thedrifter
01-13-04, 08:12 AM
'Chesty' Puller's Epic Stand
The 7th Marines' tenacious defense of the hills overlooking Henderson Field secured victory at Guadalcanal.
by Jon T. Hoffman for World War II Magazine
The fortunes of war had already swung back and forth several times between American and Japanese forces on Guadalcanal by late October 1942. The greatest danger point for the United States up to that time had come during the Battle of Edson’s Ridge on September 11-13, when a depleted battalion of Marine Raiders reinforced by a handful of parachutists had stemmed a fierce assault by the Kawaguchi Brigade. The last major Japanese effort, and the only other counterattack that had a real chance of recapturing Henderson Field from the 1st Marine Division, began on October 24. On the first night of that battle, only a single battalion stood between the Japanese Sendai Division and the vital airstrip. Luckily for the Americans, the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines (1/7), was commanded by one of the toughest and most determined leaders in the Corps-Lieutenant Colonel Lewis B. Puller. Nicknamed “Chesty” for his barrel torso, bulldog demeanor and readiness to speak his mind, he would more than earn his third of five Navy Crosses for his steadfast leadership during the fighting that would soon be christened the Battle for Henderson Field.
http://history1900s.about.com/library/graphics/pullersepicstand1.jpg
NATIONAL ARCHIVES. Lieutenant Colonel Lewis B. 'Chesty' Puller.
Puller and his battalion had arrived on Guadalcanal with the rest of the 7th Marine Regiment on September 18. Although Chesty had trained his men well, the green unit did not get off to an auspicious start. The first night ashore, Japanese ships inflicted several casualties when they bombarded the coconut grove in which the regiment had bivouacked. During a battalion-size patrol over the next two days, Puller lost a few more men and was incensed when his battalion joined in unprovoked nighttime shooting with other men of the regiment. At the Second Battle of the Matanikau later that month, the Japanese thwarted 1st Marine Division commander Maj. Gen. Alexander A. Vandegrift’s effort to gain control of the Matanikau River. In the process, a good portion of the 1/7 (under the command of Puller’s executive officer) was trapped for a time behind enemy lines. Only Chesty’s daring efforts in commandeering a destroyer and supervising an amphibious withdrawal under fire saved the force from annihilation. Having suffered more than 10 percent casualties (including the battalion executive officer and all three company commanders) at the end of 10 days on the island, the morale of the 1/7 was at a low ebb.
Division gave Puller’s battalion no time to contemplate the results of the battle. On September 28, Vandegrift issued orders for the 1/7 to move up and replace Lt. Col. Herman Hanneken’s 2/7 on the perimeter. The assigned zone was south of Henderson Field in jungle flatlands. On the right flank was the 3/7, occupying Edson’s Ridge. On the left was the 1st Marines sector, which looked out over a field of kunai grass and then curved north till it reached the coast. The new home of the 1/7 had been largely unoccupied until the arrival of the 7th Marines, and Hanneken’s men had been building defensive works there for the past week. Chesty immediately directed his Marines to improve upon what they found.
The troops carved out the undergrowth to create wide, interlocking fire lanes for their machine guns and anti-tank guns, which they placed in bunkers covered by logs and sandbags. They strung double-apron barbed-wire fences and attached ration cans containing pebbles to prevent intruders from silently cutting through the barriers. The riflemen’s deep fighting holes stretched along the entire sector; many of them sported overhead cover as work progressed. Roughly 100 yards to the rear, the men hacked out a path paralleling the front line, so they could move from flank to flank without being observed by the enemy. In the west, this narrow lane tied in with the dirt road snaking down from Edson’s Ridge and leading back to the airstrip. In the opposite direction it connected with a similar communications trail in the 1st Marines’ zone. About 50 yards farther back from the trail, near the left end of the line, was a log- and sandbag-covered bunker housing Puller’s command post. Each day, while two-thirds of the battalion dug and cut and built, a company-size patrol penetrated the jungle in search of signs of the Japanese.
With the passage of time and the establishment of some semblance of routine, the officers and men of the 7th Marines began to adjust to their surroundings. According to one member of the regiment, they found Guadalcanal “hotter, more mountainous, more rugged, wilder” than Samoa, but they were growing used to the “strange jungle noises” that permeated the night. Mosquitoes and midnight nuisance raids by enemy aircraft, however, continued to rob everyone of precious sleep. Food remained in short supply despite the stores brought in by the regiment. Even with the supplement of captured Japanese rations, there were just two meals a day. One officer noted in his diary: “Everybody more than hungry. The men can’t seem to get enough to eat.” Water also was hard to obtain, since it had to be lugged in 5-gallon cans hundreds of yards from the nearest river. The 7th Marines soon began to look like the other veterans of the campaign, gradually acquiring the rail-thin appearance of the undernourished and the hollow-eyed visage of the exhausted.
