US Marine Corps - The Black Vault

WATCHTOWER 259
Army and Navy forces being sent to England for SLEDGEHAMMER or
BOLERO might be there a long time before facing combat, to direct
CINCPAC and COMSOPAC to prepare for an offensive against the Lower
Solomons, using United States Marines. He hoped the Santa Cruz Islands
would be occupied before the Japanese got there and Tulagi would be taken
from the Japanese before it could be built up to great defensive strength.”
Rear Admiral Turner prepared to undertake this considerable task and
to bring it to consummation in just 35 days. Even though he was then on
leave in California, the First Marine Division was on the high seas enroute to
far away New Zealand and the essential amphibious ships were scattered
all over the eastern and southern half of the Pacific Ocean Area. Only a
leader like Admiral King with great knowledge and great faith in his or-
ganization and the subordinates who were to lead their parts of it, could
have issued such a preparatory order.
When Admiral King’s history-making despatch went out on 25 June 1942,
the undertaking of offensive-defensive amphibious operations hadn’t been
approved by the Joint Chiefs, whose Army representative was the chief re-
vivifier of SLEDGEHAMMER. Much less had it been approved by the
President, who, at the moment, hankered for action on the continent of
Europe and for nothing more than hanging on in the Pacific. How Admiral
King decided he could overcome these two major obstacles, and a not so
minor one of whether the Army or the Navy would command the first
offensive amphibious operation, is not known. It is known, however, that
when the Chief of Staff of the U. S. Army writes a letter to the Commander
in Chief of the United States Fleet and gets an answer the same day, the
question under discussion is hot. This happened on 26 June 1942.”
The subject in controversy was who was to command the first real offen-
sive-defensive amphibious operation in the Pacific. The Army had the book
partly on its side, since one of the objectives, Tulagi, lay in the area of the
Army Commander of the Southwest Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur.
However, the other objective, the Santa Cruz Islands, was in the area of the
Naval Commander of the South Pacific area, Vice Admiral Robert Ghorm-
Iey. The Navy thus had the book partly on its side and Admiral King wholly
on its side, plus the logical military reasons that:
MCOMINCH to CINCPAC, despatch 24 Jun. 1942. Info C/S USA, COMSOWESPACFOR,
and COMSOPACFOR.
- (a) C/SA to CINCUS, memorandum, no ser of 26 Jun. 1942. Modern Military Records,
National Archives; (b) COMINCH to C/S USA, letter, Ser 00555, 26 Jun. 1942.