August 13th-15th, 1942

August 13, 1942...Guadalcanal coastwatcher Martin Clemens writes to Ken Hay, "It's too anti-climactical sitting here like birds in the wilderness." Late that afternoon, Clemens gets a US Marine Corps Field Message from his pal Charles Widdy, manager of the Lever Brothers plantation in the Solomons: "American Marines have landed successfully in force. Come in via Volonavua and along the beach to Ilu during daylight -- repeat -- daylight. Ask outpost to direct you to me at 1st Regiment CP at Lunga. Congratulations and regards."

Clemens packs his teleradio, organizes his carriers, and gets ready to move.

The messenger sent back from the Goettge patrol on Guadalcanal reaches headquarters, and more boats are sent. They find tidal graves, a few helmets, and an empty medical bag. Apparently the patrol landed at the wrong place, and did not find Japanese troops ready to surrender, but ready to fight. Among those dead is Lt. Ralph Corry, who had dropped his job as codebreaker in Washington to get into action with the Marines. His death is actually providential, for if the Japanese had captured him and made him talk, his information could have impacted heavily on the war.

With little other action, the Marines on Guadalcanal get down to the serious business of souvenir hunting. Some write letters on Japanese rice paper while others trade Japanese occupation scrip for Japanese cigarettes. One sergeant starts an Ikebana flower-arranging class, using Japanese books as texts. Col. Meritt Edson kills time reading an English translation of a history of Japan, while playing Japanese records on a captured Victrola.

The second top pastime on Guadalcanal is spreading rumors, an old military tradition. The marines tell each other they will be withdrawn soon for a big victory parade in New Zealand or Australia.

That evening, war resumes as a group of lost Japanese blaze away with their weapons on Henderson Field, causing little damage.

A more useful contribution to Japan's war effort on Guadalcanal continues in Rabaul, where the 17th Army plots its grand counterattack to regain Henderson Field. Chief of Staff Gen. Akisaburo Futami reckons American numbers at 7,000. They're actually twice that.

Col. Kiyono Ichiki, boss of the 2,000-man Ichiki Detachment, gets his orders. He holds a distinguished record...expert infantry tactician, hard-driving officer...he led troops in the 1937 Marco Polo Bridge incident, thus singlehandedly starting the Sino-Japanese War. His 28th Infantry Regiment has led numerous amphibious assaults, and his Ichiki Detachment (part of that force) was to land on Midway. His tactics so far have relied on night attacks with bugles, swords, and bayonets -- and he has never lost.

Ichiki is told that the Americans are going to withdraw. He tells his bosses he will attack two days after landing on Guadalcanal. His men will carry only 250 rounds of ammo per man and seven days' rations.

In the Philippines, Gen Nishino, the newspaper correspondent with the Kawaguchi Detachment of 3,500 men, gets word from the detachment's CO, Gen. Kiotake Kawaguchi, that the detachment is heading for Guadalcanal.

Kawaguchi briefs the reporter, saying, "This is our new destination -- Gadarukanaru. It's true there will be nothing heroic in it, but I'd say it will be extremely serious business. If you decide to continue on with us, you must put your life in my hands. Both of us will probably be killed." Nishino says he will go.

A Japanese convoy of 3,000 construction troops reaches Basabua near Gona. The Japanese attack Australian troops at Deniki in strength, forcing it back beyond Isurava. After this victory, the Japanese consolidate before driving southward to Port Moresby.

Montgomery goes to 8th Army's Tac HQ and briefs all the headquarters officers at sunset. Chief of Staff Gen. Francis de Guingand writes, "We all felt that a cool and refreshing breeze had come to relieve the oppressive and stagnant atmosphere." Monty tells his men, "Any further retreat or withdrawal is quite out of the question. Forget about it. 'If we cannot stay here alive, then let us stay here dead.'"

SS Lt. Gen. Karl Wolff writes the manager of the German Ministry of Transportation, saying, "It gives me great pleasure to learn that already, for the last 14 days, one train goes daily with 5,000 passengers of the Chosen People to Treblinka; and we are even in a position to complete this mass movement of people at an accelerated rate."

Convoy "Pedestal" rounds Cape Bon and meets a new enemy, eight Italian and two German MTBs, which knife out of the dark in two waves just after midnight. Two Italian boats press to within 50 yards of HMS Manchester, then smack the ship with torpedoes. The cruiser's steering locks her into a circle, her engine rooms flood, and all lights and power go out. The cruiser staggers to a halt, and the crew abandons ship. The ship is scuttled, which leads to court martials, as the decision turns out to have been premature.

