Chapter 12: Transition
There are only three principles of warfare—Audacity, Audacity, and AUDACITY.—GENERAL PATTON
The story of the first four months of the war in the Pacific was one of unrelieved tragedy and disaster. Everywhere, from Hawaii to Burma, the Allies had suffered humiliation and defeat at the hands of a foe who seemed almost superhuman, able to traverse unbelievable distances and impossible terrain on a handful of rice and quick to take advantage of every Allied weakness. Only in the Philippines, where American and Filipino forces still held out, had the implacable foe been thwarted, and even there the end was clearly in sight.
But the next two months of 1942 would tell a different story. Already the tide of Japanese victory was receding as the Allies recovered from their momentary confusion and sought to overcome their initial weakness. In April the raid came against Tokyo, a fitting retaliation for Pearl Harbor and the first good news the American public had had in four months of war. Next month the Allies struck another blow in the Coral Sea to give pause to the overconfident and jubilant Japanese. Finally, early in June, came the great American naval victory off Midway, which marked the turning point of the war and made possible the offensives that followed later in the year.
During these months the only dark spot in an otherwise brightening scene was the loss of the Philippines and the tragic fate of its gallant defenders. But this isolated victory had little strategic significance for the Japanese who in two brief and bitter months had seen the initiative they had thought so firmly in their hands slip away from them. The sunshine-filled days of victory had indeed been short.
The Fall of the Philippines
When Wainwright moved to Corregidor to take over MacArthur’s post on 21 March, the lull which had settled over the Bataan battlefield in mid-February was already coming to an end. Since 8 February when he had abandoned his fruitless attempts to reduce the Bataan defenses, General Homma had received large reinforcements, almost two divisions as well as artillery, aircraft, and individual replacements. By the end of March his plans were ready and most of his troops in position to attack. But before he gave the signal he offered Wainwright one last chance to surrender, urging him to be sensible and follow “the defenders of Hong Kong, Singapore,
and the Netherlands East Indies in the acceptance of an honorable defeat.”1 Wainwright did not even reply to this message, and on 3 April, Good Friday, after almost two weeks of intensive air and artillery attacks, the final Japanese offensive began.
From the start the attack went well for General Homma who, on the basis of his earlier disappointments, was prepared for the worst. The 80,000 Americans and Filipinos crowded into the southern tip of the Bataan Peninsula were too weak from hunger, their combat efficiency too low to withstand the ferocity of the Japanese attack. In short order Homma’s forces pierced the center of the American line, outflanked the defenders, and forced them back from the main line of resistance. By the night of the 8th, General King’s Luzon Force had virtually disintegrated. Philippine Army troops were in complete rout and units were melting away “lock, stock, and barrel.” Headquarters had lost contact with the front-line troops and the roads were jammed with soldiers who had abandoned arms and equipment in their frantic haste to escape. Three months of malnutrition, malaria, and intestinal infections had left the Americans and Filipinos weak and disease-ridden, totally incapable of the sustained physical effort necessary for a successful defense. There was nothing for General King to do but surrender.
The battle for Bataan was ended; the fighting was over. The men who had survived the long ordeal could feel justly proud of their accomplishment. For three months they had held off the Japanese, only to be overwhelmed finally by disease and starvation. In a very real sense they had suffered “a true medical defeat.”2
The events that followed General King’s surrender present a confused and chaotic story of the disintegration and dissolution of a starved, diseased, and beaten army, a story climaxed by the horrors and atrocities of the infamous Death March. Denied food and water, robbed of their personal possessions, forced to march under the hot sun and halt in areas where even the most primitive sanitary facilities were lacking, clubbed, beaten, and bayoneted by their Japanese conquerors, General King’s men made their way into captivity. Gallant foes and brave soldiers, the battling bastards of Bataan had earned the right to be treated with consideration and decency, but their enemies had reserved for them even greater privations and deeper humiliation than any they had yet suffered.3
Though the fall of Bataan ended all organized opposition on Luzon, it did not give the Japanese the most valuable prize of all, Manila Bay. So long as Corregidor and its sister forts lying across the entrance to the bay remained in American hands, the use of the finest natural harbor in the Orient was denied them. And before General Homma could report to his already impatient superiors in Tokyo that he had accomplished
his mission, he would also have to occupy Mindanao to the south as well as the more important islands in the Visayan group in the central Philippines.
It took the Japanese another month to accomplish these tasks. While his troops were making ready for the assault on Corregidor, General Homma launched the offensive in the south. On 19 April a detachment recently arrived from Borneo took Cebu in the Visayas and next day another from Malaya occupied the neighboring island of Panay. Both detachments then joined the one at Davao to begin the campaign on Mindanao. In a concerted drive beginning on 29 April, the Emperor’s birthday, the Japanese advanced rapidly on all fronts and within a week had virtually gained control of the island. “North front in full retreat,” reported General Sharp. “Enemy comes through right flank. Nothing further can be done. May sign off any time now.”4
Meanwhile the Japanese had turned their attention to Corregidor. With the southern tip of Bataan in their possession they could now emplace artillery on the heights of the Mariveles Mountains and along the Manila Bay shore, only two miles across the channel from the island fortress. By thus massing their artillery they were able to pour on Corregidor so steady and heavy a volume of fire that the intermittent air attacks of the preceding three months paled into insignificance. “One day’s shelling,” remarked one officer, “did more damage than all the bombing put together.”5
For twenty-seven days, from 9 April to 6 May, this bombardment continued, increasing in intensity as the days went by. By the evening of 5 May there was little left on the island to stop the Japanese. The beach defenses had been demolished, the huge seacoast guns silenced, and the antiaircraft batteries reduced to impotence. All wire communication had been destroyed and every effort to restore it unavailing. “Command,” observed General Moore, “could be exercised and intelligence obtained only by use of foot messengers.”6
Even the topography of the island had changed. Where once there had been thick woods and dense vegetation only charred stumps remained. The rocky ground had been pulverized into a fine dust, and the coastal road had been literally blown into the bay. Deep craters, empty shell cases, and huge fragments of concrete pockmarked the landscape. Gone were the broad lawns, impressive parade grounds, spacious barracks, and pleasant shaded clubs and bungalows of peacetime. By 5 May Corregidor lay “scorched, gaunt, and leafless, covered with the chocolate dust of countless explosions.”7
By this time the 10,000 men on Corregidor—soldiers, marines, and sailors alike—knew that a Japanese assault was imminent. “It took no mental giant,” as Wainwright observed, “to figure out by May 5, 1942, that the enemy was ready to come against Corregidor.”8 And most of the men knew as well as their commander that they stood little chance.
