US Marine Corps - The Black Vault

HUDDLE S[ouJy Scuttled 443
bility of the operation was noted, on 22 September, by CINCPAC who in
a despatch to COMINCH referred to the “necessity to occupy Ndeni.” 23
Various alternative forces in the rear areas were suggested by COMSOPAC
and COMPHIBFORSOPAC as possible forces for the task, including one
battalion of the Znd Regiment on Guadalcanal, the 8th Regiment of the
Second Marine Division in Samoa, and the 147th Regiment of the U.S. Army
in the Tonga Islands.24
When COMPHIBFORSOPAC suggested as a possibility including the
Army$’ 14i’th Regiment in the required troops for the Ndeni Mission, COM-
GEN, SOPAC (Major General Millard F. Harmon, U. S. Army) stepped
in, and on 6 October 1942 recommended strongly against HUDDLE being
undertaken until “the Southern Solomon’s were secured.” 25
Vice Admiral Ghormley was still intent on HUDDLE and turned down
the recommendation of his senior Army advisor to cancel. The Marines on
Guadalcanal went through another crisis in early October, and all troop
resources in SOPAC were pointed towards our holding operation there. Rear
Admiral Turner landed 2,850 Army troops from the 164th Infantry Regi-
ment on 13 October along with 3,200 tons of cargo.
Shortly after Vice Admiral William F. Halsey took over command in
SOPAC on 18 October 1942, the heat came off Rear Admiral Turner to
undertake HUDDLE, although the operation was not actually dead until
March 1943 when the Joint Chiefs of Staff cancelled their 2 July 1942 PESTI-
LENCE Plan and issued their new plan of operations for the seizure of the
Solomon Islands-New Guinea-New Britain-New Ireland areas to make possible
the “ultimate seizure of the Bismarck Archipelago.” “
It was Admiral Turner’s belief that it was quite natural for the Marines,
as long as they were maintaining a perimeter defensive position on Guadal-
canal, to want every Marine in the South Pacific within that perimeter; but
that he had to view the situation in a broader spectrum, and that he naturally
was more responsive than the Marines to the overriding JCS directives and
his immediate senior’s requirements.27
Probably the root of the clifference of opinion between COMSOPAC and
= CINCPAC to COMINCH, 222327 Sep. 1942.
“ (a) RKT to AAG, letter, 28 Sep. 1942; (b) COMSOPAC to COMPHIBFORSOPAC, 290206
Sep. 1942; (c) COMPHIBFORSOPAC to COMSOPAC, 010430 Oct. 1942.
= (a) COMSOPAC to COMPHIBFORSOPAC, 290206 Sep. 1942; (b) Miller, Grwdalcanul
(Army), p, 141 and Appendix A; (c) COMPHIBFORSOPAC to COMSOPAC, 010430 Oct.
1942,
3 JCS 238/5/D of 23 Mar. 1943.
n Turner.