by Rising Sun Victorious: An Alternate History of the Pacific War
15. Henry C. Clausen and Bruce Lee, Pearl Harbor: Final Judgement (Crown Publishers, New York, 1992), 135–36.
CHAPTER 4
Coral and Purple
The Lost Advantage
James R. Arnold
Station Hypo, Honolulu, April 17, 1942
“This is different, Joe,” said fleet intelligence officer Lt. Cmdr. Edwin Layton. “King himself wants your analysis, and he wants it fast.”
“Sweet Jesus,” replied Lt. Cmdr. Joseph Rochefort, “I didn't realize he was aware of our existence. I'll put together a report right away.”
Layton hung up the phone. He recalled the instructions issued by Adm. Chester Nimitz during the darkest days following Pearl Harbor. Nimitz told Layton to “be the Admiral Nagumo of my staff.” Nimitz elaborated that Layton was to analyze the war from the Japanese viewpoint and to advise him about enemy strategy and objectives. He knew that the U.S. Pacific Fleet would suffer from numerical inferiority throughout 1942. To compensate, he wanted superior intelligence.
It was a tall order, yet Layton possessed unique attributes suiting him to the task. He had served as a naval attaché in Tokyo. Numerous bridge sessions with Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto and his staff gave Layton useful insight into the character of key Japanese officers. But it was the information provided by Station Hypo's traffic analysts, combined with the station's increasingly successful decryptions of the Japanese Naval Code, JN25B, that gave Layton the ability to try to predict Japanese naval strategy. By dint of prolonged painstaking labor, the traffic analysts sorted through intercepted Japanese radio chatter and learned the call numbers for Japanese bases and ships. Thus they could identify a concentration of enemy strength at a specific location and forecast a pending Japanese operation. Better yet, after just three months of war, Rochefort and his team were intercepting and breaking significant portions of the Japanese operational radio traffic.
At the beginning of April, Rochefort's radio intelligence briefs said that the Japanese were preparing to resume operations in the Southwest Pacific for what the Japanese called an RZP campaign. Rochefort tentatively identified RZP as Port Moresby. In fact, it was the Japanese designation for Tulagi in the Solomon Islands, and Tulagi merely represented a supporting prong of a multiprong Japanese offensive. However, Rochefort correctly added that a buildup at Rabaul suggested that it was to serve as the Japanese base for a campaign into the Coral Sea (see Map 6). By April 7 he reported that repairs on the carrier Kaga were being rushed ahead so it could participate. Shortly thereafter, Nimitz received Australian reports of intensifying air raids against Port Moresby, raids consistent with Roche-fort's prediction.
Nimitz's mandate from the commander in chief of the U.S. Fleet, Adm. Ernest King, included maintaining the sea lanes to Australia. Consequently, Nimitz resolved to oppose the Japanese offensive into the Coral Sea. But he had few available forces. The carriers Enterprise and Hornet were committed to Doolittle's raid against Japan. Lexington was in dry dock at Pearl Harbor. Only Yorktown was on the scene. Nimitz knew that to take action to prevent a southward Japanese advance, he would have to move quickly. His sense of urgency increased on April 15 when Layton presented a British decryption indicating that the Japanese striking forces were completing operations in the Indian Ocean and that Carrier Division 5 would proceed to Truk, “arriving about April 28.” At the great natural harbor in Truk lagoon, Carrier Division 5 could refit. Thereafter it would be well poised to begin a campaign to the south. Accordingly, Nimitz ordered Lexington to sail south to join Yorktown. It was a high-risk decision involving half of the available American carrier strength, and it was based on intelligence estimates that the senior American staff knew were far from perfect. Because of the gravity of tbhe decision, Nimitz felt compelled to inform King that it was possible the U.S. carriers would be outnumbered two to one in a battle for the Coral Sea.
