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004 - Chapter 4 - Battle at Sea and Action Ashore Koromokina · Marine Operations in the Northern Solomons

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  Speaker 1: Chapter four of Top of the Latter Marine Operations in
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  Speaker 1: the Northern Solomons by John C. Chapin. This LibriVox recording
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  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Battle at Sea, a final
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  Speaker 1: part of the planning for the main landing on Bogainville
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  Speaker 1: had envisioned the certainty of a Japanese naval sortie to
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  Speaker 1: attack the invasion transports. It came very early on the
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  Speaker 1: morning of d plus one on the enemy side. Japanese
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  Speaker 1: destroyer Captain Tamichi Heira, skipper of the Shagur, later recalled
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  Speaker 1: it was cold, drizzly and murky, with very limited visibility
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  Speaker 1: as his destroyer pulled out a Simpson Harbor reball. He
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  Speaker 1: was part of the interception force determined to chew up
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  Speaker 1: the US invasion troops that had just landed at Empress
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  Speaker 1: Augusta Bay. The Shagur was one of the six destroyers
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  Speaker 1: in the van one of the assigned element of the
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  Speaker 1: Southeast Area Fleet, which included the heavy cruisers Mayoko and Haguro,
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  Speaker 1: together with the light cruisers Agano and Sendai. At zero
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  Speaker 1: zero twenty seven to November nineteen forty three, he would
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  Speaker 1: run abreast of US Task Force thirty nine under Rear
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  Speaker 1: Admiral Merrill, who stood by to bar the enemy approach
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  Speaker 1: with four light cruisers and eight destroyers. Among his captains
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  Speaker 1: was the daring and determined ar Lee Burke, on board
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  Speaker 1: the Charles S. Osburn d D. Five seventy, commanding DesDiv
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  Speaker 1: Destroyer Division forty five. This encounter was crucial to the
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  Speaker 1: Bogainville campaign. At Rebaal Rear Admiral Matsuji Ijeuin had told
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  Speaker 1: his sailors Japan will topple if Bogainville falls. At zero
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  Speaker 1: two fifty the American ships were in action. Captain Burke,
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  Speaker 1: later to become Chief of Naval Operations, closed in on
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  Speaker 1: the nearest of the enemy force under Vice Admiral Centaro O'mori.
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  Speaker 1: Burke's destroyers fired twenty five torpedoes, and then Merril maneuvered
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  Speaker 1: his cruiser to avoid the expected long lance torpedo response
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  Speaker 1: of the Japanese and to put his ships in position
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  Speaker 1: to fire with their six inch guns. I shuddered, Harrow
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  Speaker 1: wrote later at the realization that they must have already
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  Speaker 1: released their torpedoes. The initiative was in the hands of
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  Speaker 1: the enemy. In an instant I yelled two orders, launched
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  Speaker 1: torpedoes hard right rudder. Not a single Japanese or American
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  Speaker 1: torpedo found its mark in the first exchange. Merril then
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  Speaker 1: brought all his guns to bear. The Japanese answered in kind.
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  Speaker 1: The Japanese eight inch gun salvos were either short or ahead.
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  Speaker 1: The Americans were luckier. One shell of their first broadside
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  Speaker 1: slammed amidships into the cruiser Sundai, which carried Admiral Ijewan.
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  Speaker 1: There was frantic maneuvering to avoid shells, with giant warships
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  Speaker 1: yards apart at time, cutting at speeds of thirty knots. Still,
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  Speaker 1: Sundai managed to avoid eight American torpedoes, even with her
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  Speaker 1: rudder jammed. Then a Japanese torpedo caught the USS destroyer
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  Speaker 1: foot DD five eleven and blew off her stern, leaving
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  Speaker 1: her dead in the water. Samuel Elliott Morrison, in Breaking
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  Speaker 1: the Bismarck Barrier, tells how Merrill maneuvered his cruisers so
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  Speaker 1: smartly and kept them at such range that no enemy
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  Speaker 1: torpedoes could hit. Admiral Amori showed the same skill in judgment,
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  Speaker 1: but he was a blind man. Only the American had radar.
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  Speaker 1: Hara afterwards explained Japan did not see the enemy, failed
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  Speaker 1: to size up the enemy, and failed to locate it.
