I think he lead the last charge.
He died also the state of the Japanese when sunlight came.
Eventually someone said, like chickens with their heads cut off, they had no direction, no guidance, no control.
(54:46):
No one was in control.
If you know how the Japanese were.
If you take out officers and some of the senior NCOs, they kind of like that whole centralization of command.
They kind of lost.
They were.
That was what the reports were coming back.
The eyewitnesses of these Japanese are route out control.
That's another evidence to suggest he died.
(55:06):
Now there's one witness account, he says at one stage in the morning he seen three officers standing by a tree and one shoots himself, then the other shoots himself and then the other one kills him, bears them.
Then he go, no, he goes over to assist and bury him.
He says they wasn't wearing any tunics, but they all had officers pants.
(55:30):
Two of them had officers pants.
So he thinks that one was a cheeky and one was a cheeky's aide or staff officer and the other one was a senior nco.
So helped bury him by troop.
So potentially that could have been it too.
But the burning of the colors, now we know that's not true by cheeky because each Japanese regiment had a color bearer.
It goes back to the American Civil War and whatever, you know, Cola bear color guards.
(55:53):
And that was their whole job, is to bear the colors.
In the Japanese in the reports they had like a little device had magnesium in it and it was designed to burn the colors very quickly if they need to.
So these colors, the 20th Regiment apparently had got what heel was.
But in 1905 Russian Japanese War, the regiment took this heel and it broke the back and then whatever.
(56:16):
But anyway this, the same flag they carried at Alligator Creek was carried there.
And plus everyone defended to the lives.
And what apparently this guy did, the color guard used that thing of magnesium, burned the flag and then on the remnants of the flag he took a hand grenade and he basically laid over it and blew himself up of the remnants of the flag.
So that's more believable because Cheeky's not going to be carrying the flag around.
(56:39):
So whether he died at battle or died by his own hand, who knows, but he certainly died.
And that's like I said earlier, he.
He learned the first and last lesson, his first and last lesson on the modern combined arms.
Excellent.
Well, thank you very much.
A fascinating story about the battle of the Tenaru.
A lot to learn.
And we will return to look at Edson's Ridge.
(57:03):
Yeah, that may be really a good one to go over.
Looking forward to that one.
Alrighty.
Thank you very much.
Once again, a massive thanks to Dave Holland for his expertise.
You can tell that not only does he understand what happened in each of the battles and why, but he also understands the context of each of the battles in this large Guadalcanal campaign.
(57:27):
Keep an eye out for his book the Battles of the Matanical when it's released.
It's going to be well worth reading.
Lastly, if you see any of our social media content, please like and share it.
It helps us get the word out about the Principles of War Podcast.
If you're using it for professional military education, drop me a line.
I'm really keen to hear how you're using it in the PME programs that are out there.
(57:52):
And that's it.
We'll be back next week with the Battle of Edson's Ridge.
The Principles of the Principles of War Podcast is brought to you by James Ealing.
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(58:17):
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We look at Colonel Achique at the Battle of the Tenaru or Alligator Creek.
This is the Principles of War podcast, professional military education for junior officers and senior NCOs.
This episode, number 138 of the Principles of War looks at how the Marines defended Henderson Field as they were attacked by the Achiki detachment across the Alligator Creek.
(00:39):
We are joined once again by our expert on the Guadalcanal campaign, Dave Holland.
Let's get right into the next battle in the Guadalcanal campaign.
Alrighty.
Welcome back to the podcast, Dave.
Thanks, James, and I'm great to be back.
And once again, now we're on the ground fighting.
So, yeah, I'm in my element now.
So last week we talked about the get you patrol.
(01:00):
How did the Marines respond after the get you patrol's elimination?
Okay, so obviously it was a big shock to the division, especially finding the remains of the Gatchi patrol.
Once the information started coming back, they'd found the original garrison they were looking for.
They said, well, this is the stronghold, the mechanical, and this is probably where the original garrison is.
(01:22):
Went to majority of them apart from some of the construction workers, aimlessly wandering in the jungle.
But the main strength, the main element is there.
So Vandergrift vision commander said, okay, now we've located them.
This is our chance to destroy them and wipe out the regional garrison on the island.
That way we'll have the island to ourselves and we can secure the airfield better.
(01:44):
So they wouldn't call a punitive expedition.
But then again, I will call it a punitive expedition because the regimental commander, hunt of the 5th Marines had been tasked to go and eliminate that threat or eliminate the stronghold and haven't seen it written down.
But there was a number of accounts basically saying there'd be no prisoners taken on this one.
(02:05):
And I think Hunt, one of his comments was, go down and kill every one of the last bastards there.
Kill every one of them.
So that was their intent, was to wipe the garrison out and literally wipe it out.
They basically said, look, they're taking no prisoners.
So fine, we will take no prisoners and we'll play it that way.
So the plan was on the 18th of August, they were going to send three companies down.
(02:29):
So one company was going to go down to the mouth of Matanical and hold there and be a diversion, reforce.
Another one was going to cross about 2, 000 yards upstream in Tanaka.
So the Japanese had a bridge called the one long Bridge and we'll discuss it quite a number of times throughout the podcast.
And basically it wasn't a one long bridge.
It was actually two logs.
They can call it a two log bridge in Japanese.
Actually called the Nippon Bridge guy in Japanese because I don't speak Japanese.
(02:53):
But anyway, it said it was basically covering, we said at the base of Hill 65 it covered a narrow part of the river.
So it's a makeshift constructed bridge.
Anyway, one company was going across there on the 18th and then they were going to go up to Hill 75 which was on the west bank.
The Japanese had been dug.
They dug in along the Matanic island.
(03:13):
Last week we discussed the pre war village there and they had their defenses built around that.
So they had an L shaped right around the mouth of Matanical on the west bank.
So one company was going to hold, another company was going to come around and hit them in the flank, which would be the southern flank of the Japanese right flank.
And another company was going to get an M amphibious assault, a place called Cucumbana, which is about three miles to the west.
(03:38):
So we're going to land at Cucumbana and advance back to the east to trap the Japanese.
So one was holding, one was flanking, one was coming in the rear.
So on the 18th they sent the first company, which is L company 35.
So they crossed up the Matanical.
They're in position.
So Bravo 15 was on the OR B company.
(03:59):
They didn't call them Bravo, they call them Baker.
I get in trouble for using the NATO phonetic Alphabet.
Keep it nice and simple.
So B15 and then I think I company was going to land.
So cut a long story short, both companies attacked.
B couldn't get across.
Malfunction, Matanical and but the Lima company or L Company was able to assault through a village and they trapped the Japanese.
(04:21):
They basically wiped the Japanese out to the man like they promised.
So that was the regional garrison had been basically eliminated apart from a few stragglers.
So at the same time.
So this was on the 19 August, remember?
So now I think that brings us up to the next part we're going to discuss today, which is Battle of the Teneru Bell, Alligator Creek.
(04:43):
So listeners, just hold that in your thought process right now.
Vandergrift.
And the high command or division command says okay now we've eliminated the threat of the garrison and they were going to actually send another reinforce company the day after and just clean up the remnants.
So that's where we're sitting there.
Then it brings us up to Alligator Creek.
And so now it's the Japanese turn.
(05:06):
How did they respond to the Marine landings?
Well, we discussed earlier how they responded through the air.
Naval so obviously had air strikes and we had the Battle of Salvo Island.
So the marines were expecting a major Japanese counter offensive through the land and famous assault.
So they started preparing their defenses mainly for a seaborne attack.
So the main threat was seaborne attack.
(05:28):
So that's where they focused the main defenses.
With 37 millimeter any tank guns for any boat defenses.
I had 50 caliber machine guns, had a 30 calibers that infantry companies lined up.
They refused to both flanks on the east and west.
On the west it was a cocombana place called Cocobana.
Oh, sorry, get my coco bonus and cook them.
(05:48):
A lot of cooking.
I know it started with a cooking anyway.
Yeah, at the west they cook them and on the east it's ILU river or at that time they mis pronounced it or mislabeled it the Tenaru River.
And then imagine a horseshoe shape so that's their defenses.
And then the backside that covered it with outpost from the amphibious tractor battalion, the engineer battalion and the pioneer battalion had outposts scattered about around with roving patrols in between.
(06:16):
So the main threats they thought was from the front flanks.
So that's how they responded.
And they were preparing themselves for the eventual Japanese counter attack from amphibious assault.
And so where did the Japanese land then and what was their plan?
All right, so the Japanese, they recognized immediately that the strategic value of that airfield, they knew they had to retake it as soon as possible issue they had, like Vanderbilt said, you can't bomb the Marines out.
(06:45):
You got to go and physically take them with ground troops.
So trying to find ground troops was pragmatic for the Japanese because the Japanese Imperial army, you read some reports that they didn't.
Wasn't aware that the navy was actually on Guadalcanal, which is false.
I mean a lot of the army didn't, but a lot of navy didn't either.
But the Japanese high commands knew the, the operation because once again we talk about Operation FX where they're going to invade Fiji and Samoa and they had the whole 17th army in earmark for that.
(07:13):
And one of the staging bases for the air support was Guadalcanal.
So they were aware of it, but they didn't have the forces nearby to have an immediate counter attack.
Forces they did have were going into New Guinea, Port Moresby.
That was the main strategic goal of the Japanese at the time.
So the 17th army under Hyakutake, Lieutenant General Hyakutake had based in Rabaul, so he was commanding the New guinea operation.
(07:39):
That was his main focus.
They were gathering forces to go into New Guinea.
For example, they had the 35th Brigade under Major General Kawaguchi.
And everybody in the palaus, which were later in some of the Marine listeners or some of the people might know the battle called Peleliu, which is in Palau, you would see later, unfortunately, in the war, but they were based there.
(07:59):
You had another unit called the 4th Infantry Regiment, Elba Detachment, and they were part of the second Division.
And they were actually in the Philippines at the time.
And you had another regiment called the 28th Regiment.
And they were on the way back to Japan.
They were a guy called Kyona.
I'm proud, mispronouncing his.
His first name.
(08:19):
Always mispronounce the Japanese first name.
But Kyona, Ichiki or Iki.
Some.
Some people refer to him.
He was a colonel.
He was the regimental colonel.
So they had been designated to invade and occupy Midway, assault Midway and occupy.
But that didn't go down.
So they were on the way back to Japan.
So they were the only forces really in the.
(08:40):
Nearby they could use.
When I said nearby, you got one in the Philippines, you got one going back Japan, you got another in the Palau, hundreds and hundreds of miles away.
They had some, I think two battalion strength special naval land forces units that could use out of Rabaul.
But once again, you know, they're not that strong to take back the island.
So that was the.
What the Japanese had available to.
(09:01):
To take it back.
What do we know about Ichiki?
What kind of a commander was he?
What.
What was history?
Okay, cheeky of the 28th Regiment.
Yeah, cheeky's a very interesting guy.
He.
He first came, I guess, to note during the Marco Polo incident.
I think that.
What was that?
30.
39?
No, 37.
37.
Yeah, it was a 37.
(09:22):
So Marco, we won't go into Marco Polo incident.
You know, I encourage the listeners or viewers to.
To check that out because it's quite interesting how that started.
But he was two conflicting reports.
Either the company commander or battalion commander.
I know he was a major, so I'd say potentially he's battalion commander.
So he was the guy on the ground that ordered this to go down with the Marco Polo incident with attacking of the Chinese and potentially started.
(09:46):
Well, it did.
It initiated the 1937 son of Japanese World War.
I'm not an expert in that and there's others who can tell you that.
But yeah, he was the guy on the ground responsible for that, who gave the orders and Ichiki was what you'd expect.
He'd been through the Japanese military academies, he fought in China.
(10:07):
He was very well versed as an instructor.
I mean I think he instructed, I know he instructed a few times at the infantry school, Command of staff college and a few other specialists.
Last courses he was reported to be a very good switched on commander.
Hence why he was picked to lead the assault on Midway.
And his regiment was a highly trained regiment.
(10:29):
Had some great soldiers in it, great equipment.
They were considered shock troops or some of the top in the ija, the Imperial Japanese army at the time.
I think some of his troops had actually fought Nomin Han as well.
So significant combat experience.
Yeah, that's going to come to fruition in the battle of Alligator Creek because in Nomahon as we know that was fought in 1939 that was the first defeat, real defeat of the Japanese Imperial Army.
(10:55):
Destroyed the whole division, the Soviets did and just wiped the whole Japanese division out.
The 20th Regiment was there and like you said some of his people who participated in this battle of Alligator Creek was actually there.
I know at least two company commanders and some of the senior NCOs.
So they were first on modern combined arms.
They understood tanks, they understood artillery.
(11:18):
In fact I think some of the Japanese doctrine changed from Nomahan when they started putting more artillery and some tanks and stuff to support because they were outclassed.
They realized the power of a combined military arms which is the Soviets hit them quite hard.
So they'd learned those lessons but Ichiki member wasn't there.
So he's about to learn a lesson very shortly in the wild.
(11:40):
Let's just say he's about to learn his first and last lesson on modern combat arms.
Do you want to describe the terrain around the area?
So Alligator Creek and the Tenaroo river just flat.
I think we discussed earlier in the first episode how the train Iguana Canal is here.
We weren't dealing with the grass covered coral kunai grass hills which you'd find a lot or even the thick jungles.
(12:06):
What we deal in here is what they were experiencing was the coconut plantations, nice flat coconut plantations interspersed with some thick jungle mainland around the rivers.
There were three or four rivers, small rivers.
So where exactly you were talking about Again, between Alligator Creek, where a cheeky.
(12:26):
Is going to fight where he's going to.