There had been six hundred casualties since 9 April, and those who escaped injury were beginning to feel the effects of malnutrition. Men were living on nerve alone, and morale was dropping rapidly. All hopes for reinforcement had long since disappeared. There was only enough water to last four more days at most and no prospect that the pipes and pumps for the artesian wells could be repaired. In any event, the power plant on which the Corregidor garrison was entirely dependent would not last more than a few weeks.
Life in Malinta Tunnel, where those who could had taken refuge, had become almost unbearable. Dust, dirt, great black flies, and vermin were everywhere, and over everything hung the odor of the hospital and men’s bodies. On the haggard faces of the men could be seen the effects of the continuous bombardment. There was a limit to human endurance and that limit, General Wainwright told the President, “has long since been passed.”9
The long-awaited and dreaded attack came late on the night of 5 May, after a particularly intense artillery concentration on the tail of the tadpole-shaped island. The full moon, “veiled by streaks of heavy black clouds,” was just rising when, shortly before midnight, Japanese artillery fire suddenly ceased, and its bass roar was replaced “by the treble chattering of many small arms.”10 Barges were observed approaching the tail (east) end of the island, and at 2230 he order went out to prepare for a hostile landing. A few minutes later a runner from the beach defense command post arrived at Moore’s headquarters in Malinta Tunnel with the news that the Japanese had landed.
The fight for Corregidor lasted only ten hours. Though the Japanese suffered heavy losses during the landing and came ashore in the wrong place, they recovered quickly. One group cut across the tail of the island while the bulk of the Japanese turned west, advancing in the darkness along the axis of the island toward Malinta Tunnel. At Battery Denver on a ridge near the east entrance of the tunnel, the Japanese ran into the first serious opposition and it was there that most of the fighting took place that night and during the early hours of the morning. The defenders threw everything they had into the battle, including coast artillery men and a provisional battalion of 500 sailors, but their efforts were doomed to failure. Finally, at 0800, after the Japanese had brought tanks and artillery ashore for a concerted attack, General Wainwright committed his last reserves.
The final blow came soon after when the Japanese sent three tanks into the action. The first appearance of armor on the front panicked the defenders and caused some to bolt to-the rear. It took the combined efforts of commissioned and noncommissioned officers to calm the troops and prevent a rout. “The effect of the tanks,” the Japanese noted with satisfaction, “was more than had been anticipated.”11
By 1000 on the morning of 6 May the situation of the American troops on Corregidor was critical.
General Wainwright broadcasts surrender instructions
The troops on the front line, pinned down by machine gun and artillery fire, could move neither forward nor back and had no weapons with which to meet the tanks. Already between 600 and 800 men had been killed and about 1,000 more wounded. All reserves had been committed and practically all the guns destroyed. The Japanese were apparently preparing for another landing at the opposite end of the island, and, in any case, would reach Malinta Tunnel with its 1,000 wounded men in a few hours. When they did there would be a wholesale slaughter.
It was on this basis that General Wainwright made his decision to surrender, to trade one day of freedom for several thousand lives. By 1200, all arms larger than .45-caliber were destroyed, codes and radio equipment smashed, classified papers burned, and the surrender message broadcast in English and Japanese. At that time, the American flag on Corregidor was lowered and burned and the white flag hoisted. “With broken heart and head bowed in sadness but not in shame,” Wainwright wrote the President, “I report ... that today I must arrange terms for the surrender of the fortified islands of Manila Bay. ... With profound regret and with continued pride in my gallant troops, I go to meet the Japanese commander.”12 The five-month-long struggle for control of the Philippine Archipelago was over; the victory which Homma had hoped to win by the middle of February was finally his, three months later. It was a victory without honor and for this delay and loss of face Homma was relieved of command and spent the rest of the war on the side lines, as an officer on inactive status.
In the context of global war, the Philippines did not in mid-1942 possess great strategic significance. The Japanese tide had already swept around the islands and over Southeast Asia and the Indies, through the Bismarck Archipelago into the Solomons and New Guinea, and eastward across the Pacific as far as the Gilbert Islands. Only in the Philippines had the enemy been halted, and in this successful though hopeless resistance lay the real importance of the bitter defense. It demonstrated that the Japanese were not invincible, and that they could be stopped by determined men, ably led. For an Allied work surfeited on gloom, defeat, and despair the epic of Bataan and Corregidor was
a symbol of hope and a beacon of success for the future.
The Tokyo Raid
To balance the bad news of the loss of the Philippines, the American public could look back with satisfaction to the recent announcement of the spectacular raid against Tokyo on 18 April. Conceived during the dark days of January as a retaliation for Pearl Harbor, this bold strike, coming only nine days after the surrender of Bataan, was a powerful boost to morale at home and a grim warning of American determination to carry the war into the enemy’s territory.
The idea for the raid is credited variously to the President, to Stanley K. Hornbeck of the State Department, and to others. Apparently it was first considered seriously in the Navy Department by Capt. Francis L. Low, Admiral King’s operations officer, and King in January 1942. The problem, King and Low agreed, was to get planes within striking distance of Tokyo Bay without putting the carriers within range of the enemy’s air and naval defenses. This meant the launching position would have to be at least 500 miles off the Japanese coast. Where would the planes put down after the attack? Certainly the aircraft carriers would not be able to await their return. Vladivostok was only 600 miles from Tokyo, but the Soviet authorities would not provide a haven for the American fliers for fear of risking hostilities with Japan. They would have to land somewhere in eastern China, thus adding 1,500 miles to the minimum of 500 required to reach Tokyo. Only the Army Air Forces could provide a plane with the range and bomb load required. But would army bombers be able to take off from aircraft carriers?13 Obviously the Army Air Forces would have to study the problem.
