Battle for Tulagi (6 ore 30 min, 7 agos 1942 anni – 21 ore 8 agos 1942 anni)

Descrizione:

Marine Raiders cleared away Japanese forces that were heavily fortified in dug holes and hills. This is where the fighting was the feicest on the initial landing of the Guadalcanal campaign.

Tulagi: The First Day
After Task Group Yoke separated from the larger body of ships at 0240 on D-Day, its approach to Tulagi was accomplished without incident. All elements of the group arrived in position at about 0630 and made ready for the landing.
As the ships approached the transport area, 15 fighters and 15 dive bombers from Wasp strafed and bombed the target area,2 setting fire to seaplanes that were caught in the harbor.3

Five-inch naval gunfire from the destroyer Monssen, opened up at a promontory of Florida Island, west of Tulagi, and 60 rounds were expended on the target between 0727 and 0732. In the meantime, both the Buchanan and San Juan (an antiaircraft cruiser) pumped 100 rounds each into nearby targets. Buchanan concentrated on a point of land east of Haleta, on Florida, while the San Juan blasted a small island south of the same point of land.4

At 0740, 20 minutes before H-hour, Company B (reinforced) of the 1st Battalion, 2d Marines, under command of Captain Edward J. Crane, landed on Florida near Haleta to protect the left flank of the Tulagi Force. The landing was unopposed, although enemy troops had been reported in position there on 25 July.5 Crane, his company reinforced by the 4th platoon of Company D and 21 men from Headquarters Company, reached his objective within 40 minutes. The 252 officers and men went ashore in eight landing boats and were guided to their objective by one of the several Australians on duty with the division.6

While this covering force deployed inland from its Florida beach, the remainder of the 1st Battalion, 2d Marines (Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Hill) made a similar security landing at Florida's Halavo Peninsula near Gavutu and Tanambogo. The craft drew some fire from Gavutu but there were no casualties, and no enemy forces were encountered on the peninsula. These Marines later returned to their ships.

At Tulagi not a single landing craft of the first wave was able to set its passengers directly ashore. All of them hung up on

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coral formations at distances varying from 30 to well over 100 yards from the beach line, and the assault personnel of raider Companies, B and D waded ashore against no opposition, through water initially from waist to armpit deep.7

Map 15: Landings in Tulagi Area, 7 August 1942
Meanwhile the enemy defense forces, concentrated in the southeastern third of the island, realized that an all-out assault was underway. Between 0725 and 0749, the Tulagi Communication Base notified the Commanding Officer of the Twenty-Fifth Air Flotilla at Rabaul that Tulagi was under bombardment, that the landings had begun, and that the senders were destroying all equipment immediately. At 0800 the Japanese messages said shells were falling near the radio installation. Ten minutes later, the final message went out: "Enemy troop strength is overwhelming. We will defend to the last man."8

Companies B and D had reached the beach, and the landing craft carrying raider Companies A and C now began to hang upon the coral. The Weapons Company (Captain George W. Herring) of the raider battalion, whose 60mm mortars had been attached to the assault companies,9 headed ashore to assume responsibility for beachhead security.

Assaulting Marines crossed the beach and moved up the face of a steep, heavily wooded coral slope, the southwestern portion of the 350-foot ridge that forms an almost unbroken wall along the island's entire length. Major Lloyd Nickerson's Company B pushed on to the far coast of the island where it captured, without opposition, the native village of Assapi. This company then swung to the right and, trying in with Major Justice Chambers' Company D which had gained the high ground, began moving southeast. The advance of these two companies was steady and without opposition until Company B reached Carpenter's Wharf, halfway down the east shore of the island, where it encountered a series of enemy outposts.

Meanwhile additional raiders had landed. Captain Lewis W. Walt's Company A, landing to follow the leading companies, swung right atop the ridge spine, and tied in on the left with Company D. Major Kenneth Bailey's Company C also swung right, tied its left flank to Company A, and echeloned itself to the right rear to the beach. Spread out across the island, the raiders swept southeast against little opposition until Phase Line A, from the high ground northwest of Hill 281 to Carpenter's Wharf, was reached at 1120. Here Major Chambers was wounded by mortar fire, and Captain William E. Sperling assumed command of Company D.

