Islands of Destiny: The Solomons Campaign and the Eclipse of the Rising Sun (48 page)

In short, Koga Mineichi intended an aggressive strategy. Admiral Koga said as much in the order of the day he issued on May 23, when Japan revealed the death of Yamamoto and the appointment of his successor:

Pious words, perhaps. At the moment Admiral Koga issued this exhortation, the Aleutians seemed threatened and much of the fleet had concentrated in Empire waters. Koga would keep his biggest ships there for several months, taking the opportunity to dry-dock them for upkeep. He returned to Truk in August. By then the war in the Solomons had brewed up. A week before the
Aoba
was sufficiently repaired to voyage home, the test began.

REDRAWING THE BATTLE MAPS

After two postponements, SOWESPAC completed preparations for its next leap ahead. In the Coral Sea this included assault landings at Kiriwina and Woodlark islands, below New Britain. Once those places had airfields, Allied
fighters would be in easy range of Rabaul itself, not to mention all the other Japanese bases. The enemy were not blind to the peril. It was apparent the Allies were poised to leap. In May the 25th Air Flotilla returned to Rabaul, followed in June by the 24th, reinforcing what the Eleventh Air Fleet already had. Aerial reconnaissance over Guadalcanal on May 21 showed forty four-engine bombers, thirty-two twin-engine ones, and no fewer than 275 single-engine aircraft. When Halsey and MacArthur sent fifty-plane raids against Lae and Shortland and a hundred-plane raid on Munda, Admiral Kusaka decided to strike back. He used his added strength for new lightning bolts. On June 7, Kusaka sent a swarm of eighty-one Zeroes on a fighter sweep to the Russell Islands bases. Among the casualties was Warrant Officer Yanagiya Kenji of the 204th Air Group, who had failed in escorting Yamamoto’s fatal flight. Seriously wounded, Yanagiya had his arm amputated. Redeploying 25th and 26th flotilla planes to Buin, on June 12 Kusaka repeated the sweep using seventy-seven fighters, and four days later he struck at Ironbottom Sound with twenty-four bombers and seventy fighters. Veterans remember this as the “Big Raid.” Two ships were damaged badly enough to beach, another hurt more lightly, and half a dozen U.S. planes crashed, against thirty Japanese. As with the I Operation, results disappointed. A submarine concentration against Halsey’s carriers, sighted in Torpedo Junction, failed to accomplish anything.

In contrast to vigorous air activity, now Admiral Kusaka became reluctant to use his surface ships. With the bulk of the Combined Fleet in Empire waters and oriented toward the Aleutians, Kusaka had little support. A staff meeting on June 10 revealed the dismal state of Vice Admiral Samejima’s Eighth Fleet. Heavy cruiser
Chokai
, previously the flagship, had been recalled by the Combined Fleet. Samejima’s main strength comprised the 3rd Destroyer Squadron. Light cruiser
Yubari
of that unit had damaged the shafts for two of her three propellers, restricting top speed to twenty-four knots. Equally perplexing,
Yubari
was undergoing crew transfer. Two-thirds of her officers plus 35 percent of enlisted men were new. Destroyer
Yugiri
, torpedoed during an antisubmarine sweep, was undergoing local repair. She would be ready before the end of June. The commander of Destroyer Division 22 reported his ships had not been dry-docked for seven to nine months, depending on the vessel, and steamed at reduced efficiency. They had off-loaded reserve torpedoes to reduce displacement and maintain
speed potential. Those ships and two others all needed dry-docking. Destroyer
Nagatsuki
had a leak in a propeller shaft casing and was shipping two dozen tons of water a day, double that under way. Desperate for bottoms, Kusaka nonetheless rated her battleworthy. Half the destroyers had just changed skippers or were about to. Rear Admiral Akiyama Teruo of the 3rd Squadron, himself a new face, had come from a shoreside billet. The one bright light was that light cruiser
Sendai
had joined and settled in. Admiral Samejima’s Eighth Fleet faced grave challenges.

All this would have made Bull Halsey happy. Photos of Rabaul and Shortland showed Japanese heavy cruisers and more destroyer types than there were. This was coincidental. The Imperial Navy had been using Vice Admiral Nishimura’s Cruiser Division 7 to shuttle replacement seamen into Rabaul. As for the
Chokai
, for weeks she had been at anchor off Truk’s Dublon Island. Meanwhile the Eighth Fleet had patrol boats and some old destroyers converted to other uses, often mistaken for tin cans. Halsey’s aerial snoopers were reporting a stronger fleet than Kusaka, in fact, possessed.