General Arnold, when the idea was presented to him, was enthusiastic. While Capt. Donald B. Duncan, King’s air operations officer, worked out the naval details of the plan, Arnold’s staff studied the air problems presented by this daring scheme. The first task was to select an airplane that would meet the requirements. Three types were considered and the planners finally chose the twin-engine medium bomber, the B-25. For this mission, the planes would have three auxiliary fuel tanks and additional gasoline inside for a capacity of 1,141 gallons, cameras, a 2,000-pound bomb load, a simple bombing device called the Mark Twain, and two dummy tail guns which, it was hoped, would discourage Japanese fighters from attacking from the rear.14 The choice of planes, all of which came from the 17th Bombardment Group, determined the choice of crews. Twenty-four were needed and it was decided to get them all, if possible, from this group. More than enough volunteered to make up the force required for the assignment. General Arnold himself chose the leader of the expedition, Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle.
There were many problems, the most important of which was to train the pilots in carrier take-offs, still to be solved. These were worked out during March when the crews trained at Eglin Field, Florida, on a strip the size of a carrier’s deck. Before the month was over all the pilots had taken off twice with fully loaded planes in a distance of 700 to 750 feet. There was, unfortunately, no time for practice with live bombs or for gunnery training. All the younger pilots, however, were required to make an extended overwater flight from Eglin to Houston, Texas. On 24 March, after less than a month’s training, the entire group was ordered to Alameda Naval Air Station in San Francisco Bay where the naval task force which would carry the B-25’s across the Pacific was already assembling.
The plan for the impending raid on Tokyo was one of the best kept secrets of the war. Only a handful of men knew the entire plan at this time. Neither the pilots nor the ships’ crews had yet learned their ultimate destination, though many may have guessed it by then. Not even the highest staff officers in Washington had anything to do with the project. This secrecy is strikingly illustrated by the response from the Military Intelligence Division of the War Department General Staff to the suggestion of an unidentified State Department official for a surprise blow against Japan on the Emperor’s birthday, 29 April. Except for the date, the State Department’s proposal, forwarded to General Marshall by Hornbeck, was by coincidence identical in every respect to the operation already under way. The response from Military Intelligence, which was asked to comment on the proposal, was generally unfavorable and revealed a complete ignorance of the project.15
This secrecy extended even to the Chungking government which would have to make arrangements for the reception of the crews once they had completed their mission. Chiang Kai-shek and Lt. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell, commander of U.S. Army forces in China, Burma, and India, were told only that certain fields in eastern China would be required for the use of American bombers and that a quantity of aviation gasoline and other stores must be available by 1g April. Chiang gave his assent on 28 March without knowing what would happen, and it was not until 2 April, after the task force had already put to sea, that he was told that at least twenty-five B-25’s were involved. After that date arrangements were quickly made for the arrival of the planes, the procurement of personnel and supplies, and for communications—no information was to be relayed over Chinese signal channels. But already bad weather had settled over eastern China.
Meanwhile Colonel Doolittle and his group had arrived at Alameda on 31 March. There waiting was the carrier Hornet, Capt. Marc A. Mitscher commanding, with two cruisers, four destroyers, and an oiler. Next morning sixteen of the B-25’s—all there was room for—were hoisted to the carrier’s flight deck and lashed down securely. At 1000 of the 2nd, under cover of a thick fog, the Hornet and its escort steamed
Colonel Doolittle and Captain Mitscher on the Hornet
down San Francisco Bay and through the Golden Gate. Once away from shore the loud-speakers announced what the men already suspected—that the target was Tokyo. “Cheers from every section of the ship greeted the announcement,” records the Hornet action report, “and morale reached a new high.” Now for the first time it was possible to provide the bomber crews with target data and other information they would need.
Weather during this first leg of the voyage was foul. Though the high winds, heavy seas, and frequent squalls reduced the danger of detection they also subjected the B-25’s to damage from vibration and exposure to the elements. Hornet’s machinists checked the planes frequently to make certain the lashings were secure and to repair mechanical difficulties. On 13 April, after eleven days at sea, the Hornet force rendezvoused with a similar force out of Pearl Harbor at a point north of Midway at the date line. Led by Vice Adm. William F. Halsey, Jr., who flew his flag from the Enterprise, the entire expedition steamed westward toward Japan at sixteen knots, the 4 cruisers and 8 destroyers in the van and on the flanks, Hornet in the center, with the 2 oilers and the flagship in column behind.
For four days, from 13 to 17 April, the task force nosed its way silently through the heavy seas of the North Pacific.16 Overhead the planes of the Enterprise maintained constant vigil. On the 16th the Army bombers were spotted for the take-off. There was no space to spare on the crowded flight deck; the leading bomber (Doolittle’s) had 467 feet clearance, the last hung precariously over the edge of the ramp. About 1,000 miles east of Tokyo, on the 17th, the carriers and cruisers refueled and speeded ahead at twenty knots, in the face of winds which had increased to gale force, toward the Japanese coast. Barring accident or interception the Hornet would be in launching position by sundown the next day.
Unknown to Halsey and Doolittle, there had been a hitch in the plans. Fearing Japanese reprisal, Chiang had urged early in April, when the Hornet had already put to sea under radio silence, that the operation be postponed, or even canceled, but it was too late for such drastic measures. On the 15th he gave reluctant assent to the final plans and for the use of the fields in eastern
China, excepting only the one at Chu-chow which could not be made ready because of bad weather. It was just this field that all the crews had chosen for their landing, but there was no way to get the information to the task force without giving away its position to the enemy.
Halsey and Doolittle had changed their plans too. To minimize the danger of interception, the plan originally called for a nocturnal attack, launched about 500 miles off the Japanese coast on the afternoon of the 19th, with Doolittle taking off about three hours ahead of the others to light up Tokyo with incendiaries. This would bring the crews over Chuchow during daylight of the 20th. But Halsey for some unaccountable reason was a day ahead of schedule and there was no way to alert the Chinese so that the fields would be ready. Colonel Doolittle was not unduly concerned. The Chinese, he felt certain, would receive ample notice of his arrival from Radio Tokyo.
More serious were the developments of the 18th which forced a change in the hour as well as the day of the attack. At 0210 that morning Enterprise picked up two ships on its radar screen and altered course. The search flight sent out at first light confirmed the bad news that the task force had apparently struck the enemy’s first line of patrol ships some two hundred miles further off the coast than expected. Worse than that, one of the search planes reported at 0715 that it had been sighted. Again course was changed, but about a half hour later another enemy patrol ship was observed, this time from the deck of the Hornet. There could be little doubt that the task force had been discovered and reported. Enemy counteraction could be expected at any time.