Yeah, when they land at Taboo point, which is 20 miles to the east of Alligator Creek or the perimeter.
Sorry.
So they're basically advancing through coconut plantations.
Nice flat terrain.
Initially, when they started, they had to cross a few rivers and there wasn't a established road.
And then once, probably about two or three miles in, they hit the coastal track or the government track, and that was a nice flat road that basically followed the coast through the coconut plantation.
(12:54):
So it was designed to service the coconut plantations.
So it had a fairly easy walk there.
And then when they approached the Tenaru, that was Tenaru is about a mile, 1800 meters.
So it's a little more than a mile east of Yellow River, Alligator Creek.
So they had to cross a couple of rivers and creeks.
But yeah, it was a pretty flat, easy track for them.
(13:17):
So what intelligence did the Japanese planners have about the American dispositions?
What was Ichiki expecting to find as he advanced?
That's a good one.
I always like answering this question.
And when I was writing my book and doing a lot of research on that, I was starting to find a lot of.
A lot of good information on that about how the Japanese and why they're thinking.
(13:38):
And it was kind of contradicting some of the other information I read previously.
It just wasn't there.
And you think we.
The Japanese went in this blindly and they weren't thinking, but they were.
They were thinking.
They were trying to use the best intelligence that could because you got to remember, you had the regional garrison had like a real, like super radio.
They talk to Mars, so to speak, but they had a good quality stuff.
(13:58):
But they'd lost the communications because, remember, the Marines had overran, cook them over, ran their radio station and took their base.
So they were out communications.
So Japanese was scrambling to try to find intelligence.
They were trying to say, okay, well, our guys on the ground are human intelligence.
The garrison, we're not getting anything from them.
So they come up with some pretty interesting and pretty cool ways to communicate.
(14:23):
So Captain Monson was the Japanese garrison commander.
So Japanese had coast watchers too.
People don't know this, but Japanese had coast watchers or, quote, signal stations, and they previously put some on each end of the island and they had the similar four flags and spotting scopes and things, and they're the lookouts.
So what the Japanese submarines did, they sent a number of submarines.
(14:46):
And I think some of your listeners might have known the opening of the campaign there Was a lot of Japanese submarines popping up and using their deck guns and shooting at Marines.
And you had one Marine firing a mortar rounds at them, and you had those 75 millimeters shooting at them.
And there's all kind of cool stories there, but what the Japanese submarines were doing, they were collecting intelligence.
(15:07):
That was the main thing they were doing to find out what was going on.
And the way they were collecting intelligence, they would pop up and they would see if they could look for any activity of the Americans there.
And the way they were communicating with the regional garrison, they would go off the coast and they were using semaphore flags, the signal flags, and they were signaling reports back then, obviously, the submarines were either taking it back or they'd radio it back.
(15:30):
The Japanese are also doing aerial constant flights trying to find out what's going on, what they were saying.
They remember they knew there was a large transport fleet there on the 7th through the night.
And they figured, well, there's a lot of.
A lot of Americans were on these transports at least.
And the intelligence said at least a marine division of 10, 000 men.
They reckon it was 10, 000 Marines there.
(15:52):
But due to the Balasamo Islands and the transports left on the 9th, their intelligence based on Imperial Japanese army, they would say, well, if it was us, we wouldn't be able to offload this amount of troops.
So they figured, well, the Americans probably offloaded about three to four, maybe 5, 000 troops.
But then they've jumped back into the ships and they've left and they've stranded this one group.
(16:15):
Now, how many are there?
So when the planes are flying over, there's one plane reported that the Americans seemed listless and demoralized.
Seen a few boats moving around, seen some, you know, some supplies, but didn't really see many guys moving around because remember, they're all under these two coconuts grow.
So I've got some arrow photos of the 8th and 9th and 10th, and there's a whole Marine division there.
(16:38):
And you can't see any.
Any.
You just seen a few trucks on the beaches, and I see it.
So anyway, they reported by.
In the 8th Fleet or 8th, I think, intelligence group out of Rabaul, I think they flew.
Yeah, they did.
One staff also flew over and he reported goes, I think there's only about 2 or 3, 000Americans there.
There was a major general said, I forgot his name, but he said, no, I think there's about 7, 000 there.
(17:01):
He was kind of overruled.
So ballpark figured they come up at least there's about 3, 000, roughly 3, 000Americans there, dispirited, stranded.
They're just waiting for the fleet to come back and pick them up.
So that was their intelligence they had.
They also had some guys member on the ground, the original garrison giving them some reports back through the semaphore flags.
(17:24):
But it wasn't that great.
But yeah, that was the intelligence they had at the time.
So it wasn't that great.
So there is Ichiki at this stage doesn't even have his entire regiment, does he?
So what sort of combat team, battle group, what is it that he's got that he's advancing to contact with?
Okay, so they're not on the island yet.
So basically he gets, like I said before, they're en route back to Japan.
(17:46):
So I get these orders real quick, okay, stop all movement, go to Guam.
Okay, so they went to Guam for a few days.
Don't offload.
Now your orders are to proceed to truck.
So they proceed the truck.
Once he got the truck, then they were given the plans.
Okay, you're going to take six fast destroyers.
We're limited to amount of spaces we've got.
(18:07):
We're going to do it two echelons.
So what did Cheeky did what he did, he picked the first echelon.
So he stripped down the companies down to I think about 80 guys each.
They picked the best troops they had.
They left their heavy weapons back to the anti tank guns and had some 75 millimeter mountain howitzers guns, the larger guns, artillery pieces.
So they've left them back.
(18:27):
They were going to be the second echelon.
They were going to come in by transport.
Not faster storage because they couldn't get all that on fast storage.
So they loaded 914.
All of some people say 9 14, 917, let's just say 900.
They loaded 900 guys and these six destroyers, they took eight heavy machine guns at two 70 millimeter infantry guns portable.
(18:51):
And they're very much stripped down.
They had about three or four days of rations.
So that was what they were stripped down.
They put them on the island first.
So Cheeky's orders misses another controversial point.
He didn't have a direct orders.
His orders were basically to land, proceed to the perimeter or outside the airfield.
Would do one of two things if he thought he could attack and take the airfield back.
(19:14):
Or preferably which the Japanese wanted to do.
But they didn't say, this is what we want you to do.
We're going to leave the option up to you, but fairly.
You're going to hold and wait for the second echelon and you're going to work wait for the 35th brigade on the Kawaguchi who would be landed two weeks later or a week later.
(19:34):
That was the intent.
In the meantime, if you're going to hold, you're going to.
I forgot the exact wording but harass and perform guerrilla style tactics to delay the building or the completion of the airfield.
So that was his orders.
So cheeky the guy he was basically boasted, I think I've gotten that Major general's name.
When he said he thought he was a bit shocked.
(19:56):
The cheeky basis said, okay, I'm going to take the airfield back and do you want me to take Tulagi also Real boastful.
