Illustrated World War II Encyclopedia, vol.17

* • * IUUS1RATED * *

*

ENCYCLOPEDIA

• • • ILLUSTRATED • • •

hhud wjuin ENCYCLOPEDIA VOLUME

1I

.y^

«^-^

''^li^^^li*'^*

«*'>•'

~1

• * * ILLUSTRATED • • •

ENCYCLOPEDIA AN Z/nBIASED account OF THE MOST DEVASTATING ORIGINAL TEXT PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED KINGDOM PLUS BACKGROUND ARTICLES BY A GROUP OF DISTINGUISHED HISTORIANS... ENLIVENED WITH COLOR PHOTOGRAPHS RECENTLY UNCOVERED

WAR KNOWN TO MANKIND ... CONTAINS THE

BASED ON THE ORIGINAL TEXT OF Lieutenant Colonel Eddy Bauer EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Brigadier Peter Young, dso, mc, ma

CONSULTANT EDITORS Brigadier General James L. Collins, Jr. U.S.A. CHIEF OF MILITARY HISTORY, DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY Correlli Barnett

FELLOW OF CHURCHILL COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Brian Innes

H.

S.

STUTTMAN

INC. Publishers

CONTENTS 17

VOLUME

CHAPTER 1S4

CHAPTER 149

"I

THE GILBERTS AND THE MARSHALLS 2242 Allied

strength

•

nesses

Twin

MacArthur • Islands

in

drive

Japanese weakNimitz

by

and

First objective: the Gilbert

• "Terrible Tarawa" • Preven

tive air strikes

sive

•

grows

• "The Marshalls: offen-

high gear" • Tojo's

new defence

plans

.......

lines

• American plans revised

checked

at the Caro-

HAVE RETURNED": THE LANDINGS

ON LEYTE Leyte

Morotai "I

2313

.......

CHAPTER 155

Kurita

mauled

2261

MacArthur strikes along the coast

• The

• Spruance thwarts Ozawa's

.......

and Ozawa reaches the

Philippine Sea • Spruance

The Japanese

fleet

moves out •

advances • Twilight

pursuit • A catastrophe for the Japanese

•The search

for

2265

nese fleet retires • Kamikaze • Ozawa

caught • Halsey and the pursuit • pan's

impossible

trapped

CHAPTER 156 STRUGGLE FOR LEYTE

AND GUAM

2281

II

Encyclopedi;

CHAPTER 152

powerful

2294

The Navy's plan: Formosa the goal

P(1405) 20-165

"I

nightmare

Engineer's

•

•

Airstrips:

have returned" •

• Japanese

Yamashita plans

rein-

• The

THE PACIFIC SUBMARINE WAR Only

fail

limited

successes

•

Midway

2353 •

The

giant subs • Useless fanaticism

CHAPTER 153 1

forces

CHAPTER 157

ISBN 0-87475-520-4

Printed in the United States of America

Carrier

counterattack • Paratroop landings

OBJECTIVE TOKYO World War

2337 •

threadbare forces

• 5th Fleet moves on • Mac-

forcements

illustrated

Ja-

Yamashita

the Philippines • MacArthur

in

the vital factor •

Publishing Limited 1972. 1978

Monaco 1966

•

task

moves on

Arthur's

CHAPTER ISl

Polus,

•

• Nim-

decision

controversial

and

Musashi

again • Gallant resistance • The Japa-

strikes

© Jaspard

2321

,.,•...

battleship

instructions

Yamashita's

©Orbis

Palawan

peace

THE MARINES AT WAR

SAIPAN, TINIAN

off

giant

the

• Kinkaid destroys Nishimura and Shima • Kurita attacks itz's

"THE GREAT MARIANAS TURKEY SHOOT"

plans

and Nimitz Peleliu •

LEYTE GULF: THE GREATEST SEA BATTLE OF ALL

Haisey's

Marianas

MacArthur takes

have returned"

loses

CHAPTER ISO

•

approved

plans

LEYTE: THE PLANNING

CHAPTER 1S8 2301

THE BRITISH PACIFIC FLEET

2368

"^

CHAPTER

149

The Gilberts and Marshalls

A Vice- Admiral R. A. Spruance, commander of the U.S. 5th Fleet and C.-in-C. of the forces engaged

in Operation "Galvanic". Heart A> of American sea-power in the Pacific-one of the steadily increasing number of aircraft-carriers available in 1943 and 1944.

We

have already seen, in Chapter 91

how American power

the Pacific was built up. Its continuing reinforcement Admirals E. allowed J. King in the Pentagon, C. W. Nimitz at Pearl Harbor, and Vice-Admirals W. F. Halsey, R. A. Spruance, and T. C. Kincaid at sea to take in

risks which would have been unthought of at Guadalcanal. The increase in the numbers of fast aircraft-carriers available

would, however, not have been as effechad not the U.S. at the same time rebuilt its naval air force. This became possible thanks to the gradual replacement of the 325 mph Grumman F4F Wildcat fighter by the

tive

375 mph Grumman F6F Hellcat. Similarly, the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver dive-bomber supplemented the older Douglas SBD Dauntless. Finally, the Vought F4U Corsair was to prove an excellent allround machine, sturdy and easy to maintain, as its long post-war career subsequently demonstrated. All this gave the lie to the opinion that ship-borne planes were always inferior to the enemy's land-based aircraft. By September 2, 1945, of the 90 divisions raised by the U.S. the Pentagon had ,

allocated six Marine and 21 Army divisions to the Pacific theatre. Because operations in this theatre were amphi-

2242

bious, troops had to be given massive landing capabilities: whereas on the day "Overlord" started there were 4,748 landing-craft operating in the Channel and

the Mediterranean, on that same date

Admiral Nimitz and General MacArthur had 3,866 between them. In addition to the naval air force there also the Army Air Force. The Central Pacific Area (Nimitz) had the tactical and strategic formations of the 7th Air Force (Major-General Willis H. Hale), and the South-West Pacific Area had the 5th Air Force under the brilliant command of Major-General C. Kenney. The entry into service of the four-engined Boeing B-29 Superfortress was to give the U.S. air forces a heavy bomber with the hitherto unequalled range of 3,250 miles. These planes, the heaviest in World War II (53^ tons on take-off), were allocated to a special force: the 20th Air Force under

was

Major-General Nathan F. Twining.

Allied strength grows In addition to his own forces. General MacArthur also controlled the land, sea, and air formations which Australia and New Zealand had put into the war.

In September 1943, Admiral Sir James Somerville, C.-in-C. Eastern Fleet, left Kilindini near Mombasa on the east coast of Africa for Colombo. With the Tirpitz out of action, the Scharnhorst destroyed, and the Italian Navy in Allied hands, the British Admiralty was able to send him reinforcements. And so by March 1944 he had 59 vessels, including the battleships Queen Elizabeth and Valiant (both now repaired after damage sustained in Alexandria on December 19, 1941), the battle-cruiser Renown, the aircraftcarrier Illustrious, 14 cruisers (including the Dutch Tromp), 24 destroyers, and 17 submarines. On April 10, these were joined by the French battleship Richelieu and later by the U.S. carrier Saratoga. In Burma, under the energetic command of Lieutenant-General William Slim, the British 14th Army had two corps of ten British and Indian divisions. On the Burma-China border. Slim also commanded U.S. Lieutenant-General Stilwell's group of five small Chinese divisions. All these forces were supported by transport and fighter aircraft virtually unopposed by the Japanese.

Japanese weaknesses In his book on the bombing during the night of March 9-10, 1945, in which Tokyo suffered some 130,000 casualties, the American Martin Caidin writes:

"The Japanese

failed

because their

men and

officers were inferior, not in courage, but in the intelligent use of courage. In a predicted situation which could be handled in an orthodox manner, the Japanese were always competent and often they were resourceful. Under the shadow of frustration, however, the obsession of personal honor blinded the Japanese to reality and extinguished ingenuity." This opinion is confirmed by the Bonze Daisetzu Suzuki, a well-known Zen Buddhist, who writes in a history of the kamikaze operations by Captain Inoguchi

and Commander Nakajima: "When we examine the kamikaze tactics, they reveal a grave shortcoming in the Japanese people: the lack of scientific thinking. The Japanese have tried to

V Baptism

of fire in a new form American Marines wade ashore on Tarawa against

of warfare:

a backdrop of burning installations, set on fire by U.S.

naval air strikes and gunfire

bombardment.

2243

—

^ 1

'

I

Eniwetok (Secured on Feb. 23) .•••

.-.

V

Bikini

L

'

••

lAtoll

EngebKFeb. 17-18) 22nd Marine Regt. & 106thR.C.Tof27Div

^•-.

Atoll

Eniwetok .

-•

„

... \Atotje ^toll

Kwajalein

Parry (Feb. 19-23)

-''Eniwetok (Feb. 19-23) 106th Regt. &

22nd Marine Regt

..

Atoll

Maloelap.

•

Atoll

Majuro Atoll (securedon January 31. v.- ^.' 1944 by Battalion Landing

Team

Namur

Roi

4 Marine Div r

'

'•.

(Jan. 31 - Feb'.

1,

1944)

^

•

of 106th Regt.)

Jaluit

•

•/

Atoll

Mill

'

Atoll

Ebbaye

.'(Feb 3-4)

Operations "Rintiock" and "Catchpole": the capture of the Marshall Islands

;

.

bytheU.S.5thReet

'

17th Regimental

Combat Team Kwajalein

(Feb1-6)7Div

Kwajalein (Secured on Feb. 7)

RUSSIA

LittieMakin,

^

Operation "Galvanic": the capture of the Gilbert Islands by the U.S. 5th Reet

/ Makin

Butaritari (Nov. 20-23)

27

Wl

Div.

JAPAN

r

,*-*^ " i PACIFIC

i

OCEAN

Marakei

> Abaiang MARIANAS ISLANDS

Tarawa (whole atoll secured by November 28)

^

PHILIPPINE

ISLANDS

MARSHALL

"(Nov 20-23° 2 Marine Div

ISLANDS

'•"

1

3ILBERT 1

NEW

V

y Maiana

SLANDS '

GUINEA

V .

Abemama (secured November 26 by ~N^ 5th Amphibious

,^ i

•

Kiiria

AUSTRALIA

2244

'

-

J

Reconnaissance Company, 68th

-)Arar,uka^^""«^)

'

make up

for this with moral and physical strength: hence the kamikaze tactics. When military leaders, not to say their fellow-citizens also, are incapable of

thought and rely only on human material, they can only conceive suicide tactics which, far from bringing glory to the Japanese people, must be regarded as ignominious." It is evident that by November 20, 1943, the war was lost for Japan and Tojo, just as it was for Germany and Hitler, as the economic and industrial resources of the U.S. were now so much greater, in spite of early Japanese victories, than they had been in the winter of scientific

Yamamoto's pessimistic forecast war would go badly for Japan if it lasted longer than six months was now beginning to come true. The fact remains, 1941-2.

that the

however, that such forces as he did control were badly managed by Tojo because he was unable to solve the cardinal problem of sea transport.

As E.

B. Potter of the U.S.

Naval Academy and Admiral Nimitz have pointed out, this was a particularly difficult problem for Japan, which, "having no industry in her resource areas and no resources in her industrial area, had to bring all raw materials to

Japan

for

manufacture and then

dis-

them to the ultimate consumers which, in war, were the forces in the field. tribute

"In other words, Japan's shipping pattern took the form of an inverted V with the apex in the home islands, whereas a delta-shaped pattern would have resulted in a more efficient use of available ships." The inferiority of the Japanese at sea must also be attributed in part to the Nimitz's success of Admiral submarine war, waged after Pearl Harbor without regard to the restrictions in Article 22 of the London Naval Treaty of April 22, 1930. From December 8, 1941, to the same date in 1943, the number of U.S. submarines operating in the Pacific rose from 51 to 120. In 1944, in spite of the loss of 24, there were 200 under the command of Vice-Admiral Charles A. Lockwood, in Pearl Harbor, Midway, and the Western Australian base of Fremantle. The acute shortage of torpedoes which had so badly affected operations until the summer of 1944 had now been overcome thanks to the introduction of the excellent and reliable Mark 18 electric torpedo. Japan's answer to this mortal threat was late and hesitant. Like Admiral

A American Marines

storm up

the sides of a Japanese bunker on Tarawa amidst the debris of isle. The Americans discovered to their on Tarawa that such

the once-idyllic cost

bunkers, concrete,

immune

made of palm logs, and sand, were all but to

pre-landing

bombardments. Each bunker had to be neutralised after the

landings with flame-throwers and demolition charges.

2245

The American Landing Vehicle. Tracked (Armoured) 4

/•

i^-^-;;^.--

JM

J

1

mi'

Weight; 18.3 tons Armament: one 75-mm howitzer, plus one .5-inch and one .3-inch Browning machine gun. Armour: hull front 13-mm. and sides and rear 6.5-mm; turret front 38-mm and sides 25-mm. Engine: one Continental radial, 250-hp. Speed: 16 mph on land and 7 mph in water. Range: 150 miles on land and 100 miles in water. Length: 26 feet 2 inches. Width: 10 feet 8 inches. Height: 10 feet 2i inches.

Crew:

2246

6.

King early

in

1942,

-Japanese

sailors

hated convoys because of their defensive

King had changed his mind in it was November 1943 before the Japanese Admiralty came round to character. time, but

the idea of creating a large "escort command". Even then it went only half way and did no research to prove that it was in Japan's interest to assemble large convoys of 50 merchantmen or more, as the Americans and the British were doing at this time.

All Lockwood had to do, therefore, was to organise small packs of three or four

submarines to decimate the small Japanese convoys and their feeble escort. He was so successful that by September 2, 1945, he had destroyed 1,178 Japanese merchantmen, totalling 5,320,000 tons. At the beginning of the war, the Japanese

had had

2,583 ships, totalling 6,336,380 tons. In addition, they lost some two

million tons of shipping to the U.S. and Allied air forces. Vice-Admiral Fukudome would appear to have been right when he said: "The losses we suffered from U.S. submarines were very high and it is not too much to say that they were the final blow to Japan." The cost to the Americans was 52

boats and to the Japanese Navy 135, including six in the Indian Ocean, as the Americans kept up their pressure relentlessly. The reason for this disparity is to be found in the doctrinal error of the

Japanese in making their prime target their enemy's fighting ships, usually well-protected, and not his convoys, which were much more vulnerable. In fact, according to Commander Hashimoto, the Allies lost a mere 125 merchantmen as a result of all Japanese attacks on convoys.

Harping back to the Bonze Suzuki's remark -in both offensive and defensive operations, the Japanese detection devices (sonar and radar) were greatly inferior to those of the Allies. Two typical episodes in the Pacific war illustrate this

A Marines examine Japanese coastal guns that had shelled them as they stormed ashore on

Tarawa. Their defeat in this island complex had cost the Japanese some 5,700 dead. Overleaf: A scene typical of those that led to the phrase "Terrible Tarawa". Here the

Marines were pinned down under the dubious cover of the log "sea wall" by carefully sited and protected Japanese emplacements, which had come through the pre-landing barrage unscathed. The bodies of the dead litter the shore and float in the water of the lagoon against a

background of shattered palms and knocked-out "amphtrack" landing

craft.

admirably: 1.

From May 19 to 31,

New Ireland, the

England (Lieutenant-

Commander W.

B. Pendleton) alone

sank 2.

off

escort destroyer six

Japanese submarines.

On June 6-7,1944,inthewatersbetween Borneo and the Philippines, the submarine Harder (Commander Samuel D. Dealey) torpedoed five Japanese destroyers,

three of them. for air warfare. Not

sinking

The same was true

2247

1uif@^'d-"a?

«

'

-

\ \%m

^fm.

^t •u.,

^

'tUtrnPTrir mmT\''^

\

.r*:

-"^'^

4t^

\

\

2250

-

only was Japanese aircraft production unable to keep up with the Americans', but the types coming into service in 1944-5 were only slightly better than those which had done wonders at Pearl Harbor and off the coast of Malaya. Not only had there been no technical progress, but the training of pilots had lagged disastrously behind because of a shortage of fuel.

Twin drive by Nimitz and MacArthur The American plan, under General Marshall and Admiral King, was to cut Japan's industries off from their sources of supply. Faithful to the principle of concentration of effort, the two leaders opted first of all for a single drive across the Central Pacific along the general axis Pearl Harbor -Marshall Islands Caroline Islands-Marianas. This took no account of the impetuous MacArthur's prestige and personality. He did not see himself reduced to a secondary role or having to break his promise to liberate the Philippines. The Pentagon thus had to resign itself to a double thrust: Nimitz as above, plus MacArthur along a line

New Guinea-Mindanao. MacArthur was required to see priority given in supplies to the Central Pacific forces; he agreed and neither Marshall nor King had any reason to regret giving him the go-ahead. They had, of course, given the enemy the advantage of an inner line, but the

Japanese Combined Fleet, with Admiral Mineichi Koga in command (he took over from Yamamoto in late April 1942) was never in a position to profit by it.

First objective: the

Gilbert Islands The

gave the Central Pacific forces the Marshall Islands as their first objective. Nimitz had this changed to the Gilberts. If these were not taken first, he assured Washington, the attack on the Marshalls could be caught in flank by the enemy from bases on the Tarawa and Makin atolls. Also, he could get the J.C.S.

support of the bomber formations of the 7th Air Force on Funafuti in the Ellice

King agreed. The two archipelagos

A Japanese dead

Islands.

litter

the

left-hand side of their bunker, taken out by an American and Marshall Islands have flame-thrower team. characteristics, and Morison describes < A cautious American, wary of them as groups of atolls, each composed of Japanese tricks, approaches a between 20 and 50 islets and reefs. If one body with his finger on the

of the Gilbert

common

threw 20 necklaces of different lengths and sizes into a shallow tank of water, one would have an accurate impression of the Marshalls.

One

trigger of his carbine.

Garand Ml

of the atolls in

this archipelago is "Kwajalein, the largest in the world,

atoll

[which] encloses a

lagoon over 60 miles long by 30 miles wide, but some of the smaller atolls are only a few hundred yards in diameter. A ten foot rise in the Marshalls is accounted a hill and the highest point in the archipelago is only 21 feet above sea level." Operation "Galvanic", which was to ,

give the Americans possession of the Gilbert Islands, was led by Vice-Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, a commander of "outstanding intellect and an austere and demanding officer", as Nimitz describes him. On November 20, Spruance had no less than 139 vessels under his command. These included 29 trooptransports carrying V Amphibious Force (Major-General Holland M. Smith: 2nd Marine and 27th Divisions).

2251

The American Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat fighter-bomber

Engine: one

Pratt

R-2800-10W

Armament:

& Whitney

radial,

2,000-hp.

Browning machine guns with 400 rounds per gun, and two 1,000-lb bombs or six .5-inch

six 5- inch rockets.

Speed 386 mph :

Climb: 3,410

at

17,300 feet. minute

feet per

initially.

Ceiling: 37,300 feet. Range 1 ,530 miles with drop :

tanks.

Weight empty/loaded

:

9,153/12,500 lbs. Span: 42 feet 10 inches. Length 33 feet 7 inches. Height: 13 feet 1 inch. :

2252

The Assault Force, led by Rear-Admiral Richmond K. Turner, had seven old battleships with 14- and 16-inch guns, eight heavy and light cruisers, 35 destroyers, and eight escort carriers (218 aircraft). Turner's job was to pulverise the enemy defences before the landing, then to support the troops on the ground with shelling and bombing. In this he had the collaboration of the 7th Air Force. Task Force 58 (Rear-Admiral C. A. Pownall) consisted principally of five new battleships and the 11 fast carriers then available. It thus had 45 16-inch guns and a little over 700 planes, with which it was required to protect Operation "Galvanic" from all outside interference. It was ready to attack the Combined Fleet if the Japanese attempted to come to the rescue of the Gilbert Islands and crush their air bases. This was looking ahead, as by giving strategic cover to one operation, the next one was also being prepared for. From now on the Task Force split up into Task Groups, each with various types of warship. The nerve-centre of each group was one or more carriers, the capital ships of the Pacific war. The aircraft ranged up to 225 miles from

their carriers, wKich sailed inside a ring of protecting battleships and cruisers. Further out was a second screen of destroyers, about a dozen in number, providing anti-aircraft and anti-submarine protection in all directions. This second ring was normally about five miles in diameter, but in the event of a major air attack, the destroyers would move in closer to the battleship and cruiser ring.

"Terrible In

A The American flag flies over Makin, the northernmost atoll of the Gilbert Islands. Makin's main island, Butaritari, was taken by the Army's 27th Division between November 20 and 23, 1943. The securing of the whole group of islets was confirmed with the now-famous signal "Makin taken".

Tarawa"

Tokyo had adopted a An immovable along the line Timor - west

September

1943,

"New Operational

Policy".

defence line New Guinea - Biak Island - the Carolinas - the Marianas was set up. All forces outside this ring were to hang on, to buy time during which Japan's naval and air strength could be built up for a final,

decisive,

offensive

which would

wrest back the initiative. Tokyo entrusted the defence of the GilKeiji bert Islands to Rear-Admiral Shibasaki, who acted with great zeal to improve the defences of this strategically important advanced position. In particu-

2253

2254

V.

Iff:

K

^

lar.inthesouth-westcornerofthe triangle Tarawa atoll, the islet of Betio was turned into a veritable fortress, almost completely surrounded by a protective barrier of coconut-palm trunks covered by automatic weapons, mortars, and emplaced guns. Facing the sea there were eight medium guns, including four 8inch guns captured at Singapore. Though over two miles long, Betio is less than halfa mile wide and its 4, 500-man garrison had been ordered to dig in on the coastline. At dawn on November 20, three battleships, four cruisers, and nine destroyers under Rear-Admiral H. W. Hill opened fire simultaneously and rained 3,000 tons of shells on to this narrow strip of land within two and a half hours. At the same time it was bombed by aircraft from Funafuti. By 0845 hours it was on fire from end to end and covered with a thick pall of the

lieutenants and their men, as radio communication between the command post at sea and the three beaches where the Marines landed was very bad. In the divisional commander, Major-General Julian C. Smith, threw in his reserve regiment, but in spite of this the Americans advanced only 150 yards at the most. It took a further 48 hours of infantry fighting with flame-throwers, explosives, and grenades to snuff out the last dying kicks of the defence. The entire Betio garrison perished except for one subaltern, 16 men, and 129 Korean labourers. Ofthe 16,798 U.S. officers and marines who fought at Tarawa, 1,069 were killed and 2,050 wounded, giving losses of some 17 per cent. When it was all over this tiny

afternoon,

island

the

had 5,500 dead on

Some

/'/'( SI.;/ nf terrain thai some World War IIS bloodiest were fought over: tiny

battles

patches of coral, covered with sand and palm trees. A ^ Heavily-laden U.S. Marines prepare to storm one of the major flat

objectives on Betio, the

Japanese

airfield.

< Marines

shelter in a crater

as they size up the situation before rushing a Japanese bunker on Parry Island in the Eniwetok atoll. The fighting to secure this tiny island started on February 19, 1944 and lasted until the 23rd.

it.

85 miles south-east of

Abemama

Tarawa

smoke and dust. But when the first amphibious vehicles, called "amphtracks", came out of the lagoon and the 2nd Marine Division's

the

landing-craft approached the shore, they came under a hail of accurate and withering fire. The ensuing fighting fell on

wounded in the capture ofthe Makin atoll to the north-west: much heavier losses

of

A ,,/

without incident into the hands of a company of Marines. The 27th Division, under Major-General

Ralph

atoll fell

C. Smith, lost 64 killed

and 150

than had been expected. 2255

"The Marshalls: offensive in high gear" This is the title given by Fletcher Pratt, the Marine Corps historian, to the chapter of his book dealing with the 5th Fleet's capture of the Majuro, Kwajalein, and Eniwetok atolls in the Marshall Islands. The day following the capture of the Gilbert Islands, the 5th Fleet got three fast battleships, including the Iowa and the New Jersey (45,000 tons and 33 knots), three fast carriers (two "Essex" class fleet

and one "Independence" class and two escort carriers. Fleet's Task Force 58 now had 12 carriers with a total of 715 fighters, dive-bombers, and torpedo-bombers. The normal change-round in command gave this formidable unit to Rear-Admiral carriers

light carrier),

The 5th

A The fighting for

Roi: Marines

on the beach, during the initial assault by the 4th Marine Division on January 31, 1944.

Preventive air strikes In the expectation of an attack on the Gilbert Islands, the Japanese high command had drawn up a plan for a counteroffensive, bringing in Vice-Admiral Rondo's 2nd Fleet and major supporting air forces. It never got started, however. Rear-Admiral Pownall's forces pounded the Japanese air bases on Nauru Island and Mili atoll in the Marshall Islands, which were well placed to support Tarawa. MacArthur's offensive in the South-

West

Pacific prevented

any meaningful

intervention by the Japanese against the U.S. 5th Fleet. On November 6, planes from Saratoga and Princeton, on loan from Spruance to Halsey, and awaiting the start of Operation "Galvanic", seriously

damaged seven Japanese cruisers and two destroyers in harbour at Rabaul. The Japanese aircraft based on New Britain and Bougainville were literally decimated by fighters from the U.S. 5th Air Force. Yet the Japanese scored a few victories.

