Guadalcanal Diary

by Richard Tregaskis

We knew then that there was a sea fight going on. Possibly, it was the battle for Guadalcanal. Possibly, if our people out there lost the battle, the Japs would be ashore before morning, and we would have to fight for our lives. We knew the fate of all of us hung on that sea battle. In that moment I realized how much we must depend on ships even in our land operation. And in that moment I think most of us who were there watching the gunfire suddenly knew the awful feeling of being pitifully small, knew for a moment that we were only tiny particles caught up in the gigantic whirlpool of war. The terror and power and magnificence of man-made thunder and lightning made that point real. One had the feeling of being at the mercy of great accumulated forces far more powerful than anything human. We were only pawns in a battle of the gods, then, and we knew it.

Then I saw three of the Japs, silvery and beautiful in the high sky. They were so high that they looked like a slender white cloud moving slowly across the blue. But through my field glasses, I could see the silvery-white bodies quite distinctly: the thin wings, the two slim engine nacelles, the shimmering arcs of the propellers. I was surprised that enemy aircraft, flying overhead with the obvious intention of dropping high explosives upon us, could be so beautiful.

You also wonder why, instead of getting into a shelter which has a sandbagged roof, you stayed around to gawk and left yourself only time to get to an open foxhole or nothing at all for protection except the flatness of the earth. When you have nothing but the earth and your lack of altitude to protect you, you feel singularly naked and at the mercy of the bombs.

It seemed odd to be going through the same experience of landing on a strange shore again, as I had done at Guadalcanal. The movements were the same—our sitting low in the boat, our strung-out lines of landing craft streaking in toward the beach, and even the growing distinctness of the island, as palms began to stand out against the sky and thatch huts became visible, seemed something like routine. But there remained the breathless suspense, wondering when and if machine guns would open up on us from the shore, and in those moments of wondering, as usual, one imagined the arrival of bullets and the prospect of men being hit in the boat.

I sat on the edge of the dugout and watched the bright flashes of light rising high in the sky, heard the haughty, metallic voices of the cannon. Sitting like this, virtually in the lap of a shelling attack, one felt as if he were at the mercy of a great, vindictive giant whose voice was the voice of thunder; the awful colossal scale of modern war has brought the old gods to life again.