A Sailor's History of the U.S. Navy

by Thomas J. Cutler

  With the fall of France in June 1940, Germany gained valuable U-boat bases to press the attack against British lifelines, and possibilities were raised of German occupation of French territories in the Western Hemisphere. Assigned additional responsibilities in defense of this hemisphere, the U.S. Navy began the escort of convoys to Iceland. U-boat attacks on these convoys brought American destroyers into combat. On 31 October 1941, more than a month before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, USS Reuben James was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat, becoming the first U.S. naval vessel destroyed by enemy action in World War II.

  These operations were a precursor to the Battle of the Atlantic, fought during World War II, on which the survival of Great Britain and the projection of American power overseas depended.

  World War II: American Theater, 1941–46

  In the first six months following the entry of the United States into the war, the vast majority of merchant ship sinkings were in the western Atlantic. Consequently, the U.S. Navy’s role in convoy protection increased markedly once the United States entered the war.

  In addition to the increasing requirements for added protection of the trans-Atlantic convoys, the Navy had to protect ships moving fuel and other critical materials and supplies along the eastern seaboard of the United States. Numerous sinkings along the East Coast during the first half of 1942 seriously reduced available shipping and gravely threatened American productivity, making homeland security a high priority. To coordinate the convoy protection activities and to counter these homeland threats, the Navy created the Tenth Fleet.

  Coastal convoys were initiated as escorts became available. Escort carriers, destroyers, and destroyer escorts were formed into Hunter-Killer groups to carry the offensive against the U-boats wherever they might be found. In the South Atlantic, the Fourth Fleet waged relentless war against raiders, blockade runners, and submarines.

  Through such actions the U-boat campaign in the Atlantic was defeated.

  Stars

  One bronze star appears on the American Theater streamer.

  1. Escort, antisubmarine, armed guard, and special operations. With America’s ability to support the war in jeopardy, all available means were brought to bear to defeat the U-boats, including the use of patrol aircraft and blimps, Naval Armed Guard crews, defensive minefield harbor entrance nets, and even the mobilization of yachts for escort duty.

  World War II: Asiatic-Pacific Theater, 1941–46

  The war in the Pacific was essentially a maritime war. It was on the sea that Japan depended for materials to sustain it and via the sea it launched its aggressions. In fact, its first attack was intended to destroy the nucleus of the U.S. Fleet at Pearl Harbor. The vital core of the American military effort was the contest for control of the seas, from which all other operations—sea, amphibious, land, and air—branched and received their support.

  When the Japanese conducted a surprise attack on the main U.S. base in the Pacific at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, America was unprepared for war. For the next several months, the Japanese achieved victory after victory, taking the Dutch East Indies, the British bastion at Singapore, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and various other islands in the Pacific. The few U.S. and Allied warships available offered valiant resistance against overwhelming odds, but for a time they were unable to stop the Japanese onslaught.

  In April 1942, American morale was lifted and Japanese confidence shaken when a U.S. carrier task force steamed into the very heart of Japanese waters and launched Army aircraft on a first strike against the home islands.

  At last the tide began to turn in May when carrier actions in the Battle of the Coral Sea caused a Japanese invasion force to turn back from its advance on Australia. A month later, the decisive Battle of Midway provided the turning point in the war when U.S. naval forces sank four Japanese carriers and prevented the invasion of Midway Island.

  In the amphibious assault and defense of Guadalcanal, at sea and ashore, the advance of Japan into the South Pacific was halted. Step-by-step amphibious operations were launched from the South Pacific area and west-ward through the mid-Pacific by Admiral Chester Nimitz, and northward from the southwest Pacific by joint forces under General Douglas MacArthur.

  New concepts and techniques in mobile logistic support and underway replenishment made a high tempo of sustained operations possible. U.S. submarines took a heavy toll of Japan’s warships and devastated the merchant marine, thereby severing its economic lifeline.

  The capture of the Marianas, and later Iwo Jima, provided fixed bases for air attacks against Japan, and the Fifth Fleet drastically reduced the power of Japanese aviation in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Operations around Leyte destroyed much of the remaining enemy surface fleet as the recapture of the Philippines began.

