US Marine Corps - The Black Vault

330 AnzPbibians Came To Conquer
start, a~ least in the minds of those having their first brush with the
Japanese. According to the Staff Log and the final Marine report:
0618. sighted unidentified plane on port bow.
0620. AA fire on plane ahead.2i
. . . only one aircraft got into the air and it was destroyed immediately
after takeoff by cruiser anti-aircraft fire, o.fi Lunga Point. Z*
A tiresome check of the war diaries, action reports, and logs of surviving
ships does not reveal which cruiser or destroyer fired anti-aircraft fire at this
hour of the morning. The haze of the Solomons was beginning.
THE JAPANESE FIRST REPORT THE ALLIGATOR
Although U.S. ships must have been visible by 0600 and had commenced
firing by 0613, Japanese records indicate that it was not until nearly 40 minutes
later, 0652 on 7 August, that Commander Air Base Tulagi got off a
report to Commander 25th Air Flotilla, his senior at Rabaul, that “enemy
task force sighted.”
This message was not nearly so succinct or so immediate as that of
Commander Logan Ramsey, U. S. Navy, Operations Ofhcer on the staff
of Patrol Wing Two at the Naval Air Station, Pearl Harbor. His 0758
message reporting the 0755 attack by the Japanese on December 7, 1941
read:
Air Raid Pearl. This is not a drill.
It was another 13 minutes before the report of Commander Air Base,
Tulagi was amplified:
Enemy task force of twenty ships attacking Tulagi, undergoing severe
bombings, landing preparations underway; help requested.z’
“Enemy has commenced landing” was reported at 0715.
TULAGI—GAVUTU—FLORIDA
The Japanese forces in the Southern Solomons had moved initially onto
Tulagi Island, primarily because they needed a seaplane bake in that area
for aerial reconnaissance in connection with “and subsequent to” Operation
x (a) Staff Log; (b) Commanding General, First Marine Division, Final Report on Guadalcanal
Operation, Phase 1 of 24 May 1943.
= Japanese CRUDIV 6, Battle Report.