The Conquering Tide

by Ian W. Toll

  Born and raised on a farm in northeast Oklahoma, Clark was of mixed Scotch-Irish and Cherokee Indian descent. He was a registered member of the Cherokee Nation, and the first Native American to graduate from the Naval Academy (class of 1917). By his own lights Clark was a typical “Oklahoma cowboy,” but he was proud of his partial Cherokee lineage and even played it up. He had been registered (by his parents) as one-eighth Cherokee.† Clark willingly tolerated, or perhaps encouraged, physical descriptions referring to “the deep tan and high cheek bones of an Indian” (Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 1944), or his “hump-bridged nose and short-clipped, sparse hair which resembles a scalp lock and waves like prairie grass” (Life magazine, 1945).89 He grinned broadly for photographers while wearing a majestic feathered headdress. Cartoons published in his ships’ newspapers and cruise books depicted him wielding a tomahawk to scalp the Japanese prime minister Hideki Tojo or the emperor Hirohito. Clark invited the chief of the Cherokee Nation to attend the commissioning of the new Yorktown (CV-10).

  Clark was a leader in the mold of Bill Halsey—a colorful and exuberant character who wore his heart on his sleeve and did not mind making himself slightly ridiculous in the eyes of his men. He battled his weight and carried an impressive paunch. The shirt flaps of his khaki uniform did not stay tucked. In otherwise glowing fitness reports, superiors drew attention to his lack of personal tidiness and to his physical bearing. Clark allowed himself to be made an object of fun, or deliberately seemed to undercut his own authority. When a navigator grounded his ship in an impossibly crowded Bermuda anchorage, the captain took the conn and barked, “Goddamn you, now it’s my turn to run it aground!”90 A chief petty officer who served under him on the Hornet (CV-12) left this fond description:

  Jocko Clark was part American Indian; his lower lip stuck way out, and was always sunburned. Finally, the doctor on the Hornet gave him no choice but to wear a gauze 4x4 with a string over his ears so the pad protected his lip. Jocko did it, but it made him madder than hell. I’ve seen him snatch three or four of those things off in the course of a couple of hours. He’d tear it off and throw it down. And here would come the doctor and make him a new one. . . . Whenever he came on the bridge—GQ or any other time—he often wore sick bay pajamas that he slept in. Sometimes his hairy stomach would be sticking out, but he was oblivious to his appearance. He was just universally loved, respected, and admired on the Hornet. He had a great feeling for the pilots. More than once, when a pilot landed aboard, shot up or whatever, the doctor, the emergency crew, and Jocko would get to him all about the same time. Jocko would bend over the stokes litter and pin a medal on the guy right there on the stretcher. You know pilots appreciated that. He was really and truly a great man.91

  Earning his gold wings in 1925, Clark had ascended rapidly through the ranks. He had flown several types of aircraft, eventually specializing in the Boeing F3B biplane fighter. He had skippered a carrier fighter squadron on the Lexington in 1933–34, when Ernest J. King was her captain. Clark had got on well with King, a history that stood him in good stead when the latter rose to COMINCH-CNO. Clark’s first carrier command was the Suwannee, an 18,000-ton escort or “jeep carrier” converted from the hull of an oil tanker. While overseeing the commissioning of the ship in Newport News, Virginia, Clark drove the civilian yard workers and ship’s crew to meet a seemingly impossible deadline, and managed to get the ship commissioned in time to take part in Operation TORCH, the invasion of North Africa, in November 1942. He circulated a motto during this period of breakneck effort: “Get things done yesterday; tomorrow may be too late!”92 The Suwannee distinguished herself during TORCH, and Clark received high praise in his fitness reports.

  In January 1943, he received orders sending him back to Newport News as prospective captain of the new Yorktown (CV-10), second-in-class of the Essexcarriers. Clark subsequently learned that Admiral King had personally selected him for the prestigious new command.