By this time Colonel Edson, commanding the 1st Raider Battalion, was ashore and ready to begin a coordinated attack to the southeast. Confronting him was the more thickly settled portion of the island where the British governmental activities had centered. This area is a saddle between the ridge first swept by the raiders and a smaller hill mass at the island's southeastern end.10

After directing a preparatory fire of infantry weapons into the area to their front,

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the raiders moved out toward the high ground beyond the saddle. Company C, on the right flank of the attack, drew fire almost immediately from Hill 208, a knob forward of the ridge that had just been cleared. The bulk of the Japanese resistance concentrated in the seaward face of the high ground, and Company C was caught by fire from enemy infantry weapons as it tried to pass between the hill and the beach. The raider company then turned its attack toward the hill and fought for nearly an hour before the Japanese positions were silenced.
Radio communications between Edson and General Rupertus deteriorated rapidly after this attack was launched, but the raider commander remained in contact with his fire support ships. Operation orders called for the various fire support sections to provide the landing force with naval gunfire liaison parties, and two of these were in Edson's CP with their radios.11 When the other raider companies came under fire from Hill 281 while Company C fought against Hill 208, Edson put these naval gunfire teams to work. The San Juan fired a seven-minute, 280-round concentration of 6-inch shells onto Hill 281. When it lifted the raiders advanced with a steady pressure against the enemy.

Four hours later, at 1625, Edson notified Rupertus that 500 enemy had broken contact with his force and had withdrawn into the southeastern ridge.

The advance continued slowly until dusk. At that time Company E (raiders), relieved of the beach defense mission by 2/5 which had landed at 0916, reported to its parent organization. Company D, now on the extreme left flank, had met little opposition since midmorning, when the first enemy encountered were flushed near Carpenter's Wharf by Company B. After this contact Company D pushed south along the eastern beach and at dusk reached the crest of Hill 281. Meanwhile Company B moved up again, now on the right of Company D, and gained high ground overlooking the cut of a cross-island roadway through the saddle between Hills 281 and 230. Company D, on the far side of the road and to the left of B, took up night defensive positions with its right flank resting on the southern brink of the cut. Company B, augmented by elements of Headquarters Company, rested it left flank on the cut and extended its lines generally westward along the brink.12 Both companies put listening posts forward of the lines.

Companies A and C (less one platoon) meanwhile encountered the terrain feature which harbored the island's most serious resistance. In the forward slope of Hill 281, a deep ravine lay almost parallel to the raider advance and debouched several hundred yards southeast of Hill 208. Its sides were precipitous, and within it the enemy held strong positions which made assault hazardous. Maps which had been captured and translated during the day confirmed that this ravine would contain the core of enemy resistance.

With further action against the pocket impossible at the time, all battalion elements went into position for the night. Company E was placed on Company B's right, while Companies A and C (less one platoon) respectively tied in from the right of Company E. The positions extended along high ground facing the ravine's

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long axis, and listening posts were established.13
During Edson's sweep down the island, the 2d Battalion, 5th Marines (Rosecrans), had landed 1,085 officers and men and committed its units to various tasks. Company F scouted the northwest section of the island but met no opposition. At 1000 Company E was ordered to operate generally in support of Company B (Raiders), and one hour later the 3d Platoon of Company H (weapons) went forward to assist Company C (raiders) in the latter's attack against Hill 208. By 1300, when the raider battalion began its attack from Phase Line A, Company G moved down the trail along the ridge line and supported the raider battalion. Rosecrans' command post later displaced southeast from near Beach Blue toward the scene of this action.

Tulagi--The First Night and Succeeding Day
The first night on Tulagi set the pattern for many future nights in the Pacific war. During darkness, four separate attacks struck the raider lines, and, although minor penetrations occurred, the enemy made no attempt to consolidate or exploit his gains. The first attack, which met with some initial success, hit between Companies C and A. Outposts fell back to the main line of resistance (MLR), and the two companies were forced apart. The attack isolated Company C from the rest of the battalion, but the company was not molested again. Company A refused its right flank and awaited developments.
They were not long in coming. Shifting the direction of his attack toward his right front, the enemy attempted to roll back Walt's men from the refused flank. But the flank held, killing 26 Japanese within 20 yards of the MLR.

That ended the concerted attacks of the night. Thereafter, enemy efforts consisted entirely of attempts at quiet infiltration of the Marine positions. Individuals and small groups worked from the ravine through the raider lines and launched five separate small-scale attacks against the command post between 0030 and 0530. These were repulsed, and efforts of the part of two other enemy groups to skirt the beach flanks of Companies D and C likewise were turned back.

On the morning of 8 August, two companies of the 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, moved up to assist in the sweep of the southeastern part of the island. Companies E and F, 5th Marines, passed through Company D raiders, attacked down the forward slope of Hill 281, and swung right toward the enemy pocket in the ravine.

No w flanking this troublesome terrain feature on three sides, Marines laid down a heavy mortar concentration from the 60mm weapons of the raiders and 2/5's 81s. By midafternoon the preparation was complete, and at 1500 the raiders and Company G, 5th marines, pushed through the ravine to wipe out remaining resistance. This ended organized opposition on the island, and by nightfall of 8 August Tulagi was labeled secure. For several days, however, individual Japanese and small groups continued to be flushed from hiding places and hunted down by patrolling Marines.

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