On November

20,

the light carrier In-

dependence was damaged by a torpedocarrying aircraft and on the 24th, the escort carrier Liscome Bay blew up after being hit by a torpedo from the Japanese submarine 1-175 (Lieutenant-Commander Tabata). The latter caused heavy casualties: Rear-Admiral H. M. MuUinnix, Captain I. D. Wiltsie, and 642 other officers and ratings. 2256

Marc A. Mitscher. It was divided into four groups, of which TG 58.3 (Carrier Task Group 3, Task Force 58) is typical. Under the command of Rear-Admiral F. E. Sherman, it comprised: 1. Fleet carrier Bunker Hill (89 aircraft), light

and

carrier Monterey (34 aircraft), carrier Cowpens (33 air-

light

craft); 2.

3.

Battleship Division (Batdiv) 7, under Rear-Admiral 0. V. Hustvedt, with battleships Iowa and New Jersey, and heavy cruiser Wichita; and Destroyer Squadron (Desron) 46. under Captain C. F. Espe, with nine

destroyers. In the event of a naval engagement, Sherman thus had 31 dive-bombers, 49 torpedo-bombers, the 18 16-inch guns (40,000-pound broadside weight) of his battleships, the nine 8-inch guns of the heavy cruiser, and 90 torpedo tubes of his destroyers. In the air he had 87 fighters and 700 A. A. guns of 20-mm, 40-mm, and 5-inch calibre. The other Task Groups were basically similar. Rear-Admiral R. T. Turner's amphibious force comprised 300 warships and transport vessels. Its task was: 1. to land by sheer force in the Marshall Islands the 53,000 men of V Amphibious Force (4th Marine Division under

Major-General

2.

Harry Schmidt

and

7th Division under Major-General Charles H. Corlett), and then to land 31,000 holding troops to ensure the defence and exploitation of the

conquered

atolls.

After the murderous experience of Tarawa, Spruance, Turner, and General Holland M. ("Howling Mad") Smith reckoned that the operation should be split in two: firstly to overcome the resistance of the eastern atolls of the Marshall Islands, then to attack Kwajalein. Nimitz agreed that a simultaneous attack on Wotje, Maloelap. and Kwajalein was now no longer possible, but being bold where he had been advised to be cautious, he decided to put onto the third of these objectives the whole of his V Amphibious Force and leave the neutralisation of the first two to Task Force 58. It was a good thing that he did. as the Japanese high

command, thinking along the same lines as Nimitz's subordinates, had reinforced Maloelap and Wotje at the expense of Kwajalein.

Spruance carried out this task with complete success. From January 29 to February 11, 1944, his air forces made 6,232 sorties and dropped more than

bombs on their objectives. This was combined with operations in support of the Army and Marine forces ashore on the Gilbert Islands, where 1,150 tons of

another 1,600 tons were dropped. He also occupied Majuro lagoon and atoll, where the smooth stretch of water 25 miles long and 12 miles wide gave Nimitz a base for subsequent operations two-thirds of the way from Pearl Harbor to the Marianas. Meanwhile, V Amphibious Force had seized Kwajalein atoll in the centre of the group at very little cost. By February 4,

so far not been used, Spruance launched it against Eniwetok on February 17. This was 360 miles north-west of Kwajalein. With the same kind of superiority over the Japanese as was generally thought necessary in these operations, he was able to take it with the losses of only 195 killed and 521 wounded, whereas the Japanese lost 2,677 killed out of a total defence force of 2,741. As at Kwajalein they were beaten to a standstill. This letter from a marine shows how: "That night was unbelievably terrible. There were many of them left and they all had one fanatical notion, and that was to take one of us with them. We dug in with orders to kill anything that moved. I kept watch in a foxhole with my sergeant and we both stayed awake all night with a knife in one hand and a grenade in the other. They crept in among us, and every bush and rock took on sinister proportions. They got some of us, but in the morning they lay about, some with their riddled bodies actually inside our foxholes. Never have I been so glad to see the sun." On February 23, all resistance ceased on this atoll, which is some 3,000 miles west-south-west of Pearl Harbor, 660 miles north-east of Truk in the Carolines, and 1,000 miles from Saipan in the Marianas, Nimitz's next objective. As for the atolls ofWotje, Maloelap, Mili, and Jaluit in the same archipelago, they were left to their sad fate and the Japanese

V Bayonets at the ready, Marines wait for the blaze from a flame-thrower to go out before making the final attack on a Japanese bunker. Japanese skill in the siting of mutuallysupporting and interlinked complexes of bunkers was

legendary, all hut

and

these latter were to infantry or

impervious

artillery assault.

The

destruction of these bunkers called for flame-throwers and close-range demolition, which

was always an extremely hazardous operation.

the Americans had lost 372 killed and 1,582 wounded out of the 42,000 men engaged.

Japanese losses amounted to 7,870 killed, including Rear-Admiral Akiyama, C.-in-

And this was the time the 4th Marine Division had

C. of the defence forces. first

been in action.

The Tarawa experience had borne and in record time too. Communica-

fruit,

tions between troops on the ground and support ships worked satisfactorily and in the assault on the twin islands of RoiNamur, Rear-Admiral R. L. Conolly's battleships came to within a mile of the coast to rain down shells on an area of two square miles. In the first assault

wave there were now more amphtracks Faced with this proliferation oi materiel, Admiral Turner, as if replying to critics, notes that "maywith better armour.

we had too many men and too many ships for the job, but I prefer to do things that way. It saved us a lot of lives." As V Amphibious Force's reserve had

be

2257

2258

troops stationed on them lived as best they could until the capitulation of September 2, 1945 allowed them to surrender.

Tojo's plans

new defence .

.

.

In September 1943, Tokyo was still including the Gilbert and the Marshall

Islands within the defensive perimeter of the Empire. At the end of the year, the fall of Tarawa and Makin and the virtual siege of Rabaul forced Tojo to reverse his plans. The new defensive position "with no thought of withdrawal", from which the decisive counter-attack would start, ran along the line Timor-west New Guinea - Biak Island - Palau Islands Marianas. This would lead to a break-out from the pincer forming between Nimitz and MacArthur. When he heard that the Americans had appeared in strength before Kwajalein, Admiral Koga, as was to be expected, received the order to set out from Truk with the Combined Fleet and reach the safe anchorage of the Palau Islands.

.

.

.

checked

at the

Carolines This move was just being completed when, on February 17, 1944, Spruance arrived at Truk with nine carriers, six battleships, ten cruisers, and 28 destroyers. In the next two days, Mitscher's carrier-based planes made 1,250 sorties and sank three destroyers, seven fleet auxiliary vessels, six tankers, and 17 cargo vessels, whilst more than 250 Japanese planes were either shot down or destroyed on the ground. The light cruiser Agana was also sunk by the submarine Skate. Meanwhile Spruance sailed round the atoll with his battleships and succeeded in sinking by gunfire the light cruiser Katori and the destroyer Maikaze, which were trying to escape Mitscher's bombs and which went down heroically. The cost to the Americans of this

operation, called "Hailstone", was quite modest: 35 planes shot down and the fleet carrier Intrepid damaged by a torpedo. This surprise defeat resulted in a Radio Tokyo communique. Softpedalling its

usual bombastic tone, it stated bluntly: "A powerful American task force suddenly advanced to our Caroline Islands Wednesday morning and repeatedly attacked our important strategic base, Truk, with a great number of shipbased planes. The enemy is constantly repeating powerfully persistent raids with several hundred fighters and bombers, attacking us intermittently. The war situation has increased with unprecedented seriousness-nay, furiousness. The tempo of enemy operations indicates that the attacking force is already pressing upon our mainland." Tojo used the pretext of the surprise at Truk to sack Admiral Osami Nagano, the Navy Chief-of-Staff, and to replace him with Admiral Shimada, a man completely devoted to Tojo but not necessarily endeared thereby to his junior colleagues. As for Nimitz, he applied to Truk and Ponape the procedure which had been so successful at Jaluit, Wotje, and other atolls in the Marshall Islands: isolate them and leave them to rot.

American plans revised General Tojo's "Fortress Asia", facing the American forces in the Central and South-West Pacific, had an Eastern and a Southern Front which joined at the Vogelkop ("bird's head"), the name given by the Dutch to the western part of New Guinea. With limited means, MacArthur was going to destroy this hinge, making use of his air superiority and the freedom of movement this gave him, a freedom which he could also deny his enemy. He began by a full-scale attack on Rabaul. Since January 1, 1944, he had had a bridgehead and an airfield on Cape Gloucester at the southern extremity of New Britain. From February 29 to March 16, three well-organised amphibious operations gave his 1st Marine Division (Major-General William Rupertus) and the dismounted 1st Cavalry Division (Major-General William C. Chase) Los Negros island in the Admiralty group and Emirau Island to the east. The Japanese 8th and 17th Armies were thus cut off, the former (General Imamura) defending Rabaul and Kavieng, the latter facing the U.S. XIII Corps (Major-General Oscar Griswold) in the Bougainville jungle. In particular, this success was to allow Mac-

< The Stars and Stripes flutter over the gutted remnants of what was

lately the

Japanese

headquarters on Roi.

2259

Hollandia. This was why MacArthur decided to secure an intermediary bridgehead at Aitape, so that he could bring in his fighters.

Meanwhile Major-General

G. C. Kenney's 5th Air Force eliminated enemy aircraft from this sector, destroying 500 of them. Whilst the Allied forces in the South-

West

A During operations on Tarawa. Insignificant as they were in area, such islands were key links in Japan's outer defensive

perimeter. Here it was hoped that the Americans' naval forces in the Pacific could be caught by the aircraft and ships of the

Imperial Japanese Navy and destroyed, leaving the Japanese masters of the Pacific and then South-East Asia.

Arthur to tackle and resolve the problem of New Guinea without having to worry about his rear. Events had reached this stage when, together with Nimitz, MacArthur received a new directive, dated March 12, the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff. This ordered: 1. Cancellation of the Kavieng opera-

from

tion. 2.

3.

Early completion of the occupation of the Admiralties and development of air and naval bases there. Occupation of Hollandia by General MacArthur's forces on 15 April Nimitz to furnish fast carrier and other fleet cover and support. Neutralisation, not capture, of Truk and other Caroline islands by Nimitz. Occupation of Saipan, Tinian, and Guam, starting 15 June, and the Palaus, starting 15 September, by Nimitz, with the object of controlling the eastern approaches to the Philippines and Formosa, and ;

4.

5.

establishing fleet and air bases. Occupation of Mindanao by MacArthur supported by the Pacific Fleet, starting 15 November, with object of establishing air bases from which Japanese forces in the Philippines could be reduced and contained "preparatory to a further advance to Formosa, either directly or via Luzon," and mounting air strikes against enemy bases in the Netherlands East Indies. It was 500 miles from the Allies' positions in New Guinea to their objectives in

6.

2260

Pacific

were preparing for this new

leap forward, those in the Central Pacific did not remain idle. On March 22, Task Force 58, with three carrier task groups, six fast battleships, 13 cruisers, and 26 destroyers, left Majuro lagoon and in the last days of the month launched a series of devastating raids against the Japanese bases on the Palau Islands and on Yap, an island north-east of this group. This attack led Koga to send the Japanese fleet to find a safer refuge in the neighbourhood of Tawitawi, an island not far from the north tip of Borneo. This brought it close to the Tarakan oil wells, which with certain restrictions,

could provide fuel for its bunkers. Koga personally took off for Davao, but his plane was lost in mysterious circumstances. Imperial H.Q. nominated Admiral Soemu Toyoda to succeed him. The Hollandia operation was carried out by Australian forces under General Sir Thomas Blamey, the American 6th Army under Lieutenant-General Walter Krueger, the U.S. 7th Fleet (Vice-Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid) with four cruisers, including two Australian, and eight escort carriers, and finally the 5th Air Force. The landing proper, under RearAdmiral Daniel E. Barbey, brought in 84,000 men and 114 capital and other ships. The 5th Fleet, which had just forced Koga to withdraw from the Palau Islands, where he might have caught MacArthur in flank, put out to sea again on April 13 to take part in the operation. On the way back it raided the enemy installations on Truk, which drew from Rear-Admiral Hara the following reflections which betrayed his disillusion: "The seasons do not change. I try to look like a proud rear admiral, but it is hard with a potato hook in my hands. It rains every day, the flowers bloom every day, the enemy bombs us every day -so

why remember?" This brilliant success cost Spruance 26 planes, although 28 of their 43 crew were rescued, 22 of these by the submarine Tang (Commander Richard H. O'Kane) which had daringly ventured into the lagoon.

Although he had superior strength, Mac"I cannot find any means or method A Men of the Royal Australian Arthur put on a cunning diversionary which will solve this situation strategical- Air Force disembark from an operation to make the Japanese believe ly or tactically. Therefore, I intend to L.S.T. near the village of they were going to be attacked frontally overcome this by relying on our Japanese Korako in the Aitape area. A dead Japanese lies on the beach, in the area of Wewak. Lieutenant-General Bushido. I am determined to destroy the unheeded by the Allied troops, Hatazo Adachi, C.-in-C. Japanese 18th enemy in Aitape by attacking him ruth- who now had the important task Army in New Guinea, fell into the trap. lessly with the concentration of our of preparing a forward airfield April 22 was thus a day of easy triumph entire force in that area. This will be our for a continued advance. for the U.S. I Corps (Lieutenant-General final opportunity to employ our entire Robert L. Eichelberger) which landed, strength to annihilate the enemy. Make without much difficulty, its 24th Division the supreme sacrifice, display the spirit (Major-General F. A. Irving) at Tanah- of the Imperial Army." merah Bay and its 41st (Major-General This appeal was understood and H. H. Fuller) at Hollandia and Aitape. followed, but the time and trouble it When he had got over his surprise, Adachi cost Adachi to turn round gave the Allies tried to turn his forces round and re- an advantage which they did not let slip, establish his communications. During especially as they were also able to decode July the Aitape sector was the scene of the Japanese radio messages. And so, furious throughout which during the night of July 11-12, the 18th fighting, Adachi urged on the Japanese 18th Army's counter-attack found the Allies Army in terms of mingled despair and alert and reinforced by Major-Generals Charles P. Hall's XI Corps and William determination: 2261

H. Gill's 32nd Division. The Japanese

were

held.

MacArthur

strikes

along the coast MacArthur was already hopping from one island to the next along the coast of

New Guinea. On May 17, his 41st Division landed at Wakde, 125 miles west of Hollandia. On the 27th, a further hop of 200 miles brought him to Biak, where the Japanese put up fierce resistance. Virtually ignoring this as a local incident, he pushed on to the island of Numfoor on July 2 and on the 30th he reached the beak of the Vogelkop. This was at Sansapor, over 600 miles from Hollandia. By now some 120,000 Japanese were cut off, 2262

6Div. (July30)

168th Regt. (July 2)

^^41 Div.

(May 27)

^41

^"^»"

Div.

Bay

Wakde

(May 17-18)

J> 24 » ^,-—41

ADMIRALTY ISLANDS

Div. (Apr. 22) Div. (Apr.

Hollandia" l41Div. (Apr. 22)

DUTCH NEW GUINEA

.Emirau

4 Marine DIv.

BISMABCK I ARCHIPELAGO

^'^i 1

j

Mussau^

— LosNegros

Manus •4—•

22)

Cavalry

Div.

(Feb. 29, 1944)

Japanese 18th Aimy

Rabaul

NEW GUINEA

1

New 7 Marine Divs. (Dec. :. 26, 1943L» 194_aL» Britai^ ^MarineijQjij^

&

Madang*

.

'

''^mS)®'

Lae

Japanese

Army

8th

PAPUA

Port

Moresby

trapped in the "green hell" of the jungle in one of the worst climates in the world, and defenceless against malaria. It is understandable that, in face of this great success, MacArthur telegraphed to Eichelberger: "The succession of surprises effected and the small losses suffered, the great extent of territory conquered and the casualties inflicted on the enemy, together with the large Japanese forces which have been isolated, all combine to make your operations of the past one and a half months models of strategical and tactical

manoeuvres."

In fact, according to a table drawn up by General Willoughby, chief of Intelligence, Allied Forces in the South-West Pacific, in dead alone the losses on both sides were: Battle areas American Japanese Ratio

AraweGloucester 472 Saidor 55

4,914 1,275

1:10 1:23

4,143 4,441 8,370 3,899 5,093

1:27

Admiralty Islands

Hollandia Aitape

Wakde Biak

155 87

440 646 524

1:51

1:19 1:6

1:10

Numfoor Sansapor

A 63

2,328

2

374

1:37

1:187

It should also be remembered that the death-rate in American hospitals was three per cent, whereas it was very much higher amongst the Japanese because of the appallingly unsanitary conditions under which they had to fight. MacArthur received Marshall's congratulations with justifiable satisfaction, but was even more pleased when the Pentagon announced that he was to get another corps, of five divisions, an extra air force, and 60 extra ships. What he had called the "stony-broke" war was a thing of the past. The attack on Biak made the first dent in the Japanese defensive perimeter as described by the Imperial H.Q. directive commented on above. So Admiral Toyoda, who like the Americans had just formed a 1st Mobile Fleet (C.-in-C. Vice-Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa), resolved to attack MacArthur's flank. He despatched to the Moluccas an Attack Division (Vice-Admiral Matome Ugaki) consisting mainly of the giant battleships Yamato and

A MacArthur's conquest

New Guinea

coastline

of the the

and

islands to the north, which now opened the way for his next move to Morotai and thence the Philippines.


Australian and American

troops take a look at two

Japanese tanks knocked out in the coastal fighting in

New

Guinea. < < Escorted by a destroyer, an L.S.T. taking part in the Hollandia operation noses into Tanahmerah Bay.

Musashi, but on June 11, when it had scarcely reached its departure-point, it was suddenly ordered to abandon the 2263

m^ A A column of L.V.T.s or "Water Buffaloes" awaits the to embark on the L.S.T. that will move them up for the part final of the New Guinea order

campaign- the landings at Sansapor on the "Vogelkop".

operation and to rejoin Ozawa east of the Philippines. The reason was the air attacks on Saipan, Tinian, and Guam in the Marianas. The double offensive which had paid

Nimitz at Tarawa was now working MacArthur. Mitscher's bombers had an easy job of it over their objectives because the Biak affair had drawn off many fighters from the defence of the Marianas. Washington's misgivings were thus allayed by events. off for

for

The Marianas As the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff directive of March 12 pointed out, the capture of the three islands mentioned above gave them a base for an attack on Mindanao in the At Saipan, Army Air Force engineers would lay down the runways Philippines.

needed for the B-29 Superfortresses of the 20th Air Force to take off on their missions of destruction over the great industrial centres of the Japanese mainland. Operation "Forager", started on July 6, involved 535 warships and 127,571 men of the Marine Corps and the Army. Task Force 58 was followed by the Joint Expeditionary Force, Task Force 51, whose job it was to put ashore two corps of four divisions and one brigade: 1. V Amphibious Corps (LieutenantGeneral Holland M. Smith: 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions); 2. Ill Amphibious Corps (Major-General Roy S. Geiger: 3rd Infantry Division and 1st Provisional Marine Brigade):

and 3.

floating reserve: 27th Division (MajorGeneral Ralph Smith). Admiral Spruance was C.-in-C, and

Turner commanded the and land forces involved in the

Vice-Admiral sea, air,

continued on page 2272

2264

The Marines at war During World War II the U.S. Marine Corps achieved the reputation of being the toughest service in the American armed forces. This reputation was built upon a fine combat record; although it must be said that the Marines were

attacks in an attempt to dislodge the

Americans.

fortunate

The American triumph on Guadalcanal the myth of Japanese invincibility, and was the prelude to a succession of Marine victories on Tarawa, the Marianas, and most notably, Iwo

brilliant

Jima.

in possessing a number of photographers to publicise their

exploits to the world. Realising that in a future war Japanese might be their opponents

the

and

the Pacific their theatre of operation, the Marine Corps specialised in amphibious warfare, setting up the Fleet Marine Force to develop amphibious assault techniques. This decision was vindicated by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on January 7, 1941, which brought the war into the Pacific. The first major campaign of the Fleet Marine Force was the assault on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands on August 7, 1942. With little naval or air support the Marines fought a desperate battle against the Japanese, who launched a series of fanatical, but ultimately unsuccessful

destroyed

The Marine Corps was not based on conscription (although it was forced to accept some conscripts during the war); instead, it was able to obtain most of its

manpower from

enthusiastic,

patriotic

and self-confident volunteers. The new recruit underwent an exexceptionally rigorous training programme that toughened up the individual and emphasised the Marine esprit de corps ensuring that the Marine tradition of hard fighting was always maintained. Legend has it that when the Marine commander on Wake Island was asked by headquarters what supplies he needed during a Japanese attack, he radioed back: "Send us more Japs!". Such was the spirit of the M:niii(> a great fighting force.

1.

A Marine prepares

to

hurl a

grenade from his sandbagged machine-gun emplacement on Tarawa.

2.

Heading for

the shore these

Marines prepare for their grimmest action of the war: Iwo Jima. 3. The Marines land on the volcanic sand of Iwo Jima, with the Japanese stronghold of

Mount Suribachi

in the

background. 4. Silhouetted against a ridge on Iwo Jima, a Marine of the 5th Division advances against heavy

enemy fire. 5.

Clearly displaying the strain of

battle these

Marines

rest after

on Iwo Jima. Sherman tanks of the Marine Corps move up to the front line on their ordeal

6.

Okinawa. Although the Army bore the main brunt of the land Marines suffered some 18,000 casualties there.

fighting, the

2266

*

Mi

^m.'i^',^^m rf» Wt/Kt^"

2267

A Marine with bayonet fixed leads the way around a barbed wire entanglement on Tarawa, scene of some toughest fighting of 7.

the Pacific war. 8.

Marines move forward on

man in the centre of the picture has just been shot by a Japanese sniper. Saipan. The

2268

The American Grumman TBF-1 Avenger torpedo-bomber

Engine; one Wright R-2600-8 radial, 1.700-hp Armament: one 5inch and two 3inch Browning machine guns, and one torpedo or 1,500 lbs of bombs Speed: 271 mph at 12,000 feet Climb: 1,430 feet per minute initially Ceiling: 22,400 feet

Range: 1,215

miles (with torpedo).

Weight empty/loaded: 10,080/15,905 Span: 54

feet 2

Height: 16

lbs

inches

Length: 40

feet

feel 5 inches

Crew:

3

2269

The American heavy cruiser Indianapolis Displacement: 9,950 tons

Armament:

nine 8-inch, eight

two 3-pounder, sixteen -inch A.A., and eight .5-inch guns,

5-inch, 1 .1

plus four aircraft. 3- to 4-Inch belt, 2-inch

Armour: decks,

H-

to 3-inch turrets, 8-inch

control tower. Speed 321 knots. :

Length: 61 Qi feet. Beam: 66 feet. Draught: 17J feet.

Complement:

1,269.

The Japanese heavy cruiser Chokai Displacement: 11,350

Armament: 13-mm

tons.

ten 8-inch, four

4.7-inch, eight

25-mm, and

four

guns, eight 24-inch torpedo

two

tubes, and

Armour:

aircraft.

3- to 4-inch belt, 5-inch

magazines,

1

J-inch decks and turrets

Speed: 35i knots Radius: 14,000 miles Length 665 feet. Beam: 59 feet. Draught: 20 feet. :

Complement:

2270

773.

at

14 knots.

2271

Spruance was much stronger in Operation "Forager" than he had been in "Galvanic". This is shown by the number of fast carriers available to the 5th Fleet: 11 at the Gilberts, 12 at the Marshalls, and 15 at the Marianas. The same was true for other types of ship. When the clash came, the opposing forces had the following:

Spruance

Ozawa 9

15

Carriers Battleships Cruisers

7

5

21

Destroyers

69

13 28

112

55

Totals

Spruance thwarts Ozawa's plans .

.

.

American superiority in naval aircraft was over two to one. Spruance had 891, his adversary 430. The Japanese pilots, after their idleness at anchor in Tawitawi, had lost what little efficiency they had had. The Japanese carrier-force had two problems: it did not dare put out to sea because of the submarine threat; and there were no aerodromes near its base where its pilots could be trained. Ozawa's carriers did, it is true, have a greater range of action, but this had been achieved by the sacrifice of a certain amount of armour protection and a reduction in water-tight integrity, which rendered them very vulnerable. Ozawa, in whom the historian Samuel Eliot Morison recognises "a scientific

1

A A paratrooper taking part

in

the conquest of Numfoor Island swings from a tree in which his

parachute has become entangled.

2272

page 2264

Both had recently been promoted. This powerful combination of forces spelled the end of Japanese strategy as it had been conceived since the Washington Naval Conference of 1922. Then, when they had conceded a numerical superiority to the U.S. of five to three in battleships, the Japanese could still persuade themselves that their security was not at risk. In their opinion the bulk of the enemy's forces would be trapped and destroyed piecemeal in ambushes laid for them in the Marshall and Caroline Islands. The balance of strength would thus be in their favour in the Marianas. This turned out to be incorrect. In fact, far from losing strength as he advanced,

landing.

brain and a flair for trying new expedients, as well as a seaman's innate sense of what can be accomplished with ships", overlooked all these weaknesses in the hope of overcoming them by close collaboration with land-based aircraft from the Marianas and the organisation of a shuttle-service between his own and the "unsinkable carriers" of Guam and Rota. But this plan was thwarted by Spruance. Moreover, Japanese strategy could no longer choose between offensive and defensive operations for, unless the Mobile Fleet were engaged, they would lose the Marianas, and the Philippines soon afterwards. In which case, Admiral Toyoda declared later: "Even though the fleet should be left, the shipping lane to the south would be completely cut off so that the fleet, if it

should come back to Japanese waters, could not obtain its fuel supply. If it should remain in southern waters, it could not receive supplies of ammunition and arms. There would be no sense in saving the fleet at the expense of the loss of the Philippines."

