Always worth a re-read · 9:09am April 5th
I just re-read, for the sixth or eighth time, one of my all time favorite books:
Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal, James D. Hornfischer
I think modern students of history fail to appreciate the brutality of the Solomons campaign, and how close it came to swinging to an Axis victory on multiple occasions.
The book covers well the critical early part of the campaign, as the US and Imperial Japan poured reinforcements and supplies into the jungle of Guadalcanal. An interesting point that is often forgotten is that, while the US Marines and Army lost 1,500 men on Guadalcanal, the US, Royal Australian, and Royal New Zealand Navies lost 5,000 men around Guadalcanal, keeping the ground forces supplied.
A few randomly chosen quotes, parts I find interesting in bold:
USS San Francisco, shattered at the Cruiser Night Action 12/13 November 1942:
Around this time McCandless reached Scholand on the battle telephone and confirmed that Schonland was the senior surviving officer. With this fragile chain of command, the ship was, according to McCandless, "Fighting by departments, each headed by a lieutenant commander. Schonland, in command, would keep us afloat and right side up; Rodney B. Lair would run the engineering plant, which was virtually intact; Wilbourne and Cone controlling our main and antiaircraft batteries, respectively, would engage any enemy ships they could identify; I would essay the role of navigator; and Dr. Edward S. Lowe would attend to the wounded.
"We had good interior communications (despite a shortage of talkers) over the sound-powered battle telephones, but because of indoctrination and training, little coordination between departments was necessary: officers and enlisted men assumed leadership, saw things that needed to be done and got about doing them without waiting to be told. This is not the best way to run a ship, but it is surprising how far the momentum of a well-trained outfit will carry when its leaders are cut down."
After the Battle of Tassafaronga, night of 30 Nov/1 Dec 1942:
Tried up to Tulagi's shore, the shattered hull of the New Orleans, truncated Iike a barge, lay draped in vegetation and cargo nets to hide it from enemy planes. It was an inglorious state for the ship whose chaplain, Commander Forgy, had coined the immortal phrase "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition" while exhorting his ship's antiaircraft gunners under attack at Pearl Harbor. The Minneapolis was alongside her, too, similarly coiffed, the tug Bobolink serving as a pump house to keep her leaks from pulling her under. The crews of the broken ships hauled logs out of Tulagi's jungle to use as shoring for the forward compartments, and arranged with the Marine chaplain ashore to bury the dead.
After the Guadalcanal campaign:
The way America handled its "first team" differed markedly from Japan's. The Americans brought them home after their inaugural experience under sustained fire and employed them to train the next wave. The Japanese left them on the front to fight until the inevitable happened, and saw their human assets waste away. It was a gilded luxury that the Marine Corps could send home its first fighter ace, the commander of one of the most decorated squadrons in the Solomons, Captain John L. Smith, give him his Medal of Honor, and refuse his requests to return to combat, "not until you have trained 150 John L. Smiths."
I bought this book a while ago but I've been too busy to read it. I absolutely loved The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, have you read that?
Whereas everyone else fail to appreciate the brutality of warfare in general.
5775336 Ooo, that's a good one, also.
The Pacific was an odd duck. It only received a fraction of the US forces, since most was being directed to the European theatre, but there were a *lot* of forces available as the war effort spooled up. Just compare carrier construction numbers, even leaving off 'jeep carriers' shows the growing disparity, so Admirals had to balance their strategy: Strike now where an opportunity shows, or wait while more forces come in. The depth of US forces showed up dramatically in pilots (as above) where successful pilots were returned to training squadrons as opposed to Japanese and German tendencies to keep them in the fight until they died.
Yeah, as Georg says, the Germans made the same mistake with their experienced pilots (and to a lesser degree, with other combat veterans): they kept using them in combat until they were used up, instead of using them to improve the quality of reinforcements.
5775336
Yes, Tin Can Sailors is another all-time fave.