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.Meanwhile, unloading at Red Beach continued in haphazard fashion.Total disorganization prevailed,and in an effort to disperse dangerously concentrated supplies, Vande-grift asked Turner to extendunloading to suitable beaches about a mile to the west of cluttered Red.Turner balked at this; he wasafraid to move his ships into waters which might be mined.But Vandegrift insisted.After all, theadmiral could see for himself that there was simply no space on Red Beach to land a fraction of thecombat cargo still in ships' holds.And soon the boats began to disgorge near the mouth of Block FourRiver.To prevent a recurrence of the Red Beach shambles, some of the transports sent sailors ashore toreinforce the exhausted shore party.While marines on the Guadalcanal side inspected abandoned camps, cracked coconuts, collectedsouvenirs, and sampled their first Japanese cigarettes, their brothers-in-arms on Tulagi and Gavutuwere fighting, as they had the previous day.When Edson's and Rosecrans's marines came out of the shallow foxholes at first light on Saturday, theyfor the first time saw in front of their lines the crumpled corpses of men who had a few hours earlierassaulted with a determination bordering on frenzy.For some, this first encounter with death byviolence was a brutal shock.But it was one to which they perforce adjusted, and soon platoons andsquads were moving against the caves in which the defenders had taken final refuge.Neither dive bombers nor ships' gunfire could blast the enemy out of these rocky caverns.The marineshad no Bangalore torpedoes, no flame throwers, no tanks.(The one tank put ashore on Tulagi threw atrack and came to rest in a ditch.) They first tried hand grenades; the Japanese promptly picked them upand threw them back.In a very few minutes marines learned that to move in front of a cave was to die.But fortunately the Raiders had a demolition section headed by Angus Gauss, a marine gunner wholoved to blow up anything.To Gauss's ears, an explosion was the sweetest music conceivable.He andhis crew spent the morning improvising pole charges, and around noon things began to happen tohidden Japanese.As two demolition men slid forward under cover of smoke grenades, supportingmachine-gun fire poured into the dark mouths of the two adjacent caves selected to receive attention.Inmoments, muffled roars punctuated by screams signaled the successful completion of Gauss's firstexperiments.By midafternoon most caves were sealed.Two troublesome pockets and half a dozensnipers remained to be liquidated, but at sunset Ruper-tus was able to radio Vandegrift that Tulagi hadbeen secured.The Raiders suffered 99 casualties 47 killed, 52 wounded; Rosecrans's battalion of theFifth Marines, 56.9Hunt's battalion, reluctantly released by Turner just before midnight Friday, began landing on Gavutu at7:00 a.m.on Saturday, August 8, and by noon these fresh troops had the island under control.Huntdirected Miller to embark his Parachutists and proceed with them to Tulagi.Bloody Gavutu belonged tothe Americans.The Parachutists had paid for it with 84 killed and wounded a casualty rate of over 20per cent.10Hunt now signaled Rupertus that he was ready to attack Tanambogo, and asked for a preparatory airstrike.Six carrier dive bombers, on station awaiting such a call, responded almost immediately.Theirattack was much worse than useless: several bombs, released too soon, fell on Gavutu, blew threemarines to bits, and seriously wounded nine others.Hunt profanely urged the flight leader to go backwhere he came from.As the planes departed, cruiser San Juan stood into the harbor, shelled Tanambogo for a few minutesand withdrew.Shortly thereafter, a second carrier strike group appeared on the scene with theannounced object of knocking down the Japanese flag still flying from the highest point on the island.Again, several bombs fell short and killed and wounded marines on Gavutu.The others hit the rightisland, but did not disturb the Rising Sun banner.After this exhibition, Hunt emphatically requestedthat air "support" be immediately discontinued.At 4:00 p.m.Hunt, now hopeful that he no longer had to cope with both the Japanese and U.S.Navydive bombers, called on destroyer Buchanan to fire at short range on Tanambogo.Buchanan boldly laida course close inshore.Her brief bombardment was devastating, and five minutes after her gunsopened, I Company (Captain W.B.Tinsley) landed on the island standing up.An hour later a sergeantpulled down the banner a dozen carrier pilots had failed to jostle [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]