Peter G. Tsouras

by Rising Sun Victorious: An Alternate History of the Pacific War

  Task Force 1—eleven battleships, three cruisers, and eighteen destroyers—under the tactical command of Kimmel, aboard the battleship Pennsylvania, would sail on M plus 2 to Wake Island via Midway, arriving on M plus 12. In case Wake had fallen, a battalion of Marines in APDs (old destroyers modified as high-speed transports) accompanied the task force. A convoy transporting a coastal defense battalion, fifty crated aircraft, and supplies for Wake, trailed the task force by approximately five days. TF 1 would sail from Wake for Guam by M plus 15. Guam, probably lost to the Japanese in the first days of the conflict, would be briefly bombarded and recaptured by the Marines. On or about M plus 21, the fleet would leave Guam for Manila, arriving off the Philippines no later than M plus 25 and taking a northern route around Luzon, hopefully forcing the IJN to give battle or face the interdiction of its forces engaged in the invasion of the Philippines. Elements of the victorious TF 1 would arrive in Manila by M plus 28, at the latest.

  Task Forces 2 and 3, centered respectively, on the carriers Lexington and Saratoga, would sortie from Pearl immediately upon the opening of hostilities. The carrier groups, each protected by a screen of cruisers and destroyers, would scout ahead of the fleet (TF 2 to the north, TF 3 to the south). Through M plus 15, the task forces would operate approximately 300 miles forward of TF 1. After the relief or recapture of Guam, the carriers would be reined in, to fifty miles, allowing them to fly CAP (Combat Air Patrol) over TF 1 as Japanese naval and land-based aircraft became more of a threat.

  Task Force 4, composed of the carrier Enterprise and the fast battleships North Carolina and Washington—the last-named warship rushed to commissioning as the Japanese threat loomed— would provide a diversionary force. From either Pearl or its normal cruising station southeast of the Marshalls, TF 4 would raid through the Japanese mandates; its high-speed run concluding with a daring assault on Truk, the major IJN base in the area. TF 4 would then rendezvous with TF 1 near the Philippines around M plus 22.

  On M plus 30, a large convoy with men and matériel for Guam, Wake, and the Philippines, would leave the West Coast. Task Force 5, composed of cruisers and destroyers, would escort this force to the Philippines—if the Japanese had not yet sued for peace. “The Japanese will face us because they must face us—or abandon their invasion forces in the Pacific. And their battle line cannot stand against us!” Kimmel stated at the conclusion of the briefing. He was interrupted by the man who would command TF 4, William F. “Bull” Halsey: “Be careful what you wish for, Admiral!” Ordered by Kimmel to explain his outburst, the unrepentant Halsey warned, “Somewhere across that water a little yellow bastard is telling other little yellow bastards the same thing; only he's saying that our battleships cannot stand against their carriers. And until those carriers are burning, I say be damned careful what you wish for!” 11 As it turned out, both men were correct to some degree.

  At 0800, December 7, an aide awakened Kimmel at his office on Oahu with the news that Japan had just invaded the Philippines. He immediately ordered War Plan Orange to be implemented and prepared to board Arizona, rather than Pennsylvania. Kimmel had placed the usual flagship of the Pacific Fleet in dry dock only three days earlier for annual servicing of its shafts, and rather than sail late, the admiral ordered it to join the M plus 30 convoy as reinforcement for his by then theoretically victorious fleet.12

  An hour later Kimmel's blood pressure soared when he learned that Douglas MacArthur had somehow managed to be taken by surprise. Most of his planes had been destroyed on the ground and the Imperial Army had landed at points across the Philippines with minimal resistance. Turning to Ensign Elmo R. “Bud” Zumwalt, his newly appointed aide, Kimmel snarled, “If MacArthur loses my base before I get there, he better have died gloriously—or I will kill him myself!”13

  As the U.S. fleet began its exodus from Pearl, a last telegram crossed the Pacific to Tokyo.14It read, “Hope to leave for Tokyo tomorrow. Plan to Climb Mount Niitaka next week.” Unknown to the American telegraphist, the sender, Takeo Yoshikawa, had been carefully observing the U.S. base for six months. His telegram, received at the American Desk of Japanese Naval Intelligence and forwarded immediately to Yamato, gave rise to cheers among Yamamoto's staff. Their admiral, an avid climber, had picked the phrase “Climb Mount Niitaka” as the signal that the U.S. battle fleet had entered the fray.

