AMERICAN STALINGRAD: THE MARINES ARRIVE

The First Marine Division had been hastily organized in mid-1941 as part of the pre-war military expansion, moving to brand-new Camp Lejeune in North Carolina after Pearl Harbor, where the “old salts,” veterans of duty in the Central American “banana wars” and China, were put in charge of turning newly-trained recruits like aspiring author Private Robert Leckie, freshly-graduated from nearby Parris Island, into combat-ready Marines as rapidly as possible.

Fortunately for its future, the division was organized as a far larger unit than either U.S. Army or Japanese divisions, a difference Japanese intelligence would miss. In November 1941 the men welcomed Brigadier General Alexander A. Vandegrift, a veteran of service since World War I in Haiti and China, as division commander.

Among the Marines who reported to Camp Lejeune was newly-promoted Staff Sergeant James Eaton, “jumped up” in rank by wartime need from the Lance Corporal he had been on return from his tour in China with the “Tioentsin Marines” of the 4th Regiment in June 1941. Now 22, Eaton was considered a “salt,” expected to pass on what he had learned in China to the new generation of “Gyrenes.”

There were rumors the division might receive the new M-1 Garand semi-automatic rifle that Army divisions were clamoring for; however, the senior levels of the Corps turned down the new weapon, stating it was not as accurate at long range as the tried and true M1903 Springfield rifle, which was indeed true but would prove irrelevant in the war to come As Eaton later recalled, “The Springfield was a wonderful weapon for giving aimed fire against the enemy. We were all Marine marksmen, and could shoot the whisker off the proverbial gnat with that rifle, but when we were in the jungles of Guadalcanal, there weren’t any opportunities for aimed fire against the enemy. You pumped as many bullets as you could, as fast as you could, into the trees and bushes where you thought they were, and hoped you hit something. That wasn’t easy to do with a bolt-action rifle.” The Marines who fought at Belleau Wood 24 years earlier would have recognized every weapon the Marines who fought at Guadalcanal carried.

In January 1942, the 7th Regiment - the oldest regiment in the Corps - was separated from the division and sent to garrison American Samoa, reinforced with smaller units as the First Marine Brigade. The rest of the division was declared ready for operational use in May, 1942. Vandegrift was informed they would soon move to the South Pacific for eventual offensive use. At the time of the move, the 7th Regiment was still in American Samoa. In addition to the 1st and 5th Regiments, both the 1st Raider Battalion, then stationed on New Caledonia, and the 3rd Defense Battalion at Fiji, were ordered to rendezvous with the main body when the transport convoy from the United States stopped in Fiji enroute to New Zealand. The 5th Marine Regiment was first to arrive in New Zealand in June, where they engaged in final training.

In New Zealand, General Vandegrift was informed that the 1st and 5th regiments of his division would provide the tip of the spear for Operation Watchtower, which at this point involved taking Tulagi and nearby Florida islands in the Solomons. At the time, the 1st Regiment was still enroute and did not arrive in Wellington until July 11. On July 12, following the discovery of the airfield on Guadalcanal and analysis of how close it was to completion, Vandegrift was informed the entire division would invade what had become the the new focus of the operation, Guadalcanal. Their objective was to capture and hold the airfield. D-Day for the invasion was set for August 7. The general had three weeks to prepare the first offensive amphibious operation of the war.

Due to a strike of dockworkers in Wellington, the Marines loaded their own transports. There was no “book” to follow, since they were making it up as they went along. At the time, no one knew how to “combat load” a ship to support an amphibious operation, and equipment was loaded without thought as to what had the higher priority for immediate use. This would become problematic when the transports were forced to depart the island early in the face of Japanese attacks before fully off-loading the division’s equipment.

On July 22, 11 days after the arrival of the 1st Regiment, the 16,000 Marines loaded aboard a convoy of 50 ships of Task Force 62 commanded by Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner and departed Wellington, taking with them a 60-day combat load that did not include spare clothing, bedrolls, tents, typewriters, unit muster rolls or pay clerks. Also unthought-of at the time was insect repellent or mosquito netting. Because of a shortage of transport, all the 2.5 ton trucks, 155-mm howitzers and the equipment necessary for counter-battery fire were left behind.

On July 26, Vandegrift attended a meeting aboard Vice Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher's flagship Saratoga. Also in attendance was amphibious force commander Admiral Turner; Rear Admiral Daniel Callaghan, Ghormley's chief of staff; Rear Admiral John S. McCain, ComAirSoPac; and the USAAF 11th Bomb Group’s Colonel “Blondie” Saunders . The meeting was a singularly cold confrontation in which Fletcher revealed he had no intention of exposing his precious carriers to Japanese reprisals. Vandegrift had the distinct impression that Fletcher knew very little about the upcoming offensive and didn’t care that he didn’t know. He had lost one carrier each at Coral Sea and Midway, losses that weighed heavily on his already very conservative approach to meeting the enemy.

While Ghormley’s Chief of Staff, Admiral Callaghan, who could have invoked the authority of the area commander, silently took notes, Fletcher ignored the arguments and pleas of Vandegrift and Turner. He said that he would leave the Solomons the morning of the third day, even though Turner required at least five days to unload the transports. Faced with an immovable Fletcher, Turner was forced to make his stand: lacking carrier-based air cover, the transports would be obliged to retire on the third morning with whatever supplies remained in their holds. Thrown into an operation for which his command was barely prepared, fresh from evolving a plan based on almost zero reliable information, and now faced with the early retirement of his naval support, General Vandegrift managed to leave Saratoga with his optimism shaken but intact.

The division took part in landing rehearsals on Koro Island between July 28-20, which General Vandegrift described in a message to the Commandant of the Marine Corps as “a disaster.”

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