Another MTB jumps the American Santa Elisa, spraying it with bullets, killing gunners at their post. Another E-boat swoops in during the fight and torpedoes Santa Elisa on the starboard side, exploding the ship's fuel with a roar. Fire engulfs the freighter.

The other American ship, Almeria Lykes is hit by a torpedo on the portside of her No. 1 hold, that splits the ship in two. She is abandoned. A little later, German E-boats pounce on the British freighters Wairangi and Glenorchy, and sink both. The British are down to two cruisers (one damaged) and seven destroyers to escort six merchant ships. Brisbane Star has straggled from the convoy. The all-important Ohio is "sailing like a yacht" despite a massive hole in her port side.

All crews are exhausted from heat and strain as dawn breaks 170 miles from Malta, bringing with it scores of Luftwaffe dive bombers.

The Luftwaffe attacks at 8 a.m., hurling 12 Ju 88s on the freighter Waimarama. Bombs hit direct aft and forward, igniting 100 octane aviation fuel stowed on the bridge deck. Waimarama explodes with a roar, disappearing in a sheet of flame and clouds of billowing smoke, as her cargo of shells and other combustibles cook off. Debris showers nearby ships and the sea is a mess of fire. 80 of the ship's crew of 107 die.

The Luftwaffe returns at 9:25 a.m., with 60 Ju 87s. The Stukas peel off and attack Ohio at mast height, but only score a near-miss. One Ju 87 crashes into Ohio's starboard bridge and explodes. Her bomb does not explode.

20 Ju 88s return later that morning, and score a hit on Ohio's starboard side, knocking out the power and boiler fires. Hard-working engineers use fuel starter torches to re-light the boilers, and Ohio is doing 16 knots within 20 minutes...only to get hammered by more bombs that also damage the electric fuel pumps. These hits finally stop the engines.

Meanwhile, the rest of the convoy struggles on. Bombs sink SS Dorset. Italian torpedo bombers damage Kenya. As the convoy comes close to Malta, RAF Spitfires swoop in to break up enemy air attacks.

Ohio is joined by destroyers Penn and Ledbury, which start towing the battered tanker with 10-inch manila rope. Not only is Ohio immobile, but unable to defend herself as her 20mm Oerlikons are all damaged from heavy use.

The Luftwaffe tries again at 1:30, and a Ju 88 drops its bomb just before flak destroys the plane. The bomb rips open Ohio. Capt. Mason orders his exhausted crew to abandon ship. Destroyer and tanker crews, having gone without sleep for three days, are near the limits of their endurance. Ledbury's captain boosts morale by ordering a rum issue.

By 4 p.m., the lead ships of "Pedestal" are under Malta's fighter cover. Burrough turns his warships west to tend Ohio, while Port Chalmers, Rochester Castle and Melbourne Star enter Malta's Grand Harbour at 6:18 p.m. to the cheers of inhabitants lining the ramparts. Malta now has food to sustain the siege, but the critical oil is still 70 miles away, on a sinking ship.

On Penn, Capt. Mason sees Burrough's ships coming, and knows he has more resources to bring his ship to Malta. He asks for volunteers from his crew to go back aboard Ohio, and the weary merchant Sailors do so, checking valves and steering gear, stopping leaks. Mason removes his ship's rudder and auxiliary steering gear. The ship will be hand-steered to Malta.

But at 6:30 the Luftwaffe comes back for one more try, and score a bomb hit that explodes on the boiler tops, blowing most of the engine room to pieces. Ohio has broken her back. Mason again orders abandon ship.

That evening, Mason and Lt. Cdr. Swain, Penn's skipper, discuss the situation. Ohio is flooding, but Mason is determined to get her oil to Malta. "We'll do everything we can," Swain says. They come up with a new plan to save the tanker.

Today is the fifth day of anti-British rioting in India, and police kill four persons in a mob attacking a railway station in Tenali on the east coast. Indian deaths now number 74 in the riots.

German troops reach Elista, 200 miles south of Stalingrad, and 155 miles from the Caspian Sea. The Caucasian town of Mineralniye Vody falls to the Germans as well. At his wooden headquarters - "Werewolf" - at Vinnitsa in the Ukraine, Hitler discusses the French coast. If Nazi strategy fails, the Second Front will come sooner or later. Hitler orders Armaments Minister Albert Speer to create an "Atlantic Wall" of fortifications against any Allied landing. Hitler wants 15,000 concrete bunkers set at 50- or 100-yard intervals, to be built without regard for cost. Hitler recalls for Speer's benefit his World War I days, how hard it was for the Allies to dig German troops out of trenchlines. "Our most costly substance," Hitler says, "Is the German man. The blood these fortifications will spare is worth the billions." It is a strange move for the man who has espoused mobile warfare with such success, to fall back on fixed fortifications.