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  Speaker 1: The Japanese fleet was a blind man swinging a stick
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  Speaker 1: against a scene opponent. The Japanese fleet had no advantage
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  Speaker 1: at all. What Japan had lacked in electronic sight, however,
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  Speaker 1: it partially made up with its super brilliant airplane drop
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  Speaker 1: flares and naval gunfire star shells. Commander Charles H. Polo,
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  Speaker 1: US Navy, a former radio officer on the Denver CL
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  Speaker 1: fifty eight, recalled the unblinking star shells that would let
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  Speaker 1: you read the fine print in the Bible. The Japanese
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  Speaker 1: also had a range advantage in their eight inch guns.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes we couldn't touch them. Three shells hit his Denver.
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  Speaker 1: Not one detonated, but the ship was damaged. Columbia CL
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  Speaker 1: fifty six also took an eight inch hole through her
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  Speaker 1: armor plate. Then Merrill confused the enemy ships with smoke
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  Speaker 1: so dents that the Japanese believed the Americans were heading
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  Speaker 1: one way when they were in fact steaming in another direction.
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  Speaker 1: But before Admiral Omori could break away, Burke and his
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  Speaker 1: destroyer division of Little Beavers was in among them. First,
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  Speaker 1: the Sendai was sent to the bottom with three hundred
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  Speaker 1: and thirty five men. Then Hatsukazi brushed in an accident
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  Speaker 1: with Mayoko, was finished off by Burke's destroyers and sank
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  Speaker 1: with all hands on board two hundred and forty men.
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  Speaker 1: Damaged were the cruisers Haguro, Mayoko and destroyers Shiratsuyu and Samadair.
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  Speaker 1: But most important, the threat to the beachhead had been stopped.
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  Speaker 1: The Americans got off with severe damage to the foot
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  Speaker 1: and light damage to the Denver Spence d. D five
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  Speaker 1: twelve and Colombia. Harra later wrote, had they pursued us
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  Speaker 1: really hotly, practically all the Japanese shops would have perished.
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  Speaker 1: The Americans had left the fight too soon. An Admiral
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  Speaker 1: Ijeuen's prediction that Japan would topple after the loss of
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  Speaker 1: Bogainville proved to be accurate, but not because of this
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  Speaker 1: loss particularly. It was just one of the number of
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  Speaker 1: defeats which were to doom Japan action ashore Coromokina back
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  Speaker 1: on Bogainville. Following the landing. The days D plus one
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  Speaker 1: to D plus five saw the initiation of phase two
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  Speaker 1: of the operation, involving shifting of units positions, reorganizing, the
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  Speaker 1: shambles of supplies, incessant patrols, road building, the beginning of
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  Speaker 1: the construction of a fighter airstrip, and the deepening of
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  Speaker 1: the beachhead to two thousand yards. Then at dawn on
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  Speaker 1: the morning of seven November d plus six, the Japanese struck.
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  Speaker 1: Some of their destroyers put ashore four hundred and seventy
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  Speaker 1: five men well west of the marine perimeter between the
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  Speaker 1: Laruma River and the Coramikina Lagoon. They landed in twenty
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  Speaker 1: one craft barges, ramped landing boats, even a motor boat,
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  Speaker 1: but to their disadvantage along two wide a front for
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  Speaker 1: coordinating and organizing a strike in unison and immediately a
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  Speaker 1: Marine Corps combat correspondent, Sergeant Cyril J. O'Brien saw the skinny,
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  Speaker 1: young Japanese who scampered up the beach with eighty pound
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  Speaker 1: packs two and a half miles from the Laruma to
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  Speaker 1: near Kromikina, left flank of the Marines to join their comrades.
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  Speaker 1: They were eager enough even to die. A little prayer
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  Speaker 1: often in the pockets of the dead, voiced the fatalistic
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  Speaker 1: wish that whether I float a corpse under the waters
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  Speaker 1: or sink beneath the grasses of the mountain side. I
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  Speaker 1: willingly die for the Emperor. The first few Japanese ashore
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  Speaker 1: near Laruma, however, did not die. An anti tank platoon
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  Speaker 1: with the ninth Marines did not fire because the landing
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  Speaker 1: craft in the mist looked so much like their own.