Halsey was now faced with the most critical decision of the entire voyage. Should he push on toward the Japanese coast to bring the B-25’s to the position originally planned, withdraw to safety, or launch the bombers immediately? Whichever course he chose, he would have.to strike a delicate balance between the risks to his carriers and the risks to the Army bombers. Japan was still 670 miles away, more than 100 miles further than the air planners had considered safe for the bombing run. It was evident to Halsey that he could take his carriers no further without exposing them to attack. The bombers would have to take off now or not at all—the carriers must withdraw. His decision, made with Colonel Doolittle’s concurrence, was to launch the bombers and risk attack, though Tokyo was still five hours’ flight away and the prospect of the crews reaching the fields in China slim. At 0800 Halsey gave his orders: Hornet to turn at twenty-two knots into the wind and prepare to launch; Nashville to sink the patrol ship sighted fifteen minutes earlier.
Aboard the Hornet the next hour and a half was full of excitement and ordered confusion. The wind was at forty knots and the sea so rough that the green waters washed over the carrier’s ramps. After a few last-minute instructions the bomb racks were loaded and the planes readied for the take-off. It was 0818 when Colonel Doolittle began his run down the flight deck and then roared upward to circle the Hornet once before heading west. The rest of the pilots followed quickly and without incident except for one “who hung on the brink
of a stall until,” wrote Admiral Halsey, “we nearly catalogued his effects.”17 By 0924 the entire group was airborne and the task force reversed course and speeded for home at 25 knots, all radios tuned in for news from Tokyo.
The flight of the bombers toward Tokyo Bay was uneventful, though they flew over warships and past Japanese aircraft. Apparently the patrol boat warnings had not yet been broadcast. In their favor also was the fact that Tokyo that morning was holding a full-scale air drill which was just ending when Colonel Doolittle’s plane reached the city, coming in from the north at rooftop level, shortly after noon. Not a shot had been fired at his plane when at 1215 (Tokyo time) he and Lt. Travis Hoover in the second plane dropped their incendiaries and bombs. One antiaircraft battery answered the attack, apparently on the initiative of the gunners, but there was as yet no general alarm or understanding that an enemy raid was in progress.
After this first bombing there was an interlude of about twenty minutes during which the air raid warning finally sounded. Then at 1240 eleven more bombers, which had reached the target by different courses, came in over the enemy capital, hitting factories, oil tanks, power plants, and military installations. The remaining three planes, loaded with incendiaries, hit Nagoya, Yokohoma, the Yokosuka Navy Yard, and Kobe. Though all the crews had been cautioned against striking nonmilitary targets it was inevitable that they should and for this three of the fliers later paid with their lives. Fifteen of the sixteen bombers successfully completed their missions. Not a single plane had been shot down, but the last and most dangerous portion of the voyage still lay ahead.
Behind them the American pilots left a surprised and confused enemy. By later standards damage was slight, but the Japanese people could not doubt that the enemy had broken through the Empire’s inner defenses to strike at the heart of the homeland. How it had been done the authorities did not yet know. The patrol boats had alerted them to the presence of the carriers, but they were puzzled by the fact that the aircraft which struck Tokyo had been Army bombers, not the carriers planes they expected. The Japanese did not apparently associate Doolittle’s attack with the carriers. The bombers, they thought, had come from Midway and they were still expecting a carrier-based attack the next morning, when the ships reported by the patrol boats would have come within launching position. It was some time before the Japanese accepted the truth that the carriers and the bombers were part of the same force.
The rest of the story of the Tokyo raid—the landing of the fliers in China and their flight to safety—is one of heroism, suffering, and tragedy. Of the sixteen crews, fifteen made China with the help of a providential tail wind; the sixteenth landed near Vladivostok and its crew was interned by the Russians, escaping later to Iran. The planes over China, except one which came down along the coast, made their way through the darkness and rain until their fuel was exhausted without finding the designated fields. Four of the bombers crash-landed and the crews of the remainder bailed out. Eight of the men
fell into Japanese hands and 1 of those who had parachuted was killed in descent. Thus 71 of the 80 men who had started on the hazardous journey finally made their way to safety.18
The naval task force made good its escape also, evading the planes and ships the Japanese sent in pursuit and sinking several small vessels in the bargain. Once beyond the outer picket line, the voyage home was uneventful, and on 25 April, a week after the President had announced that planes from Shangri-La had bombed Tokyo, Halsey led his fleet into Pearl Harbor. All hands were looking forward to an extended shore leave, but already a new crisis was developing in the Coral Sea.
Coral Sea and Midway
Ever since early March, when the 4th Fleet and the South Seas Detachment had jointly occupied Lae and Salamaua along the northeast coast of New Guinea, the Japanese had been preparing for a seaborne invasion of Port Moresby, a move that would take them into the Coral Sea between Australia and the New Hebrides. The carriers and cruisers required for that operation had finally arrived at Truk on 29 April at which time orders for the long-delayed invasion were issued.19
The landings at Port Moresby—there were to be two of them—were to be made at dawn, 10 May, by General Horii’s South Seas Detachment and a battalion of special naval landing troops. Both units were to leave Rabaul on the 4th in a convoy whose maximum speed, fixed by the old Army transports carrying the South Seas Detachment, was only six and a half knots. Since these slow ships would expose the convoy to air and naval attack, the Japanese made careful provision to protect their troops. Direct support would be provided by a naval escort force comprising the small carrier Shoho, 4 heavy cruisers, and a destroyer squadron. Ranging farther afield, free to strike any Allied air and naval units, was a carrier division comprised of 2 large carriers, the Shokaku and Zuikaku, 3 heavy cruisers, and 7 destroyers under the command of Vice Adm. Takeo TAkagi. In addition, 2 submarines were to take up positions in the Coral Sea and 4 others along the eastern coast of Australia to intercept any Allied naval warships hastening to the scene. Finally, long-range bombers based at Rabaul were to strike targets in northeast Australia and interdict air and naval traffic in the Coral Sea and Torres Strait.20
For this venture, the Japanese, who had acquired considerable caution since the Allied reaction to the Lae-Salamaua landings, left nothing to chance. As a prelude to the invasion of Port Moresby by this sizable force, there would be two preliminary operations: first, the occupation of Tulagi in the southern Solomons on 3 May; and second, the seizure two days later of Deboyne Island just off the east coast of Papua. With these islands in their possession, the Japanese would
be able to provide shore-based air support for the landings at Port Moresby and to cover the east flank of the invasion force during its approach.
