General Vandegrift's position after Admiral Turner's retirement was unenviable. His 1st Marine Division held an enclave consisting of an airstrip under construction, with a few hectares around it, on an island covered with dense and inhospitable jungle, in which the remains of the Japanese troops were hidden. occupation and engineers. The area around Guadalcanal was dominated by the Imperial fleet. In the days that followed Japanese warships made it a habit to come and patrol off the enclave out of artillery range. One day, a Japanese submarine surfaced in line with the marines' position on the beach and shelled it at will.On another occasion a cruiser landed in broad daylight an advanced echelon of 200 men and supplies.
Of course, the incessant air attacks on “Henderson” (the name that was to be given to the field) and its immediate surroundings never made General Vandegrift, or his men, forget who was the master in the skies of Guadalcanal. above all, the , general his It is true that the Japanese were determined to annihilate his Division sooner or later.
Its main concern was to defend against amphibious as well as ground attacks, and to complete the construction of the runway to make it usable for American planes and thus benefit from its own air protection. To achieve these two objectives, the difficulties were immense, largely because much of the essential equipment had disappeared in the holds of Admiral Turner's freighters:he had received only 18 rolls of barbed wire; there were no anti-tank or anti-personnel mines, nor tools such as axes, saws, shovels, machetes or picks. But fortunately, the equipment abandoned by the Japanese - which included 4 heavy tractors, 6 road rollers, 12 trucks and 2 diesel locomotives with tenders - was there to remedy this deficiency to some extent.
The aerodrome was completed in a few days and work began on two clearing strips. On August 20, the first American planes, 19 "Wildcat" fighters and 12 "Dauntless" dive bombers, launched from an aircraft carrier located far to the south, landed at Henderson Field. A few hours later, and before the air force could engage in combat, the Japanese coming from the east went on the offensive.
Radio-Tokyo had not concealed the fate reserved for the marines of Guadalcanal. Admiral Mikawa, who commanded the sector, declared triumphantly that he had routed the remnants of Anglo-American naval power in the Pacific and isolated Australia. The Marines were "like those ephemera who fall on their own in the fire".
Such boasting could be understood for propaganda purposes to boost morale in one's own camp and instil fear in one's own camp. 'enemy. But in reality, these claims reflected the attitude of many senior Japanese officers.
These men, accustomed to calmly and dispassionately assessing this kind of situation, then drawing plans with attention to the smallest detail, refused to take the marines of Guadalcanal seriously.
In their eyes, it could only be a reconnaissance in force, a diversionary maneuver. But as such it was already an affront to the honor of Japanese arms.
No one sought to get an accurate view of the American order of battle. Lieutenant General Hyakutake commanding the XVII Army in the South Pacific was ordered to "eliminate" the Americans. He entrusted this mission to Major General Kawaguchi's XXXV Infantry Brigade. But this brigade was not yet assembled and it was decided to send to the spot, in two echelons, the only units immediately available, Colonel Ichiki's regiment and a special navy landing unit.
Colonel Ichiki dismounted with the echelon on August 18. He was an accomplished officer who had fought in China in the 1930s and had extensive experience as a battalion commander and regimental commander.
Japanese Intelligence had told him that the strength of the marines did not exceed 2,000 men and that their morale was very low. Ichiki was one of many officers who firmly believed that as a man, the Japanese were infinitely superior to the American, who was effective only when his armament was vastly superior.
He therefore decided that he had no reason to wait for his 2nd echelon and could sweep away this "bridgehead in the jungle" in one fell swoop. After some mortar fire, at dawn on August 21, Colonel Ichiki launched his men, fixed bayonets, against the eastern flank of General Vandegrift's marine position. They were met with murderous fire from very carefully established firing positions. Ichiki still managed to relaunch the charge with the bayonet, a second time, his men were nailed to the spot, and he had to order the retreat to the other bank of the Ilu River which they had forded in the morning.
Only an elite unit like Ichiki's could take such a lesson without losing its cohesion. The heavy and precise fire that the marines suffered across the river the next morning showed them that there were still people in front. When news of the imminent arrival of Japanese reinforcements, General Vandegrift decided that it would be too dangerous to let Ichiki's men hold their position. He ordered a reserve battalion to execute an encirclement maneuver that crossed the river and fell back north.
By early afternoon, Ichiki's men were surrounded and the last phase began; it was to go down in marine legend as the “Battle of Tenaru”. Under bombs and machine gun fire from American planes that had arrived at Henderson Field the day before, under artillery shells and the pressure of the assaults launched from three sides, the Japanese were pushed back step by step towards the beach. The few light tanks landed with the Vandegrift division then entered into action, indiscriminately crushing under their tracks the dead, the wounded and the living.
The Japanese persisted in refusing to surrender. “The rears of the tanks looked like meat grinders,” Vandegrift wrote in his report. And even when all organized resistance had ceased, the Japanese survivors did not allow themselves to be taken prisoner. “The wounded waited for us to lean over them to examine them, and then blew themselves up with a grenade, dragging their enemy to death. In Tenaru, the Marines learned what the Japanese phrase meant to “fight to the last and to the last breath.” »
Only a handful of fighters commanded by Ichiki managed to regain Taivu by following the coast to the east. Arrived there, the colonel ceremoniously tore up the flag of his regiment, then he committed hara-kiri.
Tenaru's victory remains engraved on the Marines Corps Memorial. But General Vandegrift knew very well that it would not be enough to establish the establishment of his troops. It was only a prelude to other more powerful actions by the Japanese. foot of a much more formidable force, made up of Colonel Ichiki's 2nd echelon and General Kawaguchi's 35th Brigade, with the mission of finishing off Guadalcanal.
The only problem was the routing of this force. Rear Admiral Tanaka was appointed commander of the Reinforcement Force with a rear base in the Shortlands northwest of Guadalcanal, and he soon realized the difficulties of his task. The second echelon of Ichiki's formation scheduled to land at Guadalcanal and made up of escorted transport ships:a light cruiser and destroyers, was spotted by a bombing plane from Henderson Field, and had to turn back .
The positioning of American planes at Henderson Field had completely changed the situation to the detriment of the Japanese. Tanaka explained to General Kawaguchi that he could no longer move in safety in the coastal waters of Guadalcanal. night operations, to transport reinforcements by fast destroyers nicknamed - not without reason - "the rats".
Kawaguchi began by advocating the use of slower but larger capacity barges; against the advice of Tanaka united first rotation was attempted; it was a disaster. The admiral ends up getting carte blanche; towards the end of August the "rats" were making their nightly round trips with the same precision of express trains, and each night the positions of the marines received their shell ratios.
General Vandegrift knew no Japanese advance to the east and west of his positions.
He had Colonel Edson's elite marine commandos and his paratroopers brought back from Tulagi and, on September 7 at nightfall, he sent them to reconnoitre Taivu, one of the main Japanese bases in the sector. This raid was a complete success:only signalmen and members of the headquarters remained on the base, who hastened to flee into the jungle.
The Americans seized valuable stocks and, more importantly, information about the troops preparing to attack them. The bulk of General Kawaguchi's forces had already set out for the jungle; the second Japanese attack was therefore imminent. Vandegrift estimated that the main enemy effort would be on the line of ridges south of Henderson Field. He sent commandos, paratroopers and his only uncommitted reserve, a battalion of marines.