.

.

.

1

1st air strike

2

2nd

air strikes

4

Air strike

launched

*

US elements as believed by Japanese

.•

D 4 4.1 oierrIsushima. results as in the Battle ,.

There

^,

was,

however,

nothing

launched

3 3rd & 4th

Position of

It is hoped that the forces wi exert their utmost and achieve as magnificent .

launched

air strike

...

^

launched

fleet

'^^^ Battle of the Philippine

Sea, which '««'-«^o ^^-a. marked the end of the "^"J*^" ImpenalJapanese Navy s air ,

.

^^^ in

common between

the American 5th Fleet and the Russian 2nd Pacific Squadron destroyed by Admiral Togo on May 27 and 28, 1905.

and Ozawa reaches

Spruance moves out

the Philippine Sea This was why,

when he heard about

the

Patrolling off Tawitawi and at the exit of the San Bernardino Strait, Vice-

bombing of the Marianas, Toyoda ordered

Admiral

Ozawa

signalled the approach of the Japanese Mobile Fleet and, with some uncertainty, its composition. In view of the coming battle, Spruance called back his forces which had just been bombing the Bonin and Volcano Islands north of the Marianas, and redeployed his units. On the flanks of his four carrier task groups,

to put in action the plan for a

counter-offensive which had been drawn up for this purpose. During the evening of June 15, Ozawa sailed into the Philippine Sea through the San Bernardino Strait and 24 hours later joined up with Ugaki's Attack Division. At 0008 hours on the 18th, he sent the following message to the Mobile Fleet: "I humbly transmit to you the message I have just received from the Emperor via the Chief-of-Staff, Naval Section, Imperial G.H.Q.: 'This operation has immense bearing on the fate of the Empire.

Lockwood's

submarines

had

under Vice-Admiral Mitscher, he drew up a Battle Line under Vice-Admiral still

W. A.

Lee: his seven fast battleships, four cruisers, and 13 destroyers. At 1415 hours on June 17 he defined his intentions to his immediate subordinates:

2273

knock out then will attack enemy ships and cruisers to slow down able them. Battle line will destroy

"Our

air will first

carriers,

enemy battle-

or dis-

enemy

action if the enemy elects to fight or by sinking slowed or crippled ships if enemy retreats. Action against the enemy must be pushed vigorously by all hands to ensure complete destruction of his fleet." Spruance's intentions were thus purely offensive. He could not, however, go outside the parameters of his mission, which was to take, occupy, and defend Saipan, Tinian, and Guam. By giving chase to the enemy he would have left V Amphibious Corps' bridgehead unprotected and risked exposing it to attack from any Japanese force moving in from north or south. He therefore decided to sit back and wait a while. fleet either

by

fleet

The Japanese

fleet

advances At dawn on June 19, the Japanese Mobile Fleet consisted of two detachments: a Van Force (Vice- Admiral Takeo Kurita) with three divisions, two of battleships and one of heavy cruisers, each protecting a light carrier, and 120 miles behind it a Main Body (Ozawa) composed of Forces "A" and "B", with six carriers, five of

them

fleet carriers.

The

Japanese sailed in against the wind: their planes were thus able to take off straight towards the enemy, with the return flight shorter than the outward one. Between daybreak and 1445 hours, Ozawa made four raids on the 5th Fleet. These were all disastrous because of American superiority in training and in the quality of their aircraft. 373 of the 473

Japanese planes available (including floatplanes) took off and met 450 U.S. fighters, which massacred them. Those which escaped got caught in the massive A. A. fire of the Task Groups and the Battle Line. Those of the fourth wave which attempted to land at the airfield on Guam were destroyed in the air or so badly damaged on landing (the runways being pitted with bomb craters) that none of them ever took off again. Only 130 Japanese planes returned to their ships. There was no compensation for the Japanese as the U.S. forces lost only 18 fighters and 12 bombers and suffered only slight damage 2274

to the carrier Bunker Hill and the battleship South Dakota. The 5th Fleet lost altogether 58 men killed, including 27 pilots. Worse still for Ozawa, at 0910 hours the submarine Albacore (Commander J. Blanchard) put a torpedo into the Heet carrier Taiho (29,300 tons), ViceAdmiral Ozawa's flagship. Then at 1220 hours the submarine Caualla (Lieutenant-

^Jl

W

.

Commander hits

H.

J.

Kossler) scored three

on the carrier Shokaku; she sank

towards 1730 in the afternoon with 22 of her planes, which had just returned, on board. Both the Shokaku and the Taiho were lost because of explosions of the fumes from the fuel taken on at Tarakan. Damage to the Taiho was negligible, but a damage-control officer unfortunately gave the order to ventilate the ship and the petroleum fumes swept through from stem to stern. This led to a colossal explosion, as a result of which the ship sank immediately.

Twilight pursuit Ozawa transferred his flag to the heavy cruiser Haguro and, misinformed about Japanese losses and misled by exaggerated reports by his own pilots of U.S. casualties, pressed on with his attack regardless. There is no doubt that the remainder of the Japanese fleet would have been wiped out in the course of June 20 if Spruance's aerial reconnaissance had spotted it in time, but it failed to do so, despite the beautiful weather. It was 1600 hours before a plane sighted the

Japanese "250 miles"

(it

300) north-north-west of

^

i

^^^

was in fact over Task Force 58.

Despite the distance and the lateness of the hour, Spruance turned his carriers into the wind and sent up 85 fighters, 77 dive-bombers, and 54 torpedo-bombers inside ten minutes. The sun was sinking below the horizon when the Americans saw the fighter screen protecting the Mobile Fleet. Each Japanese ship then took a separate zig-zag course and opened up with all its guns. Forty Japanese planes were shot down for a loss to the Americans of 20, but only a small carrier, the Hiyo, was sunk. Meanwhile Mitscher was sailing full steam ahead to save his planes as much milage as possible. To get them back on board at 2000 hours. Task Force 58 turned up-wind and, in spite of the submarine danger, turned on all their land-

A < A Japanese aircraft plummets down towards the sea in flames over an American escort carrier. In the

foreground

Grumman Hellcats wait for action on board another carrier, and in the background, to the right, the bursts of A. A. shells litter

the sky over another

American carrier. A The aircraft nears

the

end

parabolic dive into the sea. < < Surrounded by bursting bombs, a "Shokaku" class fleet carrier turns sharply in an

of

its

evade the attentions of U.S. carrier-based strike In the foreground destroyers take similar evasive

effort to

aircraft.

action.

< A "Kongo"

class battleship

in trouble after being hit by

and a fleet turning away (right). bombs

(left)

carrier

2275

Jap, plane also tried to land on one of our carriers. Our planes continued to land as we continued on our way after the Jap

was quite a sight to see all the up. flares and rafts in the water and some planes crashing into the water, and pilots and crews also in the water. You could see the planes circle and then land on the carriers. A great job was done

fleet. It

ships

lit

by everyone to save our pilots' lives. The Japs would never do anything like this."

Even so, out of 176 planes which got back to Task Force 58, 80 ran out of fuel and fell into the sea or crash-landed. Thanks to Mitscher's initiative, 101 crew were picked up. Another 59 were saved on the following day, making the losses for the 20th 49. Ozawa was informed that only 35 out of his 473 planes were left, and so he broke off contact.

A catastrophe for the Japanese The Philippine Sea was thus the graveyard of the Japanese naval air arm. The Japanese carriers, bereft of planes and pilots, were like rifles without cartridges. At the cost of 130 of the 956 planes his task force had at dawn on June 19, and of 138 sailors and airmen killed or missing, Spruance had thus scored a victory the consequences of which were to last until the Japanese capitulation of September 2,

1945.

fact remains that a number of Spruance's subordinate oflBcers and fellow-commanders, who did not know of the loss of the Taiho, however, expressed their disappointment that the Mobile Fleet had not been destroyed, a result of what they considered excessive caution on Spruance's part. Nimitz and King backed him up, however. Perhaps by so doing they were merely vindicating themselves in that this incomplete victory could have been the result of their some-

The

A *i Flight deck crew throw themselves flat as a Japanese torpedo bomber thunders in at low altitude towards their

diary:

carrier.

A > The plane

is hit

under

its

port wing. The men at the bottom are the crew of an A. A.

gun.

A The

twilight sky over an American task force is pitted

with the black bursts of A. A. fire.

227(

ing lights. A few hours later, on board the cruiser Montpelier; Leading Seaman James J. Fahey noted in his invaluable "It was a great decision to make and everyone thought the world of Admiral Marc Mitscher for doing this. This would make it easier for our pilots to land, and if they did hit the water they could be

saved. The big carriers were all lighted so the pilots could see where to land, a lot of our destroyers were left behind to pick the men out of the water. I saw one pilot on the wing of his plane waving his shirt. There were so many lights it must have been hard to land on the carriers. A

what

restrictive instruction to take, occupy, and defend Saipan, Tinian, and Guam. Be that as it may, some months later Admiral W. F. Halsey found that the order sending him to Leyte contained the following paragraph: "In case opportunity for destruction of major portion of the enemy fleet offers or can be created, such destruction becomes the primary task."

> The American

carrier Intrepid

under way with her planes ready on the flight deck. V The Intrepid burning after an attack by Japanese aircraft. Page 2279: American heavy units loose off at targets on shore during a pre-landing bombardment. Note the firecontrol radar behind the mast. Page 2280: On fire, and with its port wing shot fire,

away by

a Japanese

U.S. A. A.

Nakajima B5N2

torpedo bomber (Allied code-name "Kate") prepares to take its final

plunge into the

sea.

2277

The disaster of the Philippine Sea was soon to be followed by the loss of the Marianas Islands: Tinian, Saipan and Guam. A consequence of these defeats was the forced resignation of General Tojo as Prime Minister. On July 18, 1944, Hirohito appointed General Kuniaki Koiso as Tojo's successor. The new Prime Minister had been Governor of Korea, had left the Army in 1938, and had the reputation of being a moderate. The War Ministry went to Field-Marshal Sugiyama, the Navy to Admiral Yonai. Shigemitsu, who had taken part in the conspiracy within the Tojo cabinet, remained Foreign Minister.

The search

for peace

The Emperor ended his audience with the

new Prime Minister with the following words: "You will need to collaborate to put an end to the war in Asia and I recommend you not

to upset Russia." In guarded terms the Emperor was therefore ordering Koiso and Yonai to attempt a negotiated settlement with the United States and Great Britain. The new Navy Minister saw the situation in the same light. When he had asked

Admiral Toyoda: "Can we hold out until the end of the year?" the reply was: "It will in all probability be very difficult." When we realise that the Japanese language is full of circumlocutions and delicate shades of meaning we see what that meant. The army chiefs had still to be reckoned with, however, and they refused to admit that any negotiated settlement could be compatible with the Emperor's honour, of which they considered themselves the absolute and final judges, regardless of their devotion to his person. "Divine Presence" was one of the Emperor's attributes, but for the military man this was only on condition that he took no part in major policy decisions. Even if the army leaders had been more foreseeing than this. General Koiso would still have found it just as difficult to overcome this obstacle. Potter and Nimitz note this clearly:

"On the Allied side, the goal of unconditional surrender set by Roosevelt and Churchill at Casablanca forbade the proffering of terms which might have served as bases for negotiation." And so the road led inevitably to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 2278

2279

^i

wK^.

•%# ^^

EfS??*^

-

.

-'•-•ui^r

.

\^

5gpBr%rS

^r^t-' v^i5^

;^^^

±«^*^>>

?!»i^J

CHAPTER

151

Saipan Jinian and Guam by Brigadier-General

E.

H. Simmons, U.S.M.C. (Ret'd.)

The reduction of the Marshalls had been quick and efficient, and had profited by lessons learned at Tarawa: more amphtracks. and better air and gunfire preparation were needed. Seemingly, could be found with the operabut earlier, before "Flintlock", as it was even launched, called, Lieutenant-General Robert C. Richardson, Commanding General, U.S. Army Forces, Pacific Ocean Areas, had asked that Hollafid M. Smith be relieved and his V 'Phib Corps headquarters be replaced with an Army corps headquarters. Nimitz had forwarded the recommendation to the J.C.S., who had turned it down, but that would not be the end of the matter. On March 12, 1944, the J.C.S. directed Nimitz to move on into the Marianas with

little fault

tion,

was

tire irget date of June 15. These were the islands Magellan had called Los Ladrones, "the Thieves". Except for Guam, a United States' possession since the SpanishAmerican War, the islands had been mandated to the Japanese after World War I. The United States had dutifully (or carelessly) failed to fortify Guam and after a token struggle it had fallen to the

Japanese on December 10, 1941. Other than Guam, Saipan, 14 miles by six, was the largest and most important of the islands. It had a civilian population of Japanese and natives called Chamorros, most oTwhom made their livelihood in the cane fields or sugar mills. Saipan was the headquarters of the Japanese Central Pacific Area Fleet under ViceAdmiral Chuichi Nagumo, the same

V Mopping up operations in northern Saipan: a Marine glances back as a satchel charge he has just thrown into a Japanese dugout explodes. The man on the right is using an Ml carbine, and the one on the left a Winchester pump-action shotgun, an excellent weapon for hand-to-hand fighting.

^^

A Marines

of

Force escort

V Amphibious

women and

rear during the battle for this first of the Marianas Islands to be

children

invaded.

to the

admiral who had led the raid against Pearl Harbor but had lost at Midway. Also at Saipan were the headquarters of the 31st Army, under Lieutenant-General Hideyoshi Obata. The admiral and the general did not get along. Responsibility for the defence of the Marianas was divided. Nagumo did not think the Americans would attack the Marianas until November.

The codename for the invasion of the Marianas was Operation "Forager". While halfway around the world the British and Americans got ready for the 2282

invasion of Normandy, a vast armada Marshallsassembled in the Spruance's 5th Fleet with over 800 ships and more than 162,000 men. Joint Expeditionary Force would be under Kelly Turner; Expeditionary Troops under Holland Smith. The titles were new but the jobs would be the same. Northern Troops and Landing Force was to land on Saipan

was

on June 15. Southern Troops and Landing Force was to land on Guam on June 18. A few days later there was to be a third landing, on Tinian, just to the south of Saipan.

.

^^ IV

^^^^^^ BK^^^^^BI L »

«.^^t

^

te

^r IG^

u 1

^^tih^sd^L;>-.. .<;.

i Mi

'-u^y^^LTti-'i'-^i',-:

VIC*"

-

/

M •

•

m.

^

.-vv.

P

V Amphibious Corps formed the headquarters for Northern Troops and Landing Force (N.L.T.F.) under the personal and continued command of Holland Smith, newly promoted to LieutenantGeneral. N.L.T.F. had the 2nd Marine Division, commanded now by MajorGeneral Thomas ("Terrible Tommy") E. Watson, and the 4th Marine Division under Major-General Harry ("the Dutchman") Schmidt. Ralph Smith's 27th Infantry Division was in floating reserve and the 77th Infantry Division was to be held in Hawaii in strategic reserve.

American Intelligence thought there L L A Marine of the 2nd Marine Division about to hurl a were about 20,000 defenders on Saipan. phosphorus grenade into a Actually there were 25,469 soldiers and Japanese-held cave. The island of 6,160 sailors. The island had been divided Saipan is honeycombed with into four defence sectors. The northern caves, which the Japanese sector had two battalions of the 135th had extended and linked up to make a virtually indestructible Infantry Regiment. The navy sector had defensive complex. All that the the 5th Special Base Force, 55th Guard attackers could do was snuff out Force, the Yokusuka 1st Special Naval single positions with grenades, Landing Force, and a battalion of the flame-throwers, and satchel 136th Infantry Regiment, and the large charges. A Marine shakes the sand out southern sector had the 47th Independent A of his boot while sitting on an Mixed Brigade and the 9th Tank Regiment. unexploded 16-inch shell. General Obata was away on an inspection 2283

> The first wave of the

4th

Marine Division hits the beach on Tinian on July 25. By the time the island was secured on August 2, the Americans had lost 389 killed and 1.816 wounded.

>>

Part of the Navy's

bombardment landings on Guam,

softening-up

before the which took place on July 21.

V> A

Japanese merchantman

that did not get away from the Marianas in sufficient time is bombed by a B-25 Mitchell of the

5th Air force. Note the "parafrag" bomb drifting

under its two parachutes (bottom right).

down

trip to the Palaus and tactical command had devolved on Lieutenant-General Yoshitsugu Saito, commanding general

of the incomplete 43rd Division.

Saipan is rugged, mountainous, and ringed with coral reefs. On board the

Rocky Mount, an amphibious command ship whose facilities he was sharing with Kelly Turner, Holland Smith said: "We are through with the flat atolls now. We learned how to pulverize atolls, but now we are up against mountains and caves where the Japs can dig in. A week from today there will be a lot of dead Marines."

Air bombardment began on June 11. naval gunfire on June 13. The landing was to be on the southern end of the west coast with 2nd Division on the left and 4th Division on the right; the two divisions would be separated by Afetna Point. The four Marine regiments in the assault were, from left to right, the 6th, 8th, 23rd. and 25th. They landed in 700 amphtracks behind a wave of new armoured amphi-

mounting 75-mm howitzers. The Americans came under heavy fire as they crossed the reef, and suffered some 2,000 casualties on this first day. One battalion had four commanding officers before sunset. In the 4th Division's zone was the sugar mill town of Charan Kanoa, and to the left front of the 2nd Division was the island's key terrain, Mount Tapotchau. During that first night Saito tried to drive a wedge between the two Marine bians,

divisions, but this proved a costly mistake.

On

shore at Saipan, during the 16th, the Americans pushed forward to consolidate the beach-head and, as night fell, the 165th Infantry began coming ashore. That night the Japanese 9th Tank Regiment struck the first sizeable tank attack of the Pacific war. The 1st Battalion. 6th Marines, bore the brunt and the Japanese lost 31 light

and medium tanks.

The attack went ahead slowly on the 17th. Swampy Lake Susupe, which separated the two divisions, was troublesome.

On the 18th, the 4th Division with all three infantry regiments abreast pushed across to Magicienne Bay on Saipan's east coast. On their right flank the 165th Infantry had seized Aslito airfield and to the 165th's right the 105th Infantry had reached the cliffs on the southern tip of the island. By July 19 the Japanese defenders in the south had been compressed into a pocket at Nafutan Point. General Holland Smith, having bisected the island, planned now to face his three divisions around into line and 2284

attack to the north. The 27th Division was ordered to leave one battalion behind to clean out the Japanese on Nafutan Point and to move in between the 2nd and 4th

Marine Divisions. On June 23 the attack jumped off, but the 27th Division was slow in getting started and the line soon sagged in the middle. Holland Smith lost patience with Ralph Smith, and after confering with Spruance and Turner, relieved him, asking Major-General Sanderford Jarman, an Army general standing by to become island commander, to take

command

of the

Next day, June

division

temporarily.

Marine battalion reached the top of Mount Tapotchau and 25, a

-except for the troublesome pocket at Nafutan Point-the Japanese had nothing left but the northern end of the island. On the night of June 26 the defenders of Nafutan Point expended themselves in a wild, futile banzai attack. On July 1 the final phase of the battle began. As the island narrowed, the 4th and 27th Divisions continued in the assault and the 2nd Division passed into reserve. On July 6 General Saito issued his final attack order. "Whether we attack or

whether we stay where we are, there is only death." Each Japanese soldier was ordered to exact seven enemy lives in exchange for his one. After delivering the order the general had a farewell meal of sake and canned crabmeat. Next

morning some 2,500 Japanese launched

a

banzai against the 27th Division. Later that day Saito cut his stomach

last

-^

The Japanese

fleet aircraft-carrier Taiho Displacement: 29,300

tons.

Armament: twelve 3.9-inch and fifty-one 25-mm guns, plus 74 aircraft

Armour: 2i-inch

6-inch deck.

belt,

magazines, SJ-inch

Speed: 33

flight

knots.

Radius: 10,000 miles Length: 855 feet

Beam: 98J

4^^n]?!P'"='

18 knots.

at

feet.

fc

Draught:

31 J feet. Complement: 1,751.

^

r

«k A

^

\

^

^-—

The American

light

aircraft-carrier

Independence Displacement: 11,000 tons. four 5-inch (later removed), twenty-six 40-mm, and forty 20-mm guns, plus up to 45

Armament:

aircraft.

Armour:

1

J- to 5-inch belt,

3-inch deck.

Speed 32 :

Length

:

knots.

622i

feet.

Beam: 109 J

feet.

Draught: 26

feet.

Complement:

1,569.

o

H 2286

o

=5^^

»

:»

'^

-fLft

y * /

A

III! nil III! III

/

II

Ml

jir'-nniirrf

.sdEa

k^i

1^

.>4J^

:^iE

^

n

——

-»

^

4D

lan

1^

2287

> The conquest of the Marianas by the U.S. Task Force 51. The 530 ships and 127,000 Marine and Army

troops

(V Amphibious

Corps under LieutenantGeneral Holland M. Smith and III Amphibious Corps under Major-General Roy S. Geiger) were under the overall command of Vice-Admiral Richmond K. Turner. Task Force 58 had softened up the area before the invasion force's

downing 200 Japanese aircraft and sinking 12 merchant ships. The defence of the islands was the responsibility of Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, though he had no major arrival,

warships, with LieutenantGeneral Hideyoshi Obata's 31st

Army providing

the

major

portion of the islands' garrisons. The bitterest fighting was for Saipan, which was commanded by LieutenantGeneral Yoshitsugo Saito. The Japanese fought with supreme courage, and the island was only secured after the Americans had beaten back a final suicide wave attack by 3,000 Japanese

from Makunsho. Japanese losses were 27,000 dead and 2,000 taken prisoner (of which only 252 were military), and

American 3,126 dead, 13,160 wounded, and some 200 missing. Saito and Nagumo committed harakiri.

ceremonially with his samurai sword and him in the head.

his adjutant then shot About this same time

Admiral

Nagumo

shot himself. Half the civilian population and the remnant of defenders had crowded onto Marpi Point, the northern tip of the island. Urged on by the Japanese soldiers, men and women hurled their children over the 220-foot cliff and then jumped themselves. The soldiers followed them or else blew themselves up with hand grenades. Of the 29,000 defenders, less than a

thousand had been taken prisoner. American losses in dead and wounded were 16,525, of whom 12,934 were Marines. The landing on Guam came next. Originally set for June 18, W-day had been re-scheduled for July 21. Ill Amphibious Corps (a redesignation of I Marine Amphibious Corps, which had conducted the Bougainville operation), under MajorGeneral Roy S. Geiger, a Marine aviation pioneer, had come up from Guadalcanal to provide the command for the Southern Troops and Landing Force. Geiger would have the 3rd Marine Division and the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade in the assault, and the 77th Infantry Division in reserve. Peanut-shaped Guam is 28 miles long and four to eight miles wide. Less cultivated than Saipan, the northern half was then covered with dense brush and undergrowth, the southern half, more mountainous, was mostly jungle. General Obata, in the Palaus when the American attack against Saipan began, had hurried back but had been able to get no further than Guam. He left the immediate direction of the island's defences to Lieutenant-General Takeshi Takeshina. Takeshina, nominally in command of the 29th Division, had only the 38th Infantry Regiment from that division on the island. His other major formations were the 48th Independent Mixed Brigade and the 10th Independent Mixed Regiment. Altogether there were about 13,000 Army troops. In addition there were some 5,500 Navy men under the command of Captain Yutaka Sugimoto. Agana, capital of Guam, is on the west side of the island at the pinched-in waist. South of it is Apra Harbour, formed by

Cabras Island on the north and Orote Peninsula on the south. Behind Apra Harbour is Mount Tenjo, 1,100 feet high and the loftiest elevation on the island. Orote was the site of an airfield and the old Marine barracks. South of Orote is 2288

the small town of Agat. The naval defenders were mostly concentrated on Orote and around the rim of Apra Harbour. Two battalions of the 38th Regiment were south of Orote in a good line of entrenchments. Behind them in the hills was the 10th Regiment. Takeshina himself was north of Apra with the rest of the 38th and the 48th Independent Mixed Brigade.

