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003 - Chapter 3 - Diversionary Landings · Marine Operations in the Northern Solomons

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  Speaker 1: Chapter three 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. Diversionary landings there was another
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  Speaker 1: key element in the American plan, diversion to mislead the
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  Speaker 1: enemy on the real objective Bogainville. The iMac Operations ODER,
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  Speaker 1: on fifteen October directed the eighth Brigade Group of the
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  Speaker 1: third New Zealand Division to land on the Treasury Islands,
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  Speaker 1: seventy five miles southeast of Empress Augusta Bay. There on
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  Speaker 1: twenty seven October, the New Zealanders under Brigadier ra A. Row,
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  Speaker 1: with nineteen hundred marine support troops, went ashore on two
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  Speaker 1: small islands. One was named Mono and the other Sterling.
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  Speaker 1: Mono is about four miles wide north to south and
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  Speaker 1: seven mile long. It looks like a pancake. Sterling, shaped
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  Speaker 1: like a hook, is four miles long, narrow in places
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  Speaker 1: to three hundred yards, but with plenty of room on
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  Speaker 1: its margins for airstrips. In a drizzly overcast, the twenty
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  Speaker 1: ninth ENZ Battalion Lieutenant Colonel FLH. Davis and the thirty
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  Speaker 1: sixth Lieutenant Colonel KB. Mackenzie Merson hit Mono at Fallamy Point,
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  Speaker 1: and the thirty fourth, under Lieutenant Colonel R. J. Eyer,
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  Speaker 1: struck the beach of Sterling Island off Blanche Harbor. There
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  Speaker 1: was light opposition. Help for the assault troops came from
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  Speaker 1: LCI landing craft, infantry gunboats, which knocked out at least
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  Speaker 1: one deadly Japanese forty millimeter twin mount gun and a
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  Speaker 1: couple of enemy bunkers. A simultaneous landing was then made
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  Speaker 1: on the opposite or north side of Mono Island at
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  Speaker 1: so Otalu. This was perhaps the most important landing of
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  Speaker 1: all for their New Zealand soldiers. American SEABS and US
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  Speaker 1: radar specialists would set up a big long range radar station.
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  Speaker 1: The Japanese soon reacted to the Sonotalu landing and hurled
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  Speaker 1: themselves against the perimeter. On one occasion, eighty to ninety
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  Speaker 1: Japanese attacked fifty New Zealanders who waited until they saw
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  Speaker 1: the whites of their eyes. They killed forty of the
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  Speaker 1: Japanese and dispersed the rest. There was unexpected machine gun
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  Speaker 1: fire at Sterling. One Sebee bulldozer operator attacked the machine
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  Speaker 1: gun with his big blade. An Army corporal a medic
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  Speaker 1: said he couldn't believe it. The Sebee ran his dozer
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  Speaker 1: over and over the machine gun nests until everything was quiet.
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  Speaker 1: It all began to stink. After a couple of days. Outmanned,
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  Speaker 1: the Japanese drew back to higher ground, were hunted down
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  Speaker 1: and killed. Surrender was still not in their book. On
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  Speaker 1: twelve November, the New Zealanders could call the Treasuries their
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  Speaker 1: own with the radar station in operation, Japanese dead total
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  Speaker 1: two hundred and five and the brigade took only eight prisoners.
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  Speaker 1: The operation had secured the seaside flank of Bogainville and
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  Speaker 1: very soon on Sterling there was an airfield. It began
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  Speaker 1: to operate against enemy forces on Bogainville. On Christmas Day
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  Speaker 1: nineteen forty three, a second diversion, east of the Treasury
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  Speaker 1: Islands and forty five miles from Bogainville took place on
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  Speaker 1: Chase Suell Island. Sub Lieutenant C. W. Seaton, Royal Australian
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  Speaker 1: Navy and coastwatcher on Chase, Swell said the Japanese there
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  Speaker 1: appeared worried. The garrison troops were shooting at their own shadows,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps because American and Australian patrol had been crisscrossing the
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  Speaker 1: eighty miles long, twenty miles wide islands since September scouting
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  Speaker 1: out the Japanese positions. There were also some thirty five
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  Speaker 1: hundred transient enemy troops on Chaseul bivouacked and waiting to
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  Speaker 1: be shipped the forty five miles north to Booen on Bogainville,
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  Speaker 1: where there was already a major Japanese garrison force. Uncertainty
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  Speaker 1: about the American threat of invasion somewhere was enough to
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  Speaker 1: make the Japanese, especially Vice Admiral Janichi Kusaka, commander Southeast
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  Speaker 1: Area Fleet at Rubaal, jittery. It was he who wanted
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  Speaker 1: much of the Japanese seventeenth Army concentrated at Bowen, for
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  Speaker 1: he thought the Allies might strike there. General Vandergriff wanted
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  Speaker 1: to be sure that the Japanese were focused on Bowen,
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  Speaker 1: so on twenty October he called in Lieutenant Colonel Robert H. Williams,
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  Speaker 1: commanding the first Parachute R Njamin, and Lieutenant Colonel Victor H. Krulak,
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  Speaker 1: commanding its second battalion, get Ashore on Chase swell, the
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  Speaker 1: general ordered, and stir up the biggest commotion possible, make
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  Speaker 1: sure they think the invasion has commenced. It was a
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  Speaker 1: most unusual raid. Six hundred and fifty six men, a
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  Speaker 1: handful of native guides and an Australian coast watcher with
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  Speaker 1: a road map. The Navy took Krulak's reinforced battalion of
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  Speaker 1: parachutists to a beach site near a hamlet called Vosa
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  Speaker 1: that would be the CP command post location for the duration.
