American attention, too, was switching to this crucial area of the southern Solomons. The overall commanders, Nimitz and MacArthur, were not men to remain on the defensive and, now that the pressure was off Hawaii, were seeking to regain their position in the South-West Pacific. The crucial questions of where to strike and who would command were resolved in a Joint Chiefs of Staff directive of 2nd July 1942, which contemplated a parallel advance upon Rabaul, up the Solomons chain and up the New Guinea Coast. This was to be accomplished in three stages; the seizure of the Santa Cruz Islands, then Tulagi and the adjacent islands; the occupation of the rest of the Solomons, together with Papua and New Guinea up to the Huon Peninsula; finally, the capture of Rabaul and the rest of the Bismarck Archipelago. For the first phase, code-named Operation Watchtower, the boundary between the South-West Pacific and Pacific Ocean Commands was moved so that the lower Solomons now came under the control of Nimitz. The other two phases were to be directed by MacArthur.
Three days after this directive had been given out, reconnaissance aircraft confirmed the earlier reports of the Australian coastwatchers that the Japanese had moved some forces from Tulagi to the large island of Guadalcanal nearby, where they were building an airfield. This news caused an immediate rethinking of American strategy, for were Japan allowed to establish a base for bombers and fighters at Guadalcanal then all Allied attempts to move into the Solomons and the Coral Sea would be threatened. The seizure of this island and especially the airstrip at Lunga Point (later known as Henderson Field) thereupon became the first and most pressing objective, and the Santa Cruz operation was promptly dropped. One reason for the abandonment of the latter was that this island group was very malarial—but Guadalcanal itself was not a very healthy or inviting place either. About ninety miles long and twenty five wide, it was a mixture of steep mountains, thick grasslands, rain forests and stinking swamps.
In the following weeks, forces were hastily assembled, command differences settled and an operational plan worked out. Nimitz gave overall strategic direction to the C-in-C South Pacific, Vice-Admiral Ghormley, although Fletcher was in tactical command of the operation and would control the three carrier groups, built around the Saratoga, Wasp and Enterprise. The landing force itself was under Rear-Admiral Turner, while Rear-Admiral Crutchley RN commanded TF 44, the mixed American-Australian support group of cruisers and destroyers. Brigadier-General Vandegrift was in charge of the landing troops: 19,000 US Marines (1st Marine Division, plus one regiment of the 2nd Marine Division, and ancillary forces) which were to be carried in nineteen transports. Land-based air support would come from island airstrips in Fiji, New Caledonia and the New Hebrides, and also from army planes under MacArthur's command. The landings were to be split into two groups, the larger to occupy Guadalcanal, the smaller Tulagi.
Following last-minute conferences and landing rehearsals in the Fiji Islands between 26th July and 1st August, the invasion force and escorts set out towards its target. Early on 7th August, Guadalcanal was in sight, following an uneventful journey. No enemy activity could be spotted on shore, although the convoy had been discovered by a Japanese reconnaissance plane the previous day. This picture of calm was then interrupted by a heavy bombardment from the naval support groups and by attacks from the carrier aircraft, which lasted until 0900 when the first Marines went ashore. Their advance proceeded smoothly and by that evening over 11,000 troops had landed. The airfield, which was virtually completed, was easily taken and the 2,200 Japanese—mainly construction workers—either fled or were annihilated. Tulagi proved a far harder nut to crack, however, and it was not until the 8th that the 6,000 Marines had wiped out the 1,600 enemy troops there. This was the first real indication to the Allies that Japanese troops, even if surrounded and beyond hope, would fight to the bitter end rather than surrender: it was a pattern that would repeat itself time and again in the future.
It was with a mixture of surprise and dismay that Tokyo realised that the United States had assumed the counteroffensive in the Pacific exactly eight months to the day after Pearl Harbor. On a more local note, it was important to retain Guadalcanal, since an American airbase there would threaten Japan's entire hold on the Solomons as well as preventing the thrust into the South-West Pacific. During the 7th and 8th, therefore, sporadic bombing attacks were made upon the landing craft and escorts but, forewarned by the Australian coastwatchers and defended by the carrier fighters, the latter suffered little damage. However, a much heavier counterattack was being prepared by the Japanese navy under Vice-Admiral Mikawa, the C-in-C 8th Fleet, at Rabaul. Having assembled five heavy and two light cruisers plus a destroyer, he planned to raid the landing area on the night of 8th–9th August, where his ships' superior night-fighting tactics could be employed.