  At Okinawa the fleet faced and survived the fanatic attacks of kamikazes. The isolation of Japan from the sea was made complete by an intense mining campaign and the final attacks on the remnants of the Japanese fleet.

  The end came quickly after the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan surrendered on board USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, 2 September 1945.

  Stars

  Eight silver and three bronze stars represent the forty-three different battles and operations in the Pacific during World War II.

  1. Pearl Harbor–Midway (7 December 1941). The Japanese surprise attack on the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor was a disaster of great proportions, offset only by the individual heroism of Sailors, Marines, and Soldiers and by the absence of U.S. carriers, allowing them to carry on the fight until the U.S. Navy could recover from the devastating attack. Midway was also bombarded by Japanese surface ships, but with less effect.

  2. Wake Island (8–23 December 1941). American defenders of Wake Island put up a valiant resistance against a Japanese invasion force—holding off the invaders for several weeks, sinking two destroyers and a transport, as well as seriously damaging a cruiser, two destroyers, and a freighter—before eventually succumbing.

  3. Philippine Islands operation (8 December 1941–6 May 1942). While American and Filipino defenders were under siege by a Japanese invasion force, U.S. submarines and PT boats served as transports, evacuating key personnel (including the president of the Philippines and General Douglas MacArthur), money, weapons, and other important items, before the islands fell to the Japanese. During this same period, Guam also fell to the Japanese.

  4. Netherlands East Indies engagements (23 January–27 February 1942). With its British, Dutch, and Australian allies, the greatly outclassed U.S. Asiatic Fleet fought a valiant but hopeless holding action in the western Pacific. In a series of battles (Makassar Strait, Badoeng Strait, and Java Sea) the Allied forces operated without air cover and with antiquated ships and were able to inhibit but not stop Japanese advances in the area.

  5. Pacific raids (1942). U.S. aircraft carriers were not at Pearl Harbor on 7 December, so they were able to carry out a series of raids on various Japanese bases in the Pacific while the U.S. Navy began its recovery and prepared for the long offensive campaign ahead. Roaming the vast reaches of the Pacific in the early months of 1942, they struck various islands held by the Japanese, including the Gilberts and Marshalls, Wake Island, Marcus Island, and New Guinea. A planned raid on the great Japanese bastion on Rabaul was thwarted but resulted in the biggest air battle in the war to date in which Lieutenant Edward “Butch” O’Hare became the Navy’s first ace of the war, shooting down five of the eighteen enemy planes lost. The most spectacular raid occurred in April, when Army planes launched from the flight deck of USS Hornet attacked Tokyo and other Japanese cities.

  6. Coral Sea (4–8 May 1942). The first naval battle in history in which neither side’s ships could see one another was fought between Japanese and American carrier forces north of Australia. The battle was a tactical victory for the Japanese but a strategic victory for the Americans. For the first time in the war, the Japanese were stopped and turned back as they abandoned the
ir advance on southeastern New Guinea and northern Australia.

  7. Midway (3–6 June 1942). Arguably the most spectacular naval victory of the war, the Battle of Midway was a major turning point. Although the Japanese force was far superior to the U.S. (eight aircraft carriers to three; seven battleships to none; eleven cruisers to eight; and fifty-five destroyers to thirty-three), the Americans used better intelligence, excellent tactics, a great deal of courage, and a measure of good luck to defeat the Japanese armada, sinking four aircraft carriers and causing the Japanese to abandon their invasion of the strategically significant Midway Island.

  8. Guadalcanal-Tulagi landings (7–9 August 1942). In an operation code-named “Watchtower,” the Navy and Marine Corps went on the offensive by landing on two islands in the Solomons chain where the Japanese had been building an airfield and a seaplane base that threatened the sea lines of communication between the United States and Australia. Although the landings were initially unopposed, the Japanese scored a stunning victory in a night naval battle (known as the Battle of Savo Island) in which a force of cruisers and destroyers surprised the Americans and sank four U.S. heavy cruisers without significant damage to the attacking force. The Americans remained determined despite this setback, and so began a six-month struggle for control of Guadalcanal that was marked by the most concentrated and drawn-out air, land, and naval battles of the war.

