Islands of Destiny: The Solomons Campaign and the Eclipse of the Rising Sun (28 page)

One clue is furnished by an episode at Nouméa. With the ship damaged,
Enterprise
’s air group went to Henderson Field, eventually returning. Thomas Powell was an enlisted seaman and a gunner on an SBD of Scouting 10. At
Nouméa the airmen, now grungy, were issued fresh uniforms, but the only stocks available were officers’ khakis, not seamen’s blues. So Powell looked like an officer when he got to the pier to go out to “Big
E
.” Admiral Kinkaid’s barge, the only boat at the dock, took the sailors aboard. Thinking them officers, Kinkaid invited those in khakis to sit with him in the stern sheets. The admiral proceeded to tell these “officers,” including Powell, that they ought not to be so unhappy with the tragic losses, at least those on the destroyer
Smith
. When a Japanese plane crashed aboard her, Kinkaid explained, its impact had thrown clear the bodies of the enemy pilot and his radioman, and one of them bore a copy of the current Japanese aircraft code. Bull Halsey and his cohorts were about to use that codebook to their great advantage.

IV.

EMPIRE IN THE BALANCE

“Japanese Fleet Quits Solomons, U.S. Fliers Damage Enemy Carrier and Hit Battleship or a Cruiser,” read the
New York Times
headline. It was Halloween, and perhaps a fitting sequel to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s singular intervention in the Solomons campaign, when, just before Santa Cruz, he told military and naval leaders that he expected more to be done in the South Pacific no matter what their arrangements for Europe. As for the battle, Washington admitted one had taken place, in a communiqué issued a day afterward, but the Navy Department was just then owning up to loss of the carrier
Wasp
a month earlier. The Navy released few concrete details. Three days later, Navy secretary Frank Knox stepped up to the microphone for a news conference where the Solomons framed his conversation with reporters. Secretary Knox said the South Pacific fighting had ground to a virtual halt, a lull but not a victory, for Knox followed that comment by picturing the recent battle as merely the “first round,” with Halsey’s SOPAC forces “waiting for the second to start.” He refused to make predictions. “I have no idea what the next move will be,” Knox said.

Oddly enough, Radio Tokyo agreed. The two enemies might as well have coordinated their spin. Referring to “naval quarters” and high circles, the Japanese commented that “the battle is still in progress and the final result therefore cannot be foreseen.” There was no doubt as to its importance, however: “It can be said that this is one of the greatest naval battles since the outbreak of the war.” The Japanese exaggerated enemy losses just as did Americans, claiming, following the Combined Fleet’s initial battle report, to have sunk four American carriers. From Pearl Harbor, Admiral Nimitz wrote his daughter that he wished he had as many aircraft carriers as the
Japanese were saying had been sunk. Tokyo admitted damage to two of its own. The figure for the Japanese side was, in fact, accurate.

The lull was real. CINCPAC’s war diary observed a withdrawal of the Imperial Navy forces immediately after Santa Cruz, attributing this to a need to refuel and deal with damage. Halsey reported the next two days as quiet, though SOWESPAC claimed direct hits on a Japanese heavy cruiser at Rabaul on the thirtieth—another George Kenney fantasy. But in Nimitz and Halsey, the Allies now had a team perfectly suited to this complex conflict. Not willing to cavil before danger to SOPAC bases, and rejecting inaction despite the aircraft carrier imbalance, Nimitz cabled Halsey on October 28, “GROUND SITUATION AT CACTUS CAN BE TURNED IN OUR FAVOR ONLY BY OFFENSIVE ACTION.” The SOPAC commander immediately signaled his complete agreement.

Halsey had already set up escorts for a convoy. He crafted plans for additional Marine and Army reinforcements to Cactus that ultimately led to doubling the troops there, replacing Alexander Vandegrift’s 1st Marine Division with a full corps of the Army and Marines. Within the fortnight several convoys departed for the ’Canal, bearing heavy artillery, fuel, more men, and supplies. Halsey also pulled out all the stops on repairing the
Enterprise.
By dint of putting every available specialist on the project, enough holes were patched and decks pounded flat to restore watertight integrity in just eleven days. The “Big
E
” would sail and fight in a damaged condition—still without that critical number one elevator—but sail she would.
That
was the depth of SOPAC’s need—and Halsey answered the call. The enemy’s window of unassailable superiority lasted barely two weeks.

