Neptune's Inferno_ The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal - James D. Hornfischer [73]
The cruiser and destroyermen circling with the task force relished the idea that the surface Navy might one day reassert itself in its traditional role. Japanese destroyers ferrying supplies and men to Guadalcanal disgorged their cargoes mostly unopposed, took potshots at Henderson Field with their main batteries, and headed home. Much as the Japanese 17th Army’s senior leadership hated traveling light, without the heavy weapons and equipment that a transport could have accommodated, but not a destroyer, the activity of the fleet emboldened Japanese artillery crews and mortarmen hidden in the surrounding hills. Their sporadic barrages, along with nightly visits by aircraft that dropped small bombs haphazardly around the island’s northern plain, were a malicious nuisance that kept the marines sleepless.
The principal reason Admiral Yamamoto was hesitating to mount a general attack on the island was his respect for U.S. airpower. Henderson Field was an unsinkable aircraft carrier, host to an interservice brotherhood of aviators whose bonds were strengthening under the test of fire and loss. With the arrival of more Navy pilots and planes, including twenty-four well-seasoned Wildcat jockeys from the Saratoga, the shoestring holding together the American position on Guadalcanal was cinched a little tighter in early September.
Japanese pilots had their own shoestrings to worry about. When the 8th Fleet chief of staff, Toshikazu Ohmae, arrived at Rabaul from Truk in late August, he was appalled by what he saw as a lackadaisical approach to harbor defense, and the evident vulnerability of the whole place. The stronghold at New Britain had just nineteen fighters, twenty-nine medium bombers, and four flying boats at the time. With the Cactus Air Force getting stronger on its feet every day, Imperial pilots suffered worse for the geographic disadvantage. Taking off at first light so that they could strike and return before sunset, at the edge of their fuel envelope, they were bound to a schedule that put them over their target during the same midday window and from the same northwesterly bearing. With forewarning by coastwatchers, Cactus Air Force Wildcat pilots usually had the forty minutes they needed to scramble and reach interception altitude before the enemy planes arrived. Battling close to their base, with fuel tanks full, they had the flexibility to engage, maneuver, and fight that the Japanese lacked. Though many Zero pilots were no novices in long-range missions—the December 8 raid against MacArthur’s airfields on Luzon, launched from Formosa, was a fine example—sustaining daily operations indefinitely over great distances was a steep challenge.
Because the Japanese kept their ships clear of the outer reach of U.S. search planes until late afternoon, Mangrum’s dive-bomber pilots seldom could hit them before dark, even when the weather cooperated. The Marine aviators did their best after nightfall, depending on the elevation of the moon, the position of the clouds, and the light cast by stars. But there were only four or five days a month when the lunar phase permitted nighttime attacks. Bad weather reduced that number. Even by day, dive-bombers could not reliably hit the agile thirty-four-knot Japanese destroyers steered by Tanaka’s veteran shiphandlers. Their skill was impressive. They seemed to know well Guadalcanal’s northern coast, where they usually landed their men and supplies. Despite the hazards of night navigation, the Cactus Air Force’s dawn patrols never found them grounded or struggling in the shallows. “They come right up to the beach … and get them right out. They don’t lose any time,” said