In tandem with MacArthur’s advance, Halsey had laid on Operation “Toenails,” his next move, against New Georgia. He began with assault landings. Rendova, an island just five and a half miles across the water from Munda, offered a prime location for a PT boat base from which the devil boats could mount a close blockade. It would be invaded at several points. On New Georgia there were landings at Segi Point, Viru Harbor, and Wickham Plantation. The first, actually undertaken by the Marines’ 4th Raider Battalion on June 21, was the opening chord in the ensemble. In preparation SOPAC made a forty-plane raid on Vila on June 19, and fifty-plane attacks on Munda on June 25, and both on the twenty-sixth. Then on the twenty-ninth, Merrill’s cruisers bombarded Munda while Halsey’s minelayer unit took on Vila. The real landings took place the next day.

News of the invasion electrified Rabaul. The Japanese fleet, alerted at dawn on June 30, soon learned of Americans storming Rendova. One who got the alert was Lieutenant Commander Hanami Kohei of the destroyer
Amagiri.
Until recently skipper of a tin can at Singapore, Hanami had taken over the
Amagiri
less than two weeks earlier. He found the ship in sore need of rest and reconditioning and planned to replace some sailors and effect such repairs as could be done in place. Hull, weapons, and engines
had all been affected by war service. Commander Hanami was coping with the frustration of futile requests for spare parts when Rendova changed everything. “The information created a tumult at Rabaul Base,” Hanami recalled. The fleet moved out “in full strength with determination to blast the enemy on the sea but efforts to locate him finally ended fruitlessly.” That night Rear Admiral Akiyama brought the light cruiser
Yubari
with nine destroyers, including
Amagiri
, to pound the Rendova beachhead. Without observers to correct their aim, the Japanese blasted the jungle, inflicting no damage.

None of the invasion sites directly threatened Munda. The strategy was rather to seize a foothold, develop Rendova, then mount the offensive on Munda and Vila from there. The covering force, under Halsey’s direct command, would be Task Force 36. It included both Ainsworth’s and Merrill’s cruiser groups and a carrier unit built around
Saratoga
and HMS
Victorious.
As a historical artifact, it is interesting that the Royal Navy here participated in a U.S. amphibious landing in the South Pacific.

At Rabaul, Admiral Kusaka knew of the general threat but not specific Allied intentions. On New Georgia the Japanese now had 10,500 troops, built around two regiments of the Army’s Southeast Detachment, under General Sasaki Akira, and Rear Admiral Ota Minoru’s 8th Combined SNLF, divided between Munda and Vila, with a few scattered outposts elsewhere, including Rendova. Preparatory bombardments did nothing to destroy the defenses. As the invasion fleet dropped anchor, only a few miles away shore batteries at Munda opened fire. Their very first salvo hit the destroyer
Gwin.
But two others replied, and American troops going ashore quickly set up artillery at Rendova and added their counterfire. The Japanese guns fell silent.

American amphibious ships just beginning to learn their trade at the time of the Guadalcanal landing were now well practiced. The command ship
McCawley
not only put ashore 1,100 soldiers but landed supplies at a rate of 157 tons per hour. This proved fortunate, for the first important Japanese reaction was an afternoon strike by two dozen torpedo bombers, one of which put a fish into the
McCawley.
That night an overenthusiastic PT boat launched her spread at the “Wacky Mac” and finished her off. The only other naval casualty was the destroyer
Zane
, run aground on a reef in the dark.

General Sasaki updated Rabaul in a stream of radio messages. Startled when no landings were attempted against Munda itself, Sasaki soon understood. Seabees went ashore at Rendova in the early assault waves. They had strict orders to fabricate an airfield within two weeks, along with a new PT boat base and other facilities. The Seabees worked through rain and dark. They almost never stopped. Admiral Kusaka added his bit. The day after the landing he sent in a bomber attack that arrived undetected at noon, with GIs in their chow lines. Bombs smashed the hospital, damaged boats, and inflicted more than 130 casualties. New Zealand Squadron No. 14 participated in the defense. Pilot Officer Geoff Fisken, flying the P-40 called the “Wairarapa Wildcat,” splashed two Zeroes and a Betty. Bombings continued, with Japanese Army aircraft participating during the early days.

