Rommel needed to attack. Every day he was getting weaker and the British were getting stronger. The ships and planes of Malta were wreaking havoc on his convoys and he was beginning to regret the decision not to invade the small island after his victory at Gazala (the supplies for Operation Herkules, the invasion of Malta, were pushed to him to continue his pursuit further into Egypt). A thousand miles from his ports in Libya, the very trucks delivering the fuel were using the bulk of it. Nevertheless, he had defeated a succession of Eighth Army commanders, Cunningham, Ritchie, and Auchinleck, and now it was the turn of the newest Eighth Army commander, LtGen Bernard Montgomery.

Monty wasn’t the first choice for the next Eighth Army commander. After Auchinleck fired Ritchie and took command himself, LtGen William Gott was chosen to succeed Ritchie. However, he was killed when his plane was shot down on his way to the front. Montgomery was the next choice.Montgomery might have been an arrogant martinet that was difficult to deal with, but he was a master planner, first class trainer of men, and he wasn’t afraid to sack an incompetent officer. Most importantly, he had an unshakable conviction in inevitable victory. Monty despised defeatism in all its forms, and this included even prudent measures in case Rommel broke through at El Alamein. As soon as he took tactical command of the Eighth Army from Auchinleck , the first thing he did was order worked ceased on defensive positions around Alexandria and Cairo. Rommel would be stopped at El Alamein, or they would die trying. In a popular story at the time, Monty said of his appointment, “After having an easy war, things have now got much more difficult.” A friend tried to encourage him, but Montgomery stopped him and said, “I was talking about Rommel”. 

The British defenses were strengthened along the coast road but gradually thinned the farther south Rommel went. There was an obvious gap far to the south where it was clear the British intended Rommel to attack. But he had no choice. If he couldn’t have the element of surprise as to the location, he would have it with the speed and tempo of his breakthrough. Rommel planned to be through the minefields before the British could react. This would allow him time to establish a hasty defense with his 88mm anti-tank guns and easily defeat the inevitable British counterattack. Once the British tanks were destroyed, he would breakout into their rear areas and then isolate and begin systematically destroying the British defensive boxes. Once that happened, the British would withdraw, as they always have. On 30 August 1942, Rommel struck, and he quickly broke through the minefield. He brought up his long range anti tanks guns and awaited the British armor.

But they never came.

Rommel continued his advance, confident that he would soon come upon British rear area units and supply depots. What he ran into was massed dug in armor and anti-guns on Alam Halfa Ridge, far behind the British main line of resistance.

In previous engagements in the Western Desert, Allied reconnaissance would identify Rommel’s panzers, and the British armoured brigades would charge forth in the grandest tradition of the Scots Greys and Household Cavalry of yore. And they would be massacred by Rommel’s 88s. The number of times in the past 18 months that a few panzers were used as bait for waiting 88s were almost too many to count. But cavalry “attacks”, that’s what it does. At least until Monty came along.

Much to the disgust of his armour and cavalry officers, Monty forbade them to attack, and ordered them to dig in on Alam Halfa Ridge and wait for the Germans. The defensive boxes along the frontier were in strong positions and could survive isolated for a few days. As the Afrika Korps and the Italian XX Corps through the south, they were extending their vulnerable supply lines to air and artillery attack. The battle proceeded just as Monty predicted.

The Germans and Italians saw themselves for the first time on the receiving end of long range anti-tank fire, and as they got closer to Alam Halfa Ridge, massed tank fire in a well-rehearsed engagement area. Furthermore, the Eighth Army was the beneficiary of Roosevelt’s pledge to reinforce Egypt after the fall of Tobruk, so the British sported more American tanks in the form of Honeys (Stuarts) and the newer Grant tank with its hull mounted 75mm gun and turret mounted 37mm guns (known as the Lee in America. The only real difference was the shape of the turret). German and Italian infantry assaulted the Commonwealth positions in order to expand the gap and take pressure off the fight at Alam Halfa, but although there was some hard fighting, they were unsuccessful.