  A Stillness on the Sea

  MacArthur had, indeed, been caught unprepared despite the obviously critical place of the Philippines in War Plan Orange. Clark Field outside Manila, bloomed with fires from the prettily arrayed rows of U.S. planes pummeled by Japanese bombers. By 2000 on December 7, only thirty-one fighters, twenty-seven bombers (including five B-17s), and three seaplanes remained operational.

  Though MacArthur failed to contest the landings in the Philippines, that did not mean resistance melted away. On the contrary, Americans as well as the green Filipino Constabulary fought magnificently on the ground. As early as December 9, Gen. Nasaharu Homma, commanding the Imperial Army's invasion of Luzon, sent a message to Tokyo demanding increased naval air support and additional troops. Yamamoto refused to release his carriers (now lurking west of Guam), partly out of fear that too rapid a success on the ground would cause the U.S. fleet to return to Pearl, thus evading his trap. As a result, considerable friction developed between the army and navy hierarchies. Fortunately for Japan, Yamamoto's threat to resign, following on the heels of naval successes in the South China Sea on December 8, squelched that particular internal conflict.

  On December 7 a British force composed of the battleships Repulse and Prince of Wales, with the carrier Indomitable providing air cover, sortied from Singapore to disrupt Japanese amphibious landings along the Malaysian coast. On the following day, Indomitable's CAP found itself swamped by waves of Japanese fighters and bombers. The British lost all three capital ships, but not before scout planes from their carrier reported the source of their numerous attackers—six Japanese flattops, steaming just within maximum range of Clark airfield. For once, MacArthur acted with alacrity, dispatching every available plane to attack the enemy task force. The uncoordinated waves of U.S. planes began their attack as darkness fell across the South China Sea. Short on fuel and blanketed in darkness, few of the bombers and fighters managed to return to Clark, but those that did allowed MacArthur to send his historic message at 2330 that evening: “Tonight there is a stillness on the South China Sea where once the fleet of Japan roamed at will. I have avenged the brave crews of the Repulse, the Prince of Whales [sic], and the Indomitable. Five carriers of the Japanese Navy have been confirmed as destroyed by my heroic American aviators, and another is damaged and presumed sinking.”15

  Thus Yamamoto won a double victory that day—three British capital ships stricken from the Royal Naval list, and MacArthur's reassurance to the world that the carrier might of Japan had been destroyed. Kimmel, steaming rapidly to Wake Island, is reported to have held a dinner party the following evening, neither the first nor the last warrior deceived into celebration while a trap waited patiently mere days ahead. Rear Adms. Wilson Brown (TF 2) and Frank Fletcher (TF 3), scouting far forward of TF 1, breathed sighs of relief. Until that moment, each man had wrestled with nightmares of their single carriers isolated and destroyed by the numerically superior IJN naval air power. Fletcher, always concerned about the fuel levels of his ships, even slowed his advance the following day to replenish.

  Only aboard Enterprise, flagship of TF 4, did a senior American officer seem to have doubts concerning the veracity of MacArthur's message. A young flier overheard Halsey, then suffering from a constantly worsening skin rash, snorted, “That son of a bitch was born an egotistical liar. Even those yellow bastards aren't stupid enough to put six big carriers where his fliers could get at 'em. Doug couldn't sink an outhouse, not even if he dropped a brick one in the middle of Subic Bay. I hope to God that Wil and Frank see through this crap. 'Stillness on the sea'—shit!”16

  Truk-ing

  It's a mili
tary truism that no plan survives contact with the enemy, and it was certainly as applicable to Plan Z as to the illfated Plan Orange. Yamamoto faced two unexpected problems: the ABDA command reinforced by Yorktown, and TF 4 rampaging through the Marshall Islands. Both moves caught the Japanese admiral flat-footed (Yamamoto strongly believed that the USN would sensibly mass its carriers for battle) and demanded immediate attention.

