_On 20 August, the first Marine Corps aircraft such as this F4F Grumman
Wildcat landed on Henderson Field to begin combat air operations
against the Japanese._]
While the Japanese landing force was headed for Guadalcanal, the
Japanese already on the island provided an unpleasant reminder that
they, too, were full of fight. A captured enemy naval rating, taken in
the constant patrolling to the west of the perimeter, indicated that a
Japanese group wanted to surrender near the village of Kokumbona, seven
miles west of the Matanikau. This was the area that Lieutenant Colonel
Goettge considered held most of the enemy troops who had fled the
airfield. On the night of 12 August, a reconnaissance patrol of 25 men
led by Goettge himself left the perimeter by landing craft. The patrol
landed near its objective, was ambushed, and virtually wiped out. Only
three men managed to swim and wade back to the Marine lines. The bodies
of the other members of the patrol were never found. To this day, the
fate of the Goettge patrol continues to intrigue researchers.
After the loss of Goettge and his men, vigilance increased on the
perimeter. On the 14th, a fabled character, the coastwatcher Martin
Clemens, came strolling out of the jungle into the Marine lines. He
had watched the landing from the hills south of the airfield and now
brought his bodyguard of native policemen with him. A retired sergeant
major of the British Solomon Islands Constabulary, Jacob C. Vouza,
volunteered about this time to search out Japanese to the east of
the perimeter, where patrol sightings and contacts had indicated the
Japanese might have effected a landing.
The ominous news of Japanese sightings to the east and west of the
perimeter were balanced out by the joyous word that more Marines
had landed. This time the Marines were aviators. On 20 August, two
squadrons of Marine Aircraft Group (MAG)-23 were launched from the
escort carrier _Long Island_ (CVE-1) located 200 miles southeast of
Guadalcanal. Captain John L. Smith led 19 Grumman F4F-4 Wildcats of
Marine Fighting Squadron (VMF)-223 onto Henderson’s narrow runway.
Smith’s fighters were followed by Major Richard C. Mangrum’s Marine
Scout-Bombing Squadron (VMSB)-232 with 12 Douglas SBD-3 Dauntless dive
bombers.
From this point of the campaign, the radio identification for
Guadalcanal, Cactus, became increasingly synonymous with the island.
The Marine planes became the first elements of what would informally be
known as Cactus Air Force.
[Illustration: _The first Army Air Forces P-400 Bell Air Cobras arrived
on Guadalcanal on 22 August, two days after the first Marine planes,
and began operations immediately._
National Archives Photo 208-N-4932
]
Wasting no time, the Marine pilots were soon in action against the
Japanese naval aircraft which frequently attacked Guadalcanal. Smith
shot down his first enemy Zero fighter on 21 August; three days later
VMF-223’s Wildcats intercepted a strong Japanese aerial attack force
and downed 16 enemy planes. In this action, Captain Marion E. Carl, a
veteran of Midway, shot down three planes. On the 22d, coastwatchers
alerted Cactus to an approaching air attack and 13 of 16 enemy bombers
were destroyed. At the same time, Mangrum’s dive bombers damaged
three enemy destroyer-transports attempting to reach Guadalcanal. On
24 August, the American attacking aircraft, which now included Navy
scout-bombers from the _Saratoga_’s Scouting Squadron (VS) 5, succeeded
in turning back a Japanese reinforcement convoy of warships and
destroyers.
On 22 August, five Bell P-400 Air Cobras of the Army’s 67th Fighter
Squadron had landed at Henderson, followed within the week by nine more
Air Cobras. The Army planes, which had serious altitude and climb-rate
deficiencies, were destined to see most action in ground combat support
roles.
The frenzied action in what became known as the Battle of the Eastern
Solomons was matched ashore. Japanese destroyers had delivered the
vanguard of the Ichiki force at Taivu Point, 25 miles east of the
Marine perimeter. A long-range patrol of Marines from Company A, 1st
Battalion, 1st Marines ambushed a sizable Japanese force near Taivu on
19 August. The Japanese dead were readily identified as Army troops and
the debris of their defeat included fresh uniforms and a large amount
of communication gear. Clearly, a new phase of the fighting had begun.
All Japanese encountered to this point had been naval troops.
Alerted by patrols, the Marines now dug in along the Ilu River, often
misnamed the Tenaru on Marine maps, were ready for Colonel Ichiki. The
Japanese commander’s orders directed him to “quickly recapture and
maintain the airfield at Guadalcanal,” and his own directive to his
troops emphasized that they would fight “to the last breath of the last
man.” And they did.
[Illustration: U.S. M-3 Light Tank]
Too full of his mission to wait for the rest of his regiment and sure
that he faced only a few thousand men overall, Ichiki marched from
Taivu to the Marines’ lines. Before he attacked on the night of the
20th, a bloody figure stumbled out of the jungle with a warning that
the Japanese were coming. It was Sergeant Major Vouza. Captured by the
Japanese, who found a small American flag secreted in his loincloth, he
was tortured in a failed attempt to gain information on the invasion
force. Tied to a tree, bayonetted twice through the chest, and beaten
with rifle butts, the resolute Vouza chewed through his bindings
to escape. Taken to Lieutenant Colonel Edwin A. Pollock, whose 2d
Battalion, 1st Marines held the Ilu mouth’s defenses, he gasped a
warning that an estimated 250-500 Japanese soldiers were coming behind
him. The resolute Vouza, rushed immediately to an aid station and then
to the division hospital, miraculously survived his ordeal and was
awarded a Silver Star for his heroism by General Vandegrift, and later
a Legion of Merit. Vandegrift also made Vouza an honorary sergeant
major of U.S. Marines.
At 0130 on 21 August, Ichiki’s troops stormed the Marines’ lines in a
screaming, frenzied display of the “spiritual strength” which they had
been assured would sweep aside their American enemy. As the Japanese
charged across the sand bar astride the Ilu’s mouth, Pollock’s Marines
cut them down. After a mortar preparation, the Japanese tried again
to storm past the sand bar. A section of 37mm guns sprayed the enemy
force with deadly canister. Lieutenant Colonel Lenard B. Cresswell’s
1st Battalion, 1st Marines moved upstream on the Ilu at daybreak, waded
across the sluggish, 50-foot-wide stream, and moved on the flank of the
Japanese. Wildcats from VMF-223 strafed the beleagured enemy force.
Five light tanks blasted the retreating Japanese. By 1700, as the sun
was setting, the battle ended.
Colonel Ichiki, disgraced in his own mind by his defeat, burned his
regimental colors and shot himself. Close to 800 of his men joined
him in death. The few survivors fled eastward towards Taivu Point.
Rear Admiral Raizo Tanaka, whose reinforcement force of transports and
destroyers was largely responsible for the subsequent Japanese troop
buildup on Guadalcanal, recognized that the unsupported Japanese attack
was sheer folly and reflected that “this tragedy should have taught us
the hopelessness of bamboo spear tactics.” Fortunately for the Marines,
Ichiki’s overconfidence was not unique among Japanese commanders.
[Illustration: