155 - Guadalcanal - Combat Innovation and leadership Lessons from Lawton Collins at the Battle of Mt Austen

0:00 What are the leadership lessons and tactical innovations that we see in General Patch's campaign to clear the Mount Austin Hill complex? We look at the Battle of the Seahorse and the reduction of the Gifu. This is the Principles of War podcast, professional military education for junior officers and senior NCOs.

0:27 Welcome back to the show. This episode, number 155 continues on with the Mount Austin campaign under General Patch. We've got our resident expert, Dave Holland to run us through the final battles of this campaign. Let's get right back to the story with Dave. So the 10th of January, like I said, Patch, this was his grand offensive.

0:51 So what was Patch's plan? He needed to first isolate the Gifu. He's isolated the Gifu. He wanted to destroy it, but he said, well, I can't do it, I'll isolate it. But what they were doing there was two other hills ridges to the far south that they needed to isolate and destroy. Because what they wanted to do was to gain all this maneuver room, basically inland or to the south.

1:13 Because we were going to use the division, we use a second division on the coast to slowly push and hold the Japanese. But at the same time, if used the 25th Division to sweep through all the ridges and come into Kokumbona and developed like a big envelopment sweep. But to do that he had to take a few ridges to the south.

1:32 There's two of those ridges and very important he had to take. One was called the Galloping Horse Ridge, which was on the west side of the Matanikau. When it came down down south, after about 4 or 5,000 yards, it split into forks. And when it split into forks, it split around this major ridgeline composed of two hills called Hill 43 and 44, which resembled a seahorse.

1:55 So when I say the Seahorse and the Galloping Horse from a topographical map or aerial photo, if you look at these designs once again, how the the barren hills of Guadalcanal, these kunai ridges with the thick dark ravines, jungled ravine. It makes these hills silhouette up and they silhouetted up in the shape of a galloping horse, an actual seahorse.

2:15 And you don't take much imagination. You get the map and just flip it around. Look, you could see the Seahorse, you can see the Galloping Horse. And that was what the Americans named them. So the Americans, what the plan was, they needed to isolate or sort of destroy these two ridges first to knock out the Japanese garrison and then to be able to use those maneuver room.

2:34 So they gave a corps objective. The corps objective was going to kick off on the 10th. It was going to start with a massive bombardment, an aerial bombardment and a place called the Waterhole that was on the line. They were going to blow a big hole in the Waterhole, so to speak, line, and then push some guys up, up on Galloping Horse Ridge.

2:51 The Americans, the Marines first hand Second Marines actually had a foothold at the Galloping Horse. They had Hill 55 and Hill 54, but Hill 53 was going to be the objective. So they were going to use the 26th, I'm sorry, the 27th Regiment of the 25th Division. Very fresh, new, brand new regiment. And they were going to take the Galloping Horse.

3:09 They're going to use the remainder of the 35th Regiment. Remember, they've left one battalion holding the Gifu. The other two battalions are going to sweep down and get the Seahorse. They were going to come through the back door through the thick jungle. So we're not getting too bogged down in it. It kicked off like 6:30 in the morning with this massive bombardment.

3:26 And it was, according to records, the first time on target. American division. Time on target strike during the war. So basically time on target, I said, you talk about that, James, you're already artillery officer. But basically time on target is you get all these batteries, they're going to fire at a certain time where all the rounds land at the same time.

3:44 It might be staggered firing. That way the defenders won't have the notification or warning that artillery strikes are coming because normally you got to call them in one here and one there and it gives a little bit of time to seek cover. So hopefully they're all land at the same time. Catch them out in the open.

3:59 And then it would go in intervals, maybe 10 minutes, just smash, smash, smash. And it stopped and then stopped for maybe 10 minutes. Enough to allow the defenders to think, okay, they're fine, they finished, let's come out of our holes. The next minute, the next time barrage lands straight on top of their head.

4:13 And that would continue, and it would continue until it potentially would make the defenders just keep their heads down the whole time. But when, when all this rounds are landing, your assault troops are moving. That was the whole intent. So it worked. It worked quite well. Also, the Americans were going to drop a series of depth charges.

4:31 Yes, the, I'm not talking about the same ones they use on submarines, but they use them on land. They had 325 and a 600 pound depth charges loaded with point contact fuses off the SBD dive bombers. They flew them and dropped about 24 of them into the Waterhole area. You can imagine a 600 pound of like 500 pounds of TNT depth charge landing basically in your area.

4:53 The concussion is going to kill most of you close. If not, it's going to really shake you up. You know, it's not much shrapnel, but the concussion and the blast wave is going to walk straight through. You drop a number on them, it's going to shake you up big time. So that was good, innovative techniques they use there.

5:06 Until recently. I was speaking to some guys, they found one of them unexploded ones down in the Waterhole area, EOD guys, so quite interesting. Oh wow. Yeah, remember like 2012, they found one and these guys just talking to them found another one. Not all of them exploded. So anyway, they went in there after that massive bombardment was like 6,000 rounds in about 30 minutes.

5:25 It just massive smash enough to blow a hole in the line. They actually blew a hole in the line. So partially 8th Marines went there and held it while the Americans army moved through them. So they moved in, took parts of the, the Galloping Horse and the army battalion moved through and went up to Hill 52.

5:43 They caught some resistance there. They had to fight pretty hard. And it held him for a day on Hill 52. I'm talking about Galloping Horse now. And then the next day they resumed their attack, but they ran out of water, caused the battalion commander. You don't have one canteen of water and up there it's just barren hills, no shade, and they couldn't get the water to them.

6:01 It's one of these things that they were bringing the water up but everybody in the rear started, oh, I have some of that water, have some of that water, have some of that water. It didn't reach the guys in the front line. And the battalion commander, if you read his reports, he's like he regretted holding off or he regretted not holding off because he waited, delayed the attack about 9 o'clock in the morning, waiting for the water to come up, but it never did.

6:20 So you sent his men straight into the attack within an hour, most of them were heat casualties. I read one report, he had like five guys left out a platoon that wasn't heat casualties. They were caught by mortars and plus they were getting caught by mortar, machine gun fire. Heat casualties. And their, their attack just stopped.

6:35 It's a good example or a good, I guess, studying how a lack of water will stop a unit in its track. So like I said, one canteen. So they pulled back and they brought a fresh battalion up. So this is the. The 12th. This is two days after the other battalion went up. It made grounds once again. It started running out of water and it got hit pretty hard and it held.

6:57 So the attack was going to go for the next day. There you have a Medal of Honor action, a guy called Charles Davis. This is the Thin Red Line movie, which I'm not. A lot of people like a movie, a lot of people don't. The Thin Red Line movie is based on this assault on the 12th and 13th of January against Hill 53, which is a Galloping Horse, the head of the horse.

7:15 And in it, the actor John Cusack loosely plays a guy called Captain Charles Davis, who earned a Medal of Honor on his actions. The division commander, J. Lawton Collins, he was watching. He was only about 300 yards away. So in a course of their actions and what they did on the Galloping Horse, they ran, managed to break the line and take Hill 53.

7:35 So that ended on the 13th of January. So Galloping Horse across the Matanikau was in American's hands. At the same time on the 10th, the 35th Regiment advanced from Hill 27, cut away through the jungle. You thought the Japanese would learn the Americans were actually can move through the jungle by then.

7:53 Popped up on Hill 43, surprised the Japanese and a fight was on. And, and by the end of the day, on the second day on the 11th, they're taken 43 and 44, they'd secured the Seahorse. They tried to push a bit to the west, but the Japanese had fought them on for a good day and a half using those two Meijis.

8:10 I was talking about those 75 millimeter guns. They had them mounted, firing direct fire on a small ridge and actually have the, the diary and account from the Japanese on that one. It's quite a, quite a good account. But when the 13th came of January, well, I'll say by the 14th, the Americans had all their objectives.

8:26 It secured Seahorse secured Galloping Horse and now they're ready to do their envelopment and to push down the coast. Now remember, the Gifu was still contained. Now take it back to the Gifu. They were doing actions too. Once again, when I spoke about how the American high command thought the Japanese would pull back, the American commander to Gifu said, look, there's a small gap on the west and if we just send a couple of platoons, we could close that gap off there.

8:51 You know, there's one trail that had supply. We could cut that off. Cuz earlier, before, they didn't think they could get a unit through there. But he said I think we can get a unit through there. But when he was formulating the plans to do it, high command says, I want you to advance in early in the morning.

9:05 All units just advance to the front. He goes, well we're not ready. We've done some probing attacks or reconnaissance. But now what you thought was 250 men, we think there's 400, about 450 Japanese in here with about 20 machine guns. He goes no, they've already left. We think they're withdrawing and you need to push them now, push them now.

9:21 So he did. He sent all these guys in and they just ran into a buzz saw and they got pushed back. So over three days he's tried to break it too. Finally they come up with a plan and this goes all the way. We'll push out a bit. Goes to the looking at the 20th of January now. So he's come up with a plan.

9:36 Oh, by, by the way, that battalion commander was relieved. It wasn't his fault, but he was relieved. There's a lot of relief going on here. Commanders. He was relieved, someone else came in. So the plan was to send those two platoons. They did it in a company platoon. They went in and actually closed off the Gifu and they go, how are we going to bust this?

9:54 On the 15th of January they had some flamethrowers. First time two flamethrowers come up but they're, they're malfunctioning. They never got them into use. But they had a guy called Captain Teddy Deese. He was Alabama National Guard officer, old armor officer. So he had made his way into the 25th Division Reconnaissance Squadron is the head of it.

10:12 But they didn't have their tanks with them. They knew all about tanks. So him and his brother in law, once again they both came from Alabama units. Him and his brother in law. He kept saying to division, we need tanks. If I had a tank I could probably bust this line. They said, well we never use tanks in the jungle.

10:27 No one's used tanks in the jungle. That's just too thick to get up there. And the tanks, they'll break down. And it's how you gonna operate these tanks? American army didn't have tanks at that time. The Marines had one company of M3 Stuart tanks and the 2nd Tank Battalion. They said look, we'll give you three on loan.

10:43 We will, we won't provide any crews. I said okay, we can provide the crews, we, we can do it. So the morning of the 15th, these three tanks went straight up chugging, chugging, chugging up the hill. Only two kept, two broke down, only one made it. So Deese jumped into that tank, had his brother in law driving it.

11:00 No, sorry, yeah, brother in law driving it and had another guy in it. So these gets to the top. And they looked and said, we can push into this. So he pushed into the line, engaged. And he had a platoon of infantry with him accompanied. So he engaged Japanese. They took out three bunkers very quickly, firing point blank range, 37 millimeter guns.

