We made so many mistakes on Guadalcanal — Kawamura

Press, 3 August 1985, Page 6

We made so many mistakes on Guadalcanal — Kawamura

By

REG GRATTON,

of Reuters, through NZPA Honiara Yoya Kawamura, Japan’s Charge d’Affaires, looked at the box of bones in his office, the remains of countrymen killed in some of World War Il’s fiercest fighting. “We made so many mistakes on Guadalcanal. We came up against real American fighting troops for the first time,” he said. Forty years after the end of the war, one of Mr Kawamura’s main jobs in the Solomon Islands is to arrange the cremation and return to Tokyo of Japan’s war dead. Twenty-five kilometres away from the main town, Honiara, on a lush tropical plantation, a visiting United States Marine veteran, Bob Hodges, leant on his walking stick and bowed his head in front of a Japanese memorial dedicated to all who died on Guadalcanal. “I don’t feel bitter any more,” said Hodges, a former rifleman from Savannah, Georgia. “Some of the guys still do. But you have to forgive, forget the past. Try to live in peace.” But the bitter, bloody campaign on this humid South Pacific island is one that is likely never to be forgotten. For the hard-pressed Western allies, humiliated by the Japanese as their forces swept across the Pacific, the struggle for Guadalcanal from August, 1942, to February, 1943, was a turning point. On land, in the skies and on the seas round the island the cost was horrendous for both sides.

William Slim, the British general whose “Forgotten Army” reversed the Japanese tide in another war theatre, Burma, said, “We all talk of fighting to the last man and the last bullet. The Japanese soldier was the one who did it.” For six months after the attack on Pearl Harbour

and the landing in northern Malaya in December, 1941, the Japanese moved remorselessly through the south-west Pacific. But in June, 1942, the Japanese were shown to be vulnerable when a huge naval force under Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto was badly defeated by the American fleet at the Battle of Midway. On Guadalcanal, seized by the Japanese the month before, the first step on the path of reconquest was made and the drive towards Australia and New Zealand was stopped. The Solomon Islands had been taken easily by the invaders. But hidden in the jungles during the desperate battles to follow there was a Royal Australian Navy network, the Coastwatchers, equipped with radios. The Coastwatchers — former planters, traders, or Government officials, helped by friendly islanders

— proved all-important to the Allies, sending a continuous, accurate, and fast stream of information of Japanese movements. They rescued American pilots and sailors, launched sabotage operations, and harassed the Japanese forces from positions behind their lines. “We did some mad things,” said Bill Bennett, the son of a European father and an island mother, who was second in command to Major Donald Kennedy in charge of the coastwatching operation in the Western and Central Solomons. On August 7, 1942, the first day of the Guadalcanal campaign, 11,000 United States Marines stormed ashore on “Red Beach.” Within two weeks American fighters and dive-bombers landed on the now-famous Henderson Airfield. Their arrival ended Japanese naval supremacy in the waters round Guadal-

canal, but did nothing to blunt Japan’s determination to win back the island. General Harukichi Hyakutake was given 50,000 men to do the job, but the initial attempt on August 20, the Battle of Tenaru, was routed by the Americans who were well positioned round Henderson Airfield. The Battle of “Bloody Ridge” came three weeks later when the Japanese moved on Henderson Airfield once again. This time a United States Colonel, Merit Edson, rallied his parachutists to drive them off, killing more than 1000 enemy for the loss of 50 Americans. Although the Japanese continued to pour troops on to Guadalcanal, by early January, 1943, the Americans were ready to move to put an end to their resistance. The Japanese had had enough. In the week after February 1, more than 11,000 Japanese troops were withdrawn by destroyers in

perhaps the most remark- J able operation of the cam- i paign. J The Japanese lost 600 , planes, 24 ships, and 25,000 ' men during the six-month ( campaign. More than a < third of the deaths were J caused by malaria and ‘ other diseases which at < times incapacitated up to 75 ) per cent of some units on < both sides. '

The Americans, whose i land forces numbered about ‘ 60,000 on Guadalcanal, lost 1600 Marines and soldiers in - combat and 24 ships. * The war moved on from « Guadalcanal. As the Japan- • ese were forced out of one J island after another in the « Solomons, it became a huge J supply base and training centre for the American • advance in the Pacific. J The island retains the • scars of conflict The re- • mains of rusted ships and guns lie on the beaches. War > debris is still piled along the J main road from Honiara to • Henderson Airfield. '