Neptune's Inferno_ The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal - James D. Hornfischer [141]
Elmer Davis, the head of the Office of War Information, felt it was essential to publicize the pathbreaking effort in the Solomons, but lamented, “There was no one in Washington who was seeing that the Navy got any credit for what it did, or telling the story in any way, shape or form.” Soon, however, the pubic appetite for tales from the combat zone would be too strong to ignore. If the press had to learn to stay out of the Navy’s way and let it win a war, in time the Navy would learn to stay out of its own way and let its story be told.
25
Turner’s Choice
LEAVING THEIR DAYS AS A CARRIER TASK FORCE ESCORT IN THEIR wake, relieved to be out of the submarine-haunted waters of Torpedo Junction, the men of the antiaircraft cruiser Atlanta entered Sealark Channel, approached Lunga Point, and laid eyes on a new battlefield ashore. “In the half dawn,” Edward Corboy wrote, “we could see our planes landing and taking off with their lights on. Flashing shell bursts lighted the scene at intervals as the Marines and the Japs traded early morning punches.”
A Marine major came aboard by motor launch to aid in gunfire spotting. When the Atlanta cruised within range of enemy territory, she opened fire, aided by an Airacobra pilot, who circled overhead, diving to point out targets and radioing corrections to the ship. Norman Scott’s squadron worked over the coastline from the Matanikau delta up to Tassafaronga Point. By the time they were finished, the gray paint was peeled back from the Atlanta’s rifle bores, her fantail littered with five-inch shell cases and spent powder cans, and the known artillery emplacements and supply and ammunition dumps considerably less useful to the Japanese. As the deck force broke out the fire hoses to cool down the barrels, the major boarded a launch to return to shore. Tears welled in his eyes. “He couldn’t thank us enough,” Corboy said. “The raking we gave that coast made history in the Solomons.”
Promised help by Halsey and expecting further reinforcements, General Vandegrift had issued an operation order on October 30 calling for an offensive push west of Henderson Field. Rising out of their defensive crouch and venturing into the west, his men would try to drive the Japanese beyond artillery range of the airfield and encircle any units dug in on the Matanikau River delta. On November 1, two battalions of the 5th Marines, well supported by artillery, crossed the Matanikau and tore into enemy positions. Thoroughly exhausted and beset by malaria, the Japanese melted against the onslaught. Vandegrift lacked the men both to hold his airfield perimeter and sustain a serious offensive, and that spared the remnants of the 2nd (Sendai) Division from a far worse fate.
The fleet, for its part, had multiple roles, each challenging in its own right: to cover and protect the supply lines to Guadalcanal, to throw gunfire in support of Marine positions ashore, and to counter the expected thrust by enemy combat ships, submarines, or aircraft. Halsey gave Turner overall command of naval forces in the Guadalcanal area, and Callaghan and Scott command of the cruiser task forces that were haphazardly assembled from them. Kinkaid was replenishing in Nouméa with the wounded Enterprise, while the battleships of Lee’s Task Force 64 lurked south of Guadalcanal, out of range of Japanese air attacks.
Still recovering from the carrier battle and pressured by the need to assign combat vessels to escort duty, Halsey did not concentrate his major surface warships in a striking force. He made do with what he had, peeling off the cruisers and destroyers escorting convoys as they came north and sending them out hunting. On November 4, as Vandegrift was pushing west along the coast, Turner ordered the San Francisco, the Helena, and the destroyer Sterett to lash at Japanese positions.