The arrogant and boastful and Japanese Major general had concerns about that.
But once again no one's directing him though.
You're going to hold.
That was the order from the 17th army under Hikitaki.
That was his order because he was placed under Hikitaki's army at that stage.
(20:19):
So yeah, they were en route to land and they were going to land on the night of the 19th of August.
So he's certainly aggressive but interestingly enough leaving his heavy weapons behind.
So one wonders what he's really thinking he's going to be finding.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean once again he's left that behind.
That goes to say that, you know, he's a rash decision.
(20:41):
He just said they've never been defeated.
We'll just push through.
This is dispirited.
We've.
We've defeated dispirited enemy before.
There's 3, 000.
They're supposed to be scattered around this basically five mile perimeter or sorry, five miles straight.
The whole perimeter is 15 miles.
They'll be so spread out.
And that's what he said.
We'll hit them with an iron fist or sweep them aside with a iron glove.
(21:05):
I think that's what he said, paraphrasing them basically sweeping aside with an iron glove because it was just hit him at a fixed point.
And Japanese infiltration techniques go straight through, go around.
They'll run or they'll just surrender.
It is interesting though when you put it in the context though.
The Japanese advance had been brilliantly executed and incredibly successful.
(21:25):
Do we know where he fought during the advance after Pearl Harbor?
No, I don't think he hadn't been engaged the 28th and there was only China.
Yep.
And I don't know exactly where they were.
I don't Know if I only think they were in garrison yet, but they wouldn't engage.
Say for example, like the other regiments that went to Guadalcanal, the 2nd Division and the 38th Division, these guys had been fighting in the Philippines, had fought in Hong Kong and fought into the Dutch East Indies.
(21:53):
But not the 28th.
That might be.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure of that.
Maybe, maybe mistaken, but I'm pretty sure that they hadn't had combat experience so far in the war.
So after a cheeky lands, the marines are working with Martin Clemens and his team of local scouts.
What sort of patrolling are they doing?
(22:13):
What sort of early warning are the marines hoping to get?
Yeah, so you had Martin Clemens in his scout.
So Clemens that stage had joined the division and become part of Division D2 of the Intelligence with his scouts.
So they started then working for Lt. Col. Buckley who had been thrust into position after Gadget had been killed.
Buckley was the thing.
(22:34):
It was the.
He was the R2 intelligence officer, 11th Marines artillery.
Next minute, okay, you're hitting the whole divisions are in tail.
So he's thrown straight in there in the deep end.
But anyway, Clemens had started working for Buckley and they were sending patrols out.
A lot of patrols are mainly running to the east because that was where a lot of his scouts had originated from.
(22:56):
They knew that area so they're running patrols in there.
Some of the information is coming back a place called Tavu, which is 20 miles east of the perimeter.
And I talk about these lookout Australian coast or sorry the Japanese coastal hunters and lookout stations.
Apparently intel was coming back from the scouts.
So it was a Japanese radio station or a Japanese lookout point at Taibu, which I was there was.
(23:19):
They marked the beaches later but there was the intelligence coming back from there.
There was some Japanese there and at the same time they were.
They're running some patrols to the west but mainly to the east.
So that was what they were doing out there, running patrols, scouts.
Sometimes they're running by themselves or small teams of three and four.
Which leads us to the famous story of Vuza and the patrol that he was in.
(23:44):
Jacob Vuza or Sir Jacob Vusa now probably most famous Solomon Islander.
He was a pre war British Solomon Protectorate police officer.
He was a sergeant major and he retired his stage.
He was 42.
He was born in 1900, so he was 42 years old.
He just retired and mainly served all this time in Malaita which island just north of the Solomons or the Solomon island north of Guadalcanal.
(24:06):
Sorry.
And he'd returned to his village in 1942, and his village is at Teteri, which is out that area.
It's probably 11 miles east of the perimeter.
So he'd started working for Martin Clemens because Clemens had picked a lot of the former police officers to be his scouts, the better trained.
And plus he knew them and he trusted most of those guys.
(24:28):
So that's what he wanted, the ones he could trust.
So Vuza was.
Was one of his scouts.
So.
So Vuza was out patrolling around the Taterra area.
So on the early mornings of the 19th, the Japanese had landed.
Ichiki and his guys had landed, and it started moving down that area and it captured a visa at roughly at one stage.
(24:48):
I think we're getting probably a little bit ahead of the Brush patrol, I guess the timing.
If you want to talk about the Brush patrol first.
Yeah, let's talk about that one.
Okay, so we'll hold those.
So loses it to Terry.
We'll just leave him there for the moment.
So the Brush patrol, like I said before, the intelligence is coming back.
There was a Japanese radio station at Taiwan Point.
So Brush was Captain Brush, his first name escapes me now, but he was the company commander of A Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines swap.
(25:16):
Brush was tasked.
He took a reinforced patrol, about 60 guys.
They had machine guns and some mortars, 60 mils and some leading machine guns with them.
And they were tasked on the 19th to head to Tavu Point and destroy.
To do reconnaissance in force and destroy that radio station at Tavu Point.
So Remember on the 19th, early morning 19th, Echiki and these guys landed.
(25:39):
So they're on.
They're heading to the west.
And you got Brush and his patrol now heading to the east.
So around Koley Point, which is nine miles away from the perimeter.
What Ichiki had done, he'd sent a forward party, I think about 35 guys, and he had five officers and rest enlisted.
They were actually guided.
And this is another interesting point.
(26:00):
A lot of you don't read a lot of accounts.
They're being guided by two of the members of the regional garrison.
Because, remember, the regional garrison been there for about five, six, about four weeks that stage.
No more than that, about five weeks.
Anyway, they'd been there, so they knew the area.
So they'd met and they'd scattered everywhere.
But you had two of the special naval landing troops, and they were guiding Ichikis down.
(26:21):
So two of them guided these small group reconnaissance party.
Their job was to move forward and had engineers with them, had, like I said, they five officers, their intelligence, they were going to move forward and scout the Marine positions.
So they're moving.
They ran straight into the brush patrol.
So brush patrol got to jump on them, ambushed them and killed the majority of them.
(26:42):
But this was the first time they'd come across Imperial Japanese Army.
So they had a look at them, they go, well, these guys are not the stragglers have been dealing with.
He's not the Navy.
We've been dealing with these guys wearing fresh uniforms and fresh looking troops.
They got the Imperial Japanese army star on helmets.
These are the reinforcements.
We're potentially.
They were talking about.
Some of the Marine intelligence had mentioned that because once again, it goes back to the ultra or the magic code intercepts readings because Vandergriff had received about a day before, look, Japanese potentially going to land a small unit or sorry, small a unit there to do a counter attack.
(27:18):
So they're on the lookout for these guys too, potentially.
But now they found them.
Anyway, the intelligence got back, the marines buried the dead.
They had three dead.
Unfortunately they're still there to this day, missing.