Rommel was saved from being cut off and destroyed by an unfortunate turn of events. After Rommel was decisively engaged on Alam Halfa Ridge, Montgomery gave orders to limit tank losses so as to not jeopardize the upcoming decisive counteroffensive. However, the 4/8 Hussars (the combined 4th Queen’s Own and 8th Royal Irish Hussars) saw an opportunity to raid Rommel’s supply lines and did so to great effect: they shot up and destroyed almost 57 trucks and lorries. This unfortunately forced Rommel to send the Italian XX Corps back to secure his extended line of logistics. This act and the lack of fuel eventually forced Rommel to withdraw completely the next day. However, it also saved him when Montgomery’s counterattack to cut him off on the east side of the frontier minefields ran into the Italians, who were thus in position to throw back the British and Kiwi attack. They did so handily.

By the evening of 4 September, 1942, Rommel was back in his start positions, prepared to defend. However, the Eighth Army didn’t attack. As Auchinleck had discovered the year before, the only way to assure Rommel’s defeat was to have an overwhelming preponderance in supplies. Otherwise, the offensive would fall just short, and then Rommel would be in position in Libya to mass supplies more easily. This is exactly what happened to Operation Crusader. It was better to keep a starving and thirsty Rommel in Egypt where his fuel and ammunition had to endure Malta’s, the RAF’s and the LRDG’s raids, not to mention his own trucks guzzling his tanks’ fuel, before it arrived at the front. All the while American lend-lease equipment poured in to Haifa and Alexandria, a short drive away.

Montgomery estimated he’d need another month.

German General Frederick Von Paulus’ Sixth Army was finally within striking distance of Stalingrad. Throughout late July and early August of 1942, General Wolfram Von Richthofen ‘s 4th Air Flotte, the most powerful air formation in the world at that time, was isolating Stalingrad as they approached. Richthofen’s bombers sank every ship and ferry on the Volga that connected the city to the outside world.

On 23 August 1942, those bombers turned Stalingrad into rubble in preparation for Sixth’s Army attack and created a firestorm that killed thousands of civilians and turned the rest homeless. Many civilians had evacuated Stalingrad in the previous weeks but on Stalin’s the order most were stopped and put to work strengthening the defenses of the city, or continued to work in the factories, in particular the Volograd Tractor Plant which was retooled to produce T-34 tanks.

Although the Marines didn’t appreciate it at the time, Fletcher’s carriers prevented the Japanese from landing transports full of Japanese troops and supplies, because the slow and heavy transports couldn’t make the trip to Guadalcanal and be back out of range of Fletcher’s aircraft before dawn. So instead of transports, the Japanese used the fast destroyers of Rear Admiral Raizo Tanaka’s 2nd Destroyer Squadron. They couldn’t carry a fraction of what the transports could, but they could make the trip and be back before they were inevitably strafed and bombed by American planes, that ironically appeared over the Solomon’s with the rising sun. On the evening on 18 August 1942, Tanaka made the first of many nightly runs down the Slot to deliver men and material to Guadalcanal from Rabaul, soon dubbed by the Marines as “The Tokyo Express”.

The Tokyo Express’s first passengers were the 917 men of Kiyanao Ichiki’s 28th Infantry Regiment. The Japanese 17th Army (similar to a American army corps) was committed to the fight along the Kokoda Track in New Guinea, so troops from the Philippine’s had to be detached and sent south piecemeal. The first to arrive was Ichiki’s men.

The 28th Infantry Regiment suffered from “victory disease”, in Ichiki’s own words, as if it was a good thing, and they weren’t going to wait for Tanaka to bring more men. Ichiki was going to attack as soon as possible – the 11,000 men of the 1st Marine Division dug in at Lunga Point around Henderson Field be damned.

Ichiki’s confidence, though foolhardy, was not entirely misplaced. The 28th was a veteran outfit of the war with China, the Soviet Union in 1939, and Philippines’ campaign. The Marines on the perimeter had no experience beyond dealing with the harassing attacks by the labour and construction battalion that had fled into the jungle as they landed.

But the Marines were fast learners, and the aggressive and persistent harassment by the construction battalion had taught them nighttime noise and light discipline the hard way. Furthermore, the coast watchers had warned of Ichiki’s landing, and on the evening of 19 August, Ichiki’s reconnaissance patrol was ambushed and destroyed. The Marines knew first line Japanese assault troop were on the island and prepared accordingly. They didn’t, however, expect Ichiki to attack so soon.

