Tag Archives: Henderson Field

Cactus Crew Chief

Posted on by Leave a comment

80 Years Ago Today: “March 22, 1943: Technical Sgt. R.W. Greenwood, a Marine, sits in the cockpit of a Grumman Wildcat fighter plane, based at Henderson Field, Guadalcanal, that is credited with shooting down 19 Japanese aircraft, as illustrated by the number of Japanese flags on his plane. Several different pilots have flown the ship during successful missions, but Sgt. Greenwood has remained plane captain.”

(AP Photo)

I’d imagine the good Sgt. Greenwood is from the “Bulldogs” of VMF-223. Led by Major John L. Smith (19 air-to-air kills 21 August-to-03 October 1942 with the “Cactus Air Force” on Guadalcanal) along with XO Capt. Marion Eugene Carl (16.5 air-to-air kills 04 June 1942-to-03 October 1942 with Cactus) the unit was a legend among legends.

Other Marine Wildcat Squadrons on Guadalcanal included the “Fighting Bengals” of VMF-224 under Major Robert E. Galer (11 kills with Cactus), The “Wolfpack” of VMF-112 which included the “Raging Cajun” Lt. Jefferson J. DeBlanc who downed five Japanese aircraft in minutes before being shot down himself in Jan. 1943, the “Green Knights” Of VMF-121, the “Candystripers” of VMF-122 (whose XO at the time was Pappy Boyington of later Baa Baa Blacksheep fame), the “Flying Eight Balls” of VMF-123, and the “Hell Hounds” of VMF-212.

A Little Flour, a Bit of .45…

Posted on by Leave a comment

80 Years Ago: A 6th Naval Construction Battalion (Seabee) baker, M1911 on his side for those special moments, bakes bread in an oven recycled from Japanese materials at Guadalcanal, 26 October 1942. The pistol is not puffery. Just a few weeks prior, a Japanese offensive pushed the Marine lines back to the Lunga River at a point only 150 feet from the West end of Guadalcanal’s embattled Henderson Field, home to the Cactus Air Force. With the Marines entrenched in fighting at one end of the field, the Bees were carrying on construction at the other.

Seabee Museum photo.

NCB 6 was formed from volunteers in May 1942 at Camp Bradford outside of Norfolk then, after a 48-hour train ride, arrived at Gulfport, Mississippi on 24 June– the first battalion at the installation where now about half of the Seabee force is based. Their first building task was to erect the flagpole at Gulfport.

Before the end of July, “equipped as a combination of soldier, sailor and construction worker, they were ready to tackle their first assignment” and shipped out of San Francisco for the Western Pacific in the holds of the SS President Polk and USS Wharton.

Most of the men of the battalion had been in the Navy for less than 90 days. 

The first elements of NCB 6 landed at Espiritu Santo on the morning of 17 August, just days after the Marines went in at Guadalcanal, and went about their work building three piers from a camp set up in a coconut grove. On 1 September, the Bees headed to Guadalcanal to get into the airfield business.

As noted in the unit’s war history:

At Guadalcanal, the Seabees of NCB 6 lengthened and maintained Henderson Field, constructed piers, bridges, tunnels, roads, a Patrol Torpedo Boat Base, a tank farm, and a power plant, which they also operated. Most of the work was accomplished under enemy fire: strafing and bombardment from Japanese aircraft and shelling from the Japanese fleet.

U.S. Naval Construction Battalion 6 was inactivated on 13 September 1945 at Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands. However, it would soon be reformed as NMCB 6 and serve extensively in Vietnam, but that is another story.

The Old Breed’s Last Bolt-Action Battle

Posted on by Leave a comment

Some 80 years ago this month, a scratch force of Marines waded ashore on a little-known island in the Pacific, with their beloved ’03s in hand, determined to stop the Rising Sun.

Some eight months after Pearl Harbor was attacked, and long after Wake Island, Guam, and the Philippines fell to the Japanese onslaught during World War II, the Allies in the Pacific moved to seize the initiative and launched the first Allied land offensive in the Theater as well as the first American amphibious assaults of the war. Between Aug. 7 and Aug. 9, 1942, some 11,000 men of the newly-formed 1st Marine Division landed on the beaches of Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Japanese-occupied Solomon Islands, a chain of islands far closer to Australia than to Tokyo. There, the Marines aimed to seize an airfield the Japanese were carving out of the jungle and use it for their own fighters and bombers.