They buried them, moved back, reported it.
Then that alerted Vandergriff and rest division.
Okay, now we know they're coming.
They'd already started beefing up the right hand side of the A side around Ely River.
(27:39):
Okay, well I'll just call it Alligator Creek.
So around that side.
Anyway, so I started beefing it up with 37 millimeter tank guns, machine guns, putting in some wire and things like that.
So they started preparing.
But now they confirmed the Japanese were here and they're on the move.
Now how the cheeky reacted to that information.
(28:00):
There were some survivors.
They'd made it back and said our advanced party got wiped out.
So that really chalky cheeky.
So what he did, he formed a company real quick, the first company and sent them straight down to rescue them or the survivors.
Anyway, they found their dead.
They buried their dead along with the three Marines because it was a dark when they got there and they found three larger men wrapped in ponchos larger than the rest of the Japanese.
(28:25):
And they found out what these are, these American marines, they buried them all.
So then a chicky at that stage had the other companies moving.
So they're on the move.
They're heading that way to the Alligator Creek.
They're not going to stop.
And then goes back to voodoo.
Yes.
Okay, now, so at that stage it captured Vuza during that day they captured him patrolling around his own village.
(28:47):
So what they did now, boozy, apparently depends on who you speak to we haven't verified this yet, but Vuza was apparently carrying a American flag on his person.
That, that day he'd rescued an American or he'd rescued American flyer previously, an American flyer gave him that flag.
I think it was actually from the.
(29:09):
I got to take that back.
I don't know when the American fly.
I think he was actually dealing with on Invasion Day when the American flyers were shot down.
I don't think so.
I'll have to double check that one.
But anyway, basically the report is he's got a flag on it.
He got it for an American flyer and apparently the Japanese it caught him and that was.
That triggered him.
Whether that's true or not, I don't think Vuza is going to be running around doing scouting behind lines with a flag wrapped around him or flag in his pocket.
(29:34):
That's just my opinion.
No one got what Vuza was.
But anyway, they kept him and someone identified him, potentially someone identified him as a scout for the Marines.
So they tied him to a tree, tied him with ant nest.
At one stage it beat him up quite severely.
They slashed him with a sword, tried to get him to talk.
Apparently he didn't say a word.
(29:55):
And at that stage, what they did was they untied him from the tree.
His hands were still bound.
They said, fine, you're going to guide us there.
Now this goes against the common story that Jacob Vuza was tied to a tree, beaten, he wouldn't give any information.
They stabbed him repeatedly with a bayonet, left him to die and they took off.
(30:16):
And then at that stage, Boozer would.
This is the known storage and all the books.
Then he was supposed to chew through his hands, the hands, the bindings on his hands.
Escape from the tree, bleeding profusely.
And you gotta remember, well, he was tied to a tree.
He's 11 miles away from Alligator Creek.
Then he was supposed to move 11 miles past the Japanese who move in route, march, bleed profusely, about half dead, make it to the Marines only minutes before the Japanese arrived to see unsuspecting marines and tell them the Japanese are coming, which saved hundreds of Marines.
(30:53):
Well, that's the story that it's commonly told, but that's not the true correct story.
And this story that the version I'm telling is the one that Vuza tales, Martin Clemens tales, a number of other tales, his family tales.
It's been verified, you know, the marines at the time, the intelligence reports all point to this version.
It was more believable version.
(31:14):
The Version that I think the truth true version after voodoos was bleeding hand still bound.
He led the Japanese and then when they were getting close to Alligator Creek the first shots rang out from the outpost.
Vuza says at that stage the Japanese became very angry and they stabbed me several times with a bayonet.
(31:35):
I fell to the ground.
The Japanese, they got down beside me because of seeking cover.
He said they thought I was dead.
They rose up and proceeded on.
He said that stage I crawled off and then I ran down the bank of the Alligator Creek and He went about 700 yards and there he crossed.
If you ever go to Guay Canal is a bridge there now.
(31:56):
And he crossed roughly in the area and he was challenged by a guy called Private Brewery.
Basically said don't move you son of a bitch, I'll kill you.
And he goes me no Japan the boozer or me friend.
He says come in.
So they get those in.
I take booze it to the CP 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Command Post.
He gives his report.
No, I take it back.
(32:16):
He doesn't give his report that stage he's bleeding out and he says he wants to see Clemens, Martin Clemens.
So they go get Clemens and said we got one of your guys here.
Clemens goes to him, Vuza gives his report like a good scout and he says there's at least 2, 000 Japanese coming this way.
And he goes okay.
And he says question so funny when it is kind of funny.
And then Vuza is, remember he's bleeding out, half dead.
(32:39):
They're trying to make him as comfortable as possible.
They haven't given you first day because he thought he's about to die.
He gives his report.
So Clemens just says well you know I'll be there in his last moments and he goes oh, can you take my last will testimony?
He goes yeah, I will.
And he's writing it down.
Vusa goes can you leave aunt so and so this and uncle so and this this.
And he goes on for about, he said about five minutes just talking tight and he goes well maybe Vuz is not as hurt as we think he is.
(33:05):
She calls some Coleman over and they grab him and take him into the battalion A station.
And I've got the Coleman's account.
So this is the first time I ever did a three way blood transfusion on anyone in the division.
So he said we put two lines in his arm and one in his leg and then three blood transfusion going at the same time.
And you know what's so amazing about this Guy.
(33:26):
Two weeks later he's back on his feet running patrols.
And Vuz used to joke, I'm half American because they put all that blood in, all the American blood in.
That's the correct Vuza version, which is more highly believable than the other one.
So, yeah, so that was boozer.
So we're back to Ichiki in his group moving down, about to make contact with the Marines.
(33:48):
Because remember, the Marines are boosted up there defenses.
And plus they've had outposts.
They haven't had outposts to Tennessee.
So it's about between Alligator Creek and the real Tenaroo river is roughly about a mile.
So they had outposts out to a mile that far out.
So they've got Marine outposts waiting for them because they knew they're coming.
So they're waiting for them is at night when the first elements kind of meet.
(34:10):
So Achiki's got his lead elements in contact.
How does he proceed?
What's his plan?
Yeah, so at this stage, Nakagawa river thinks what's what?
The Japanese actually had the Illu River, Nakagawa River.
So the Nakagawa river was going to be their assembly point.
Before they moved into the line of departure, they were going to attack the former construction unit camp, which is another 5 or 600 meters to the west near the airfield.
(34:36):
They didn't know the Americans are that far up Alligator Creek.
They had reports and some of the documents they captured showed some of the defenses.
We read some accounts that they showed individual machine gun positions, which are not true.
They showed the American defenses in that horseshoe shape.
But the defenses really didn't cover all of Alligator Creek.
It showed some elements around Alligator Creek.
(34:59):
What they were going to do is right before they got to the east side, that was going to be their assembly point and they were going to move from there.
So they didn't expect Americans that far east.