The most obvious landing

site

was

Tumon

Bay, north of Agana. The 3rd Marine Division under Major-General Allen H. Turnage would avoid that and come in over a crescent beach south of

Agana between Asan and Adelup Points. The 1st Provisional Marine Brigade, made up for the occasion of two veteran regiments, the 4th and 22nd Marines, and under Brigade-General Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr., would land south of Agat. Hhour for both landings was 0830 on July 21. The naval gunfire shelling began on July 2. Rear-Admiral Richard L. ("Closein") Conolly was in charge and it was the most deliberate and plentiful preparation of the war up to that time. The fighting was bitter but the situation was never as touch-and-go as it had been at Saipan. The two battalions of the 38th were virtually destroyed at Agat by the 1st Brigade, which went on to engage the naval defenders on Orote. Major-General Andrew D. Bruce's 77th Division landed behind the brigade and went after the 10th Regiment in the hills. Patrol contact was made between the 1st Brigade and the 3rd Division on July 25. That night Takeshina made his major counter-attack against the 3rd Marine Division. He found a gap between the 21st and 9th Marines and some of the attackers got as far as the division command post and hospital. But by dawn the momentum was gone and ten battalions

had been virtually used up. Takeshina had fought and lost his battle and after that it was really all mop-up. On the 28th, Mount Tenjo was taken. That same day Takeshina was killed by machine gun fire from a Marine tank and General Obata assumed tactical command. By the end of July the two beach-heads had merged and the two divisions were in position for a shoulder-to-shoulder sweep northwards, 77th Division on the right, 3rd Division on the left, 1st Brigade in corps reserve. They jumped off at 0630 on July 31 against only light to moderate resistance. On August 7, as the island widened out, the 1st Brigade went into

Saipan: July9

August 1 Japanese resistance ends Tinian:

Japanese resistance ends

2

Marine

(lands July 25 after feint to the south)

s^s^^^^ \_JAJB|

<

<^-^J^ / Iff

Ldpe Obiam

^f

f

Ndtuun

JULY? LAST JAPANESE COUNTER-ATTACK FRONT LINE ON JUNE 16 JUNE 21 JUNE 27 JULY 6

Saipan

June15-July9, 1944 Tinian

-August

JAPANESE COUNTERATTACK FAILS

FRONT LINE ON: J-DAY

Poinl

Operation "Forager": the Capture of the Greater Marianas by the U.S. 5th Fleet.

July 24

JULY 24-5

1,

1944

Vsaip Saipan Channel

Guam: August 10 Japanese resistance ends

h/ Mt.

Maiagu

^ •Dededo^ Rarnnafiai~

Guam July 21

1944

-August

10,

JULY25-6

JAPANESE COUNTERATTACK FAILS FRONT LINE ON D-DAY JULY 28

*^-^''

''^

r

A A Sherman tank pushe forward on Tinian, with :

following up.

on the left of the 3rd Division. By August 10, the Japanese had been backed

line

to the rims of the northern cliffs over-

looking the sea. On that day, General Obata sent his last message to the Imperial General Headquarters: "The holding of Guam has become hopeless. I will engage the enemy in the last battle tomorrow, the ." In front of him was the 1st Bat11th talion, 306th Infantry. Sometime during the next morning's fighting. General Obata took his own life. .

.

.

.

.

Japanese losses on Guam were counted by the Marines at 17,300 killed and 485 prisoners taken. Survivors would continue to be killed for months-even yearsto come, and this would run up the count. The last known survivor surrendered

American casualties were 1,919 7,122 wounded, and 70 missing. Of these, U.S. Army losses were 405 killed, 1,744 wounded, and 51 missing.

in 1972. killed,

Meanwhile, the landing on Tinian had been made. This smaller island, covering 50 square miles and about 12 miles from north to south, is mostly a low, fairly level plateau densely planted to sugar 2290

^

^:

itr^.

The engineers said that it offered for six 8,500-foot B-29 runways. Only 2^ miles south of Saipan, it was within easy artillery range of the bigger island and, by July 15, V 'Phib Corps and 13 battalions of Marine and Army artillery in position to bear on it. Intelligence on what was waiting at Tinian was good. The battle plan for its defence had been captured during the fight for Saipan and there was also a co-operative Japanese major who had been taken prisoner. Vice-Admiral Kakuji Lakuda, commander of the 1st Air Fleet, was the senior Japanese on the island, but he seems to have left its defence to Colonel Kaishi cane.

room

Ogata, commander of the 50th Infantry Regiment. Also present was the 1st Battalion, 135th Infantry Regiment, and some other Army remnants. Naval elements were under Captain Goichi Oya and consisted principally of the 56th Naval Guard Force. In all, there were 4,700 Army and 4,110 Navy defenders. There was the usual numerous but mixed bag of guns, ranging here in calibre from 25-mm to 140-mm, with a bonus of three British 6-inch naval guns. Model 1905.

i^^<^^ -2^"

^.

For the Tinian operation, V 'Phib Corps would use the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions with the Army's 27th Division

Division was Major-General Clifton B. Cates, a World War I hero and a regimental

A Staff-Sergeant Federico Claveria. U.S.M.C, of Baldwin

commander

in reserve. Infantry strength in the Marine divisions was down to 65 per cent as a result of the Saipan operation, otherwise their combat readiness was superb. Harry

July 24, across the northern beach, designated White 1, in column of battalions, landing just before 0800. The 25th Marines landed on White 2, managing to squeeze in two battalions abreast. Opposition was "light"

camera to give sweets to a Japanese child in the internment camp on Tinian.

Schmidt, who had commanded the 4th Division at Saipan, had moved up to command of V Corps; Holland Smith had relinquished that post to be Commanding General, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific. There was a good beach on the southwest coast near Tinian Town but it was too obvious an objective and reconnaissance showed it to be strongly defended. There were also two other beaches on the west coast near the northern tip of the island, so small as to be hardly taken seriously by the defenders. The northernmost was barely 60 yards wide; the other had a' usable width of about 75 yards. The problem was how to thread a corps through such a pair of needles' eyes. The plan was for the 4th Division to make the initial landing while the 2nd Division made a demonstration off Tinian Town. The new commander of the 4th

at Guadalcanal. J-day was 1944. The 24th Marines came

on White

1,

"moderate" on White

2,

Park, California, poses for the

where

a block-house with about 50 Japanese had to be reduced. The 23rd Marines, the 4th Division's remaining infantry regiment, landed in reserve about 1100 on White 2. By nightfall there was a beach-head 4,000 yards wide by 2,000 yards deep. Naval gunfire had been plentiful, delivered by three battleships, five cruisers, and a gaggle of destroyers. Air support

came from Army and Marine squadrons already in place on Saipan, as well as from three attack carriers and five escort carriers. Off Tinian Town the battleship Colorado had taken some bad hits from the British 6-inch guns; two 5-inch gun mounts were knocked out and there were 150 casualties.

Norman

Scott,

Her was

escort, the destroyer hit seven times and

2291

A Men of the 3rd Marine Division move up into Agana on

Guam on July 31. A > Marines move forward towards the last Japanese positions on Guam. American troops pass

V>

knocked-out Japanese tanks near the old Marine barracks on

Guam.

had 22 killed and 47 wounded. But Colorado had kept firing with her 16-inch guns and with the help of the cruiser Cleveland had knocked out the Japanese guns. Colonel Ogata had planned a night counter-attack, a convergence on the beach-head with his Army troops moving north and Oya's Navy men moving west. It was supposed to be spearheaded by a company of tanks, but these had been caught during the afternoon as they moved into their attack position and only six had survived. At 0200, the 56th Naval Guard Force struck the 24th Marines, who were very solidly in position on good ground on the left flank of the perimeter. At almost the same time the 1st Battalion, 135th Infantry, hit the 25th Marines in the centre of the line. An hour later. Ogata's tank-led attack with the 1st Battalion, 50th Infantry, found the juncture between the 23rd and 25th Regiments. One company got through as far back as the Marine 75-mm pack howitzers. The artillerymen depressed their muzzles and blasted the attackers into oblivion at point-blank range. Nowhere was the attack successful and when morning came

2292

the Marines counted 1,241 Japanese bodies across their front. The 4th Division began the day's advance at 0930, clearing the beach-head to allow Tommy Watson's 2nd Division room to land. The 2nd Division was given the eastern half of the island. They took Ushi airfield near the northern tip, then swung around and formed on the 4th Division's left flank for a systematic, shoulder-to-shoulder sweep, marching southwards at the rate of 3,000 to 4,000 yards a day. On J -r- 7 (July 31) the 4th Division occupied Tinian Town. There was a banzai attack next morning, accompanied by a rumour of Ogata's death. The fate of Ogata, or for that matter, of

Kakuda

and

Oya,

was

never

sub-

same day, August 1, General Schmidt announced that "all organised resistance had ceased" By August 12 a total of 13,262 civilians had been rounded up and put safely into stockades. Combatant prisoners taken numbered 235. The death count of the Japanese defenders was put at 6,050. The Marines had lost 290 killed, 1,515 wounded, and 24 missing. stantiated, but later in the

2293

CHAPTER 152

Objective Tokyo Aitape, he wished to strike north at Mindanao in the southern Philippines, and thence if possible at Luzon. These operations depended on a clear superiority of air and sea power over the Japanese in the area. They would probably require the presence of the main American fleet, as well as the other naval forces in the

south Pacific.

With these forces MacArthur

felt

that

he could be in Mindanao in December 1944, and Luzon the following spring. With his existing forces he was committed to a subsidiary role.

But in addition to these strategic considerations there was an emotional with the Philippines for MacArthur. As military adviser to the Philippine Army he had created and trained it on the model of the Swiss Army. When the Japanese landed 200,000 tie

men The return of General Douglas MacArthur to the Philippines was assured. As his aircraft climbed

above Oahu in the

after-

noon sunlight he turned to an aide and said, "We've sold it!" He had sold his plan for an invasion of the Philippines to President Roosevelt

Admiral Nimitz. On board the Baltimore and at a private house near Pearl Harbor they had spent the afternoon of July 26, 1944 and the morning of the following day in discussion. Finally they agreed that both sound strategy and national honour required the liberation of the Philippines. It was further agreed that "the Philippines should be recovered with ground and air power then available in the Western Pacific" as they were not going to wait until the defeat of Germany. Nimitz was to add that "from hindsight I think that decision was correct". But at the time there were two strongly-held strategic concepts of the war in the Pacific. In the autumn of 1943, MacArthur had submitted his views for the future to the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff. After neutralising the Japanese air base in Rabaul by capturing the neighbouring base of Kavieng, and establishing himself further up the New Guinea coast at Hollandia and

and

2294

in

December

1941,

MacArthur

led a

mixed American and Filipino army of about half that number. Fighting a defensive battle, he retreated to the Bataan peninsula and the island of Corregidor. In the spring of 1942 Roosevelt ordered MacArthur to Canberra as C.-in-C. of the newly-formed S.W. Pacific Area. He was reluctant to go, but obeyed the order, and when he arrived in Australia

promised "I came through and I shall return." He had thought that the Allies couldmountanattacktorelievetheBataan garrison before it was overwhelmed by the Japanese, but now he felt that this promise was true for the whole of the Philippines.

Now MacArthur held an position in the American hierarchy. Unlike other senior

unusual military

comman-

he had not for some time had any direct connection with the War Department, yet he was considerably senior to any other serving officer, having retired ders,

as a Chief-of-Staff of the U.S. Army in 1935, when Marshall held the rank of Colonel. His background and his own self-confidence did not incline him to act as a subordinate in the manner of the

other commanders.

A pronounced position,

which

it

and the fostered,

consciousness

of his

political importance gave to his relations

By the beginning of 1945, U.S. industry was working in top gear to produce the necessary materiel for the final effort against Japan.

< < < A bulkhead

is lifted

into a

Liberty Ship in one piece. Such methods meant the ship would leave the yard within 60 days.

< < The night shift at work at U.S. Steel's Federal Shipyard in New Jersey. < 12-inch gun barrels being turned by lathes in a U.S. arms Kearney,

factory.

V yet

Riveters prepare steel plate for another naval vessel as the

battleship Indiana nears completion at the Newport shipyards in Virginia.

News

2295

mv.

itjy7j/i4i

vwmym of \m\s\m

'JAM/l

with Washington something of the flavour of an independent power. But in service

Admiral

circles

Leahy

that "the mention of the

commented name of Mac-

Arthur seemed to generate more heat than light". He had not been to America bince 1935, did not meet any of the American chiefsof-staff until December 1943, had not received a direct communication from the President since assuming command of the South-West Pacific Area, and at the end of 1943 had never met Admiral Nimitz,

his

colleague

in

the

Central

Pacific.

Added to this difference of personalities was the natural rivalry of the Army and Navy which was brought out two the proposed plans. by there

The Navy's plan: Formosa the goal Admiral

King, supported by Admiral Nimitz, based his planning on the experience of the fighting in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. He definitely considered it "essential to avoid as long as possible fighting the Japanese army in any land area where they could delay operations". American strength lay at sea and in the air, and not in slow and expensive fighting in jungle and urban .

.

.

areas.

The Navv submitted that the most

FREE LABOR WILL WIN A <3 '^ America's favourite artist, Norman Rockwell, was a frequent contributor to Saturday Evening Post. Here he illustrates the week's lead story, about a naval hero. A < Part of a Rockwell painting illustrating Roosevelt's "four freedoms". The different sections were widely used as posters.

A The Labor Day slogan of the U.S. labour movement on a poster distributed by the Office of War Information. The purpose of these slogans was two-fold: they urged workers to greater efforts and also made them feel as important to the war effort as men

in the forces.

<< A similar theme from the U.S.

Army.

< The shipyards

at

Beaumont,

Texas.

2297

A

"Fletcher" class

passes close battleship

to

destrqye;

the giant

Wisconsin.

•^tl*

m

line of advance therefore lay through the Carolines and the Marianas, with Formosa as the eventual goal. Given the necessary priority, it was fruitful

/aAVBAMAN/

> A direct appeal to the emotions in this War Bonds poster.

V

Precision work on a grand This turbine spindle, soon to power the propeller shaft of a tanker, is just one of more than a hundred in production at a Westinghouse works.

scale.

you give at least IO% of your pay in War Bonds? Will

confident that it could capture the eastern Carolines by the end of July 1944, and Guam and the Marianas in September or October. By the end of the year, it could begin to bomb Japan from the latter base. The Joint Chiefs-of-Staff were in favour of the plan, for as King had put it, it would "put the cork in the bottle" of the enemy communications when the Americans captured Formosa. From bases in China, Formosa, and the Bonin islands they could strangle the Japanese mainland islands by submarine and air attack on the traffic through the South China Sea.

MacArthur would liberate Mindanao set up bases for the Far Eastern Air Forces to pound down Japanese air power on Luzon, after which he would help the and

Pacific Fleet to capture Formosa. The Navy felt that this plan would bring about the defeat of Japan more

quickly than the rather more systematic approach advocated by MacArthur. Bypassing the Philippines would be no real hardship for its inhabitants, and might even liberate them more quickly than by landing on the islands themselves. It was as protagonists for these two conflicting doctrines that MacArthur and Nimitz met with President Roosevelt at

Oahu.

Admiral Leahy, who was one of those present at the meetings, remembers: "It was both pleasant and very informative to have these two men who had been pictured as antagonists calmly present their differing views to the Commanderin-Chief." Rear-Admiral Wilson Brown stated that in no conference attended by

him did the speakers stick so closely to the subject or make such clear, concise, and candid expressions of opinion. Undoubtedly the conference was also a triumph for Roosevelt who "was at his best as he tactfully steered the discussion from one point to another and narrowed down the area of disagreement between MacArthur and Nimitz". At the meetings the speakers were dealing with facts, and not second-hand reports handled by politicians.

When MacArthur July

27,

took his leave on he assured the President that

the differences between himand Nimitz there was no cause agreement was near.

despite self

for concern;

2300

CHAPTER

153

Leyte: the planning

2301

A MacArthur (left) and

Nimitz: odds with each other they were dominant figures in the

often at Pacific.

>>

The men who planned the

naval strategy

m the

Pacific-

Rear-Admiral Forrest P. Sherman. Nimitz's chief planner; Admiral Chester Nimitz. C.-inC. Pacific Fleet

and James

Forrestal.

Under

Secretary (and from 1944. Secretary) of the Navy.

>V An

honour guard

fires a

salute as the body of a U.S.

Marine

buried at sea. Previous Page: work on the 35.000-ton battleship Indiana at Newport. is

There were still diflferences between General MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz as to the best strategy for winning the war but the two sides had reached agreement. Leahy was later to assert and the President's that "the agreement familiarity with the situation at this conference were to be of great value in preventing an unnecessary invasion of Japan which the planning staffs of the Joint Chiefs and the War Department were .

.

advocating, regardless of the loss of life that would result from an attack on Japan's forces in their own country." Despite this top-level agreement, the J.C.S. continued to discuss the Pacific strategy. It was a short while later, on September 1, 1944, that Rear- Admiral Forrest Sherman, Admiral Nimitz's chief planner, confronted them. He said that it was high time a decision was reached, and that even a bad one would be better than none. Central Pacific armed forces had no directive for anything beyond the Palaus objective, which was due in two weeks. Admiral King still opposed Luzon, which he said would slow up the war for mere sentimental reasons (earlier he had dismissed MacArthur's plans as "desires

and 2302

.

visions'").

The plans, however, had won a powerful General Marshall, who appreciated argument about national honour, and also that Luzon would be easier to capture than Formosa. MacArthur had warned the J.C.S. that if they left the ally in

the

16 million population of the Philippines to "wither on the vine" until the end of

the war with Japan, they would not only inflict unpredictable hardships on the loyal Filipinos, but also cause all Asia to lose faith in American honour. The J.C.S. planners worked out a timetable to be presented to the "Octagon" Combined Chiefs-of-Staff conference at

Quebec on September 11, 1944: 1. September 15, South-West Pacific Forces occupy Morotai: Central Pacific forces occupy Peleliu October 5; occupy Yap, with Ulithi to follow. 2. October 15, South-West Pacific Forces occupy Salebaboe Island; November 15, land at Sarangani Bay, Mindanao;

December

20. at Leyte.

South-West Pacific and Central Pacific forces then combine to occupy either (1) Luzon, to secure Manila by February 20, or (2) Formosa and Amoy on the China coast by March 1, 1945. But as with many of the best laid plans. 3.

J^

*;

pi^H^^B^^^^^

Wm^

/

J^^B

J ^iiflE K!ji i P M ^R fllH [^HK 11

H

'

vimmv

*

i^H*

^^sH^^I

'

''vS^

fl^l

2303

The Japanese Kawasaki Ki-45 KAIc heavy fighter

Engines: two Army Type 1 (Mitsubishi Ha-102) radials, 1,080-hp each at take-off.

Armament: one 37-mm Ho-203 and two 20-mm Type 1 (Ho-5) cannon, plus two 551 -lb bombs.

Speed: 335.5 mph at 19,685 Climb 7 minutes to 1 6,405

feet.

:

Ceiling: 32,810 feet. Range: 1,243 miles.

Weight empty/loaded: 8,818/12,125 Span: 49

feet

Length: 36 Height: 12

Crew:

2304

2.

5J inches. inch.

feet

1

feet

If inches.

lbs.

Toryu" (Dragon

Killer)

this timetable

was scrambled within a

week.

Task Force 38, under Admiral Halsey, left Eniwetok on August 28, 1944, to bomb Yap, the Palaus, and Mindanao, and make a one-group diversionary strike on the Bonin Islands. The aim was to destroy Japanese air forces which might challenge the forthcoming landings on Morotai and Peleliu, and to deceive the enemy as to the next target. The Palaus were bombed on September 6-8, Mindanao airstrips near Sarangani Bay on September 9-10. These attacks were unopposed, and this caused Halsey to cancel later strikes for Mindanao and move to the Visayas on the 12th. The task force moved in close and flew 2,400 sorties in two days; about 200 enemy planes were shot down or destroyed on the ground. Several ships were sunk and

many

installations destroyed.

seemed to Halsey and his staff that the Japanese air forces were practically finished, and at noon on September 13, It

he sent a very important signal to Nimitz. He recommended that the Palau, Yap, Morotai, and Mindanao landings be cancelled as unnecessary, and that Task Force 38 and the men earmarked for these operations be diverted to MacArthur for an immediate seizure of Leyte. This signal was passed on to King and MacArthur.

With a force of fast carriers available MacArthur no longer needed to develop airfields in the southern Philippines before invading Leyte or Luzon; the Navy could furnish the air support the Army needed until it had captured or developed airfields on the target island. If the 30,000 troops who were to land

on Mindanao on November 15, and XXIV V A Boeing B-29 Superfortress Corps (intended for Yap) could be diverted under construction. Production to Leyte, MacArthur would have an of these bombers was based at effective invasion force.

MacArthur's name General Sutherland informed the J.C.S. and Nimitz on September 14 that if Halsey's recomIn

four main plants. Between June 1943 and the Japanese surrender in August 1945, more than 4,200 of these aircraft were built.

2305

f

V "Somewhere

in the Pacific"-

wings of U.S. Navy Catalinas stretch out towards lines of Curtiss Helldivers parked at an airbase before transferring to an aircraft-carrier.

> Curtiss Helldivers. The folded wings were necessitated by shortage of space on the carriers- many of which were originally designed to take smaller aircraft.

> > The

light carrier

Cowpens.

•HS'

mendations were adopted, MacArthur would invade Leyte on October 20, that is two months ahead of the target date. Nimitz agreed, but said that the Palaus operation should not be cancelled because it would be needed as an anchorage and air base. After their earlier performance, the J.C.S. acted with commendable alacrity. The Combined Chiefs-of-Staff conference,

V A

Helldiver peels off before in to land on its base

coming

carrier.

Below, the crew prepare

the flight deck for a landing.

2308

with Roosevelt, Churchill, and Mackenzie King, was still in session at Quebec when the new proposals came through. Breaking off from a dinner, the J.C.S. held a brief consultation. "Having the utmost MacArthur, General confidence in Admiral Nimitz and Admiral Halsey," wrote General Marshall, "It was not a difficult decision to make. Within 90 minutes after the signal had been received General MacArthur and in Quebec, Admiral Nimitz had received their instructions to execute the Leyte operation." The target date was fixed for October 20.

and this avoided the three intermediate landings at Yap, the Talauds, and Mindanao. MacArthur's acknowledgment reached Marshall as he was leaving the dinner to return to his rooms. The instructions were formalised soon after in the following message: "1. Admiral Wilkinson's YAP ATTACK FORCE, the XXIV Army Corps, then loaded or at sea, will be assigned to General MacArthur to land LEYTE 20 October. "2. All shipping used in the Palaus operation, after unloading, to be sent to Southwest Pacific ports to help VII 'Phib lift General Krueger's Sixth Army to

LEYTE. "3.

ALL FIRE SUPPORT SHIPS and

ESCORT CARRIERS used in the Palaus operation to be assigned temporarily to Admiral Kinkaid, Commander Seventh Fleet, to help cover LEYTE. "4. ULITHI to be seized promptly, as an advanced

fleet

base".

The Japanese Kawasaki Ki-61-l "H/en" (Swallow) fighter

Engine: one Army Type 2 (Kawasaki Ha-40 1,175-hp at take-otf

inline,

Armament; two 12 7-mm Type 1 (Ho-103) and two 7 7-mm Type 89 machine guns. Speed 368 mph at 1 5,945 feet. :

Climb: 5 minutes 31 seconds

to 16,405 feet

Ceiling: 37,730 feet

Range: 684 miles maximum Weight empty/loaded: 4,872/7,185 Span: 39 feet 4J Inches. Length: 28 Height: 12

feet

85 inches

feet

1

lbs

J inches

2309

'^ ^""•"'U^-^'^-fr'' > "Hara-kiri"-> Caught between two fires V > A comment from the New York publication Burch. An especially hideous Japanese, clutching the frayed umbrella of the fleet, wishes he could protect himself from the storm of the Allied offensive.

V The St. Louis Star Times points out the eventual fate of Japan.

VV>

Retribution -he who sows bombs, reaps bombs. Opposite top: The assembly line at the Boeing works in Seattle. Opposite bottom: Women at

work inside the fuselage of a B-24 Liberator at Fort Worth, Texas.

so^errffes £Mr ^SSS^IIff^ B/o riAAJ - »(/r,£VFffnMLLr. ^ A/S riA/>^ EAT L/menA/^

2310

There followed a series of planning conferences by the commanders of the forces involved. The operation would employ all the American military forces not engaged in Europe or on garrison duties in places like the Aleutian and Marshall Islands. Though no Australian troops were to be used, ships of the Royal Australian Navy would participate, and one ship of the Royal Navy, the fast minelayer Ariadne. While the ships were assembled, and planning continued at all levels of command, the J.C.S. discussed the next move after Leyte. Was it to be Luzon, or

Formosa? After pressure against the Formosa operation by General Millard Harmon, commanding the Army Air Forces in the Central Pacific, and by General Simon Bolivar Buckner, commanding the 10th Army, it was shelved in favour of Luzon.

was a logical and strategically It sound move, for if Leyte could be captured reasonable time, III VII in and Amphibious Forces would be capable of putting in a second major landing before the end of 1944. Formosa would require an assault force of at least nine divisions, which would not be available until about the middle of 1945. Japanese air strength was still too great to allow the invasion of Okinawa, so after clearing Luzon, the Americans could take Iwo Jima, as a rung in the "ladder up the Bonins", and Okinawa, as a base for air attacks and the final invasions of the Japanese home islands. On October 3, 1944 the Joint Chiefsof-Staff issued a directive to Nimitz and MacArthur, which seemed to be the final tribute to the general's skills as a sales-

man. "General

MacArthur

will

liberate

20 December, and establish bases there to support later operations. Admiral Nimitz will provide fleet cover and support, occupy one or more positions in the Bonin-Volcano Island group 20 January 1945, and invade the Ryukyus, target date 1 March 1945."

Luzon,

starting

Yet the liberation of the Philippines had been decided by many events beyond his control. Landings on the China coast in support of the Formosa operation were ruled out because of the strength of the Japanese in both areas. Chinese Nationalist forces would be of little help, partly because of their lack of equipment and training, but also because of the enmity between Stilwell and Chiang 2311

Kai-shek.