  9. Capture and defense of Guadalcanal (10 August 1942–8 February 1943). Despite the early setback at Savo Island, the long campaign for control of Guadalcanal eventually ended in victory for U.S. forces. During the most intense months of the campaign, U.S. forces controlled the waters around Guadalcanal by day and the Japanese controlled them by night. Japanese naval units repeatedly came down the passage (called “The Slot”) among the Solomon Islands to reinforce and resupply their troops on Guadalcanal; Americans dubbed this repeated operation the “Tokyo Express.” A series of air, land, and sea battles raged on and around the Solomons until the Japanese finally withdrew their remaining forces in February 1943.

  10. Makin raid (17–18 August 1942). In a daring and morale-boosting operation, a Marine battalion was landed by submarine on Makin Island in the Gilberts, destroyed the Japanese garrison there, and then reembarked on the submarines.

  11. Eastern Solomons (23–25 August 1942). A large Japanese force attempted to land fifteen hundred troops in the Solomons, but a U.S. force was able to turn back the attempted reinforcement and to sink a Japanese light aircraft carrier. The U.S. carrier Enterprise was damaged and temporarily knocked out of the war for the first time.

  12. Buin-Faisi-Tonolai raid (5 October 1942). U.S. carrier aircraft from USS Hornet bombed these Japanese bases in the Bougainville area of the Solomons. These bases were staging areas for the infamous Tokyo Express.

  13. Cape Esperance (11–12 October 1942). In a hard-fought night surface action between U.S. and Japanese cruisers and destroyers (dubbed “Second Savo”), the Japanese lost a heavy cruiser and a destroyer, while the Americans lost one destroyer.

  14. Santa Cruz Islands (26 October 1942). A large Japanese force of four carriers, four battleships, fourteen cruisers, and forty-four destroyers, intent upon destroying the U.S. naval forces (two carriers, one battleship, six cruisers, and fourteen destroyers) supporting the forces ashore at Guadalcanal, scored a tactical victory by sinking the carrier Hornet and the destroyer Porter while suffering only heavy damage to two of their carriers. But the battle was a strategic defeat for the Japanese because the U.S. naval forces remained.

  15. Naval Battle of Guadalcanal (12–15 November 1942). On the night of 12–13 November, a short but bloody surface engagement (dubbed “Third Savo”) turned back a larger Japanese force at a cost of several ships lost on both sides and two U.S. admirals killed. On the fourteenth, U.S. aircraft sank six of eleven troop transports on their way to reinforce Guadalcanal; another was heavily damaged and turned back, while the remaining four were destroyed the next morning by artillery fire after landing just two thousand of the ten thousand troops intended for the reinforcement. And on the night of 14–15 November, a battle between U.S. and Japanese battleships caused the Japanese force to retire before it could carry out its mission of shelling the airfield on Guadalcanal.

  16. Tassafaronga (30 November 1942). A surface engagement (dubbed “Fourth Savo”) resulted in greater damage to the U.S. force, but once again, the Japanese were thwarted from delivering supplies and reinforcements to their troops on Guadalcanal. Soon after, the Japanese abandoned their long struggle to keep Guadalcanal. Some historians see this as the true turning point in the Pacific War.

  17. Eastern New Guinea operation. From 17 December 1942 until 24 July 1944, naval operations conducted by the U.S. Seventh Fleet supported General Douglas MacArthur’s southwest Pacific campaign as his Army forces recaptured key positions along the northern New Guinea coast. U.S. naval elements supported the occupation of Saidor (2 January–1 March 1944) and Wewak-Aitape operations (14–24 July 1944).

  18. Rennel Island (29–30 January 1943). One of the last naval engagements of the Guadalcanal campaign took place off Rennel Island in the Solomons. In an outstanding display of seamanship, the cruiser Louisville took the damaged cruiser Chicago under tow in complete darkness.

  19. Consolidation of the Solomon Islands (8 February 1943–15 March 1945). The Navy played a crucial role in defeating remnant Japanese forces in the Solomons and pushing northeastward through the archipelago, gradually wresting control of the entire area.

