US Marine Corps - The Black Vault

CHAPTER XII
HUDDLE Slowly Scuttled
SANTA CRUZ ISLANDS (HUDDLE)
One of the factors influencing the ‘when’ and ‘where to’ United States
forces would move from Guadalcanal, was the Santa Cruz Island operation,
code named HUDDLE,
It is customary these days to beat Admiral Turner about the head
because he did not chuck the HUDDLE Operation the day the Marines ran
into their first real opposition on Tulagi—Guadalcanal. These critics blame
him for not committing, with finality, the 2nd Marine Regiment resources,
designated for occupying and defending Ndeni in the Santa Cruz Islands,
to augment those on Guadalcanal.
His reasons for delaying sending off a recommendation to scuttle
HUDDLE to his many seniors, all the way up to the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
all of whom had directed the occupation and defense of the Santa Cruz
Islands, were three in number. Rear Admiral Turner believed that:
1. The Japanese reaction to the loss of the lower Solomons as a base for
air reconnaissance of the Coral Sea and air attacks on New Caledonia, could
well be a try at outflanking the lower Solomons, and reducing their usefulness
in United States hands by a seizure of the Santa Cruz Islands, and the building
of airfields thereon. In other words, the Santa Cruz Islands offered an alternativeroute
to the New Hebrides and New Caledonia which should be denied
to the offensive-minded Japanese. It was learned from the natives that the
Japanese had built a temporary air base on the Santa Cruz Islands and
conducted a war game therefrom in 1940.I
2. In the early days of the WATCHTOWER Operation a despatch had
come in from COMSOPAC on 28 July 1942 indicating that from cryptographic
sources, it had been learned that the Japanese were planning to
commence an operation on 29 July from the New Britain Area. Rear Admiral
Turner thought that whatever objective this Japanese operation had been
planned for, that it might well be diverted to the Santa Cruz Islands to balance
off, in Japanese eyes, the American movements into the Southern Solomons.
1See CO Znd Marines to COMSOPAC 140148 Aug. 1942.
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