The naval forces assigned to him from Halsey's Task Force 38, had been released through a misconception. Halsey believed that Japanese air-power in the Palaus, Mindanao, and Visayas was finished; in fact the Imperial General Headquarters had ordered that it be held back in readiness for the major landings which were expected in that area.

Yet despite this, the landings on Leyte and Luzon vindicated MacArthur's promise to return, and set the American forces in the Pacific on a return journey which would end less than 11 months after "Octagon", with the surrender of Japan.

Two amphibious operations brought the converging forces of MacArthur and Nimitz to within striking range of Leyte. On September 15, 1944, the 31st Division under MacArthur began landing on Morotai island. He planned to expand its partially-completed airfield to cover operations to the south of the Philippine islands.

There was no opposition, but the airwas unusable; another (ready for fighter operations on October 4 and bombers on the 15th) was quickly built. On September 15 Halsey assaulted the Palau Islands. Fringed by coral reefs, this island group is 470 miles east of Mindanao. Halsey planned to use it as a seaplane base and anchorage for the attack on the field

Philippines.

The landing on Peleliu was strongly opposed. On the first day the 1st Marine Division had secured a beach-head; on the second it had occupied, but not secured, the airfield. The tough, well-sited bunkers which covered the airfield were eventually cleared, and by October 1 the field was taking fighters and a week later medium bombers. The Japanese, however, hung on in the island for another six weeks. On September 17, the 81st Division landed on Angaur island, six miles south and by noon had practically it. By the 21st an airstrip had been and was taking Liberators. On the 23rd the 81st was landed on Ulithi atoll, which proved to be abandoned. It was quickly developed and became the main of Peleliu,

secured built

fleet

base in October.

MacArthur, by way of the south-west, and Nimitz, through the central Pacific, had now reached their forming-up points for Leyte.

CHAPTER

*l

154

have returned': the landings on Leyte

On the U.S. side, although everyone stuck to the item of the March 12 directive which laid down that the major objective of the coming offensive was to be Mindanao, opinion varied as to the direction the offensive was to take after this objective

had been secured.

In the Pentagon Admiral King, supported, albeit with slight differences of opinion, by Nimitz, reckoned that there would be no harm in neglecting the rest of the Philippines and taking a leap for-

ward to Formosa and Amoy on the south coast ofChina. This would cut communications between the Japanese homeland and its sources of raw materials and fuel, and would thus force a capitulation. But in his command post at Hollandia, General MacArthur was sickened by the idea of leaving Luzon and more than seven million Filipinos exposed to the rigours of a Japanese military occupation any longer. When he left Corregidor in March 1942, he had given his solemn

promise to the Filipinos that he would return, and he did not intend that anyone should make him break his word. Roosevelt summoned MacArthur to Pearl Harbor and there MacArthur laid before him arguments not only of sentiment and prestige but also of sound military strategy: "I argued against the naval concept of frontal assault against the strongly held island positions of Iwo Jima or Okinawa In my argument, I stressed that our losses would be far too heavy to justify the

benefits to be gained by seizing these outposts. They were not essential to the enemy's defeat, and by cutting them off from supplies, they could be easily reduced and their effectiveness completely neutralized with negligible loss to our-

They were not in themselves possessed of sufficient resources to act as main bases in our advance. "In addition, I felt that Formosa, with a hostile population, might prove doubt-

selves.

< < A Urging racial harmony among industrial workers.

< < Encouraging recruitment for the Women Ordnance Workers.

V General MacArthur, accompanied by LieutenantGeneral George C. Kenney, Lieutenant-General Richard K. Sutherland, his

chief-of-staff,

and Mnjor-Gencral Mudgc. commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, inspects the at Leyte, October 20,

beach-head 1944.

2313

ful to serve as a

Japan

base of attack against

itself."

This was

how MacArthur, according who

to his memoirs, spoke to Roosevelt,

had Admiral Leahy with him. And, as it later turned out, MacArthur was to a certain extent right. He captured Luzon, at the cost of some 8,300 dead,

between January 9 and June 25, 1945. The seven and a half square miles of the little island of Iwo Jima cost Nimitz 7,000 more, and Okinawa was captured by the U.S. 10th 8,000 dead.

Army with

the loss of

As was his wont, the President

took no part in this strategic debate, and Leahy and Nimitz were not insensitive to MacArthur's argument. The "Octagon" Conference, which opened at Quebec on September 11, 1944, envisaged, after preliminary operations and the

m^

capture of Mindanao, tliat there would be a landing at Leyte in the central Philippines on December 20, after which the two Allied forces in the Pacific would unite to occupy "either (1) Luzon to secure Manila by 2nd February, or (2) Formosa and Amoy on the China coast by 1st

May

1945."

By now Nimitz's fleet was so large that was decided to appoint two flag offihim to command alternately. While one was at sea, the other would

< A ffiv landinf^s on Leyle were preceded by a massive shore bombardment. American troops watch columns of smoke rising from the island as they approach the beach.

< A wave ofL.C. V.(P.)s heads for the beach-head .

A

.

.

.

and

.

the troops

.

wade

ashore after disembarking.

it

cers under

be at Pearl Harbor planning the next major operation. When commanded by Admiral Spruance it would be known as the 5th Fleet; while under Halsey, the 3rd Fleet. Sub-units would similarly exchange commanders and designations. In August 1944 Spruance was relieved by Halsey, and Vice-Admiral Theodore Wilkinson relieved Richard Turner in command of the 5th (now the 3rd) Amphibious Force. However, Mitscher remained in command of the Fast Carrier Force of 17 fast carriers, six new battleships, 13 cruisers, 58 destroyers, and 1,100 fighters, and dive- and torpedo-bombers, now Task Force 38 instead of 58. On August 28, Halsey set out from Eniwetok to bombard Yap Island, the

Palau Islands, and Mindanao, paving way for the landings Nimitz and MacArthur were preparing at Peleliu and Morotai. The results exceeded all expecta-

the

tions: in 2,400 sorties Mitscher's squadrons shot down 200 enemy aircraft at a

cost of only eight of their own and dealt a very hard blow to the Japanese bases in this sector, giving MacArthur necessary air superiority.

the

2315

December, and starting 20 Luzon, establish bases there to support later operations. Admiral Nimitz will provide fleet cover and support, occupy one or more positions in the Bonin-Volcano Island group 20 January 1945, and invade the Ryukyus, target date March 1945."

Formosa and Amoy were thus

to be Pentagon's calendar of events. MacArthur and Nimitz, the one leaving from Australia and the other from Hawaii, were to meet in Leyte Gulf. Their commands remained contiguous, and the only transfer of units was that of 3rd Amphibious Force and XXIV Corps (Major-General J. R. Hodge) from Nimitz

taken

to

off

the

MacArthur.

MacArthur takes Morotai

.

.

.

i

Whilst waiting for the start of this new offensive operation, to be called "King 11",

MacArthur

seized

the

island

of

Morotai north of Halmahera. His losses were insignificant as the Japanese were not expecting to be attacked. Yet its fall meant that the Moluccas were now useless to them.

and Nimitz Peleliu A> An

L. V.T. rolls

ashore at

Leyte.

> On

the beach, U.S. troops "hit the dirt" as they come

under

fire

snipers

Leyte plans approved

from Japanese

and machine gunners.

Interpreting the weakness

enemy somewhat

shown by the

optimistically, the im-

petuous Halsey submitted the following suggestion to Nimitz on September 13: cut out the intermediate objectives and

make

straight

for

Leyte.

MacArthur

seized upon this idea, remarking that this would save two months on the schedule

Nimitz agreed, the Chiefs-ofQuebec, took only an hour and a half to concur, such was the confidence of General Marshall and Admiral King in their subordinates. Yap and Mindanao were thus set aside and a landing on Leyte was fixed for October 20. On October 3, Allied commanders in the Central and South-West Pacific received the following directive for the next stage and,

as

Staff, still in session at

in the operations:

"General 2316

MacArthur

will

liberate

Meanwhile, Halsey's 3rd Fleet attacked Peleliu in strength. The island was defended by the excellent Japanese 14th Division, whose commander (LieutenantGeneral Inouye) had intelligently applied the new instructions from Tokyo. Instead of the usual cordon of men defending the beach, he had deployed his forces in depth, taking advantage of the caves to provide cover from aerial and naval bombardment. And so, although the first wave of the U.S. 1st Marine Division (Major-General W. H. Rupertus) landed on September 15, it was not until November 25 that the last enemy surrendered,

and meanwhile the Americans had had

to

85th Division (MajorMueller) as reinforcement. The U.S. forces suffered considerable losses: 2,000 killed and over 8,500 wounded, or approximately the same as the garrison which they completely wiped out. On the other hand, in the same group of the Palau Islands, III Amphibious bring

in

General

their

P. J.

Force occupied the large atoll of Ulithi without loss, giving the U.S. 3rd Fleet a very safe, well-sited base 1,000 miles from Manila and 1,400 from Okinawa. This action ended on September 23. So, ten months after the assault on Tarawa, Nimitz had reached a point 4,250 miles from Pearl Harbor.

'I

have returned"

Between October 10 and 15, and using the method which had been so successful against the Gilberts, the Marshalls, and the Marianas, Task Force 38 ensured the success of Operation "King 11" by plastering the bases on the Ryukyu Islands, Formosa, and Luzon, from which the Japanese might have attacked the Leyte landings. A thousand Japanese planes but Mitscher scored a clear knocking out over 500 of them at a cost of 110 of his own. It is true that two cruisers were torpedoed during thi.-; action, which took Task Force 38 to within 60 miles of Formosa, but the U.S. Navy's rescue services were so efficient that the damaged ships were able to be towed to Ulithi. The Japanese airmen

took

off,

victory,

greatly exaggerated this

little

success,

which was no compensation for the los.s of their planes and some 40 merchant ships. They claimed to have sunk 11 aircraft-carriers, two battleships, and four

The Japanese battleship Nagato Displacement: 39,130 tons

Armament:

eight 16-inch, sixteen 5.5-inch,

eight 5-inch, and ninety-eight

25-mm

guns,

plus three aircraft. Armour: 4- to 12-inch belt, 14-inch

22-inch barbettes, 3J- to 7-inch

turrets,

deck, and 12 inch control tower.

Speed 25

knots.

:

Radius: 8,650 miles Length 738 feet

at

16 knots.

:

Beam:

113ifeet.

Draught:

31 feet.

Complement:

1,368.

>"^ *

The American battleship Mississippi

Displacement: 33,000

Armament:

tons.

twelve 14- inch, fourteen 5-inch A. A., sixteen 40-mm A.A., and fifteen 20-mm A. A. guns, plus three aircraft. Armour: 8- to 14-inch belt, 5- to 18-inch turrets, 4- to 6-inch decks, and 16-inch control tower.

Speed

;

21 i knots.

Length: 624 feet. Beam: 106J feet. Draught: 34 feet.

Complement:

2318

1,930.

^g,....3)^^^p

2319

^^^^^i.

*

'.

-^

a: A General MacArihur, accompanied by LieutenantGeneral Kenney, inspects the beach-head on Leyte Island.

cruisers and to have damaged or set on fire 28 other vessels. It would appear that the threat to the Japanese Empire had

miraculously melted away. This was what Tokyo was beginning

when, at dawn on October 17, a huge U.S. armada sailed into Leyte Gulf. It was the 7th Fleet under ViceAdmiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, 700 ships strong, which was also carrying 174,000 men of the U.S. 6th Army. On the same day, detachments seized the island commanding the entrance to Leyte Gulf then, for two whole days, the guns of the old battleships, cruisers, and destroyers of 3rd and 7th Amphibious Forces, or Task

to believe

Forces 79 and 78, (Admirals T. S. Wilkinson and D. E. Barbey) roared out and the aircraft of 18 escort carriers joined in. The defence of the Philippines had

been entrusted to the victor of Singapore, General Tomoyoki Yamashita, under Field-Marshal Count Hisaichi Terauchi, C.-in-C. Southern Army. Yamashita's 14th Area Army had seven divisions, with a total of 265,000 men, but on Leyte there was only one division, the 16th (Lieutenant-General Makino). However, 2320

the Japanese High Command had now decided to fight for Leyte rather than concentrate for the defence of Luzon, although the American attack had preempted their planned reinforcement.

The landing achieved

local

tactical

October 20 the U.S. 6th Army (General Krueger) had established a front of over 17 miles. On the right, X Corps (Major-General F. C. Sibert: 1st Cavalry and 24th Divisions) had occupied Tacloban and its aerodrome; on the left, XXIV Corps (Major-General J. R. Hodge: 96th and 7th Divisions) had got as far as Dulag,

surprise. In the evening of

where 100,000 tons of materiel and stores had been landed on the beach. The cruiser Honolulu had been hit by an aerial torpedo, but this was the only noteworthy incident of the day. General MacArthur landed with the third wave: his promise to return had at last been kept. His implacable will and dynamic personality had ensured that the Philippines would have priority, but one major obstacle stood before his return to Manila: the remains of the Imperial Japanese fleet.

CHAPTER

155

Leyte Gulf: the greatest sea battle of all

expectation

In

of

the

U.S.

offensive.

Admiral Toyoda, C.-in-C. Combined Fleet, had drawn up Plan "SHO GO" (Operation "Victory"), one variant of which was to cover the event which actually took place. And so at 0809 hours on October 17, he had merely to signal "SHO GO 1" from the

Tokyo area

set the

found

2.

3.

in

Japan, under Vice-Admiral Ozawa,

and in Lingga roads, off a group of islands half way between Singapore and Sumatra, Vice-Admiral Kurita's force of seven battleships, 11 heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and 19 destroyers. The plan was as follows:

carrier force with its 116 aircraft, including 80 fighters, would act as bait, advancing without too much precaution into the Philippine Sea east of Luzon; it would thus draw out Mitscher's carrier force towards the north and, by sacrificing itself, would enable Kurita and Shima

Kurita would form two sub-forces: Force "A", under Kurita himself, and

composed

of

five

battleships,

A The Princeton on fire after sustaining a hit from a "Judy' dive-bomber. At right is the U.S. heavy cruiser Reno.

12

and 15 destroyers, would advance through the San Bernardino Strait between Samar and Luzon to meet Force "C" in Leyte Gulf, and Force "C", of two battleships, one cruiser, and four destroyers under Vice-Admiral S. Nishimura would sail through the Surigao Strait between Leyte and Mindanao. cruisers,

plan in motion. This alert order the Japanese fleet disposed as

a carrier force (of which only four carriers were operational through lack of trained aircrew), the battleshipcarriers Ise and Hyuga, three light cruisers, and eight destroyers; in the Ryiakyus, under Vice-Admiral K. Shima, a force of two heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, and nine destroyers;

The

1.

for his subordinates to

follows: 1.

to carry out the tasks allotted to them: to destroy the U.S. landing forces and their escort ships of the 7th Fleet.

2.

Shima finally received the order to follow Nishimura and, when the time came, to co-operate with him. After the destruction of the U.S. transports and the 7th Fleet in Leyte Gulf, MacArthur to surrender to Yamashita, already counting on greeting him with the trenchant words he had used to Percival at Singapore: "All I want to know is: Do you surrender unconditionally or not?" Cunning though the plan was, it nevertheless meant 68 Japanese ships against 275 American, and a one to four inferiority in aircraft for the Japanese. Even including the planes they had in the Philippines, the Japanese were a long way from matching Halsey's and Kinkaid's 1,500. Also, it would take greater

would have

who was

2321

2322

co-ordination than could be expected between Kurita and Nishimura to close their pincer in Leyte Gulf. Again, and this was the most important point, "SHO GO" envisaged nothing beyond October 25 and ignored what the 3rd Fleet was likely to do after Ozawa's diversion had fizzled out and Halsey set off full-steam ahead southwards with his 17 carriers and six fast battleships. If he did nothing, Toyoda would be left in Japan with Ozawa and no fuel oil, and Kurita would be left at Lingga with no ammunition or spare parts. Like Hitler on the Western Front, he was thus forced to go over to the offensive. He gave his order at 1100 hours on October 18.

Kurita mauled off

Palawan

.

.

.

On October 22, having refuelled at Brunei, Kurita separated from Nishimura. At the 23rd he was heading northeast of the island of Palawan, a steppingstone between Borneo and Mindanao, when he was attacked by the submarines Dace and Darter (Commanders Claggett and McClintock). Dace scored a bulls-eye on the heavy cruiser Maya, which blew up. Darter scored a double, damaging the Takao so badly that she had to be sent back under escort, and sinking Kurita's flagship, the heavy cruiser Atago. The admiral was saved but he lost part of his signals and coding staff, which was

dawn on

to

hamper

his control of operations.

and loses the giant battleship Musashi .

.

.

Despite the loss of these three cruisers,

Kurita was off Mindoro 24 hours later, and at the same time Nishimura was between Mindanao and Negros Islands. Shima, coming down from the north, was following Nishimura at a great distance and remained out of contact with him for fear of interception devices.

Ozawa

by U.S. tracking

out from Kure on October 20 and progressed without incident along the path of sacrifice. In the evening of the 23rd the carrier Zuikaku, his flagship, sent out a long message designed to draw to herself the attentions finally set

of the enemy.

As expected, the Darter sent out a signal to report contact. This reached Halsey at 0620 hours on the 23rd. Nishimura and Shima were spotted in the early morning of the 24th. When he got McClintock's message from the Darter, the C.-in-C. of the 3rd Fleet, now reduced to Task Force 38, closed in to within 150 miles of the Philippines with his total force except for Vice-Admiral J. S. McCain's Task Group

38.1,

which was

re-forming at Ulithi. So Halsey had Rear-

Sherman's Task Group 38.3 off Luzon, Rear-Admiral G. F. Bogan's Task Group 38.2 off San Bernardino Strait, and Rear-Admiral R. E. Davison's Task Group 38.4 off Leyte. This gave Mitscher a total of 835 aircraft. Admiral

F. C.

mm 'mt 'ja>:w:jfc>«!l

V The liiant battleship Yamato under attack from American Liberator bombers on October 26, 1944. Sister ship to the 64,200-ton Musashi, sunk in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, she finally went down off

Okinawa.

The Japanese battleship Fuso Displacement: 34,700

Armament:

tons.

twelve 14-inch, fourteen

6-inch, eight 5-inch, and sixteen

guns, plus three aircraft. 4- to 12-inch

Armour:

25-mm

8- to 12-inch turrets, IJ- to 7-inch decks, 6- to 12-inch control tower. Speed: 24 7 knots. Radius 1 1 ,800 miles at 1 6 knots. belt,

:

698

feet.

Beam: 108i

feet.

Length

:

Draught:

31 J feet

Complement:

1,396.

The Japanese Displacement: 11,262

light carrier tons.

Armament: eight 5-inch and forty-eight 25-mm guns, and 168 5-inch rocket launchers, plus up to

Armour:

30

aircraft.

at

18 knots.

none.

Speed: 28 knots Radius: 9,236 miles Length: 712 feet Beam: 75^ feet Draught; 211 feet.

Complement:

2324

785.

Zuiho

2325

pilots were incapable of that his measuring up to the U.S. airmen and sent them instead against 3rd Fleet. At the cost of heavy losses one of them scored a direct hit on the light carrier Princeton. Explosions and fires rent the unhappy vessel and caused heavy losses amongst the ships which went to her rescue. So Rear-Admiral Sherman ordered her to

be finished off with a torpedo.

Halsey's controversial decision Halsey now assvmied that Kurita's force no longer offered a threat. He therefore took his entire fleet north to attack Ozawa's carriers, so completely taking the Japanese bait. His reaction has since been the subject of lively discussion in the U.S. Navy and Army. The day after his victory he explained his decision as follows:

seemed childish to me to guard San Bernardino Strait, I concentrated TF 38 during the night and steamed north to attack the Northern Force at dawn. I believed that the Center Force had been so heavily damaged in the Sibuyan Sea that it could no longer be considered a serious menace to Seventh

"As

it

statically

A Smoke

rises

from burning

docks and shore installations of the former American naval base of Cavite City in Manila Bayhit by carrier-based planes of the U.S. Navy.

From the information given by tactical reconnaissance in the early morning of the 24th, Admiral Halsey deduced that he could leave all enemy forces observed in the south-east to be dealt with by Kinkaid and that he himself should concentrate on the larger enemy force apparently intending to pass through the San Bernardino Strait. As one can never be too strong in attack, he ordered ViceAdmiral McCain to join him. Between 1026 and 1350 hours. Task Force 38 flew

Fleet."

Nimitz's instructions

his attention

259 sorties against Kurita's force, concentrating most of its attacks on the giant (64,200-ton) battleship Musashi. In spite of protective A. A. fire from nearly 130 guns, the Musashi was hit by 19 tor-

pedoes and 17 bombs and went down during the evening with half her crew. The heavy cruiser Myoko had to be sent back to Brunei; three other cruisers suffered minor damage. These attacks forced the Japanese admiral to turn about and caused him to be late on the schedule agreed with Nishimura. No Japanese planes were used in this first engagement. Admiral Fukudome, C.-in-C. of the 2nd Air Fleet in the Philippines, considered

As we can

see, Halsey greatly exaggerated the effects of his aircraft on Kurita's force, but he could not know that the hangars of the four enemy carriers, of whose approachhehad just been informed, were half empty. He had to ask himself if his reconnaissance had given him the full tally of this new force. Moreover, by sailing northwards, Halsey was conscious of obeying the instructions of Nimitz who, as we have seen, required him to consider as his main mission the destruction of an important part of the Japanese fleet if the opportunity arose. This reveals the serious snags in the organisation of command as conceived by the Pentagon, for if the 3rd Fleet had been under MacArthur, there is no doubt that he would have forbidden it to leave the San Bernardino Strait uncovered. Though he was told just before night-

2327

that Kurita had turned eastwards again, Halsey refused to part with his battleships, not wishing to leave them without air protection and wanting to give his carriers the cover of their guns. Mitscher, Bogan, and Vice-Admiral W. A. fall

Lee, the last of

no mood

V The Lexington

at sea, with

Hellcats parked forward. Together with the Essex, she formed the heart of Task Force 38, the Fast Carrier Task Force of the U.S. Pacific Fleet,

commanded by Vice-Admiral Marc A. Mitscher. During the Battle of Cape Engano the Task Force accounted for four carriers

and two

destroyers of Admiral

Ozawa's 3rd

Fleet.

whom commanded Task

disapproved of their cominitiative, but Halsey was in to extemporise and they gave in.

Force 34, mander's

all

Kinkaid destroys Nishimura and Shima In

Leyte

Gulf,

Vice-Admiral

Kinkaid

was hourly following the movements of Nishimura and Shima. He spent the afternoon setting a series of ambushes for them in Surigao Strait. He had six old

^^-r:

:««;*ej-

^5^.

battleships, eight cruisers, and 28 destroyers, whereas his adversary had only

19 warships altogether.

As Vice-Admiral Kinkaid sailed up the Surigao Strait between 2300 hours on October 24 and 0300 hours on the 25th, Nishimura was attacked by 30 P.T. boats, which fired torpedoes; all of them missed.

A few minutes later his force, steaming in line ahead, was caught in a crossfire from the destroyers of the Eastern and Western

Attack Groups under Captain Coward and Commander Phillips. The battleship Fuso was hit, and 30 minutes later broke in two; three destroyers were wrecked. Though hit, Nishimura's flagship, the battleship Yamashiro, maintained her course and, followed by the cruiser Mogami, sailed into Leyte Gulf. At 0353 hours Rear-Admiral G. L. Weyler's six battleships "crossed the T" and opened fire

on the Japanese, loosing

off 285 14-

and 16-inch shells. Mogami succeeded in turning about, but Yamashiro capsized and sank at 0419 hours, taking down with her her obstinate admiral and almost all her crew. At this moment Shima appeared, having followed Nishimura some 30 miles behind. It did not take him long to sum up the situation, and at 0425 hours he decided on a "temporary withdrawal". In doing so he came under attack from the P.T. boats then, when dawn came, from the 7th Fleet's aircraft. All told, out of 19 Japanese ships which ventured into this trap, only two survived, including the old destroyer Shigure which had so often flirted with death in the Solomon Islands. RearAdmiral J. B. Oldendorf lost 39 men killed

A The deck of the escort carrier Kitkun Bay shrouded in smoke from bursting Japanese shells. She was one of six escort carriers in the "Taffy 3" (TG 77.4.3) group commanded by RearAdmiral Clifton Sprague, which fought a desperate action in the Battle off Samar against the " numerically superior Force "A commanded by Admiral Kurita.

and 114 wounded.

Kurita attacks again On board their floating H.Q., the amphibious force flagship Wasatch, Kinkaid and his staff hardly had time to congratulate themselves on their night victory at Surigao before the astounding news reached them that off Samar Island Task Group 77.4, consisting of 6 escort carriers and 20 destroyers under RearAdmiral Thomas L. Sprague, was engaging a heavy Japanese force. When asked by Kinkaid at 0412 hours "Is Task Force 34 guarding San Bernardino Strait?" Halsey had replied: "Negative. TF 34 is with carrier groups now engaging enemy carrier force." 2329

A The American destroyer Hoel, under Commander L. S. Kintherger, took part in the gallant delaying action fought by Task Group 77.4.3 on October 25. Despite the disparity in armament and speed, the Hoel selected the battleship Kongo as her target and succeeded in launching half her torpedoes, in spite of sustaining heavy damage to her bridge and superstructure. With only two guns still operative, the Hoel launched her remaining torpedoes at the heavy cruiser Haguro. By now Hoel was too seriously damaged to maintain speed and she came under a murderous fire from the Japanese fleet, sustaining more than 40 shell hits. The order to abandon ship was given only after a shell in the engine room brought her to a standstill: she was already listing to port and on

fire.

