On October 18, 1942, Marine COL Harold "Joe" Bauer was informed another Japanese air raid was inbound to beleaguered Guadalcanal from the Imperial bastion at Rabaul. The target was Henderson Field, home of the "Cactus Air Force" and objective that was at the center of the entire Guadalcanal campaign for both sides. As long as the American Marines and soldiers could hold Henderson, US aircraft could protect a build-up on Guadalcanal that would mean certain victory in the months ahead. Ultimately a US victory at Guadalcanal meant a US triumph in the South Pacific.

Knowing this, the ships and air fleets of the Japanese Combined Fleet, supported the Japanese Army's own build-up on Guadalcanal whose target was the Marine perimeter around Henderson Field. If the Japanese could seize the air strip, the strategic situation would be reversed. Their planes could protect a land build-up and the US garrison would be starved into humiliating submission. Whoever held the crude little airstrip on the "Canal" would win what had developed into a massive air, sea and land campaign.

Bauer knew well the harsh and perilous conditions existing for the pilots of "Cactus Air Force." In a previous tour on Guadalcanal as commander of Marine squadron VMF 212 he had become an ace. On the day of his arrival for his second tour he shot down three Val dive bombers over Henderson - an act that led to the award of a Congressional Medal of Honor. No wonder the flinty, tough and brilliant MG Roy Geiger, who commanded air forces on Guadalcanal, made Bauer head of fighter operations. Deeply respected by his men, who often called him "Coach", Bauer gave startling instructions during the short briefing on 18 October. After a short pep talk Bauer told his pilots, "When you see Zeros, dogfight 'em."

In retrospect Bauer's instruction appears as an unremarkable urging on the part of a pugnacious combat commander. At the time, however, it was a significant reversal of policy and an excellent illustration that the Americans, after nearly a year of war, were beginning to understand the dynamics of fighter combat.

Prior to Bauer's instructions Allied fighter pilots in the Pacific had usually fared poorly against Japan's crack Zero formations. We can see now that Japanese numerical superiority and Allied command paralysis probably had more to do with early Imperial victories than the inherent qualities of Zero fighter. However, by the time the Guadalcanal campaign began in August, 1942, many American pilots believed that their Wildcats, P-40s or P-39's were seriously outclassed by the Zero. Their commanders also assumed, correctly, that the Japanese would hold numerical superiority in most theaters. Consequently when Henderson Field opened for business and Japanese and the almost daily Japanese air attacks came in from Rabaul, some 500 miles distant, American commanders decided to emulate the tactics employed by the Air Marshall Dowding during the Battle of Britain.

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Joe Foss' flight of VMF 121 at Guadalcanal

At this stage of the war, fighters had little importance beyond their ability to either protect or destroy bombers. (By 1944 this had dramatically changed and fighter-bombers had become fearsome weapons in their own right.) The Marine air commanders on Guadalcanal, very much like the British before them, instructed their fighter pilots to avoid enemy fighters whenever possible and make overhead attacks on the fast but fragile Japanese "Betty" bombers that carried the load for Imperial forces during Guadalcanal.

If forced into an encounter by Zero escorts, Marine fighters were expected to head for a cloud or employ the one advantage the Wildcat held over the nimble Zero - it's ability to dive for home at very high speed. The Marines counted on the inherent advantages of the defense to counter Japanese numerical superiority. Australian coastwatchers and radar allowed Wildcats to scramble and attack with a slight altitude advantage. Also, any American pilot who managed to bail or land a badly damaged fighter was available for further service: Japanese pilots in similar circumstances were almost certainly lost.

Many Betty bombers and some Zeros died in these encounters, but the Japanese quickly devised countermeasures to disrupt the simple American techniques. Japanese bombers attacked at very high altitude - 22,000 to 24,000 feet was typical, arrayed in an intricate "vee of vee" formation. It was a poor defensive formation which left at least one of the outside "Vee" elements vulnerable to attack and one of the bombers inside the unfortunate "vee" a particularly inviting target. However, because the Betty was almost as fast as a US fighter at high altitude, Marine fighters rarely had time for more than one run.

To make matters worse, the slow climbing Wildcat barely had time to reach the 27,000 foot altitude necessary to make their single overhead pass.(1) Also, if a Zero could engage a Wildcat for the briefest of time, the American pilot probably would not make his pass at all. Even if the American decided not to "dive out", the slightest misstep by a Wildcat pilot in such thin air could lead to a spin which meant, at minimum, that regaining attack altitude was impossible. Worse, a spin left a fighter vulnerable to Zero attack or might lead to a crash.

Initially Japanese escorts, which usually lacked radios, found the bomber formations difficult to cover. However, they soon began to proceed bomber attacks with one or two fighter sweeps designed to catch Wildcats on their climb. If the Japanese could force the Americans down, the bombers could attack unimpeded. If more fortunate, the Zeros could "bounce" vulnerable Wildcats and inflict serious losses. Avoiding Zeros was keeping US fighters in the air, but they were losing their ability to stop Japanese attacks.

Bauer's move was extremely aggressive. Combat loss, mechanical fatigue, and accidents made operations a sinkhole for aircraft on both sides. Geiger informed Halsey, overall US commander, that Wildcats and Dauntless attrition rates were 50% every ten days. Not far down the road the US war machine could match these numbers, but in October the cupboard was nearly bare. Why, then, would Bauer want to "up the ante" just when it looked as though the US was nearing the end of the resources at hand and the climatic land and air battles for Guadalcanal were just about to begin?

Go to Part II