Peter G. Tsouras

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

  Lee came within range and, while his destroyers carried on a long-range duel with the Nagara group, the two battleships opened fire on the bigger targets. Sadly, South Dakota's first broadside hit the wrong target, scoring a damaging hit on USS Barton, but her fire was soon directed against the Japanese, hitting the wounded Takao hard. Washington and Kirishima traded blows at 7,000 yards' range. The U.S. battleship's armor withstood the 14-inch shells well, but one hit jammed one of her forward turrets. In return she hit the Kirishima many times with 5-inch and 16-inch shells, seriously damaging her armament and propulsion.

  Hiei regained control after ten minutes and led the Japanese withdrawal. Lee wanted to follow, but Turner ordered him back to the anchorage. With Lee's destroyers detached and serious damage to Washington's firepower, Turner felt further pursuit was dangerous. Lee's mission had been accomplished, the evacuation anchorage protected. The following day, as the U.S. continued the evacuation loading, aircraft from Hornet and Henderson Field found several of the Japanese ships limping for safety and sank them: Kirishima, Atago, Takao, and two destroyers all went under.

  The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal had cost the United States dearly. Atlanta and five destroyers were sunk; Washington, Portland, and San Juan were damaged; and over 800 sailors had died. These losses further convinced Ghormley that his decision to evacuate was the correct one. For the Japanese, the irreplaceable loss of Hiei, two heavy cruisers, and a light cruiser, plus 1,100 sailors, represented a devastating loss. But the American victory off the island was a hollow one. Fought defensively, it had no strategic impact; the island was still being evacuated.

  The Japanese sent their usual array of bombers and Zeros the following day, but did not seriously interfere with the U.S. operations. Japanese observers in the hills overlooking the marine perimeter began to realize what was taking place and sent word to Sendai Division headquarters, but Maruyama's men were not in position or shape to take advantage. They were in the midst of retracing their steps back to Japanese lines without food and equipment. A single probe across the Matanikau elicited a spirited response by marine artillery.

  By the evening of October 13 loading was complete, and the engineers began setting off their demolitions. The resulting explosions and fires destroyed construction equipment, ammunition dumps, artillery pieces, and tanks, a fireworks display most marines remembered sadly as they sailed away from their island. The following day, Henderson and Fighter One were destroyed by heavy bombardment from B-l 7s.

  Three days later Japanese troops entered the abandoned beachhead in strength and sent word of their “victory” to their superiors in Tokyo. The world was once again treated to pictures of the Japanese soldiers standing over their conquest, arms raised in celebration.

  Summary

  Operation Shoestring had been launched before the United States was materially ready for a major offensive campaign waged on land, sea, and air. Regardless of logistics, the Americans won on virtually all fronts. Despite that record the campaign was lost in the one area that counted the most—in its commander's head. Ghormley took counsel of his fears and lost the drive to see the battle through. A commander with a bolder, more aggressive attitude would have seen past the problems and kept the marines on the island, making the Japanese beat them.

  Ironically, the Japanese showed great boldness in pushing through the needed troops and supplies despite the interdiction capabilities of Henderson Field. Their boldness had its drawbacks as they tried to attack a strong defensive perimeter with little support other than their manpower. The battles cost them irreplaceable soldiers, sailors, and airmen, and the materiel losses, particularly in the air and at sea, were devastating. But their resolve didn't waver, and that turned defeat into victory.

  The Reality

  In the real battle there were two key differences from the story just related. First, the Americans did not take the counsel of then-fears. Turner, for example, pushed the 7th Marines through to the island in spite of losing Wasp. When Ghormley's confidence faltered in early October, Admiral “Bull” Halsey, an aggressive and confident fighter, replaced him. The Americans hung on and dared the Japanese to push them off.

  The second difference lay with the Japanese, who continually underestimated the Americans. When Ichiki's attack failed, General Kawaguchi's Brigade was sent to try. When his September attack failed, the Japanese sent the Sendai Division. The Japanese high command failed to take the threat seriously and apply their resources in a bold, concentrated manner. This mistake allowed the marines to hold on despite the shoestring nature of the operation.