On the Japanese side, Admiral Yamamoto’s plans had been deficient, not merely in omitting any provision for failure, but in neglecting arrangements to exploit success. Americans were right to worry about their SOPAC bases. Had Combined Fleet been ready to execute the FS Operation at this moment, the Allies might have been imperiled. But the Japanese were not prepared for that. Ditto Guadalcanal. Had Yamamoto been primed to really put
Yamato
off Henderson Field and obliterate it, and the Army’s 38th “Nagoya” Division ready to sail, Cactus would truly have been in the shit. The Imperial Navy’s unpreparedness put the outcome on a razor-thin edge. In Tokyo the emperor seems to have sensed that nexus more clearly than his
admirals. On November 5, Hirohito made another of his indirect interventions, probing his commanders as to their intentions. But no changes were in the offing.

Fleet commanders Kondo and Nagumo, meanwhile, reached Truk on October 30. Instead of fueling the fleet, setting objectives, and getting it back out, the admirals held memorial services for the dead. The Combined Fleet chief of staff thought fighting spirit low despite the recent victory. Yamamoto and Ugaki had already begun rebuilding morale, visiting damaged warships that had arrived earlier. Not until November 2 did the senior officers begin their battle review.

Ugaki, just promoted vice admiral, met with Colonel Hattori Takushiro, chief Army operations planner, who had flown down from Tokyo, plus Combined Fleet staff posted as observers at Rabaul. He also listened to fleet staff’s ideas for new forays. To be fair to Japanese naval commanders, the Army played an important role in retarding the follow-up to Santa Cruz. Hattori told Ugaki his service had finally decided to take the South Pacific seriously, with creation of an army-size force just to fight in New Guinea, Hyakutake’s existing Seventeenth Army in the Solomons, and an area army to control both—adding up to delay while the Army marshaled the troops. Transferring a further formation, the 51st Infantry Division, now slated for Guadalcanal, deferred a full-scale offensive until December. And when Hattori passed through Truk again, on his way back from Rabaul, he reported conditions on Starvation Island even worse than supposed. The “offensive” would need to be held until January.

Renewed activity began on November 3, when Rear Admiral Nishimura took heavy cruisers
Suzuya
and
Maya
with a strong escort group to Shortland on the first leg of another Cactus bombardment. Upon the fleet’s return, these vessels, together with Rear Admiral Tanaka’s Destroyer Squadron 2, were rearmed quickly so they could reinforce Vice Admiral Mikawa. The carriers damaged at Santa Cruz departed for Empire waters. The next day, rather than deploying
Kido Butai
, the fleet sent the undamaged carrier
Zuikaku
to Empire Waters to train new aircrew. That made sense for a December or January offensive but offered no hope for the moment. Yamamoto’s move left the
Junyo
as the only flattop active in the South Pacific.

Two strong Tokyo Expresses delivered 38th Division troops to the ’Canal. The Express ran often. On November 5, Tanaka’s destroyers replaced
Rear Admiral Hashimoto’s squadron on reinforcement duty. During the first part of November, Imperial Navy destroyers carried sixty-five loads to Starvation Island and landed two cruiser loads as well. Commander Yamada Takashi, a participant in previous midget submarine attacks off Madagascar, launched one of the tiny boats into Ironbottom Sound from his
I-20.
FRUPAC detected that and signaled a warning all the way from Pearl Harbor. The midget entered the anchorage, found the small cargo vessel
Majaba
there, and put a torpedo in her. Although Yamada claimed a kill for the mission, the vessel actually beached and was recovered.

On November 7, Combined Fleet began to ship the bulk of the 38th Infantry Division. Yamamoto ordered up another Guadalcanal convoy. To support that, Rear Admiral Kakuta sortied with the
Junyo
and an escort. A cover force of three cruisers and seven destroyers sailed as well. The Japanese C-in-C intended to repeat the previously successful battleship bombardment of Henderson Field. The fleet operations order was issued at 6:30 p.m. the next day. Vice Admiral Kondo would take the lead. As accustomed, Admiral Yamamoto stayed at Truk, but he had set the stage for fateful encounters.

NIGHTS OF THE LONG KNIVES

Kondo Nobutake, universally considered one of the Imperial Navy’s most brilliant officers, had rocketed to high rank. He might have been the only man to match Yamamoto Isoroku as one of the Navy’s “golden boys.” At fifty-eight in 1942, Kondo was nearing retirement age, but the war mooted such mundane questions. He had led the Second Fleet since before Pearl Harbor, and in the Imperial Navy, where tours of duty usually lasted about a year, Kondo might have looked forward to a new billet. But Yamamoto believed in this golden boy. It was Admiral Kondo’s fleet that had protected the Japanese invasions of Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines in the opening months of the war—profiting from his experience in the China Incident, where Kondo had sparkplugged the 1939 invasion of Hainan. His subordinates had beaten the Allies at the Battle of the Java Sea. Kondo’s brilliance showed in the misgivings he expressed about Midway, but he loyally led the invasion flotilla there. The sinking of heavy cruiser
Mikuma
of his command had chagrined the admiral, although he had not
been directly involved. The
Mikuma
was the first major surface combatant lost in the war, but this had not been counted against him. Later Kondo had held primacy as seagoing commander at both Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz.