Even before the arrival of the large carriers at Truk on 29 April, the Japanese had already put the first part of this plan into effect. Four days earlier, aircraft from Rabaul had begun to bomb fields in northeast Australia. The Tulagi force moved out of Rabaul a few days later and on 2 May stood off the island. There was no opposition to the landing next day; the small Australian detachment had been warned and after destroying what it could had pulled out for Efate in the New Hebrides. On the 5th the Japanese occupied Deboyne Island. Thus far everything had come off on schedule, exactly as planned.
While these preliminary operations were in progress, the Port Moresby invasion force was moving into position for the landing. The South Seas Detachment and the special naval troops began loading on 2 May and on the 4th sailed out of the harbor to meet the naval escort. That same day the Shokaku and Zuikaku, steaming south from Truk, received reports of an Allied carrier-based attack on Tulagi and set course for the island at full speed.
Despite continued reports of Allied naval forces in the Coral Sea, the Port Moresby convoy, reinforced by the Shoho group, which had supported the Tulagi landing, continued on its way. But on the 7th, when it was clear that the invasion force had been spotted, the transports and a portion of the escorting and supporting naval elements were ordered back to safety. Remaining to take up position for the impending battle were the carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku with their cruiser and destroyer escort in the open waters south of the Solomons, off San Cristobal.
The presence of Allied naval forces in the Coral Sea was no accident. Ever since February, reports of Japanese concentrations in the Northeast Area and in the mandated islands had been coming into Washington. By mid-April the time and place of attack had been fairly well determined from intercepted and decoded messages and both Nimitz and MacArthur warned to expect a seaborne invasion of Port Moresby.21 Thus alerted, both Pacific commanders made preparations to frustrate this fresh Japanese venture, which, if successful, would prove disastrous to MacArthur’s plans for the defense of Australia and would create a serious threat to the line of communications.
General MacArthur’s slender naval resources were no match for the formidable Japanese fleet entering his theater but he did what he could. His chief weapon was the land-based Allied Air Forces, and under his direction Brett assembled all the planes that he could at bases in northeast Australia. From there, long-range bombers struck Rabaul, Lae, Buka, and Deboyne during the first week of May while reconnaissance planes kept constant vigil along the sea approaches leading into the Coral Sea. It was these aircraft that discovered the Port Moresby invasion force on 6 May in the vicinity of Jomard Passage off the coast of Papua.22
Most of the naval forces to meet the Japanese threat came from Admiral Nimitz’ Pacific Fleet and were under his command. By noon 29 April he had made his plans. These called for the organization of a task force built around the carriers Yorktown and Lexington and under the command of Rear Adm. Frank J. Fletcher to rendezvous west of the New Hebrides and south of the Solomons. Fletcher’s orders were simply to “operate in the Coral Sea commencing 1 May.”23 By that time, his force would include an attack group of cruisers and destroyers, a support group of three cruisers—two of them Australian—from the Southwest Pacific, a search group, and a destroyer screen for the carriers. All together Admiral Fletcher would have in his command 2 carriers, i light and 7 heavy cruisers, 13 destroyers, 2 tankers, and a seaplane tender. The submarines were not included in the task force; they would operate independently and patrol the coastal waters off northeast Australia and New Guinea. Thus, while the Japanese had a unified command for this operation the Allies were divided, with the bulk of the naval forces under Nimitz and the submarines and land-based aviation under MacArthur.
This array of Allied naval strength was hardly large enough to warrant any great optimism over the outcome. But it was the best Nimitz could do at the moment. He had other forces—Halsey’s two carrier groups, each with one carrier, had returned to Pearl Harbor on the 25th—but it would take time to overhaul the vessels and make the 3,500-mile journey to the Coral Sea. On the off-chance that the battle would be delayed and that Halsey could reach the scene, Nimitz made provision for the two additional carriers in his plans and ordered Halsey to make ready for the action.
The Japanese landing at Tulagi on 3 May took the Allies by surprise and found Fletcher’s force some 500 miles to the south, still refueling. Immediately, Admiral Fletcher, who flew his flag from the Yorktown, made for Tulagi at high speed. Next morning, he launched his planes against the Japanese in the harbor, crippling a destroyer and sinking some small boats, and then returned to join the Lexington. The damage wrought by the raid was minor and had little effect on Japanese activities other than to alert them to the presence of American carriers and to bring the Shokaku and Zuikaku down to the area at full speed.
During the next few days, as the Port Moresby invasion force moved toward the target, search planes from the American carriers sought the enemy without success. Early on the morning of 6 May, when Brett’s B-17’s finally located a large force approaching Jomard Passage, word was flashed to Fletcher who at once ordered his fleet to set course for the enemy. All that day the fleet steamed northwest and the next morning Fletcher sent in the attack group of cruisers and destroyers to block the southern end of Jomard Passage through which the Shoho and the convoy’s screen would pass.
Unknown to Fletcher, the main carrier strength of the Japanese was nowhere near Jomard, but off to the south and east. Early on the 7th, Japanese scout planes spotted two American vessels, a tanker and a destroyer, and mistakenly reported the former as a carrier. The Shokaku and Zuikaku’s bombers moved
Explosion on the Lexington during the Coral Sea Battle
in for the attack. Against such easy prey the Japanese pilots had little difficulty, sinking the destroyer at once and fatally damaging the tanker.
Meanwhile American aircraft had sighted the Shoho group and moved in for the kill, sinking the Shoho and a minelayer at 0930 of the 7th. But still neither side had definitely located the main force of the other. Throughout that day and into the night each searched feverishly for the other without success.
On the morning of the 8th, the opposing carriers, about 235 miles apart, located each other. The Shokaku and Zuikaku immediately launched their attack planes which made contact at 0920. At about the same time aircraft from the Lexington and Yorktown hit the Japanese in an attack that lasted less than two hours. The results seemed to be fairly even. Both the American carriers were damaged, the Lexington seriously. Only one of the Japanese carriers, the Shokaku, was hurt badly, but the enemy had lost more planes. Of the original complement of almost 100 aircraft, the Japanese had less than forty. Neither side was in condition to continue the fight.
Deprived of carrier protection and naval escort for the Port Moresby convoy, which had remained out of the way throughout the battle, the Japanese commander decided to call off the invasion and turn back to Rabaul. From Admiral Yamamoto came swift disapproval and an order to resume the fight and “annihilate the remnants of the enemy fleet.”24 But it was too late. For two days he tried to re-establish contact, but finally had to give up.
