SILK CHUTES AND HARD FIGHTING: US. Marine Corps Parachute Units in World War II

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SILK CHUTES AND HARD FIGHTING: US. Marine Corps Parachute Units in World War II
by Lieutenant Colonel Jon T. Hoffman (USMCR)

Foreword

Silk Chutes and Hard Fighting: US. Marine Corps Parachute Units in World War II is a brief narrative of the development, deployment, and eventual demise of Marine parachute units during World War II. It is published to honor the veterans of these special units and for the information of those interested in Marine parachutists and the events in which they participated.

Lieutenant Colonel Jon T. Hoffman, USMCR, is an infantry officer currently on duty as a staff officer with the Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force-Experimental. During his 15 years of active duty, he has served as a platoon and company commander with 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines; as an inspector-instructor with 2nd Battalion, 23rd Marines; as a history instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy; and as an action officer at Headquarters Marine Corps. His reserve service has been with the field history branch of the Marine Corps History and Museums Division, the II Marine Expeditionary Force Augmentation Command Element, and the adjunct faculty of the Marine Corps Command & Staff College. He is a distinguished graduate of the resident program of the latter institution. He also holds a bachelor's degree from Miami University, a law degree from Duke University, and a master's degree in military history from Ohio State University. His 1994 biography of Major General Merritt A. Edson, Once A Legend, received the Marine Corps Historical Foundation's Greene Award and was selected for the Commandant of the Marine Corps' Reading List. His numerous articles in professional military and historical journals have earned a dozen prizes, most notably the Marine Corps Historical Foundation's Heinl Award for 1992,1993, 1994, and 1995.

The Jump into Parachuting

The widely publicized airborne coup in the Low Countries created an immediate, high-level reaction within the Marine Corps. On 14 May the acting director of the Division of Plans and Policies at Headquarters Marine Corps issued a memorandum to his staff officers. The one-page document came right to the point in its first sentence: "The Major General Commandant [Thomas Holcomb] has ordered that we prepare plans for the employment of parachute troops." The matter was obviously of the highest priority, since Colonel Pedro A. del Valle asked for immediate responses, which could be submitted "in pencil on scrap paper." Perhaps as telling, the memorandum did not direct a mere study, but the creation of a course of action.
Marines landing

Considering the Corps' complete lack of expertise in this emerging field of warfare, Headquarters quickly translated staff plans into reality. The first small group of volunteers reported for training in October 1940 and graduated the following February. Succeeding classes went through an accelerated program for basic parachute qualification, but the numbers mounted very slowly. Throughout 1941 the Marine Corps produced just a trickle of jumpers and remained a long way from possessing a useful tactical entity. Most members of the first three training classes reported to the 2d Marine Division in San Diego, California, to form the nucleus of the Corps' first parachute unit. The 2d Parachute Company (soon redesignated Company A, 2d Parachute Battalion) formally came into existence on 22 March 1941. The first commanding officer was Captain Robert H. Williams. The majority of the fourth class went to Quantico, Virginia, and became the nucleus of Company A, 1st Parachute Battalion, on 28 May. Its first commanding officer was Captain Marcellus J. Howard. From that point forward, graduating classes were generally detailed on an alternating basis to each coast. In the summer of 1941, the West Coast company transferred to Quantico and merged into the 1st Battalion. Williams assumed command of the two-company organization.

The concentration of the Corps' small paratrooper contingents at Quantico at least allowed them to begin a semblance of tactical training. The battalion conducted a number of formation jumps during the last half of July, some from Marine planes and others from Navy patrol bombers. In no case could it muster enough planes to jump an entire company at once. Captain Williams used his battalion's time on the ground to emphasize his belief that "paratroopers are simply a new form of infantry." His men learned hand-to-hand fighting skills, went on conditioning hikes, and did a lot of calisthenic exercises. A Time magazine reporter noted that the parachutists were "a notably tough-looking outfit among Marines, who all look tough." One of the battalion's July jumps demonstrated the consternation that paratroopers could instill by their surprise appearance on a battlefield. A landing at an airfield near Fredericksburg, Virginia, unexpectedly disrupted maneuvers of the Army's 44th Infantry Division, because its leaders thought the Marines were an aggressor force added to the problem without their knowledge. The same jump also indicated some of the limitations of airborne operations. An approaching thunderstorm brought high winds which blew many of the jumpers away from their designated landing site and into a grove of trees. Luckily, none of the 40 men involved sustained any serious injuries.

The first tactical employment of Marine parachutists came with the large-scale landing exercise of the Amphibious Force, Atlantic Fleet, in August 1941. This corps, under the command of Major General Holland M. Smith, consisted of the 1st Marine Division and the Army's 1st Infantry Division. The final plan for the exercise at New River, North Carolina, called for Captain Williams' company to parachute at H plus 1 hour onto a vital crossroads behind enemy lines, secure it, and then attack the rear of enemy forces opposing the landing of the 1st Infantry Division. Captain Howard's company would jump on the morning of D plus 2 in support of an amphibious landing by Lieutenant Colonel Merritt A. Edson's Mobile Landing Group and a Marine tank company. Edson's force (the genesis of the 1st Raider Battalion) would go ashore behind enemy lines, advance inland, destroy the opposing reserve force, and seize control of important lines of communication. Howard's men would land near Edson's objective and "secure the road net and bridges in that vicinity."

For the exercise the parachutists were attached to the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, which operated from a small airfield at New Bern, North Carolina, just north of the Marine base. The landing force executed the operation as planned, hut Holland Smith was not pleased with the results because there were far too many artificialities, including the lack of an aggressor force. A shortage of transport planes (only two on hand) handicapped the parachutists; it took several flights, with long delays between, to get just one of the under-strength companies on the ground. Once the exercise was underway, Smith made one attempt to simulate an enemy force. He arranged for Captain Williams to re-embark one squad and jump behind the lines of the two divisions, with orders to create as much havoc as possible. Williams' tiny force cut tactical telephone lines, hijacked trucks, blocked a road, and successfully evaded capture for several hours. One after-action report noted that "the introduction of paratroops lent realism to the necessity for command post security."

Smith put great faith in the potential value of airborne operations. In his preliminary report on the exercise, he referred to Edson's infantry/tank/parachute assault on D+2 as a "spearhead thrust around the hostile flank" and emphasized the need in modern warfare for the "speed and shock effect" of airborne and armor units. With that in mind, he recommended that his two-division force include at least one "air attack brigade" of at least one parachute regiment and one air infantry regiment. (The term "air infantry" referred to ground troops landed by transport aircraft.) He also urged the Marine Corps to acquire the necessary transport planes. Despite this high-level plea, the Marine Corps continued to go slowly with the parachute program. At the end of March 1942, the 1st Battalion finally stood up its third line company, but the entire organization only had a total of 332 officers and men, less than 60 percent of its table of organization strength (one of the lowest figures in the division). The 2d Battalion, still recovering from the loss of its first Company A, had barely 200 men.

Manpower and aircraft shortages and the straightjacket of the parachute training pipeline accounted for some of the bottleneck, but a lack of enthusiasm for the idea at Headquarters also appears to have taken hold. By contrast, the Corps had not conceived the original idea for the raiders until mid-1941, but it had two full 800-man battalions in existence by March 1942. The Marine Corps was not enthusiastic about the latter force, either, but it expanded rapidly in large measure due to pressure from President Franklin Roosevelt and senior Navy leaders. Without similar heat from above, Headquarters was not about to commit its precious resources to a crash program to expand the parachutists and provide them with air transports. Marine planners probably made a realistic choice in the matter, given the competing requirements to fill up divisions and air wings and make them ready for amphibious warfare, another infant art suffering through even greater growing pain

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Marine Parachute Pioneers

In October 1940, the Commandant sent a circular letter to all units and posts to solicit volunteers for the paratroopers. All applicants, with the exception of officers above the rank of captain, had to meet a number of requirements regarding age (21 to 32 years), height (66 to 74 inches), and health (normal eyesight and blood pressure). In addition, they had to be unmarried, an indication of the expected hazards of the duty. Applications were to include information on the Marine's educational record and athletic experience, so Headquarters was obviously interested in placing above-average individuals in these new units.

The letter further stated that personnel qualified as parachutists would receive an unspecified amount of extra pay. The money served as both a recognition of the danger and an incentive to volunteer. Congress would eventually set the additional monthly for parachutists at $100 for officers and $50 for enlisted men. Since a private first class at that time earned about $36 per month and a second lieutenant $125, the increase amounted to a hefty bonus. It would prove to be a significant factor in attracting volunteers, though parachuting would have generated a lot of interest without the money. As one early applicant later put it, based on common knowledge of the German success in the Low Countries, many Marines thought "that this was going to be a grand and glorious business." Parachute duty promised "plenty of action" and the chance to get in on the ground floor of a revolutionary type of warfare.