Admiral Kondo had been active for thirty-five years. He missed the Russo-Japanese War—Yamamoto was ahead of him on that, having fought, and lost two fingers, at the Battle of Tsushima. The young Kondo served on a cruiser and aboard the fleet flagship, battleship
Mikasa
, but after the war. Kondo was commissioned an ensign in 1908, a year after graduating Etajima. His early career had been typical—duty on a destroyer, another cruiser, and the battleship
Kongo.
He spent a year in England as junior naval attaché. Kondo married, made a home in the Setagaya district of Tokyo, not far from his Osaka birthplace, and had two daughters, the first of five children. During World War I he held staff posts, then went to sea as chief gunnery officer on a cruiser. Kondo graduated at the head of his class from the Naval War College in 1919. His career moved to the fast track.

Promoted to lieutenant commander, Kondo was immediately sent to Russia as resident naval officer. Japan was playing power politics in the Russian Civil War, occupying parts of the Russian Far East, and Kondo became a player. Then came a year studying in Germany, plus two more on the commission charged with ensuring the Germans paid requisite war reparations. He returned to a position as aide-de-camp to Crown Prince Hirohito.

That strain of power politics continued to run through Kondo’s life, accentuated by frequent staff assignments. Kondo acquired the reputation of a polished and literate, even scholarly officer, gracious in the style of an English gentleman, a consummate insider who had no enemies, popular even with the geisha. He spoke fair German and English, never seemed angered, and acted with practiced moderation and caution.

Commander Kondo went back to sea in 1926 on the staffs of the battleship force and Combined Fleet. His next posting was to the Naval War College as instructor—he would be president of that school a few years later. Sea duty followed as skipper of the heavy cruiser
Kako
, then battleship
Kongo.
In between, Captain Kondo had been selected by now-Emperor Hirohito as aide to a special inspector, and served as operations section chief of the Navy General Staff. He made rear admiral in November 1933, heading
the war college, became chief of staff of the Combined Fleet, then NGS operations bureau chief. Colleagues considered his service there excellent. At the operations bureau Kondo approved a General Staff plan for the invasion of Hainan, one he later carried out as a seagoing officer. Kondo feared the Hainan operation might trigger war with Britain and France, which suited him fine except that the United States remained unaccounted for. Promoted to vice admiral in 1937, Kondo served in China during 1938–1939. The affable officer next became vice chief of NGS. He was considered pro-German, friendly to the U.S., and anti-British. In the Navy’s pre–Pearl Harbor war games, naturally Kondo had played the British.

Admiral Kondo’s technical specialty as a gunner placed him among the Navy’s predominant community, in which he was the senior officer afloat, ranking thirteenth on the Navy List. By comparison Mikawa Gunichi ranked forty-first, Kurita Takeo sixty-ninth, and Abe Hiroaki eighty-fifth. Even Ugaki, the Combined Fleet chief of staff—a post Kondo had himself held—stood lower, at eighty-ninth on the list. But Kondo’s exposure to active command of big ships had been limited, and he was by nature inclined to passivity. Those factors played into what now happened at Guadalcanal.

As Second Fleet commander, Admiral Kondo led the latest expedition. Wearing his flag in heavy cruiser
Atago
, he guided the main body, including battleships
Kongo
and
Haruna
, heavy cruiser
Tone
, and eight destroyers. In support would be Rear Admiral Kakuta with the
Junyo
. Under Kondo, Admiral Abe Hiroaki led the Advance Force, embodying battleships
Hiei
and
Kirishima
; another heavy cruiser,
Takao
; light cruisers
Sendai
and
Nagara
; and thirteen destroyers. Yamamoto’s plan focused on a “Z-Day,” when a transport convoy would reach Guadalcanal, discharging the remainder of the 38th Division, plus a month’s supplies for all the Japanese. Eleventh Air Fleet would continue its strikes, working up to especially strong attacks on Z-3. On Z-2 Kondo would detach Abe’s battleship force to bombard Henderson Field. Kakuta would follow with carrier strikes on Z-1. Then the convoy would arrive on Z-Day, screened by Rear Admiral Tanaka Raizo’s Destroyer Squadron 2.