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  Speaker 1: The troops slipped ashore on twenty eight October at zero
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  Speaker 1: zero twenty one and soon had all their gear concealed
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  Speaker 1: in the bush. By daylight, the Marines had established a
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  Speaker 1: base on a high jungle plateau in the Vosa area.
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  Speaker 1: The Japanese soon spotted the intruders sent a few fighter
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  Speaker 1: planes to rake the beach, but that did no harm.
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  Speaker 1: They did not see the four small landing craft which
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  Speaker 1: Krulak had brought along and hidden among some mangroves. With
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  Speaker 1: their Navy crews on call. Krulak then outlined two targets.
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  Speaker 1: Eight miles south from their CP at Vosa, there was
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  Speaker 1: a large enemy barge base near the Vaghera River. The
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  Speaker 1: Australian said some one hundred and fifty Japanese were there.
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  Speaker 1: The other objective was an enemy outpost in the opposite direction,
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  Speaker 1: seventeen miles north on the Warrior River. Then Krulak took
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  Speaker 1: his operations officer, Major tolsen A Smoke, seventeen men and
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  Speaker 1: a few natives as scouts, and headed for the barge basin.
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  Speaker 1: On the way, ten unlucky Japanese were encountered unloading a barge.
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  Speaker 1: The Marines opened fire, killing seven of them and sinking
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  Speaker 1: the barge. After reconnoitering the main objective the large basin,
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  Speaker 1: the patrol returned to Vosa. The following morning, Krulak sent
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  Speaker 1: a patrol near the barge basin to the Vighera River
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  Speaker 1: for security, and then to wave in his small landing craft,
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  Speaker 1: bringing up his troops to attack. But back at Vosa,
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  Speaker 1: along came a flight of American planes which shot up
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  Speaker 1: the Marines and sank one of their vital boats. Now
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  Speaker 1: Krulak's attack would have to walk to the village of
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  Speaker 1: Sangi Guy by the Japanese barge basin. To soften up
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  Speaker 1: Sangi Guy, Krulak called in twenty six fighters escorting twelve
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  Speaker 1: torpedo bombers. They dropped two tons of bombs and it
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  Speaker 1: looked for all the world like a real invasion. Krulak
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  Speaker 1: then sent a company to attack the basin from the beach,
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  Speaker 1: and another company with rifles, machine guns, rockets and mortars
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  Speaker 1: to get behind the barge center. It was a pincer
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  Speaker 1: and it worked. The Marines attacked at fourteen thirty October.
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  Speaker 1: What the battle didn't destroy, the Marines blew up. The
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  Speaker 1: Japanese lost seventy two dead, the Marines four killed and
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  Speaker 1: twelve wounded. All was not so well in the other direction.
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  Speaker 1: Major Warner T. Bigger, Krulax executive officer, had been sent
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  Speaker 1: north with eighty seven Marines toward the Big emplacement on
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  Speaker 1: Chase Sul Bay near the Warrior River. His mission was
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  Speaker 1: to destroy first the emplacement, with Guppy Island just offshore
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  Speaker 1: and fat with supplies as his secondary target. Bigger got
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  Speaker 1: to the Warrior River, but his landing craft became stuck
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  Speaker 1: in the shallows, so he brought them to a nearby cove,
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  Speaker 1: hid them in the jungle, and proceeded on foot north
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  Speaker 1: to Chase Sul Bay. Soon his scouts said that they
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  Speaker 1: were lost. It was late in the day, so Bigger
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  Speaker 1: bivouacked for the night. He sent a patrol back to
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  Speaker 1: the Warrior, where it found a Japanese force slipping stealthily
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  Speaker 1: by them. The patrol got back to Voza. This led
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  Speaker 1: Krulak to call for fighter cover and PTE boats to
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  Speaker 1: try to get up and withdraw Bigger. But Bigger didn't
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  Speaker 1: know he was in trouble, and he went ahead and
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  Speaker 1: blasted Guppy Island with mortars because he couldn't get to
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  Speaker 1: the main enemy in placement. When Bigger and his men
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  Speaker 1: barely got back to the Warrior River, there were no
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  Speaker 1: rescue boats, but there were plenty of Japanese. As the
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  Speaker 1: men waited tensely, the rescue boats came at the last moment,
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  Speaker 1: the very last, Thankfully. The men scrambled on board under
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  Speaker 1: enemy fire. Then two PTE boats arrived, gun blazing and
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  Speaker 1: provided cover so Bigger's patrol could get back to Vosa.