In theory, the Americans should have been well prepared for this assault, for Mikawa's vessels were spotted as early as the 7th; but his force was not sighted moving down The Slot (the waters between the twin island chains of the Solomons) on the following day, and it was further believed that it included two seaplane carriers, which were probably getting in position to launch an air strike on the 9th. Moreover, at 1807 on the 8th, Fletcher announced that he was withdrawing his carriers as they were short of fuel and aircraft and this caused a worried Turner to summon Crutchley in HMAS Australia for consultation. All that was left to protect the landing force was the rest of Crutchley's mixed group of cruisers and destroyers. These were split into two patrols, covering the waters to the north and south of the offshore Savo Island, but they had little experience of working together, their commander was now absent and their watchkeeping on this particular night was deplorable. Slipping past the destroyer pickets, Mikawa's force quietly approached the southern patrol around 0138 on the 9th. After launching a flock of deadly 'long-lance' torpedoes, the Japanese then illuminated their unsuspecting victims with flares and searchlights and began shelling. The heavy cruiser HMAS Canberra, struck by twenty four shells within the first minute, immediately burst into flames and took a heavy list; her condition was so bad that she had to be sunk by an Allied destroyer some hours later. The Japanese also succeeded in blowing the bow off the American heavy cruiser Chicago, which was forced to retire from the action. So confused were these ships that no warnings were sent to the northern patrol or to Turner.
Swinging away to the north, Mikawa's ships then approached the second patrol in two columns and achieved a similar surprise. 'Pincered' from both flanks, the American heavy cruisers Vincennes, Astoria and Quincy were quickly knocked out by shells and torpedoes, all three sinking later that morning. Mikawa's force, though virtually unscathed, then sped swiftly back up The Slot around 0215, having achieved one of the swiftest victories on record. Fear of enemy air attack when dawn came caused him to abandon the attack upon the landing craft, which were almost defenceless. Had he pressed ahead, the American counteroffensive at Guadalcanal might have been brought to a complete halt.
As it was, the battle of Savo Island was a serious blow to the Allies, and the conduct of the various commanders caused a great deal of later recrimination. Four heavy cruisers had been lost and 1,023 men killed. Moreover, the threat posed by Japanese naval and air attacks prompted Turner to withdraw the transports during the afternoon of the 9th—although these vessels still held half the food and ammunition supplies, valuable equipment such as bulldozers, barbed wire, guns and radar, and over 1,000 Marines. Having lost his naval and air support, Vandegrift's troops were now out on a limb and he therefore ordered the creation of a five-mile long defence perimeter in case the Japanese attacked before fresh supplies and reinforcements arrived. However, Tokyo was far more interested at this stage in the parallel drive on Port Moresby, and had greatly underestimated the number of American troops on Guadalcanal. On the night of 17th August six destroyers put ashore about 1,000 men of the Ichiki Detachment a little to the east of the United States beachhead. Three days later, on the night of 20th–21st August, this force was mown down as it wildly charged the prepared American positions.
This first failure, at the battle of the Tenaru river, did not deter the Japanese from sending the remaining 1,500 troops of the Ichiki Detachment. It was hoped that this small force would re-take Henderson Field, which had received the first US air squadrons on 20th August; and also that the operation would tempt the Pacific Fleet into an elaborate trap, which was to be directed from Truk by Yamamoto himself. According to this plan, the troop convoy and its escorts would be preceded down The Slot by the light carrier Ryujo, a cruiser and two destroyers. Once the American carriers had revealed themselves by attacking this bait they would lay themselves open to a counterstrike from the Zuikaku and Shokaku under Nagumo, and what was left of them after that would be wiped out by a group of two battleships and three heavy cruisers under Kondo. Further assistance would be provided by Japanese submarines and by aircraft from Rabaul.
The Americans were aware that a heavy enemy strike was imminent, although their deciphering service did not discover the exact details of this plan. When the Ryujo group was spotted to the east of the Solomons on 24th August, therefore, Fletcher swallowed the bait and sent out sixty-seven bombers in two waves from the carriers Enterprise and Saratoga. Only when these planes were attacking the Ryujo, which was set on fire and later sank, was it realised that Nagumo's force was also in the area; but by that time the Zuikaku and Shokaku had themselves launched two strikes against the American carriers. The first of these was given a fierce reception, for not only had Fletcher kept fifty-three fighters back for defence, but he could also call upon the tremendous anti-aircraft fire of the new battleship North Carolina and the other escorts. In fact, less than ten of the eighty raiders returned but they did manage to cripple the Enterprise with three bomb hits. As a reprisal, though, the Saratoga's aircraft damaged the Japanese seaplane-carrier Chitose.
Fletcher withdrew southwards late in the day, only seventeen of his aircraft having been lost; Nagumo's carriers, too, were drawing away from the battlefield. But Kondo's battle force, believing that two enemy carriers were crippled, raced south during the night until they learned the truth and hurriedly returned before the dawn. The main battle of the Eastern Solomons was therefore inconclusive, although the Japanese had lost another carrier and many trained aircrews. Despite this, their troop convoy under the indomitable Rear-Admiral Tanaka was still pressing southwards on the 25th but by this time the aircraft from Henderson Field were playing their part, damaging Tanaka's light cruiser flagship Jintsu and sinking a transport. Moreover, a destroyer was hit and sunk by an army B-17, the first success scored by such planes in the Pacific. Following this surprise, Rabaul instructed the convoy to withdraw.
Although the second round in this series of naval duels over Guadalcanal had gone to the Americans, the balance was quickly redressed by several Japanese submarine successes. On 31st August, the Saratoga was put out of action for three months by a torpedo. A more severe blow came on 15th September, when the carrier Wasp was sunk and the battleship North Carolina damaged while escorting a convoy to the island. For a while, the Americans had only the carrier Hornet operating in the South-West Pacific. On the other hand, Allied aircraft virtually dominated the area by day, which led to a curious 'shift-system' of reinforcement. During the daylight hours, US transports would land men and supplies for Vandegrift's command; at night, the Japanese destroyers would rush down troops, bombard American positions and then hurry away before dawn brought retribution. In late August and early September the so-called 'Tokyo Express' shuttled about 6,000 men on to the island to the east of the American position. The Marines responded by sending out a reconnaissance battalion and by digging in along a position soon to be known as Bloody Ridge. This the Japanese frontally attacked on 13th–14th September, while smaller forces made flanking thrusts; but these were all beaten off with heavy loss to the attackers.
This defeat caused Lieutenant-General Hyakutake, commanding Seventeenth Army at Rabaul, to realise that piecemeal reinforcements were of little use and to give the Guadalcanal operation priority over the campaign in Papua. His views were probably confirmed when the Americans, strengthened by the arrival of 4,000 Marines on 18th September, took the Japanese positions around the Matanikau River on 7th–8th October after an earlier failure at that place. What was needed, Hyakutake saw, was a swift blow to knock the American forces off the island and he therefore collected troops from as far away as China and the Philippines to send down The Slot. Yet he still grossly underestimated the enemy's total, believing that there were only 7,500 Americans there instead of the actual 23,000. On the night of 11th–12th October, further Japanese troops were sent to Guadalcanal in two seaplane carriers and six destroyers, with a covering group of three heavy cruisers and two destroyers under Rear-Admiral Goto. At that same time, however, American warships were also off Guadalcanal and the meeting between these two forces led to the battle of Cape Esperance.
The American vessels were two heavy and two light cruisers with five destroyers, commanded by Rear-Admiral Scott, whose task it was to disrupt the enemy moves and to cover the landing of the 164th Regiment (Americal Division) from New Caledonia. Aided by reconnaissance and radar, Scott was able to 'cross the T' of Goto's ships as they headed between Savo Island and Cape Esperance shortly before midnight. In the ragged fighting that followed, the Japanese lost the heavy cruiser Furutaka and one destroyer, while Goto himself was killed when his cruiser Aoba was badly hit; and two of the troop-carrying destroyers were sunk by bombers from Henderson Field on the following day. American losses were far lighter, a destroyer sunk and a cruiser and a destroyer damaged, but Scott still did not prevent the landing of further Japanese reinforcements on the island. On the other hand, the American build-up was continually interrupted in the next few days by enemy air attacks and, on the night of 13th–14th October, by a heavy bombardment from two battleships, which tore up Henderson Field and forced the heavy bombers there to fly away to the New Hebrides. A similar bombardment by heavy cruisers occurred on the following night, when a further 4,000 Japanese troops were landed to bring their total up to 22,000 men.
Despite the replacement of Ghormley by the more aggressive Vice-Admiral Halsey on 18th October, this was probably the worst period for the Americans on the island. Moreover, the Japanese were planning a large-scale land operation combined with a further attempt to destroy the Pacific Fleet. A large part of Lieutenant-General Maruyama's 2nd Infantry Division cut a way through the jungle to attack the Americans from the south while diversionary thrusts, aided by artillery, air and naval bombardments, were staged in the west. However, the main assaults on 23rd–26th met up with fierce resistance from the prepared American positions, and the Japanese were forced to withdraw with over 2,000 killed. On the same day as this retreat, the opposing naval groups clashed in the battle of the Santa Cruz Islands.
An enormous force of four carriers, four battleships, fourteen cruisers and forty-four destroyers under Vice-Admiral Kondo had arrived off the north of the Solomons, waiting for word that Henderson Field had been taken before it proceeded to mop up enemy vessels in the area. Against this, the Americans could only field the carriers Hornet and Enterprise, the new battleship South Dakota, and cruiser and destroyer escorts. This task force Halsey placed under Rear-Admiral Kinkaid and sent sweeping to the north of the Santa Cruz Islands, just as Kondo's warships cruised southwards. Soon after sunrise on 26th October the two sides, forewarned by reconnaissance planes, flew off strikes. The first round went to the Americans at 0800, when two of their dive-bombers put the light carrier Zuiho out of action; but within an hour Japanese aircraft had riddled the Hornet with bombs and torpedoes, and two of the attackers made suicide crashes into the ship. The carrier's own bombers obtained some compensation for this by putting the Shokaku out of the war for nine months with four well-placed hits, and by crippling a heavy cruiser. However, at 1015 the Japanese second strike, though suffering heavy losses, damaged the Enterprise, South Dakota and a cruiser, and later proceeded to finish off the Hornet.
Technically, this had been a Japanese victory at sea, although they had lost on land. But once again they lost about one hundred planes (against the Americans' seventy four) which they could ill afford, and the two remaining carriers had insufficient aircraft to wrest aerial control from the Americans, whose air forces were being steadily built up. The land battle continued to suck in troops as both sides raised their bid. Between 2nd and 10th November the Japanese made no less than two cruiser and sixty-two destroyer trips with reinforcements and supplies from Rabaul. Several times the 'Tokyo Express' was interrupted, but by the 12th the Japanese garrison outnumbered the Americans for the first time. In reply the United States sailed a further 6,000 men to the island in two convoys under Rear-Admirals Scott and Callaghan, with distant cover from Kinkaid's battle force. This move led to the first of the two Naval Battles of Guadalcanal.
On 11th–12th November, despite air attacks, these troops were safely landed and the transports made off; but the covering force of five cruisers and eight destroyers, learning that an enemy bombarding group was on the way, stayed to defend the beachhead even though Kinkaid was too far away to offer support against the two Japanese battleships under Vice-Admiral Abe. Shortly after 0140 on the 13th, a brief but furious battle ensued. Both Scott and Callaghan were killed, an American cruiser and four destroyers were lost and almost all the other vessels were damaged. Another cruiser was later sunk by submarine. The Japanese lost two destroyers and their battleship Hiei was so badly damaged that it was an easy target the next day for Enterprise's bombers, which had been landed on Henderson Field. At 1800 the ship was scuttled, the first battleship the Japanese had lost in the war. Furthermore, their attempt to blast the Americans out of their beachhead with 14-inch shells had been called off and when a Japanese cruiser force bombarded the airfield later that night it was severely punished by enemy planes on the following morning, one of the ships being sunk and another three damaged.
