Kinryu-GO: Operation Golden Dragon

KINRYU-GO

Operation Golden Dragon

Copyright 2017 Darryl Hurly

Published by Darryl Hurly at Smashwords

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Table of Contents

Map and Illustrations

Raiders and Green Dragons

Believe it or Not!

Kinryu-GO

Dragons of another Kind

Kinryu Kokutai Operational

First Blood

Surprises All Around

Raiders Ashore

The Loneliness of Command

Serendipity

The Second Air Strike

Banzai!

Aftermath

Dragons and Hellfire

Nature Lashes Out

Between Enemies

Glossary of Military Terms

Glossary of Japanese Jargon

About Darryl Hurly

Connect With Darryl Hurly

Map and Illustrations

Map of the South Pacific, Fall 1942, prepared by B. Letourneau follows.

Photos follow the chapter entitled Raiders Ashore.

USN Catalina PBY amphibian. U.S. Navy photo via Wikimedia Commons.

JNAF Pete amphibious biplane fighter. U.S. Archives photo.

Destroyer USS Fletcher. U.S. National Archives photo.

Carrier IJNS Zuiho. Unknown photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Cruiser HMAS Hobart. Allen C. Green photo via Wikimedia Commons.

JNAF Mavis flying boat. U.S. Navy photo via Wikimedia Commons.

APD USS Stringham. U.S. National Archives photo.

JNAF Val dive bomber. U.S. National Archives photo.

The Island’s Volcano. Tropenmuseum photo via Wikimedia Commons.

USN/USMC Wildcat fighter. U.S. Navy photo via Wikimedia Commons

JNAF Hamp fighter. Photo from skbrasil.com.br/artigos/nishi02.jpeg via Wikimedia Commons.

JNAF Zero fighter. U.S. National Archives photo.

JNAF Kate torpedo bomber. D. Letourneau photo.

Artists’ renditions of prehistoric monitor Megalania Prisca can be viewed on the Internet by accessing ‘Images of Magalania Prisca’ on Google or msn.com.

Raiders and Green Dragons

Waiting to board her for their voyage from Pearl Harbor to the South Pacific, the Marines gazed curiously at the mottled green-and-grey camouflage of the USS Wexford. This unorthodox camouflage earned the Wex and her sisters the sobriquet ‘Green Dragons.’

She looked rather odd for a troop transport: long and slender, with two ultra-short funnels that barely cleared the two pairs of landing craft suspended from massive davits, high outside her hull. Her quartet of landing craft were supplemented with eight ten-man rubber assault boats, stored for quick deployment against the vessel’s upper flanks fore and aft of amidships.

Once at sea, the Marines would soon learn to their dismay that those two stubby funnels had a nasty habit of spewing occasional gouts of flames and showers of sparks if the ship’s furnaces were over-stoked when she was steaming at speed. Between twilight and dawn extra care had to be taken lest these sporadic, fiery displays unwittingly provide Japanese submarines and aircraft with an excellent homing beacon.

The Wex was one of several old four-funnel destroyers that had been converted to Assault Purpose Destroyers – APDs – during the tense, foreboding year prior to the Pearl Harbor attack. They were the brainchild of Rear Adm. Richmond Kelly Turner who envisioned converting some of the Navy’s mothballed WWI-era destroyers into fast transports. To Adm. Turner’s satisfaction, sea trials demonstrated that, even with half their original boilers and funnels removed, these modified destroyer-transports could still make a respectable twenty-five knots, fully loaded – far outpacing any standard troop transport.

Apart from half her boilers, the Wex lost her torpedo tubes and anti-submarine weapons to make room for a company of troops in full combat gear, plus light support weapons. Thus stripped down, she proved ideal for moving small groups of troops, such as replacements, to where they were needed in a hurry.

But the Marines boarding the Wex for Espititu Santo weren’t your typical gyrenes, either. They were a company of elite assault troops – the concurrent brainchild of Col. Evans Carlson and William J. Donovan.

Colonel Carlson had witnessed first-hand the workings of Chinese bandits and the irregular troops belonging to war lords, as well as regular Chinese army guerrillas. He’d also befriended Capt. James Roosevelt – none other than the president’s son – who, under Carlson’s tutelage, became a staunch convert to guerrilla doctrine.

As for Bill Donovan, he was FDR’s senior adviser on intelligence matters; within that capacity, he’d been monitoring British commando raids on the coasts of occupied Europe.

On the eve of hostilities with Japan, American military leaders realized the unique nature of the Pacific Theatre called for a full-scale, island-hopping campaign for which the U.S. was woefully ill-prepared. Carlson and Donovan envisioned a force of hit-and-run shock troops whose task it would be to harass and disrupt the enemy, keeping him off-balance until the Marine Corps could establish a full-fledged amphibious force to invade and retake Japanese-held territory.

Under their prodding, the Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed to emulate the British by adopting amphibious guerrilla warfare as one of several stopgap measures intended to buy time to rearm, reequip and expand America’s armed forces to a wartime footing. And so, the ‘Raider’ concept evolved from idea to reality!

When it came to actually carrying out their roles, however, the Raiders found themselves stymied by transportation logistics. How to get a fast-paced, mobile strike force to its objective, and extract it without delay after its job was done, became the operative question.

Submarines could move troops furtively to wherever danger threatened, but they were lamentably slow, especially when submerged. They shared this speed limitation with surface transports. Moreover, their cramped spaces could accommodate a mere handful of troops, requiring a number of subs to be diverted from their regular duties to convey any sizable Raider force.

It was Marine Brig. Gen. Holland M Smith who legitimized limited amphibious warfare when he hit upon the idea of using the Navy’s APDs to convey his guerrilla battalions into combat. He judged the Green Dragons ideal for whisking a medium-size combat team to any objective deep in enemy-controlled waters. Six APDs could suddenly appear and set a full battalion, minus heavy support weapons, ashore along a hostile coast in jig time.

Brigadier Smith successfully tested a marriage of the APD and guerrilla concepts during the course of several combined training operations. Consequently, in 1940 the War Department gave ‘Howling Mad’ the nod to form a bonafide Marine guerrilla unit – the independent APD Battalion.

Lt. Col. Evans Carlson was a maverick. Not surprisingly, he’d resigned his commission over the Corps’ rejection of his unorthodox, Chinese-inspired ideas about organization and command structure. Otherwise, Colonel Carlson would surely have been appointed to head the new APD unit.

In his absence, Colonel Merritt Edson became its CO. Given the sobriquet ‘Red Mike’ in deference to his flaming red hair, Edson ran a tight ship, embracing without question the traditions of the Corps. He diligently trained his men in accordance with a commando-style doctrine that he, too, had painstakingly developed and refined by August 1941.

Edson’s APD Battalion would focus on reconnaissance, diversionary hit-and-run raids, outflanking manoeuvers, interdiction of supply routes, and spearheading full-scale amphibious landings. It was, in his eyes, the waterborne version of the paratroops. But despite its focus on furtive, rapid-deployment missions, the battalion found itself inexplicably saddled with the Corps’ sole light tank company and its only paratroop company, whose officers and men must have felt like ducks out of water in their new tactical organization.

When a second Marine guerrilla battalion was subsequently activated, the units were officially re-christened the 1st Raider Battalion and the 2nd Raider Battalion.

On this, her maiden voyage as a Green Dragon, the Wexford would steam for the South Pacific with her spartan troop accommodations filled to slight over-capacity. Her contingent of Raider reinforcements consisted of three platoons, each of thirty-two riflemen, plus a machine-gun platoon and a small demolition squad – the latter both under strength. The two 60-mm mortar crews of a special weapons platoon, plus five corpsmen, brought the contingent to 127 men, including the acting CO, his adjutant, subordinate officers and NCOs.

Since APDs were not equipped with holds or hoists to handle vehicles, tanks or field artillery, Raider ordnance was limited to light machine-guns, mortars and other weapons that could be back-packed or otherwise manhandled. In principle, the Raiders relied on surprise, subterfuge and mobility rather than heavy firepower to carry out their tasks.

Apart from their CO and a few veteran NCOs, the leathernecks on board the Wex were fresh from guerrilla training; they’d been well prepared for combat but, in the military parlance of the day, they were still ‘unblooded greenhorns.’ Temporarily organized into a provisional company for administrative purposes, these novice gyrenes were to be reassigned to 2nd Raider line units once they reached the New Hebrides. Beefed-up with these troops, the 2nd Raiders would then proceed to join the 1st Raider Battalion on Guadalcanal.

Save for a thin sprinkling of ‘old salts,’ the APD’s crew was as inexperienced as the Marines she carried. Cdr. Philip Edwards determined to cash in on the long voyage by doubling it as an additional shakedown cruise for the ship’s company. Consequently, much time was spent in on-the-job training. The crew was drilled again and again in an effort to cut down the time taken to launch her landing craft. Periodic zig-zagging was also the order of the day to practice evading submarine and air attack. Sudden sharp turns to port and starboard were frequently made to the blaring of the ship’s claxon, sending the crew to battle stations, and initially causing no small amount of concern among the nervous Raiders who kept reaching for their Mae Wests.

In temporary command of the ersatz Marine Raider outfit was Capt. Robert Scholes.

The Monday after Pearl Harbor, he’d forsaken the beautiful valley of apple orchards he called home in upstate New York to volunteer for the Corps. Bright and articulate, he used to spend most weekends wandering the lofty crags of his native Adirondacks, poking about for rare rock specimens. Before long, he had graduated to the status of a confirmed ‘rock hound’ who would readily display his highly-polished mineral collection at every opportunity. It came as no surprise to those who knew him that he was halfway through his second year of geology at the state university when he enlisted.

But Robby’s obsession with petrology did not predispose him to suffer the shy bookishness often ascribed to scholars. Rather, he was outgoing and forthright; had proved himself on the sports field, and had led a social life sprinkled with female admirers – one of whom eagerly accompanied him on his rock-hunting forays. Indeed, Robby Scholes and Sally Mitchell soon grew thick as thieves – inseparable, as they say.

Scholes’ well-rounded intellect readily established the strapping outdoorsman as officer material and, upon enlisting, he was immediately recommended for OCS. Ready and eager, Officer Cadet Scholes threw himself into the task at hand, graduating from Quantico a promising third in his class. From there he volunteered for the Raiders, and was accordingly posted to nearby Camp Elliot for special training.

Wartime promotion meant a meteoric rise to captain after Scholes’ participation in the Makin Atoll raid. But, much to his chagrin, little else happened after that until the 1st Marines landed in the Solomons. Now, both Raider battalions would be in the thick of it on Guadalcanal, and the aggressive young company commander was only too eager to meet the Jap once more.

Scholes’ pet peeve was the bolt-action, Springfield (1903) rifle – a bone of contention the young captain shared with nearly all Marines. Rumor had it that the ‘Brass’ was giving serious thought to adopting the Army’s semiautomatic rifle, the Garand M-1. But so far, the Corps could only chafe impatiently at the dithering of its high command while smug doughboys snickered derisively at the Neanderthal leathernecks.

Captain Scholes’ acting adjutant felt no less perturbed by the Corp’s molasses-like pace when it came to upgrading small arms. Lt. Jack Naismith was convinced if any outfit needed a rapid-firing rifle to boost its firepower it was a Marine Raider company, what with its small complement of men equipped with minimal support weapons.

He’d been given the opportunity to handle an M-1 when he visited his younger brother – a sergeant in the Army. Brother Ned never ceased to trumpet the rifle’s reliability; after firing it, Jack readily agreed. Although that was stateside, rumors trickling out of New Zealand and Fiji corroborated the weapon’s sturdiness in simulated combat conditions, plus its ability to withstand the humidity and mud of a tropical environment, which was unfortunately not the case with the old Springfield.

On the eve of hostilities Naismith had been enrolled part time in a mid-western agricultural college while he continued to help work the family’s section of fertile farmland in the Lower Red River Valley. Though he came from solid farm stock, he was no country bumpkin. Having weathered the privations of the depression, he came to recognize an essential truth: to be successful, a farm would henceforth have to be run like a business – a concept that was amply confirmed by his cutting-edge college studies.

Naismith had also internalized an unbridled patriotism that virtually dictated he would follow in his father’s footsteps. After Pearl Harbor both he and his brother had wasted no time joining up, leaving the two youngest siblings to sow the fields and reap the grain harvest alongside their father.

Jack chose the Marines because the recruiting sergeant guaranteed he’d see plenty of action in the Corps. To Jack the leathernecks were the elite of America’s warriors; not unlike the prestigious British Royal Commandos or the fabled French Foreign Legion – both tough outfits about which he’d read. After Quantico he was drawn to the Raiders like a fly to honey.

The impetuous and fickle Colonel Carlson was lured back to the Corps with a promotion, and appointed to command the new 2nd Raider Battalion. As anyone who knew him might have expected, he proceeded to create a unit that differed markedly from Colonel Edson’s – both in organization and elan.

Carlson drew on the Chinese spirit of togetherness – ‘gung ho’ – that he’d embraced while serving the last of three tours in the Far East, fighting the Japanese alongside the Chinese Communists. He treated his 2nd Raiders as brothers-in-arms; regardless of rank, each man had a role to play and earned a say at his own tactical level. Planning sessions were conducted like the democratic town-hall meetings of Carleson’s native New England. The final decision was reserved for him alone, however; once orders were cut and filtered through the chain of command, they were to be obeyed to the letter.

Unit discipline reflected a cooperative spirit based as much on trust as on deference to authority. Leaders were respected more for their military know-how and ability to lead rather than for their rank or familial lineage. Not surprisingly, worried traditionalists in the Corps were quick to criticize, carping that the 2nd Raiders’ command structure and decision-making process smacked of un-American socialist principles imported by Carlson from China.

In contrast, Colonel Edson’s 1st Raider Battalion tended to be hide-bound by Marine tradition. Formal rank structure and rigid discipline were the keys to the unit’s modus operandi. Its officers, in particular, exalted in the elitist pecking order and rigid authority preached by Edson, which precipitated a standing joke in the Corps that they walked around with ramrods strapped to their backs, or in Corps vernacular, stuck up their asses.

Indeed, to Naismith life in the 1st Raiders sounded much like an extension of boot camp’s stifling hierarchic experience. Having just emerged from this mind-numbing rigidity, the new subaltern embraced Carlson’s management philosophy as though he were savoring a breath of fresh air. He considered himself blessed to have been assigned to the 2nd Raiders. When he reported for duty, Lieutenant Naismith landed in the novel, innovative world of ‘Carlson’s Raiders.’

The young subaltern was particularly gratified when his maverick CO succeeded in navigating layers of red-tape to get his hands on enough Army Garands to outfit his 2nd Raiders, scooping the Corps itself. Both Naismith and Scholes rejoiced in the knowledge that their outfit was going into its first real combat tour properly equipped with M-1s.

As for Colonel Edson, he had predictably preferred the traditional Springfield rifle for his boys – until the 1st Raiders landed on Guadalcanal, that is. Scuttlebutt had it that the Army could kiss goodbye to any Garand that fell into 1st Raider hands during the Guadalcanal campaign.

Unfortunately, the Makin Atoll raid, which saw the 2nd Raiders beat their brothers-in-arms to the punch as the first outfit to see action, did little to endear the two Raider battalions to each other. Neither was there any love lost between their COs; at best Edson and Carlson barely managed to be mutually civil on the rare occasions when they didn’t ignore each other entirely. However, when the 1st Raiders were subsequently chosen to land on Tulagi as part of the Guadalcanal invasion force, their resentment of the 2nd Raiders tended to subside since this far more complex and important operation easily overshadowed the earlier Makin landing.

An untimely ruptured appendix had prevented Naismith from completing his Raider training in time for the Makin Atoll raid, Disappointed, he had to wait out his convalescence. But once he was declared fit for duty, boredom and tedium gave way to something more unsettling: a gnawing anticipation of that untested moment of truth: combat.

Unexpectedly, after their baptism of fire in the heroic but sanguinary contest for the spiny ridge that commanded the southern flank of Henderson Field, the badly decimated 1st Raiders were in dire need of replacements, having suffered further casualties from tropical diseases. While the requested replacements were duly sent, it was also decided that the 2nd Raider Battalion would be dispatched to fight alongside its battle-worn sister unit. Thus, Carlson’s Raiders were ordered to the New Hebrides, there to sail for Guadalcanal with Task Force 67.1 on 9 November.

As much as he preferred to be in Colonel Carlson’s outfit, Naismith chafed for action even more. But while he hesitantly toyed with a transfer to Colonel Edson’s command, he was ordered to sail from Pearl aboard the Wexford with the ‘provisional’ company of 2nd Raider reinforcements. He was on his way at last to meet that larger-than-life specter: the enemy.

As an unblooded, ‘shavetail,’ Naismith had naively subscribed to the popular notion that the Japanese military man was a pushover.

Because they were short and stout, it was said the Nips lacked agility; their stunted, bandy legs compelled them to shuffle rather than run in strides. Afflicted with poor eyesight that had to be corrected with thick lenses, they were poor shots and mediocre pilots. It was said a genetic deficiently in the inner ear also severely restricted their ability to pilot a plane in combat.

In the matter of military technology the Nips were regarded as imitators rather than innovators. Their production methods were purportedly substandard and shoddy; their tanks, planes and ships tended toward obsolescence until they could be upgraded by slavishly cloning more-modern Western designs.

Altogether, the Nipponese were considered a feudalistic Oriental society whose military training shaped mindless automatons. The Jap could hardly pose a serious threat to more-enlightened and better-trained Occidental races in a shooting war. But when the fighting actually began, the dope that trickled into Quantico and Parris Island from doomed Allied garrisons across the Pacific and the Far East came as a rude shock.

The Japanese proved to be tough, ruthless, aggressive fighters – wily and deceptive in combat. Eschewing the defense, they invariably grasped the offensive. Masters at night infiltration, after probing Allied positions for weak spots, their troops attacked frontally in massed banzai charges. Whenever Allied resistance stiffened, they plunged into the surrounding terrain to outflank their adversaries, forcing them to fall back in disorder. If their tactics were rote, they were effective.

Neither was the enemy’s technology all that inferior. Japanese light tanks were admirably suited to jungle terrain. Their planes demonstrated exceptional maneuverability and, in the hands of skilled pilots and aircrews, they initially swept the air clear of inferior Allied aircraft. At sea, the Imperial Navy’s Combined Fleet succeeded in besting its Allied counterparts in practically every early engagement. Its infallible ‘Long Lance’ torpedo far outclassed unreliable Allied designs.

True, crucial American naval victories at Coral Sea and Midway finally chipped some big chinks in the myth of Imperial invincibility, and the Marines were holding their own on Guadalcanal, but there was still a lot about the Jap to be apprehensive about.

Jack Naismith was pleased to be going into combat alongside Robby Scholes. Their relationship had meshed from the first. After all, they had a lot in common: a pair of God-fearing scions from America’s rural heartland. Bright, enterprising and resourceful, both had tasted the intellectual stimulation of higher learning, and both held sacred the values of Western democracy.

But Robby’s guarded optimism prudently fell short of the naïve bravado that imbued others to believe they could lick the Jap hands down. His participation in the Makin Atoll raid, plus reliable scuttlebutt from friends already fighting on the Canal, fostered in him a healthy respect for the enemy, which was not lost on Jack.

The two men had ample time to dialogue on their way to the South Pacific. Their discussions invariably wound up focusing on Nipponese subterfuge, deceit and treachery. Each man searched his recollections for scraps of scuttlebutt that could be pasted together to form a sinister mosaic of the wily foe. Robby added a vignette or two from his own limited experience on Makin. What he had to say didn’t exactly boost Jack’s morale.

The Nips are tricky, asserted Robby. They’ll wave a white flag and come up to you as if to surrender. The first guy carries the flag and the others bunch up behind him with concealed pistols or grenades – mostly grenades. These guys have no intention of surrendering; all they want to do is take as many of us as they can with them.

So, what do you do?

You stop trying to take prisoners; that’s what you do!

You mean . . . ?

Exactly! Unless Intelligence wants to get some dope from ’em.

Phew! Robby, I’m not sure I can . . . .

Look! You’re gonna have to learn to leave your conscience at the curb, flatly declared Robby. Ever heard of ‘the way of the warrior’?

Not till now.

These guys think they’re Samurai warriors like their ancestors; to them, surrender is worse than death – especially the officers.

But what if we make ’em stick their hands up . . . ? ventured Jack.

Do you speak Japanese?

Well, no . . . .

Think you’ll have time to learn before you meet up with ’em?

Of course not! But you can gesture to ’em.

Robby shook his head disapprovingly. One or two may put both hands up, he explained. "One or two more may put up one hand ’cause they’re holding the grenade in the other. Most’ll just play dumb and keep on coming toward you. . . . If you try to halt ’em, they’ll figure the jigs up. That’s when