CAMPAIGN IN SOLOMONS

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23808, 30 November 1942, Page 4

CAMPAIGN IN SOLOMONS

♦ Patrols Active On Guadalcanar STORY OF NAVAL BATTLE (N.Z.P.A.-8.0.W.) RUGBY. Nov. 28. A United States -Navy Department communique states that on November 23 and 24 United States uircraft from Guadalcanar bombed enemy installations in the Munda area of New Georgia. All buildings in the vicinity were destroyed. At midnight on November 26 Flying Fortresses attacked Kahili aerodrome, near Buin. Sixteen hits were scored on runways and large fires were started. No enemy opposition was encountered. On November 27 patrols on Guadalcanar killed 50 Japanese and captured a number of machine-guns in local operations west of Point Cruz. During the night two enemy bombers dropped bombs near the mouth of the Lunga river. No damage was suffered. The Washington correspondent of the “New York Times” states that high naval quarters in Washington believe that the Japanese are collecting for another push. The Americans’ destructive aerial attacks on Munda and Kahili are significant as the enemy will use those bases to gather ships, aeroplanes, guns, and supplies for his next try. The Navy Department has issued a second revised estimate of Japanese losses in the battle of Cape Esperance, on the night of October 11, adding a heavy cruiser and destroyer, making a total of four cruisers and four destroyers. The correspondent of the North American Newspaper Alliance on Guadalcanar (Mr Ira Wolfert), describing the Japanese disaster in the fifth battle of the Solomons, said: “We threw the first punch, landing sufficient reinforcements on November 11 to make Major-General A. Vandegrift remark, T now feel it is impossible for the Japanese to land enough strength to take Guadalcanar.’ The convoy provided the Japanese with an easy target. They shot four times altogether, missing each time. “The Japanese meanwhile were hastily forming a sea train, consisting cf eight transports, the smallest of which was of 18,000 tons, and four cargo vessels, each of 12,000 tons, carrying an invasion force of three divisions, fully equipped. Screening this array were at least four battleships, plus cruisers and destroyers. Curious Features “This unprecedented battle had many curious features. Undoubtedly it will be long debated in naval academies. The naval ”essels fought at night time and the aeroplanes in the day time, both in the same arena. "On the afternoon of November 14 the Japanese warships fled from the transports and cargo vessels they were supposed to guard, and left the three divisions naked to the assaults of our aeroplanes. A unique fact was that all the major actions were fought within the clear view of the naked eye. It was the first battle in the history of modern war which could be viewed entirely by a single man standing still. The holocaust unfolded like a classic Oriental drama, where the spectators know the actors and each move in advance, and merely await the execution with a passionate and terrible anticipation. The first fiddling notes of the dtama, a kind of overture, were heard on Armistice Day. “The first wave of our reinforcements steamed at dawn into the harbour. At 11 a.m. the Japanese sent in 25 heavy bombers, with Zeros. Our green fighters went up in the clouds to meet them, and got seven bombers and probably destroyed two more. Thus, it was overwhelmingly our Armistice Day." Bombers Attack “On the afternoon of November 1: the Japanese attacked with torpedo bombers escorted by Zeros. Only four torpedoes were seen, which hit nothing except the water. Spectators on the beach fired everything within reach, including revolvers. Six enemy ships blew up, their debris showering the beach. "As night fell, the aeroplanes departed from the stage and the ships with their big guns entered. Rear-Ad-miral Daniel Callaghan’s force shepherded the transports towards safety. The Japanese watched but lost them in the darkness. The Japanese came on breezily to deliver what might have been a decisive battle blow. Those seven hours of darkness were the blackest our troops had faced since Bataan, but at the end our Navy was there, and incredibly turned the tide of the whole battle. “Rear-Admiral Callaghan’s force steamed headlong into a vastly more powerful Japanese fleet which vyas swinging round tiny Savo Island with its guns set for a point blank blasting of Guadalcanar, and loaded with highexplosive shells instead of armourpiercing shells, “Matching cruisers and destroyers against battleships is like putting a bantam-weight against a heavy-weight, but the enemy were ‘caught with their kimonos down around their ankles.’ They could have stayed out of range and knocked out our ships with impunity and then finished us on the ground. Ships In Circle “We opened fire first. The Japanese steaming full speed were on us and over us, and all around in the first minute. Our destroyers discharged their torpedoes at such close range that they could not explode, and the range was so close that the enemy could not depress their guns enough to aim at the waterlines, so that many hits landed on the superstructures. The Japanese ships were formed in a circle much bigger than our one. The enemy ships first at one end and then the other fired across an empty space into one another. It took about 30 minutes for our ships to complete the tour of the circle. By the end cf the tour the enemy ships had ceased to exist as one effective force.

"The enemy crawled from the harbour without dropping a single gun wheel on Guadalcanar. The composition of their force will probably remain unknown until we break open Tokyo's archives after the war.” In a second article, dated Novemoer 15, describing the second day’s naval battle, Mr Wolfert says the waters in front of Lunga Beach were like a basin filled with bloody gruel simmering in the tropical sun. Hundreds of Japanese sailors bobbing in the water tried to continue the battle against their rescuers by shooting at rescue boats. In the end they shot or drowned themselves in preference to rescue from the sea in which schools of sharks threaded their way, hacking the corpses and wounded. Only 25 Jap. anese suffered rescue. Over the scene throughout the day roared a shuttle of Allied aircraft endeavouring to sink the disabled Japanese “unsinkable battleship.” which already was riddled with seven bombs and 11 torpedoes. "We’ve got to sink her or our admirals will stop building carriers and again start building battleships,” said a pilot. At nightfall the whole stern of the "unsinkable” battleship was cherry-red from internal fires. She lay bloodstained on the darkening waters, her guns amidships still firing. Transports Sunk Meanwhile under cover of darkness the Japanese battleship force again shelled Guadalcanar while the destroyers unloaded and scuttled the "unsinkable” battleship. The Japanese force was obviously jittery and expecting the worst from every corner of the unfathomable darkness. They fled like an elephant from a mouse when attacked by a small force of American mosquitoes, leaving their troop transports entirely unprotected. "We at first suspected the Japanese flight was some kind of ruse because it seemed inexplicable for them to leave their own men to be massacred helplessly,” says Mr Wolfert. "Our flyers were sickened at the slaughter of impotent Japanese, but it was all in the day’s work that had to be done. The Japanese that did not surrender had to be killed. Our pilots called themselves the ‘Buzzard Brigade,’ but kept at it relentlessly until all eight transports

were sunk. Only four medium-sized cargo ships were afloat and two of them were burning. Our total losses were four aeroplanes. •'On the following night Hirohito’s fleet made a last desperate effort to reach Guadalcanal flowing towards us like an amputated torso gushing blood at every inch, but we tailed them, let them go around the north side of Savo Island, while we came from the south, catching them in a dream manoeuvre of warriors—‘crossing the T.’ It was the first naval battle in history in which 16-inch guns were used against vessels and was even more spectacular and more terrible than Friday’s battle. It also lasted half an hour. In that time I counted 11 ships burning, sinking, and exploding. “At 9.30 p.m. the Japanese fleet turned for flight into the darkness, but even at 5 a.m. on Sunday flashes and explosions were visible from 40 miles distance where the jittery Japanese ships were firing at each other. The glares were so vast that they lit up the faces of the spectators on our beach.”