Map 6. Coral Sea: Theater of Operation, May 1942
It was a measure of King's concern that he took the unprecedented step of directly requesting Station Hypo's analysis. Six hours after Layton conferred with Rochefort, the reply was on its way. There were five main points: (1) The Japanese had now concluded their Indian Ocean operation; (2) an offensive was planned for eastern New Guinea; to be combined with (3) an offensive into the Coral Sea; (4) there was no evidence of preparations to invade Australia; (5) there was another Japanese operations in preparation but its objective was not yet clear. Later that same day Rochefort's team discovered that a Japanese light carrier and a cruiser division were being assigned to cover the buildup at Rabaul. This unwelcome intelligence meant that the U.S. carriers would confront ever more difficult odds. Still, Nimitz and King did not waver. Nimitz calculated that Station Hypo's priceless intelligence would allow his carriers to ambush the unsuspecting Japanese and that surprise would even the odds.
Had Station Hypo been privy to the activities of its enemy counterpart, its analysts would have realized that successful traffic analysis was a two-way street. Unknown to the Americans, their own high-frequency, ship-to-air radio transmissions were not limited to the horizon, as experts asserted. Instead they bounced up and down from the Heaviside layer and skipped across the Pacific to Japan. The Japanese radio intelligence center at Owada detected increased radio activity at Pearl Harbor on April 15. When Lexington landed its complement of planes amid a great deal of radio chatter, analysts at Owada correctly deduced that a carrier was preparing to sortie. Accordingly, Owada issued an alert that a carrier task force was departing Pearl Harbor.
Yamato, Fleet Anchorage,
Hashirajima Roads, April 18
The thud of gunfire announced that the battleships had renewed their target practice. These vessels, which the aviators dismissively labeled the “rest and reserve fleet,” hoped that their turn would come soon when the commander of the Combined Fleet, Admiral Yamamoto, led them out to fight the decisive fleet action. In preparation, day after day, they trained very hard.
Aboard the giant battleship Yamato, Yamamoto reread the Imperial General Headquarters' war plan with distaste: After “a strategic situation of long-term invincibility” had been established by consolidating Japan's island defense system in the Pacific, the ambitious plan called for the “capture of Hawaii and the outlying islands, attack on the United States, Canada, Panama Canal, as well as against Central America until the United States loses its fighting spirit and the war can be brought to a conclusion.” The plan's first phase—a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor to cover the capture of the Philippines, Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies—was almost fulfilled. So far, the Imperial Japanese Navy had reigned supreme. The surpassing issue was what to do next. What should the second phase objective be?
Yamamoto keenly felt the crushing progress of time. He well knew that Japan could not endure a protracted war of attrition with the American colossus. Only a short decisive war would do, and this required bringing the U.S. fleet to battle. Consequently, he doubted the wisdom of taking time to consolidate gains before launching a decisive offensive. Yet this was precisely what many Japanese strategists at Imperial General Headquarters were advocating. Yamamoto called it a “wait in ambush” policy, with the prey being the U.S. fleet. It was entirely too passive. Indeed, in his view, recent American carrier raids and cruiser bombardments against Japanese bases demonstrated the futility of a passive defense. It made far more sense to take the fight to the enemy. He had wanted to eliminate Allied bases in northern and eastern Australia by direct invasion.
Yamamoto sighed. Those army blockheads. All they could think about was China and Russia. Everything else was secondary. The army had vehemently opposed the Australian plan because it required vast resources of troops and shipping. The two services reached a compromise: Australia would be isolated by severing its lines of communication with Hawaii. Yet when Yamamoto and his Combined Fleet staff proposed opening the second phase with the capture of Ceylon, New Guinea, and Port Darwin, the army refused to yield on the Australian invasion. Final
ly, Imperial General Headquarters authorized the Combined Fleet to initiate “Operation MO,” featuring the assault on and occupation of two bases in New Guinea, Lae and Salamaua, as soon as possible. Army aircraft stationed there would begin to soften up Port Moresby. Then Tulagi in the Solomon Islands—code-designated RZP—would be captured to provide a base to support floatplane reconnaissance on the flank of an amphibious assault against Port Moresby.