As soon as Ichiki landed, he quickly led his men to the north coast of the island to the east of the American lines. Just after midnight on 21 August, Ichiki’s men blundered into the Marine lines as they attempted to cross the Ilu River, dubbed by the Americans “Alligator Creek” (There are no alligators in the Solomon’s, only crocodiles.) The Marines were waiting for them.

Ichiki was surprised at contact with the Americans so far from Henderson Field, but decided to attack anyway. The Marine position was strong, but furious banzai charges starting about 4am threatened to overwhelm the defenders and break through nonetheless. That they did not, was almost entirely due to six heavy machine guns and a 37mm anti-tank gun firing canister rounds from the battalion weapons company attached to the defenders the evening before. For four hours these guns massacred wave after wave of Japanese crossing the shallow river. Even so, it was a near run thing as accurate covering fire raked the American positions as the swarming Japanese consistently got within hand grenade range, and even overran several before being pushed back by counterattacking Marines.

One water-cooled Browning .30 Cal was crewed by PFC Al Schmid after his gunner was wounded, and the other assistant gunner killed. The wounded Schmid continually loaded and fired the heavy gun himself under the tutelage of the badly wounded gunner who couldn’t move to help and broke up several assaults. An hour before dawn, Schmid was struck by grenade fragments in the face, and was blinded. Despite not being able to see Schmid continued to fight: the blind Schmid pointed and fired the gun at the gunner’s directions, who had painfully managed to position himself to observe the attacking Japanese. They continued this until the sun came up. 200 Japanese bodies were found in and around their machine gun.

At dawn, a Marine battalion counterattacked down Alligator Creek and pinned the remainder of Ichiki’s regiment against the coast and the Ilu River lagoon. There they were systematically destroyed by the assaulting Marines, assisted three Stuart tanks, whose obsolescence mattered not against the trapped Japanese. A four plane flight of Wildcat fighters, newly arrived to Henderson Field the day before, joined in with their combined 16 .50 Cal machineguns. Ichiki, watching from the bank and recognizing the magnitude of his failure, calmly stood up, straightened his uniform, and walked toward one of the tanks.

790 of the 805 attacking Japanese were killed, just 15 were captured. The starving and haggard remainderof the 28th Regiment, left behind as a rear guard, would shock the rest of Ichiki’s brigade spreading tales of the American’s defensive firepower, when they arrived via Tanak’s Tokyo Express eight days later. Upon learning of Ichiki’s and his men’s fate, the astonished Admiral Yamamoto ordered a proper reception for the Marines on the Solomon Islands.

Admiral Fletcher would get his battle with the Japanese aircraft carriers.

Vice Admiral Fletcher, the Operation Watchtower expedition commander and overall commander of Task Force 61, which included the all important aircraft carriers, was operating on Nimitz’ principle of “calculated risk”, “which you shall interpret to mean the avoidance of exposure of your force to attack by superior enemy forces without good prospect of inflicting, as a result of such exposure, greater damage on the enemy”. And Fletcher’s carriers, at the time America’s most precious military capability, were dangerously exposed in the waters off Guadalcanal.

From an intelligence point of view, Operation Watchtower was “a stab in the dark”, and the Allies had no real idea what was waiting for them in the Solomons. If the remaining Japanese carriers were at Rabaul when the landings began, their planes could appear at anytime from any direction beginning on the 9th of August 1942. And it wasn’t like the Saratoga, Wasp, and Enterprise could hide: the Japanese knew exactly where they were.Two weeks previously, off Fiji on the Saratoga at the final commander’s conference prior to Operation Watchtower, Fletcher announced that the carriers would only remain off Guadalcanal until the 9th, and this infuriated both RearAdm Kelly Turner, the commander of the invasion force, and MajGen Vandegrift, the commander of the 1st Marine Division. The gentlemanly southerner Vandegrift almost lost his cool as he calmly explained that they would need more than two days to unload the transports, especially since there were no docks or port facilities available. Everything would have be manhandled over the beaches. Turner, a protege of the gruff Adm King who was no fan of Fletcher, did lose his cool as he complained the Watchtower timeline left him no chance to reconfigure the transports from a commerce load, i.e. packed for efficiency, to a combat load where the critical items e.g. food and ammunition, can be off loaded first. In a conversation in a passageway during a break, Turner was overheard calling his nominal superior “yellow” if the carriers departed before the 11th of August.