  Operating from secure bases in the Netherlands East Indies, the ABDA task force pushed tentatively northward on December 8, threatening to disrupt the valuable convoys supporting the invasions of the Philippines and Malaya. Two days later Yamamoto dispatched a task force centered around the slightly damaged Ryujo and the light carrier Hosho to counter the threat. On December 17, after a week of sparring, fighters and bombers from Yorktown caught the Japanese carriers in the process of launching a strike against the ABDA task force. In the face of stiff resistance from a reinforced enemy CAP (fighters were already aloft for the planned strike against Yorktown), American dive-bombers hit Hosho five times, while two torpedoes and three bombs turned Ryujo into a flaming hulk. But this victory had a stiff price—Yorktown expended seventy-three planes in the attack, including all of its torpedo bombers and over half of its fighters. Adm. Karl Doorman, aboard the cruiser De Ruyter, had little choice but to order withdrawal until the depleted air wing could be reinforced; especially after Japanese submarine 1-17 sank Langley (once designated CV 1, then redesignated AV 3, an aviation transport), ferrying replacement aircraft to Yorktown, on December 19. Nonetheless, the ABDA provided the only true victory for the Allies during the brief Pacific War.

  Unless he chose to weaken his Fast Strike Force, Yamamoto lacked carriers to send against the U.S. task force raiding through the Marshalls. Still, the fleet base at Truk, an obvious target for the Americans, offered an opportunity to attrit the USN. On December 9, Yamamoto dispatched a light force led by Rear Adm. Raizo Tanaka in the cruiser Jintsu to Truk. It included two additional cruisers, Myoko and Nachi, and eight destroyers. Tanaka had orders to attempt to develop a night action if the Americans approached the base.

  Slowed by a boiler failure on the hastily commissioned Washington, TF 4 did not enter strike range of Truk until December 22. Even then, Halsey hesitated to commit his dwindling air group against a possibly heavy Japanese air defense. Holding a cruiser and four destroyers back to defend Enterprise, the admiral ordered the remainder of the task force to close and bombard Truk under cover of darkness. Capt. Tameichi Hara, skippering the destroyer Amatsukaze, describes what followed:

  A seaplane reported two American battleships [North Carolina and Washington], two cruisers, and six destroyers steaming directly to Truk shortly before dark on December 22. Tanaka, perhaps the best in our navy at night actions by small ships, deployed us in parallel lines, an interior of three cruisers led by two destroyers, and an exterior of six destroyers. At 1123, [destroyer] Kuroshio spotted shapes approaching the front of our column at about 48°. A cloudy night, the Americans had approached to less then 3,000 yds before being spotted! Strangely, they seemed not to see us at all, until our division unleashed 48 torpedoes and turned quickly to port for reloading. At that instant star shells burst above the enemy battleships, and the leader, the North Carolina [actually the cruiser Chicora], was hit by concentrated fire from our cruisers. I was busy for the next few seconds as shell splashes swamped my frail vessel. The Kuroshio was not so lucky—at least one large caliber shell penetrated a magazine and it seemed to lift completely from the water. Seconds later, Murata [a spotter] screamed, “Hits! Torpedo hits along the line!” My heart almost stopped before I realized that he meant the enemy line, and not ours ... By 0058, it seemed that the sea was covered in burning ships. A large American vessel, obviously out of control, bore down on us. I ordered our 5-inch guns to open fire—a mistake as an enemy cruiser quickly hit us once the flashes revealed our position, our first damage of the engagement... At 0153, Jintsu, burning and dead in the water, flashed a message to launch remaining torpedoes and disengage. It grieved us to so abandon our comrades, particularly my friend and mentor, Tanaka . . .

  Clearly, our success against the vastly superior American force resulted from our constant training in night combat actions and proper use of the torpedo, aspects of war neglected by the enemy. But given time, the USN could match the training, if not the warrior spirit, of the Imperial Navy. Thus the advantage of our grossly outnumbered ships would be fleeting—I prayed to my ancestors that it would last long enough for Yamamoto to crush the enemy's main battle line...17

  In the confused night action at Truk, both American battleships suffered severely. Each took two torpedoes, Washington's already slow pace dropping to fifteen knots. All three USN cruisers sank before dawn, along with three destroyers. Halsey had little option except to return to Pearl—abandoning the damaged battlewagons to join Kimmel would result in their destruction. Even then, IJN submarine 1-221 managed to penetrate TF 4's reduced ASW (antisubmarine warfare) screen and sink Washington on December 25.

  Admiral Tanaka, his flagship reduced to a hulk by numerous large caliber hits, actually survived the battle, the vessel towed to Truk the following day. The other Japanese cruisers and three destroyers were not as lucky. Tanaka shifted his flag to Amatsukaze, and having effectively stripped two battleships and a carrier from the American fleet, began moving his battered survivors to join Yamamoto off Luzon for the final showdown.

  What Damn Carriers?