She sank

at 0855.

A

Kinkaid had misinterpreted ambiguous instructions from Halsey which said that Task Force 34 "will be formed" to block the San Bernadino Strait-a statement of future intention, not of fact. Kinkaid was now exposed to attack by vastly

more powerful Kurita's

forces. force, much

less

heavily

damaged than Halsey had supposed, had returned to the attack at the steady speed of 20 knots. Nishimura's catastrophe had in no way put Kurita off his intention of making for Leyte Gulf and destroying everything he found there. At 0658 hours on October 25, the first shells fell on the American ships nearest the Japanese, Task Group 77.4.3 (RearAdmiral Clifton A. F. Sprague). victory had depended on materiel superiority, the Americans would have suffered total defeat. No U.S. ship had a gun over 5-inch in calibre and the escort carriers' top speed was 20 knots. Kurita, If

on the other hand, had the 33 14-, 16-, and 18-inch guns of his four battleships, the 8- and 6.1-inch guns of his eight cruisers, and the torpedoes of his 15 destroyers. And the slowest of his ships could do five knots more than the fastest of the Americans'. But his first order was "General chase". This was a blunder, as it prevented any concerted action.

Gallant resistance The Americans, in spite of what could only seem a desperate situation from the point of view of materiel, conducted themselves with gallantry and a spirit of both sacrifice and initiative. Whilst the escort carriers

'A

^

^

0^' ^ h-^L

-s

commanded by Admiral Sprague

protected themselves behind a smoke screen or took refuge in the rainstorms, the U.S. destroyers fired off their torpe-

does and then opened up with their guns. In the air, Task Group 77.4's planes flew back empty over their targets in increasing numbers, after dropping their last bombs, to draw the Japanese fire.

The Japanese

fleet retires

This confusion allowed the Japanese no time to take advantage of their enor-

mous numerical and materiel superiority. The carrier Gambler Bay was sunk by the 8-inch shells of the cruiser Chikuma which, together with her sister-ship Chokai, was then sunk by Commander R L. Fowler's torpedo-bombers. The dest royer Jo/ins^on torpedoed the /Cumano then, though hit by three 14-inch shells, went on fighting until the last of her guns

was destroyed. The Hoel and the escort destroyer Samuel B. Roberts met with an equally heroic end. These sacrifices were not in vain, as the heavy cruiser Suzuya was sunk in its turn. So E. B. Potter and Admiral Nimitz are right when they say of the battle off Samar: "The history of the United States Navy records no more glorious two hours of resolution, sacrifice, and success." Rear-Admiral C. A. Sprague writes: "At 0925 my mind was occupied with dodging torpedoes when near the bridge I heard one of the signalmen yell, 'Goddammit, boys, they're getting away!' I could not believe my eyes, but it looked as if the whole Japanese Fleet was indeed retiring. However, it took a whole series of reports from circling planes to convince me. And still I could not get the fact to soak into my battle-numbed brain. At best, I had expected to be swimming by this time."

.^.^.U^b

^ The American escort carrier Gambler Bay was also a member Group 77.4.3. She was launched on November 22, 1943

of Task

as a "Christmas gift" to the Navy from the Kaiser Vancouver shipyard-one over the year's allotment of 18. Armed with a single 5-inch gun, the Gambler Bay, and her sister ship Kalinin

Bay, were no match for the four Japanese cruisers that stood to and astern at ranges of less than 18,000 yards. Although badly hit, Kalinin Bay was kept afloat. Gambler Bay, however, after escaping damage for some

port

time was severely damaged on fire by hits from the

and

set

Chikuma. The remaining cruisers -Haguro, Chokai, and Tone-closed in for the kill and the order to abandon ship was given just 15 minutes before Gambler Bay turned turtle and

sank

at 0907.

"

The American destroyer Johnston Displacement: 2,050

tons.

Armament: five 5-inch, and six to ten or 20-mm A.A. guns, plus ten 21 -inch

40-

torpedo tubes. Speed 37 knots. :

Length 376J feet. Beam 39i feet. Draught: 17|feet. :

:

Complement:

300.

,.i^Li;^i-i^

The American escort carrier

Sangamon Displacement: 11,400

tons.

Armament: two 5-inch A. A., twentyeight 40-mm A. A., and twenty-two 20-mm A.A. guns, plus 30 aircraft. Speed: 18 knots. Length 553 feet. :

Beam: 114^ Draught: 32

feet.

feet (at full load).

Complement:

2332

1,080

i^jf^lf^.

¥vw

^SSlS^Sf'

r

w 2333

All Kurita had to do at that moment was draw in his forces so as to start again in better conditions, but on reflection he decided to pull out and before nightfall he had returned to the San Bernardino to

Strait.

which he would most likely have had pay within the following 48 hours with

for

an equally crushing

defeat.

Kamikaze V A

barrage of anti-aircraft

shells bursts in the sky

and

a

Kurita's withdrawal did not put an end

Task Group

Some

plume

to the troubles of

bombers attack the American

hours later Vice-Admiral T. Ohnishi sent out his new weapon, the kamikazes. One of them sank the escort carrier Saint

of black smoke rises from burning ship as Japanese

fleet.

2334

and

five

others caused losses and

Kinkaid five ships, 23 planes, 1,130 men and 913 wounded.

killed

From the somewhat confused

explanations of his decision he has given since the war, it turns out that he thought he was up against Task Force 38, and that he reckoned he had carried out his mission when his ships reported the destruction of three or four light carriers and several cruisers. The least that can be said is that he missed the chance of a great victory to

Lo,

damage to five more. By the end of the day the battle off Samar had cost Thomas

77.4.

Ozawa caught At midnight on October 25, Admiral Ozawa had only 29 fighters and bombers left, whereas Halsey was bearing down on him with ten fast carriers, whose planes were to carry out 527 sorties in six waves from dawn to dusk. The first wave took off at 0540 hours. It caught the Japanese forces sailing north toward Halsey off Cape Engaho, sank the light carrier Chitose and left the fieet carrier Zuikaku so badly damaged that Ozawa had to transfer his flag to a cruiser. The second wave set fire to the light carrier Chiyoda, which was then left limping behind. Towards mid-day Mitscher sent up his third wave of 200 planes. This settled

its

account with the Zuikaku,

the last survivor of the six carriers which had bombed Pearl Harbor. She succumbed under the blows of three torpedoes at 1414 hours. About an hour later, the fourth wave sank the light carrier Zuiho.

Halsey and the pursuit This success was only partial, however, as Halsey could not turn a deaf ear to Kinkaid's S.O.S., which came first in code then in clear. At 0848 he ordered McCain's task group to hasten to the rescue then, shortly before 1 100 hours, on an order from Nimitz, he sent Task Force 34 and Bogan's task group southwards. The Japanese withdrawal was greatly helped by these detachments, though Rear-Admiral Du Bose's cruisers did finish off the Chiyoda with gunfire and sink two of Ozawa's destroyers. The latter also lost the light cruiser Tama, shattered by a clutch of torpedoes from the submarine Jallao. Leyte Gulf, the greatest naval battle of all time, had involved 244 ships totalling 2,014,890 tons. By comparison, Jutland brought together under Scheer and Jellicoe some 254 ships totalling 1,616,836 tons. Thirty-two ships were lost:

Japanese Battleships Aircraft-carriers Escort carriers

U.S.

3

4

1

2

Cruisers Destroyers

10

9

3

Totals

26

6

Tonnage 306,000 37,000 These figures reveal the crushing defeat inflicted on the Japanese Navy, although Ozawa had carried out his decoy mission

Yamashita trapped in the Philippines

A Admiral William F. Halsey, pugnacious Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Navy's 3rd Fleet at the Battle of Leyte Gulf

brilliantlv.

Japan's impossible task

Indeed Yamashita was virtually cut off in the archipelago and, what is more, could only move his troops from one

When

difficulty,

island to another with the greatest of

questioned after the capitulation by an American commission of enquiry about the consequences of this battle, Admiral Yonai, Navy Minister in General Koiso's cabinet, replied: "Our defeat at Leyte was tantamount to the loss of the Philippines. When you took the Philippines, that was the end of our resources."

whereas his adversary had complete liberty of movement and almost unlimited supplies. In spite of a superiority of men and materiel, which increased in proportion to the Japanese losses,

MacArthur never used overwhelm-

ing strength in hammer-blow attacks, but showed the same qualities as a tactician as he had done in the Papua

2335

lost 3,508 killed and 12,076 wounded, two-thirds of these only lightly. On the same day it was relieved by the U.S. 8th Army.

divisions,

MacArthur moves on

A The escort carrier St Lo, last victim of the Battle off Samar. Hit by one of the earliest kamikaze attacks, she sank in less than 30 minutes.

days of stringency. If we realise that the reconquest of the Philippines required no fewer than 38 amphibious operations, we can see that no further comment is necessary unless it be to add to the praise of MacArthur a tribute to his airmen, Generals G. C. Kenney and E. C. Whitehead, and his sailors. Admirals T. C. Kinkaid and D. E. Barbey. In the days following the landing on Leyte, nearly 50,000 Japanese still managed to get across to the island. The "no withdrawal" defence of Leyte fell to the Japanese 35th Army (LieutenantGeneral Sasaku Suzuki). But its adversary, the U.S. 6th Army, increased from 101,000 men on November 12 to over 183,000 on December 2. MacArthur was cooking up one of his specials for Yamashita: on December 7 his 77th Division made a surprise landing in the Gulf of Ormoc on the west side of Leyte. Stabbed in the back, the 35th Army crumpled, then collapsed. "I am exhausted. We have no food. The enemy are now within 500 meters from us. Mother, my dear wife and son, I am writing this letter to you by dim candle light. Our end is near. What will be the future of Japan if this island should fall into enemy hands? Our air force has not arrived.

General

Yamashita

has

not

arrived.

Hundreds of pale soldiers of Japan are awaiting our glorious end and nothing else. This is a repetition of what occurred in the Solomons, New Georgia, and other islands. How well are the people of Japan prepared to fight the decisive battle with .?" the will to win This was a last letter from a soldier of the Japanese 1st Division a few days before December 26, the end of the battle, when the Japanese had run out of men. 80,577 of them died, and 878 were taken prisoner. The U.S. 6th Army, with seven .

.

Without waiting to clear up on Leyte, MacArthur pressed on to Panay and Negros; then, when Yamashita had dropped his guard, Brigadier-General W. C. Dunckel's Western Visayan Task Force landed on Mindoro on December 15. This was 310 miles north of Leyte and it was taken without the loss of a single man. It brought U.S. aircraft to within striking distance of Luzon, the bay of Manila and Lingayen Gulf. The Philippines were now cut in two and Japanese communications with the Dutch East Indies were almost severed. Lingayen Gulf, from where the Japanese first landed on Luzon on December 22, 1941, was MacArthur's next objective. For this he gave I and XIV Corps (Major-Generals Innis W. Swift and Oscar W. Griswold respectively) to the 6th Army. The divisions involved were the 6th and 43rd (I Corps) and 37th and 41st (XIV Corps). Transport and supplies were to be the job of III and VII Amphibious Forces. After a decoy action to make Yamashita think that the invasion of Luzon would come from Mindoro, the Americans landed on January 9, 1945, and met no stronger opposition than some sporadic mortar fire. A week later they were 30 miles along the road to Manila for the loss of 900 men, including 250 killed. In the restricted waters off-shore the

kamikaze corps, under Vice-Admiral Takijiro Ohnishi, had some success against the U.S. 7th Fleet. In the Mindoro operation on December 15 one of them damaged the cruiser Nashville, causing her to turn

back with 131 dead and 158 wounded on board, including Vice-Admiral A. D. Struble. During the Lingayen landings between January 1 and 31, 54 U.S. and Australian ships were attacked by these suicide planes but, apart from the escort carrier Ommaney Bay and two small ships, they all survived. On January 6, however, on the bridge of the battleship

New Mexico, Lieutenant-General Sir HerLumsden, British liaison officer with MacArthur, was killed, giving the AngloSaxons a foretaste of what they were to get off Okinawa. bert

'*^«fcK».

CHAPTER

;:::-

i;iL'--*.^.^

,

156

The Struggle for Leyte by Richard Humble

The

first Americans to return to the Philippines were a small Ranger task force with their destroyer transports

and

escort.

The Dinagat Attack Group, under RearAdmiral Arthur D. Struble, transported the 500 men of Company D, 6th Ranger Battalion, U.S. Army, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel H. A. Mucci. In the darkness of October 17 and 18, 1944 they were to demolish the Japanese radio location equipment on four islands at the two entrances to Leyte Gulf. If these electronic feelers were not ripped out, it was feared that they would signal the arrival of the invasion fleet on the 20th.

The main landings were planned for mid-day to allow a daylight run into the gulf, in which floating mines and obstacles had been reported. Throughout the morning the warships moved into position, and the transports halted about eight miles off the beach. The landing craft were hoisted out, and began circling round their larger parent ships. The noise and apparent confusion of a major amphibious operation had begun to build

A Improvised supply dump on the beach at Leyte.

Soon

after the

landings, supplies were arriving so quickly and in such disarray that the dumps began to spill over onto the airfields, with a

consequent threat

to air

operations.

up.

From 0700, fire support units had been in action in the pre-landing shoot. First were the battleships Mississippi, Maryland, and West Virginia. At 0900 to arrive

2337

they were relieved by the Close Covering Group, after they had sent 30 shells per main battery gun rumbling over the fleet into the jungle coast line. manoeuvres, these Throughout and retorpedo-bombers, fighters, connaissance aircraft from the 3rd and 7th Fleets made attacks on the airfields in northern Mindanao, Cebu, Negros,

Panay, and Leyte, and conducted sweeps over the surrounding areas. Rear-Admiral D. E. Barbey, whose air plan was administered by Captain Whitehead, had ordered a break in the bombing and strafing of the beach 45 minutes before H-hour. This was a departure from the standard operating procedure of that time. The gap was covered by highangled naval gunfire and rocket barrages from 0915 to 1000. By 0930 the bombardment was reaching its cacophonous climax and the landing craft had formed up for the 5,000 yard dash for the beach. At 0943 the signal flag was run up on the control vessel PC-623, and preceded by 11 L.C.I, rocket the boats went in. In a couple of minutes the L.C.I.s had fired 10,000 4.5-inch rockets in a close pattern over the northern and southern craft,

V An American

light A. A. gun, on the edge of Tacloban In the background, two heavy guns pound the Japanese lines. MacArthur was later to

dug

in

airfield.

claim that by November 7, 1944, 144 Japanese aircraft had been shot down over Leyte.

SSF55

vh.

landing areas. Behind the L.C.I.s came the first wave of amphtrack tanks, followed by L. V.T.s and then the amphtrack personnel carriers. By the time the fourth wave had hit

"Red" Beach

in the northern landing to hit back with mortars sited in the neighbouring

area, the

enemy had begun

hills. With the correct range and deflection they dropped bombs on the L.C. V.(P. )s from the Elmore and sank a boat from Aquarius, killing 3 men and injuring 15. On the southern beaches a 75-mm battery near Catmon Hill took on the destroyer Bennion, straddling her repeatedly and wounding flve men with a

near miss. Artillery and mortar fire fell on "Blue" Beach as the 96th Division

was landing. Both the Japanese and the Americans realised that they had begun a battle that was of considerable strategic importance. If the Japanese lost the Philippines they would no longer control the sea-lanes to the oil of the Netherlands

East Indies, tin and rubber from Malaya, and rice from Indo-China, nor have access to the varied mineral resources of the islands themselves. The American leaders Roosevelt, Nimitz, and the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff had

been persuaded by General MacArthur, and also by the course of the war, that the capture of the Philippines would be easier than that of Formosa, and would liberate a large and loyal population. It would also cut off supplies to Japan and give the Americans a base for operations leading to the invasion of the

Japanese home islands.

Yamashita's threadbare forces With

this in mind, each adversary approached the battle with as much determination and as many resources a> he could muster. Field-Marshal Terauchi (Southern

Army)

whose area included the had made the 14th Area Army

Philippines,

and the 4th Air Army responsible for their defence. The 14th Army was so under strength that he had ordered it to concen trate on the defence of Luzon and regard the southern islands as of secondary importance. The 14th

Army

consisted

of

eight

infantry divisions and three independent mixed brigades. On October 6, Lieutenant General T. Yamashita, the "Tiger of Malaya", had assumed command. He

m^^

made Lieutenant-General

S. Suzuki, with three infantry divisions and two mixed brigades, responsible for the defence of the central and southern islands. Suzuki in turn gave the 16th Division, under Lieutenant-General S. Makino, the task of defending Leyte. The island which Makino had to defend is about 115 miles long north to south, and between 15 and 45 miles wide east to west. It is rugged and mountainous, except for a strip of flat land running north from Ormoc in the west, and a broad fertile valley in the north-east which narrows and fades out halfway down the east coast. The main Japanese

were one each at Tacloban near the entrance to the San Juanico Strait and at Dulag 11 miles to the south, with three at Burauen further inland. It was on two beaches near Tacloban and Dulag that MacArthur planned to land. He was assembling his invasion forces at Hollandia, which had become the main base in New Guinea, and at Manus in the Admiralty Islands. Naval forces

Army

(X and XXIV Corps), under Lieutenant-General W. Krueger, provided the land forces and the 5th U.S.A.A.F. the supporting air force.

Carrier strikes

Slightly to the south, the 24th Division cleared the Leyte valley

In preparation for the landings, the 15 fast carriers of the 3rd Fleet made a series of heavy raids on Japanese bases in

A American troops move up through Tacloban. In this area the 1st Cavalry Division swung up to the north to mop up part of the Japanese 16th Division, cross over to Samar, and then launch a series of amphibious landings along the north coast.

Okinawa, Luzon, and Formosa. They

airstrips

came under very heavy

consisted of the U.S. 7th Fleet (ViceAdmiral T. C. Kinkaid), which included two cruisers and two destroyers from the Royal Australian Navy, and the Ariadne, a fast minelayer of the Royal Navy. The U.S. 3rd Amphibious Force had joined it from the central Pacific. The U.S. 3rd Fleet, under Halsey, which included four fast carrier groups, was to cover and support MacArthur, but would remain under Nimitz's orders. The U.S. 6th

during these operations and between October 10 and 17 lost 26 aircraft and had two cruisers put out of action. The Japanese, however, claimed that they had sunk two battleships and 11 carriers, and damaged many others, for the loss of 320 aircraft. Basing their moves on these spurious successes they altered their plans for the defence of Leyte and the Philippines. Admiral S. Toyoda, Commander-inChief of the Japanese Combined Fleet, ordered the land-based aircraft to undertake the decisive battle for the Philippines under the operational title "SHO-1". The 2nd Air Fleet (350 operational aircraft) together with 150 carrier aircraft of Vice-Admiral J. Ozawa's 3rd and 4th Carrier Divisions, moved to Formosa. The 5th Fleet (Vice-Admiral K. Shima),

aerial

attack

and drove on round to the north of the Ormoc valley. As it was driving south along the valley, it met elements of the 77th Division, which had landed just south of Ormoc on December 7.

2339

A An American jeep colur moves through Tacloban, liberated on October 20.

consisting of the 16th and 21st Cruiser Squadrons, was ordered to sail from the Inland Sea to seek out and destroy any

its

maximum

strength to hold the

in the action.

Yamashita protested, but the order was repeated on the 22nd, two days after the American landings, and so he

Concurrently with these moves the Imperial General Headquarters instructed Southern Army to fight the decisive battle on Leyte instead of Luzon. Terauchi ordered the 14th Area Army to

ordered the 35th Army to concentrate for the defence of Leyte. The naval section of Imperial General Headquarters subsequently discovered that the reports of U.S. naval losses were inaccurate, and ordered the 5th Fleet to make for the Ryukyu islands. This information, however, was not passed on to Yamashita. The land forces were now committed to Leyte without naval support.

American ships damaged

5th fleet moves on

2340

deploy island.

MacArthur's powerful forces Mac Arthur had 200,000 men of General Walter Krueger's 6th Army, LieutenantGeneral C. Kenney's 2,500 combat aircraft, and the 7th Fleet-often called "MacArthur's Navy" which had an additional 500 aircraft.

The 3rd Fleet had

2342

-

1,000 aircraft as well as nearly 100 of the

most modern warships in the world. He would need these resources because the Leyte invasion would be conducted out of range of land-based aircraft. How-

MacArthur

did not exercise direct command over Halsey and the 3rd Fleet, who were under Nimitz and so could be ordered away to attack the Japanese ever,

fleet if it

approached.

Airstrips: the vital factor

I

;

I

I

I

The 7th Fleet had some small escort carriers, but they would be inadequate to defend the fleet and transports, and cover the beach-head if major units of the Japanese Navy or Air Forces succeeded evading the 3rd Fleet. Consequently it was essential that Kenney's Far East Air Forces should start operating from local airstrips as soon as the invasion forces had captured in

them.

With

this in

mind the invasion beaches

chosen were close coastal

airstrips

to,

near

or opposite, the

Tacloban

A American

troops celebrate the

capture of the first Japanese flag in the Philippines.

and

Dulag.

As soon as he heard of the landings, Suzuki (35th Army) instructed the 16th keep control of the airfields at all costs, and ordered Leyte to be reinforced by four battalions. On the October 22 Yamashita told him that he was to fight a decisive battle on Leyte and that he would be getting two divisions and an independent mixed brigade from Luzon. With further reinforcements from Davao and Cebu, Suzuki had the equivalent of four strong divisions on the island. If the decisive naval and air battles were successful, the Japanese land forces Division

to

Previous page:

A

Filipinos welcome troops ashore.

American

V American soldier helping his wounded comrade.

could be sent against the estimated two divisions which the Americans had put ashore. The 16th Division was ordered to hold a line Burauen-Dagami, whilst the bulk of the Japanese forces concentrated in the Carigara plain.

These deployments assisted the Americans, who advanced rapidly against light opposition, and by November 2 the 6th Army had reached a line Carigara 2343

A A Japanese Type

95 light

tank, knocked out during the

American advance, comes under inspection. Designed in 1935, the Type 95 remained in production until 1943, but was totally

Jaro - Dagami - Abuyog. They had an advanced detachment at Baybay and had captured all five airstrips.

obsolete by Allied standards

when Japan entered

the war.

A> An L.V.T. and a Sherman spearhead the U.S. 6th Army's advance.

> The prompt

treatment of battle casualties plays an important part in the morale of fighting troops.

2344

''I

have returned"

Before examining the American plans for the break-out from their beach-head, let us recall an incident which took place on the first day. General George MacArthur had last visited Leyte Gulf in 1903 as a 2nd Lieutenant of Army Engineers. Forty-one years later he boarded a landing craft with President Osmena, Resident Commissioner Romulo, Chief-of-Staff Sutherland, and Air Commander Kenney. After the craft had grounded, MacArthur waded through the knee-deep surf, inspected the beach, and walked inland about 200 yards to examine the effects of the bombardment. It may not have looked like the return of a conquering hero, but MacArthur made up for this in his broadcast on the "Voice of Freedom" network.

Standing on the beach in front of the microphone, his hands shook and his voice betrayed his deep emotion: "People of the Philippines, I have returned. By the grace of Almighty God our forces stand again on Philippine soil."

He urged the population to rally to him, and also introduced the new president Sergio Osmefiia. A passionate yet restrained speech, it was an outlet for powerful emotions held in check and only betrayed earlier when, with a smile, he had remarked "Well, believe it or not, we're here." After the war General Yamashita said that he had imagined that the film of MacArthur's return had been mocked up in New Guinea. Had he known that the general was at the front he would have launched the whole strength of the Japanese forces in a suicide raid on MacArthur's headquarters to avenge the death of Admiral Yamamoto. Meanwhile unloading was proceeding at a fast and sometimes chaotic rate. L.S.T.s originally intended for "Red" Beach were diverted

to

Tacloban

air-

^w-,"-S>. •./••.'.'.2f;f.-' -^=.-

^ strip,

and here the rapidly-growing supply

dump began

to restrict the

airfield engineers.

work

of the

On October 24, Kenney

made

the drastic threat that everything not removed from the airstrip by dawn on the 25th would be bulldozed.

^ ^j^

f^v

Engineers' nightmare The airstrips proved to be almost unusable, despite the hard work and constant attention of the Army Engineers and Filipino labourers. The Dulag strip was still soft, with many rough spots, on October 25, but served as an emergency landing ground during the Leyte sea battle. Tacloban was a little better, despite the fact that the water table was only 18 inches below the surface. One engineer reported that "an airstrip there could at best be a thin slice of coral metal laid upon a jelly mold".

