Neptune's Inferno_ The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal - James D. Hornfischer [118]
The men on Henderson Field no doubt would have passed the night of October 13–14 very differently had the Navy’s leadership been willing to turn loose the Washington from convoy escort and send her into Savo Sound.
EVER SINCE HE RETURNED from his visit to SOPAC in early October, Chester Nimitz had fretted over the type of leadership being exercised by his old friend Bob Ghormley. Nimitz had put a sunny face on things for the benefit of the press, telling The New York Times, “The Japanese must not be underestimated. They are brave, resourceful and, for the most part, experienced fighters. But now they are meeting people with those same characteristics and are suffering losses accordingly.” His real feelings were reserved for private conversations with staff. What troubled Nimitz most was something that General Arnold had noted: The closer one got to the fighting front, the higher the level of confidence one found. Defeatism was nowhere more pronounced than in the rear areas.
When Hanson Baldwin flew into the theater in late September, the New York Times man received a powerful impression of Ghormley. “He was almost despairing. He was heavily overworked and he said, ‘This is a shoestring operation, we haven’t got enough of anything. We’re just hanging on by our teeth.’ He was very frank about this. Here was a time when you needed tough, hard, almost ruthless men. He was a miscast, in my opinion. He should never have been in that job. He was a superb planner and he should have been kept as a planner, but I don’t think he was a good operator.… The staff didn’t share these impressions entirely, but they were becoming infected. So the whole thing was very unpleasant.”
One of the few failures of leadership that Admiral Nimitz might be accused of was his failure to make sure Ghormley exerted personal command over his South Pacific naval forces. Admiral King’s original directive to Nimitz had stated, “Assume you will make Ghormley Task Force commander at least for Task One [the seizure of Tulagi and Guadalcanal], which he should command in person in the operating area.” Though it was far from clear exactly what this should have meant, it was initially interpreted to be the New Caledonia–New Hebrides area. Ghormley never ventured north of Nouméa.
In these difficult days, Ghormley summoned one of his operations staff, Lieutenant Charles W. Weaver, and asked him to start keeping a personal log of events. As Weaver explained, “I think he had a premonition then that he was going to have to make an accounting later.”
In the early hours of October 16, General Vandegrift radioed Ghormley as follows: “THE SITUATION DEMANDS TWO URGENT AND IMMEDIATE STEPS: A: TAKE AND MAINTAIN CONTROL OF SEA AREA ADJACENT TO CACTUS TO PREVENT FURTHER ENEMY LANDINGS AND ENEMY BOMBARDMENT SUCH AS THIS FORCE HAS TAKEN FOR THE LAST 3 NIGHTS. B: REINFORCEMENT OF GROUND FORCES BY AT LEAST 1 DIVISION IN ORDER THAT OFFENSIVE OPERATIONS MAY BE INITIATED TO DESTROY HOSTILE FORCE NOW ON CACTUS.”
Ghormley read the message and a few hours later sent a dispatch to Nimitz, King, and all the ships under his command, informing them that part B of the request, which would have stripped area bases of their small garrisons, was not possible with the current troop levels in the theater. “URGENTLY NEED THIS AREA 1 ADDITIONAL ARMY INFANTRY DIVISION. PRESENT FORCES.… INSUFFICIENT TO GARRISON PRESENT BASES AND THEREFORE OBVIOUSLY INADEQUATE [TO] SUPPORT OFFENSIVE OPERATIONS. HAVE NEITHER ON HAND NOR IN SIGHT SUFFICIENT FORCES TO RENDER CACTUS SECURE AGAINST PRESENT INFILTRATION