"Terror at Tassafaronga Point"

During World War Two, the Allies fought the forces of Imperial Japan on land, at sea, and above both for control of small island pieces of real-estate located strategically astride sea lane lines of supply…lines of supply critical in importance to both sides.

One such place was an island in the Solomons chain called Guadalcanal where the Allies discovered that the Japanese were putting the finishing touches on an airfield which would permit the Japanese to threaten the flow of supplies to Australia with their long-range land-based bombers, exposing the Australian continent to invasion, and putting the Allies’ entire strategic plan for the Southwest Pacific Theatre of Operations (SWPA) at risk.

Early in the morning of 7 August, 1942, two regiments of the United States Marine Corps landed an amphibious assault on Guadalcanal, setting in motion one of the most difficult and bloody contests for control of an island during the entire war, as both sides realized the consequences of losing. The fight raged on until the 9th of February, exactly six months from the day the Marines landed. During this early conflict (the first such operation for the Marines), much was to be learned by experience, new and unusual situations called for innovative solutions, always one of the Marines’ finest attributes.

On the 15th of October, after sustaining a terrible pounding the night before by Japanese warships, which destroyed most of the Americans’ airpower capabilities by shelling Henderson Field (as the airfield captured from the Japanese had come to be called)…the Marines climbed out of their foxholes and saw the Japanese landing troops and supplies fifteen miles up the beach at Tassafaronga Point, completely unmolested. As most of the aircraft which might oppose such a landing were destroyed, it was up to the Marines to come up with innovative solutions.

In the picture we see Maj. Jack Cram, aide and personal pilot to General Roy Geiger (Guadalcanal air boss) releasing the first of two aerial torpedoes against the sides of the transports at Tassafaronga Pt. Cram and his five-man crew, flying Geiger’s PBY-5A (nicknamed the “Blue Goose”) jury-rigged wire-pull releases for the torpedoes, turning the Blue Goose into a torpedo-bomber, a first, successfully sinking one transport (see photo), then making a harrowing return-trip, with 195 holes in the aircraft….and, miraculously, no one hurt.

- Jack Fellows

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