Marine Corps Historical Center
Lieutenant Colonel Krulak and his G-3 staff relished the challenge. Scouts from Major Anthony “Cold Steel” Walker’s 6th Reconnaissance Company stole across the estuary at night to gather intelligence on the Nishikoku Beaches and the Japanese defenders. The scouts confirmed the existence on the peninsula of a cobbled force of Imperial Japanese Navy units under an old adversary. Fittingly, this final opposed amphibious landing of the war would be launched against one of the last surviving Japanese rikusentai (Special Naval Landing Force) commanders, Rear Admiral Minoru Ota.
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 126402
When the heavy rains of May arrived, deep mud caused by days of torrential downpours made air delivery the only possible means of providing forward combat units with food, ammunition, and water. As a result, Marine torpedo-bombers of VMTBs-131 and -232 were employed in supply drops by parachute. The white panels laid on the ground at the right mark the target area for the drops.
Admiral Ota was 54, a 1913 graduate of the Japanese Naval Academy, and a veteran of rikusentai service from as early as 1932 in Shanghai. Ten years later he commanded the 2d Combined Special Landing Force destined to assault Midway, but was thwarted by the disastrous naval defeat suffered by the Japanese. In November 1942, commanding the 8th Combined Special Landing Force in the Central Solomons, he defended Bairoko against the 1st Marine Raider Regiment. By 1945, however, the rikusentai had all but disappeared, and Ota commanded a ragtag outfit of several thousand coast defense and antiaircraft gunners, aviation mechanics, and construction specialists. Undismayed, Ota breathed fire into his disparate forces, equipped them with hundreds of machine cannons from wrecked aircraft, and made them sow thousands of mines.
Krulak and Shepherd knew they faced a worthy opponent, but also saw they held the advantage of surprise if they could act swiftly. The final details of planning centered on problems with the division’s previously dependable LVTs. Sixty-five days of hard campaigning ashore had taken a heavy toll of the tracks and suspension systems of these assault amphibians. Nor were repair parts available. LVTs had served in abundance on L-Day to land four divisions; now the Marines had to scrape to produce enough for the assault elements of one regiment. Worse for the planners, the first typhoon of the season was approaching, and the Navy was getting jumpy. General Shepherd remained firm in his desire to execute the assault on K-Day, 4 June. Admiral Halsey backed him up.
As soon as the parachute drops landed in the target zone, grateful Marines enthusiastically retrieved the supplies, often while under enemy fire. Some of the drops were out of reach as they landed in territory where Japanese soldiers claimed them.
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 123168