Pvt. Travis Hammond of the US Army Air Force beats the rap when his General Court Martial acquits him in the rape of a 17- year-old English YMCA worker.

August 14, 1942...At 7:35 a.m, Martin Clemens and his team leave their post on Guadalcanal to contact the Americans.

The Marines face two menaces on Guadalcanal. First comes the problem with 200 to 300 head of captured cattle, roaming the perimeter as a mobile food dump. The Japanese bomb the herd, which causes a stampede. The terrified cattle launch an all-out assault on 1st Marine Division's Tac HQ, and tear it apart, in one of the war's most bizarre episodes.

That evening, to deal with roving Japanese bands, the Marines issue challenges that require passwords like "polyglot," "Lilliputian," and "bilious." The Americans believe the Japanese cannot pronounce the letter "L."

That evening, nervous Marines scream "Hallelujah" at each other all night long to confirm their identities, and the incident is ever afterward known as "Hallelujah Night." The policy is dropped next evening.

The Germans try yet another anti-partisan sweep in Russia, Operation Griffon, against partisans at Orsha and Vitebsk. Once again the Germans land a bunch of haymakers against partisans on the Moscow Highway from Brest-Litovsk through Minsk to Smolensk. Once again the bulk of Soviets escape the German nets.

British Intelligence at Bletchley Park scores yet another coup, breaking the main Enigma code used by the SS, and call it "Quince." The Germans never know it is broken, and the British read it until V-E Day. The only code that eludes the British is the Gestapo Enigma, known as TGD.

Montgomery inspects 13th Corps and chats with Freyberg. Monty tells Freyberg that divisions will fight as divisions, not as battlegroups or "Jock Columns." Three will also be no more "defensive boxes," as a "box" is a contraption with a lid on it to hold the occupants down; the new term is "defended area." Monty also forbids arguing about orders. They must be obeyed immediately.

Next, Montgomery reviews his army's defensive positions and plans. They stress mobility, but Montgomery does not believe his forces are the equal of Rommel's in a mobile battle, as infantry and armor do not yet work together. Monty would rather depend on tenacity. Instead of an open system Rommel can penetrate, 8th Army will be a fortress against which Rommel will dash himself to pieces.

Montgomery's last move is to request the immediate move forward of 44 (Home Counties) Division, still in desert training. Gen. Harold Alexander says, "If that's what Monty wants, let him have it."

Shortly after midnight, 60 miles from Malta, Penn and the minesweeper Rye try to tow Ohio to Malta, doing 4.5 knots. But at 1 a.m., the tow is broken, and the British have to try again. HMS Branham suggests the tanker be moved by towing alongside. Mason and some of his crew finally get some sleep. At dawn, they bury at sea the body of a Royal Navy gunner killed in action. HMS Ledbury turns up to assist with the tow, and sends Sailors aboard to hook in cables. They return to the destroyer with one large typewriter, two 20mm Oerlikon guns, 12 magazines, a number of field telephones, and a large megaphone with SS Ohio stamped on it. Mason also goes aboard and inspects the tanks. His ship is holding better than he expected.

Joined by three more minesweepers, Ohio struggles on. But at 10:45, six Ju 88s swing in. Massed British guns fell one bomber, and the rest release too early. Three more echelons of Germans come in, but 16 Spitfires from Malta sight the enemy, and shake up the German formation. The Germans toss a 1,000-kg. bomb at Ohio, which misses. Ohio has 45 miles to go.

That afternoon, the air is full of Spitfires, which screen off German aircraft, but the U-boat menace remains. The tanker's life at sea may be measurable in hours or even minutes, as she struggles along at a steady five knots. Crewmen stagger about like sleepwalkers, nodding off at their stations.

At dusk, lookouts spot Malta's cliffs, and the force squeezes into the mineswept channel off Delimara Point. The King's Harbor Master arrives in the tug Robert to take charge of the final part of the tow. As the ship staggers in, Maltese coast defenses spot an enemy U-boat, and scare it off with 9.2-inch shells.

The battle isn't over yet...shortly after that, enemy MTBs sweep in from the northeast. British coast defenses light up searchlights. At the last moment, the Axis E-boat commander decides the certainty of destruction by 9.2-inch guns is not worth the risk, and the E-boats withdraw.