But Fletcher had fuel on his mind among many other things. There weren’t enough oil tankers in theater and America couldn’t produce them fast enough. None of the resurrected battlewagons damaged on 7 December were in the South Pacific precisely because they hogged the available fuel. Furthermore the US Navy’s proficiency in underway replenishment was poor at best and operationally detrimental at worst. The Watchtower task forces might as well have been tied to a post like a dog. That post was Noumea, Caledonia, and the chain only extended as far as Guadalcanal, and then only for a few days.

On 8 August, 1942, Fletcher’s carriers had five days of fuel left at cruising speed (15kts) or two at battle speed (25 kts). The fast battleship North Carolina, which was of the newest class and much more fuel efficient that her predecessors, had less than that, due to an unfortunate staff error involving a chart with an incorrect marking for the Intl Date Line, which forced the North Carolina to be late to the rendezvous and unable to top off.

But it wasn’t just fuel, in defending against the Japanese air attacks over the past two days, Fletcher’s carriers had lost nearly 20% of their planes, and they hadn’t even come across any Japanese carrier borne aircraft yet. Fletcher had two carriers sunk from underneath him previously, the Lady Lex in the Coral Sea in May, and the Yorktown at Midway in June. He was tired of getting his feet wet and the losses were fueling rumors that he was senile and incompetent. He wasn’t going to stick around for a third time. He only had two days of fuel for battle then he’d be forced to retire in any case. If the Japanese did show up on the 9th or 10th, he’d rather engage them on the 11th with a full belly. The Japanese carriers weren’t going anywhere once they were off Guadalcanal. This wouldn’t endear him to the Marines taking the brunt of the air attacks, especially after the Navy abandoned Wake Island in similar circumstances earlier in the war. Marines have long memories.

In the end Fletcher’s departure on the 9th was probably for the best. Any Marine casualties on Guadalcanal due to the air attacks would be a tragedy, but a local one. The loss of the carriers would be a national tragedy. In the cold logic of war, there were more Marines in training and in the pipeline to the South Pacific. This was not true for aircraft carriers. The next American carrier scheduled to come out of a shipyard wouldn’t be ready for another six months at best (the USS Essex would be commissioned in December 1942 and then the Bonhomme Richard in April, 43). Until then, Fletcher’s carriers were the only thing standing between Japan and wherever they decided to strike next. 

Fletcher made his final decision on the night of the 8th to depart Guadalcanal the next morning, despite vehement protests by Turner and Vandegrift. The transports weren’t even close to being unloaded, though there is some evidence that the unorganized Marines on the beach were just as much to blame. Nevertheless, with heavy carrier fighter losses beating back the numerous Japanese land based planes, low fuel, and his escort ships clearly out fought in night surface actions, Fletcher took his ships, and by default Turner’s, out of the confining straits off of Guadalcanal and into the open ocean where they could be more easily defended and refueled.

The Marines securing the beachhead and airfield on Guadalcanal were on their own.

With rare exceptions, the Japanese were surprised but completely unconcerned with the American landings in the Solomons. When Emperor Hirohito inquired, he was told that it was “nothing worthy of your majesty’s attention”. The thinking went that once Port Moresby and Papua/New Guinea were captured, which seemed inevitable in early August 1942, the Japanese could retake the southern Solomons at their leisure. The one exception to the blasé Japanese attitude to the landings was the newly appointed commander of the 8th Fleet at Rabaul, Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa.

Mikawa was Japan’s premier surface warfare officer, but in the 30s, he was quick to recognize the primacy of naval air power. He concluded that future surface warfare would be conducted when and where carrier air power would be limited: at night, in bad weather, and in confined waters. For a decade, he promoted and demanded Japanese perfection in navigation, surface torpedo operations, and most importantly, night gunnery. His efforts would pay off in the early morning hours of 9 August 1942.