Admiral Fletcher’s problem was more serious. The Lexington was burning badly and he must try to save it. Shortly after noon of the 8th an internal explosion rocked the “Lady Lex.” Soon there were more explosions and by late afternoon the Lexington’s fires were beyond control. Fletcher realized that he could no longer hope to save the Lady and made ready to pick up her crew when the time came to abandon ship. All hope of returning to the battle was already gone when he received Nimitz’ message to retire. That night the Lexington went down. Not a man was lost, and even the captain’s dog was saved.
The loss of the Lexington gave the victory to the Japanese, if victory is measured in ship losses alone. But the Japanese did not so consider it. Their plan to take Port Moresby had been frustrated; strategically the victory belonged
to the Allies. Coming as it did on 8 May, two days after the gloomy news of Corregidor’s surrender, this victory gleamed all the more brightly as an augur of the future.
The defeat in the Coral Sea had little immediate effect on Japanese plans. These plans had originally called for the seizure of strategic positions in New Caledonia, the Fijis, and Samoa once the Port Moresby operation was over.25 But the staff at Imperial General Headquarters, which approved this plan on 28 April, had hardly begun to prepare for operations against the Allied line of communications when the Navy proposed instead an attack against Midway and the western Aleutians. The Aleutians strike had already been discussed during March and the Army favored it. But Admiral Yamamoto who had first raised the possibility of such an attack against the Aleutians, regarded it as only one part of a larger plan whose main objective was Midway. Admiral Nagano, Chief of the Navy General Staff, did not raise that aspect of Yamamoto’s plans in the discussions with the Army planners. Apparently he was not convinced at this time of the wisdom of an attack against Midway, but Yamamoto soon brought him around to his point of view. On 16 April, Nagano issued orders calling for a simultaneous attack on Midway and the Aleutians early in June, followed by the New Caledonia–Fiji–Samoa operation.
These orders were merely a statement of naval intentions and would not become approved war plans until the Army gave its consent. But Nagano for some unexplained reason did not mention Midway during the debate over the invasion of Australia which led to the agreement of 28 April. Once again Yamamoto turned the powers of his persuasion on Nagano. Now he had the Tokyo raid, which the Japanese then thought had originated from Midway, to bolster his argument. Unless that island was occupied, he warned, there might be more American air raids against the homeland. Again Admiral Nagano bowed to the wishes of his forceful subordinate.
Thus, at the beginning of May, the Army planners received from their naval colleagues a plan for operations against Midway and the Aleutians. General Sugiyama, Chief of the Army General Staff, thought the plan overbold and opposed it, but the Navy was united. Nagano, stoutly backed by Yamamoto, insisted that Midway must be taken and if the Army refused to go along, the Navy would have to act independently. After a brief struggle, General Sugiyama finally gave in, influenced no doubt by Nagano’s assurance that only a very small Army force, about one regiment, would be required. On 5 May, before the Coral Sea battle, Imperial General Headquarters issued orders for the Midway–Aleutians operation, to take place early in June. The New Caledonia–Fiji–Samoa operation would be postponed until after Midway and the western Aleutians had been occupied.26
The decision of 5 May was, in a real sense, a victory for Admiral Yamamoto. In the five months since the start of the
war, the Combined Fleet had moved back and forth across the waters of the Pacific from Pearl Harbor to Ceylon, destroying everything in its path. It had sunk 5 of the enemy’s battleships, 1 aircraft carrier, 2 cruisers and 7 destroyers; damaged a number of capital ships; and destroyed thousands of tons of merchant shipping and fleet auxiliaries. The cost had been small: 3 of the carriers had lost heavily in planes and skilled pilots; 23 small naval vessels, of which the largest was a destroyer, and about 60 transports and merchant ships had been sunk. The time was ripe, Yamamoto firmly believed, for a decisive blow. Pearl Harbor had only crippled the U.S. Pacific Fleet; the attack on Midway, by forcing Nimitz into a fleet engagement, would give the Japanese an opportunity to destroy it.27
The Battle of the Coral Sea did not alter Yamamoto’s views, though it meant that the Shokaku and Zuikaku would not be available for the Midway operation and that there would have to be another try for Port Moresby. But that was placed on the bottom of the list, to be made after New Caledonia, the Fijis, and Samoa had been taken. Midway and the Aleutians now had first priority and planning for them went forward rapidly.
Concurrently with the planning for Midway and the Aleutians, the Army and Navy staff in Tokyo made preparation for the operations which would follow, and on 18 May established the 17th Army under Lt. Gen. Haruyoshi Hyakutake. His orders were to cooperate with the Combined Fleet in the capture of New Caledonia, the Fijis, and Samoa, in order to “destroy the main enemy bases in those areas, establish operational bases at Suva and Nouméa, gain control of the seas east of Australia, and strive to cut communications between Australia and the United States.”28 Early July was the date tentatively selected for the start of these operations, provided that the fleet was ready.
General Hyakutake lost no time in getting ready. His total force consisted of about nine infantry battalions and support would be furnished by the 2nd Fleet, with attached carriers, and the .r.rth Air Fleet. The South Seas Detachment, scheduled to take New Caledonia, was to assemble at Rabaul in the latter part of June; the two detachments selected to seize the Fijis and Samoa were to be ready at Truk early in July. When these operations were concluded, the Japanese would make a second try for Port Moresby.29
Meanwhile Admiral Yamamoto had completed his plans for the Midway—Aleutians campaign. The Aleutians force was built around the carriers Junyo and Ryujo and included, in addition to the landing force, submarines to patrol the west coast.30 For the Midway operation, Yamamoto organized the most formidable force the Japanese had assembled since Pearl Harbor. The occupation force numbered about 5,000 Army and Navy troops whose transports would be protected by a strong escort. The main body of the fleet with which Yamamoto hoped to destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet comprised a carrier force of 4 large carriers, the Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu, and Soryu,
together with battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and auxiliaries; an attack force of 3 battleships, including the 60,000-ton Yamato, flagship of the expedition, a light carrier, tenders, miscellaneous vessels, and a screen of 16 submarines. Yamamoto’s plan was to open the campaign on 3 June by an attack on Dutch Harbor followed by the occupation of the western Aleutians. The carriers then would soften up Midway, while the attack force, led by Yamamoto himself, would move in and finish off the Pacific Fleet if it challenged the carriers. Finally, on the night of 6 June, the landing force would take Midway. But the success of the plan depended, as Yamamoto well knew, on the defeat of the American fleet. So long as that fleet was intact, victory at Midway or in the Aleutians would at best be a hollow one.31
In the last week of May the Japanese began moving into position. The Aleutians force left Japan first, followed on 27 May by the carriers, led by the same Admiral Nagumo who had commanded in the strike on Pearl Harbor. The next day the landing force, which had been assembled at Saipan, completed loading and sailed for the rendezvous point, accompanied by the covering cruisers and destroyers. The following morning (0600 of the 29th) , Admiral Yamamoto left Tokyo Bay with the main body of the fleet.
