Guadalcanal Diary Page 2

  Leaving the pleasant lounge room to go out into the equally pleasant sunshine, I rounded another promenade and found at one corner of it a group of marines, most of them squatting on the deck, gathered around a blackboard.

  A sergeant was holding forth as instructor, pointing to one after another of the interesting chalk symbols he had marked on the board. It was a course in map-reading. The sergeant pointed to a chalk representation of a wagon, with a horse-shoe alongside.

  “What would you say it was?” he asked one of the men.

  “It’s a horse-drawn vehicle,” said the marine.

  “That’s right,” said the sergeant.

  I went from there to the forward deck of the ship. Here, it seemed, most of the troops had congregated. They crowded all available standing and sitting space. They were occupied, on this day of rest, principally with “shooting the breeze.” Some were leisurely turning over a hand of cards or two. A few worked among the complexity of steel cables, derricks and hatches, busy with routine jobs.

  I climbed down a narrow ladder into the mouldy semi-darkness, relieved only by bilious yellow lights, of the No. 2 hold. Here I first found myself in a wide room, the center of which was entirely filled with machinery, wooden boxes and canvas duffle bags.

  Around the edge of the room were four-level bunks of iron piping, with helmets, packs and other gear dangling in clusters.

  But the place was deserted, except for two or three marines busy sweeping the deck and swabbing the floor of the dank shower room. The rest of the inhabitants were obviously engaged with duties and pleasures in other parts of the ship.

  Most of the other holds, similarly, were occupied more by machinery and idle equipment than by people. Much more pleasant on topside. In one hold I found quite a few marines sleeping on their standee bunks, while in the center of the room, two marines in stocking feet chased each other over piles of black ammunition boxes. They were given some encouragement by the few men around the edges who happened to be awake, sitting on boxes or duffle bags.

  I went back up on deck, satisfied that this was a peaceful, lazy day of rest almost everywhere on the ship. Everyone seemed relaxed, despite the fact that probably, today or tomorrow, we will know where we are headed, where, possibly, we may die or be wounded on a Japanese beachhead.

  But the pleasing state of relaxation, this Sunday, is understandable. We have been so long wondering where we are to go that we have long since exhausted all possible guesses. One figures one might as well amuse himself while waiting to find out.

  In the lounge again, I spotted Maj. Cornelius P. Van Ness, the graying, earnest planning officer of this group of troops, unfolding a message which had just been given to him by a young naval lieutenant.

  “Something to do with our destination?” I asked.

  He smiled. “No,” he said, “but I wish it were. I’d like to know too.” Even the colonel, said the major, doesn’t yet know where we are headed.

  After lunch, I had gone back to the stateroom to further digestion with a little bunk duty, and was passing the time of day with two of my roommates, Red Cross Worker Albert Campbell and Father Kelly, when the fourth roommate, Dr. Garrison, rushed in puffing with excitement (Dr. John Garrison, a Los Angeles dentist, was a Navy medical officer).

  “A lot of ships just came up,” he said, plunking his portly bulk onto his bed. “A whole navy. Better go look at ’em.”

  So we ambled out on deck to see the horizon spotted with ships, in a huge semi-circle around us. There were transports and freight ships, cruisers, destroyers, and the long, high, box-like shapes of aircraft carriers perched on the rim of the ocean.

  Talking along the promenade suddenly became louder and more enthusiastic. Officers, sailors, marines were busy counting up totals, trying to identify the different types of ships. Charlie, our slow-speaking, colored room-boy, as usual, had the latest dope. He shuffled up to us and gave us a detailed account of the ships present. Among them he listed the “Pepsicola” and the “Luscious.”

  Identification, at that distance, was difficult, but one thing was certain. We had made a rendezvous with the other and main part of our task forces. We were conscious of the fact that this was one of the largest and strongest groups of war vessels ever gathered, certainly the largest and strongest of this war to date. The thought that we were going into our adventure with weight and power behind us was cheering. And our adventure-to-come seemed nearer than ever, as the new group of ships and ours merged and we became one huge force.