On July 5 came the first surface naval engagement. Tip Ainsworth brought his cruiser group back to punish Vila. Starting after midnight, Ainsworth dumped more than 3,000 rounds of six-inch fire on the enemy base. While that happened, other Allied ships moved 43rd Infantry Division troops and the 1st Marine Raider Battalion across from Rendova to make the first landing near Munda. A Tokyo Express did the same for the Japanese. The Express had been unloading when the Japanese heard Ainsworth’s thunder and they hurriedly put to sea. As the Americans completed fire missions, the
Ralph Talbot
reported radar contact. Moments later a torpedo plowed into the destroyer
Strong.
The Japanese were so far away that no one could believe their destroyers had launched these deadly fish.

That injury became insult the following night. Halsey flashed word that intelligence called a Tokyo Express run from Buin. Rear Admiral Ainsworth, who had been retiring down The Slot, reversed and came back hunting bear. Ainsworth far outgunned the enemy, with light cruisers
Honolulu
,
Helena
, and
St. Louis
, plus four destroyers. Admiral Akiyama led a full-bore Express, with a guard unit of three ships escorting seven destroyers crammed to the gunwales with troops and supplies. At 1:40 a.m. of July 6, American radars acquired Japanese targets inside Kula Gulf. Akiyama had just detached his second transport unit to Vila, having already sent the first. He was headed north-northwest, hugging the Kolombangara shore. Lookouts spotted the Americans minutes later, but surprise had already been lost—though lacking radar, Akiyama’s flagship, destroyer
Niizuki
, had a radio receiver designed to detect radar emissions. More than
half an hour earlier she recorded the Allied signals. Akiyama knew the enemy was out there, just not where. Ainsworth began clearing for action and maneuvering to trap the Japanese. He ordered guns at 1:54 a.m., but it was several minutes until the cannonade began. The initial salvo smashed the
Niizuki
, but her mates instantly launched torpedoes. Despite 2,500 six-inch shells, only the
Niizuki
sank, taking Akiyama to his grave. Three other destroyers were lightly damaged. But on the American side Captain Charles P. Cecil’s
Helena
was destroyed by torpedoes. A single hit between her forward six-inch turrets simply blew off the bow, sluicing water into every deck—and above deck too as she forged ahead at twenty-five knots. Seaman First Class Ted Blahnik, whose action station was in an AA gun director tub far aft on the 600-foot-long ship, could not figure out why water coursed over the deck and poured into his tub. But in moments the “Happy
Helena
” shuddered as a second Long Lance hit, and a third shattered her keel. For extra ignominy a final hit was a dud torpedo. The
Helena
sank in little more than twenty minutes, except for her prow, which jutted from the water like an arrowhead pointed at the Southern Cross. Almost 450 sailors were lost.

Amid the confusion the battle had a second act. Destroyers that stopped for rescues or were late out of Vila faced a pair of Ainsworth’s tin cans that had stuck around to rescue
Helena
survivors. The
Nagatsuki
ran aground. In daylight she would be pounded into a wreck by SOPAC airmen. Some
Helena
sailors, convinced they faced an enemy force of four new cruisers with eight destroyers, insisted they had blown every one out of the water. Admiral Ainsworth himself reported eight Japanese craft, claiming all of them sunk save one or two left as cripples. The CINCPAC war diary recorded that result. The truth was that no Japanese were visible because the Imperial Navy had disappeared into the night.

Even worse from the American point of view would be what became known as the Battle of Kolombangara, in the same waters a week later. Ainsworth was back with Task Group 36.1, the
Atlanta
replaced by New Zealand light cruiser
Leander
, with six extra destroyers for a total of ten. Every ship had radar and an integrated combat information center. They now sported a combination of search and microwave radars that enabled actual spotting of the fall of shells, optimally at 10,000 yards or less. Radar-controlled gunnery had become a reality. Ainsworth was there because of Ultra, confirmed by coastwatchers. So well-informed were the Allies that he could delay departure until late on July 12 and still be in position at the appointed hour. Ainsworth had a crushing superiority.