During this lull, Puller tried to maintain the mental and physical well-being of his force. He had the companies dig wells and then ordered the men to start shaving. Doctor Edward L. Smith, the 1/7’s surgeon, also noted his commander’s emphasis on the spiritual: “Not an outwardly religious man himself, he encouraged divine services to be held frequently up on the front lines for the men who wanted them. Puller would much sooner have given services himself than not to have any. On several occasions he was dissatisfied with a chaplain’s talk, and he grumbled to me that maybe it was time he tried his hand.” Smith noticed, as well, that “it was the colonel’s wish always to keep the men well informed with whatever news there was.” Every day Puller moved among the growing defensive works and stopped to chat with the troops. An officer noticed that “the boys are beginning to feel better.”
While the division strengthened its defenses in early October, patrols from the 5th Marines revealed a continuing buildup of Japanese forces west of the Matanikau River. Vandegrift launched the 1/7 and several other battalions in a much larger version of the late-September operation that had gone awry. Puller’s outfit played a significant role in the renewed action, this time handily defeating an enemy battalion and nearly wiping it out. The tables had turned decidedly in favor of Chesty and the rest of the division.
The Third Battle of the Matanikau was only the prelude to a rapid-fire series of major actions in the seesaw campaign for Guadalcanal. Off Cape Esperance on the night of October 11-12, an American fleet defeated an enemy naval force escorting a reinforcement convoy to the island (see World War II, May 1988). The victory was not complete, however; the Japanese landed four large-caliber artillery pieces to shell Henderson Field. In addition to manning the main defensive lines, the division would occupy a position astride the Matanikau to keep Japanese guns out of range. The key to this scheme was the ararrival of a U.S. convoy on the morning of October 13. It disgorged the Army’s 164th Infantry Regiment, a North Dakota National Guard outfit with a proud heritage from previous wars. With that added manpower, Vandegrift could afford to establish a two-battalion, horseshoe-shaped outpost along the Matanikau.
continued..........
The 7th Marines' tenacious defense of the hills overlooking Henderson Field secured victory at Guadalcanal.
by Jon T. Hoffman for World War II Magazine
The fortunes of war had already swung back and forth several times between American and Japanese forces on Guadalcanal by late October 1942. The greatest danger point for the United States up to that time had come during the Battle of Edson’s Ridge on September 11-13, when a depleted battalion of Marine Raiders reinforced by a handful of parachutists had stemmed a fierce assault by the Kawaguchi Brigade. The last major Japanese effort, and the only other counterattack that had a real chance of recapturing Henderson Field from the 1st Marine Division, began on October 24. On the first night of that battle, only a single battalion stood between the Japanese Sendai Division and the vital airstrip. Luckily for the Americans, the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines (1/7), was commanded by one of the toughest and most determined leaders in the Corps-Lieutenant Colonel Lewis B. Puller. Nicknamed “Chesty” for his barrel torso, bulldog demeanor and readiness to speak his mind, he would more than earn his third of five Navy Crosses for his steadfast leadership during the fighting that would soon be christened the Battle for Henderson Field.
http://history1900s.about.com/library/graphics/pullersepicstand1.jpg
NATIONAL ARCHIVES. Lieutenant Colonel Lewis B. 'Chesty' Puller.
Puller and his battalion had arrived on Guadalcanal with the rest of the 7th Marine Regiment on September 18. Although Chesty had trained his men well, the green unit did not get off to an auspicious start. The first night ashore, Japanese ships inflicted several casualties when they bombarded the coconut grove in which the regiment had bivouacked. During a battalion-size patrol over the next two days, Puller lost a few more men and was incensed when his battalion joined in unprovoked nighttime shooting with other men of the regiment. At the Second Battle of the Matanikau later that month, the Japanese thwarted 1st Marine Division commander Maj. Gen. Alexander A. Vandegrift’s effort to gain control of the Matanikau River. In the process, a good portion of the 1/7 (under the command of Puller’s executive officer) was trapped for a time behind enemy lines. Only Chesty’s daring efforts in commandeering a destroyer and supervising an amphibious withdrawal under fire saved the force from annihilation. Having suffered more than 10 percent casualties (including the battalion executive officer and all three company commanders) at the end of 10 days on the island, the morale of the 1/7 was at a low ebb.