  That night, there were movies in the comfortable, swanky, ultramodern ward-room, where officers dined. It was a light thing called Our Wife with Melvyn Douglas and Ruth Hussey. The colonel, amiable, polite John M. Arthur of Union, N.C.—called “Doggy” because of his fondness for the natty in clothes and grooming—sat next to me. Between reels I suggested to the colonel that it was amazing that his people could relax and enjoy themselves like this, when they were heading for the unpleasant reality of danger, bloodshed, etc. He said, yes, he thought so, too.

  MONDAY, JULY 27

  This morning there was much ado in the map-plastered office which the colonel has set up at the edge of the after lounge. A boat had come from one of the other ships, bringing dispatches—and the much-sought secret, it was whispered about, of our destination.

  I got a look through the circular glass windows of the doors to the colonel’s office, but there was too much activity to interrupt. The colonel and his staff were bending over the table, which was laden with maps, overlays of tissue, etc. There was an abundance of dispatches piled on the metal desk in one corner of the room. It looked as if the news might soon be out.

  After lunch, Dr. French Moore, a naval medical commander from San Francisco, told me that I was invited to come to the colonel’s cabin before dinner for a spot of tea. I surmised that at this impromptu function I would hear the news as to where we might be heading.

  That was the case. Maj. Van Ness, Dr. Moore and Col. Fellers (Lieut. Col. William S. Fellers of Atlanta, Ga.) were present as the colonel drew his blackout blinds, switched on the light over his desk and set up to pour.

  When we had our beverage in hand, he said to me, “Well, it looks as if we’re not going to have as much excitement as we first thought.”

  His group of troops, the colonel explained, are not going to take part in the assault on Japanese-held territory. Only one group will be near the scene of action, he said, and that will be a support force. The remainder of his troops, said the colonel, are to go on a mission which is much less dramatic and will not involve contact with the enemy.

  “Anyhow, it will be fine training for us, and I’m just as glad that it happened that way,” he said. But I could see that it was a disappointment to him to forgo the excitement he had planned.

  He shifted quickly to another subject. “So, if you want to be in the forefront when the landing takes place,” he said, “it might be wiser for you to shift to another ship.”

  I had come out here for action. I agreed, and after dinner, in our blacked-out cabin, packed my bags. It took some resolution to do the job, for in the evening I had learned that the forces I would join are going to attack the Japanese strongholds on Guadalcanal and Tulagi, in the Solomon Islands.

  TUESDAY, JULY 28

  I was ready to leave this morning, but got word that I will not be able to transfer to another ship until tomorrow. Then the colonel and his staff will go to the flagship to confer with the ruling voices of this operation, and I will go along to make arrangements.

  WEDNESDAY, JULY 29

  The flagship was practically insane with activity, clogged with marine officers anxious to get their orders and settle their plans. But I managed to get the consent of Admiral Turner, commanding the landing operation, to move to another transport. The ship is one of the two which are to carry the assault troops landing on Guadalcanal—the marine outfit which is to land first, and seize the beach-head.

  It was a shock to come close to my
new ship. She was an ancient, angular horror, with a black, dirty hull and patches of rust on her flanks. When I climbed the rope ladder up her high freeboard and set foot on the deck, I could see that not all the Americans heading for the Solomons were traveling on the latest of ships. I had certainly come from the best and newest to one of the oldest and most decrepit.

  The deck was black with slime and grit—for, as I was to discover later in the day, the ship had no modern apparatus for pumping water. The marines cramming the deck were just as dirty.

  Inside the dingy foyer, I found interior decoration of the completely undecorative style of the early twenties. There were bare round metal pillars painted white, and squarish wooden steps. A few pieces of lop-sided, dirty furniture were scattered about.

  I went down one level and came to the cabin of Col. LeRoy P. Hunt of Berkeley, Cal., commanding officer of the assault troops. Col. Hunt’s small room contained an iron bed, a couple of broken-down chairs and a desk. But at least, the floor was clean. That was a relief.