To get the program underway, the Commandant transferred Marine Captain Marion L. Dawson from duty with the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics to Lakehurst, New Jersey, to oversee the new school. Two enlisted Marine parachute riggers would serve as his initial assistants. Marine parachuting got off to an inauspicious start when Captain Dawson and two lieutenants made a visit to Hightstown, New Jersey, to check out the jumping towers. The other officers, Second Lieutenants Walter S. Osipoff and Robert C. McDonough, were slated to head the Corps' first group of parachute trainees. After watching a brief demonstration, the owner suggested that the Marines give it a test. As Dawson later recalled, he "reluctantly" agreed, only to break his leg when he landed at the end of his free fall.

On 26 October 1940, Osipoff, McDonough, and 38 enlisted men reported to Lakehurst. The Corps was still developing its training program, so the initial class spent 10 days at Highstown starting on 28 October. Immediately after that they joined a new class at the Parachute Material School land followed that 16-week coursed of instruction until its completion on 27 February 1941. A Douglas R3D-2 transport plane arrived from Quantico on 6 December and remained there through the 21st, so the pioneer Marine paratroopers made their first jumps during this period. For the remainder of the course, they leapt from Navy blimps stationed at Lakehurst. Lieutenant Osipoff, the senior officer, had the honor of making the first jump by a Marine paratrooper. By graduation, each man had completed the requisite 10 jumps to qualify as a parachutist and parachute rigger. Not all made it through — several dropped from the program due to ineptitude or injury. The majority of these first graduates were destined to remain at Lakehurst as instructors or to serve the units in the Fleet Marine Force as riggers.

By the time the second training class reported, Dawson and his growing staff had created a syllabus for the program. The first two weeks were ground school, which emphasized conditioning, wearing of the harness, landing techniques, dealing with wind drag of the parachute once on the ground, jumping from platforms and a plane mockup, and packing chutes. Students spent the third week riding a bus each day to Highstown where they applied their skills on the towers. The final two weeks consisted of work from aircraft and tactical training as time permitted. Students had to complete six jumps to qualify as a parachutist. The trainers had accumulated their knowledge from the Navy staff, from observing Army training at Fort Benning, and from a film depicting German parachutists. The latter resulted in one significant Marine departure from U.S. Army methods. Whereas the Army made a vertical exit from the aircraft, basically just stepping out the door, Marines copied the technique depicted in the German film and tried to make a near-perpendicular dive, somewhat like a simmer coming off the starting block.

Marine paratroopers used two parachutes in training and in tactical jumps. They wore the main chute in a backpack configuration and a reverse chute on their chest. When jumping from transport planes, the main opened by means of a static line attached to a cable running lengthwise in the cargo compartment. Once the jumpmaster gave the signal, a man crouched in the doorway, made his exit dive, and then drew his knees toward his chest. The parachutist, arms wrapped tightly about his chest chute, felt the opening shock of his main canopy almost immediately upon leaving the plane. If not, he had to pull the ripcord to deploy the reserve chute. (When jumping from blimps, the parachutists had to use a ripcord for the main chute too.) A parachutist's speed of descent depended upon his weight, so Marines carried as little as possible to keep the rate down near 16 feet per second, the equivalent of jumping from a height of about 10 feet. At that speed a jumper had to fall and roll when hitting the ground so as to spread the shock beyond his leg joints. Training jumps began at 1,000 feet, while the standard height for tactical jumps in the Corps was 750 feet. The Germans jumped from as low as 300 feet, but that made it impossible to open the emergency chute in time for it to be effective.

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Rendezvous at Gavutu

After four months of war, the 1st Marine Division was alerted to its first prospect of action. The vital Samoan Islands appeared to be next on the Japanese invasion list and the Navy called upon the Marines to provide the necessary reinforcements for the meager garrison. In March 1942, Headquarters created two brigades for the mission, cutting a regiment and a slice of supporting forces from each of the two Marine divisions. The 7th Marines got the nod at New River and became the nucleus of the 3d Brigade. That force initially included Edson's 1st Raider Battalion, but no paratroopers. In the long run that was a plus for the 1st Parachute Battalion, which remained relatively untouched as the brigade siphoned off much of the best manpower and equipment of the division to bring itself to full readiness. The division already was reeling from the difficult process of wartime expansion. In the past few months it had absorbed thousands of newly minted Marines, subdivided units to create new ones, given up some of its best assets to field the raiders and parachutists, and built up a base and training areas from the pine forests of New River, North Carolina.

The parachutists and the remainder of the division did not have long to wait for their own call to arms, however. In early April, Headquarters alerted the 1st Marine Division that it would begin movement overseas in May. The destination was New Zealand, where everyone assumed the division would have months to complete the process of turning raw manpower into well-trained units. Part of the division shoved off from Norfolk in May. Some elements, including Companies B and C of the parachutists, took trains to the West Coast and boarded naval transports there on 19 June. The rest of the 1st Parachute Battalion was part of a later Norfolk echelon, which set sail for New Zealand on 10 June.

While the parachutists were still at sea, the advance echelon of the division had already bedded down in New Zealand. But the 1st Marine Division's commander, Major General Alexander A. Vandegrift, received a rude shock shortly after he and his staff settled into their headquarters at a Wellington hotel. He and his outfit were slated to invade and seize islands in the southern Solomons group on 1 August, just five weeks hence. To complicate matters, there was very little solid intelligence about the objectives. There were no maps on hand, so the division had to create its own from poor aerial photos and sketches hand-drawn by former planters and traders familiar with the area.

Planners estimated that there were about 5,275 enemy on Guadalcanal (home to a Japanese air field under construction) and a total of 1,850 on Tulagi and Gavutu-Tanambogo. Tulagi, 17 miles north of Guadalcanal, was valuable for its anchorage and seaplane base. The islets of Gavutu and Tanambogo, joined by a causeway, hosted a sea plane base and Japanese shore installations and menaced the approaches to Tulagi. In reality, there were probably 536 men on Gavutu Tanambogo, most of them part of construction or aviation support units, though there was at least one platoon of the 3d Kure Special Naval Landing Force, the ground combat arm of the Imperial Navy. The list of heavy weapons on Gavutu Tanambogo included two three-inch guns and an assortment of antiaircraft and antitank guns and machine guns.

By the time the last transports docked in New Zealand on 11 July, planners had outlined the operation and the execution date bad slipped to 7 August to allow the division a chance to gather its far-flung echelons and combat load transports. Five battalions of the 1st and 5th Marines would land on the large island of Guadalcanal at 0800 on 7 August and seize the unfinished airfield on the north coast. The 1st Raider Battalion, slated to meet the division on the way to the objective, would simultaneously assault Tulagi. The 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, would follow in trace and support the raiders. The 2d Marines, also scheduled to rendezvous with the division at sea, would serve as the reserve force and land 20 minutes prior to H-Hour on Florida Island, thought to be undefended. The parachutists received the mission of attacking Gavutu at H plus four hours. The delay resulted from the need for planes, ships, and landing craft to concentrate first in support of the Tulagi operation. Once the paratroopers secured Gavutu, they would move on to its sister. The Tulagi, Gavutu-Tanambogo, and Florida operations fell under the immediate control of a task force designated as the Northern Group, headed by Brigadier General William H. Rupertus, the assistant division commander.

After a feverish week of unloading, sorting, and reloading equipment and supplies, the parachutists boarded the transport USS Heywood on 18 July and sailed in convoy to Koro Island in the Fijis, where the entire invasion force conducted landing rehearsals on 28 and 30 July. These went poorly, since the Navy boat crews and most of the 1st Marine Division were too green. The parachute battalion was better trained than most of the division, but this was its very first experience as a unit in conducting a seaborne landing. There is no indication that planners gave any thought to using their airborne capability, though in all likelihood that was due to the lack of transport aircraft or the inability of available planes to make a round-trip flight from New Zealand to the Solomons.

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Marine Corps Airborne Doctrine

On 15 May 1940 the Commandant, Major General Thomas Holcomb, wrote the Chief of Naval Operations to seek the help of his naval attaches in gathering information on foreign parachute programs. He noted that he was "intensely interested" in the subject. The Berlin attache responded the following month with a lead on how to obtain newsreels and an educational film on the German paratroopers. The London attache eventually provided additional information on the Germans and on Britain's fledgling parachute program launched in June 1940.

