US Marine Corps - The Black Vault

so,
Suvo-Tbe Gailit~g Defeat 397
estimating a counter landing to be the most probable course of Japanese
action, General Vandegrift placed his MRL [Main Line of Resistance] at
the beach. . . . The bulk of the combat forces remained in assembly area
inland as a ready reserve to check attacks or penetrations from my sector. 113
Admiral Turner summarized his current thoughts on this second major
defensive decision of the WATCHTOWER Operation in this way:
It’s at least an ‘itly matter’, as FDR used to characterize tough posers,
whether a hard driving Marine offensive against the Guadalcanal Japanese
starting on the %h wouldn’t have destroyed or completely dispersed the
nucleus of Japanese forces on Guadalcanal Island. This WOUId have permitted
an adequate shore welcoming reception party for the first Japanese re-enforcements
{>th Sasebo Special Naval Landing Force] whose advance elements of
about 200 men aboard o single Jap destroyer [the Otie] arrived a week later—
16 August-and made an unsupported daylight kmding of troops and
supplies.
After xll, the 6000 Marines on Tulagi captured that island and a couple
of others from some 750 well dug in md well organized Jap~nese with the
moderate loss of about 1JO killed and 200 wounded.
It’s certainly a question whether if the Marines had been on the offensive,
instead of dug in on the defensive, the Japanese were in enough strength to
fight their way ashore even when on August 18th some !JOO Army troops of
the famous Ichiki Midway Landing Force of the 17th Army arrived.
A proper Marine reception committee it appropriate beaches firound Lungs
Point would have made the Japanese think more than once about ‘reinforcing
Gu~dalcanal’ particuldy if there had been no one to reinforce.11’
In a memorandum to COMPHIBFORSOPAC on 2 August 1942, the
Commanding General First Marine Division had written:
Operations against outlying Japanese detachments on GUADALCANAL
and the smaller islands will be commenced without delay. . . The 1st
RAIDERS BATTALION will be employed for this purpose. That Battalion
has been ordered to reembfirk following seizure of TULAGI. . . This
reembarkztion was ordered for z dual purpose; namely, to have the Raiders
available for oper.~tions against outlying detachments but primarily to have
them available as t highly mobile rapidly striking reserve which could be
Lmded on GUADALCANAL at some point in rem of hostile forces and thus
greatly speed the conclusion of the att~ck on Japanese forces on that island.llr
‘“ Ibid,, p. 275.
‘“ Turner.
‘“ COMGENFIRSTMARDIV to COMPHIBFORSOPAC, Memorandum. ACF?J( f ) 076/222
AE–0020 of 2 Aug. 1942.