However, while the Army in 1937 had opted to switch to the M1 Garand from the M1903 Springfield– a bolt-action .30-06 adopted during the administration of Teddy Roosevelt– the Marines were slower to move towards the semi-auto battle rifle. It was only in Feb. 1941, just ten months before Pearl Harbor, that Marine Gen. Alexander Vandegrift wrote that he considered the Garand reliable enough to arm his Marines. With that, it wasn’t until after America was in the war that the Corps officially adopted the M1 Garand and later the M1 Carbine.

“Captured Japanese Battle Flag, Guadalcanal Airfield, circa 1942.” (Photo: Thayer Soule Collection/Marine Corps History Division)

Guadalcanal Campaign U.S. Marines rest in the field on Guadalcanal, circa August-December 1942. Most are armed with M1903 bolt-action rifles and carry M1905 bayonets along with USMC 1941 pattern packs. Two men high on the hill at the right have vests to carry patrol mortar shells and one in the center has a World War I-style hand grenade vest. The Marine seated at the far right has an M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle. (Photo: U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.)

More in my column at Guns.com.

Busy Days

Posted on by Leave a comment

Find the journal entry of Marine Lloyd Fuller, covering Nov. 15 & 16 1942, below.

Fuller enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1941 and, assigned to Marine Fighting Squadron 121 (VMF 121), served as the ordnance man for Joe Foss– the leading Marine fighter ace in WWII– who allowed Fuller to name two of the squadron’s F4F Wildcat fighter planes “Miss Irene” and “Miss Irene II” after his hometown sweetheart, Irene.

Fuller details the aftermath of the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, where the Japanese battleship Kirishima was sunk, and the general atmosphere of the famed Cactus Air Force operating from embattled Henderson Field in the darkest days of the campaign.

From the Lloyd D. Fuller Collection (COLL/4932), Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections

“November 15, 1942

Mike still throwing slugs. 2 came within 20 yards of me. Close shave. Yesterday afternoon we received 9 B26’s, 12 P38’s, and some F4F’s from Enterprise. Enterprise, Washington, So. Dak., etc. hit Jap convoy making their naval escort flee. We sank 7 transports and 5 are burning fiercely on the beach. P39’s set ships on fire with incendiary bombs. FBF’s, SBD’s, P39’s, P38’s, B26’s, F4F’s have been hitting hard. B26’s left for Roses & 10 F4F’s are going out to their ship, Enterprise. We destroyed approximately 12 Zeros & 1 bomber. Enterprise downed 21 bombers and unestimated number of Zeros. Tojo’s convoy was not successful. Miss Irene II got her first Zero. Col. Bower lost 14th in sea. Mann returned. Joe Palko was found dead with a 20 mm in his neck.

November 16, 1942

Quiet day for a change. General Woods’s statement said: “During the past 5 days, our air forces on Cactus destroyed 2 carriers, 2 battleships, 4 cruisers, 4 cruisers badly damaged, 8 destroyers, 12 transports and 30,000 men. He commended ground forces for “working untiringly, day and night, under constant shellfire and bombing, reducing danger to Cactus and assuring victory of Guadalcanal.” We destroyed 69 planes in 5 days. No supplies were landed. 155’s sank transports that were burning yesterday. Latest word is that Japs landed 5000 troops and 4 field pieces.”

VMF-121 produced fourteen fighter aces, more than any other Marine squadron in history, downing 208 Japanese aircraft.

Foss (fourth from left) joins members of Marine Corps fighter squadron VMF-121 on a Wildcat wing at Henderson Field, Guadalcanal. (U.S. Marine Corps)

As for Fuller, he survived the war and left the Marines as a Master Sergent. Lloyd and Irene were married following his return from the Pacific.

Don’t underestimate that aging vet in his big cap…you never know what he has seen.

Lloyd Fuller, circa 2008