The Commandant's own intelligence section had already compiled available material on the German and Soviet forces. The report noted the distinction between parachutists and air infantry, the latter consisting of specially organized units trained and equipped to move by transport aircraft. The paratroopers acted as the advance guard for the air infantry by seizing the airfields upon which the transports would land. The report also detailed the different methods that the Germans and Soviets used to train their respective forces. German paratrooper recruits went through an intensive ground school prior to making the six jumps required to achieve membership in a unit. The Soviet program featured the use of towers for practice jumps prior to actual training with a plane. When staff officers at Headquarters first looked at parachute forces in the aftermath of Eben Emael, they specifically considered the functions such a unit would perform. Their ideas were generally similar: paratroopers would be valuable for raids, reconnaissance, the seizure of airfields, aerial envelopment of the enemy's rear area, and the occupation of key terrain in advance of the main force. Several officers specifically tied the latter two missions to the conduct of amphibious operations.

Although the Corps' amphibious doctrine had existed on paper for several years, the Fleet Marine Force was having a difficult time turning those ideas into reality. During annual exercises, a lack of decent landing craft and transports had prevented the rapid buildup ashore of combat power, something the amphibious force had to do if it hoped to defeat counterattacks against its beachhead. Brigadier General Holland M. Smith, commander of the 1st Marine Brigade, first tried to solve this problem during Fleet Exercise 6 in February 1940. A key part of his plan was the night landing of one company three hours prior to the main amphibious assault. This company, embarked in a fast destroyer transport, would go ashore by rubber boat, seize key terrain overlooking the proposed beachhead, and then protect the rest of the force as it landed and got itself organized. This idea eventually gave birth to the 1st Marine Raider Battalion. In the spring of 1940, it was obvious to a number of Marine officers, at Headquarters and in the PMF, that parachutists now constituted an ideal alternative for speedily seizing a surprise lodgement on an enemy coast. Smith explicitly would advocate that new wrinkle to doctrine the following year.

The Marine Corps did not develop formal airborne doctrine until late 1942. It came in the form of a 12-page manual titled Parachute and Air Troops. Its authors believed that airborne forces could constitute "a paralyzing application of power in the initial phase of a landing attack." Secondarily, parachute troops could seize "critical points," such as airfields or bridges, or they could operate behind enemy lines in small groups to gather intelligence or conduct sabotage operations. The doctrine noted the limitations of airborne assault and emphasized that these forces could only seize small objectives and hold them for a short time pending linkup with seaborne or overland echelons. The manual envisioned the formation of an air brigade composed of one regiment each of paratroops and air infantry, the type of force originally sought by Holland Smith.

The doctrinal publication did not provide much detail on tactics, but the parachutists worked out techniques in combination with Marine transport pilots. The standard of operations called for a terrain-hugging approach flight at altitudes as low as 50 feet, with a last-minute ascent to several hundred feet, at which point the jumpers exited the aircraft. All leaders were thoroughly briefed beforehand with maps, aerial photos, and a sandtable mockup of the objective, so that they could quickly get organized and oriented once they hit the ground. When they jumped, the paratroopers carried the collapsible Johnson weapons or Reisings, along with basic individual items such as a belt, knife, canteens, and ammunition. Cargo parachutes delivered heavier weapons and supplies.

From early in the life of the program, planners realized that a lack of training facilities and planes hampered the ability of the Corps to field an adequate airborne force. They thus began looking at using parachutists for secondary missions. In April 1941 the Commandant directed that parachute units conduct training in rubber boat operations, reconnaissance, demolitions, and other subjects to enable them to conduct special missions requiring only small forces or not necessarily involving airborne insertion. On New Caledonia in 1943, the 1st Parachute Regiment devoted much of its training time to such skills. In many respects the Marine Corps had molded the parachutists and raiders into carbon copies of each other, with the parachutists' unique ability to enter battle being the only significant difference between the two special units.

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Tasimboko

As August progressed it became clear that the Japanese were focusing their effort in the Solomons on regaining the vital airfield on Guadalcanal. The enemy poured fresh troops onto the island via the "Tokyo Express," a shuttle of ships and barges coming down the "the Slot" each night. The 1st Marines destroyed the newly landed Ichiki Detachment along the Tenaru River on 21 August, but the understrength Marine division had too few troops to secure the entire perimeter. To bolster his force, General Vandegrift brought the raiders over from Tulagi at the end of August and switched the parachutists a few days later. The two battalions went into reserve in a coconut grove near Lunga Point. During this period Major Miller took ill and went into the field hospital, as did other parachutists. The shrinking battalion, temporarily commanded by a captain and down to less than 300 effectives, was so depleted in numbers and senior leadership that Vandegrift decided to attach them to Edson's 1st Raider Battalion. The combined unit roughly equalled the size of a standard infantry battalion, though it still lacked the heavy firepower.

Following the arrival of the first aviation reinforcements on 20 August, the division made use of its daytime control of the skies to launch a number of seaborne operations. Near the end of the month, a battalion of the 5th Marines conducted an amphibious spoiling attack on Japanese forces to the west of the perimeter, but inflicted little damage due to a lack of aggressive leadership. Two companies of raiders found no enemy after scouring Savo Island on 4 September, while a mixup in communications scrubbed a similar foray scheduled the next day for Cape Esperance. By 6 September, Japanese naval activity and native scouting reports indicated that the enemy was concentrating fresh troops near the village of Tasimboko, located on the coast several miles east of the Marine lines.

Edson and Lieutenant Colonel Gerald C. Thomas, the division operations officer, hatched a plan to raid this eastern terminus of the Tokyo Express on 8 September. Intelligence initially placed two or three hundred Japanese at Tasimboko with their defenses located west of the village and facing toward Henderson Field. Edson planned to land to the east of the village and attack them from the rear. The available shipping consisted of two destroyer transports (APDs) and two small, converted tuna boats, so the raider commander divided his force into two waves. The raider rifle companies would embark on the evening of 7 September and land just prior to dawn, then the tiny fleet would shuttle back to the perimeter to pick up the weapons company and the parachutists. Since the APDs were needed for other missions, the Marine force would have to complete its work and reembark the same day. (The Navy had already lost three of the original six APDs in the Guadalcanal campaign.)

On the evening of 7 September, native scouts brought news that the enemy force at Tasimboko had swelled to several thousand. Division planners discounted these reports, believing that they were greatly exaggerated or referred to remnants of previously defeated formations. When the raiders landed at 0520 on the 8th, they immediately realized that the natives had provided accurate information. Not far from the beach, Marines discovered endless rows of neatly placed life preservers, a large number of foxholes, and several unattended 37mm antitank guns. Luckily for Edson's outfit, Major General Kiyotake Kawaguchi and his brigade of more than 3,000 men already had departed into the interior. Only a rear guard of 300 soldiers remained behind to secure the Japanese base at Tasimboko, but even that small force was nearly as large as the first wave of raiders.

Company D of the raiders (little more than a platoon in strength) remained at the landing beach as rear security while the other companies moved west toward Tasimboko. The raiders soon ran into stubborn resistance, with the Japanese firing artillery over open sights directly at the advancing Marines. Edson sent one company wide to the left to flank the defenders. As the action developed, the APDs Manley and McKean returned to Kukum Beach at 0755 and the Parachute Battalion (less Company C) debarked within 25 minutes. The 208 parachutists joined Company D ashore by 1130 and went into defensive positions adjacent to them. Edson, fearing that he might be moving into a Japanese trap, already had radioed division twice and asked for reinforcements, to include another landing to the west of Tasimboko in what was now the enemy rear. In reply, division ordered the raiders and parachutists to withdraw. Edson persisted, however, and Japanese resistance melted away about noon. The raider assault echelon entered the village and discovered a stockpile of food, ammunition, and weapons ranging up to 75mm artillery pieces. The raider and parachute rear guard closed up on the main force and the Marines set about destroying the enemy supply base. Three hours later the combined unit began to reembark and all were back in the division perimeter by nightfall.

The raid was a minor tactical victory with major operational impact on the Guadalcanal campaign. At a cost of two killed and six wounded, the Marines had killed 27 Japanese. The enemy suffered more grievously in terms of lost firepower. logistics, and communication. Intelligence gathered at the scene also revealed some details about the coming Japanese offensive. These latter facts would allow the 1st Marine Division to fight off one of the most serious challenges to its tenuous hold on Henderson Field.

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Air Transport

The fate of the parachute program was intertwined completely with Marine aviation, inasmuch as the airborne infantry could not fulfill its function without transport aircraft. Although men could jump from just about any type of plane, tactical parachute operations required certain characteristics in aircraft. The door had to allow easy exit and the interior freedom of movement so that a stick of jumpers could exit the plane in short order; the ideal was one second per man. Any increase in the delay between jumpers resulted in wide dispersion once the stick landed on the ground and that translated into extra time spent in finding weapons and getting organized to fight. The last parachutists also might find themselves landing outside the drop zone in woods or water, either of which could easily result in death or serious injury.