Again, as in the Coral Sea, the Japanese found the American fleet waiting for them. As before, the warning had come from intelligence sources which had broken the Japanese codes and thus acquired advance information on the next Japanese move. The Battle of the Coral Sea had barely closed when these intelligence sources revealed that the Japanese were collecting a large task force in home waters for an operation scheduled for late May or June. Just where the attack would come was not yet known but Admiral King thought it might be another attempt at Port Moresby or against New Caledonia and the Fij is.32
In support of this view King could turn to the estimate made by General MacArthur some days earlier and without reference to intelligence sources. The end of resistance in the Philippines—the message was dated two days after the surrender of Corregidor—and the British defeat in Burma, MacArthur had written, would probably release Japanese forces for use elsewhere. Unlike the British who feared the Japanese would move in force into the Indian Ocean after the strike against Ceylon early in April, he thought the enemy would probably strike against New Guinea and the line of communications. Thus far he and King were in agreement, while the Army planners were inclined to minimize the threat in the Pacific and side with the British. The Japanese, MacArthur pointed out, had the bases for an offensive in the Pacific but not for large operations against India. To guard against the next Japanese attack, therefore, he recommended “adequate security for Australia and the Pacific Area ... followed at the earliest possible moment by offensive action or by at least a sufficiently dangerous initial
threat of offensive action to affect the enemy’s plans and dispositions.”33
This estimate, when taken with intelligence of Japanese concentrations, combined to produce in Washington a change in plans. At the insistence of Admiral King, Generals Marshall and Arnold finally agreed to an increase in the air strength of New Caledonia and the Fijis, despite the earlier decision not to do so. Heavy and medium bombers en route to Australia were to be diverted to these two garrisons, together with an antiaircraft regiment for the Fijis, to come from the Hawaiian force. MacArthur, it was realized, would probably protest this diversion of his heavy bombers, but Marshall and Arnold decided they would meet that contingency when it arose.34
Before this program of reinforcement began, the cryptanalysts learned that the enemy objectives would be Midway and the Aleutians.35 This information was immediately passed to Nimitz and MacArthur, and orders went out to keep the heavy and medium bombers scheduled for New Caledonia and the Fijis in Hawaii. The Marine garrison at Midway was reinforced and began feverishly to prepare the ground defenses of the island against invasion. The Marine air group there was brought up to strength (64 aircraft) and 15 Army B-17’s were flown in at the end of May. With other reinforcements and exclusive of the Marine air group, the air strength at Midway by 3 June consisted of 30 PBY’s, 4 B-26’s, 17 B-17’s, and 6 TBF’s.36 In the North Pacific, a task force of four heavy cruisers and eight destroyers was organized to meet the naval threat and all air elements in the area, including a few B-17’s that were rushed out, were quickly mobilized for the defense of Alaska and the Aleutians.
To meet the threat of the main force of the Japanese fleet off Midway, Admiral Nimitz had only limited naval forces. The Lexington was gone, the Yorktown damaged. All the fleet’s battleships were on the west coast. The Saratoga and Wasp were on orders for the Pacific, but were not scheduled to arrive until late June. Only the Enterprise and Hornet (Task Force 16) , lately returned from the South Pacific after the Tokyo raid and now commanded by Rear Adm. Raymond A. Spruance during Halsey’s hospitalization, were ready at Pearl Harbor on 26 May, the day Nagumo took his carriers out of the Inland Sea. Next day Fletcher brought his Yorktown force in and the repair crews at Pearl performed the miracle of getting it ready for action in about two days. Thus Nimitz had at the end of the month a force of 3 carriers, 1 light and 7 heavy cruisers, 13 destroyers, and 25 submarines. On 2 June these vessels rendezvoused at a point 350 miles northeast of Midway, where Admiral Fletcher assumed command of the entire force. Next day the fleet was waiting 200 miles north of Midway for the appearance of the enemy. Fletcher’s orders
were to avoid a surface engagement with the more powerful Japanese fleet and to seek a decision by air action.37
Meanwhile, the Seventh Air Force in Hawaii had been making its own preparations for the battle. On the 18th the air force had been placed on a special alert and thereafter intensified its search missions. In the days that followed, Maj. Gen. Clarence L. Tinker, commander of the Seventh Air Force, received a steady stream of reinforcements and by the end of the month had in commission 44 B-17’s, 4 B-18’s, and 101 P-40’s, with more planes arriving almost daily.38
But these measures did not satisfy General MacArthur, who was still concerned over the security of Australia and asking for reinforcements, including aircraft carriers. In justification, Marshall carefully explained the reasons for this concentration at Midway, pointing out the enemy was “endeavoring to maneuver our Pacific Fleet out of position. ... The future of Australia will hinge on our preliminary deployment to meet this situation and our countermoves.”39 Should the Japanese move against Australia instead of Midway, Marshall assured his former chief, then the reinforcements diverted to Hawaii “will immediately be dispatched to your assistance.” “Your needs,” he went on, “are being given every consideration possible in light of developing situation.”
MacArthur took quick advantage of this opportunity to point out again that “lack of seapower in the Pacific is and has been the fatal weakness in our position since the beginning of the war.”40 Since the enemy’s intentions were known, he thought the “Indian and Atlantic Oceans should be temporarily stripped in order to concentrate in sufficient force for this special occasion.” Failure to do this, he warned, might well result in “such disasters and a crisis of such proportions” as the United States had never before faced.