  The Yorktown had been launched on January 21, 1943, three weeks before Clark’s arrival, with Eleanor Roosevelt acting as sponsor. Several minutes before the scheduled launch, while speeches were still underway, the great carrier had shifted, groaned, and begun creeping down the launch ways. The first lady, a seasoned veteran of ship-christening ceremonies, seized the waiting bottle with both hands and bashed it against the moving hull, shattering the bottle and splattering herself with champagne. All present agreed that the event was auspicious; the Yorktown was evidently in a hurry to get into the war. The crew gave her the first of several nicknames: “Ship in a Hurry.”93

  The unfinished Yorktown was moored at a Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Company pier, where she would spend the next several months being outfitted and commissioned. When Clark arrived on February 15, he walked down the dock to have a look. Her wide flight deck towered over him. He had come a long way from Alluwe, Oklahoma. “This was a proud moment in my lifetime, and I knew it as I stood there.”94

  The race to get the Yorktown into service drove the new crew to the edge of exhaustion. Clark was a slave driver, and he did not mind admitting it. Three other Essex carriers were in advanced construction, and Clark liked the idea of getting the Yorktown out to Pearl Harbor ahead of them all. That was a long shot, however, because the first-in-class Essex had been commissioned on the last day of 1942, and would soon depart on her shakedown cruise. Clark also had his eye on the Lexington (CV-16), another sister, which was being commissioned in Boston at the Fall River Company under the supervision of Captain Felix B. Stump. The fourth, Bunker Hill (CV-17), Captain John J. Ballentine, was at the Bethlehem Steel shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts. Clark frankly avowed that he wanted to beat the Essex to the Pacific, and “Beat the Essex” was adopted as the ship’s motto.

  Captain Donald Duncan of the Essex was a friend and academy classmate, and the two captains conferred closely and learned from one another’s experiences. By mutual agreement they made copies of all outgoing correspondence concerning the outfitting of the ships, and shared it among themselves and with Stump and Ballentine.95 Clark was glad to share information, but his natural competitive instincts were never far from the surface; he expected the Yorktown to be superior to her sisters in every measurable respect.

  The yard set a commission date of April 15, but warned that the schedule was likely to slip. Clark declared that he intended to meet it. Four thousand of the 31,000 workers at the yard were put on the job, and Clark lobbied to have needed building materials diverted from other ships under construction. He avowed that he would not “cut corners,” at least insofar as care and quality of equipment were concerned. But he was more than willing to finagle materials by underhanded means and to fudge safety regulations. An air officer on the rival Essex suspected that “a lot of dishonest things were done to get things provided for the Yorktown which should have come to the Essex just so we wouldn’t get finished in time, but we never were able to prove anything.”96 Clark had ammunition loaded directly from flatcars, a prohibited procedure. When the yard could not meet his schedule for painting the hull, he put the crew on the job. He even assigned junior officers to join in the chipping and painting, upending an ancient naval taboo and prompting at least one young lieutenant to put in for a transfer. “Jocko had tremendous drive,” recalled George W. Anderson, the new ship’s navigator (and a future chief of naval operations). “He always wanted to be first. He was very competitive. . . . It was drive, drive, drive all the time.”97

  Much of Clark’s time was apportioned to recruiting officers, and for this purpose he traveled frequently to Washington to look in on “BUPERS” (the Bureau of Naval Personnel). He wanted certain men in certain jobs, notably Raoul Waller as his executive officer. But he was also cognizant of the danger of bringing too many of his “friends” along, and he liked to use reservists in important roles—an attitude less common among many of his contemporary Annapolites.98 The commissioning period also involved intensive training. Clark purposely cut short the “Abandon ship” drill
, telling the crew that he preferred to use the time for the “Don’t give up the ship” drill. He instead stressed damage-control and firefighting procedures.

  Before she could be commissioned, the Yorktown was required to pass a stem to stern inspection by the Board of Inspection and Survey, whose members arrived the second week of April. They tested all of the ship’s machinery, her major propulsion systems, auxiliary machinery, arresting gear, launching gear, catapult, magazines, and ammunition hoists. The ship’s charts and other required documents and publications were turned out and cataloged. The board found that all was in order and released the ship for commissioning on April 15, as scheduled. At 0700 on the appointed morning, the ship inched out of her berth and got underway. It was a short voyage across Hampton Roads and into a new berth at the Norfolk Navy Yard, where the Yorktown was formally entered into the service of the U.S. Navy.

  April and May comprised a period of strenuous training, fitting out, and shaking down. The ship performed sea trials, cruising up and down the Chesapeake Bay. Her gunners shot at target sleeves towed by planes. On May 5, the Yorktown landed her first plane, a new F6F flown by the legendary fighter pilot Jimmy Flatley, who reported aboard as commander of the new Air Group Five. Among the newcomers were thirty-six of the troublesome SB2C Helldivers, with freshly trained aircrews and a group of engineers and mechanics from the Curtiss plant in Columbus, Ohio. The Yorktown was the first carrier to take the unpopular “Beasts” aboard.

  On May 21, the Yorktown put to sea with an escort of three destroyers and turned south. Her destination was the Gulf of Paria, a shallow inland sea enclosed by Trinidad and the coast of Venezuela. A major naval supply depot and air station had been established on Trinidad. The gulf was more than seventy miles long, offering ample space for high-speed exercises and air operations. A single deepwater entrance channel was blocked by antisubmarine nets. The gulf was thus protected against German U-boats, and for that reason it was prized by the navy as a shakedown cruising area.

  Air Group Five landed at the air station on Trinidad and flew out to the carrier each day. Clark was particularly irascible during this stressful period, often bellowing at the crew through a handheld bullhorn. He was quick to place men “in hack” (confine them to quarters), but he did not hesitate to make spot promotions when a man showed exceptional ability or initiative. Clark was especially concerned with the speed and efficiency of plane-handling procedures during flight operations. He was relentless in timing the airedales, who brought the planes up from the hangars and spotted them (positioned them for launch) on the flight deck. Clark demanded that planes be spotted as tightly as possible to leave a maximum amount of deck run available on the forward flight deck. Getting armed and fueled-up planes aloft quickly was the prime objective of any aircraft carrier. The interval between recovering (landing) planes and respotting the next group for launch was the period when the ship was most vulnerable to attack. Contacts with the enemy, he told the crew, were likely to be rare and ephemeral: “Not only must we seek them out but we must be ready to make the most of [contacts] when they do come and to hit, both night and day, on those occasions when suitable targets are found.”99

  The arrival of larger and heavier planes taxed the strength and endurance of the deck crews, but Lieutenant Joe Tucker of the Air Department had a solution in hand. At the navy yard in Norfolk he had spotted two jeeps and two small tractors parked near the pier, and decided to commandeer them. He had them lifted onto the Yorktown by a crane and stowed in the hangar. (Marine guards had been bribed with bottles of spirits to look the other way.) Tucker’s mechanics devised a makeshift towbar that hooked around the forward wheels of the aircraft. Constant repetition and practice using the vehicles to move the airplanes led to much more rapid cycling and respotting. The jeeps and tractors, which Tucker called “mules,” proved to be an effective innovation and were adopted on all carriers of the class.100

  Clark had previously been billeted as a plane inspector at the Curtiss plant in Columbus, Ohio, so he was well acquainted with the new SB2C Helldiver and its tribulations. During operations in the Gulf of Paria, the Curtiss machines suffered chronic mechanical failures. One abruptly lost power after launch, and its pilot was forced to execute a water landing ahead of the ship. Another made a hard landing, and its tail wheel collapsed. Tail hooks were yanked out of more than a dozen planes. Yorktown’s mechanics and the visiting Curtiss engineers attempted to repair the accumulating damage, but spare parts were not always available and there was only so much that could be done on the hangar deck of a ship at sea. By mid-June, more than half had to be grounded, and Lieutenant Tucker estimated that the Helldiver needed about 200 modifications before it would be ready for service. He recommended returning the entire squadron to Curtiss and asking to draw a squadron of SBDs for the Yorktown’s first cruise to the Pacific. After lengthy discussion, Captain Clark agreed, and ordered the damaged SB2Cs put ashore at Trinidad. He wrote a seven-page memorandum detailing their defects. When the Yorktown returned to Norfolk a week later, Clark drove up to Washington and explained the problem to Admiral King. King agreed to let the ship take aboard a squadron of thirty-six new SBD-5s.

  “The war was won largely by Grumman and Douglas,” Clark wrote; “that was the Navy’s war, Grumman and Douglas.” By 1943, the SBDs were too slow to fly in a coordinated strike with the TBFs and F6Fs, so they “were actually a handicap in wartime. But we had to live with them, because they were the only dive bombers that we could rely on in the navy, the only ones that were in stock with enough of them on hand to do the job. So for a long time, before the bugs were worked out of this SB2C, that was the navy’s dive bomber.”101

  On July 6, Yorktown sailed for the Pacific with a destroyer screen in company. After a quick run to Panama, zigzagging at 30 knots through the Windward Passage to thwart U-boats, she dropped anchor in Colón on the morning of the tenth. On the following morning, with the captain and much of the crew recovering from a riotous liberty, the Yorktown inched into Gatun Locks with less than a foot of clearance on either side. There was not even space enough for bumpers. The concrete sides of the lock scraped sickeningly against the hull. Clark screamed constantly at the helmsman. The executive officer, Raoul Waller, dashed starboard and port across the flight deck “like a fussy old maid about her cat.”102

  The Yorktown raised Oahu at dawn on July 24 and eased down the entrance channel at midday. A welcome message from Admiral Nimitz was sent by blinker light: “The Yorktown carries a name already famous in the Pacific, and in welcoming you we anticipate that you will maintain the high reputation of your predecessor.” Clark replied: “Many thanks for your message. That’s what we came here to do.”103

  AS THE PACIFIC WAR MOVED WEST, and drew closer to the enemy’s main bases of support, the Americans would inherit the same disadvantages of distance that had undone the Japanese in the lower Solomons. Forces assigned to GALVANIC included 116 combatant ships and 75 auxiliary vessels. They would sortie directly from ports throughout the Pacific, including New Zealand, Samoa, Efate, the Solomons, Fiji, Hawaii, and the American West Coast. A supreme logistics effort was required to push such a fleet across the Pacific. A supply train of auxiliaries (including fifteen fleet oilers) would provide underway refueling and replenishment from bases at Funafuti, Espiritu Santo, the Fijis, and Pearl Harbor. Looking beyond the Gilberts, into the Marshalls and Marianas, the service and supply forces would be obliged to move quickly into newly conquered territories and convert them into advanced rear bases to support the next westward leap. Timing must be meticulous and exact. Admiral Spruance, when interviewed by historians after the war, often remarked that strategy and tactics never approached the importance of logistics in the transpacific campaign.

  Logistics was the realm of the Service Forces, Pacific Fleet (SERVPAC), commanded by Vice Admiral William L. Calhoun. In September 1943, SERVPAC listed 324 vessels, but the central Pacific offensive required a tripling of that figure in six months, to 990 vess
els in March 1944. Since early 1942, Calhoun’s command had been run out of CINCPAC headquarters on Makalapa Hill, but inexorable expansion soon forced the commander of SERVPAC (COMSERVPAC) into a new, dedicated headquarters next door. In October 1943, Calhoun commissioned a new Service Squadron Four to provide logistical support for GALVANIC. The squadron operated from Funafuti atoll in the Ellice Islands, south of the Gilberts—the nearest Allied-held territory to the atolls that were to be conquered. Funafuti was well matched to its role as a forward mobile supply and repair base. Its large lagoon could comfortably accommodate several hundred ships, but its single narrow entrance could easily be shielded against incursion by enemy submarines. Funafuti was also the headquarters of land-based air forces assigned to GALVANIC, under the command of Rear Admiral John H. Hoover (commander of Aircraft Central Pacific), whose flagship was the seaplane tender Curtiss.

  The planning of GALVANIC was not quite so truncated as that of WATCHTOWER the previous year, but the schedule seemed oppressive to leading participants and commanders, many of whom were not assigned to their roles until August or September. Admiral Harry W. Hill would command the Southern Amphibious Group, the force assigned to take Tarawa. Admiral Turner, who stood above him as commander of the Fifth Amphibious Force, would sail with the Northern Amphibious Group against Makin. Hill was not briefed on his duties until September 18, when he met with Turner in Efate. With the target date five weeks away, Turner could not yet say which transports would be assigned to Tarawa, or even what Hill’s flagship would be.104 The circumstances, Hill recalled, were “hectic, if not confused.”105 He never had the opportunity to meet his air support commander, and did not meet most of his primary commanders until the live rehearsals on the eve of sailing for the operation. The communications plan was late arriving in Efate. He moved aboard his flagship, the battleship Maryland, less than a week before the fleet sortied.