By the time Operation MO was approved, Yamamoto had conceived something far grander. After much wrangling within the high command, he won permission to attack Midway Island in order to entice the enemy's carriers into action. The MO campaign in the Coral Sea would serve as a satisfactory preliminary but would have to adhere to a tight schedule so as not to take resources away from the thrust into the Central Pacific.
Then came the shocking surprise of Doolittle's B-25s appearing in the skies over Tokyo. It caused a tremendous loss of face among Japanese strategists. Frantic air and sea searches failed to yield a single clue about the size or direction of the American task force. Consequently, not one blow could be struck in retribution. Yamamoto observed that the affair “provides a regrettably graphic illustration of the saying that a bungling attack is better than the most skillful defense.” His chief of staff, Adm. Matome Ugaki, added “This brings up the necessity for fundamental changes, from now on, in our plans and countermeasures.” Referring to previous American raids, Ugaki continued, “Someday, when he has launched his planes and closed in for gun bombardment, the golden opportunity to get him will surely come.”
A long silence ensued. Then Yamamoto said, “In war, one must make one's own opportunities.”
MacArthur's Headquarters, Melbourne, April 19
Rachel Bray steadied herself with an effort. God, hurry, just please finish, she thought as MacArthur's spokesman continued with his tedious recital of the day's events. Rachel well knew that once he ended, the newspaper scribes would ask innumerable questions and thus prolong the session. She wondered if she could endure it.
An anxious air pervaded the headquarters of MacArthur's Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA) command. To date, each day seemed to bring yet another report of Allied setback and disaster. Yet MacArthur's arrival in Australia and his establishment of a large headquarters in Melbourne had been a bracing tonic for a worried people. Reporters flocked to his headquarters, both because MacArthur's big personality provided colorful news and because his spokesmen offered interesting tidbits about SWPA operations that censors at other headquarters seemed to restrict.
Rachel Bray had used an old university connection to obtain a press pass that allowed her to attend the briefings. Her shapely legs and ample bosom helped her overcome the only obstacle— an officious censor who had questioned her reporter's qualifications. In truth, a few journalism classes and a handful of published articles were the extent of her experience. During her second year at university she had largely abandoned her journalistic and then became something far more. Seeing the pencil in her hand shaking, she willed herself to listen to the briefer. After all, Mr. Long would expect something better than she had provided last week.
“So,” the spokesman continued, “the Japs are starting to appear at Port Moresby, but our pilots are ready. We have some experienced men there and they are achieving some striking results. But I have to tell you, boys, we think this is just a hint of things to come. We think something big is coming, but rest assured the general has duly taken every precaution. We are ready this time. This time . . .” The spokesman paused for dramatic emphasis. “This time we are going to hit back very hard. Now, I have time for one or two questions.”
“Does General MacArthur think the men on Corregidor can be relieved?”
The spokesman scowled. His boss had told him that the general wanted him to bolster the spirits of the Australian people. This day was supposed to be about what MacArthur and SWPA was going to do to the Japanese, not about those poor unfortunates back in the Philippines.
“Dick, as you know, the garrison at Corregidor is fighting very hard. General MacArthur personally selected General Wainwright to conduct the defense and he has every confidence in him. Yes, young lady.”
After carefully selecting the question on her list that had yet to be addressed, Rachel asked, “Sir, many of my readers are not what you might call worldly. Like me and my family, they live in some pretty isolated places.” A few titters interrupted her, as those who knew Rachel knew about her legendary parties at and after university, and that she had long ago dissociated herself from her farming family. “And they worry, are the Japs going to invade?”
She locked her green eyes with those of the officer conducting the briefing, flashed her most provocative smile, then demurely looked away.
larly wants me to have everyone reassure readers that there is nothing to worry about on that score. There may still be an occasional air raid or the odd sub firing a few rounds from somewhere offshore, but nothing indicates an attempt against Australia.”
“Sir, if I may ...” Rachel fixed his gaze again.
“Yes?” The officer nodded and smiled.