Krueger visited

this airstrip

and

oi

tol'

the engineers that unless they started laying gravel, they would be digging foxholes for their lives in 24 hours. The

2345

< Men

of the 7th Division, after

landing at Dulag, push on through Burauen, some ten miles inland. The division had previously seen action in the Aleutians, on Attu, and in the Marshalls, on Kwajalein, winning Presidential Citations

on both. Inset: American infantry, pinned down by Japanese

'\*:^

X*

:

^^

work was done, and again saved about 100

pilots,

was so bad that about

V Heavy going

in a

swamp. Note

Automatic Rifle (foreground), and the mortar bomb containers being carried by the second from right.

man

strip

a quarter of the

were destroyed when they crashlanded or nosed over on soft spots. Three of the fast carrier groups remained in the area to provide air cover and attack the Japanese airfields which were beginning to receive reinforcements from Formosa. Japanese troop reinforcements began to arrive via Ormoc, but the shipping and naval escorts suffered heavy losses. Four battalions from Davao and Cebu arrived between the 26th and 28th. The main body of the 1st Division and some 2,000 men of the 26th Division from Luzon were landed between November 1 and 2. The convoy carrying the remainder of the 1st Division and some 10,000 of the 26th Division left Manila on November 8th. It came under low level attack by the 5th U.S.A.A.F. and sustained considerable superficial damage. The men were landed without their equipment. A day later the empty convoy was caught again by the 5th U.S.A.A.F. and all but one ship were sunk. A day later, aircraft from Halsey's carriers attacked a convoy carrying the aircraft

the man (centre right) being pulled out of a particularly soft piece of ground by his comrades, the soldier with the Browning

this

though the surface

remainder of the 26th Division, and for the loss of nine aircraft, sank all the transports and four of the escorting destroyers.

Japanese reinforcements Between October 22 and December

11,

the Japanese succeeded in reinforcing the original garrison of 15,000 men with some 45,000 men and 10,000 tons of stores. Their operations cost them one light cruiser, eight destroyers, six escort craft, and 17 transports -shipping they could ill afford to lose. Despite this, the 35th Army was outnumbered by the 6th Army, whose strength stood at 183,000 by December 2. By November 1, Suzuki realised that he was up against two American corps, each of two divisions, and that he lacked the strength to carry out his original plan. He ordered the 1st Division and the truncated 26th, when they arrived at Carigara and Jaro respectively, to hold the U.S. X Corps in the north. The remaining reinforcements were sent to assist the 16th Division under attack by

the U.S. XXIV Corps in the south. In the ensuing heavy fighting the Americans were halted near Limon and to the west of Jaro. At a conference with Terauchi, on November 9 and 10, Yamashita urged that the reinforcement of Leyte was weakening the defences of Luzon, and proving too costly in transports and naval vessels.

borne counter-attack with the 40 aircraft and 250 paratroops of the 2nd Raiding Group, which had flown in from Japan. Yamashita decided that a joint air and ground attack should be launched near the end of the month, preceded by an air attack between the 23rd and 27th.

Terauchi agreed that there was little hope of holding the island and that supply operations should cease.

the counter-attack spectacular, but fumbled, attack 27, three transport aircraft carrying demolition troops were sent to crash-land on the strips at Dulag and In

a

on November

Yamashita plans

.

.

.

Tacloban. Despite this, Yamashita ordered the 35th Army to use the 26th Division on the Burauen front with a view to launching an attack with the 16th Division to recapture some of the airfields. Suzuki, who had hoped to concentrate his forces in the north, was now forced to send the Division along the Albuera26th Burauen track and the 102nd Division to the Mount Pina area to protect the right of the 1st Division, holding out at Limon. The 4th Air Army proposed an air-

One aircraft crashed on Buri airstrip killing all its occupants, the second hit the beach and most of the men escaped, and the third landed in the surf near the H.Q. of the U.S. 728th Amphibious Bat-

between Rizal and Tarragona. A brisk hand-to-hand fight ensued, in which some Japanese were killed and others

talion,

escaped to the jungle. A second and more serious attempt was made on the Buri strip on the night of December 5-6. About 150 infantrymen

r:^

^m ?^i

%: %

.,M^.:^^ ^ .'^

•;

^^'

V American "Long Tom" 155-mm guns directed at Japanese positions further inland. The Long Tom was probably the best gun used by the Americans in the war, having a first class performance, as well as ruggedness and good cross-country movement capabilities.

make

a fresh landing south of Ormoc, wedge between the two wings

to drive a

of his opponents.

On the morning of the 7th, the U.S. 77th Division landed four miles south of Ormoc and met no resistance. The convoy and escorts, however, came under attack after the landing and during the return, and lost two destroyers sunk and two

damaged

to kamikaze attacks. Suzuki was forced to switch his 16th and 26th Divisions from the front to oppose this landing. On December 10, however, the 77th beat him in the race for Ormoc. With the main Japanese base in American hands, Yamashita told Suzuki that he was on his own. Japanese resistance began to crumble fast. On December 20, X Corps and the 77th Division met at Cananga, and part of this force turned west. On Christmas Day, with the help of a force moved by sea from Ormoc, it captured Palompon, the only port of any

significance left to the Japanese. Though organised resistance ceased,

A The Japanese heavy cruiser Nachi under air attack in Manila Bay on November 5, 1944. She was sunk in this

had worked down through the mountains and attacked American troops bivouacking near the strip. The Japanese were driven off at dawn.

attack.

Paratroop landings

fail

Through a piece of bad co-ordination, the paratroop attack came 20 hours later. Between 39 and 40 aircraft, carrying about 15 to 20 men apiece, roared over Tacloban and Dulag. At the former they were destroyed or driven off by the A. A. fire, while the Dulag section crash-landed killing crew and paratroopers. However, a drop from 35 different aircraft on the Burauen strips met with greater success. The Japanese set fire to stores, fuel, ammunition, and some small liaison aircraft. For two days and nights ground crews and other air force personnel stalked one another and the Japanese, before the paratroopers were eliminated. Ironically, the weather had proved more effective than these airborne sorties. for the U.S.A.A.F. had abandoned the Burauen strips, which had become waterlogged, leaving only rear echelon units behind. With his X Corps held up near Limon,

and XXIV Corps delayed in its advance north from Baybay, Krueger decided to 2350

ffvty

'•^..

there were still groups of Japanese obeying Yamashita's order to live off the country and keep up the struggle with the Americans. As the official naval history comments "Japanese unorganised resistance can be very tough." Following his instructions to keep up the struggle, Yamashita added a message explaining that the high command had decided to concentrate on the defence of Luzon, and that he was shedding "tears of remorse" for the tens of thousands of his countrymen who must fight to the death on Leyte.

I

Mopping up continued until March 17, 1945. There was still over a full division of Japanese troops on the island. Some used the rugged and badly-mapped terrain for i t

I

guerrilla tactics, whilst small units tried to escape to Cebu across the 25 miles of the Camotes Sea. By March 1945, despite sweeps by the U.S. 77th Division, there were still several thousand Japanese at large. On March 17, two ships appeared off the coast and embarked Suzuki and part of his staff. For

a month they sailed in search of a Japanese-held port until on April 16 they were caught by U.S. aircraft off Negros,

and General Suzuki was killed. Small groups of Japanese continued to be hunted and killed by Filipino guerrillas until the end of the war. The Leyte campaign was a costly operation. The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps lost several hundred men on and around the island, in addition to the heavy losses sustained in the battle off Samar. V A Japanese destroyer The Army, not including the A.A.F., manoeuvres at high speed in an had 15,584 battle casualties, of which the effort to avoid the bombs of 3,508 killed were about equally distributed four B-25 Mitchells of the 30th between X and XXIV Corps. In January Bombardment Group, attacking their full strength stood at 257,766 officers

her in Ormoc Bay. During this action, 16 of the 20 Japanese

and men. fighters sent up to intercept the Understandably, estimates of Japanese bombers were shot down by casualties vary greatly. The 6th and 8th American escort fighters. Armies reported 80,557 confirmed dead, Overleaf; A Filipinos pass through the almost one-third of which had occurred American lines to the safety of during the mopping up operations. The the rear areas. American forces took only 828 Japanese V Local aid for the Americans prisoners.

in the

form of Filipino porters.

'^^fc.

b"^^^k

?:;i:i^<:

m^ ^^ ^DHx •^.-

k9^<1'

'%m>.

.^r. ^•^

2352

The Pacific submarine war •by Richard Humble

V An American submarine, one of the scourges of Japan 's surface communications. Note the

Goodyear "blimp" and the

Sikorsky R-4 helicopter hovering overhead.

i.

P

:

'im£:i-

-

J

\

.r

s

rV^^"'^'%.*t J*^

A The Japanese submarine KD3A boat. With a standard displacement of

1-53,

a Type

familiar

1,635 tons and a torpedo armament of eight 21-inch tubes and 16 torpedoes, she was launched on August 8, 1925, completed on March 30, 1927,

renumbered

1-153

on

May

5,

1942, surrendered to the

Americans

in 1945

and sunk

of the Atlantic" is a term yet histories rarely all, refer to the submarine war in the Pacific as the "Battle of the Pacific". Germany's failure to sever the Allied supply-routes across the Atlantic with her U-boats is well known, while the war beneath the sea on the other side of the world always seems to take second place to the dramatic battles fought on the surface. Yet, as

The "Battle

in

1946.

to

keep

strong naval task forces at sea for months on end, supplying themselves as they went, without having to return to base. The second was the "leap-frogging" offensive which by-passed outlying Japanese garrisons and concentrated on targets of vital strategic importance. But the third was the virtual destruction of Japanese shipping by American submarines. This not only prevented Japan from conveying her

by both sides during World War II shows how completely this position was transformed. Between January 1942 and the end of the war the Japanese managed to launch 106 new submarine hulls. The Americans launched 204. And the other side of the coin -the numbers of submarines lost to enemy action and accidental causes-is even more revealing. Between Pearl Harbor and their surrender

General Hideki Tojo himself admitted General MacArthur after Japan's surrender, there were three main reasons for the Allied victory in the Pacific. first

a

Type

KD6A

1-68.

boat. This type

was capable of diving to 245 feet, had a standard displacement of 1,400 tons, and an armament of six 21-inch tubes and 14 torpedoes. 1-68 was launched on June 26, 1933, completed on July 31, 1934, renumbered 1-168 in May 1942, and sunk by the U.S. submarine

July

27, 1943.

Scamp on

Pacific war became a one-sided conflict, this applied to the Japanese and

and

U.S. submarine arms as to every other sphere. At the beginning, in December 1941 the opposing submarine forces in the Pacific were fairly well balanced with only a slight advantage to the Japanese. The Imperial Combined Fleet had 60 submarines, the U.S. Pacific Fleet 55. But a glance at the numbers of submarines built

to

V The Japanese submarine

considerable reserves of manpower to the threatened sectors of her island empire. It also prevented her from supplying and reinforcing the troops already there. As far as materiel was concerned, the

was the American

ability to

The

,

the Japanese lost 125 submarines, the Americans only 54- and it must be borne m mind that for the first 18 months after

Pearl Harbor, until the Battle of the Atwas won in the summer of 1943, the U.S. Navy was fighting a two-ocean war. These are the basic statistics of the submarine war in the Pacific theatre, and they show how completely the Japanese submarine arm was dwarfed by that of the U.S. Pacific Fleet by the end of the war. But when the Japanese Combined Fleet had launched its bid for instant victory in December 1941 its leaders had accepted only expect dethat could they feat from a long-term war with the United States. Far more serious was their failure to grasp the correct function of the submarine in modern war. Like the tank, the submarine is an offensive weapon, forged to carry the assault home to the enemy. And if a fair comparison is to be drawn for the opposing submarine strategies used by the Americans and the Japanese in the Pacific, it may be lantic

found in the radically different ways in which the Germans and the Western Allies employed their tanks in the campaign of 1940. The Panzers were massed into, the "armoured wedge", the steel tip of the hurtling lance; the French and British still thought of the tank as the infantry support weapon par excellence. Even when the Allies did try to launch massed tank attacks before the final collapse came in the West, those attacks were essentially defensive, aimed at restoring stability to the shattered Allied So it was with the Pacific submarine war. By the last year of the war the American submariners were carrying out "wolf-pack" patrols as deadly as any undertaken by the German U-boat aces in their Atlantic heyday. The Japanese, however, had always cast their submarines in a defensive role. There had been a time when this decision had seemed to make sense for the Japanese Navy. In 1922 the Washington naval limitation treaties had sought to

A The Japanese submarine a Type

BI

boat. This boat

1-26,

was

launched in 1940, completed on November 6, 1941. She was

sunk

off Leyte in

October 1944.

front.

V The Japanese submarine

1-176,

a Type KD7 boat. She was a boat of 1,630 tons standard displacement, launched as 1-76 in 1941, completed as 1-176 on August 8, 1942, and sunk by the American destroyers '

Franks, Haggard, and Johnston on May 16, 1944.

The American Consolidated PBY-5A patrol

Engines: two Pratt & Whitney R-1 830-92 Twin Wasp radials, 1,200-hpeach. Armament; two .5-inch and .3-inch Browning machine guns, plus four 1,000- or 500-, or twelve 100-lb bombs, or four 650- or 325-lb depth bombs, or two

Mark 13-2 torpedoes. 1 79 mph at 7,000 feet Climb: 19 minutes 18 seconds to

Speed

:

0,000 feet. Ceiling: 14,700 feet. Range: 2,545 miles maximum. 1

Weight empty/loaded: 20,910/35,420

Span: 104

Crew;

2356

7-9.

lbs.

feet.

Length: 63 Height: 20

feet

10J inches.

feet 2 inches.

flying boat

anticipate a new international warshipbuilding race by "pegging" the strength ratios of the world's leading navies. This process had left Japan third in the league behind Britain and America. By that time it was perfectly obvious that the biggest naval rival whom Japan could expect to face in the event of any future war would be the United States and her Pacific Fleet based on the Hawaiian Islands. And it was the problem of tackling such a hypothetical threat with inferior numbers that gave birth to the defensive role of the Japanese submarine arm. As the U.S. Pacific Fleet steamed westward into Japanese waters, the Japanese submarines would launch repeated attacks, whittling down the American battle fleet until the Japanese surface fleet could meet it in battle on equal, if not superior, terms. But this was in the years before naval air power came into its own with the carrier task force. And it was based on an assumption which the events of World War I had already

proved fallacious.

The tension of the Anglo-German naval building race in the years before 1914 had conditioned the world to expect that the coming of war would speedily result in a dreadnought Trafalgar between the opposing battle fleets. But this did not happen; and even when the battle fleets did clash at Jutland in 1916 it was a hideous accident for which the Germans to compensate by running for home as best they could. For the Japanese in

programme, with results that have been abundantly described elsewhere in this

And this "battleship obsession" kept the Japanese submarine arm from expanding into a purely offensive role. history.

1

Only limited successes This is not to deny that the Japanese were capable of building good boats. During and after World War I they had studied the best (and worst) Western models and had drawn their own conclusions as to the optimum combination of speed, range, diving depth, and hitting-power. Of all the different types and modifications of submarine which the Japanese produced by the end of World War II, the Type Bl vessels may be taken as fairly typical of the Japanese fleet (as opposed to coastal defence) submarines. The Bl boats had a standard displacement of 2,198 tons, were capable of 23i knots on diesel and 8 knots on electric motors, had a cruising radius of 14,000 miles, and were possessed of an armament of one 5.5-inch gun, two 25-mm cannon, and six 21-inch torpedo tubes. They carried 17

J If

^M

'^^^

A Cramped accomodation on board an American submarine. Although first priority had to be given

to the

boat

's

armament and machinery, very careful thought was devoted to

torpedoes, plus a seaplane.

problems of habitahility, which had a considerable

the

Midway

influence on crew performance, especially on long patrols.

had

the this

12 months after Pearl Harbor, anti-climactic situation was re-

first

enacted. They could not entice the remnants of the U.S. Pacific Fleet to try the conclusion of a decisive action -and they had largely themselves to blame. Ever since her defeat of the Russian fleet at Tsushima in 1905, Japan had been in the forefront of current naval development. Japan's new battle fleet had been equipped with some of the toughest warships in the world, and the Washington treaties had been expressly intended to prevent her from building even more

formidable vessels. This forward thinking had lived on and had resulted in the Japanese aircraft-carrier building programme. But by the late 1930's it had been fatally compromised by the obsession with continued "super-battleship" construction-a paradoxical wedding of modernity and obsolescence. This meant that at the time of Pearl Harbor the Japanese Navy did not have a long-term carrier-building

But these fleet submarines were earmarked for scouting, not for strike-force duties. Again, the strategic

importance

was not lacking. Far from it. A classic example was Operation "K", on the eve of Midway. of this scouting role

"K" envisaged the use of submarines as refuelling bases for long-range scout flying boats. Based on French Frigate Shoals, the submarines were supposed to refuel the flying boats before they made the last air reconnaissance of Pearl Harbor to check that the U.S. Pacific Fleet was there, duly waiting to be lured Midway. But "K" The three Japanese submarines-/-i2i, 1-122, and I-123-iound that the Americans had arrived at French into the ambush at had to be abandoned.

Frigate Shoals themselves.

Yamamoto

did not get the information he needed to convert the strike at Midway into the final destruction of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, and his outer submarine patrol lines were thrown out of schedule by the setback. Nevertheless it fell to the sub-

2357

4

arm to win the biggest Japanese success at Midway, when Commander Tanabe of 1-16S. who had been reconnoitering Midway itself since the previous month, caught the immobilised carrier Yorktown with the destroyer Hamruann lying alongside and sank them both with a salvo of four torpedoes. AfttM- Midway the six-months' struggle for Guadalcanal ensued, and it was in this period that the Japanese submarine arm came the nearest it ever did to inaiine

"^^^

launching group operations against an fleet. The intense sea fighting in the Guadalcanal area ran the full gamut from cruiser-destroyer clashes to carrier duels and battleship actions, with the balance constantly on a knife-edge. In August-September 1942, the Japanese submarine force kept the situation fluid by temporarily neutralising the American carrier strength in the South-West Pacific. On August 31 the 1-26 crippled the Saratoga so badly that she remained hors

enemy

.

A

M^ m

113 UKpedoed tbe Wmsp astd laiprrao of her. There was so

tdsMvisifthte'bStBai^jaaTieraiad

('amk br her owe sade-is tbe saste DdKT adMaiaes Mem die
the

tiit l."5

Pacmc

K-ec-:

Qenl^ir^oniiiB- Japan caaaL tbe kscg figia: Idandb daaiiiL and ifcBoB^ainviOe - aaDwoa-; •wcwia

-

of Japas'f mjag~

mg

cruiser aiad .desscr peraie asteaapcs to s^i^p»v rarriaoiis. AimI mhi]e tMs »; a diaBge had coaBe owr tfcfanJaer atUkaoos to the J: •SeeL.

The American Northrop P-61 B Black

Engines: two Pratt & Whitney R-2800-65 Twin Wasp radials, 2,250-hpeach. Armament: four 20-mm cannon with 200 rounds per gun and four .5-inch Browning machine guns with 560 rounds per gun, plus up to four 1,600-ib bombs. Speed 366 mph at 30,000 feet. Climb 8 minutes 1 2 seconds to :

:

5,000 feet. Celling: 33,100 feet. Range 1 ,900 miles with drop tanks. 1

:

Weight empty/loaded: 21,282/38,000 lbs. Span: 66 feet. Length: 48 feet 11 inches Height 14 feet 2 inches

Crew:

2360

3.

Widow

night-fighter and intruder

;

The giant subs In 1942 the last and biggest Japanese "attack" submarines the giant "1-400" (Type STo) chiss were ordered. These boats were the biggest submarines ever built by any power, and the plan was to use them to destroy the Pacific exit of the Panama Canal. 1-400 and her sister-ships had a standard displacement of 3,530 tons. Their overall length was 400| feet and their beam 39;\ feet. They could cruise 37,500 miles and dive to 325 feet, and their twin shafts were driven by four sets of diesels. They were so big that provision was made for camouflaging them with dummy funnels while cruising

waters. Their armament was one 5.5-inch gun, ten 25-mm cannon (a sign that one of the biggest lessons of World War II, the danger of enemy air power, had not gone unlearned), and eight 21inch torpedo tubes. Each of them could carry three specially-designed seaplane bombers, dismantled and stacked in huge, watertight hangars, plus torpedoes and bombs for them. What the "Yamato" class battleships were to the surface fleet, the I-400's were to the submarine arm. But both ideas were based on fatal misconceptions. There was no point in building giant battleships if there were not in

home

enough carriers to keep off enemy aircraft. And there was no target which could possibly justify the construction of the I-400's - not even the Panama Canal, which

was not the only way the Allies could move up supplies for their fleets in the Pacific. As examples of how big submarines could be built, the I-400's stood alone. But they were white elephants. Only three of them were completed {1-400, 1-401, and 1-402). None of them was ready for service before

1945 (1-402

was not

A A Japanese merchantman meets its end and at the hands of a U.S. submarine in the wide reaches of the Pacific. The nature of Japan 's outer perimeter,

based on a series of small, scattered islands, without resources of their own, meant that Japan had to keep them supplied by means of a constant

completed until July of that year). Oddly stream of ships. Thus the enough all three survived the massive American submarines knew American bombing of Japan's naval bases where to look for their prey and surrendered to be sunk by the and their task was made the

Americans

in 1946.

Japan did not introduce a convoy system until late in the war. Even then, there

easier as

were insufficient escort craft

Useless fanaticism

give these small convoys

to

much

protection.

The three

1-400's are a perfect example of Santayana's dictum that fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim. Admiral Donitz and his U-boat flotillas not only had a good chance of strangling the British Isles by striking at their supply-routes: the U-boats came perilously close to doing so. Japan, on the other hand, could hardly even begin to embarrass the North American continent by submarine atIt is not so much a question of looking back with the benefit of hindsight and stating what the Japanese Navy should have done with its submarines. What could it have done? A concentration of long-range fleet submarines could have seriously embarrassed America's direct sealane from the West Coast to Pearl Harbor-but

tacks.

2361

A The end

of two more Japanese

cargo vessels, seen through the graticule of their sinker's periscope.

would only have made sense in the months before Midway. After June 1942 the centre of gravity of the naval war in the Pacific shifted to the South-West Pacific, and that was where the Japanese submarines could have done most damage. Although the range of the best Japanese fleet submarines was great, it was not enough to have begun to be a serious threat to the West Coast-Pearl Harbor route and to the New Zealand-South

this

Pacific-Australia route.

The successes achieved by the Japanese submarines during the sea fight for Guadalcanal give a clue as to the best submarine strategy which Japan could have followed after the initiative was lost in the Solomons: biding her time, and committing strong submarine flotillas to gnaw at the American task forces once the target of their next attack had been definitely pinpointed and that attack committed. Instead the Japanese fleet

commanders fell into the trap of fighting attrition battles with their surface forces;

and in these battles they lost so heavily (the equivalent of an entire peace-time fleet was sunk at Guadalcanal) that the submarine force was headed in another direction. The Solomons campaign proved decisively that running in supplies on the surface by night was futile and extravagant. Submarines must therefore be used for the job in future battles. This was a compound error. First, the American "leap-frogging" island strategy asked for nothing better than that the

Japanese should dissipate their

efforts in

trying to supply by-passed island garrisons. And second, the building of supply submarines and the conversion of existing boats for supply duties only drew more teeth from the already ineffective

Japanese submarine

As

force.

was, the supply role forced on the submarine programme produced the Type it

No less than 12 of them were with numbers running from 1-361 to 1-372. The emphasis was on stowage and range. They carried no torpedoes but Dl

boats.

built,

retained the standard 5.5-inch gun and two 25-mm cannon. The Dl boats had an endurance of 60 days; they could cruise 15.000 miles on the surface and had an extremely generous submerged cruising

radius of 120 miles, conferred by the fitting of extra batteries. They could carry up to 82 tons of supplies plus 110 troops, and on their outer casings they could carry two 42-foot landing-craft. To help land supplies at journey's end, two big inflatable rubber rafts were also included. These 12 submarines were all launched during 1944. the last of them, 1-372, on November 8. Not one of them could have threatened so much as an American destroyer. And their respective fates

speak for themselves: Sunk by carrier aircraft 400 miles

1-361:

south-east of Okinawa,

Mav

30,

1945. 1-362:

U.S.S. F/emm^ (destroyer escort) 320 miles north-north-east of Truk, January 18, 1945.

Sunk by

1-363:

Mined

1-364:

Torpedoed by

off

Kyushu, October

29,

1945.

U.S.S.

Sea

Devil

(submarine) 300 miles east-southeast of Yokosuka, September 16, 1944.

1-365:

Torpedoed by U.S.S. Scabbardftsh (submarine) 75 miles south-east of Yokosuka,

November

28, 1944.

Surrendered to U.S. Navy and sunk (with the bulk of the

1-366: Survived.

captured April 1946. 1-367: Survived.

Japanese

submarines),

Surrendered

to

U.S.

Navy and sunk (with the bulk of the

1-368:

captured Japanese submarines), April 1946. Sunk by carrier aircraft, 35 miles west of Iwo Jima, February 27, 1945.

Surrendered and scrapped in U.S.A. 1-370: Sunk by U.S.S. Finnegan (destroyer escort) 120 miles south of Iwo Jima, February 26, 1945. 1-371: Torpedoed by U.S.S. Lagarto (submarine) in the Bungo Straits, February 24, 1945. 1-372: Sunk by carrier aircraft at Yokosuka, July 18, 1945.

1-369: Survived.