  20. Aleutians operation (26 March–2 June 1943). American forces recaptured the Alaskan islands of Attu and Kiska from the Japanese, who had taken them earlier in the war. Not only was American territory regained but also a route for staging aircraft into Siberia was secured. The campaign resulted in the Battle of the Komandorski Islands (26 March 1943), a classic daylight surface engagement between a U.S. cruiser-destroyer force and a superior Japanese flotilla.

  21. New Georgia group operation (20 June–16 October 1943). The Third Amphibious Force, supported by the growing power of the Third Fleet, captured New Georgia and the strategically important airfield at Munda Point in a hard-fought campaign that included a series of related battles at Kula Gulf, Kolombangara, Vella Gulf, Vella Lavella, among others.

  22. Bismarck Archipelago operation (25 June 1943–1 May 1944). Because of its connecting position between the Solomons and New Guinea, the neutralization of the Bismarck archipelago was a key consideration in southwest Pacific strategy. Coordinated operations of the various American forces in the area effectively implemented this component of U.S. strategy by running extensive PT boat operations, landing in the Admiralty and Green Islands and conducting air and surface bombardments of Japanese bases in Rabaul, New Ireland, Kavieng, Cape Gloucester, and other locations.

  23. Pacific raids (1943). An important component of American strategy were the various raids into Japanese-controlled waters, which kept the enemy off balance and in a reactionary mode, preventing them from concentrating their forces at key positions. In 1943, U.S. forces raided Marcus Island, the Tarawa atoll, and Wake Island.

  24. Treasury-Bougainville operation (27 October–15 December 1943). U.S. forces first seized two islands in the Treasury group in preparation for a seizure of Bougainville, at the northern end of the Solomons. A key battle of the struggle for Bougainville took place at Empress Augusta Bay (2 November 43), on the western side of the island, when U.S. forces turned back a superior Japanese force that had sortied from Rabaul.

  25. Gilbert Islands operation (13 November–8 December 1943). Although suffering a high number of casualties, U.S. forces successfully captured Betio, Makin, and Apamama of the Tarawa atoll in the Gilberts, confirming much of the previously developed amphibious doctrine and providing many new lessons that would contribute significantly to ultimate victory in the Pacific.

  26. Marshall Islands operation (26 November 1943–2 March 1944). Forces of the Fifth Fleet captured first Kwajalein, then th
e Eniwetok atoll, as U.S. forces under Admiral Chester Nimitz moved westward across the central Pacific at the same time that forces under Army General Douglas MacArthur moved through the southwest Pacific toward Japan.

  27. Asiatic-Pacific raids (1944). While major U.S. forces advanced across the central Pacific, taking Japanese strongholds at key points and bypassing others to “wither on the vine,” naval forces continued to strike at various targets (such as Truk, Yap, Ulithi, and others) to keep the Japanese off balance and to prepare the way for the advancing amphibious forces.

  28. Kurile Islands operation (1 February 1944–11 August 1945). As U.S. forces converged on Japan, American naval unit forces struck at an ever-growing list of targets—Matsuwa, Suribachi Bay, the Okhotsk Sea, for example—among the islands in and around Japanese home waters.

  29. Hollandia operation (21 April–1 June 1944). In a successful flanking movement, U.S. forces landed near the border of Dutch New Guinea, bypassing a large Japanese army and catching it in a pincer between American and Australian forces. Hollandia became a major naval and air base used in the ongoing New Guinea campaign.

  30. Western New Guinea operations (21 April 1944–9 January 1945). In the southwest Pacific, naval operations continued to support the advance along the coast of New Guinea, second largest island in the world, with operations at Toem, Wakde, Sarni, Biak, Noemfoor, and Sansapor.

  31. Marianas operation (10 June–27 August 1944). U.S. forces effectively neutralized Japanese bases in the Bonins and Marianas, capturing and occupying Saipan and Guam. The Japanese responded by sending their main battle fleet, which resulted in the one-sided Battle of the Philippine Sea. So many Japanese aircraft were shot down that the battle became known as “The Marianas Turkey Shoot.”