Versions Of Guadalcanal

Didn't want to do this. Not one to make work for myself. But have a few things that didn't seem right regarding information on events reported during the battle.
Trying to read up. Favourite books in my selection:
The Battle For Guadalcanal by Samuel B. Griffith,ll. Brigadier General, U.S.M.C. 1963
The Cactus Air Force by Thomas G. Miller,Jr. 1969
Challenge For The Pacific Guadalcanal: The Turning Point Of The War by Robert Leckie. 1965

It is interesting reading different accounts of the same battle. While reading Leckie's book, there were a few things that did not seem to chime with the other accounts in the other two books. One of the first things was that:

Page 69- "The nine Zero's broke V formation and formed in column. Nine EMERGENCY FUEL TANKS went tumbling through the air."

And also:
Page 89- "Then they saw the Wildcats. There were six of them, stubby, powerfull craft PAINTED OLIVE BUT FOR THE WHITE UNDERSIDE OF THEIR WINGS.".

As well as:
Page 322- "A rescue boat sped toward Conger. It reached him and reduced speed. Conger was hauled aboard. Then the boat came about and headed for the Japanese pilot. Conger called to him to surrender.The Japanese pilot held his breath and sank out of site. He came up beside the boat and kicked at it, and tried to shove himself far away.Conger grabbed a boat hook and snared the man by his jacket. The man struggled, snarling with hate. Conger leaned forward to boat him.The Japanese dug his hand under his armpit and WHIPPED OUT A HUGE MAUSER PISTOL. His malevolent eyes only inches from Conger's startled ones, he pressed the pistol to his benefactors temple and pulled the trigger.".

 

For the naval aspect I recomend Neptune's Inferno. Some good background on the whole campaign as well.

 

The background was the only good bit about "Neptune's Inferno", the meat and potatoes of the book was a rehash of Eric Hammel's "Guadalcanal: Decision at Sea" from 1988.

IIRC, Saburo Sakai mentions this color scheme in his book "Samurai!"(written with Martin Caiden & Fred Saito), Olive green and the lower sides of the wings were white.

I don't yet have a copy of "Challenge For The Pacific Guadalcanal: The Turning Point Of The War", but it is fairly apparent from what is readable of the Google books preview, that Sakai was used as source material for "Challenge", so any mistakes(F4F paint scheme) or mistranslations(emergency drop tanks) would be from Sakai.

 

Because- weren't only army planes dressed in olive? Anything in the pacific should have been ocean blue on top, white on bottom?

 

The Wildcats might have been USMC. There was also some RNZAF there at various times but I don't remember what types of planes they had.

 

Nope, this Wildcat was Navy, off the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga, and flown by James "Pug" Southerland II, and the wreckage was found in 1998.
http://www.pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/f4f/5192.html
http://www.pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/f4f/5192/

So, we know that it was not Olive Green. I'd chalk it up Sakai's mind relying on what it is familiar with - as in, given similar contrasts in paint schemes, our Zeroes are olive green, so there F4F must be olive green. After all, Sakai is focusing on several demanding tasks all at once, his brain is not going to be the least bit concerned with "Did I get the enemy's paint scheme right".

 

I'm in full agreement with Lwd on this. Outstanding book.

Samuel B. Griffith,ll served as executive officer of 1st Raider Battalion on Guadalcanal during the battle. He was awarded the Navy Cross (second highest award for valor only the Medal of Honor is higher) for his actions there. The division actually destroyed some of their records, during the darkest part of the battle, when it looked like they would be overrun and would have to take to the hills and wage a guerilla campaign. Griffith played a large part in reconstructing these records after the battle, so he knows Guadalcanal intimately. He was there, he interacted with many of the major players. I'd give his writings a great deal of weight.

