For the present, however, there was to be no relief for men starting their third month on Guadalcanal. The Japanese would not abandon their plan to seize back Guadalcanal and gave painful evidence of their intentions near mid-October. General Hyakutake himself landed on Guadalcanal on 7 October to oversee the coming offensive. Elements of Major General Masao Maruyama’s Sendai Division, already a factor in the fighting near the Matanikau, landed with him. More men were coming. And the Japanese, taking advantage of the fact that Cactus flyers had no night attack capability, planned to ensure that no planes at all would rise from Guadalcanal to meet them.
By October, malaria began to claim as many casualties as Japanese artillery, bombs, and naval gunfire. Shown here are the patients in the division hospital who are ministered to by physicians and corpsmen working under minimal conditions.
On 11 October, U.S. Navy surface ships took a hand in stopping the “Tokyo Express,” the nickname that had been given to Admiral Tanaka’s almost nightly reinforcement forays. A covering force of five cruisers and five destroyers, located near Rennell Island and commanded by Rear Admiral Norman Scott, got word that many ships were approaching Guadalcanal. Scott’s mission was to protect an approaching reinforcement convoy and he steamed toward Cactus at flank speed eager to engage. He encountered more ships than he had expected, a bombardment group of three heavy cruisers and two destroyers, as well as six destroyers escorting two seaplane carrier transports. Scott maneuvered between Savo Island and Cape Esperance, Guadalcanal’s western tip, and ran head-on into the bombardment group.
Alerted by a scout plane from his flagship, San Francisco (CA 38), spottings later confirmed by radar contacts on the Helena (CL 50), the Americans opened fire before the Japanese, who had no radar, knew of their presence. One enemy destroyer sank immediately, two cruisers were badly damaged, one, the Furutaka, later foundered, and the remaining cruiser and destroyer turned away from the inferno of American fire. Scott’s own force was punished by enemy return fire which damaged two cruisers and two destroyers, one of which, the Duncan (DD 485), sank the following day. On the 12th too, Cactus flyers spotted two of the reinforcement destroyer escorts retiring and sank them both. The Battle of Cape Esperance could be counted an American naval victory, one sorely needed at the time.
Maj Harold W. Bauer, VMF-212 commander, here a captain, was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor after being lost during a scramble with Japanese aircraft over Guadalcanal.
Department of Defense (USMC) Photo 410772
Its way cleared by Scott’s encounter with the Japanese, a really welcome reinforcement convoy arrived at the island on 13 October when the 164th Infantry of the Americal Division arrived. The soldiers, members of a National Guard outfit originally from North Dakota, were equipped with Garand M-1 rifles, a weapon of which most overseas Marines had only heard. In rate of fire, the semiautomatic Garand could easily outperform the single-shot, bolt-action Springfields the Marines carried and the bolt-action rifles the Japanese carried, but most 1st Division Marines of necessity touted the Springfield as inherently more accurate and a better weapon. This did not prevent some light-fingered Marines from acquiring Garands when the occasion presented itself. And such an occasion did present itself while the soldiers were landing and their supplies were being moved to dumps. Several flights of Japanese bombers arrived over Henderson Field, relatively unscathed by the defending fighters, and began dropping their bombs. The soldiers headed for cover and alert Marines, inured to the bombing, used the interval to “liberate” interesting cartons and crates. The news that the Army had arrived spread across the island like wildfire, for it meant to all Marines that they eventually would be relieved. There was hope.
