US Marine Corps - The Black Vault

352 Amphibians Came To Conquer
Hester requested that the 5th Echelon of heavy logistic support for Rendova
beheld up.”
SUPPORTING ECHELONS
While the large transports and their destroyer escorts were returning to
Guadalcanal, the succeeding echelons of the Western Force were loading
there and in the Russells.
As the LST-354 saw it on 1 July:
Sky was overcast, low ceiling, with prolonged heavy rain showers throughout
the day. . . . Embarkation of troops and cargo was handicapped by rains and
heavy mud. . . .’4
At 1800 on D-Day, the 2nd Echelon-Landing Ship Tanks and Landing
Craft Infantry under the command of Captain Carter—departed for Rendova
Harbor, which was something less than an amphibian’s dream of the perfect
landing place, as the following report shows:
East beach [Rendova Harbor] was extremely unsatisfactory. The approach
involved a very narrow, tortuous channel with a sharp, short turn to the
beach behind Pago Pago Island. The beaching had to be made at dead slow
speed and vessels were unable to plow their way through the mud to the beach
proper. Vehicles could be operated only with difficulty because of deep mud
and many had to be abandoned. . . .
Discharge of cargo . . . was accomplished under extreme difficulties . . .
with the men wading through water and mud knee deep. . . . Discharge
. . . was accomplished by dark by virtue of back-breaking, exhaustive, and
almost super-human efforts of all the men involved.25
Besides the unmarked channels, the sharp turns required to miss coraI
heads and the mud just back of the beaches, the landing craft had to contend
with the Japanese, who mounted a number of air attacks on the amphibians
during the days ahead.
The 2nd Echelon beached at Poko Plantation, Rendova Island, about
0735 on July 1st. They learned years later that five Japanese destroyers
on a mission to locate them during the night, had failed to push into
Blanche Channel. By 1015 the LSTS and LCIS had been properly greeted by
several small strafing waves of Japanese aircraft which did no important
damage.
aCTF 31 to CTG 31.3, 022150 Jul. 1943.
x LST Flotilla Five War Diary, 1 Jul. 1943.
mIbid.