The midland journal., 1943-12-03
Holding the Line
on Guadalcanal
(WNU Featme-Through special arrangemen,
with Golfers Weekly
By KYLE CrichfOn

Not until the history of the war is
written will it be known how close
we came to getting driven out Of
Guadalcanal. The Japs could have
done it by coming down in force,
but even their minor efforts were
tough enough, hundred Zeros at
time being faced by far smaller
groups of our planes.
"Our fiiers from all branches
army, navy and marines-went up
there and shot them down." says
Vice Admiral Mccain. ''Those young
pilots took a beating unequaled in
the annals Of war. Without relief,
they fought day after day, night aft
er night, for weeks"
The toughest job was getting in
supplies, and there were dozens of
instances of heroism in that work.
In the early stages of the invasion,
the planes at Henderson Field were
running short of fuel, mainly due to
losses OF stored gasoline from enemy
bombing. 1t was finish for the ma
rines if the Japs got air control.
"We held a conference with the
commanding officers of the small
seaplane tenders" says the admiral.
''They were converted from old four
stack destroyers, leftovers from the
First World war. We asked the skip
pers to estimate how many drums
of gasoline each could carry. One
by one they quoted their figures.
Finally, Commander John Alder
man spoke up and said: I'll take
exactly twice that much
Gasoline Gets Through
"We didn't ask how. We simply
gave him the job. He really loaded
that ship of his with gasoline. One
small bomb from Jap plane would
set him off. He ran his ship
through the Jap gantlet, in the dead
of night, at full speed, and landed
the gasoline at Lunga Point, near
Henderson Field. We learned later
that the planes on Guadalcanal
would have been bone dry next
morning if he hadn't got through.
"On his way back from second
trip, in which he eluded an intercept
ing force, he was 0vertaken by Jap
bombers. He shot down four Of
them, but one of the remaining five
scored hit ON his stern that put the
rudder out of commission. He man.
aged to wabble the ship over to Tu-
lagi, put into cove, tied up to cliff
and concealed the ship with trailing
tree branches and vines. While hid
den there, he managed to impr0vise
a makeshift rudder and finally got
the ship back to a safe port where
she has since been repaired and is
again in service. That's the kind OF
boys we had out there"
On Guadalcanal, the marines were
learning fast, too. "It was tough at
first says the admiral, with the
Japs setting off their silly fireworks
and trying to fool the boys with cries
of Hey, Joe,' but the marines soon
caught on to that and proceeded to
invent tricks the Japs would never
in thousand years have dreamed
up. The outstanding fact of this war
is the versatility, adaptability, cour-
age and toughness of American boys.
Presumably-before the war, that
| is-they were considered our softest
generation. Rather, they 60 back to
the pioneers"
It was shown clear at Guadalcanal
that the Phys were no match for
| the Zeros, and a point was reached
when it was necessary to use a few
bomberB as reconnaissance planes in
shot" sectors. Even though the
fighters were knocking the faster and
more maneuverable Zeros out of the
air at tine rate of eight and nine to
one, the loss of the one plane, multi
Piled over daily battles, soon be-
came serious. A crisis was reached
on Guadalcanal when they were
finally clown to five fighters and Is
bombers. 1t was then that huge
| task force of the Japs was reported
300 miles off, with battleships, car
rfers, destroyers and cruisers.
"We had about SO ships in the
harbor ,at Espiritu Santo," says the
lldmiral, "but we soon got them out
of there and scattered over the sea,
leaving only two that had few anti
aircraft guns and might do us some
good. We evacuated our huts and
took to silt trenches and waited. Our
bombers being used as scouting
planes kept reporting the steady
progress of the Jap fleet straight
for us-and then, for no reason ]
was ever able to understand, they
turned around and went backi
Superb Training.
"The United States navy had the
most superbly trained carrier groups
that ever entered a war;" he says
fatty. 1.-THE next best were the jap
anese. All the things we worked out
in maneuvers before the war have
been successfully used since.
"The captain of battleship
might stop any one type of attack,
whether it is dive bombing, torpedo
planes, skip bombing or high-level
stuff, but when you combine them
all, as our navy fiiers do, there isn't
a ship in the world with enough
firspower to shoot them down.