Unlike his peers and superiors, Mikawa was gravely concerned with the American landings. On first report from the garrison on Tulagi, Mikawa gathered every surface combatant available, and within hours, his ad hoc squadron was refueled and headed down the St George Sound (soon to be nicknamed “The Slot”) to engage the vulnerable transports unloading onto Guadalcanal from the Savo Sound. Mikawa had only five heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and a single destroyer to attack the vast Allied armada in the area, but an attempt had to be tried: once the transports were unloaded, the Americans would be exponentially harder to dislodge. There were reports of an American battleship in the area (the new and fast USS North Carolina) but Mikawa was more concerned with the carriers. He needed to quickly strike at night and be back up the Slot out of range of their aircraft before dawn.

Mikawa’s ships were almost immediately spotted speeding down The Slot by a Kiwi search plane from New Guinea. Unfortunately, the young pilot mistook the two largest cruisers as seaplane tenders, and Fletcher’s analysts, when they received the report many many hours later, assumed the Japanese were attempting to replace the seaplane base destroyed at Gavutu with another farther up the island chain. They dismissed the report. About 0130 on 9 August 1942, Mikawa skillfully approached Savo Island unhindered and undetected by the Allies.

The evening before, Adm Turner’s escorts of eight American and Australian heavy cruisers and eight destroyers under Australian Rear Admiral Victor Crutchley were deployed in three groups to protect the vulnerable transports. One each east, north, and south of Savo Island with a two destroyer radar picket northwest of the island. About midnight, Crutchley was called to confer with a furious Turner, after Turner and Vandegrift had been informed that Fletcher planned to depart the Guadalcanal area with the carriers and the North Carolina to refuel. With Crutchley’s departure to confer with Turner, command of the escorts fell to Capt Howard Bode of the Chicago in the southern group. However, he didn’t tell the other groups.

(The reasons for Fletcher’s departure is another entire post. However, one point needs to be brought up – In one of those quirks of fate, the North Carolina, the most powerful surface vessel in the South Pacific at that moment, should not have needed to refuel and should have been present for the upcoming fight. However two weeks before, Fletcher’s tactical commander, in direct command of the carriers and battleship, arrived at Fiji a day late because his chart had an incorrect location for the Intl Date Line. This meant the thirsty North Carolina had to spend one less day in port and couldn’t fully refuel. By 8 Aug, she was running on the capital ship equivalent of fumes, and had to depart the area, thereby missing the battle. Whether or not that chart cost a lot of lives is a matter of speculation, but “The Showboat’s” nine 16″ guns, 20 5″ guns, and more importantly her powerful search radar, were almost certainly missed that night.)

Capt. Bode at the time was more concerned with a submarine threat in the confined waters of the Savo Sound. Furthermore, like everyone else in the task force and on Fletcher’s staff, he didn’t take into consideration Mikawa’s initiative and audacity, and assumed that any Japanese surface response would require at least another day. Moreover, he was an old school surface warrior, and like most American senior naval officers at the time, didn’t really understand the capabilities and limitations of the new fangled radar systems recently installed on their ships. Bode assumed that radar would give away his position (he was right, but years too early as the technology to do so hadn’t matured yet) so he forbade the use of the search radar, and allowed only a single sweep of the fire control radar, which missed the Japanese. He relied on the picket destroyers’ radar to give early warning, but their radars were seriously degraded by echoes from the nearby islands and had but 1/4 the range briefed by the manufacturer. Even so, the southern picket came within 2km of Mikawa’s force and failed to sight them. The much more vigilant northern picket spotted them at 0143, but by that time Mikawa’s torpedoes were already in the water. Minutes later, his cruisers’ big guns were raking Bode’s southern group.

The watch officers of the HMAS Canberra and USS Chicago in the southern group barely had a chance to sound general quarters. Lookouts spotted flashes in the distance that they thought were lightning or fires on Savo Island. A few seconds after the northern picket reported “strange ships” – Mikawa’s float planes dropped flares, powerful search lights illuminated the two ships, and ranging shots and torpedoes littered the water around them.

Almost immediately the Canberra was dead in the water and burning, and the Chicago was holed below the water line, battered up top, and steaming west out of the fight. Neither fired their weapons, nor even reported contact. Mikawa then turned on the unsuspecting northern group.

