If You Leave Me Now

If You Leave Me Now

It was 70 years ago yesterday that the United States took the offensive in the Pacific in World War II.  It began the long road back to pushing the Japanese from their expansion.  The beginning of this battle would have an eerie similarity to the first time the American Marines faced the Japanese in battle.  Luckily, this one would have a much different outcome.

Before the war even began, the Americans had underestimated the Japanese.  A few days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese would do the same to the Americans.  An invasion fleet was sent to take the tiny atoll called Wake Island.  It would be the first time the Japanese would face American Marines.  An air attack caught the men on the island by surprise.  The damage was significant.  Their own air defense was reduced to a mere four planes as most were destroyed on the ground.  Three days later the Japanese invasion fleet was sighted.  The American Marines lay in wait, in a maneuver borrowed from Bunker Hill itself.  The shore defenses did not have the same range as the Japanese ships.  Furthermore, their range finders were damaged in the earlier air raid.  I am sure the whites of the Japanese eyes were filled with shock as the Marines opened fire.  The gunners’ mark was excellent, sinking a Japanese destroyer and badly damaging a light cruiser.  The Japanese fleet retreated.  But the defenders of Wake were not done yet.  They sent out their remaining four planes, strapped with make shift bomb racks, to attack the fleet.  They sunk a second destroyer and damaged one of the transports carrying the Japanese invasion force.  Only four days after Pearl Harbor the Americans had their first victory…and most people do not know about it.

Realizing this small garrison of Marines was able to hold out, the Americans sent a relief force of ships, planes, supplies and men.  They would sail from Pearl Harbor to reinforce Wake Island.  The Japanese would get there first, returning two weeks after their first attack.  They would not underestimate the Americans again.  They dispatched two of the fleet aircraft carriers that had been a part of the Pearl Harbor devastation.  The four Marine planes that had wreaked havoc on the enemy fleet would now be up against over 150 Japanese aircraft.  The Japanese were able to land on the island this time, as much of the marines’ defense had been decimated by air attacks.  The four planes put up a valiant fight, but they were simply outnumbered.  One of the fighter pilots was able to extract a measure of revenge.  The Japanese bomber pilot credited with sinking the Arizona during the Pearl Harbor attack was shot down and killed by one of the Marine pilots.

The Marines fought the Japanese invaders to a stand still on the island.  Winning in some places, having to fall back in others.  The American relief fleet was only a day away.  Hearing the news that the Japanese had landed on the island, Admiral Pye, commander of the relief fleet, did the unthinkable.  He turned his ships around and headed back home.  Once the commanding officer on Wake Island heard this devastating news, he realized any more resistance would be futile.  Even though the Japanese had gained no advantage, the Marines surrendered the island.  For turning tail and running, Admiral Pye would never command another fleet.

It would be 8 months before the tide of the Pacific war would change.  The American Marines could now go on the attack.  The Japanese had occupied an island in the South Pacific.  They were building an airstrip from which they could bomb the supply ships that helped keep Australia in the war.  The American’s caught wind of this and decided to invade the island and take over the airfield.  Guadalcanal Island would be the target.  On August 7^th, 1942 the American Marines landed on the island.  It was not the landings you have seen in the movies or in historical D-Day newsreels.  The Japanese did not know we were coming.  They had no defenders on the beach and we simply walked ashore.  The Americans found only a light garrison of men at the airfield and they were quickly defeated.  That was the last thing that would ever be easy on this island.

That night, as the transports began to unload, two groups of screening Allied ships were surprised and defeated by a Japanese force that had sailed to thwart the invasion.  Three American cruisers and one Australian were sunk and one American cruiser and two destroyers were damaged in what was one of the worst defeats ever for the US Navy.  Later that night, fearing further loss, Admiral Fletcher and Admiral Ghomerly retreated their ships away from the island even though less than half of the supplies and heavy equipment needed by the troops ashore had been unloaded.  The Marines woke the next day to the sight of an empty sea.  They were now forced to persevere without air cover or full provisions for a period of time that they could not know.  A Marine later wrote in his memoirs “The feeling of expendability is difficult to define. It is loneliness, it is a feeling of being abandoned, and it is something more, too: it is as if events over which you have no control have put a ridiculously low price tag on your life.  When word got around Guadalcanal in the second week of August that the Navy had taken off and left the Marines, the feeling of expendability became a factor in the battle.”  I can only imagine their thoughts turned to their fellow Marines who were also abandoned by the Navy several months earlier at Wake.

This time would be different.  In less than two weeks the airstrip was operational and the Marines were reinforced with planes...and they would have more than four this time.  The escort carrier Long Island delivered two squadrons of Marine aircraft, one a squadron of 19 fighters and the other a squadron of 12 bombers.  The Marine fighters went into action the next day, on the first of the almost-daily Japanese bomber air raids.  The planes and the men that flew them kept the Japanese at bay.  The enemy, in spite of all their efforts, could not eliminate this band of scrappy pilots.  It would make all the difference.  Also, the Navy Admirals who pulled the fleet from the island, were removed from their commands.  They were replaced with Admiral William Halsey…nicknamed “Bull”.  The Marines on the island had heard of his reputation, and moral soared.  With their fighting spirit renewed, the battle for Guadalcanal began to go in the American’s favor.  It would be a long tough road ahead of them.

But they knew the “Bull” would never abandon them.