PACIFIC TURNING POINT

THE CORAL SEA AND THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY

In the earlier chapter of this book covering the initial Japanese conquests in South-East Asia following their surprise attack on Pearl Harbour, the Japanese strategy was defined as being first the neutralisation of the US fleet, then the rapid concurrent conquest of all key areas of South-East Asia, followed by the establishment of a defensive perimeter around those conquests. We have seen that, to a large extent, Japan succeeded in putting that strategy into effect.

Nonetheless, success was not total, and the USA and her allies survived to fight, and ultimately to win. Foremost among initial Japanese miscalculations was the belief that the attack on Pearl Harbour could be expected to immobilise the US Pacific fleet. What it actually did was to force naval warfare firmly into the 20th century. For, although the capital ships that were the pride of the US Navy were either disabled or sunk, neither the aircraft carriers nor the bulk of the Navy's destroyers were in Pearl Harbour when the attack came. Entrusted with the task of holding a line from Alaska to Midway Atoll in the Pacific, and from Midway to Australia, the newly promoted Admiral Chester Nimitz, Roosevelt's personal choice as C-in-C Pacific Fleet, had little choice but to think in terms of using air power.

Thus, as the Commander in Chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy, Admiral Yammamoto, argued with his colleagues and with Japanese High Command about the rights and wrongs of invading Oahu and taking Pearl Harbour, and of the potential for an assault on Australia to prevent its eventual use as a base for Allied counter-offensive, Nimitz was calling up reserves and reorganising the fleet for the battle he knew had to come. From the Atlantic, the 20,000 ton carrier Yorktown was ordered through the Panama Canal to join her sister ship Enterprise , already with the 33,000 ton sister carriers Lexington and Saratoga , together with the smaller 19,800 ton Horne in the Pacific - although the Saratoga was in fact out of action until May 1942 following a contretemps with a torpedo on the 11th of January 1942. Nimitz also had, in addition to the carriers, 16 cruisers, 44 destroyers and 16 submarines.

In February, carrier groups under Vice-Admiral Halsey and Rear-Admiral Fletcher each launched raids on Japanese held positions in the Marshall Islands and the Gilbert archipelago, and Wake Island and Marcus Island were bombed at the end of the month. These comparatively minor adventures, which nonetheless brought the war to within little more than a thousand miles of Tokyo, reinforced Yamamoto's unwavering opinion that the US Pacific Fleet had to be finally and irrevocably crushed. At the beginning of April, Yamamoto submitted his plan for an attack on the Midway Atoll, with a diversionary assault on the Aleutian Islands to draw off some of the power of the US Fleet. The ostensible reason for the attack was to gain control of the forward airfield on Midway and deny it to the US forces. The actual reason was that Yamamoto intended to smash the US Navy once and for all.

Because the arguments within Japan's High Command about strategy were still raging, Yamamoto's plan might well have been put on ice or simply turned down. But in the third week of April came the Doolittle Raid, a daring attack on the Japanese mainland that, although militarily and strategically unimportant, was extremely effective as an exercise in propaganda. Lieutenant-Colonel James H. Doolittle of the Air Corps, already 45 years old and a veteran of World War 1, had conceived the idea of launching a force of fully laden twin-engined Mitchell B-25 bombers against Tokyo from an aircraft carrier. Doubt had been expressed whether this was possible; nobody had ever flown such large or heavy aircraft from a ship before. Practising in Florida, Doolittle's pilots proved they could get their lumbering B-25s off the ground in the 750 feet run that was available to them. Getting them back down again was another matter - that simply could not be done. So a plan was devised by which the aircraft would be brought within 500 miles of Tokyo aboard the carrier Hornet , launched on their raid, and then landed in friendly Nationalist China.

On April 18th, after the Hornet had unexpectedly encountered an enemy patrol while still 700 miles out from Japan, it was decided that, as secrecy could no longer be guaranteed for the force, the B-25s should be launched. All 16 aircraft made successful take-offs despite rough seas and high winds, and arrived over the Japanese cities of Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka and Kobe, and over the Yokosuka naval base, at treetop height with almost nil warning.