“Unsuspecting” may be the wrong word: There were certainly indications of what was going on to the south. “Disbelieving” may be better. The northern picket’s warning of “strange ships” was missed amongst the “administrivia” chatter of the midship watch. The sounds of gunfire was dismissed as fire support for the Marines. The light show and flares were assumed to be star shells fired by destroyers, fires on the beaches, or lightning. The sound of planes overhead were believed to be non threatening. One radar operator, convinced he was seeing Japanese in his scope, was relieved and threatened with a stay in the brig for falsely reporting “echoes” on his scope. Together the clues paint a picture of incompetence, but after 48 hours of constant battle stations and air attack, there was just enough possibility for a benign explanation of each isolated report that the exhausted crews could excuse them away, especially since surface contact wasn’t expected til the next evening. The only ship in the northern group at general quarters was the Astoria, and then only because a defiant young lieutenant pulled the alarm lever in front of his incredulous captain. The young man was still standing tall getting his ass chewed by his furious superior when the first Japanese shells slammed amidships. His “mutinous actions” saved more than a few lives that night.

American crew battle drills at this point in the war were still rooted in peace time operations, in particular the move to general quarters. It was akin to a massive “game of musical chairs”. Each crew member had a watch station for normal cruising, and a battle station in the event of general quarters. Since battle stations required positions for the entire crew, chances were likely that these positions were different because the senior crew member always occupied the important positions during battle stations. If during the watch a junior crew member occupied a position, say navigation for example, during battle stations he would be replaced by a more experienced crew member. This requires a quick “change over” brief to pass the position’s responsibilities, then the junior crew member would go to his own assigned position, where it was very likely he’d be senior to the person already there, which would require another brief. This process of moving from normal watch stations to battle stations could take several minutes in the best of circumstances. In peacetime this was acceptable; in wartime when seconds mattered and the first combatant to put steel on target usually won, this was a death sentence.

Mikawa would say later that he was impressed with the tenacity and potential firepower of the northern group, especially the Astoria, and had the Americans had any warning the battle would have been much different. But the Japanese surprise was effectively complete and they were simply quicker to put ordnance on target. It didn’t help that American fire prevention and damage control were non-existent or woefully antiquated. By 0215, all three cruisers of the northern group, the Vincennes, Quincy, and Astoria, were on fire and sinking.

In less than 35 minutes, one Australian and three American capital ships were out of action, the rest scattered, more than a thousand sailors were killed, and thousands more wounded and floating in the shark infested waters. The rout of the invasion force’s escort task force was complete. Adm King in Washington would call the Battle of Savo Island “the blackest day of the war” for the US Navy. Only two American cruisers remained: the anti aircraft cruiser Juneau in the eastern group, who had no gun larger than 5″, and Crutchley’s HMAS Australia which was intermingled with Turner’s transports. The Japanese suffered only two hits and a few dozen casualties.

But most disconcertingly, Turner’s transports lay naked and exposed under the harsh phosphorescent glare of the flares dropped by Mikawa’s scout planes. They were at the mercy of the Japanese.

Of the two hits suffered by the Japanese, one struck Mikawa’s flagship, the Chokai, and nearly killed him and his staff. In the confusion of that hit from the Astoria, Mikawa assumed the rest of his ships were suffering as badly. This however was not the case. Furthermore, Mikawa commanded escorts at Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea, and Midway, and had a very healthy respect for naval air power. He did not want to be caught in range at first light. He calculated that he needed to commence the engagement of the transports no later than 0130 in order to be safely away by dawn. It was almost an hour later and he was still twenty miles from them and getting father away by the minute. Finally, he had no idea of the disposition of the remaining escorts, including the battleship and the carrier escorts. He felt he couldn’t risk almost certain destruction of the only Japanese fighting ships in the Solomons. So he continued back up the Slot.

The battered and confused Americans were astonished when it became clear that Mikawa was continuing north, away from the vital transports.

Turner’s transports were saved, but they wouldn’t do Vandegrift’s Marines any good, at least in the short term. Unbeknownst to Mikawa, Fletcher’s carriers were already headed in the opposite direction to refuel. With no air cover, and most of his escorts sunk, Turner had to follow.

As the sun rose, the Marines on Guadalcanal gazed out into what the Navy was now calling “Iron Bottom Sound”, they saw empty ocean.

The 1st Marine Division was all alone.