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  Speaker 1: One of the PTE boats was commanded by Lieutenant John F. Kennedy,
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  Speaker 1: US Navy, laid the President of the United States, who
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  Speaker 1: took fifty five Marines on board. When their escape boat sank,
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  Speaker 1: Krulak had already used up all his time and luck.
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  Speaker 1: The Japanese were now on top of him. Their commanders
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  Speaker 1: particularly chagrined that they had been fooled, for the big
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  Speaker 1: landing had already occurred. At Empress Augusta Bay, Krulak had
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  Speaker 1: to get out coast watcher seat and said there was
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  Speaker 1: not much time. On the night of three November three
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  Speaker 1: LCIs Rendezvoudolf Vosa Krulac gave all his rations to the natives.
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  Speaker 1: As the Marines boarded the LCIs, they could hear their
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  Speaker 1: minds in booby traps exploding to delay the Japanese. Within
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  Speaker 1: hours after the departure, a strong Japanese pincer snapped shut
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  Speaker 1: around the Vosa encampment, but the Marines had gone, having
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  Speaker 1: suffered nine killed, fifteen wounded and two missing, but leaving
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  Speaker 1: at least one hundred and forty three enemy days on
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  Speaker 1: Chaseoul sidebar the coast watchers. It was on Bogainville, as
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  Speaker 1: well as on other islands of the Solomon's Chain, that
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  Speaker 1: the Australian coast Watchers played their most decisive role in
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  Speaker 1: transmitting vital advanced warnings to Allied forces. In the Lower
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  Speaker 1: Solomon Islands, Japanese warplanes and ships summoned an urgency to
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  Speaker 1: smash the beachhead at Guadalcanal had to pass over Bogainville,
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  Speaker 1: the big island in the middle of the route. From
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  Speaker 1: a ball Paul Mason, short, bespectacled, soft spoken, held an
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  Speaker 1: area in the south mountains over Bowin and dark Wiry W. J.
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  Speaker 1: Jack Reid watched the ship and aircraft movements of the
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  Speaker 1: Japanese in and around Buca in the north. One memorable
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  Speaker 1: Mason wireless dispatch twenty five torpedo bombers headed yours. The
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  Speaker 1: message cost the Japanese Imperial Navy every one of those
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  Speaker 1: airplanes save one. Reid reported a dozen or so Japanese
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  Speaker 1: transports assembling at Buca before their trip to Guadalcanal, with
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  Speaker 1: enough troops loaded on board to take the island back.
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  Speaker 1: All of the transports were lost or beached under the
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  Speaker 1: fierce attack of US warplanes. In nineteen forty one, as
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  Speaker 1: the war with Japan commenced, there were one hundred coast
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  Speaker 1: watchers in the Solomons. There were ten times that number
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  Speaker 1: as the war ended later, including Americans, assembled first as
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  Speaker 1: a tight group of island veterans in nineteen thirty nine,
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  Speaker 1: although there had been coast watchers after World War One
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  Speaker 1: under Lieutenant Commander A. Eric Felt Royal Australian Navy. Their
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  Speaker 1: job was to cover about a half a million miles
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  Speaker 1: of land, sea and air. The very first moves of
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  Speaker 1: the Japanese on Guadalcanal were observed by coast watchers in
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  Speaker 1: the surrounding hills. The coast watchers could count the Japanese
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  Speaker 1: hammer strokes almost see the nails. When the Japanese began
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  Speaker 1: the airfield later to be called Henderson Field, the report
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  Speaker 1: of the coast watchers went all the way up to
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  Speaker 1: the American Joint chiefs of Staff and across the desk
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  Speaker 1: of Admiral Ernest J King, Commander in chief US Fleet,
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  Speaker 1: later General Alexander A. Vandergrift on Guadalcanal banked heavily on
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  Speaker 1: the intelligence coming in from the radios of the coast watchers.
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  Speaker 1: The attacks on the Treasuries and Chase Sewell were based
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  Speaker 1: on the information provided them on New Georgia. Long before
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  Speaker 1: Americans decided to take it, a coastwatcher had set up
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  Speaker 1: a haven for downed Allied pilots and if the Americans
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  Speaker 1: needed a captured Japanese officer or soldier for interrogation. The
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  Speaker 1: local scouts were often able to provide one. The key
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  Speaker 1: to coast watching was the teleradio or wireless good to
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  Speaker 1: six hundred miles by a key, four hundred by voice.
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  Speaker 1: Cumbersome heavy, the set took more than a dozen men
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  Speaker 1: to carry it, an indication of how much the Allies
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  Speaker 1: depended upon the local natives. The risks were great, death
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  Speaker 1: would come after torture, but Mason recalled the risk was
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  Speaker 1: worth it, seeing the sleek, orderly formations heading for Guadalcanal,
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  Speaker 1: then limping back home with gaping holes in their hulls.
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  Speaker 1: Mason and Reed were highly decorated by both the Australians
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  Speaker 1: and the Americans for their vital services. End of Chapter
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  Speaker 1: three