General Marshall was away on an inspection of the west coast defenses when MacArthur’s message came in and it went to Admiral King for reply. Apparently King saw merit in MacArthur’s proposal, for he himself suggested next day that the British Far Eastern Fleet be moved up to Colombo in Ceylon and that the Pacific Fleet be reinforced with carriers, battleships, cruisers, and destroyers from the Atlantic. At the same time he recommended that the movement of aircraft to the Pacific be given priority “even over BOLERO.”41 These proposals struck at the heart of the decision of 6 May to limit Pacific reinforcements to aircraft already authorized,42 and evoked from the Army planners strong opposition. General McNarney, acting for Marshall in his absence, immediately informed his chief of this newest development, but withheld official reply until Marshall’s return on 27 May. The Chief of Staff was willing to support King’s plan for naval reinforcements, but, like McNarney, opposed the allocation of additional aircraft to the Pacific, or, as a matter of fact, any move that would interfere with the build-up for
BOLERO.43 This answer did not satisfy Admiral King or meet MacArthur’s and Nimitz’ demands for reinforcements of the Pacific, but there the matter rested until the crisis presented by the Japanese move against Midway and the Aleutians had been met.
The Japanese, blissfully unaware of the reception being prepared for them, were meanwhile closing in on their objectives. Far to the north, under cover of heavy fog and rough weather, the Aleutians force had by the 3rd of June reached a point about 180 miles southwest of Dutch Harbor, from where the Junyo and Ryujo sent their planes aloft. Though alerted the day before when a PBY had spotted the two carriers, the aircraft at Dutch Harbor had been unable to locate the enemy and forestall the strike that followed. In addition to the damage to barracks and installations, the Americans lost about twenty-five men. Next day the weather was worse but the Japanese, now less than 100 miles away, struck again at Dutch Harbor, this time with more effect. But they did not get away unscathed; they lost five planes out of twenty-six to P-40’s from Umnak.
While the Junyo and Ryujo planes were striking Dutch Harbor, American aircraft were groping in the fog and mist for the enemy carriers. A PBY sighted the Japanese force at 0845 of the 4th, but it was not until midafternoon that any of the bombers were able to locate the target. And when they did they had to bomb almost blind through the fog. By this time the carriers had completed their task and were already withdrawing to a point from where they could screen the landings in the western Aleutians, at Attu and Kiska, on 7 June.44
At Midway the Japanese had met disaster. Sighted on 3 June by one of the Midway search planes, the occupation force had come under attack from B-17’s later in the day but had escaped. That night PBY’s equipped with radar attacked again, this time hitting one of the tankers and strafing the transports. But this was only a preliminary to the real battle that came the next day when Admiral Nagumo’s carrier force, which had already discharged its planes for the attack, was discovered to the northwest of the island. B-17’s, B-26’s, and Marine planes were already aloft and these sped to the scene while the remaining aircraft on Midway as well as those on the three American carriers made ready to take off. When the Japanese aircraft, seventy-two bombers and thirty-six fighters, moved in to the attack they met a warm reception. Badly hit, the Japanese nevertheless managed to inflict severe damage before they made their escape.45
Meanwhile, the Japanese carriers had come under heavy attack from the Americans. Bunched together, the Akagi, Kaga, and Soryu proved vulnerable targets and all were fatally hit. The Soryu was dealt the last blow by the submarine Nautilus and went down at 1610; the Kaga joined her a few minutes later, and that evening the Akagi, which had been
set afire and was burning fiercely, was abandoned. Nagumo’s fourth carrier, the Hiryu, launched its own attack on Yorktown, dealt her a lethal blow, and then was herself hit by dive bombers from the other two American carriers. Like the Akagi, the Hiryu was set afire and finally abandoned on the morning of the 5th.
The fate of the Japanese carriers decided the issue. Yamamoto’s vain effort on the night of the 5th to snatch victory from defeat by an attack against the island was a measure of desperation and only resulted in fresh disaster. Two of his cruisers collided and had to retire, only to be hit the next day by planes from the Enterprise and Hornet. One was sunk and the other badly damaged. Yamamoto’s main body—the battleship division, three destroyer divisions, and the Aleutians force—was still intact and, in a final effort to destroy the Pacific Fleet, Yamamoto sought to lure Admiral Spruance into a trap off Wake Island. But Spruance, though tempted, refused to take the bait. By the afternoon of the 7th Yamamoto knew his last hope was gone and started for home. The surprise he had hoped to achieve had been gained by the enemy instead; he had been outmaneuvered, outsmarted, and, worst of all, had lost four carriers with their planes and pilots, the main striking force of the Combined Fleet. It was a blow from which the Japanese fleet never fully recovered.46
This disaster, the full extent of which was concealed from the Japanese public, had a decisive effect on General Hyakutake’s plans for the seizure, early in July, of New Caledonia, the Fijis, and Samoa. Four days after the battle ended, on 11 June, Imperial General Headquarters postponed the operations for two months and later canceled them altogether.47 The capture of Port Moresby was now more urgent than ever to meet the threat of counterattack from Australia. An amphibious operation was no longer possible, however, and Imperial General Headquarters canceled the project at the same time it called off the New Caledonia–Fiji–Samoa operation. But it did not give up the idea of taking Port Moresby. Instead it directed Hyakutake to make plans for an overland drive from the east coast of New Guinea across the towering Owen Stanley Range. On the basis of this order and a naval survey for airfield sites, General Hyakutake ordered Horii, the South Seas Detachment commander, to land at Buna and reconnoiter the land route for an advance on Port Moresby. Finally, on 11 July, a month after it had canceled a seaborne invasion of Port Moresby, Imperial General Headquarters gave its blessing to this new scheme for an overland attack. Ten days later the Japanese landed at Buna.48
For the period between mid-March, the high-water mark of Japanese expansion, and late July the Japanese had precious little to show for their efforts other than a victory, already assured, in the Philippines. They had acquired a seaplane base at Tulagi on 3 May and soon thereafter began building an airstrip on the neighboring island of Guadalcanal. A month later they had seized
Battle of Midway. Japanese heavy cruiser of the Mogami class after being bombed by carrier-based aircraft
two islands in the bleak Aleutians, and then a beachhead at Buna from where they hoped to launch an attack against Port Moresby. The cost of these scattered holdings in planes, trained pilots, and carriers had been enormous. Until these losses were replaced and the superiority lost at Midway regained, as it never could be in a race against American production, the Japanese would have to go on the strategic defensive. The tide of victory had finally turned.
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