Division gave Puller’s battalion no time to contemplate the results of the battle. On September 28, Vandegrift issued orders for the 1/7 to move up and replace Lt. Col. Herman Hanneken’s 2/7 on the perimeter. The assigned zone was south of Henderson Field in jungle flatlands. On the right flank was the 3/7, occupying Edson’s Ridge. On the left was the 1st Marines sector, which looked out over a field of kunai grass and then curved north till it reached the coast. The new home of the 1/7 had been largely unoccupied until the arrival of the 7th Marines, and Hanneken’s men had been building defensive works there for the past week. Chesty immediately directed his Marines to improve upon what they found.
The troops carved out the undergrowth to create wide, interlocking fire lanes for their machine guns and anti-tank guns, which they placed in bunkers covered by logs and sandbags. They strung double-apron barbed-wire fences and attached ration cans containing pebbles to prevent intruders from silently cutting through the barriers. The riflemen’s deep fighting holes stretched along the entire sector; many of them sported overhead cover as work progressed. Roughly 100 yards to the rear, the men hacked out a path paralleling the front line, so they could move from flank to flank without being observed by the enemy. In the west, this narrow lane tied in with the dirt road snaking down from Edson’s Ridge and leading back to the airstrip. In the opposite direction it connected with a similar communications trail in the 1st Marines’ zone. About 50 yards farther back from the trail, near the left end of the line, was a log- and sandbag-covered bunker housing Puller’s command post. Each day, while two-thirds of the battalion dug and cut and built, a company-size patrol penetrated the jungle in search of signs of the Japanese.
With the passage of time and the establishment of some semblance of routine, the officers and men of the 7th Marines began to adjust to their surroundings. According to one member of the regiment, they found Guadalcanal “hotter, more mountainous, more rugged, wilder” than Samoa, but they were growing used to the “strange jungle noises” that permeated the night. Mosquitoes and midnight nuisance raids by enemy aircraft, however, continued to rob everyone of precious sleep. Food remained in short supply despite the stores brought in by the regiment. Even with the supplement of captured Japanese rations, there were just two meals a day. One officer noted in his diary: “Everybody more than hungry. The men can’t seem to get enough to eat.” Water also was hard to obtain, since it had to be lugged in 5-gallon cans hundreds of yards from the nearest river. The 7th Marines soon began to look like the other veterans of the campaign, gradually acquiring the rail-thin appearance of the undernourished and the hollow-eyed visage of the exhausted.
During this lull, Puller tried to maintain the mental and physical well-being of his force. He had the companies dig wells and then ordered the men to start shaving. Doctor Edward L. Smith, the 1/7’s surgeon, also noted his commander’s emphasis on the spiritual: “Not an outwardly religious man himself, he encouraged divine services to be held frequently up on the front lines for the men who wanted them. Puller would much sooner have given services himself than not to have any. On several occasions he was dissatisfied with a chaplain’s talk, and he grumbled to me that maybe it was time he tried his hand.” Smith noticed, as well, that “it was the colonel’s wish always to keep the men well informed with whatever news there was.” Every day Puller moved among the growing defensive works and stopped to chat with the troops. An officer noticed that “the boys are beginning to feel better.”
While the division strengthened its defenses in early October, patrols from the 5th Marines revealed a continuing buildup of Japanese forces west of the Matanikau River. Vandegrift launched the 1/7 and several other battalions in a much larger version of the late-September operation that had gone awry. Puller’s outfit played a significant role in the renewed action, this time handily defeating an enemy battalion and nearly wiping it out. The tables had turned decidedly in favor of Chesty and the rest of the division.
The Third Battle of the Matanikau was only the prelude to a rapid-fire series of major actions in the seesaw campaign for Guadalcanal. Off Cape Esperance on the night of October 11-12, an American fleet defeated an enemy naval force escorting a reinforcement convoy to the island (see World War II, May 1988). The victory was not complete, however; the Japanese landed four large-caliber artillery pieces to shell Henderson Field. In addition to manning the main defensive lines, the division would occupy a position astride the Matanikau to keep Japanese guns out of range. The key to this scheme was the ararrival of a U.S. convoy on the morning of October 13. It disgorged the Army’s 164th Infantry Regiment, a North Dakota National Guard outfit with a proud heritage from previous wars. With that added manpower, Vandegrift could afford to establish a two-battalion, horseshoe-shaped outpost along the Matanikau.
continued..........