The Japanese people, who had been assured that US aircraft could not reach the shores of Japan, were first terrified, then appalled. Where had the bombers come from that now climbed to 1,500 feet, dropped their 500 pound bombs and then turned out to sea at wavetop height? Enjoying the discomfiture of the Japanese military enormously, Roosevelt suggested they had come from Shangri-La, the mythical mountain kingdom of Hilton's Lost Horizon .

Because of their premature launch, the brave pilots of the Doolittle raid did not fare well. Doolittle himself crash-landed in China, unhurt; one aircraft was seized after landing at Vladivostock airfield; the crew of another was executed after crash-landing in Japanese-held territory. None other than the Vladivostock arrival landed normally.

The damage to the all-important Japanese self-esteem was immeasurable, and Yamamoto now had no difficulty in securing approval for his plan to attack Midway. On May 5th the order was given for the attack to have been mounted by June 20th. Meanwhile, although the views of those in the Japanese High Command who believed that Australia should be attacked were not gaining support, the potential of Australia as an Allied base was taken seriously. The Japanese 4th Fleet, reinforced with three aircraft carriers and two heavy cruisers, was therefore despatched to take Port Moresby on the southern coast of New Guinea, and to occupy Tulagi in the Solomon Islands, as a preliminary to seizing New Caledonia and Fiji.

Earlier in the year, the US backroom boys in Washington had secured one of the most important victories of the Pacific War by breaking the Japanese Naval code. Thus Admiral Chester Nimitz knew of the 4th Fleet's orders almost as soon as they did, and was able to act on the recently concluded Anglo-American agreement by which the USA took responsibility for the Pacific defences of Australia and New Zealand. Rear-Admiral Fletcher's Task Force 17, with the carriers Yorktown and Lexington was sent to Port Moresby, and was joined en route by an Australian cruiser force under Rear-Admiral Crace. The actions that followed from May 6th to May 8th are remembered as the Battle of the Coral Sea.

There is no doubt that the Battle of the Coral Sea was something new in naval warfare. For the first time in history an entire sea battle was fought without a ship's guns being brought to bear or a single salvo fired. From start to finish, the battle was fought by carriers and aircraft. But the Battle of the Coral Sea was also a strategic milestone. Although the Battle of Midway that followed it is regarded as the great reverse for the Japanese, and is remembered as the turning point of the Pacific War, the Coral Sea was in fact the first significant failure of the Japanese Navy, and the first occasion when a Japanese force was obliged to retreat. For, although the action resulted in the sad loss of the US carrier Lexington , and of an oiler mistaken by the Japanese for another carrier, the Japanese themselves lost the elderly 7,500 ton light carrier Shoho, a destroyer, a minelayer and three minesweepers, and, more important, were left with the new 26,000 ton carrier Shokaku severely damaged and her sister carrier Zuikaku virtually without aircraft. Because of the severely depleted carrier force, Admiral Inouye gave up the idea of landing at Port Moresby, and New Guinea was spared the pleasure of his company. Moreover, the task forces charged with the assaults on Midway and the Aleutians found themselves significantly depleted.

The Battle of Midway

The plan with which Admiral Yamamoto approached the set piece Battle of Midway made sweeping assumptions which were not realised on the day. The first was that the diversionary attack on the Aleutian Islands would cause Admiral Nimitz to split up the US Fleet and weaken his defences. The second was that the intended bombardment of Midway Atoll on June 4th would cause Nimitz to commit his fleet to a major sea battle on June 7th or 8th, giving Yamamoto time to reassemble his five separate task forces into one cohesive battle group. The third was that the Japanese submarine force which, since the Twenties had been built and trained on the assumption that the right and proper function of a submarine was scouting and reconnaissance, would be able to detect all US movements to the Midway area as they developed.

Yamamoto did not know, of course, that the US Fleet was well aware of his intentions and battle plan, and had even proved to its own satisfaction that the target was Midway by planting some false information for Japanese listening posts to report back to High Command. He did not know that Nimitz had the Yorktown - Japanese intelligence had assured him, quite erroneously, that an 800lb bomb that had hit the carrier during the Battle of the Coral Sea had sent her to the bottom. He assumed, with dangerously cavalier arrogance, that his carriers would be enough and that he could keep his other ships in reserve - in the event, the nine battleships, 11 cruisers and 32 destroyers that Yamamoto had available were not allowed near the battle, and did not fire a single shot. On Midway Atoll itself, the small (and understandably nervous) US garrison had been built up to more than 3,000 men and 115 aircraft, and was bristling with anti-aircraft guns.

