Neptune's Inferno_ The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal - James D. Hornfischer [24]
On arrival, Ghormley found himself in the midst of a near insurrection. The unrest in the French colony was the product of a power struggle between a popular local governor and the man Charles de Gaulle had appointed as his high commissioner in the Pacific. The commander of the U.S. Army garrison nearly had to declare martial law to end their quarrel over imperial administration. The political tension in Nouméa reflected the brittle state of organization in a region that America badly needed to be stable. Without stability, it would be hard to grow a network of self-supporting advance bases from which to generate an offensive. But things could have been far worse than they were: Had the French administration in New Caledonia cast its lot with the Axis, as their counterparts in French Indochina had, America’s sea-lanes to Australia would have been closed with or without a Japanese airfield on Guadalcanal.
The Americans made their military headquarters in the optimistically named Grand Hotel, a two-story wooden structure on the waterfront, unpainted and weather-beaten. Next to the fleet landing was the small Hotel du Pacifique, which was soon to become one of the most bustling officers’ clubs south of Pearl Harbor. Behind its double wrought-iron gate was a tree-shaded courtyard with a bar said to be the longest in the Pacific. The appeal of the place—beer for fifteen cents, shots for a quarter—would be evident from the condition of the courtyard in time: “pounded flat into baked mud by the dusty shoes of thousands of officers,” as a late-coming destroyer officer put it.
When U.S. servicemen first arrived on Nouméa in March, it became clear that the affection of Frenchmen for Americans was inversely proportional to the proximity of an Axis power. In negotiating for use of the island, Ghormley found the colonial administration fearful for its sovereignty. Well seasoned in the sensitivities of European diplomacy, Ghormley assured De Gaulle’s man that the United States had no permanent imperial ambitions in New Caledonia. America’s intention, Ghormley said, was solely to defeat Japan. When pressed, he pointed to the likely treatment the French would receive after a Japanese conquest. He found the people of the islands considerably more appreciative than their government, if for reasons that hardly seemed helpful in the middle of a total war against world fascism. According to the Navy’s official history of the South Pacific Area, “Almost every French civilian hopes America will stay in the area to curb the British; and the British civilians hope we will stay to discipline the French.”
For Ghormley and American officers straight down the line, curbing the Japanese with an unprecedented amphibious offensive was the more urgent challenge. It would require innovation across the board. “The war in our area must be considered a warfare under a new name—‘Island Warfare,’ ” Ghormley wrote Slew McCain. “Young U.S. officers and men have many ideas as to warfare.… Encourage new ideas and use the good ones.” Ghormley’s communications up the chain of command, however, reflected a less hopeful tone. In a secret letter to Nimitz, he wrote, “I think our actual deficiencies are greater than are realized in Washington.… I am worried about our deficiencies in port organization at the Bases. These organizations are provided for on paper, but the actual shortage of officers and men to carry out war time port