When Headquarters planners first began evaluating the idea of creating Marine parachute units, the Corps possessed just two planes suitable for tactical jumping, the pair of R2D-1s of Utility Squadron 1 (VMJ-1) in Quantico, Virginia. The R2D-1 was a military version of the Douglas DC-2 airliner. Its two Wright engines generated 710 horsepower, lifted the plane's maximum gross weight of 18,200 pounds, and pushed it to a top speed of 210 miles per hour. It could accommodate approximately 10 parachutists. (The capacity depended, of course, upon the amount of equipment to be dropped, since each cargo parachute for weapons and supplies took up the space of one man.) At that time the Department of the Navy had on order seven of Douglas' newer DC-5s, known as R3D-2s in the naval services. The Marine Corps was slated to receive four of these aircraft, which could hold about 15 jumpers. The Corps had its R3D-2s by mid-1941 and placed two each in VMJ-252 and 152, respectively located in Hawaii and Quantico. One of the old R2D-1s remained in service at the air station in San Diego.

The real workhorse of Allied airborne operations during World War II was based on Douglas' DC-3 airliner, which made its first commercial flight in 1935. The Army Air Forces began buying a military version in 1940 and labelled it the C-47. The Department of the Navy acquired its first planes of this type, designated the R4D, during 1942. The Skytrain's two Pratt and Whitney engines generated 1,200 horsepower, lifted the plane's gross weight of 29,000 pounds, and pushed it to a top speed of 227 miles per hour. It could carry up to 25 paratroopers out to a range of 1,600 miles. The United States built over 10,000 C-47 variants during the war, with the naval services receiving 568 of them. In August 1943 the Marine Corps possessed about 80 of these planes. There were seven VMJ squadrons and an eighth on the drawing board, each with a projected authorization of one dozen R4Ds, but most of the units were brand new and still short of planes and crews. A number of the aircraft also were distributed in ones or twos to headquarters squadrons in support of various air groups. The heart of Marine transport capability rested at that point in Marine Air Group 25's three squadrons in the South Pacific, a grand total of just 36 transports.

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Edson's Ridge

On 9 September, Edson met with division planners to discuss the results of the raid. Intelligence officers translating captured documents indicated that up to 3,000 Japanese were cutting their way through the jungle southwest of Tasimboko. Edson was convinced that they planned to attack the unguarded southern portion of the perimeter. From an aerial photograph he picked out a grass-covered ridge that pointed like a knife at the airfield. He based his hunch on his experience with the Japanese and in jungle operations in Nicaragua. Lieutenant Colonel Thomas agreed. Vandegrift, just in the process of moving his command post into that area, was reluctant to accept a conclusion that would force him to move yet again. After much discussion, he allowed Thomas to shift the bivouac of the raiders and parachutists to the ridge to get them out of the pattern of bombs falling around the airfield.

The combined force moved to the new location on 10 September and quickly discovered that it was not the rest area they had hoped to enjoy. Orders came down from Edson to dig in and enemy aircraft bombed the ridge on the 11th and 12th, inflicting several casualties. Native scouts reported the progress of the Japanese column and Marine patrols confirmed the presence of strong enemy forces to the southeast of the perimeter. The raiders and parachutists found the process of constructing defensive positions tough going. There was very little barbed wire and no sand bags or heavy tools. Men digging in on the ridge itself found coral just below the shallow surface soil. Units disposed in the flanking jungle were hampered by the thick growth, which reduced fields of fire to nothing. Both units were smaller than ever, as tropical illnesses, poor diet, and lack of sleep combined to swell the number of men in the field hospital. Those still listed as effective often were just barely so.

Edson faced a tough situation as he contemplated how to defend the ridge area. Several hundred yards to the right of his coral hogback was the Lunga River; beyond it, elements of the 1st Pioneer and 1st Amphibious Tractor Battalions had strongpoints. More than a mile to his left was the tail end of the 1st Marine Regiment's positions along the Tenaru River. With the exception of the kunai grass-covered slopes of the ridge, everything else was dense jungle. His small force, about the size of a single infantry battalion but lacking all the heavy weapons, could not possibly establish a classic linear defense. Edson placed the parachutists on the east side of the ridge, with Company B holding a line running from the slope of Hill 80 into the jungle. The other two companies echeloned to the rear to hold the left flank. Company B of the raiders occupied the right slope of Hill 80 and anchored their right on a lagoon. Company C placed platoon strongpoints between the lagoon and river. The remaining raiders were in reserve near Hill 120. Thomas moved 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, into position between the ridge and the airfield and reoriented some of his artillery to fire to the south. Artillery forward observers joined Edson's command post on the front slope of Hill 120 and registered the guns.

Kawaguchi's Brigade faced its own troubles as it fought through the jungle and over the numerous slimy ridges. The rough terrain had forced the Japanese to leave behind their artillery and most of their supplies. Their commander also detailed one of his four battalions to make a diversionary attack along the Tenaru, which left him with just 2,500 men for the main assault. To make matters worse, the Japanese had underestimated the jungle and fallen behind schedule. As the sunset on 12 September, Kawaguchi realized that only one battalion was in its assembly area and none of his units had been able to reconnoiter their routes of attack. The Japanese general tried to delay the jumpoff scheduled for 2200, hut he could not contact his battalions. Without guides and running late, the attack blundered for ward in darkness and soon degenerated into con fusion.

At the appointed hour, a Japanese float plane dropped green flares over the Marine positions. A cruiser and three destroyers began shelling the ridge area and kept up the bombardment for 20 minutes, though few rounds landed on their intended target; many sailed over the ridge into the jungle beyond. Japanese infantry followed up with their own flares and began to launch their assault. The enemy's confusion may have benefited the parachute battalion, since all the action occurred on the raider side of the position. The enemy never struck the ridge proper, but did dislodge the Company C raiders, who fell back and eventually regrouped near Hill 120. At daylight the Japanese broke off the attack and tried to reorganize for another attempt the next night.

In the morning, Edson ordered a counterattack by the raiders of Company B and the parachutists of Company A to recapture Company C's position. The far more numerous Japanese stopped them cold with machine gun fire. Since he could not eject the Japanese from a portion of his old front, the raider commander decided to withdraw the entire line to the reserve position. In the late afternoon the Companies B of both raiders and parachutists pulled back and anchored themselves on the ridge between Hills 80 and 120. Division provided an engineer company, which Edson inserted on the right of the ridge. Company A of the raiders covered the remaining ground to the Lunga. Company C parachutists occupied a draw just to the left rear of their own Company B, while Company A held another draw on the east side of Hill 120. The raiders of Companies C and D assumed a new reserve position on the west slope of the ridge, just behind Hill 120. Edson's forward command post was just in front of the top of Hill 120.

Kawaguchi renewed his attack right after darkness fell on the 13th. His first blow struck the right flank of the raiders' Company B and drove more than a platoon of those Marines out of their positions. Most linked up with Company C in their rear, while the remainder of Company B clung to its position in the center of the ridge. The Japanese did not exploit the gap, except to send some infiltrators into the rear of the raider and parachute line. They apparently cut some of the phone lines running from Edson's command post to his companies, though he was able to warn the parachutists of the threat in their rear. By 2100 the Japanese obviously were massing around the southern nose of the ridge, lapping around the flanks of the two B Companies and making their presence known with firecrackers, flares, "a hellish bedlam of howls," and rhythmic chanting designed to strike fear into the heart of their enemy and draw return fire for the purpose of pinpointing automatic weapons. Edson responded with a fierce artillery barrage and orders to Company C raiders and Company A parachutists to form a reserve line around the front and sides of Hill 120. As Japanese mortar and machine gun fire swept the ridge, Captain William J. McKennan and First Sergeant Marion LeNoir gathered their paratroopers and led them into position around the knoll.

The Japanese assault waves finally surged forward around 2200. The attack, focused on the open ground of the ridge, immediately unhinged the remainder of the Marine center. Captain Justin G. Duryea, commanding the Company B parachutists, ordered his men to withdraw as Marine artillery shells fell ever closer to the front lines and Japanese infantry swarmed around his left flank. He also believed that the remainder of the Company B raiders already were falling back on his right. To add to the confusion, Marines thought they heard shouts of "gas attack" as smoke rose up from the lower reaches of the ridge. Duryea's small force ended up next to Company C in the draw on the east slope, where he reported to Torgerson, now the battalion executive officer. The units were clustered in low-lying ground and had no contact on their flanks. Torgerson ordered both companies to withdraw to the rear of Hill 120, where he hoped to reorganize them in the lee of the reserve line and the masking terrain. Given the collapse of the front line, it was a reasonable course of action.

The withdrawal of the parachutists left the rump of the raiders, perhaps 60 men, all alone in the center of the old front line. Edson arranged for covering fire from the artillery and the troops around Hill 120, then ordered Company B back to the knoll. There they joined the reserve line, which was now the new front line. This series of rearward movements threatened to degenerate into a rout. Night movements under fire are always confusing and commanders no longer had positive control of coherent units. There was no neat line of fighting holes to occupy, no time to hold muster and sort out raiders from parachutists and get squads, platoons, and companies back together again. A few men began to filter to the rear of the hill, while others lay prone waiting for direction. Edson, with his command post now in the middle of the front line, took immediate action. The raider commander ordered Torgerson to lead his Companies B and C from the rear of the hill and lengthen the line running from the left of Company A's position. Edson then made it known that this would he the final stand, that no one was authorized to retreat another step. Major Kenneth D. Bailey, commander of the Company C raiders, played a major role in revitalizing the defenders. He moved along the line of mingled raiders and parachutists, encouraging everyone and breathing new life into those on the verge of giving up.

Under the direction of Torgerson and unit leaders, the two parachute companies in reserve moved forward in a skirmish line and established contact on the flank of their fellows from Company A. They met only "slight resistance" in the process, but soon came under heavy attack as the Japanese renewed their assault on the hill. Edson later thought that this action "succeeded in breaking up a threatening hostile envelopment of our position" and "was a decisive factor in our ultimate victory." The new line of raiders and parachutists was not very strong, just a small horseshoe bent around the bare slopes of the knoll, with troops from the two battalions still intermingled in many spots. The artillery kept up a steady barrage — "the most intensive concentration of the campaign" according to the division's final report. And all along the line, Marines threw grenade after grenade to support the fire of their automatic weapons. Supplies of ammunition dwindled rapidly and moving cases of grenades and belted machine gun rounds to the frontline became a key element of the fight.

At 0400, Edson asked division to commit the reserve battalion to bolster his depleted forces. One company at a time, the men of the 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, moved along the spine of the ridge and into place beside those who had survived the long night. By dawn the Japanese had exhausted their reservoir of fighting spirit and Kawaguchi admitted defeat in the face of a tenacious defense backed by superior firepower. The enemy began to break contact and retreat, although a number of small groups and individuals remained scattered through the jungle on the flanks and in the rear of the Marine position. The men of the 2d Battalion began the long process of rooting out these snipers, while Edson ordered up an air strike to hasten the departure of the main Japanese force. A flight of P-40s answered the call and strafed the enemy infantry still clinging to the exposed forward slopes of Hill 80. The raiders and parachutists walked off the ridge that morning and returned to their previous bivouac in the coconut grove. Although an accurate count of Japanese bodies was impossible, the division estimated there were some 700 dead sprawled around the small battlefield. Of Kawaguchi's 500 wounded, few would survive the difficult trek back to the coast.

The two-day battle on the ridge had cost the 1st Raiders 135 men and the 1st Parachute Battalion 128. Of those totals, 59 were dead or missing, including 15 parachutists killed in action. Many of the wounded parachutists would eventually return to duty, but for the moment the battalion was down to about 100 effectives, the equivalent of a severely under-strength rifle company. It was no longer a useful tactical entity and had seen its last action on Guadalcanal. Three days later, a convoy brought the 7th Marines to the island and the remaining men of the 1st Parachute Battalion embarked in those ships for a voyage to a welcome period of rest and recuperation in a rear area.

The parachute battalion had contributed a great deal to the successful prosecution of the campaign. They had made the first American amphibious assault of the war against a defended beach and fought through the intense fire to secure the island. Despite their meager numbers, lack of senior leadership, and minimal firepower, they had stood with the raiders against difficult odds on the ridge. The 1st Marine Division's final report on Guadalcanal lauded that performance: "The actions and conduct of those who participated in the defense of the ridge is deserving of the warmest commendation. The troops engaged were tired, sleepless and battle weary at the outset. Throughout the night they held their positions in the face of powerful attacks by over whelming numbers of the enemy. Driven from one position they reorganized and clung tenaciously to another until daylight found the enemy again in full flight." Looking back on the campaign after the war, General Vandegrift would say that "I think the most crucial moment was the Battle of the Ridge."

[cincymarsdad]

The article refers to a "flight of P-40s" used to hasten the retreat of the Japanese after the attack. I believe these must have been the Army P-400s used on the 'Canal early on. These were modified P-39s intended to be sent to the Brits and/or Russians diverted into this critical need in the Pacific. They had no oxygen and could not be used for interception of high flying Betty bombers, but were used effectively in ground support, one of the relatively few cases where USAAF supported Marine ground units in WW II effectively. I have seen little written about these USAAF pilots, but obviously they suffered the same privation and casualties of their Marine counterparts in aviation on Guadalcanal and made a substantial contribution with their limited aircraft, both numbers and type. A P-400 was no match for a Zero-sen fighter.

I was just thinking how desparate things were to use "Paramarines" as pure infantry, not to mention the Raiders. Had the Japanese known more about US troop strength on the island and marshalled their resources to make a truly big push rather than opting for a "meeting engagement", the story would likely have been quite different.

[USMCRET6391]

What they are refering to is the old P-40 "Warhawk", immortalized as the "Flying Tiger Shark" flown by the Flying Tiger Sqds in China in the late 1930 and early 1940s

[cincymarsdad]

I know the P-40, but they were not used around the 'Canal, at least according to my texts on it. P-40's were used around Australia. The P-400's were based at Henderson Field, and I'd bet dimes to donuts the extra "zero" was missing. Also, P-400's were used almost exclusively in a ground attack role. P-40's were nominally fighters, though somewhat obsolescent by that time. Yes, I know P-40's were used in ground attack particularly in North Africa, but I don't think so in the Pacific to any notable degree, and they were NOT based at Henderson and so lacked the range to get up there from Noumea or anywhere on Australian mainland.

betcha. Regardless, thanks for posting these historical notes. I enjoy them, despite looking for any inkling of an outage (!). Just having fun.

[cincymarsdad]

Airacobras In Action The P-39 sent to Britain under Lend-Lease was factory Model 14A. 494 with USAAF designations of P-39D-1 and -2 were ordered.

In July 1941 the RAF received three P-39Cs with an Allison delivering 1,150hp up to 12,000', after which power fell off sharply. Observed top speed in RAF tests was 359 mph, slower than they had been led to believe. Shortly after RAF received first Airacobra Is (which were later redesignated P-400 by USAAF) with self-sealing tanks, external drop tank, 20mm nose cannon, among other things. RAF flight tests demonstrated top speed of 355 mph, faster than Spitfire VB at 15,000', but with a slower rate of climb.

RAF 601 Sqn was equipped with Airacobras in Sept 1941 and they were in service about three months in numerous cross-channel missions to strafe ground targets and river barges. They were removed from service at the end of the year with performance deemed unsatisfactory and range too short.

RAF accepted only a total of 80 Airacobras, the rest of the order went to USSR, and to USAAF, who redesignated its 179 planes P-400 and assigned them along with P-39s to the 8th, 35th, and 67th Fighter Groups in the Southwest Pacific. By June 30, 20 P-400s had been destroyed in combat. In July, P-400s were only able to intercept four of nine Japanese bombing raids because they climbed too slowly above 12,000'. Thereafter they undertook strafing attacks on Japanese landing craft, where eight P-400s were lost in ten days, but invasion forces were severely damaged.

The 67th's 14 P-400s went to Guadalcanal in late Aug 1942, where in combat four were destroyed and six damaged. They were then switched to ground attacks, where they performed admirably, and their tricycle gear enabled them to take off from fields so muddy that other types could not. P-400s played a key role in beating off the enemy attack on Bloody Ridge on Sep 2, 1941, where strafing attacks by three planes — the entire available force — decimated troop concentrations. They continued yeoman work during the rest of the Guadalcanal campaign, sometimes flying as many as 11 sorties per plane per day. P-39s did solid ground attack and anti-shipping work in Solomons, becoming expert boat-busters. The P-400s were gradually replaced by P-39s in the Pacific, but were still being sent from England to Africa in early 1943 (81st FG, 350th FG). 52 P-400s were in Africa at end of Jan 1943, carrying out low-level strafing attacks with considerable success and low losses.

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Training Centers

Very early in the process of creating the parachute program, the Marine Corps sought out information on the parachute tower then being used as an amusement ride at the New York City World's Fair. A lieutenant with the Marine Detachment at the fair provided his report on 20 May 1940. He thought such a tower could he used to advantage if the Corps modified it to simulate the physical jolt that a jumper would experience when his parachute opened and radically slowed his rate of descent. Safe Parachute Company, the builder of the World's Fair ride, also owned two towers at Hightstown, New Jersey. Each stood 150 feet tall and used a large ring to lift a spread parachute with the jumper dangling from the risers. When the mechanism released its load, the descending chute automatically filled with air. One tower featured a controlled descent guided by four cables, while the other completely released the parachute for a free fall. Fortuitously, Hightstown was just 20 miles from the Navy's Parachute Materiel School at Naval Air Station Lakehurst, New Jersey, the facility that trained sailors and a handful of Marines to pack parachutes for pilots. That made Lakehurst the obvious choice as the primary instruction facility.

Lakehurst eventually had room to train a maximum of 100 men at a time. Given the length of the course (which often stretched to six weeks or more due to delays for weather), the Corps thus could produce no more than 700 qualified parachutists per year. By mid-1941 the school was not even achieving that pace, having fallen more than two months behind schedule. In July 1941, the officer in charge of the school recommended creation of an additional parachute training facility at the burgeoning Marine base in New River, North Carolina, but it would be awhile before the Corps found the resources to act on that suggestion.

In the meantime, Headquarters decided to shift its primary parachute school to San Diego to allow more efficient use of training time due to better weather and the proximity of Marine aviation units. In April 1942 the Lakehurst detachment began transferring its instructors to San Diego, a process completed in May after the last Lakehurst class graduated. The new San Diego school began training its first class on 27 May. The plan called for the program to start a new class of 36 students each week, with a possible expansion to 60 trainees per week in the future. The school initially operated out of San Diego's Camp Elliott, but the Corps built barracks, jump towers, plane mockups, and aviation fields near Santee and moved the entire operation there at the end of August 1942. The Commandant named this small base, dedicated entirely to parachute training, Camp Gillespie in honor of Brevet Major Archibald H. Gillespie, who had participated in the campaign to free California from Mexico in 1846.

The Marine Corps established another training facility at New River's Hadnot Point during 1942. In June the 1st Parachute Battalion had transferred one officer and 13 NCOs to form the instructor cadre. The school opened with a first class of 54 students on 10 August, but delays in constructing the jump towers and obtaining parachutes slowed training. The initial group finally graduated on 13 October. The New River school's designed capacity was 75 students per class, with a new class beginning every week. By the end of 1942 the Marine parachute program was finally in full swing and capable of producing 135 new jumpers per week, though actual numbers were never that high.

The Marine Corps had one more source of trained parachutists. During the 1st Battalion's initial period of recuperation from fighting on Gavutu and Guadalcanal, it had difficulty obtaining qualified jumpers from the States. To solve the problem, Lieutenant Colonel Williams organized his own informal school. It lacked towers and he ignored much of the syllabus used stateside, but during the program's brief operation it produced about 100 trained jumpers from volunteers garnered from other units located in New Caledonia.

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Recuperation and Reevaluation

The 1st Parachute Battalion arrived in New Caledonia and went into a "dreadful" transient camp. For the next few weeks the area headquarters assigned the tired, sick men of the orphaned unit to unload ships and work on construction projects. Luckily Lieutenant Colonel Williams returned to duty after recovering from his wound and took immediate steps to rectify the situation. The battalion's last labor project was building its own permanent quarters, named Camp Kiser after Second Lieutenant Walter W. Kiser, killed at Gavutu. The site was picturesque; a grassy, undulating plain rising into low hills and overlooking the Tontouta River. Wooden structures housed the parachute loft and messhalls, but for the most part the officers and men lived and worked in tents. The two dozen transport planes of VMJ-152 and VMJ-253 occupied a nearby air field. The parachutists made a few conditioning hikes while they built their camp and began serious training in November. The first order of business was reintroducing themselves to their primary specialty, since none of them had touched a parachute in many months. They practiced packing and jumping and graduated to tactical training emphasizing patrolling and jungle warfare.

The 1st Battalion received company on 11 January 1943, when the 2d Battalion arrived at Tontouta and went into bivouac at Camp Kiser. The West Coast parachute outfit had continued to build itself up while its East Coast counterpart sailed with the 1st Marine Division and fought at Guadalcanal. During the summer of 1942, the 2d Battalion had found enough aircraft in busy southern California to make mass jumps with up to 14 planes. (Though "mass" is a relative term here; an entire battalion required about 50 R3D-2s to jump at once.) The battalion also benefitted from its additional time in the States, as it received Johnson rifles and light machine guns in place of the reviled Reisings. However, the manpower pipeline was still slow, as Company C did not come into being until 3 September 1942 (18 months after the first parachutists reported to San Diego for duty). The battalion sailed from San Diego in October 1942, arrived at Wellington, New Zealand in November, and departed for New Caledonia on 6 January 1943.
General Alexander A. Vandegrift

As the 2d Battalion prepared to head overseas, it detached a cadre to form the 3d Parachute Battalion, which officially came into existence on 16 September 1942. Compared to its older counterparts, the 3d Battalion grew like a weed and reached full strength by the end of December. The battalion commander, Major Robert T. Vance, emphasized infantry tactics, demolition work, guerrilla warfare, and physical conditioning in addition to parachuting. At the beginning of 1943, the battalion simulated a parachute assault behind enemy lines in support of a practice amphibious landing by the 21st Marines on San Clemente Island. The fully trained outfit sailed from San Diego in March and joined the 1st and 2d Battalions at Camp Kiser before the end of the month.

At the end of 1942, the Marine Corps had transferred the parachute battalions from their respective divisions and made them a I Marine Amphibious Corps asset. This recognized their special training and unique mission and theoretically allowed them to withdraw from the battlefield and rebuild while the divisions remained engaged in extended land combat. After the 3d Battalion arrived in New Caledonia in March 1943, I MAC took the next logical step and created the 1st Parachute Regiment on 1 April. This fulfilled Holland Smith's original call for a regimental-size unit and provided for unified control of the battalions in combat and in training. Lieutenant Colonel Williams became the first commanding officer of the new organization.

Just when things appeared most promising for Marine parachuting, the Corps shifted into reverse gear. General Holcomb and planners at Headquarters had not shown much enthusiasm for the program since mid-1940 and apparently began to have strong second thoughts in the fall of 1942. In October, Brigadier General Keller E. Rockey, the director of Plans and Policies at HQMC, had queried I MAC about the "use of parachutists" in its geographic area. There is no record of a reply, but I MAC later sent Lieutenant Colonel Williams in a B-24 to make an aerial reconnaissance of New Georgia in the Central Solomons for a potential airborne operation. In early 1943, I MAC dragged its feet on planning for the Central Solomons mission and the Navy eventually turned to the Army's XIV Corps headquarters to command the June invasion of New Georgia. In March, the Navy decided that Vandegrift would take over I MAC in July, with Thomas as his chief of staff. They had suffered the loss of some of their best men to the parachute and raider programs during the difficult buildup of the 1st Marine Division and both believed that "the Marine Corps wasn't an outfit that needed these specialties." They made their thoughts on the subject known to Headquarters.

The chronic shortage of aircraft also continued to hobble the program. In the summer of 1943 the Corps had just seven transport squadrons, with only one more on the drawing boards. If the entire force had been concentrated in one place, it could only have carried about one and a half battalions. As it was, three squadrons were brand new and still in the States and another one operated out of Hawaii. There were only three in the South Pacific theater. These were fully engaged in logistics operations and were the sole asset available to make critical supply runs on short notice. As an example, the entire transport force in New Caledonia spent the middle of October 1942 ferrying aviation gas to Guadalcanal, 10 drums per plane, in the aftermath of the bombardment of Henderson field by Japanese battleships. They also evacuated 2,879 casualties during the course of that campaign. Senior commands would have been unwilling to divert the planes from such missions for the time required to train the crews and parachutists for a mass jump in an operation. The Army's transport fleet was equally busy and MacArthur would not assemble enough assets to launch his first parachute assault of the Pacific war until September 1943 (a regimental drop in New Guinea supported by 96 C-47s).

The regiment was unable to do any jumping after May 1943 due to the lack of aircraft. The 2d Battalion's last jump was a night drop from 15 Army Air Corps C-47s. The planes came over Tontouta off course. Unaware of the problem, the Marines jumped out onto a hilly, wooded area. One parachutist died and 11 were injured. Thereafter, the parachutists focused on amphibious operations and ground combat. Lieutenant Colonel Victor H. Krulak drew rubber boats for his 2d Battalion and worked on raider tactics. In late August, I MAC contemplated putting them to work seizing a Japanese seaplane base at Rekata Bay on Santa Isabel, but the enemy evacuated the installation before the intended D-Day.

