World Battlefronts: BATTLE OF THE PACIFIC: Counter-Attack

First round of the American offensive in the Solomon Islands was over. The Navy had announced that the three islands where the Marines had landed—probably Florida, Tulagi and Guadalcanal—had been captured. There might still be bands of Japs to be mopped up in bloody battles in the interior hills and jungles, but the opening battle was over and the Americans had won.

After the opening round the only question was how quick and how powerful the Jap counterattack would be. One naval attempt to relieve the Jap defenders had already been beaten off at the very outset of the U.S. offensive in a bloody seafight on the night of August 8-9. But that time the Japs had sent a boy to do a man’s work, and they would not make that mistake again.

The counterattack came fast on the heels of the Navy’s announcement that the first phase of the battle for the Solomons, had been successfully completed. Down from the North, probably from Japan’s great naval base on Truk Island (see map on opposite page), swept a great Japanese armada of battleships and carriers, cruisers and transports.

The fighting began Sunday, August 23, with a strong enemy air attack on Guadalcanal Island, in which 21 Jap planes from the Carriers were shot down with minor losses for the Americans. That night enemy destroyers opened fire on the Marines’ shore positions on Guadalcanal.

By the next day a great naval battle had been joined, in which both sea and air forces were taking part. Before Tuesday noon Army and Navy carrier-based planes had effectively bombed two Jap carriers, one battleship, several cruisers. One cruiser and one transport were left burning fiercely. Four hits had been scored on the larger Jap carrier by Army bombers. The smaller Jap carrier, the 7100-ton, 24-plane Ryuzyo, had been “severely damaged” by U.S. Navy aircraft.

One thing the defenders could be glad of was that the counterattack did not come even sooner than it did. By the time it came, the U.S. was in full possession of the excellent harbor at Tulagi. The Marines had the Jap’s chief airdrome on Guadalcanal Island. They had driven the Japs from subsidiary airdromes and land bases on the others. Army bombers were already based on the captured airdromes with Naval and Marine planes. Island airports were “unsinkable carriers” and they gave the Americans a great advantage in the air—an advantage which became all the greater after two of the Jap carriers had been bombed.

No American losses were announced in the communiqué which described the opening of the battle, and it was far too early in this second phase of the Battle for the Solomons for anyone to tell how well the U.S. forces were doing. But the Navy did say that the Army and Navy units backing up the U.S. Marines in the Solomons had been expecting the Jap counterattack. Americans who read the news could only hope that the commanders who foresaw the attack had also been able to bring up enough ships and planes to beat it off. The Japs could ill afford another reverse at sea like the Battle of Midway. And the Americans in their turn could ill afford to surrender the fruits of the only United Nations offensive since Pearl Harbor.