These melancholy figures show the appalling wastage of the Japanese submarine force in the closing months of the war. But one further bizarre refinement lay in store for Japan's submarines. This was part and parcel of the kamikaze programme as it affected the Navy, and it involved the modification of submarines to carry Kaiten (one-man suicide torpedoes). At the beginning ofthe war the Japanese

submariners had placed great hopes in their midget submarines, which also had to be carried to within range ofthe target by parent ships. These attacks had nearly all ended in fiasco; and the Kaiten

V An American submarine commander lines up his prey. Note the men at the diving plane controls in the background.

end of the war was was the logical development of the myopia and strategic misapprehensions which had bedevilled the

programme

at the

little better. It

Japanese throughout the war. Imperial

submarine

force

necessary to catalogue the mistakes which rendered the Japanese submarine arm virtually impotent, simply because they are matched by such a totally different story in the American camp. Even by the end of the Pacific war, the American submarine force in the Pacific was only a tiny fraction of the total American naval strength in the theatre: a mere two per cent. Yet that two per cent achieved one of the biggest feats in naval history. It is

A Kairyu suicide craft photographed in Yokosuka after the end of the war. The type was based loosely on the Type A midget submarine, and the first prototype was built late in 1943. Full scale production got

under way

in

February

1945,

and

by the end of the war 215 had been completed (207 at Yokosuka). and another 207 were building. The type displaced 19\ tons submerged, had a diving depth of 330 feet and a submerged range of 36 miles at 3 knots,

and an armament of two 18-inch torpedoes or a 1,320-lb charge in the nose. Two crew were carried.

Once the desperate situation of summer 1942 had been retrieved for the U.S. Pacific Fleet by Midway, conditions were ripe for its submarine force to go into action on the offensive. And everything was on the U.S. side. If we agree that the Japanese made fatal mistakes in the basic use of their own submarines, it must be concluded that these were nothing to the errors made in safeguarding their own shipping from enemy submarine attacks. The victories won by the Japanese down to Coral Sea and Midway had given them an empire consisting of the western half of the Pacific Ocean, punctuated by dots It was a sea empire, whose "provinces" could only be supplied and

of land.

2364

equipped by sea. Yet the Japanese, for all the matchless fighting tradition of their Navy, committed one of the most appalling blunders in naval history -one which, as Tojo admitted, helped lose them the warin failing to safeguard their mercantile shipping. They did not sail their ships in convoy; and they did not, in consequence, develop any effective anti-submarine techniques. The result was a gift for the aggressive American submariners, who ended the war being credited with the destruction of 63 per cent of Japanese shipping. When itemised, this percentage is seen to be

made up

of 1,152 Japanese merchantmen of over 500 tons, a total of 4,861,317 gross tons. And the bulk of these sinkings was

the

work The

alone.

of the American submarines British and Dutch submarines

operating out of the Indian Ocean also drew blood, but their credited "kills" only made up about two per cent of the total.

it

The U.S. Navy was fortunate that when went to war its submarine arm was

already scheduled to receive one of the most successful "production-line" class of warship ever produced: the "Gato" class submarines. These boats displaced 1,525/2,415 tons, with a waterline length of 307 feet; they could make 20^ knots on diesel and 10 knots on electric motors. Their armament concentrated on the submarine's main punch: torpedoes. They carried ten 21-

inch tubes (two more, be it noted, than the gross Japanese I-400's. In addition they had a 5-inch gun and a 40-mm quick-firer. A total of 200 Gato's had been launched by the time of the Japanese surrender, and 27 "Tench" class boats, the latter

being improved Gato's.

It is

significant.

as an indication of the fantastic output of the United States' warship-building programme, that all these submarines were produced from the same number of yards as the Japanese possessed. America's submarines as totalled above came from the yards of Manitowoc, Mare Island, Electric Boat, Portsmouth, Cramp, and Boston; Japan's from Kure, Sasebo, Mitsubishi, Yokosuka, and the two Kawasaki yards at

Kobe and Senshu.

interesting that in the beginning the American submariners were bedevilled by the same defect which limited the early successes of the U-boat commanders of World War II: faulty torpedoes. They tended to run too deep and suffer from temperamental magnetic pistols. (The Japanese, by comparison, had the decisive upper hand in torpedoes with their oxygen-propelled "Long Lance", used to such deadly effect by their surface ships in the Battle of the Java Sea and in the Solomons battles.) This, however, did not prevent them from wreaking havoc among the isolated Japanese merchantmen. Topscoring submarine of the "Gato" class boats was Flasher, which sank 21 ships totalling 100,231 tons; four others of the same class -i?as/ier. Tang, Siluersides, and Barb-aU managed to score total "kills" of over 90,000 tons. American tactics were far more aggressive than those of their opposite numbers. One obvious reason for this was the invaluable aid of radar- both air-search and surface-search -which began to be It is

installed in American submarines from 1942. But in general the Japanese pro-

duced few enterprising submarine commanders of the calibre of Commander Tanabe of 1-168, who evaded destruction at

Midway by

diving into his

own

diesel

smoke and hiding under the American destroyers searching for him. The Americans, on the other hand, produced commanders who became adept at the daring

"down the throat" shot -surfacing directly ahead of a charging enemy and torpedoing head on. Slightly less hairraising was the "up the kilt" shot from astern.

The losses of the Japanese Dl boats quoted above contain other evidence.

Three of the sunk boats were the victims of American submarines; two were sunk by American escort destroyers, by 1944 and 1945 an essential part of the carrier task force's screen. Certainly the biggest "kill" scored in a single American submarine attack came on November 29, 1944, when Archerfish put four torpedoes into the giant new carrier Shinano and sank her off the Japanese coast. Such, in outline, is the unsung story of the submarine war in the Pacific, which played so great a part in the defeat of Japan. On the Japanese side there was a confused and short-sighted blend of the old and the new; on the other there was unchallengeable technical superiority, wielded by masters of their trade.

A The end of the road for the depleted remnants of Japan's submarine striking force: the 1-400, 1-401,

and

1-14 (left to

moored alongside the U.S. submarine tender Proteus. 1-400 and 1-401 were sister ships and are described in the text, right)

and

1-14

units:

was one of four Type and 1-15 were not

AM

I-l

completed, 1-13 was sunk on

December

16, 1944,

surrendered of this class

at sea.

had

and 1-14 was The boats

a

displacement of 4,762 tons

submerged, low speeds of 16il5^ knots, and an armament of one 5.5-inch and seven 25-mm guns, plus six 21-tubes (12 torpedoes) and two seaplanes.

2365

The American submarine Ray Displacement: 1,526/2,424

Armament: one 40-mm A. A., two

5-inch,

tons.

one

.5-Inch A. A.,

and two .3-inch A.A. guns, plus ten 21 -inch torpedo tubes and

24

torpedoes.

Speed 201IZ%

l^nots.

:

Diving depth: 300 Length: 3111 feet.

Beam: 27^

feet.

I

feet.

Draught: 15J

feet.

Complement:

85.

^ ^|

The Japanese submarine 1-400 Displacement: 5,223/6,560

tons.

Armament: one 5.5-inch and ten 25-mm guns, plus eight 21 -inch torpedo tubes and three seaplanes.

Speed: 185/6i knots. Radius: 30,000 mile at 60 miles at 3 knots. Length 400J feet. Beam 39i feet. Draught: 23 feet. Complement: 144 :

:

2366

1

6 knots/

w

1

^ m ^^

»»»»»


h -^

I

,t

,

^y?^^

lFi ^tro ij

j^rjLi

2367

CHAPTER 158

The British Pacific Fleet by Captain Donald Macintyre

The crucial Allied agreement on how World War II should be conducted was that the war in the Pacific should be subordinated to the defeat of Germany. Nevertheless, when the naval war in European waters had turned decisively in favour of the Allies in September 1943 with the defeat of the U-boat campaign in the Atlantic and the elimination of the Italian Mediterranean, Winston fleet in the Churchill at once offered to President Roosevelt to send a squadron to the Pacific.

The motive behind this offer was twoThere was a genuine desire to repay the generous assistance Britain had received from the United States; there was

fold.

V

Fleet

Air

Arm

Corsair

hangar deck of a carrier of the British Pacific Fleet. Note the variation on the

fighters on the

ordinary roundel, with the red centre deleted to avoid confusion with the Japanese hinomaru or "meatball" markings.

also the need to restore British prestige in the Orient by sharing in the defeat of Japan. A distinct lack of enthusiasm

with which this proposal was regarded by the all-powerful head of the U.S. Navy, Admiral Ernest J. King, had a similarly complex source. King's single-minded

devotion to the Navy he served was coloured by a widely-felt and long-standing jealousy of the Royal Navy's erstwhile domination of the oceans of the world. He was determined that its eclipse behind the newly arisen sea power of the United States should be permanent. At the same time he was convinced that the Royal Navy, experienced in and trained and equipped for the relatively short-range warfare in European and Atlantic waters, could not be re-shaped and re-equipped in time to fight effectively in the vast spaces of the Pacific. King correctly appreciated that the British would find it very difficult to build up the essential logistic organisation. Apart from the establishment of huge stocks of stores and equipment at a main base-in this case Sydney, N.S.W., many thousands of miles from their source-it required the onward transport of such supplies via an advanced base, a further 2,000 miles (in the event it was to be 3,500 mile^s) to the operational area. In fact, a huge fleet of repair ships, store carriers, ferry carriers, ammunition ships, fast tankers, amenity ships, harbour service craft, the whole known as the "Fleet Train", would have to be procured. The majority of these would be merchant ships. And as, by an early agreement when the United States entered the war, the building of standard merchant ships had been made exclusively a task for American shipyards, while British yards concentrated mainly on warships, and as British merchantmen were for the most part worn out by five hard years of war, ships of the Fleet Train would have to come mainly out of the American building

programme. Nevertheless, by September 1944, Churchill, when offering to place the British main fleet under United States

supreme command to operate against the Japanese in the Pacific, felt able to state that an adequate Fleet Train had been assembled. In November of that year the British Pacific Fleet was formed at Colombo with Admiral Sir Bruce Eraser as its Commander-in-Chief. It was to be centred upon a squadron under RearAdmiral Sir Philip Vian, composed of the fleet

2368

carriers Indefatigable, Illustrious,

0.^'

hirt

'1l«ia

I 0i

Victorious, and Indomitable, to be joined later by the Formidable and Implacable. Designed in 1936 with the possibility of

war with Germany and

Italy in mind,

and

the likelihood of having to operate within range of superior, shore-based air forces, these ships incorporated a thicklyarmoured flight-deck. In the first four to be built this restricted them to a single

hangar and to an aircraft complement of about 50, as compared with the 100 aircraft in two hangars in the U.S.S. Essex and her numerous sisters, where the flight deck was a light structure with a wooden deck. The Indefatigable and Implacable were modified to give them an extra half-hangar and a complement of 72 aircraft. British battleships, an essential part of any carrier task force, were slower than American contemporaries. By this stage of the war a programme of

ikt»

able to provide. Not only did the British aircraft lack the robustness necessary for deck operation, but their fuel endurance was also less than that of American types.

Unfortunately only four of the carriers were to be re-equipped before the B.P.F. joined the 5th Fleet-with consequences which will be discussed later. An escort of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers would support the carriers. As Fraser would be too senior to serve directly under

an American

fleet commander, he was to his flag ashore while Vice-Admiral Sir Bernard Rawlings with his flag in the battleship King George V would command the British Pacific Fleet at sea. fly

This

fleet,

steadily built

based on Colombo, was up and trained through the It was "blood-

autumn and winter of 1944.

with

ed" and trained in a series of carrier strike operations directed at the Japanese-held oil installations in Sumatra and Java.

American types of carrier aircraft- Hellcat and Corsair fighters and Avenger torpedo-bombers -was in progress. These were to take the place of the Seafires and

The new methods and tempo of carrier operations which had been evolved in the Paciflc War were exercised; and when the fleet reached Sydney on February 10,

Sea Hurricanes, unsuitable adaptations of R.A.F. fighters, and the unsuccessful Bar-

1945, it felt ready to operate alongside the U.S. 5th Fleet in the current operations to capture Okinawa. Whether this could be effectively done, however, was

re-equipment of the Fleet Air

Arm

racuda torpedo-bombers which were all that the British aircraft industry had been

A The battleship Howe passes through the Suez Canal en route

to the

Far

East.

< and > Carrier operations. V Resupply at sea for a British destroyer.

One

of the main

disadvantages under which the B.P.F. had to operate was the inadequacy of its Supply Train of depot ships

«

-

I \

\

\

i».'

and

auxiliaries.

I

.1

JtkL t

f

ij^lJUiift?^.

W\i

to depend to a crucial degree upon how ready the Fleet Train was to give its

essential support.

When the B.P.F. moved

forward to the advanced base of Manus in the Admiralty Islands, it was to be sadly disappointed in this respect. Out of 69 ships earmarked for the Fleet Train, only 27 had arrived, many of the remainder having been delayed by the chronic labour troubles of the Sydney waterfront.

Under these conditions and in the humid heat of a climate for which the British warships were ill-adapted, it was deeply disappointing to be delayed because of an apparently continuing unwillingness of the American allies to welcome them. Admiral King, knowing the B.P.F.'s logistic weakness, was still holding out for it to be used as part of the U.S. 7th Fleet in General MacArthur's

South-West Pacific Command in the less-sophisticated naval task involved in the re-conquest of Borneo. Not until March 18 were his objections overborne and, under orders to form part of the U.S. 5th Fleet, the British force sailed from Manus as Task Force 57 on the 23rd. Admiral Vian commanded the carrier squadron with his flag in the 23,000-ton Indomitable.

The aircraft complement of the four carriers was as follows:

Indefatigable

Fighters 40 Seafires

Bombers 20 Avengers

9 Fireflies 36 Corsairs 16 Avengers Indomitable 29 Hellcats 15 Avengers Victorious 37 Hellcats 14 Avengers Though the B.P.F. was nominally a Task Force, it was less than equivalent to one of the four Task Groups of which Task Force 58, the 5th Fleet's carrier element, was composed. It was placed under the command of the C.-in-C. 5th Illustrious

A Grumman Avenger torpedobombers off on a strike. < Preparing for a mission on board a British carrier operating in the Pacific.

Fleet, Admiral Spruance, but its tactical control was reserved to Admiral Rawlings. Combined with the well-founded doubts of the Americans that the lessexperienced and, in some ways, less wellequipped British carriers, their speed restricted by the comparatively slow escorting battleships, could operate effectively in close conjunction with their own Task Groups, this resulted in the British force operating at this time independently and against a separate complex of targets. While the main body of the 5th Fleet operated in direct support of the assault on Okinawa, the B.P.F. struck at airfields in the Sakashima group of islands to the southward, which the Japanese used as staging points for their aircraft. The first strike was flown off at sunrise on March 26, 1945, when 60 Corsairs and Hellcats and 24 Avengers attacked air-

2373

The

British battleship

Displacement: 35,000

Armament:

ten 14-inch, sixteen 5.25-inch

A.A., eighty-eight 2-pdr, eight

and sixteen

Howe

tons.

20-mm

Armour: 4J-

40-mm

A.A., guns, plus

4

A.A., aircraft.

to 15-inch belt, 1- to 6-inch

deck, 9- to 16-inch turrets, and 16-inch control tower.

Speed: 29 knots. Length 745 feet. :

Beam: 103

feet.

Draught: 27a

Complement:

2374

feet.

1,558.

The

British fleet carrier Indomitable

Displacement: 23,000

Armament:

tons.

sixteen 4.5-inch dual purpose,

and thirty-eight 20-mm A.A. guns, plus 36 aircraft. Armour: 44-inch belt and hangar sides, forty-eight 2-pdr A.A.,

2J- to 3-inch deck.

Speed

31 knots.

:

Length 753i :

Beam: 95|

feet.

feet.

Draught: 22i

Complement:

feet.

1,392

2375

on Miyako Island. Seafires, on account of their poor endurance, were kept airborne over the fleet as Combat Air Patrol; they were to be restricted to this defensive role throughout the campaign. With two-day intervals for refuelling at sea (when the lack of experience in all concerned and the unreliable equipment and methods employed were exposed) similar strikes were repeated over fields

V Bombs burst along a runway on Ishagaki Island in the Sakishima group during a British carrier strike intended to draw Japanese reinforcements away from the landings on Okinawa.

&:

the next 26 days. The targets allocated had proved disappointing; few enemy aircraft were encountered, while the coral airfield runways, cratered during the day, were repaired each night before daylight. On the other hand the ground defences were far from negligible and a number of carrier planes were shot down. And on April 1 the B.P.F. had its first experience of attack by Japanese suicide planes -the kamikaze. Early that morning one of these broke through the fighter defence to crash and explode against the base of the Indefatigable 's island, killing 14 men and injuring 16 more. The armoured flight

deck

now justified itself, preventing cripp-

ling

damage; within a few hours the ship

was again operational. In a second attack on the 6th, this time on the Illustrious, the suicide bomber just failed to hit the flight deck, though its wing actually struck the carrier's superstructure as it crashed alongside. The several kamikaze attempts on that day, of which this came nearest to success, were only the back-wash of the first massed attack, or kikusui, by some 355 kamikaze planes and an equal number of normal bombers on the 5th Fleet. Their attack fell chiefly on the air warning pickets of destroyers maintained at a distance from the fleet. Three of these

were sunk as well as three destroyers of the circular screen round the carriers; 18 more were damaged. Other kikusui attacks were to follow and would continue until well into June. In that period no less than 27 ships were to be sunk by suicide attacksandl64damaged, including several American carriers, whose unarmoured flight decks made them very

.w-^-

%0

The

British

Supermarine Seafire

III

fighter

Engine: one Rolls-Royce Merlin 55, 1,470-hp.

Armament: two 20-mm Hispano Mk, II cannon with 120 rounds per gun and four 303-inch Browning machine guns with 350 rounds per gun, plus one 500-lb bonnb. or two 250- lb bombs, or eight 60- lb rockets.

Speed 359 mph at 36,000 feet. Climb: 8 minutes 6 seconds to :

20,000 feet. Ceiling: 36,000

Range: 725

feet.

miles with drop tank.

Weight empty/loaded: 5,450/ Span: 36

feet 10 inches. Length: 29 feet 11 inches Height: 9 feet 11 inches.

2377

V

Firefighters at

work

after a

kamikaze has crashed onto a British carrier. It was in such circumstances that the armoured flight decks of the British fleet

carriers proved their worth.

vulnerable. As early as the second week in April the American C.-in-C. was having to consider withdrawal of the fleet from the operations. To assist his defence arrangements, the B.P.F.'s targets were switched on April 12 and 13 to airfields in the northern part of Formosa whence it was believed that many of the most experienced enemy attacks were coming. The raids were successful, with 16 Japanese planes shot down for the loss of only three British. They drew down on the British carriers some determined attacks in return, all of which "were defeated by fighters of the C.A.P. or shot down by gunfire. The first period of duty for the B.P.F. should have ended on the 13th, but to relieve the pressure on the 5th Fleet from the massed attacks which went on throughout the 14th, Admiral Rawlings offered to return for a further period after refuelling on the 14th and 15th, an offer which was readily accepted. Finally, on April 20, after gathering in the last returning aircraft, the B.P.F. shaped course for San Pedro Bay, Leyte, for a brief period of rest and replenishment.

There the Formidable, carrying six Helland 36 Corsair fighters and 12 Aven-

cat

gers, joined to replace the Illustrious,

which was by this time in need of a refit and whose fighter squadrons had passed the accepted limit for an operational tour of duty. And on May 1 the B.P.F. sailed again to resume the task of neutralising the Sakishima airfields. Nothing has been said up to now about the two battleships, five cruisers, and 11 destroyers of the fleet. Their functions were almost entirely in support of the carrier squadron, the battleships and cruisers with their antiaircraft gunfire, the destroyers to guard against submarine attack (which in fact never materialised) and to act as distant air-warning pickets to back up the overcrowded radar information. Now, however, on May 4, Admiral Rawlings brought some fresh interest into the lives of the

larger ships by taking the battleships King George V and Hovue and his cruisers to bombard the airfields on Miyako. While this large proportion of the fleet's anti-aircraft gunnery strength was away, a kamikaze attack managed to evade the C.A.P. A Zero fighter and its bombs

crashed onto the Formidable, holing even her stout armoured flight deck: splinters penetrated the ship's central boiler room and her speed was reduced to 18 knots. Eight men were killed and 47 more injured. Eleven aircraft on deck

were destroyed. Yet within 90 minutes the Formidable was living up to her iisme, steaming at 24 knots and operating her aircraft. During the same attack another suicide pilot had attempted to do the same to the Indomitable but bounced over the side before his bomb exploded, doing only minor damage. Until May 25 Task Force 57 repeated its previous operational pattern with two days delivering strikes on airfields followed by two days of

enemy

replenishment.

On May 9 the Formidable was hit again squarely on her flight deck in the middle of her parked aircraft, 18 of which were destroyed. But 50 minutes later she was ready to operate aircraft. At about the same time a kamikaze exploded near the forward lift of the Victorious. The deck was holed and a serious fire started. Two minutes later a second bomber crashed the ship but bounced over the side before exploding. The Victorious was only out of action for a short while. But both she and the Formidable had lost so many aircraft that they had to withdraw for three days to rendezvous with a ferry carrier of the Fleet Train and embark more. The last strikes by British planes in the Okinawa campaign were delivered on May 25, after which Task Force 57 shaped course for Sydney for repairs and recreation in preparation for the coming assault on the Japanese homeland. As the Indomitable was in need of a refit, her place was to be taken by the newly arrived Implacable, whose aircraft

complement was 48 Seafires, 12 Fireflies, and 15 Avengers. Admiral Vian shifted his flag to the Formidable. While the remainder of the fleet was at Sydney, the Implacable and three newly-joined cruisers, Newfoundland, the New Zealand Achilles, and the Canadian Uganda were given some operational training and experience in an air strike and bombardment on the Japanese base at Truk in the Carolines on June 14. By the end of the month the B.P.F. had re-assembled at Manus. When they sailed for the operational area on July 6, however, the Indefatigable had to be left behind owing to a breakdown of all her air compressors. Thus it was a force of only three carriers.

with one battleship,

five cruisers,

and 18

destroyers which on July 16, 1945 made rendezvous with the American force, now designated the 3rd Fleet, under Admiral William F. Halsey. This called for a change of the B.P.F.'s Task Force number to 37. A change in the command structure was to take place also. How it came about, the American C.-in-C. reveals in his autobiographical Admiral Halsey 's Story:

"When I was informed at Pearl Harbor that the British Pacific Fleet would report to me, I naturally assumed that I would have full operational control, but when I re-read the plan at Leyte, I discovered that tactical control had been reserved. This would force me to present Admiral Rawlings with three alternatives and I did so now. 1. Task Force 37 would operate close aboard us as another Task Group in Task Force 38: it would not receive direct orders from me, but it would be privy to the orders I gave Task Force 38. These it would consider as suggestions to be followed to our mutual advantage, thereby assuring us a concentrated force with concentrated weapons. 2. Task Force 37 would operate semiindependently some 60 to 70 miles away, thereby preserving its technical identity at the cost of a divided force. (I stipulated that I would consent to this choice only if the request were put in writing.) 3. Task Force 37 would operate completely independently against soft spots in Japan which we would recommend

if

so desired. Rawlings did not hesitate. He said, 'Of course, I'll accept No. 1'. admiration for him began at that moment." So, though the arrangement went far beyond what had been agreed at the highest levels, the B.P.F. was virtually absorbed into the U.S. 5th Fleet. No doubt it was inspired by Admiral Spruance's statement at the end of T.F.57's period under his overall command, that "the B.P.F. had gained sufficient experience to form part of the United States First Carrier Force". This was a real compliment to a force which had had to absorb in three months the expertise of carrier warfare over the vastness of the Pacific which the Americans had had more than three years to perfect. The B.P.F. accepted the situation with enthusiasm and strove to operate with

My

A Burial

at sea.

2379

the same slick efficiency as their allies in spite of the very real handicaps of slower ships, of a multiplicity of aircraft types, of the need to fly aircraft on and off at shorter intervals owing to the

low endurance of the

Seafires,

and the

slower, less well-equipped tankers which made every refuelling an occasion for

contrivance and improvisation followed by a high-speed dash through the night to rejoin the American part of the fleet. The massed air attacks by the Japanese had petered out by the end of June. Now, until the end of the campaign, though there was still need for a defensive C.A.P. overhead (48 enemy aircraft were shot down over the fleet during July and August), the majority of the B.P.F.'s aircraft joined in the steady pounding of Japanese ports, shipping, and facilities which was intended as preparation for the final

invasion. Surviving units of the

fleet were sought out and made the object of special attention until all had been destroyed. On the night of July 18, the King George V and two Common-

Japanese V

Hellcat fighters line up for

take-off.

"^^

•*K-

wealth cruisers joined with American

heavy units to hurl some 2,000 tons of shell into a factory area near Tokyo. On July 20 the Indefatigable rejoined, having completed repairs.

Meanwhile large reinforcements for the B.P.F. were gathering in Australian waters. They included the battleships Duke of York and Anson, the new light fleet carriers Venerable, Colossus, and Vengeance, and a number of cruisers and destroyers. They were too late to take an active part in the Pacific War. On August 6 and 9, respectively, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed by atomic bombs; but it was not until the 14th that the Japanese capitulation was confirmed and operations ceased. From Task Force 37 a Task Group consisting of the Indefatigable, the battleship Duke of York, two cruisers, and ten destroyers was formed to remain with the 5th Fleet and be present at the formal Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay. The remainder returned to Sydney -a first stop on the return journey to England.