_Enroute to Guadalcanal RAdm Richmond Kelly Turner, commander of the
Amphibious Force, and MajGen Alexander A. Vandegrift, 1st Marine
Division commander, review the Operation Watchtower plan for landings
in the Solomon Islands._]
In the opinion of the 1st Division’s historian and a veteran of
the landing, the men on the approaching transports “thought they’d
have a bad time getting ashore.” They were confident, certainly,
and sure that they could not be defeated, but most of the men were
entering combat for the first time. There were combat veteran officers
and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) throughout the division, but
the majority of the men were going into their initial battle. The
commanding officer of the 1st Marines, Colonel Clifton B. Cates,
estimated that 90 percent of his men had enlisted after Pearl Harbor.
The fabled 1st Marine Division of later World War II, Korean War,
Vietnam War, and Persian Gulf War fame, the most highly decorated
division in the U.S. Armed Forces, had not yet established its
reputation.
The convoy of ships, with its outriding protective screen of carriers,
reached Koro in the Fiji Islands on 26 July. Practice landings did
little more than exercise the transports’ landing craft, since reefs
precluded an actual beach landing. The rendezvous at Koro did give the
senior commanders a chance to have a face-to-face meeting. Fletcher,
McCain, Turner, and Vandegrift got together with Ghormley’s chief of
staff, Rear Admiral Daniel J. Callaghan, who notified the conferees
that ComSoPac had ordered the 7th Marines on Samoa to be prepared to
embark on four days notice as a reinforcement for Watchtower. To this
decidedly good news, Admiral Fletcher added some bad news. In view of
the threat from enemy land-based air, he could not “keep the carriers
in the area for more than 48 hours after the landing.” Vandegrift
protested that he needed at least four days to get the division’s gear
ashore, and Fletcher reluctantly agreed to keep his carriers at risk
another day.
On the 28th the ships sailed from the Fijis, proceeding as if they were
headed for Australia. At noon on 5 August, the convoy and its escorts
turned north for the Solomons. Undetected by the Japanese, the assault
force reached its target during the night of 6-7 August and split into
two landing groups, Transport Division X-Ray, 15 transports heading
for the north shore of Guadalcanal east of Lunga Point, and Transport
Division Yoke, eight transports headed for Tulagi, Gavutu, Tanambogo,
and the nearby Florida Island, which loomed over the smaller islands.
Vandegrift’s plans for the landings would put two of his infantry
regiments (Colonel LeRoy P. Hunt’s 5th Marines and Colonel Cates’
1st Marines) ashore on both sides of the Lunga River prepared to
attack inland to seize the airfield. The 11th Marines, the 3d Defense
Battalion, and most of the division’s supporting units would also land
near the Lunga, prepared to exploit the beachhead. Across the 20 miles
of Sealark Channel, the division’s assistant commander, Brigadier
General William H. Rupertus, led the assault forces slated to take
Tulagi, Gavutu, and Tanambogo: the 1st Raider Battalion (Lieutenant
Colonel Merritt A. Edson); the 2d Battalion, 5th Marines (Lieutenant
Colonel Harold E. Rosecrans); and the 1st Parachute Battalion (Major
Robert H. Williams). Company A of the 2d Marines would reconnoiter
the nearby shores of Florida Island and the rest of Colonel John A.
Arthur’s regiment would stand by in reserve to land where needed.
As the ships slipped through the channels on either side of rugged
Savo Island, which split Sealark near its western end, heavy clouds
and dense rain blanketed the task force. Later the moon came out and
silhouetted the islands. On board his command ship, Vandegrift wrote
to his wife: “Tomorrow morning at dawn we land in our first major
offensive of the war. Our plans have been made and God grant that our
judgement has been sound ... whatever happens you’ll know I did my
best. Let us hope that best will be good enough.”
[Illustration: _MajGen Alexander A. Vandegrift, CG, 1st Marine
Division, confers with his staff on board the transport USS _McCawley_
(APA-4) enroute to Guadalcanal. From left: Gen Vandegrift; LtCol
Gerald C. Thomas, operations officer; LtCol Randolph McC. Pate,
logistics officer; LtCol Frank B. Goettge, intelligence officer; and
Col William Capers James, chief of staff._
National Archives Photo 80-G-17065
]
At 0641 on 7 August, Turner signalled his ships to “land the landing
force.” Just 28 minutes before, the heavy cruiser _Quincy_ (CA 39)
had begun shelling the landing beaches at Guadalcanal. The sun came
up that fateful Friday at 0650, and the first landing craft carrying
assault troops of the 5th Marines touched down at 0909 on Red Beach.
To the men’s surprise (and relief), no Japanese appeared to resist the
landing. Hunt immediately moved his assault troops off the beach and
into the surrounding jungle, waded the steep-banked Ilu River, and
headed for the enemy airfield. The following 1st Marines were able to
cross the Ilu on a bridge the engineers had hastily thrown up with
an amphibian tractor bracing its middle. The silence was eerie and
the absence of opposition was worrisome to the riflemen. The Japanese
troops, most of whom were Korean laborers, had fled to the west,
spooked by a week’s B-17 bombardment, the pre-assault naval gunfire,
and the sight of the ships offshore. The situation was not the same
across Sealark. The Marines on Guadalcanal could hear faint rumbles of
a firefight across the waters.
[Illustration: