On That First Day on Guadalcanal

Why so little Japanese resistance?

During the months after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and other Asian targets, the United States was driven from the Philippines, the British surrendered Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong, French Indochina fell, and the Dutch lost the East Indies.  

This dire threat led to the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942, where Japanese and U.S. Navy carrier forces fought to a tactical draw, resulting in a strategic victory, albeit temporary, for the United States and its allies. The Battle of the Coral Sea was also important for the subsequent Battle of Midway, which occurred the following month, as it diminished Japanese carrier forces available for the attack on Midway.

The Japanese also landed on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands in May 1942, and there they began to build an airfield. 

The location of this new Japanese airfield at Lunga Point on Guadalcanal was a serious threat to the security of Australia and New Zealand. So, the United States, as a matter of great urgency and despite not being fully prepared to go on the offensive in the Pacific theater, conducted its first amphibious landing of the war. The 1st MarDiv landed on Guadalcanal on the morning of 7 August 1942 and secured the Japanese airfield under construction without difficulty. 

However, holding this airfield—to become Henderson Field—over the next six months was one of the most contested campaigns in the entire Pacific war. The high stakes fight for control of Guadalcanal, along with the surrounding waters and airspace of the Solomon Sea, was an important turning point in the Pacific War. Ultimately, the U.S. victory at Guadalcanal completely halted further expansion of the Japanese defensive barrier and enabled the Allies to go on the offensive.1

Why did the 1stMarDiv face so little opposition during the first few days on Guadalcanal? It was not just luck, though there was some of that, too. A large part of the answer is provided by MG George C. Kenney in his book Air War in the Pacific.2 Here, Kenney, in a succinct, contemporaneous style, describes the U.S. Army Air Force’s (USAAF) actions against the Japanese stronghold of Rabaul, located on the island of New Britain, to coincide with amphibious landing operations on Guadalcanal: 

Twenty B-17s flew [from their Australian base] to Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea [on 6th August to refuel] and eighteen took off on the big strike on the morning of the 7th August. Twenty Jap fighters intercepted our bombers about twenty-five miles short of the target, but the kids closed up their formation and fought their way to Vunakanau [airfield at Rabaul] where they dropped their bombs in a group pattern that was a real bulls-eye. The Japs still had the same 150 planes lined up wing-tip to wing-tip on both sides of the runway. The [post-strike reconnaissance] pictures looked as though we got at least seventy-five of them, besides setting fire to a lot of gasoline and blowing up a big bomb dump on the edge of the field. In the air combat we shot down eleven of the twenty Jap fighters that participated.3

We lost one B-17 piloted by Captain Harl Pease …. During the combat coming into Rabaul, Pease was on the wing that bore the brunt of the [enemy fighter intercept] attack. By skillful handling of his airplane, in spite of the fact that the bad engine by this time had quit entirely, Pease held his place in the formation and his crew shot down at least three of the Jap fighters. Shortly after he had dropped his bombs on the target, another wave of enemy fighters concentrated their attack on his airplane which they evidently realized was crippled. The B-17 burst into flames and went down. No parachutes were seen to open.4

I recommended Pease for a Medal of Honor; General MacArthur approved and forwarded the recommendation to Washington. The next day, a wire came in from the War Department confirming the award. Carmichael [commanding officer, 19th Bombardment Group and the B-17 flight leader] was given a Distinguished Service Cross, while a number of lesser decorations were awarded to outstanding members of the group.5

The Marines landed at Guadalcanal with practically no opposition. Tulagi was also taken … There was no Jap air interference. Admiral Ghormley wired General MacArthur a congratulatory message on the success of our attack on Vunakanau and the fact that it had broken up the possibility of Jap air interference with his landing in the Solomons. General MacArthur added his congratulations and I sent both messages to the 19th Group with my own.6

During the day [of 7th August], we intercepted several Jap radios which were appeals by the Nips in the Solomons for help from Rabaul air units. The Jap commander at Rabaul replied that he couldn’t do anything for the boy[?] in the Solomons on account of our heavy air raid on his airdrome. The next day [8th August] we intercepted another message which showed that only thirty bombers were serviceable at Vunakanau [post attack]. Jap prisoners, taken at Guadalcanal airdrome (Lunga), confirmed our observation that the day before there were approximately 150 bombers at Vunakanau at the time of our attack.7

Following this highly successful early morning attack on Rabaul on 7 August by the USAAF’s 19th Group, the Japanese hurriedly reconstituted and managed to launch an attack of 27 G4M Betty horizontal bombers that arrived in the Guadalcanal area in the early afternoon. Fortunately, a heavy cloud cover in the target area disrupted these bombers’ aim, and all their bombs fell harmlessly into the waters off Guadalcanal. This flight of Betty bombers was met by eighteen U.S. Navy F4F Wildcat fighters attacking in two waves. A flight of eight Wildcats from the VF-5 squadron based on the aircraft carrier Saratoga attacked first. Then, a second flight of ten Wildcats from VF-6 squadron based on the carrier Enterprise joined the attack. Five Betty bombers fell to Wildcat guns. However, nine of the eighteen Wildcats fell to the seventeen superior-performing A6M Zeroes escorting the Bettys. Some of the downed Wildcat pilots were rescued from the waters off Guadalcanal.8 Later in the afternoon of 7 August, nine D3A Val dive bombers attacked. However, these aircraft managed only one bomb hit—on the aft deck of the destroyer USS Mugford. Again, F4F Wildcat fighters rose from the two USN carriers to shoot down five of the Vals, with the other four ditching during their return to Rabaul. Wildcats also bagged two of the escorting Zeroes.9

The next day, 8 August, the Japanese again sent a horizontal bomber force of 27 Bettys south to Guadalcanal escorted by 15 Zeroes. However, the U.S. Navy was ready. Wildcat fighters again launched from carriers Saratoga and Enterprise to meet this new attack, shooting down 22 of the Bettys while also downing two of the escorting Zeroes. The Bettys did severely damage a U.S. Navy destroyer and sink a transport ship; however, no American aircraft were lost, and no bombs fell on Guadalcanal.10 

Clearly, the USAAF’s perfectly timed, preemptive attack on the Japanese redoubt of Rabaul greatly spared the 1stMarDiv and U.S. Navy’s amphibious shipping off-shore Guadalcanal from far larger air attacks. Credit for this major accomplishment goes to MG George Kenney, who foresaw the need for a heavy, early morning surprise attack on Rabaul to coincide with Guadalcanal operations. 

Kenney, who had only arrived in Australia the month prior, vigorously assumed command of all Allied air operations in the Southwest Pacific Area theater under GEN Douglas MacArthur and insisted on quickly building up the combat capability of the 19th Bombardment Group. This foresight was crucial to staging a highly effective attack on Rabaul with its large concentration of heavy bombers based on the island of New Britain, located at the northern end of the Solomon Sea. 

Of course, the primary credit goes to the courageous 19th Bombardment Group. The eighteen aircrews flew their B-17s without fighter escort all the way to Rabaul and delivered a knockout blow to an enemy air threat. The 19th Group’s surprise attack destroyed or damaged roughly 80 percent of a Japanese bomber force that would have contested amphibious operations at Guadalcanal to a much greater extent.11

Subsequent Japanese air attacks on Guadalcanal were perforce significantly smaller. Indeed, the reduction in Japanese air power caused by this one USAAF attack enabled U.S. Navy fighters protecting Guadalcanal to counter the residual Japanese bomber aircraft that did attack Guadalcanal early on.

As a nod to the 1stMarDiv’s motto of “No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy,” one can rightly say that in those first days on Guadalcanal, the 1stMarDiv had very good friends in both the USAAF and U.S. Naval aviation. On those fateful days, they went after the division’s worst enemy in a very big way. 

>Col Karch served from 1966 to 1992. A Naval Aviator, he flew the F-4 Phantom II operationally over three decades. He was also a Test Pilot, Advanced Flight Instructor, and a Ground Forward Air Controler with the South Korean Marines in Vietnam.

Notes

1. Wikipedia Editors, “Guadalcanal,” Wikipedia, n.d., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guadalcanal.

2. George Kenney, Air War in the Pacific: The Journal of General George Kenney, Commander of the Fifth U.S. Air Force (N/A: P-47 Press, 2018). George Churchill Kenney (6 August 1889–9 August 1977) was a USAAF general during World War II; he is best known as the commander of the Allied Air Forces in the Southwest Pacific Area, a position he held between July 1942 and August 1945. He was the first commander of the Air Force Strategic Air Command.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid. 

8. Richard B. Frank, Guadalcanal: The Definitive Account of the Landmark Battle (New York: Random House, 1990).

9. Ibid. 

10 Ibid. 

11. Ibid. MajGen Kenney was soon promoted to the rank of lieutenant general upon the personal recommendation of MacArthur based on the excellence Kenney displayed in staging the Rabaul raid of 7 August and in subsequent SWPA air operations by the Fifth U.S. Air Force.

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