“This is really not for my readers, it's for me. I have a dear uncle living outside of Port Moresby. Is he in danger?”
“Ah . . .” The officer hesitated. Well, his boss did say he wanted to reassure the public while making sure that it was MacArthur and the army, not the goddamned navy, that got the proper credit. “The general thinks that the Japs just might have a go at New Guinea. As we have been describing, they like to get their airstrips established first, and then move their troop convoys under the air umbrella. But we are quite sure that our Kittyhawks at Port Moresby are going to deny him that cover. You can tell your uncle that General MacArthur says we are ready for whatever the Japs send our way.”
Agent T, known to Rachel Bray as “Mr. Long,” waited for her weekly report. Japanese agents had discovered they were best absorbed into their target countries by passing as fishermen, porters, or agricultural workers. This had worked particularly well in Hawaii and Mexico. Because it lacked a significant Japanese population, Australia presented a special challenge for the intelligence service. But beginning with its intervention in Shantung in the late 1920s, the service had been on the lookout for Chinese recruits. The usual mix of bribery and blackmail had produced a handful of candidates. Among them, Agent T had emerged at the top of his class. His handlers were confident that he would perform well. After all, his family's fate back in Shantung depended on it.
Agent T, in turn, had correctly anticipated that once war began, Australian coastal surveillance would be too intense to maintain a cover as a fisherman. What's more, he had no interest in menial labor. He found that his mathematical skills— which had impressed his trainers when they taught him about codes—suited him to gambling. This was the avenue he used to enter Melbourne's small, shapeless Asian community. Soon he was running his own gambling room in a building he shared with a Chinese-run opium den. At that time, back in 1940, he encountered a desperate young woman who said that she had mistakenly left most of her money at home (Agent T had often heard that timeworn story before) and badly wanted some cash just now so she could meet up with her friends at a party down the street. She had just enough for one or two bets at the roulette wheel. Agent T had seen her type before. He lent her money for her habit and thereby recruited his most promising agent. She provided him with information from the SWPA briefings as well as loose gossip from the officers' bars.
Hating herself, but having no choice, Rachel rationalized that, after all, she was just telling this man stuff that everyone else was going to read tomorrow.
Agent T heard her out, then passed over the precious envelope. Reviewing her information, he decided it was not important enough to justify sending a radio report.
Pacific Fleet Headquarters, Honolulu, April 20
Admiral Nimitz met again with his staff to discuss how to confront the impending Japanese offensive into the Coral Sea. Station Hypo
was more confident than ever about its prediction. Independent corroboration came from an Australian naval intelligence report of intensification of enemy air surveillance in the Coral Sea. The British reported that a cruiser division and a carrier with a name ending in “kaku” were due in Truk by April 25. This confirmed previous decryptions predicting that Carrier Division 5, comprising the carriers Zuikaku and Shokaku, was bound for Truk. There was one ominous development. A decryption from Australia alerted Station Hypo that the Japanese intended to introduce a new operational code on May 1, sure evidence that a major operation was to follow. It also meant that Allied intelligence would be blinded for weeks until analysts cracked the new code.
Lt. Commander Layton summarized the intelligence picture: “There are many indications that the enemy will launch an offensive in the New Guinea-New Britain-Solomon area.”1 The offensive would enjoy superior carrier strength and land-based airpower and it would “start very soon.” Layton said that the Japanese might deploy as many as five carriers. However, intelligence had confirmed the participation of only three. Nimitz considered this information. He could count on radio intelligence to reveal Japanese direction and deployment, but while it was well and good to know his foe's intentions, he realized he might not have enough strength to stop the Japanese. Enterprise and Hornet were due back at Pearl in three days. The Coral Sea was a ten-day trip, thus the outcome would probably be decided before they could participate. So, he had only two carriers, supported by MacArthur's planes based in northeast Australia and New Guinea, to confront three to five Japanese carriers. Nimitz made the momentous decision: “We should be able to accept odds in battle if necessary.”2 He issued orders for Lexington and Yorktown to unite to stop the Japanese thrust.