Near the end of April 1943, Rockey suggested to the Commandant that the Corps disband the parachute school at New River and use its personnel to form the fourth and final battalion. He estimated that production of 30 new jumpers per week at San Diego would be sufficient to maintain field units at full strength. The reduction in school overhead and the training pipeline would relieve some of the pressure on Marine manpower, while the barracks and classroom space at New River would meet the needs of the burgeoning Women's Reserve program. Major General Harry Schmidt, acting in place of Holcomb, signed off on the recommendations. Company B of the 4th Battalion had formed in southern California on 2 April 1943. Nearly all of the 33 officers and 727 enlisted men of the New River school transferred to Camp Pendleton in early July to flesh out the remainder of the battalion. Transport planes were hard to come by in the States, too, and the outfit never conducted a tactical training jump during its brief existence.

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Choiseul

The Allied campaign in the Central Solomons had as its ultimate objective the encirclement and neutralization of the major Japanese air and naval base of Rabaul. As the South Pacific command contemplated its next step toward that goal, it initially focused on the Shortland Islands, hut these were too heavily defended in comparison with the available Allied forces. Planners then turned their attention to Choiseul Island. Once seized, air bases there would allow U.S. airpower to neutralize enemy airfields on the northern and southern tips of Bougainville. General Douglas MacArthur, the Southwest Pacific commander, wanted to short-circuit the process and move directly to Bougainville which would allow American fighter planes to effectively support bomber attacks on Rabaul. Admiral William F. Halsey's South Pacific command had too few transports and Marines to make a direct assault on the strongly garrisoned airfields on the northern and southern tips of Bougainville so he decided to seize the Empress Augusta Bay region midway up the western side of the island and build his own air bases. Defenses there were negligible and Bougainville's difficult terrain would prevent any rapid reaction from enemy ground forces located elsewhere on the island.

D-Day for the Empress Augusta Bay operation was 1 November 1943. Two regiments of the 3d Marine Division, two raider battalions (organized as the 2d Raider Regiment), and the 3d Defense Battalion formed the assault echelon for the landing. The division's third regiment, the Army's 37th Infantry Division, and assorted other units would arrive later to reinforce the perimeter while construction troops built the new airfields. The I MAC staff slated the 1st Parachute Regiment as the reserve force.

The 2d Parachute Battalion sailed to Guadalcanal in early September and then moved forward to a staging area at Vella Lavella on 1 October. New Zealand and U.S forces already had secured part of that island, but the Japanese still were contesting control of the air overhead and small hands of soldiers were roaming the jungle. Enemy planes struck the parachute battalion's small convoy of three APDs and an LST as it unloaded and put two bombs into the tank landing ship just as it was preparing to beach. It sank in shallow water, which allowed most of the troops to make it ashore. But 14 paratroopers died and the battalion lost most of its supplies and unit equipment. Once established in camp, the parachutists conducted patrols to search for Japanese stragglers on the island. The rest of the regiment arrived in Vella Lavella during the latter part of October.

As the final planning for Bougainville progressed, the I MAC staff grew concerned that preliminary operations might make it obvious to the Japanese that an invasion was in the offing. To address that problem, in mid-October Major James C. Murray, staff secretary, advanced the idea that a raid on Choiseul might make the enemy think that it was the next objective. Even if that did not dissuade them about Bougainville it might cause them to suspect that a U.S. landing on Bougainville would come on the east coast, since Choiseul would be a move in that direction. On 20 October, Vandegrift brought Lieutenant Colonel Krulak, the 2d Battalion commander, to Guadalcanal for a conference with I MAC staffers, who outlined the scheme. The corps issued final orders on 22 October for the 2d Parachute Battalion to begin the raid six days later. Intelligence indicated there were up to 4,000 Japanese on the island, most of them dispersed in small camps along the coast awaiting transportation for a withdrawal to Bougainville. Their supply situation supposedly was poor, although planners believed they still had most of their weapons, to include mortars and light artillery.

The 2d Parachute Battalion's mission was to land at an undefended area near Voza, conduct raids along the northwestern coast, select a site for a possible PT [patrol torpedo] boat base, and withdraw after 12 days if the Navy decided it did not want to establish a PT boat facility. The parachutists were to give the enemy the impression that they were a large force trying to seize Choiseul. To beef up the battalion's firepower, I MAC attached a platoon of machine guns from the regimental weapons company and an experimental rocket platoon. (The latter unit — a lieutenant and eight men — had 40 of these fin-stabilized, 65-pound weapons. They were not very accurate, hut their 1,000-meter range and large warhead gave the lightly armed battalion a hefty punch.) A detachment of four landing craft would remain with the force and give it some mobility. A Navy PBY also landed at Choiseul and brought out an Australian coastwatcher, Carden W. Seton, who would accompany the raid force and ensure it received the full support of local natives. Altogether the reinforced battalion numbered about 700 men. Krulak planned a night landing at 0100 on 28 October. His order emphasized the nature of the operation: The "basic principle is strike and move; avoid decisive engagement with superior forces."

Early in the evening of 27 October, four APDs and the destroyer Conway (DD-507) hove to off Vella Lavella. The 2d Battalion, which had half its supplies already pre-loaded in landing craft, completed debarkation in less than an hour. The small convoy had a short but eventful trip to Choiseul, as an unidentified aircraft dropped bombs close aboard one of the APDs. The ships arrived early off Voza and the small Marine force was completely ashore by 0100. In the course of the landing, a Japanese float plane unsuccessfully attacked the Conway, again missing the target by a narrow margin. Shortly after the ships departed, another Japanese plane appeared, circled the landing beach, and dropped two bombs that landed just off shore. One platoon accompanied the boats to Zinoa Island and camouflaged them, while the rest of the battalion made an early morning move less than a mile inland to a mountain hideout that would serve as its patrol base. Local natives had already blazed a trail through the jungle and now provided hearers to assist in moving supplies. The parachutists created a dummy supply dump of empty boxes on a beach two miles to the north to invite enemy attention to the landing. To back up the diversion, on 30 October Halsey's command released to the press news of the invasion by paratroopers. At least one newspaper illustrated the story with fanciful drawings of parachutists floating down from the sky.

In the afternoon a small Marine patrol moved west along the seacoast to investigate possible sites for a PT base. Two other native patrols working farther away from Voza provided the battalion with information on the nearest Japanese dispositions. Approximately 200 enemy were guarding a barge station at Sangigai to the southeast, while another force was 18 miles to the northwest beyond the Warrior River. Krulak decided to attack Sangigai on the 30th. On the 29th he sent out several patrols and personally led one to reconnoiter the objective. Krulak's reinforced squad encountered 10 Japanese unloading a barge near Sangigai and killed seven of them. Later in the day an outpost drove off a Japanese platoon and killed seven more enemy soldiers. Some of the patrols observed considerable barge traffic moving along the coast.

On 30 October, two companies reinforced by machine guns and rockets moved overland toward Sangigai. Company E continued down the beach trail while Company F split off and moved inland to take the base from the rear. Early in the morning, a prearranged air strike of 12 torpedo bombers had hit identified enemy positions just outside Sangigai. When Company E approached the same area at 1430, it executed a bombardment with its mortars and 36 of the experimental rockets. The Japanese retreated to the interior after being hit by the barrage, with the apparent intent of occupying prepared defensive works located there. They arrived at their destination at the same time that Company F was approaching the area. The Marines, still in a single-file approach formation, were almost as surprised as the enemy; they received only the briefest warning from the accompanying native scouts. The lead platoon of parachutists reacted immediately and attacked; the next platoon in line moved out to the right of the route of march to flank the Japanese. The enemy occupied their positions and responded with rifles, machine guns, and knee mortars. After 15 minutes of heavy fighting the parachutists were making slow progress, when the Japanese suddenly launched a Banzai-style attack. Marine machine guns cut them down and stopped the charge in short order. Company F's 3d platoon then moved out to the left to cut off the enemy's retreat, but the Japanese ran headlong into the 2d Platoon instead and lost yet more men. About 40 escaped the net, but they left 72 dead on the battlefield.

While that fight raged in the jungle, Company E entered Sangigai unopposed. It destroyed supplies, installations, defensive positions, and one barge. Captured documents included a chart pin pointing minefields off Bougainville. The company then linked up with landing craft and made it back to base that evening. Casualties slowed the movement of Company F through the dense jungle and it ended up spending the night near the coast before getting boated back to Voza the next day. The cost of the victory was 6 dead, 1 missing, and 12 wounded, the last figure including Krulak, who suffered wounds in his face and arm from fragments. A flying boat evacuated the severest casualties and picked up the invaluable mine charts.