  Task Force 1 reached the vicinity of Wake Island on December 19, shortly after Kimmel received a belated notification of Yorktown's successful action against the Japanese light carriers. Though Kimmel should have been puzzled by the failure of the IJN to seize the lightly defended islands of Guam and Wake, he apparently wrote the matter off to Yamamoto's incompetence as a naval commander (perhaps understandably—Kimmel was operating under the delusion that Japan had lost as many as eight carriers). The task force tarried only briefly in the vicinity of Wake, and then only because of a torpedo hit on the old battleship Texas (screening forces sank three IJN submarines in the area, of which only one managed a torpedo attack). The battlewagon's crew quickly fixed a temporary patch over the gaping hole in its bow, allowing it to remain with the task force when the latter turned for Guam on December 20.

  As TF 1 neared Guam, IJN submarine contacts increased. By December 26, when the APDs unloaded their Marines as reinforcements for Guam's defenders, screening destroyers had defeated over a dozen attacks. Despite four confirmed kills, exhaustion took its toll, and 1-214 at last managed to hit Nevada with four torpedoes before being forced to the surface and rammed by the destroyer Manley. Though valiant damage control efforts saved the battleship from sinking, its propellers and rudder had been smashed. When Kimmel began the last stage of his voyage on December 27, both Nevada and Manley remained at Guam. The APDs also stayed, to screen the damaged battleship.

  Brown's Task Force 2 and Fletcher's Task Force 3 failed to find a single Japanese vessel in their rush across the Pacific, though Lexington's air group bombed and strafed the small Japanese airfield on Saipan on December 24 and 25. War Plan Orange had called for the carrier task forces to close with TF 1 on the final leg of its journey, but Kimmel, thinking the threat from enemy naval aircraft had been minimized signaled Brown and Fletcher to unite their task forces on December 29, approximately 300 miles due west of Legaspi airfield on Luzon. They would then proceed, under Fletcher's command, to the Formosa-Luzon gap, fixing the position of the IJN Combined Fleet for Kimmel's rapidly approaching TF 1.

  Had the carriers united at 0800 December 29, as ordered, a thin chance existed that they could have survived the onslaught that overwhelmed them individually; but Fletcher, on December 28, had again slowed TF 3 for refueling, despite the fact that the Saratoga's tanks were well over half full. His first indication of a problem came at 0937 on the following day, while still eight full hours south of TF 2. When given a radio message from Lexington that read, “Under attack by
large numbers of Japanese carrier planes. Where is TF 3? All the world wonders,” Fletcher could only exclaim, “Carrier planes! What damn carriers can they still have?”18 At last ordering the task force to full speed, Fletcher revectored his search planes and tried to contact Brown's force.

  The world will never know exactly what happened to TF 2. How did Vice Adm. Chuichi Nagumo's “Ghost Fleet,” the six carriers of the Fast Strike Force, manage to surprise Wilson? Why did Nagumo continue to pound the task force after Lexington sank? And why was no effort made to rescue the thousands of survivors abandoned in the shark-infested Pacific waters? What we do know is that a carrier, three cruisers, eight destroyers, and two fast oilers succumbed to eight hours of repeated air attack. The suffering of their crews, until taken by the sharks or succumbing to dehydration, is perhaps better left unimagined.

  The death of Saratoga seems almost anticlimactic after the horrors experienced by TF 2. At 1628 on December 29, one of Fletcher's scouts (before being destroyed) reported four Japanese heavy carriers approximately 250 miles west-northwest of TF 3. Fletcher quickly launched a full strike, retaining only six fighters for CAP. While getting the strike into the air, Saratoga's CAP killed a Japanese flying boat, but only after it had reported TF 3's position. Though Nagumo's fliers were exhausted after destroying TF 2, he nonetheless managed to deploy a small striking force of eight torpedo planes, twelve dive-bombers, and nine fighters (none would find their way home in the gathering darkness). These found Saratoga at 2010, quickly overwhelmed its CAP, and sank the carrier with three torpedo and at least four bomb hits. Fletcher died on his bridge. The remainder of TF 3, crowded with Saratoga's survivors, made full speed for Guam. As for the American air group, it reported sinking two carriers attempting to hide in a rapidly advancing storm front, then disappeared plane by plane as each exhausted its fuel. Though Nagumo reported 112 of his 497 available planes lost on December 29, he never mentioned a U.S. attack on his force. Ironically, the two carriers reported destroyed by Saratoga's air group may well have been the oilers attached to TF 2.