Now the first elements, the Cheeky's not in with the first elements.
They're moving in columns.
The Cheeky's like two cop.
He's like, you got the lead company, second company, the Cheeky's in the middle.
(35:19):
You got two whole companies of Japanese in front of him moving in column.
So Cheeky's not in there in the front.
Front elements.
So the fart elements.
This is a night.
Remember, the first platoon moves in, they encounter the outpost.
Fire them up.
They see the outpost and they proceed after the outpost.
They see the outpost run across the Sandbine, which is Alligator Creek sandbar.
Now remember, the sandbar is roughly 100ft wide, sorry, 100ft long.
(35:43):
50 foot wide at the time.
So 100ft by 50.
So that's the sandbar.
That was the area where the coastal road crossed the river with the coastal road.
They generally did that.
High tide, the sandbar and they could drive over.
Anyway, they crossed the sandbar and they seen him run across and he thought the lead, this is a platoon commander.
He goes, well I'm advance because I'll wait for my company commander to come up, see what's going on before I advance.
(36:08):
Company commander comes up, he goes, we think there's some Americans over there.
He goes, okay, first platoon go across.
Remember cheeky's not even there yet.
First platoon goes across and they get hit pretty hard.
37 millimeter.
Any tank gun, machine guns, man, they had a 50 cal and a 37 right on the sandbar.
But then you had 30 cows and all in up and down the river inflated fire.
(36:31):
So they've ran across, they got hit pretty hard and actually some actually made it to the other side and jumped in a marine fault cells.
But they got wiped out.
So the company commander, this company commander was at Nomahon and he goes, okay, I'm just going to wait to, I'll bring some our heavy guns up, bring machine guns up.
So obviously there's a lot of Americans got a lot of firepower over there.
(36:52):
Let's just bring machine guns up.
Let's bring our two 70 millimeter infantry guns up.
Then we'll provide a base of fire support because that was Japanese tactics.
You know, provide a fire support base, hit them with supporting arms, then move up close and use their strength of close combat, which they loved.
You know, the speed, surprise, stealth, the close combat in guys, the enemy, because they didn't think that the Americans or the any enemy like close combat.
(37:19):
So that was whole Japanese tactics.
Either infiltrate, get them in close combat and hit them hard.
So at that stage they're waiting.
Now a cheeky comes up.
Cheeky speaks to this captain.
Captain advises a cheeky, this is what we got.
Sir, this company's got no, sorry, I take that back.
Battalion commander Major comes up, this is for.
Cheeky comes and he goes, sir, this is what we got.
(37:39):
Tag commander says, let me go check out myself.
I'm gonna do a personal connaissance.
So him and his staff officer, I think another went up, they got hit and they killed.
So battalion commander is killed off the bat.
Then the cheeky thing comes up.
He goes, what do you got?
He goes, well 1st platoon got wiped out there's a lot of American firepower, the battalion commander is dead.
And Cheeky goes, instead of thinking, you know, this is why I said, yes sir, let's wait till the guns come up, Gee.
(38:05):
He goes, nope, let's just, we'll push your company over.
So they pushed a second company over or the rest of the company over and yeah, they were all shot down.
Then the Cheeky says, okay, I should have listened, but they're telling me the truth.
Okay, second company, before I send you over, let me bring the guns up.
(38:25):
So they brought eight heavy machine guns up and they tried to bring the two 70 millimeter infra guns up.
They all brought one up because remember, these things are man packed so it takes a while to get them up there.
One was stuck in the same.
So yeah, they started firing a base of fire and support fire and the best they could.
And then what Ichiki wanted to do, instead of going across the mouth of the river, which I know that was a death zone, he goes, okay, I'll send the engineers and the next company we'll go upstream and push across the river.
(38:55):
Because this is a alligator creek's a tidal lagoon at that stage it was over their heads.
The chest were over the heads.
So yeah, his next assault tried to go across the river then and it didn't.
It met with fire also.
How were the marines laid out on the ground to defend and what sort of manoeuvre were they performing then in response to Achiki's attack?
(39:17):
So initially it was at night and they had a strong defensive line set up.
They had the barbed wire and I think I mentioned another episode with the barbed wire they had.
They only offloaded 28 spools of barbed wire.
So they were using a plantation, a coconut plantation wire, the Sabine wire.
And they've had a couple of strands over the mouth of the sandbar, one end, one on the other.
(39:39):
But they'd had coconut log bunkers that built in.
They took two of their anti tank guns and they faced them toward the sandbar.
Had a 50 cal on the sandbar like 100 meters to their 100 yards to the right was a machine gun post with a 30 caliber heavy machine gun.
The brown and water cools and then they had two or three more up the river from that.
(40:00):
They had the place pre registered on it for a 75 millimeter artillery battery.
It pre registered that whole area.
They had 81 millimeters registered that a 60 millimeter mortars.
So they had the whole place wired in Ready to go.
They had two companies on the river and had another company in reserve ready to back them up.
This is from the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, 2, 1.
(40:21):
So they were ready to go.
It was a pretty very strong position because everything's channelized or funneled straight down that 50 foot wide, 100 foot long sandbar, open sandbar.
On the other side is just coconut plantation.
On both sides it was open coconut plantations.
We can see straight down the rows, nice and neat.
(40:41):
So in the first large set piece battle of the Guadalcanal campaign, already the Marines are very competent at developing a combined arms effect.
Well, at that battle, yeah.
But in fact, they had some great commanders.
They had Clifton Cates.
Colonel Clifton Cates.
He was very.
He was the regimental commander and he was a World War I vet.
(41:03):
Very famous World War I vet.
Actually.
He'd done quite well in the Balam Belleau Wood as a company commander.
I think I forgot his famous.
I think day two of the battle, at one stage he said he made into a village, only something like 10 guys with him because what's your situation?
He goes, you know, I don't have anyone left.
(41:23):
He goes, basically that there's no one left, no ammunition.
I'm in the village, you know, there's no support to my left, no support to my right, but I will hold.
That became quite famous.
But he's a pretty tough guy.
He was, I think after they said during that battle that night, he had Pollock too.
Lt. Col. Pollock, he was the battalion commander.
He was pretty switched on guy too.
So I think once Cates gave his orders, he said, do this.
(41:47):
Send the reserve company up.
He goes, calling the 75s.
He goes in late in the morning, he said, just hold.
He told battalion commander, said, just hold in the morning we'll wop them out.
Because he had his 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, his Reserve battalion, ready to go.
They're going to do an envelopment the next morning.
He said, just hold them and the next morning we'll kill them all.
We'll wipe them out.
Then apparently step back in his chair and lit a cigarette and just kick back a bit.
(42:14):
Pretty cool guy.
It's good to have that confidence.
Yeah, he was.
He'd probably thought, well, I listen.
Nothing compared to the Great War.
The war won.
Yeah.
So August 20th, there's 31 aircraft that land on Henderson Airfield from the USS Long Island.