  I talked to the colonel about the ship and his troops. “Things are dirty here,” he said. “There isn’t enough water for cleaning up now.

  “My men are pretty unkempt, too, for the same reason. They look like gypsies. But,” he added, “I think they’ll fight. They’ve got it here.” He tapped his chest in the region of the heart.

  The colonel, a good-looking man of middle age, tall and well built, was quite serious about the job that lay ahead for him. “It’s going to be tough going on the beach,” he said. “Somebody’s going to get hurt.”

  Tonight I could see why he felt that way. An Australian plantation manager, who had supervised production of a copra “cocoanut” farm on Guadalcanal and knew the lay of the land, came aboard, and in the steaming-hot ward-room he gave a little talk on the terrain which the marines faced in landing on Guadalcanal and seizing a beach-head.

  After crossing the beach, he said, the invaders would have to penetrate a field of grass four to six feet high, which would afford good cover for any Japanese defenders. Then there would be a river to cross.

  The Australian pointed to a map, to the line marked “Ilu River.” “The river is about twenty feet wide, the banks are five to six feet high and steep, and the bottom is silty,” he said. “It’s going to be nasty to cross.”

  It was evident from the map that the river will have to be crossed, for it runs parallel to the shore, and lies directly behind the beach where the landing will be made.

  This, however, was not the only difficult part of the terrain which our assault troops must penetrate—“penetryte,” said the Australian. Beyond the river lie old abandoned irrigation ditches, which can be used as entrenchments by the Japs. These ditches are covered with thick, tall grass and cannot be seen except at very close range, he said.

  The Australian had finished. The marine officers were not pleased with the terrain which they will have to take. But instead of complaining, they turned to a discussion of methods to cross the river, to “penetryte the drayns,” as the Australian said.

  There was certainly a need of air conditioning or a fan or two in the ward-room. I found my clothes were soaking wet from top to toe. And a quick look about told me all the others had suffered similarly. I left the room and came to my stateroom, a small cubicle with old-fashioned upper and lower bunks of dark-stained wood. There was a bathroom, shared with the adjoining stateroom. The floor was black and gritty with dirt. I pressed the water lever in the basin. There was no water. A neighbor told me the grim fact of the matter. “The water’s only on for about ten minutes at a time, about three times a day,” he said. “And the times it’s on are a mystery that only the Navy and God know about.” I went to bed dirty.

  THURSDAY, JULY 30

  My roommate, I discovered this morning, is a short, stocky, bull-necked man named Capt. William Hawkins. He hails from Bridgeport, Conn., used to be a schoolteacher, and worries about a balding head. He is an amusing talker, speaks fast and well.

  This morning, planes flew over us for hours. They were stubby Grumman fighters with distinctive square wing tips. The carriers must be in fairly close by this time.

  There was firing practice, too. From the cruisers which lay in the distance, there were yellow flashes of gunfire. We heard the dull pom, pom, pom of their guns, the distant whoomp of anti-aircraft shells bursting, and saw the black bursts against the sky.

  In one of the holds of this ship—which I found far dingier, dirtier and hotter and more odoriferous than the hold of the first transport on which I had traveled—I heard the men complaining about their food, and the lack of water. I asked a marine about the matter.

  “Oh,” he said, “don’t think nothin’ of that. Marines have to grouse about their chow. They always do.”

  This afternoon we lay to and several of the marines dived into the rather sharky waters. They were told by a non-com that they might be court-martialed if they were not eaten by the sharks.

  “What do we care?” said one of the offenders. “We’re going in the first wave on Guadalcanal, anyhow.” That was certainly a tough, marine-fashion slant on the proposition.

  FRIDAY, JULY 31

  Today was a day of planning. Orders for everyone involved in the landing operation, from the majors and lieutenant colonels down to the buck privates, were being drawn up.