The second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal took place on the night of 14th–15th November, this time with the roles reversed. A Japanese convoy of eleven transports carrying 11,000 troops and escorted by Tanaka's eleven destroyers steamed down The Slot in the broad daylight of the 14th, apparently believing that Henderson Field had been neutralised by the previous night's bombardment. Repeated air attacks soon proved that this was not so but Tanaka still pressed ahead, although only four of the transports got through. Following them was Kondo's force of the battleship Kirishima, four cruisers and nine destroyers, which shelled Henderson Field until they met up with Kinkaid's group of two battleships and four destroyers around 2300. Once again, a wild mělée took place, during which three American and one Japanese destroyers were sunk; but the decisive action was between the battleships themselves, a rare occurrence indeed in the Second World War. The electrical system of the South Dakota failed and she was then so badly hit that she had to be sent back to the United States for repairs. However, the radar-controlled fire of the Washington devastated the Kirishima with nine 16-inch and forty 5-inch shells within seven minutes, turning the Japanese battleship into a blazing hulk which was scuttled at 0320 on the 15th. Finally, when dawn revealed the four beached troop transports, they were swiftly set on fire by American aircraft. Less than 4,000 of the intended Japanese reinforcements had landed and the action had been a decisive victory for the United States.
Through their inability to neutralise Henderson Field, and their failure to strengthen their own forces on the island, the Japanese were slowly losing the prolonged campaign for Guadalcanal. On land, the American troops expanded their perimeter in early November and crushed an enemy landing force at Koli Point. By the end of the month, the United States had 188 aircraft on Henderson Field and because of this the Japanese were reduced to sending troops and supplies by fast destroyers alone. At night-fighting in close waters they still held the edge, though, as they showed during the Battle of Tassafaronga when Tanaka with a force of eight destroyers met up against Rear-Admiral Wright's five cruisers and four destroyers late on 30th November. Reacting smartly to an initial surprise, the Japanese lost only one destroyer while their 'long-lance' torpedoes sank one cruiser and damaged three others. Nevertheless, the overall position on land and in the air was steadily swinging in favour of the United States.
In the last few weeks of 1942, this trend continued. The 1st Marine Division was slowly replaced by the 2nd Marine, the 25th Infantry and the Americal Divisions, all placed under General Patch as the XIV US Corps. The Japanese, too, reorganised their armed forces in the South-West Pacific; Lieutenant-General Imamura became C-in-C Eighth Area Army, controlling Seventeenth Army (Solomons) and Eighteenth Army (New Guinea). Despite the Imperial Navy's urgings that the costly Guadalcanal campaign should be abandoned, Imamura was determined to press ahead and by the end of 1942 he had concentrated some 50,000 troops at Rabaul. However, these were unable to join the 25,000 Japanese already on Guadalcanal because of the American command of the air; only handfuls could be sent by submarine, since even runs by destroyers were becoming too dangerous. Furthermore, few supplies could reach the Japanese troops, who were on 1/3-rations and terribly weakened by malaria. In contrast, the Americans had built up their strength to 50,000 men by 7th January 1943 and were steadily extending their perimeter despite a tenacious defence by their foes.
Three days earlier, on 3rd January, Imperial General Headquarters at last accepted defeat and gave orders for the troops on the island to be evacuated. The main Japanese strength was again to be concentrated in New Guinea; and their defence line in the Solomons was to be moved further north, to New Georgia, where they were building an airstrip. Throughout that month, therefore, the Japanese troops slowly retreated towards Cape Esperance. They were followed at a respectful distance by the Americans, who believed that their enemy was merely re-grouping and was still receiving troop reinforcements by destroyer. In fact, the movement was all one way and on the nights of 1st, 4th and 7th February the remaining 12,000 weak, malaria-ridden soldiers were taken off by a large force of destroyers. Only one destroyer was lost in this operation, which was so skilfully concealed that the Americans did not realise until 9th February that the Japanese had fully withdrawn. Later that day Patch cheerfully reported to Halsey that 'Tokyo Express no longer has terminus on Guadalcanal'. The bloodiest campaign in the Pacific so far was at an end.
It was, of course, a terrific defeat for the Japanese, the more so because it came so shortly after the battles of Coral Sea and Midway and marked the beginnings of the American comeback in the Pacific. Around 25,000 Japanese soldiers were lost on the island, compared with only 1,600 Americans; human losses in the sea battles remain unknown. In tonnage lost, there was almost a balance on each side, the chief sinkings being the two Japanese battleships and the two United States fleet carriers. Most important of all was Japan's loss of hundreds of planes and trained aircrews—estimates vary between 600 and 900—while the American losses were much smaller and could be more readily made up. Finally, there was the morale factor: the runaway Japanese victory had been halted and her troops pushed back. Now it was the turn of the Allies to take the offensive.
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