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  Speaker 1: Even to the big white numbers on the prow near Kramikina,
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  Speaker 1: they seemed to be all over the beach. One out
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  Speaker 1: post platoon, which included Private first Class John F. Perella,
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  Speaker 1: nineteen years old, was cut off on the beach. Perella
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  Speaker 1: swam through the surf one thousand yards to marine lines
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  Speaker 1: and came with a Navy rescue boat and earned a
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  Speaker 1: Silver Star medal. Lieutenant Colonel Walter Asmuth, junior commanding officer
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  Speaker 1: of the third Battalion, ninth Marines, ordered a company attack
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  Speaker 1: called on Mortars and Artillery of the twelfth Marines. The
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  Speaker 1: Japanese were well equipped with the so called knee mortars
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  Speaker 1: actually grenade launchers and Nambu machine guns uns, and fought
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  Speaker 1: back fiercely. In that jungle, you could not see, hear,
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  Speaker 1: or smell a man five feet away. Private first Class
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  Speaker 1: Challis l still found a faint trail and settled his
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  Speaker 1: machine gun beside it, and ambush was easy. The lee
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  Speaker 1: Japanese were close enough to touch. When still opened up,
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  Speaker 1: he killed thirty in the column. He was a recipient
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  Speaker 1: of the Silver Star medal. Yet the Japanese didn't give
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  Speaker 1: way ashore only hours. They had already dug strong defenses.
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  Speaker 1: Even a marine double envelopment in water, sometimes up to
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  Speaker 1: the waist did not work. By thirteen fifteen, the weekend,
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  Speaker 1: ninth Marines Company was relieved by the First Battalion, Third Marines,
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  Speaker 1: coming in from the beachhead's right flank. During the darkness
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  Speaker 1: on that night of seven November, enemy infiltrators got through
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  Speaker 1: to the hospital. Bullets ripped through ten as surgeons performed operations.
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  Speaker 1: The doctors of the third Medical Battalion under Commander Robert R.
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  Speaker 1: Callaway were protected by a makeshift line of cooks, bakers,
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  Speaker 1: and stretcher bearers. As a memorable statistic, less than one
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  Speaker 1: percent died of wounds on Bogainville. After having arrived at
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  Speaker 1: a field hospital. The First Battalion was close to the enemy,
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  Speaker 1: close enough to exchange shouts. The Japanese yelled Moulin, you die,
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  Speaker 1: and the Marines made earthy references to Premier Tojo's diet.
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  Speaker 1: Marine Captain Gordon Warner was fluent in Japanese, so he
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  Speaker 1: could quickly reply to the Japanese even yell believable orders
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  Speaker 1: for a bayonet charge. He received the Navy Cross for
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  Speaker 1: destroying machine gun nests with a helmet full of hand grenades.
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  Speaker 1: He lost a leg in the battle. Sergeant Herbert J.
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  Speaker 1: Thomas gave his life near the Kramkina. His platoon was
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  Speaker 1: forced prone by machine gun fire, and Thomas threw a
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  Speaker 1: grenade to silence the weapon. The grenade rebounded from jungle
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  Speaker 1: vines and the young West Virginian smothered it with his body.
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  Speaker 1: He posthumously was awarded the Medal of Honor. General Turnett
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  Speaker 1: saw that reinforcements were needed. The day before six November,
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  Speaker 1: the first echelon of the twenty first Marines had come ashore.
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  Speaker 1: Now the battle command was transferred to Lieutenant Colonel Ernest W. Fry,
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  Speaker 1: Junior of the first Battalion with two companies. He was
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  Speaker 1: set for a counter attack, but not until after two
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  Speaker 1: intense saturations of the Japanese positions by mortars and five
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  Speaker 1: batteries of artillery. They slammed into a concentrated area three
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  Speaker 1: hundred yards wide and six hundred deep early on eight November.
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  Speaker 1: Light tanks then moved in to support the attack. When
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  Speaker 1: Colonel Fries had advancing companies reached the area where the
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  Speaker 1: Japanese had been, there was stillness, desolation, plowed earth, and
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  Speaker 1: uprooted trees. Combat correspondent Elvin Josephy wrote of men hanging
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  Speaker 1: in trees, Some lay crumpled and twisted beside their shattered weapons,
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  Speaker 1: some covered by chunks of jagged logs and jungle earth.
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  Speaker 1: By a blasted bunker in that no man's land, Colonel
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  Speaker 1: Fry and his men walked over and around the bodies
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  Speaker 1: of over two hundred and fifty enemy soldiers to complete
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  Speaker 1: the annihilation of the Japanese landing Force. Marine dive bombers
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  Speaker 1: from Munda bombed and straighted the survivors on nine November.