  I heard the news that my roommate, Capt. Hawkins, is to be one of the first Americans to land on Guadalcanal. He commands B Co., which is taking the left half of the beach-head assigned to troops from our ship. Capt. William P. Kaempfer of Syracuse, N.Y., is to take the right half, with A Co. On the left flank of the strip of land which will be seized by A and B Companies, another outfit from another ship will take a strip about as long as that seized by A and B. Or in other words, the beach-head is to be divided into two halves; of these, A and B Companies, of our ship, will land on the right half; and a group from another ship on the left half.

  Through the strip of beach seized by these units, our following troops will penetrate. That’s the plan, at least.

  Capt. Gordon Gale, a brilliant young executive officer, talked about these plans to the officers before lunch, in the furnace-like ward-room. There were maps on one wall of the ward-room, behind the blackboard, showing the coasts of Guadalcanal and the beach-head we are to take. There were none of Tulagi, the other first objective of the marines. I inquired and found that Tulagi is to be taken by Marine Raiders, with other troops in support. But the largest group of troops will concern themselves solely with Guadalcanal. For that, it seems, is believed to be the most heavily fortified, most heavily occupied of the Jap positions in the Solomons. And it contains a much-prized, excellent airfield which the Japs have just about finished building.

  I had been down in one of the dark, hot forward holds in the morning, talking to such of the lads who were not sleeping in their four-tier bunks. Now I told the colonel that their morale had impressed me.

  “This is a knock-down and drag-out fight,” he said. “Things are going to go wrong on the beach, and people are going to get hurt. But those are good kids and I think they’ll be all right.”

  In the afternoon, I watched a group of marines cleaning and setting up their mortars and light machine guns on the forward deck. The lads were taking almost motherly care of the weapons. And I could see that the working parts were cleaned and oiled so that they worked like the conjunctive parts of a watch.

  Some of the lads were sharpening bayonets, which indeed seemed to be a universal pastime all over the ship. I saw one with a huge bolo knife, which he was carefully preparing. Others worked at cleaning and oiling their rifles and sub-machine guns. Some of the boys had fashioned home-made blackjacks, canvas sacks containing lead balls, for “infighting.”

  While working over their weapons, the marines passed their inevitable chatter, “shooting the breeze” about the girls they had known here or there, their adventures in this or that port, a good liberty they had made here or there. But n
ow, a large part of the chatter deviated from the usual pattern. A lot of it was about the Japs.

  “Is it true that the Japs put a gray paint on their faces, put some red stuff beside their mouths, and lie down and play dead until you pass ’em?” one fellow asked me. I said I didn’t know. “Well, if they do,” he said, “I’ll stick ’em first.”

  Another marine offered: “They say the Japs have a lot of gold teeth. I’m going to make myself a necklace.”

  “I’m going to bring back some Jap ears,” said another. “Pickled.”

  The marines aboard are dirty, and their quarters are mere dungeons. But their esprit de corps is tremendous. I heard a group of them, today, talking about an “eight ball,” which is marine slang for a soldier who disgraces his fellows because he lacks their offensive spirit. This eight ball, said one lad, was going to find himself in the water some day. Somebody was going to sneak up behind him and push him overboard. Others agreed, and, looking around at them, I could see that they meant it.

  Tonight at supper we talked about the projected “softening up” of Guadalcanal by Army B-17’s. That bombing should be beginning tomorrow morning, it was suggested. We don’t know the exact date on which we’ll make our landing, but figure it should be within a week or so. And the “softening” process should last about a week.

  Tonight the weather was cloudy and overcast, and the moon was shrouded with clouds, but you could hear the assorted wails of marines singing all about the decks. It seems a good many of them prefer to sleep in lifeboats, around stanchions, or simply on the deck, rather than to stay below in their quarters. It is hard to walk about the blacked-out ships without falling over some of them.

  “Blues in the Night,” with a chorus about how “My Mama done told me a woman was two-faced,” seems to be the most popular song.