  Bibliography

  Bergerud, Eric, Fire in the Sky: The Air War in the South Pacific (Westview Press, Boulder, 2000).

  Dull, Paul S., A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy (1941-1945) (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1978).

  Dupuy, Trevor N., The Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography (Harper Collins, New York, 1992).

  Frank, Richard B., Guadalcanal (Random House, New York, 1990).

  Loxton, Bruce, The Shame of Savo: Anatomy of a Naval Disaster (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1994).

  Morison, Samuel Eliot, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, vol. V: The Struggle for Guadalcanal, August 1942-February 1943 (Little, Brown, Boston, 1975).

  Notes

  1. Alexander Archer Vandegrift was born in Charlottesville, Virginia, on March 13, 1887. He attended the University of Virginia before enlisting in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1908. He served in Mexico, Haiti, and Nicaragua before undertaking a series of staff positions during which he helped draw up amphibious landing manuals. He took command of the 1st Marine Division two months before leading it into the South Pacific. After the war he served as commandant of the Marine Corps and vigorously argued against any mention of a “defeat” on Guadalcanal for the rest of his life. See Trevor N. Dupuy, The Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography (Harper Collins, New York, 1992).

  2. The destroyer USS Jarvis has been listed by some historians as part of the northern group. In fact, she was damaged by the air attack the day before the Savo Island battle. One account has her sailing past the southern group and the oncoming Japanese and sinking in some unidentified place after the battle: Samuel Eliot Morison, History of the United States Naval Operations in World War II, vol. V: The Struggle for Guadalcanal, August 1942–February 1943 (Little, Brown, Boston, 1975), 36.

  3. One of the popular but unsubstantiated myths surrounding this initial stage of the battle was that Goto believed he was being attacked by Japanese ships, never considering that the US. would risk the night waters off Guadalcanal. According to the myth, the last thing he said was “Bakayaro” (“Stupid bastards”).

  4. One such hero was U.S. Marine private Joseph Champagne, who reached out as a Japanese tank churned up his foxhole and put a grenade in the tracks. The tank, with ruptured tracks, slewed away into the surf, where it was destroyed by a 75mm gun: Richard B. Frank, Guadalcanal (Random House, New York, 1990), 350.

  *5. Kawaguchi's failure to bring his troops into the battle created a major personal feud between him and Maruyama, who accused the general of deliberately withholding his troops. The controversy grew, involving staff officers throughout Japan, and ended only when Kawaguchi was killed in a plane crash on Saipan three years later: Masao Maruyama, Triumph of the Will: Defeat into Victory on Guadalcanal (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1955), 236.

  6. This was not the first time during the Guadalcanal battle that a ship torpedoed a friendly vessel. Postwar analysis into the loss of the HMAS Canberra during the Savo Island battle indicated that the USS Bagley probably fired the torpedoes that doomed the Australian vessel: Bruce Loxton, The Shame of Savo: Anatomy of a Naval Disaster (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1994), chapter 18.

  CHAPTER 9

  There Are Such

  Things as Miracles

  Halsey and Kurita at Leyte Gulf

  Christopher J. Anderson

  By the autumn of 1944
even the most dedicated Japanese naval officer could recognize that things were not going well in his country's war with the United States and its allies. Beginning with their seizure of the Marshall Islands in February, the third year of the war had been marked by a string of Allied victories. Everywhere, it seemed the Americans were inexorably advancing in a vast and overwhelming tide that was seizing all of the territory the Japanese had gained during the heady days of 1941 and 1942.