When Yamamoto's submarines reached their stations to report the expected movements of US ships after the "surprise" attack, the birds had already flown. Yamamoto thus had no information on the size and disposition of the US forces, and could do little else but rely upon his already dangerously inaccurate intelligence. On June 3rd, a US Navy Catalina spotted the invasion fleet approaching, and called up a force of B-17 four engined bombers to attack the Japanese. By dawn on the 4th, the Japanese fleet was 280 miles off Midway, and launched 108 aircraft to the attack. The fighters put up by the US defenders on Midway had a bad day against the greatly superior Japanese Zeros, and 17 of the 26 aircraft that took off to meet the first assault were shot down. Despite this, the Japanese, acting on ill-considered advice from the commander of the Japanese air attack, launched a largely unnecessary second wave of fighters against Midway, with the result that, when the US Fleet was spotted only 240 miles away and approaching rapidly, Admiral Nagumo had no fighters available to cover his dive bombers if they were sent to attack the US ships. He therefore waited for the fighters' return.

Meanwhile the approaching US force under Admirals Fletcher and Spruance had decided to launch their attack at the earliest possible moment, and by sheer good fortune caught the carriers Akagi and Kaga at their most vulnerable, just as the fighters returned. The first two waves of US torpedo bombers were TBD Devastators from USS Hornet , an obsolescent slow type of aircraft quite incapable of defending itself against the Zero, which, with the British Spitfire was one of the world's two finest fighter aircraft. The returning Zeros made mincemeat of them, destroying all fifteen of the first wave, with a loss of 29 of the 30 crewmen, and 20 of the 26 of the second wave. But the Zeros were so busy demolishing the Devastators and their luckless crews that they failed to notice the arrival of a squadron of Douglas Dauntlesses, the latest and fastest US dive-bomber, capable of carrying a 1,000lb bomb at a maximum speed of over 250mph. The Dauntlesses attacked the Japanese carriers from just short of 20,000 feet, and, in moments, the 36,500 ton Akagi was holed and burning. The 38,200 ton Kaga had also been hit and was burning fiercely with immense loss of life. The older 18,800 ton Soryu had lost her rudder and engines to the Dauntlesses, and was unable to manoeuvre. Only the 20,000 ton Hiryu remained in action, and she despatched an attack to wreak vengeance upon the US carrier Yorktown . American fighters despatched 12 of the 18 Japanese attackers, but the Yorktown was hit, first with bombs, then with torpedoes, and had to be abandoned because of the danger of capsizing. That evening, Admiral Spruance had his revenge. Twenty four Dauntlesses under Lieutenant-Commander Clarence W. McClusky hit Hiryu with four bombs and disabled her. The next day Yamamoto ordered his fleet to finish off Hiryu and Akagi with torpedoes. The entire Japanese carrier force had been lost.

Admiral Nimitz's policy of concentrating his defence and attacking forces early had caught Yamamoto's forces still widely scattered. On June 5th, there was nothing Yamamoto could do to recover the situation, and he ordered the abandonment of the assault on Midway. But his fleet's troubles were not yet over. Two of his cruisers collided with each other during the night; the Mogami , badly damaged, was unable to defend herself properly against air attack, and was so badly damaged as to be out of action until mid-1943. The other cruiser, Mikuma , sank on June 6th.

The Americans, too, had their problems. Later the same day a Japanese submarine came upon the disabled Yorktown , under tow for Pearl Harbour, and sank both her and the destroyer Hammann<.

The final tally for the Battle of Midway was the loss by the Americans of one carrier, 307 men and 147 aircraft. The Japanese lost four carriers, 3,500 men and aircraft. The battle proved that the Japanese could be beaten, and gave the Allies hope that they would be vanquished. The sole ray of brightness for the Japanese was their success in the Aleutians. They had expected the USA to defend them heavily - instead, because Nimitz concentrated on Midway, the Aleutians were undefended. The Japanese occupied them on June 6th and 7th.