Leckie also served at Guadalcanal as a machine gunner with 1st Marines. You need to understand he writes from both the perspective of having researched the topic, but was also an actual eyewitness and participant. In another of his books, "Strong Men Armed: The United States Marines against Japan", published in 1962, he writes about an incident on Peleilu, that all the official histories deny occurred. He comments in his footnotes that there are many things that occur in battles that those in the rear who write the official reports don't give credence to, but that those that participated saw, experienced, and know occurred. Since there have been more accounts of the battle by actual participants published in recent years, more support for what he wrote back then is out there and is now considered to have actually occured. So to answer your questions:

1.) EMERGENCY FUEL TANKS- Drop tanks, just a different nomenclature for the same thing. The round trip from Rabaul to Guadalcanal is about 660 miles each way, so drop tanks were undoubtedly used and normal doctrine is to jettison them before engaging in aerial combat. I see no problem. Plus as Takao mentions a Japanese participant, Saburo Sakai mentions both. Further Leckie's unit was part of the defensive perimeter around Henderson Field and most of the mud Marines sat around and watched the aerial battles over the island. I'd give him the benefit of the doubt.

2.) PAINTED OLIVE BUT FOR THE WHITE UNDERSIDE OF THEIR WINGS- I've never seen this paint scheme but that means nothing. Leckie saw them daily so I'd say an eyewitness trumps what later people have garnered from records, especially since many of the records were destroyed. As Takao mentions Saburo Sakai mentions the paint scheme also. Perhaps the Marine Wildcats and those Navy aircraft that ended up there after their ships were damaged were painted that scheme for camoflauge purposes or because that was the only paint color available. I don't know, but he saw them with his own eyes so who is really qualified to say it didn't occur?

3.) WHIPPED OUT A HUGE MAUSER PISTOL- Hundreds of thousands of the Mauser C96 were used by the Chinese during the Second Sino-Japanese war. Many, if not the majority of the Japanese aviators were veterans of this conflict. I don't see that it would be too hard to acquire one.

 

I'd chalk it up to Martin Caiden who was not exactly known for his adherence to fact. Sakai had nothing to do with the book. Caiden took a transcript of an interview conducted by Saito and ran with it. He never talked to Sakai.

All of the F4Fs early in the campaign were off the USN carriers - none were OD and neither were the Marine F4Fs that followed them. If you want to know about Wildcats at Guadalcanal read Lundstrom's "The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign".

 

I would add that Astra, a Spanish arms maker, had copied the C96 Mauser, and tens of thousands were also shipped to China. Further, The Kwantung Army made a lot of use of them, not to mention the Manchukuo Army and the Japanese-controlled Korean Police. Finally, in 1941, the Mauser was introduced for use by Imperial Japanese Army "home guard" units.

 

Like I've said, I've never seen a green painted F4F, or heard of one. However, that does not mean that they were not there. Leckie may be incorrect, but he was an eyewitness and we cannot totally dismiss what he said he saw. The first F4F's based at Henderson Field were VMF-223 starting on 20 August. I don't have the book in question so I am not sure which action is being described on page 89, were they Navy aircraft that were flying cover over the island from carriers or was it referring to land based Wildcats that were defending the island from 20 August onward? I agree that the Navy F4F's operating from the carriers were not OD green or the Marine aircraft when they first arrived. IIRC, the first land based Navy Wildcats were some from the Enterprise's VF-10 after she was damaged on 24 August during the Battle of the Eastern Solomons.

 

The passage describes Sakai's action of 8 August and Leckie lists "Samuri" (published in 1957) in the bibliography. Caiden got it wrong. Sakai's actions that day were against carrier launched F4F's and SBD's.

 

Excellent stuff...
1- My bad. Thought the Zero could not drop its' external tank.

2- It is possible. Have not heard or seen any pictures with that colour scheme.

3- Page 148 in The Cactus Air Force by T Miller- has a drawing of the Nambu which was drawn by the Japanese pilot on Conger after he had been pulled from the sea. The same incident described in Leckie's book. ..One or the other of these two gentlemen is mistaken.


...So on page 147 from T Millers book:

"The Japanese tried to kick the boat away, and Conger reached out with a boat hook and snagged his belt. The Japanese pulled out a huge Nambu pistol, pointed it at Conger and pulled the trigger.".

Compared with Mr Leckies:

"The Japanese dug his hand under his armpit and WHIPPED OUT A HUGE MAUSER PISTOL. His malevolent eyes only inches from Conger's startled ones, he pressed the pistol to his benefactors temple and pulled the trigger.".

 

Agree that during the period in question both USN and USMC were painted in non-specular blue grey upper surfaces and fuselage with light gray undersides. That was regulation, the way they came from the Grumman factory.

That being said, and not having anything to do with olive green, I have two side panels from an F4F-4 out of VF-11, one of the last F4F squadrons to see action. This plane entered the squadron inventory at NAS Maui, was put aboard a CVE and transported to Fiji, was flown from there to Espiritu Santo and from there to Guadalcanal where it spent 4 months flying out of the Fighter I airstrip in various missions and then back to Espiritu Santo . . . all I can track with the pilot's log book.

Further, during the time this squadron was at Guadalcanal, the regulation color acheme changed to the tri-tone dark sea blue over blue grey over light grey . . . the VF-11 mounts stayed in their delivered livery, there as no repainting to meet the latest color dictates from BuAer. I specifically asked about that once, knowing the timing of the deployment and the time of the paint scheme change . . . I got a look like I had three heads and a firm, ". . . nobody painted airplanes at Guadalcanal, we all had better things to do."

Exposure to the elements takes it's toll, especially in the south Pacfic, right near the equator. The blue grey seemigly fades, overtime developing a fine powder-like finish that is, in the right light, a nice gray-tan-pink-ish color, not enough to make anyone think that's the actual color of the plane, but enough to be noticable . . . though it was mostly noticeable on the cloth one might use to wipe it away . . .and when you do, voila, non-spec blue grey in all its flat glory.

Rich

 

Thought this was a great story from Leckie page 223:

"...Marines who had come down to the shore to take a swim-in the way that Pfc. Richard McAllister went swimming near Lunga in late September while small a small cargo vessel was being unloaded. McAllister saw an enemy periscope break the water. He saw a torpedo go flashing toward the cargo ship. Then he saw it come curving just off the ship's stern and come running straight at him."

..."He looked backward and saw the torpedo's steel snout only a few feet behind him. He swerved and dug his face into the water and flailed. His feet felt the sand beneath himjust as the torpedo skimmed past him and drove up the beach not three feet to his side."

It seems this was the first Type 93 torpedo ever recovered and "shipped home to instruct American manufacturers in the things that they did not know about torpedoes." (unsure why there are 2 different plurals of "torpedo").

Too bad Wiki doesn't mention that fellow. What a great story to hand down: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_93_torpedo

Has anyone else heard of Lucky McAllisters escape from torpedo death?

 

Of course the Wildcats were often flying in mixed formation with P-39s and P400s, so maybe that is where the references to olive reference came from?

 

Remember, this is the opening of the Guadalcanal Campaign, the P-39/P-400 did not begin arriving until August 22, 1942. Anywho, the action being described was an all USN one.

 

"the Wildcats were often flying in mixed formation with P-39s and P400s"

Thinking these aircraft were forbidden to dog fight unless absolutely needed. They could not make altitude because they had no supercharger, relegated mostly for surface attack, if recalling correctly.

 

You're right Poppy, they were used mostly for ground attack but they were also used air to air in first months of the battle.

I've read some Dept of the Army papers published in 1948 that said the P-39s could reach 20,000 feet and the P400s could reach 10,000, which struck me as odd since I always kind of considered them the same plane. Those papers also talked about both pilots and maintenance people lacking training and manuels for the P400s.

As a nitpick, they did have superchargers. Except for a very few engines made for US Navy airships, all Allison V-1710s had a single stage mechanical supercharger.
The P-39 was designed with a turbocharger to go along with the supercharger but this was dropped from the production plane

 

I have it wrong then. I thought the P-39/P400s carried the brunt of the early battles. The definately flew in mixed formations from Henderson field though, correct?