11:19 You know, they were blowing Japanese out of the trees with canisters. He took out three bunkers, went back out, refueled, rearmed, went back in and took out five more by the end of the day. So this wasn't on the 15th, this was like the 20th. Losing my dates. No, 22nd. Something around that. 22nd January.

11:36 And then he was ready for the next day. And by that stage the Japanese said, well, the game's up, you know, we, we can't survive anymore. So the Japanese major, there's two majors up there, two battalion commanders, got the remnants of the guys that could walk and run or walk. Turned out to be roughly about a hundred of them.

11:51 Well, technically it was 85 of them. No, sorry, it was a hundred of them. So that night they broke out. They tried to break out. They wouldn't have massed banzai to die. They actually tried to break out even though the orders were to die in place. And they killed 85 of them. So roughly 15 got away. Both tank commanders dead.

12:07 A lot of officers end up burying them in a big pit down there. So they ended the Gifu on the 23rd of January. That was the first kind of real tank use in a thick jungle like that. As far as I know, the war or of the Pacific war, because we know the tanks have been used before that with the marines and the Australians, mainly coconut groves and open areas, but not that thick jungle country, which Captain Day said it could be done. And no one believed it.

12:31 And no one believed it. Well, none of the higher ups believed him this time. So that leads us to the 13th of January. So remember I said the 13th of January they had secured the maneuvering room. That's when you had the marines push off at Point Cruz and using those innovative tactics. And I could talk about those now or you might later.

12:48 It's all up to you. Yeah. What do we want to. Because we are starting to see. So like for starters, we're starting to see Armor which and this is a classic armor engagement apart from the fact that the terrain isn't. It's not the desert by any stretch of the imagination. It's the exact opposite where you've got limited visibility and incredibly steep terrain.

13:08 But apart from that it's the perfect enemy because they don't have a lot in the way of any tank weapons. No Deez I've got these personal accounts on a few and it's been supported. He got one bunker he said he had to fire five rounds and he said the sixth one just blew the top off. He said at one stage he's looking around and there was two Japanese crawling he thought with a mine because the Japanese anti-tank mine.

13:28 And he says we locked eyes and he said I could swear to the day I die. He grinned at me. He grin so as we looked at him he would grin. He said now he must have been operating a gun. Then he said we swung the turret around and just fired a 37 and I seen him and a guy behind him just, just flip in the air.

13:43 So they did have something they were moving, moving close because I think one of the actual tanks has always been a rumor but I think that was true. One of the tanks at Alligator Creek was hit by anti-tank mine, magnetic mine, sticky mine. Japanese did and blew it, blew it track off. They always say it was potentially a stump but they found the anti-tank mines and one of the Japanese said yeah they, they blew a track off so I think that's probably feasible.

14:06 But yeah they didn't have much. They did have 37 millimeters Japanese did but they didn't have any up at the Gifu exactly. And we're starting to see flamethrowers by this point of the campaign. Yeah There was on the 15th of January and I'll talk about how the Marines use them successfully and they tried to do the army did but they just broke down and they just.

14:23 They didn't have an opportunity to use it is like the Marines did on the coast. So the Marines the death stage 8 Marines remember 8th Marines from the Battle of the Tenaru because they were sent in on this jungle on the ravines area between point 80 hill 84 and 80 they went straight down and up and they got butchered.

14:40 Same with the 164. They've been on that front line, you know that World War I style line and watching it and working out how they're going to do it. They said well we can't attack straight ahead again because we're Going to get hit with these enfilading guns. This is what we'll do. We'll attack at the head of the ravine.

14:54 Because all these machine guns fire down the ravine. Well, most of them do. We'll go in echelon. So if we can take the ones on the left, then we'll just pull our companies off to the right and we'll attack these guns. We'll take out the enfilading ones and we'll attack these cluster of supporting bunkers from the rear.

15:10 All right to do that. Remember these are the days before bazookas. We'll get 50 gallon or 44 liter if you're tall Australia fuel drums. We'll put TNT blocks in them. And what we'll do is once we cut off the rear bunker, the supporting one, we'll be able to roll those fuel drums right up to these igloos they called them, which is like coral.

15:29 Look like a coral igloo. You could hardly tell them they were. They looked like a side of the hill. They were so well camouflaged. And we'll roll them up to and blast them. We'll put 27 shotguns in every rifle battalion. That stage didn't have shotguns in is normal issue. We'll put more corpsmen, her medics in 31 more.

15:47 We'll integrate our engineer combat engineers. We'll integrate a platoon of them for every infantry battalion. So when they move forward they've got the demolition stuff. We will, we had flamethrowers. We'll use them. We'll bring up our 75 millimeter self propelled half tracks and 37 millimeter anti-tank guns which they could pull them up.

16:10 We've got a platoon of five tanks. What they were using the 37 millimeter guns for these well camouflage igloos. I caught them, they go how are we going to find them without getting killed? We think there's some over there. So the first few rounds out of a 37 millimeter canister rounds like a dough to blow the the vegetation off.

16:29 The next rounds are AP rounds or piercer rounds straight into it. So it was one of the things they did. Once they identified it. They had their division planning officer flying over an airplane at the same time to give back firsthand information if they needed to. So it was all an innovative tactic. And plus too their assault would kick off at night, early in the morning in darkness, which had never been done before to that extent.

16:51 So these are all the 8th Marines we're coming up with now. If you study that, that's just common stuff. In 1944 and 45 the Marines and the army were using called the corkscrew and blowtorch tactics. You know they're using it go in, they'd use cover fire to try and with BAR later and BARs and bazookas and machine guns to pin the Japanese down in a bunker.

17:11 You know that's the corkscrew and then a blowtorch with the demolition and flamethrowers would move in and just do their work. They were doing the same thing here and developing doctrine that we were later. See and I didn't really didn't had a lot bulb moment so to speak when I started researching how much the 8th Marines was doing about that because I always thought they, they were famous at Tarawa in Saipan, but they had limited involvement in the Guadalcanal campaign which I know is entirely false now but those techniques really impressed me.

17:40 What they did over a series of 13th through the 17th, the four days they were able to reduce that tough Point Cruz line. And by that stage when they'd, when they'd finished, they'd moved back and the first six Marines replaced them and they went back in the second Marines too. They, they both went back for a well armed or well earned rest.

18:00 They were, they left the island by the end of January. One of the things when you think about innovation in combat, often it's difficult to do because of the tempo of operations for them, sitting across and being able to admire the problem that they knew was coming their way at some point. I wonder if that time gave them the ability to come up with some of those innovative techniques because they're not just rolling from one operation to the next.

18:25 They've got time to actually think it through, talk about it. Yeah, they did because I've read the after action reports from the 5th Battle Mechanical. They were sent straight into the assault without no reconnaissance, no prior planning. They didn't know what they were up against. I think I told you in that campaign or that battle.

18:43 When they asked the 164th guy, regiment officer, one officer said the other, he goes what am I up against? He goes how many Japanese are there? He goes there's a bunch. He goes can you give me an intel, what's going on? He goes oh there's a bunch of Japs up there. And that's all he said, that's all he had intel to go into.

18:56 So they're actually after reports like a few days after this fight, if you read them, they started, they were thinking about how they would do it. They said well we shouldn't attack cross compartmental, like up and down. We need to take out those flanking machine guns first and then roll to the rock.

19:11 We need to roll down the ravine. We need to blast these guys out the best way we can. Artillery is not working. We need to get up close and personal. And how can we do it? Oh, we got these giant fuel bombs we can make and just blast them out with fuel bombs. If we can suppress these guys enough so we can roll a big fuel drum next to it and blast the hell out of them, we will.

19:31 You know, I'll get back to the. Sorry. 15 January when they used a flamethrower successfully so that a number of flamethrowers had arrived on the island and the. I think 25th or the 164th had them. No, 25th Division had them. They brought the 25th engineers in their ordinance guys and they said, look, can we train some of these guys in the Marines in the army on these flamethrowers?

19:50 So they had that model M1. The first model, which was in my ratings, were prone to malfunction. Not the better ones that had lighter on them. It's funny how everything in American military is M1, M1, this M1 Garand. M1 helmet, M1 flamethrower. So the army tried to use them like we said on Mount Austen.

20:06 They had some malfunctioned. And plus they were up close and personal in the jungle and they kept getting hung up. So it wasn't. It was a failure. But on the same day, the Marines used them and the Marine engineers used them. And I've got all the stats. Actually. My book, my. My Tenaru book, I think they destroyed four.

20:23 They initially destroyed two bunkers. Then they destroyed two more successfully. We're using a flamethrower. That was the only day they used. It was that day. But they. That was the first successful use. I know the US in the war of the flamethrowers. I'm trying to find if the US had used them in World War I successfully.

20:38 I know they were used in World War I. Guy told me one time, he goes, oh, there was flamethrowers in World War I. I know that Americans used them. And if they ever used them in World War I successfully. I could never find that information. I definitely know In World War II, January 15 was the first time they used them.

20:53 Fierce. And what. That's another thing too. Like a Japanese. They never used the flamethrowers and they ever had them on Guadalcanal. They captured from Ichiki had three or two or three flamethrowers Never used them. And Americans found them. You read all the captured inventory reports. There's always one or two flamethrowers in there.

21:11 The Japanese never used them. Always found that interesting. I wonder why they never used them. They had them. Does seem unusual. I mean, obviously they're good in reducing defensive objectives, but it would certainly give you pause if you'd been ordered to approach a bunker. If there was that big long tongue of flame coming out from the aperture that might slow you up a little bit.

21:34 Give you reason to pause. Yeah, because I always wondered. He had engineers with him instead of battle. Henderson Field. We discussed that at Coffin Corner when attacking those American bunkers. I thought, whoops. And if you read the Japanese tactics and manuals, they mention them. Engineers come up, use flamethrowers.

21:50 They use dynamite. Demolition. They use dynamite in some demolition down there. But they never used flamethrower. So I guess probably carrying it through the jungle. Maruyama Trail is probably a bit. They might have had one. It's probably still there in the jungle somewhere. I never came across the use of one.

22:06 8th Marines also looked at naval gunfire support. Coordinating that into their assault. Yeah, I mean that was. That wasn't the first time. That was actually quite. Been used quite often in the campaign at that stage. And probably not to the extent that the Americans had used naval gunfire support, but not probably ongoing because at that stage before the Americans didn't have like an on call destroyer ready to go farm.

22:29 Of course, Navy didn't hang around a lot and they just didn't have that resources. Then they would come in and fire some rounds like cruiser for a bit and then leave. But it wasn't coordinated yet. You probably go by. You're right. This first real coordination of it because you got to remember remembering them taking a little dunker.

22:45 When the Marines are trying to get off the beach there. They were calling in by flags. Remember they call them stories. They use them on a number of occasions. But I think they were starting to work out the actual procedures a lot better. When January came and then you're seeing the coastal pursuit, they used them quite often coordinating a destroyer because they had them on call ready to go.

23:04 Not all of the innovations were successful. So we did see, and you mentioned it before the starting to use psychological warfare, trying to talk the Japanese out of the. So they tried that at the Gifu, didn't they? Yeah, I missed that. Yeah. So when at the Gifu. Now we're going down. I knew the 17th stuck in my head somewhere.

23:24 17th around that time, one of the attack. They wanted to basically, okay, we'll close the Gifu off. And then the division commander and his intelligence said, look, I think we can talk these guys out. And if you read Lawton Collins, he writes in 1943 because he caught a bit of criticism from some of the commanders at the time.

23:41 No mind. Didn't even just allow us to attack and try to talk the Japanese out. He's writing it from a 1943, remember point of view. 1943, Not 44, 45. So he still has it in his mind, these Japanese can't surrender to us. And he said, look, if we was to talk them out, that might be. And once again, they don't know anything about the Philippines that might give us more leeway and how they treat our prisoners in the Philippines.

24:08 Because it wasn't until I think, mid 43 or late 44, when Dyess and the other two guys escaped from the Philippines to say, look, these guys, you know, Bataan Death March are killing us. They didn't. American probably didn't know anything about that, really. And it kind of kept that hush, but that's another story.

24:24 But none of that was out. They thought, well, we could potentially. We know they have thousands of our prisoners. Maybe we can do negotiation. Plus, he said he planes it back on the Marines. He says, these guys are so scared of the Marines because they thought they were just going to kill them by the hand, which they were.

24:37 You got to remember in the Japanese doctrine for even Japanese. I forgot the book. They have the Japanese soldier at the time, one of the. The points in it that don't surrender to the enemy, the Americans, because they will kill you and they will torture you. There's no use in surrender to them because they'll just kill you and then torture you.

24:52 That was drilled into the heads. This was going to happen. Then Collins said, well, the Marines haven't been really capturing anyone. He said, the Japanese are afraid. So if we just offer them that chance, they probably will surrender, because this is what a reasonable person would do. He probably wouldn't have said that in 44 or 45, because his life was no use to it.

25:09 But they've tried. So the division, division intel guy got up there with some microphones, microphones from different angles. They blasted out to the Gifu and they said, you know, surrender. If you don't surrender by this time, we'll hit you with a massive bombardment. And they dropped some flyers over surrender leaflets and then Patch issued command to the whole.

25:28 I've seen command the orders. If you see Japanese come out of. Hands up, don't fire. Don't shoot them. They'll kill them. Don't shoot. So they tried that. It didn't work. And when the Americans said, we'll hit you a massive bombardment, they didn't. That's why some of the American commanders are, oh, we, you know, we're just wasting our time here.

25:44 We just promising stuff. You know, we're not. Not giving a carrot in the stick. And then one Japanese had. Came out the. He put him on the speakerphone and no other Japanese came out. But it delayed it for almost two days. And you can imagine the frontline commander is very frustrated. Said, we could have used that two days, lock this place down.

26:01 If you read the Japanese accounts in the diaries, like one's saying the Americans are fools, what do they think they're doing? One Japanese major, I'm sorry, Lieutenant in his diary says, only thing I kept thinking about the problem is food and coffee. He said that's the only thing I kept thinking about.

26:15 Not strainer, just. He said, always just kept going back my head, food, coffee, food, coffee over and over again like a. On a recording, repeat. That's all he could think about. I didn't think about surrendering, but, yeah, that didn't work. I mean, that didn't work. But they tried. But that was. I. I put it down to naivety, you know, good intentions.

26:32 They just didn't have the. The feel of the enemy, the knowledge of the enemy at the time. And for that, psychological warfare, that's really important to understand the best way to communicate with them and the best way to be able to come up with an offer that is going to be enticing enough for them to do something like surrender.

26:48 Well, they did. They hit him with a bombardment, I'll say that. And we. We walked up to Hill 27. You can still see shrapnel everywhere. I mean, it was a massive bombardment. And they pulled Americans back 300 yards and they smashed the area. And they didn't have to really have on call then they just said, just drop everything in that area.

27:05 Everything from 155s to 75s. It was a massive. Thousands and thousands, thousands around smashed them, but none surrendered. They said. The one thing I was reading a major, he was, I think the planning officer battalion in his account. He said it did shake the Japanese up, he said, because the next day we seen a few of them just walking around in the days and, you know, we killed them.

27:27 But yeah, they just walked around the days like they didn't have. No. Once again, that could be just through starvation. It got to a point where some of the Japanese would go out and just try to find roots or whatever, food, and they're just willing to risk. Walk them straight into American machine guns.

27:39 American guns just try to get a bit of grass to eat or roots or whatever. A big, plump, juicy lizard, who knows? Pretty sad. Well, it is sad. Like it's a fairly dire action to do. But how long is it that these soldiers have been not receiving the supplies that they need to be able to literally just maintain their diet and they're not giving up.

28:01 That's the most amazing thing. They're not giving up. They're still fighting, fighting hard. They're not giving up at all. And they're watching the. In front of them left and right without giving up. It's just. Yeah, that amazes you. Excellent. Well, thank you very much, Dave. We've covered a lot of ground today and next week we'll be looking at the advance towards Kokumbona then.

28:22 Yeah. So we're looking till the end now. It's going to be the push, the drive to Kokumbona and then after that, the push down the coast to try to destroy the Japanese on Guadalcanal. The Japanese have definitely culminated. Everyone understands that. But there's still some hard fighting to go. Oh, yeah.

28:40 They're not, once again, they're not giving up. They still think. I said 99% of them still think they're getting reinforced. And we'll discuss that in next episode. Why, that is excellent. Thank you very much. Hi, Jameson, once again, thanks for having me on and glad to chat. We'll sign off here. And a big thank you once again to Dave for his expertise on the Guadalcanal campaign.

29:03 There's a couple of things that I do want to talk about, though. Firstly, the leadership style of General Lawton Collins. As we look at him in this campaign. He is the commanding Officer of the 25th Infantry Division, the Tropic Lightning Division. Based on his combat success, his career continues to flourish.

29:24 He serves in Europe, so he's one of the few commanders who fights against the Japanese and the Germans. So he will serve in Europe as a corps commander after the war. He will be the Chief of Staff for the United States Army during the Korean War. What was it about his leadership style that made him such an effective commander?

29:46 Were given a little hint by his nickname, which he earned on Guadalcanal. As we know, he was the Commander of the 25th Division, the 25th Division was known as the Tropic Lightning Division. His first name, which he didn't go by was Joseph. He would routinely sign his correspondence J. Lawton Collins alongside the division's nickname.

30:08 One day he was in the field on Guadalcanal and and he was seen by one of the soldiers who exclaimed, by God, there is Jay Lightning himself. That was quickly turned around to become Lightning Joe. The nickname stuck because it perfectly represented his personality and his command style. Aggressive, rapid, highly personal.

30:31 And indeed General Dwight D. Eisenhower himself thought that his command style fully just justified the title Lightning Joe. In Europe. Collins was the commander of the U.S. VII Corps. He'd been there for the landings at Utah and he'd also been instrumental in the capture of Cherbourg. And it was these actions that Eisenhower had seen.

30:55 There's a few things that stand out about Lawton Collins when you look at his history. The first thing is technical and tactical competence. He was an infantry officer and yet he was recognized as an expert in the employment of artillery. Collins was an infantry officer. He was an expert at infantry tactics.

31:16 Not only had he been an instructor at the Infantry School at Fort Benning, but he'd also written some of the doctrine that was developed in the 30s and would be used by the US Army in the Second World War. But before being an instructor at the Infantry School, he was a student at the Field Artillery School at Fort Sill.

31:36 It was there, at the Field Artillery School that he learnt about the employment of artillery, the limitations and capabilities of artillery. He also noted that there was little training between the infantry and the artillery. Whilst he was out on the ranges at Fort Sill, they would be firing missions with no consideration of the front line of own troops on the range for a practice mission.

32:04 That's an academic consideration. In the jungle and Guadalcanal, where the front lines are confused and the terrain is complex, it's critical to be able to get that component of the artillery employment correct. Collins would use his understanding of artillery to help adjust the tactics that were used in developing a combined arms solution to to tactical problems.

32:29 In his autobiography he wrote, I profited greatly from my year at Fort Sill and was able to put to use the knowledge I had gained of the capabilities and limitations of artillery, not only as an instructor at the Infantry School, but more importantly in combat in World War II. How much better would all of us combat officers be if all of us combat officers were able to attend a military mid career tactical course for another arms corps, or God forbid, even a logistics corps course?

33:04 If we're Trying to develop a combined arms solution to a tactical problem, that might be useful. If we're trying to sustain a combined arms solution to a tactical problem, that might also be useful. An example of the way that Collins used his knowledge of artillery is the fact that he was one of the first commanders to employ time on target missions.

33:26 This is where all of the rounds from all of the guns employed are planned to land at the exact same time. This is one of the secrets of the effects of artillery. Most of the casualties are caused in the first 60 seconds. After a minute, everyone has either been incapacitated or they found some sort of protection.

33:47 So, so technical and tactical competence. The second component is leading from the front. He thought leadership was the essence of command and the best way to do that was in person for two reasons. One, you can personally embody a sense of urgency at the critical point of the battle. And second, you will have an understanding of what is actually happening at the front line with the troops that you command, the enemy that they face and the terrain that they're fighting over.

34:17 The commander, being at the decisive point at the decisive time, is able to make decisive decisions to influence the outcome of the combat. And for anyone who's ever been in a command post, think about how much better the situational awareness is compared to just sitting there waiting to hear something come in over the radio.

34:36 Not only that, the presence of the commander has a strong impact on the morale of the troops who are fighting. But there's an issue here. If the commander is at the front line, then he will have great situational awareness of where he's at, but much degraded situational awareness about everything else about the battle for which he is responsible.

34:58 Lawton Collins, like many great commanders, built a strong staff to be able to run the battle whilst he was out at the front line. His staff knew him, they understood him, they understood his intent, and they were able to be instruments of that intent. For the troops that he commanded. He hand picked excellent staff officers and trained them to manage the tactical operations seamlessly in his absence.

35:26 Lastly was sound judgment, the ability to make good decisions in a timely manner. Those good decisions C the accomplishment of a mission with the lowest amount of casualties and timely manner. Isn't that the tricky part? Because you're trying to make a decision against an enemy who is trying to make a decision that's going to make your decision no longer appropriate.

35:50 He would hone these skills through experience and reflecting on his own lessons learned. A great example of this is a mistake that he made at at the Gifu units from Tropic Lightning were replacing elements of the 132nd Regiment. Collins and Colonel McClure from the 35th Regiment, they were standing on the top of Hill 27 and they planned a double envelopment of the Gifu.

36:16 However, staff officers of the 132nd Regiment said that the double envelopment wasn't going to work because the terrain that the troops would have to traverse was impassable. They took that information at face value and they reverted back to a frontal assault. Multiple frontal assaults and they were very costly defeats.

36:37 It wasn't until the 17th of January that they had another go at the original idea and executed the double envelopment. This was successful. Collins learnt from this and he later stressed to his officers. A commander must personally see the terrain and conditions to to determine the correct course of action and must always rely on your own reconnaissance.

37:01 Another was the approach of Collins to the lessons learned process. I just want to read the preface from the Operations of the 25th Infantry Division on Guadalcanal. This is what Collins wrote. A subordinate unit in any operation sees only the ground over which it attacks and knows little if anything about the operations of the units who to its right and left absorbed with its own problems during the heat of the campaign.

37:26 It is uninterested in what these flank units are doing as long as they keep abreast or furnish necessary security. Unfortunately, this sometimes results in a lack of appreciation of the teamwork required in the operations of a division as a whole. The 25th Division had a rare opportunity for the analysis of its operation on Guadalcanal following the completion of the campaign which drove the Japanese from the island.

37:51 During this lull in action, while the division occupied a defensive sector, a series of conferences were conducted in which the operations of the division as a whole were outlined by the division commander and members of his staff, followed in subsequent meetings by regimental and battery commanders, the artillery commander and the commanders of service units who presented in detail the operations of their organisations.

38:15 The bulk of the officers of the division and at least two non commissioned officers presented from each company or battery attended these conferences. Such an examination of the division's operations would be of value only if it were done with a critical eye. A mere recitation of the accomplishments of the division, without a frank statement of the errors made and the lessons learned for future operations would be trite and uninteresting.

38:40 The division commander therefore directed that a critical analysis be made with a view to future improvements in the morale, morale and skill of the division. These conferences have been reduced to writing and assembled in this volume. It is hoped that they will not only form a history of the 25th Division on Guadalcanal, but will prove worthy of study by inquiring students of military affairs who often find difficulty in picturing the actual problems presented in combat.

39:06 What an incredible approach to take to the lessons learned process. And indeed, Collins himself is critical of some of his actions. During the first day of one of the operations, Collins was positioned at the divisional observation post on Hill 49. A sniper wounded an observer, and Collins suspected that the fire came from a high wooded ridge south of Hill 43, and he ordered an artillery observer to conduct a fire mission on the tree line.

39:33 However, he admitted to his subordinates that something diverted my attention and the fire never got up to the tree line during the whole course of the action. Now, he highlighted this mistake because later intelligence revealed that this specific wooded hill was the centre of the enemy's entire trail system in the area.

39:50 And he recognised his personal distraction cost the division a highly profitable opportunity to severely damage Japanese forces. He wasn't the only one to take this approach with the conferences. The division supply officer plainly stated that the majority of their logistical lessons were the results of errors made.

40:10 He openly discussed where American units had experienced panic and near collapse, telling his officers, we are all human, all subject to fear and under certain conditions susceptible to panic. And he used the incidents as a teaching moment for practical leadership lessons to halt mass hysteria. There was also an honest appreciation of the Japanese.

40:32 Collins reminded his men that the enemy had been significantly weakened. The Japanese forces lacked engineering equipment and artillery. They were suffering heavily from starvation and the ravages of malaria, which gave the Americans a distinct advantage. I'll quickly pull out some of the key lessons from the Operations of the 25th Infantry Division on Guadalcanal document.

40:55 It's well worth having a look at because for anyone considering operations in the jungle, there is a lot to be learned from this. Straight up. He emphasized the importance of basic combat principles, which he summarized as the six Fs of combat. Find 'em, fix 'em, fool 'em, fight 'em, finish 'em. All the while fending. Fool 'em was the application of surprise and deception as well as the use of the envelopment.

41:23 Because remember, we're fighting in a jungle environment. The movement of those enveloping forces can be very hard to detect if it's done quietly. And fending the guarding of flanks and communications lines. So this is a really interesting mirror on the way that the Japanese fight in the jungle. It discusses forward leadership, teamwork and cooperation.

41:45 The absolute greatest lesson of all was cheerful 100% cooperation between branches. Success relied on infantry, artillery, engineers and supply services working fluidly together, even if it meant performing duties outside their standard roles. The document looks at cover, concealment and dispersion. The importance of not gathering the troops, particularly out in the open.

42:08 It discusses the importance of the entrenching tool and isn't this an age old infantry lesson? I'm reminded of Rommel's book Attacks where he talks about how his troops, after a long day of combat, collapsed and fell asleep at night, only to be woken half an hour later by a large artillery attack. And they took very heavy casualties.

42:32 And he says that was the last time I allowed troops to go to sleep without digging foxholes. The report states that the entrenching tool is considered next to the weapon in importance, avoiding trails and night movement. So interestingly, it recommended friendly troops should not move in the jungle at night as it is impossible to distinguish friend from foe land leading to dangerous friendly fire incidents.

42:56 We all know of the corrosive nature of those friendly fire incidences and the additional control measures that need to be put in place to avoid those kinds of incidences. As far as weapons go, it's stated that the BAR the Browning Automatic Rifle was significantly better than the light machine gun and hand grenades, shotguns and rifle grenades were the principal weapons for close quarters jungle fighting.

43:19 Artillery in jungle in particularly steep jungle, high angle fire is essential. Combat proved that high angle artillery fire is absolutely necessary in rugged mountainous jungle terrain. It allows shells to drop into deep ravines and reduces the chances of hitting overhanging crests occupied by friendly troops.

43:40 And also forward observers and liaison officers must maintain intimate personal contact with infantry commanders. The artillery must be viewed as the true base of fire that blocks the enemy and opens holes for the infantry advance. Much like blockers in a football team. There's quite an interesting section on logistics.

43:58 Water supply is paramount. The requirement to push the jeep roads as forward as far as possible strict salvage operations. There was a lot of equipment and ammunition that was able to be salvaged that had been ditched by troops in contact and medical evacuation with the jeep ambulances with the Stokes litters was incredibly efficient.

44:19 Looking at communications and intelligence protecting the signal equipment. A lot of the radios became ineffective in the harsh weather of Guadalcanal. Lastly, an interesting one handling prisoners. Kind treatment of Japanese prisoners paid intelligence dividends as they were taught never to surrender and thus lacked instructions on what to say if captured.

44:41 Interpreters should be pushed forward to the front lines to interrogate prisoners and translate captured documents without delay. We'll finish up our look at Collins with a quick quote where he compares the enemies that he faced in the Pacific versus the enemies that he faced in Europe. He wrote, the German was far more skilled than the Japanese.

45:03 Most of the Japanese that we fought with were not skilled men, not skilled leaders. The Germans had a professional army. The Japanese didn't know how to handle combined arms, the artillery and the support to the infantry to the same extent we did. They were gallant soldiers, though. They fought very, very hard, but they were not nearly as skillful as the Germans.

45:24 But the Germans didn't have the tenacity of the Japanese. I think that's an interesting comparison coming from one of the few corps commanders who would have fought in both the Pacific and in Europe. So the last thing I want to mention just quickly is one of my favorite topics that is military innovation.

45:42 And here we've got a great example as we see the innovation in doctrine and equipment and tactics that the 8th Marines go through. They approach the combat of 4th Matanikau, their first combat with the Japanese on Guadalcanal. They're using a linear advance, and that doesn't go well for them because obviously the Japanese are tenacious defenders, very well camouflaged.

46:08 They've got strong points with interlocking arcs of fire. And the 8th Marines take significant casualties critically after taking those heavy casualties, they're given time to observe the terrain, to observe the enemy, and to think about what would be the best way for them to be able to tackle the problem the next time they have a crack at it, they're able to break the problem down into its component parts.

46:34 How do you identify where the Japanese are? How do you avoid the interlocking arcs of fire once you do? How do you break down those incredibly well protected defensive positions Moving in from the head of the ravine, they would identify strong points and reduce them sequentially. They change the weapons that they're using.

46:55 They start to use shotguns because engagement distances tend to be a lot shorter than they would have been in the open. We see the introduction of the 37mm anti-tank gun. The Japanese have very few tanks on Guadalcanal. However, thinking about the ammunition types that the 37mm has got, you get some pretty interesting uses out of it.

47:15 The canister round can be used to remove foliage. This enables the identification of those defensive positions. It can also be used at night to break up the Japanese attacks. The Japanese understand the impact that the 37mm has on their night assaults, so they start to prioritize attacking the crews of the 37mms.

47:34 This forces the Marines then to innovate once again and to provide a protection party around the gun crews so that they can remain in action. And of course, on the 15th of January we see the introduction of the M1 Flamethrower, a fearsome weapon. Although this is the first iteration, difficult to use, extremely heavy and highly risky for the operator.

47:58 This would evolve over time to be tank mounted, which gives you the benefit of protected maneuver and also the ability to carry a much larger reservoir of the napalm for the flamethrower. And so we see the earliest iteration of the blowtorch and corkscrew technique that would be used much more prevalently on Okinawa.

48:19 There's also innovations with naval gunfire coordination and the C2 for aerial observation. So there's an excellent contrast there between the approach that the 25th ID take, which is the development of a very thorough lessons learned document after a series of brutally honest conferences that critically are attended by NCOs, not not just the officers so that all of those lessons can be captured, and the innovation that we see from the Marines.

48:51 They've got a short period of time. However, they're highly motivated because they know that that is terrain that they will be assaulting. Again, both of these approaches very important, particularly when you think about combat that we're seeing in Ukraine, where you've got technological innovation that is at a fearsome pace.

49:08 How do the tactics evolve to keep up with those technological innovations? Not only do you have new platforms and new capabilities coming into service, but you're also facing an enemy that is also trying to adapt and trying to innovate, bringing their own new platforms and new tactics that we need to find counters for.

49:28 We'll leave it there. This has been a long episode. We'll be back next week with the continuation of the Guadalcanal campaign. The Principles of War podcast is brought. To you by James Elisa the show notes for the Principles of War podcast are available at www.theprinciplesofwar.com for maps, photos.

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