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  Speaker 1: By now the veteran one hundred forty eighth Infantry, the
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  Speaker 1: first unit of the Army's thirty seventh Infantry Division, was
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  Speaker 1: coming ashore, seasoned in the Munda campaign on New Georgia,
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  Speaker 1: later to take over the left flank of the beachhead,
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  Speaker 1: would come its other infantry res regiments, the one hundred
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  Speaker 1: twenty ninth on thirteen November and the one hundred forty
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  Speaker 1: fifth on nineteen November. The Army's one hundred thirty fifth,
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  Speaker 1: one hundred thirty sixth and one hundred fortieth Field Artillery
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  Speaker 1: came ashore two and would be invaluable in supporting later
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  Speaker 1: advances on the right flank. Major General Robert S. Baitler,
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  Speaker 1: US Army was Division commander sidebar thirty seventh Infantry Division,
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  Speaker 1: called the Buckeye Division, The thirty seventh was among the
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  Speaker 1: very first American troops sent to the Pacific at the
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  Speaker 1: beginning of the war. The thirty seventh was an outfit
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  Speaker 1: with a long history and many battle streamers, dating from
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  Speaker 1: August nineteen seventeen, when it was formed at Camp Shared
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  Speaker 1: in Alabama. It left for overseason nineteen eighteen and took
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  Speaker 1: part in five major operations in France before returned, turning
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen nineteen and facing demobilization that same year. As
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  Speaker 1: an Ohio National Guard unit, the Buckeye Division was inducted
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  Speaker 1: into federal service in nineteen forty, and by June of
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  Speaker 1: nineteen forty two it was heading into the Pacific War,
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  Speaker 1: sent to Garrison the Fiji Islands. First combat was on
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  Speaker 1: New Georgia, which included taking the critical Monday Airfield. The
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  Speaker 1: thirty seventh joined the third Marine Division on Bogainville and
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  Speaker 1: then trained on the island for the campaign on Luzon
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  Speaker 1: Island in the Philippines. Landing with the sixth Army at
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  Speaker 1: linga Ying Gulf nine January nineteen forty five, the thirty
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  Speaker 1: seventh raced inland to Clarkfield at Fort Stotsenburg. It entered
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  Speaker 1: Manila and its commander, Major General Robert S. Bitler, accepted
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  Speaker 1: the surrender of General Tomoyuki Yamashida. Next came the capture
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  Speaker 1: of Baguillo and the liberation there of thirteen hundred atornees
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  Speaker 1: at the Billy Bid Prison. The division came home for
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  Speaker 1: demobilization in November nineteen forty five. Its commander, Major General Bateler,
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  Speaker 1: was born twenty one March eighteen ninety two and enlisted
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  Speaker 1: in the US Army as a private in nineteen eleven.
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  Speaker 1: Promoted quickly to corporal sergeant and then first sergeant of
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  Speaker 1: his company. He was then commissioned as a second lieutenant
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  Speaker 1: in March nineteen fourteen. After service on the Mexican border.
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  Speaker 1: He took part in five major campaigns in World War
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  Speaker 1: One with the famous forty second Rainbow Division. A graduate
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  Speaker 1: of Ohio State University, Baylor finished first in his class
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  Speaker 1: in the Reserve Officers course of the Command in General
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  Speaker 1: Staff School, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas in nineteen twenty six. After that,
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  Speaker 1: he served as a member of the War Plans Division
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  Speaker 1: of the War War Department General Staff nineteen thirty two
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  Speaker 1: to thirty six. After World War Two, he assumed command
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  Speaker 1: of the Fifth Service Command at Fort Hayes, Ohio, and
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  Speaker 1: then was assigned nineteen forty seven to the Personnel Board
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  Speaker 1: of the Secretary of War. In nineteen forty nine, he
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  Speaker 1: was sent to the Far East and took over the
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  Speaker 1: Marianas Bonan's Command on Guam. In nineteen fifty he was
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  Speaker 1: named Deputy Governor of the Ryukius Command on Okinawa. Major
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  Speaker 1: General Baylor received the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation's second
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  Speaker 1: highest honor, for his leadership in the Philippine Campaign, as
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  Speaker 1: well as a Distinguished Service Medal for the New Georgia Operation,
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  Speaker 1: with an oak leaf cluster as a second award for
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  Speaker 1: his outstanding service on Bogainville and then on Luzon. In
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  Speaker 1: the Philippine Islands. He also wore the Legion of Merit
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  Speaker 1: with oak leaf cluster, the bronze star, warth oak leaf cluster,
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  Speaker 1: the silver Star metal, and the purple Heart. He died
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  Speaker 1: twelve February nineteen seventy eight. End of Chapter four