On 1 November, Major Warner T. Bigger, the battalion executive officer, launched an operation in the other direction with the goal of destroying barges in Choiseul Bay and bombarding enemy installations on Guppy Island. Major Bigger and a reinforced Company G (less one rifle platoon) rode landing craft to the Warrior River, where they left their sole radio and a security team before moving overland toward their objective. Things began to go wrong thereafter. The native scouts were unfamiliar with the area and the patrol soon found itself going in a circle. Bigger and his force bivouacked for the night, but he sent one squad back to the Warrior River to make a report to battalion by radio.

At dawn on 2 November, the squad and radio team awoke to find a Japanese platoon in the immediate vicinity. After a firefight, the Marines broke contact and joined up with the boats, which were waiting along the coast at Nukiki. On the way back to Voza they observed eight Japanese barges at Moli Island, which indicated there was an even larger enemy force between the two wings of the 2d Battalion. Concerned that Major Bigger's force might he cut off, Krulak requested air and PT support from I MAC and ordered the landing craft to return to the Warrior River. Company G had moved out for Choiseul Bay at 0630 and met up with a local native who guided them to the coast. They encountered an occupied hunker on the beach and killed five Japanese, then set up their 60mm mortars and fired 142 rounds onto Guppy Island. (To obtain a clear area to fire the mortars, the Marines had to set up their weapons in the sea with only the upper half of the tubes projecting above the surface of the water.) The bombardment started several blazes, one obviously a burning fuel dump. The enemy replied with ineffective machine gun fire from the island and farther up the coast.

Major Bigger and his main body returned to the Warrior River at 1600. They expected to meet the landing craft there, but found none. When they attempted to cross the river to reach the radio team (unaware that it was gone) they came under fire from Japanese forces. After 90 minutes of fighting, three boats appeared, with Marines on board firing their weapons. The Japanese fire died down in the face of this new opposition and Company G embarked in the midst of heavy rain and high seas. One craft hit a reef after retracting from the beach and began to take on water. Then its engine died and it drifted toward the enemy-held beach. Two PT boats, one commanded by Lieutenant (jg) John F. Kennedy, finally came on the scene and took aboard the men on that boat. Three aircraft appeared at the same time and covered the operation by strafing the shore. The combat patrol had killed 42 Japanese in several firefights and inflicted undetermined casualties and damage with its mortar fire. Marine losses were 2 killed, 1 wounded, and 2 missing (natives later recovered the bodies of these two men).

While Major Bigger operated to the northwest, Krulak dispatched platoon-size patrols to the southeast toward Sangigai. Two of them made contact with smaller enemy units on 1 November. They dispatched at least 17 Japanese at the cost of one Marine killed. Intelligence gathered by Marine and native patrols indicated that the Japanese were moving from both directions to recapture Voza and secure their barge lines and the important coastal track (the only trail for movement to the northwest). There were an estimated 1,800 enemy troops to the southeast and possibly 3,000 in the opposite direction. Krulak assumed that the Japanese were becoming aware of the strength and limited mission of his force given the Marine withdrawals from Sangigai and Choiseul Bay. On the afternoon of 2 November, he informed I MAC of developments and stated that his battalion could handle the enemy for a week, though increasing Japanese activity would hamper Marine patrol operations. In the meantime, he took steps to strengthen his defenses. He placed a platoon-size outguard on each flank of Voza, put his demolition platoon to work laying mines, and requested that PT boats patrol the coast to hinder the approach of Japanese forces by barge.

The corps staff had considered expanding the operation on 30 October by inserting the rest of the parachute regiment. Now they radioed Krulak and asked him for his "frank suggestion whether we should remove your outfit tomorrow night." The message ended with the straightforward assessment — "Feel your mission accomplished." The parachute commander responded that he expected a strong Japanese attack within 48 hours and recommended withdrawal in light of I MAC's view that nothing further could be gained by continuing operations. Two days into the Empress Augusta Bay landing, it must have been obvious to the Japanese that the west coast of Bougainville was the main target and Choiseul was a diversion.

In the afternoon of 3 November, the battalion moved to the beach at Voza and established a perimeter pending the nighttime arrival of four LCIs (one of them a gunboat version to provide covering fire). The demolition platoon placed out hundreds of booby traps on avenues of approach, to include a rocket suspended in a tree and double-edged razor blades worked into palm trunks (to discourage snipers from clambering into their habitual perches). As darkness fell, native scouts reported that Japanese forces were moving closer and enemy patrols began to reach the Voza area near midnight, as evidenced by exploding booby traps. The three transport LCIs arrived just prior to that and beached by 0130. The parachutists were completely loaded in less than 20 minutes and were back at Vella Lavella by 0800. As the battalion marched to its camp, coastwatchers were reporting the occupation of Voza by the enemy, who still were having difficulty with the varied devices left by the Marines.

At a cost of 11 dead and 14 wounded, the 2d Battalion had killed a minimum of 143 Japanese and seriously disrupted the movement of enemy forces from Choiseul to points northward. The minefield chart also provided a valuable assist to naval operations in the northern Solomons. Halsey ordered mines laid in the clear channels and they eventually sank two Japanese ships. In retrospect, I MAC may have staged the operation too late and with too small a force to serve as a good diversion, though it did have some effect on Japanese actions. The enemy apparently shuttled some troops from the Shortlands to Choiseul and on 1 November sent a heavy bomber strike to attack the task force they assumed would be located off the Voza beachhead. In any case, the raid kept the Japanese high command guessing for a time and certainly must have given them reason to be concerned about the prospect of future attacks of a similar nature. Lieutenant Colonel Williams later would call the Choiseul operation "a brilliant little bit of work."

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Parachute Accidents

Despite the inherent danger of jumping out of a plane high above the ground, the Marine parachute program had very few accidents. That may have been due in part to the system initially used to prepare the parachutes. From the very first training class, the Corps set the standard that each jumper would pack his own parachute. In addition, a trained rigger supervised the task and had to sign his name on the tag before the parachute was certified for use. (Later this procedure was dropped and riggers packed all parachutes for use in the FMF, but by that time Marines were making very few jumps.) The record indicates only one Marine accident that may have involved a malfunctioning parachute. During training on New Caledonia one man's main parachute failed to open properly. He pulled the ripcord on his reserve, but it just had time to begin deploying when he hit the ground. Observers thought, however, that the main parachute did not deploy because the suspension lines tangled up in the Marine's rifle.

Three other men died in Marine Corps jumping accidents not related to the performance of the parachute. Two men drowned after landing in water; one at Norfolk, Virginia, and one at New River, North Carolina. The final fatality occurred when a New River trainee lost his nerve just as he approached the door of the plane. He moved out of the line of jumpers, but his static line became tangled with the next man to go out. The non-jumper's parachute opened while he was inside the plane and the billowing chute slammed him against the aircraft body hard enough to wreck the door and sever his spine.

The most unusual accident occurred near San Diego, California, on 15 May 1941. Second Lieutenant Walter A. Osipoff and 11 enlisted men of Company A were making a practice jump over Kearney Mesa. Everyone else had exited the plane and he threw out a cargo pack, which possibly tangled in his static line. His parachute opened prematurely while he was still in the door of the plane; it billowed outside the aircraft and pulled him out, but the canopy and suspension lines tangled in the bundle of static lines streaming beside the transport. For a moment the cargo pack, Osipoff and his partially opened parachute were all suspended from the cable that held the static lines. Under this combined load the bracket holding one end of the cable gave way and it streamed out the door. The cargo pack fell away, but Osipoff and his parachute remained dangling from the cable and static lines, suspended behind the plane's tail. The accident also mined his reserve chute and ripped away the part of his harness attached to his chest. He ended up being dragged through the air feet-first, held only by the leg straps.

The crew of the plane attempted to pull him in but could not do so. Since the transport had no radio communications, the pilot flew it over the field at North Island to attract attention. Two Navy test pilots, Lieutenant William W. Lowery and Aviation Chief Machinist's Mate John R. McCants, saw the problem and took off in a SOC-1, an open-cockpit, two-seater biplane. The SOC-1 flew just below and behind the transport while McCants attempted to pull Osipoff into his cockpit. It was an incredible display of flying skill given the necessity to avoid hitting the Marine lieutenant with the SOC-1's propellers. McCants finally succeeded in getting him head first into the plane, though his legs dangled outside. Before McCants could cut the shroud lines, bumpy air pushed the biplane up and its propellers did the job (chopping off 12 inches of the tail cone of the transport in the process). Lowery landed his aircraft as McCants maintained his tenuous grip on the Marine parachutist.

Osipoff suffered severe cuts and bruises and a fractured vertebra. He spent three months in a body cast, but fully recovered and returned to jump status. Lowery and McCants received Distinguished Flying Crosses for their successful rescue.