And two days later there's some P400 Airacobras.
(42:34):
What sort of impact did they have on the fighting in the Battle, not.
So much impact in the fighting, but the impact on the morale and the whole impact for the campaign was just phenomenal because basically what these guys did, you had to unsinkable aircraft carrier.
Because the 1st Engineer Battalion had basically completed the airfield officially by the 16th of August.
(42:57):
There was actually a PBY Catalina landed on the 12th and that's another story.
It snuck in there and landed.
He was the a Navy flyer.
But anyway, suit was ready to go, so the plane started landing on the 20th.
So there were 18 Wildcats and 12 SPD dive bombers, so two squadrons.
So they landed.
As soon as they landed the Marines were like weeping and jumping up and down because support had finally arrived.
(43:20):
So that really changed the campaign because at that stage the Japanese had ruled the.
They can unload their ships in day and night at free will that total control of the sea space around the Guadalcanal.
But once those planes arrived, that unsinkable aircraft carrier, now you had a force that potentially could dominate the sea or can very much well contest the sea space and the airspace around it because the bombers were flying.
(43:47):
Japanese bombers are doing their daily runs at 20, 000ft and bombing the airfield and the Tojo time they call it.
But now he had something that it could fight back.
And the Marines morale boosted dramatically.
So their contribution to the battle the next day when the daylight came, there was some Japanese around and the Wildcats did their strafing runs.
(44:10):
So they didn't really contribute much to that battle, but to the overall campaign was just amazing and huge impact.
So after daylight they really sort of.
How many Japanese are left at daybreak?
It's hard to check.
Well, cheeky.
At that stage they'd done a third assault and the third assault they said, well, we can't go through the river.
We tried to go through the river, it's too deep.
(44:30):
Tried to go across the sandbar and we just got wiped out.
So typical Japanese infiltration techniques.
They're trying to infiltrate around, but there's really not much to infiltrate.
So they said, well, let's just go.
And they went.
The third wave at night went out into the surf and tried to circumvent or come around the sandbar.
You gotta remember the Marines had an L shape.
(44:52):
So down to ILU and to the left was all down the coastal defenses.
So the machine gun bunkers and anti tank bunkers.
So the Japanese tried to infiltrate around, which they did.
They come straight into the 70 or 80 meters down, come straight into the other machine guns and basically got wiped out.
There's a famous time laugh photo.
I remember seeing it when I was a kid the very first time and had to time off war II books.
(45:17):
It shows these Japanese looks like they're sleeping, dead Japanese.
And they got sand.
They're like in the sand and they're like, they're sleeping.
So that was that group.
It got wiped out.
So when the morning time come, the Japanese are a bit.
Wouldn't have been.
They were disorganized and.
And I think the marines basically said there's.
They're kind of like moving around.
And they really wasn't making any organized attempts organized efforts.
(45:42):
So just like Kate said, in the morning we'll get them out of there.
I think he actually said were not gonna let them hold up there all day.
We're gonna wipe them out, get them out.
So he sends one battalion to do a flank.
So they went down to the south of the river, a thousand yards down, and they basically started flanking the Japanese, enveloping them to the Japanese left flank on the southern flank.
(46:05):
At the same time they started pounding the Japanese because Japanese were called in the coconut grove.
And they started pounding them with the mortars and the 75 millimeter artillery started pounding them.
The Wildcats were strafing them.
Some of the Japanese are trying to escape out to sea.
And at that stage it was daylight.
Marines are shooting them in the ocean.
At one stage they sent five M2 tanks, tank platoon from A Company, the first tank battalion, they sent them over to the sandbar with the Marines platoon and they started taking out the Japanese there.
(46:39):
When the tank infantry assault and the enveloping battalion basically closed in.
So they wiped the Japanese out of pocket.
They left125 Japanese back at the base reserve base as a rear guard.
They captured something like 15 Japanese and 30, I think 30 Japanese made it back to the rear guard.
(46:59):
So roughly about 800 Japanese died.
2750.
800 Japanese died in that attack.
So basically wiped the whole unit out to the man.
All died, none wounded.
They didn't like suffer.
30% casually suffered 90% casualty.
And American casualties total about 41 dead.
I forget the number of head wounded.
I never say only.
(47:21):
I hate that term, only one dead or only two dead.
That doesn't.
It's not really respectful, especially if you're one of the one or two dead.
Absolutely.
So once again we've got the.
So they're using armor in the attack.
And Vandergriff wrote that the rear of the tanks look like meat grinders.
So it gives you an idea of Just how fierce the fighting was and how confined the Japanese positions were.
(47:44):
And also too, the meat grinder, because they had to go across the sandbar.
They were just stacks and stacks of bodies.
In Colonel James Caper.
James was the chief of staff.
He was kind of like booted out in September.
But this guy called Carl Sewell, who was the division's photographer officer, there's some famous photos of the Alligator Creek and the Japanese dead.
(48:05):
But Sewell says he was going to take the photos of the Japanese dead on the sandbar.
And they were basically, you can imagine getting hit point blank range with canister shots from 37 millimeter cannons.
These things fired 128, 30 caliber lead steel balls straight out and you're running straight in that and it's just bits and pieces.
So there was just mangled bodies all over the place.
(48:27):
James told him, remember, this is the first battle they're fought and this is the very start of the war.
He goes, don't take photos of those.
There's too graphic, too gruesome.
You know, we can't take photos of them.
So take photos of these guys over here of the group that infiltrated and they were hit with machine gun rifle fire.
So not blew to pieces.
And plus also at that stage, the tanks had drove over a lot of the bodies on the sandbar.
(48:49):
They were in bits and pieces too.
So that's just a little side fact about Guadalcanal a lot of people don't know about.
And Sewell actually said this because all my friends used to know him quite well and used to correspond with him all the time.
So the Marines, all of the elements of combined arms, what did both sides take out of the battle?
Like, did the Japanese learn anything from this?
(49:10):
And how did the Marines develop their fighting techniques for the.
Future battles in the scheme of things?
Well, on the scale of other battles in the Guadalcanal campaign, the battle itinerary, or Alligator Creek, whatever you want to call it, was a small localized battle.
I mean, it was only a battalion level fight.
They never fought in that area again.
But the impact it had, especially combined with the GY patrol, lasted throughout the war.
(49:33):
Basically show, because you've seen it in the Pacific, HBO specific series shows, a good example.
But after the battle, when the Marines are moving through and the American, the Navy corpsmen are trying to tend to some of the Japanese wounded and they're trying to take some of the Japanese prisoners, but the Japanese wouldn't surrender.
But when they did kind of surrender, sometimes they blow Themselves up a hand grenade or try to kill Americans with hand grenades.
(49:55):
So at that stage, the Americans had really encountered the Japanese not surrendering.
I mean, yeah, Tulagi, they did, but you gotta remember a lot of American information coming back.
Well, it wasn't coming back because the Americans had been fighting.