  In the summer of 1944 the situation took a further turn for the worse when, in response to efforts to defeat American forces fighting to secure the Marianas Islands—including the critical island of Saipan—Adm. Jisaburo Ozawa's 1st Mobile Fleet had been decisively defeated at the Battle of the Philippine Sea on June 19-20, 1944. Known derisively by the Americans as the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot,” the disaster cost Ozawa all but forty-seven of his 473 operational aircraft, as well as two of the Emperor's precious aircraft carriers. With the Marianas Islands in American hands, Japanese planners knew that the enemy was now within range of the home islands. Soon, waves of American B-29 bombers would be exacting revenge for the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor by mercilessly bombing Japanese cities. In the wake of Ozawa's defeat, Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, who had done so much to propel his nation into conflict with the United States, was forced to resign. After the fall of Saipan, one prescient Japanese observer was overheard to remark that, “Hell is on us.”

  “Act Faithfully and Well”

  To forestall this, Japanese planners met in July 1944 to try and determine what to expect next from the enemy and to prepare a course of action that could be followed in response to whatever direction the Americans struck. The resulting “Sho” (Victory) plan, which required that all available resources be carefully husbanded until needed, provided four alternative defensive operations that could be activated as soon as the Americans made their next move. Sho-1 would be activated in response to an attack on the Philippines, Sho-2 for the Kuriles and Ryukyus, Sho-3 for southern Japan, and Sho-4 for northern Japan. Each of these plans was considered an all or nothing operation intended to provide one last opportunity to secure a decisive victory over the Allies and forestall Japan's total collapse. For any of these plans to be successful, however, the Japanese would need to achieve a level of cooperation among their forces that had heretofore been lacking. They would also need time to train pilots who could replace those lost in the Marianas Islands.

  Time ran out in October 1944. In preparation for the upcoming American naval offensive, Rear Adm. William F. Halsey began a series of air attacks starting as far to the north as Okinawa and working southward to the Philippines. Intended to confuse the enemy as to the time and place of the next attack and to further weaken their defenses, the Japanese responded by sending out what available aircraft they had to drive off the American planes.

  Adm. Soemu Toyoda, the commander in chief of the Combined Fleet, was in Formosa on October 12 when Halsey's aircraft struck that island. Believing the attack heralded the start of the invasion of Formosa, Toyoda ordered a partial activation of Sho-2 and sent every available aircraft to attack the Americans. Unfortunately, the air battles in the first weeks of October were merely a repeat of what had happened four months before. Vice Adm. Shigeru Fukodome commented after the American raid that “our fighters were nothing but so many eggs thrown at the stone wall of the indomitable enemy formation.”1

  Although the Japanese achieved limited successes—sinking two Allied cruisers—the air battles of September and October were a serious setback to the possible success of the Sho plan. The poorly trained Japanese pilots were simply no match for the Americans; slightly more than half of the 1,000 aircraft the Japanese had gathered since June fell to Halsey's planes. The battle over Formosa seriously diminished what little airpower the Japanese now had available to implement whichever of the Sho plans finally became necessary.

  Meanwhile, as Halsey's aircraft were clearing the skies of Japanese planes, the massive U.S. fleet began to assemble at Hollandia and elsewhere along the coast of New Guinea to begin its journey north. Although there had been a good deal of wrangling between Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who favored an American landing to liberate the Philippines, and Adm. Chester Nimitz, who favored bypassing the Philippines altogether in favor of an attack on Formosa, by September MacArthur's appeals had their desired effect and President Franklin Roosevelt had made the decision to launch the next Allied attack on the Philippines. Scheduled to begin with an invasion of Leyte on December 20, 1944, the date of the invasion was advanced to October after Halsey excitedly reported that the island was poorly defended and could be taken with little effort.

  Believing that the moment had arrived to return to the Philippines, the Americans prepared to launch a massive combined overall command of the operation. Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger's 6th Army would land on the island, while Vice Adm. Thomas Kinkaid's massive 700-ship 7th Fleet supported the operation from Leyte Gulf. Meanwhile, in the unlikely event that the Japanese fleet was able to sail south toward the invasion fleet, Halsey, operating under orders not from MacArthur but from Nimitz, was commanded to use his 3rd Fleet to “cover and support forces of [the] Southwest Pacific in order to assist the seizure and occupation objectives in the Central Philippines... and destroy enemy naval and air forces in or threatening the Philippines Area. . . In case opportunity for destruction of major portion of enemy fleet offers or can be created, such destruction becomes the primary task.” 2

  Although the two principal fleets were operating under different commanders—Kinkaid under MacArthur and Halsey under Nimitz—it was believed that operations had been going smoothly up to this point, so a split command would not pose any major difficulties.