August 15, 1945...No. 487 NZ Squadron opens for business at RAF Felwell, in Norfolk, England. This squadron of Mosquitoes will become part of Bomber Command's Pathfinder Force, whose task is to locate, mark and illuminate bombing targets in Germany. The Pathfinder force is led by Australian Air Vice Marshal Donald Bennett. He devises patterns of flares to mark targets, and names these patterns after Australian and New Zealand cities, such that "Parramatta" and "Wanganui" will mark German cities to be bombed.

Alexander takes over at the top of the Middle East command, and Gen. Claude Auchinleck leaves the stage for good, in disgrace. His reputation is salvaged by Erwin Rommel, who writes, "Although the first British losses in this Alamein fighting had been higher than ours, yet the price to Auchinleck had not been excessive, for the one thing that mattered to him was to halt our advance, and that unfortunately he had done...Auchinleck was a very good leader...At Alamein, Auchinleck took the initiative himself and executed his operations with deliberation and noteworthy courage. Every time I was on the point of forcing a breakthrough with my German motorized formations, he launched an attack on the Italians elsewhere, scattered them and either penetrated uncomfortably close to our supply area or threatened a breakthrough in the south. On each occasion I was forced to break off my own attack to hurry to the help of the threatened sector."

Alexander accepts Auchinleck's defense plan in principle.

Early in the Guadalcanal morning, a Marine sentry gapes when he sees two rows of nearly naked natives, closed up and rifles at the slope, stepping along towards him with smart precision. Leading them, accompanied by a small dog, is a white man in tattered shirt and shorts, but wearing an immaculate pair of black dress oxfords.

Martin Clemens has broken through Japanese lines to reach the US Marines. Lacking identification and password, Clemens figures that he should make the most conspicuous approach possible, to obviously not be Japanese. The Marine guard gets the point and lowers his rifle. Clemens, about to speak English for the first time in weeks, can only whisper his name.

In seconds, a mob of Marines turn up, offering chocolate and cigarettes, asking questions. The Marines take Clemens to the division's Tac HQ, where Vandegrift appoints Clemens to his intelligence staff. From now on, Clemens supplies the Marines with scouts and guides, while collecting information through his native contacts, who can slip through the lines.

That evening, he has a reunion with Charles Widdy, helped by captured Japanese sake and brandy. They talk all night long until 3 a.m., when a weary Marine orders them to knock it off.

While Clemens is ecstatic to be free again, he is hoping for a beer, hot bath, and soft bed. He gets none of these, just a foxhole in a coconut grove to share with Widdy.

Also that evening, four elderly American destroyer- transports (converted four-stackers) sail in to Guadalcanal to unload fuel, munitions, tools, and spare parts to establish Henderson Field as an operating Marine Air Station.

Dawn breaks over SS Ohio with her still plodding towards the Grand Harbour entrance. All her escorts are jammed with wounded Sailors from various sunken ships.

At 6 a.m., Malta tugs arrive to handle the final tow into Grand Harbour entrance. There the exhausted Ohio crew is stunned to see the harbor's ramparts jammed with Maltese people, a brass band playing Rule Britannia. Mason takes the salute on his ship's bridge.

The tug drags the derelict to the quays. Stevedores hook up pipes, and Ohio starts to discharge her 10,000 tons of fuel oil - - enough to keep Malta supplied through December -- into RFA Boxall.

As the oil flows out, Mason gets a message from Burrough, the convoy commander. "To Ohio stop I'm proud to have met you message ends." Mason (who will receive a George Cross) reads the message and walks to the other side of the bridge. Just then the last of the oil flows out. Seconds later, the tanker settles to the bottom of the harbor, sunk at last.

German troops capture Georgievsk in Russia, and intensify their attack on Stalingrad.

Stalin asks Churchill for 20,000 trucks a month. Russian factories are only producing 2,000 a month. Churchill agrees.

The Germans open a new camp for slave laborers at Jawiszowice, near Auschwitz, amid underground coal mines. Hordes of French and Belgian laborers are shipped there, joining Jews from Auschwitz. Thousands die in harsh conditions.

Dutch resistance workers try to blow up a train carrying German troops in Rotterdam. They fail, so the Germans shoot five civilian hostages as a deterrent to further sabotage.

The Kawaguchi Detachment goes to sea, all men hungover from an all-night party, boarding two 10,00-ton transports. Gen Nishino's feet burn through his sneakers on the hot steel deck. Sailors file into the hold of the transport Sado Maru and squeeze into bunks with their gear. At the last minute, a large black dog waddles onto Sado Maru and returns to his owner, Lt. Ueno. Ueno says to the dog, "All right, I was wrong." He had given the dog away the night before.