The Japanese were either prisoners or dead.
Then a lot of information hadn't been filtered back.
So this is kind of the first times Americans are really experiencing the Japanese fighting and the Japanese capacity to not surrender and not take prisoners.
(50:23):
That started to set the tone that in the especially Gaeta patrol, the gate patrolmen were there not taking prisoners and.
And they'll butcher you and they're not surrendering.
Then you have the tricky Japanese at Alligator Creek and blow themselves up and try to kill you.
So it set the stage.
They said, good, these guys are not taking prisoners, they're not surrendering.
(50:43):
So we'll kill them all.
We won't take prisoners either.
And that was kind of the unwritten rule.
And that was a bit of an eye opener for the Americans, Marines or the Americans, especially the Marines.
And also proved as a big confidence builder for the marines, especially the 1st Marine Regiment.
Because I think we discussed in the first episode, this regiment was about 70% brand new green recruits.
(51:05):
This is the first fight for most of them.
And these guys remember they graduated boot camp in January, April, they had a little bit of training.
They're on ships.
And this is August, six months later, they're fighting the facing elite.
But now, so I don't use fanatical for Japanese, very determined, disciplined troops, you know, highly trained.
(51:27):
And these are just green kids, but in defense positions backed up with modern weapons, with good leadership.
So, yeah, and it's a great boost for them.
It was actually a great blooding, as you want to call it, for these guys to fight in the defensive position.
So if they're on the offensive, it might be a different story.
But this is a good confidence boost and also the confidence boost for the morale of the American public.
(51:51):
This is the first time that fought the Japanese and defeated the Japanese.
So this is the first.
The whole Japanese base wiped out.
The whole battalion was wiped out.
These guys had never met defeat.
This is, remember, this is August 21st.
They'd never met defeat yet.
So this is a bit of a.
Bit of a big morale boost for the American public.
Japanese, initially, when the report started coming back from the rear guard, they radioed back and said they're being annihilated.
(52:17):
The Japanese don't.
That's that can't be true.
You know, it's obviously false information.
These guys don't know what you're talking about.
So after about two or three days, it started working out.
Hey, these guys are wiped out.
So it made the Japanese think, okay, well maybe we need to send more troops there.
Which they had them en route.
Remember, Kawaguchi is 35th Brigade.
(52:38):
These are the guys who initially was going into Port Moresby or the port Moresby campaign.
35th Brigade.
So they were diverted from that campaign to go.
And the fourth was diverted too.
So they're all diverting from New guinea get to going in the Guadalcanal.
So, yeah, the Japanese said, okay, now we'll.
We'll get whatever we got there and take these guys back.
(53:00):
But they still haven't recognized that their strategic value or.
Or, sorry, they'd recognize strategic value, but hadn't recognized the Americans had intended to fight.
This is where the Americans had intended to fight.
The Japanese hadn't really clued on at that stage.
The Americans had drew the line in the sand.
This is where they wanted to do their attritional fight right now.
(53:22):
So what happened to Ichiki then?
Yeah, that's another controversy.
Or one of those.
We don't exactly know.
So the report, it came back when you read quite often, either killed himself or.
Or he died in battle.
I tend to think he died in battle.
The Japanese version during the war was Ichiki, due to the loss of his regimen and loss of face, he did the honorable thing, committed seppuku, what they call it, basically killed himself.
(53:53):
And before he did that, he burned the colors, the regimental colors, then he killed himself.
So that was the wartime narrative and that became kind of accepted after the war.
But then some of the survivors and their accounts after the war basically stated that there's four survivors on four different accounts, said the last they seen Ichiki was in late in the morning, late that evening, early in the morning, however you want to say it, about 4 o' clock during the last assault, the third assault, they seen a cheeky going forward toward the.
(54:23):
The fight.
And no one reported him coming back.
So I tend to believe he died in battle.
He died in that last assault.
Now one is, it goes in line with his character, you know, leading from the front, you know, died to front of his men, very aggressive.
I think he lead the last charge.
He died also the state of the Japanese when sunlight came.
Eventually someone said, like chickens with their heads cut off, they had no direction, no guidance, no control.
(54:46):
No one was in control.
If you know how the Japanese were.
If you take out officers and some of the senior NCOs, they kind of like that whole centralization of command.
They kind of lost.
They were.
That was what the reports were coming back.
The eyewitnesses of these Japanese are route out control.
That's another evidence to suggest he died.
(55:06):
Now there's one witness account, he says at one stage in the morning he seen three officers standing by a tree and one shoots himself, then the other shoots himself and then the other one kills him, bears them.
Then he go, no, he goes over to assist and bury him.
He says they wasn't wearing any tunics, but they all had officers pants.
(55:30):
Two of them had officers pants.
So he thinks that one was a cheeky and one was a cheeky's aide or staff officer and the other one was a senior nco.
So helped bury him by troop.
So potentially that could have been it too.
But the burning of the colors, now we know that's not true by cheeky because each Japanese regiment had a color bearer.
It goes back to the American Civil War and whatever, you know, Cola bear color guards.
(55:53):
And that was their whole job, is to bear the colors.
In the Japanese in the reports they had like a little device had magnesium in it and it was designed to burn the colors very quickly if they need to.
So these colors, the 20th Regiment apparently had got what heel was.
But in 1905 Russian Japanese War, the regiment took this heel and it broke the back and then whatever.
(56:16):
But anyway this, the same flag they carried at Alligator Creek was carried there.
And plus everyone defended to the lives.
And what apparently this guy did, the color guard used that thing of magnesium, burned the flag and then on the remnants of the flag he took a hand grenade and he basically laid over it and blew himself up of the remnants of the flag.
So that's more believable because Cheeky's not going to be carrying the flag around.
(56:39):
So whether he died at battle or died by his own hand, who knows, but he certainly died.
And that's like I said earlier, he.
He learned the first and last lesson, his first and last lesson on the modern combined arms.
Excellent.
Well, thank you very much.
A fascinating story about the battle of the Tenaru.
A lot to learn.
And we will return to look at Edson's Ridge.
(57:03):
Yeah, that may be really a good one to go over.
Looking forward to that one.
Alrighty.
Thank you very much.
Once again, a massive thanks to Dave Holland for his expertise.
You can tell that not only does he understand what happened in each of the battles and why, but he also understands the context of each of the battles in this large Guadalcanal campaign.
(57:27):
Keep an eye out for his book the Battles of the Matanical when it's released.
It's going to be well worth reading.
Lastly, if you see any of our social media content, please like and share it.
It helps us get the word out about the Principles of War Podcast.
If you're using it for professional military education, drop me a line.
I'm really keen to hear how you're using it in the PME programs that are out there.
(57:52):
And that's it.
We'll be back next week with the Battle of Edson's Ridge.
The Principles of the Principles of War Podcast is brought to you by James Ealing.
The show notes for the Principles of War Podcast are available at www. theprinciplesofwar. com.
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(58:17):
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