  Despite the most powerful naval force ever known assembled against them, the Japanese remained unaware of exactly where the Americans would strike next—and therefore unable to activate the appropriate Sho plan—until the morning of October 17, when Japanese observers on the tiny Philippine island of Suluan reported that they spotted American ships. The men of the 6th Ranger Battalion had come ashore on Suluan, Dina-gat, and Homophon to secure these islands in preparation for the arrival of Kinkaid's 7th Fleet. Reports of the American advance on the Philippines were received by Admiral Toyoda, who realized that the time had come to initiate Sho-1 and finally check the American advance.3 After further discussion among senior Japanese naval officers, at 1110 on the morning of October 18, 1944, Toyoda gave the order to execute Sho-1.

  Although Toyoda was unhappy with the prospect of launching his fleet in the face of an enemy overwhelmingly superior in air and naval power, later commenting that making the decision, to activate Sho-1 was “ as difficult as swallowing molten iron, ”4 he knew that the loss of the Philippines would sever the home islands from their valuable oil supplies in the East Indies, which would have a catastrophic effect on the Japanese war effort. If Japan were to have any hope of survival, therefore, the Philippines must be retained.

  Sho-1 called for the Japanese to order what remained of their widely scattered forces to converge at Brunei, where Adm. Takeo Kurita would lead them to attack the American fleet at Leyte Gulf. If he arrived quickly enough, it was hoped that Kurita could destroy Kinkaid's 7th Fleet before the Americans became strong enough to secure total control of the archipelago. To prevent Halsey's 3rd Fleet from coming to the aid of Kinkaid, the Japanese planned to use an additional force to entice the Americans northward.

  Map 14. Sho-: Japan's Last Chance

  Toyoda knew that in order to lure Halsey away from the landing area he would have to provide a target that was sufficiently tempting to ensure the Americans' pursuit. Since the air battles in the Philippine Sea and at Formosa had destroyed what little remained of Japanese naval airpower, the decision was made to offer up the Empire's remaining aircraft carriers as bait. This sacrificial force was commanded by Ozawa and consisted of four carriers, two battleships that had been converted to aircraft carriers by the addition of improvis
ed flight decks, and eleven cruisers.5 As carriers had come to dominate naval operations by this point in the war, it was reasoned that the site of what remained of Japan's carrier force would be too lucrative a target for the aggressive Admiral Halsey to pass up.

  After arriving in Brunei on October 20, Kurita and his staff briefed the assembled officers aboard his flagship, the cruiser Atago. The plan called for Kurita to split his force into two wings that would travel to Leyte on two separate routes. To the north, the 1st Strike Force under the overall command of Kurita consisted of five battleships, including Yamato and Musashi, the largest and most powerful battleships ever built, seven cruisers, and fifteen destroyers. This force would travel across the Philippine archipelago via the Sibuyan Sea. After passing through the San Bernardino Strait, Kurita would travel around Samar and descend on Kinkaid from the north. Meanwhile, a smaller but still potent force of two battleships, one cruiser, and four destroyers, led by Vice Adm. Shoji Nishimura, would strike Leyte from the south after crossing the Sulu Sea, traveling past Mindanao through the Surigao Strait. As the two forces traversed the narrow passages toward Leyte, what little ground-based aircraft that remained to the Japanese would take to the sky and provide air cover. If everything went well, the two pincers would arrive almost simultaneously at Leyte on October 25 (see Map 14).

  Every one of the officers present for Kurita's briefing knew that this was a desperate gamble likely to result in the sinking of many of the Emperor's finest ships. They also knew they had no other option but to proceed. If they succeeded, they could save their embattled country. If they failed, they would at least ensure that the Imperial fleet met an honorable end. Before the briefing was adjourned, Kurita addressed his officers: