by Rising Sun Victorious: An Alternate History of the Pacific War
Meanwhile, Japanese aviators attacked Yorktown and Lexington with greater coordination than the Americans. Nonetheless, Yorktown displayed expert ship handling while steaming at thirty-two knots and managed to move inside the path of enemy torpedoes. Lexington was some eighty feet longer than Yorktown, had twice her full-load displacement, and thus had a turning circle almost double. After she had evaded numerous torpedoes, two hit home. In addition, at least two Vals struck her. Although she developed a list, it appeared that the rugged vessel would survive. Instead, a generator left running when the crew abandoned the room, ignited seeping aviation gasoline. The ensuing explosion gave Lexington a mortal wound. One dive-bomber hit Yorktown fifteen feet inside her island. The bomb penetrated three decks and exploded within an aviation storeroom. Damage control crews quickly brought the ensuing blaze under control.
So the battle ended. Neither side had prior experience in defensive carrier warfare. Moreover, damage control practices were in their infancy. The battle's results showed the vulnerability of vessels laden with aviation gasoline and explosives. One American carrier was sunk and one damaged. On the Japanese side, one carrier was disabled. But it was Shokaku's inability to land planes that proved decisive. Carrier Division 5 had already lost thirty-seven percent of its aircraft in the past twenty-four hours. The need for Zuikaku to throw nine bombers and three fighters overboard in order to land returning strike planes changed the losses from serious to prohibitive. Of the total of seventy-two operational planes that began the battle that morning, only twenty-seven remained fit to fly.
Aboard the light cruiser Kashima, swinging at anchor in Rabaul harbor, Admiral Inoue digested the day's horrifying intelligence. His first instinct was to order all his surface fighting elements to close on the enemy and seek battle. Then he thought about his vulnerable transports. The knowledge that enemy cruisers were patrolling the Jomard Passage and the American carriers were between the transports and Carrier Division 5 unnerved him. He ordered the transports to turn away rather than enter the Jomard Passage. The four heavy cruisers belonging to the Covering Force would protect their retirement. Takagi was also anxious about his position, and the losses among his most experienced aircrews made him cautious. After an exchange of messages with Inoue, he too decided to withdraw. That evening Inoue completed the disagreeable task of sending a dispatch to Yamamoto. After blaming Hara's loss of confidence for his decision, Inoue concluded “Port Moresby attack will be postponed to a later date. Your approval is requested.”
Battleship Yamato, Hashirajima Anchorage, May 8
Chief of Staff Ugaki completed his briefing and asked Yamamoto how to respond to Inoue's request for a withdrawal.
A long silence ensued. “Something is wrong out there, my friend” Yamamoto said. “Since the war's beginning we have been trying to engage the American carriers. Finally we find them, and what happens? Hara or Inoue or both lose their nerve.”
“There is an opponent in a war,” replied Ugaki, “so one cannot progress just as one wishes.”
“Things progressed pretty damn well for the Americans,” responded Yamamoto testily. “They evacuate their base at Tulagi just before we get there. They strike our ships at anchorage when they are without air cover. They bomb Rabaul and New Guinea while we are trying to mass our strength. Then they appear to block our passage through the Jomard and sink the Shoho in the bargain. What is wrong out there?”
Ugaki answered, “I think in part it's due to the insufficiency of air reconnaissance. We should keep this in mind.”
“Hmm,” grunted Yamamoto. “I want our best men to study this closely. But nothing must interfere with the operation against Midway.”
A Pawn Is Sacrificed, May 10
Agent T read Rachel Bray's summary of the daily briefings from MacArthur's headquarters. It appeared that the just concluded action in the Coral Sea had involved losses on both sides. However, just as had occurred previously, the spokesman seemed clearly to be saying that the Allies had advance information about Imperial plans. Once might be a mere boast. Twice could be something else. Could there be an enemy agent or even a traitor somewhere in the Japanese chain of command? Agent T thought it unlikely, but still. ..
He resolved to break his radio silence and send his first message since the brief signal announcing his safe arrival in Australia. It would require a long transmission. He had to anticipate that Allied listening posts would detect his presence. If they were skilled enough with radio directional finding, he would have to move to a safe house while covering his tracks.
Rachel interrupted his silent musings. She anxiously inquired, “It's good enough, isn't it? Can I please have my packet?”
During his training at Owada, Agent T had been strictly enjoined never to allow affection for a recruit to interfere with pragmatic judgment. His instructor had quickly realized that this would not be a problem for Agent T.
He reached beneath his desk. Instead of the envelope in the right-hand drawer, he extracted the envelope from the left. With a hint of a smile, he passed the packet. “Good work,” he said. “Here's a special reward.”
Battleship Yamato, Hashirajima Anchorage, May 12
Two days later a senior staff officer requested an audience with Yamamoto and his senior Combined Fleet staff. He ushered in a young officer who seemed extremely nervous to be in the admiral's august presence.
“Sir, this is Lieutenant Ichiki with Owada radio intelligence. He has something I think you would want to know.”
Yamamoto fixed a harried gaze at the trembling lieutenant. “Yes?”
“Sir, we have received a relay from a listening post in New Guinea. It's from an agent in Australia . . .” His voice wavered and trailed off.
“Go on,” said Yamamoto.
“Well, sir, this agent had instructions not to transmit unless he had something extraordinary. In fact, sir, we had not heard from him since the war began, and we had written him off. His message is a bit garbled, but in essence he reports that the Americans knew we were coming. They knew when and where.”
“Impossible!” snorted Ugaki.
Yamamoto looked at the lieutenant more kindly. “Proceed.”
“Sir, if the department had not been reviewing security to fulfill its part in the general analysis you ordered, I don't know how much credence we would have placed in this report. But, sir, coupled with Tulagi—”
Yamamoto interrupted. “The resistance at Port Moresby, the Shoho, the cruisers at the Jomard Passage, the carriers in ambush for Takagi. Yes?”
“We think the Americans are reading our signals.”
The Combined Fleet intelligence officer sputtered. “Impossible! We use a double-coded polyalphabetic superencipherment—”
“Enough!” barked Yamamoto. “How often have I told you not to underestimate the Americans? We will put it to a test. Ugaki, is Inoue proceeding with Operation RY against Ocean and Nauru?”
The chief of staff replied, “Yes, sir.”
“Surely the American carriers cannot anticipate that as well,” continued Yamamoto. “Inform Inoue to proceed. But if he encounters the American carriers, he is to cancel the operation. And Ugaki, send this order by courier. Send this young man here.”
End Game, May 13
In Washington, D.C., Maj. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower drafted a secret memorandum to MacArthur regarding SWPA's release of information to the Australian press and presented it to General Marshall. It read: “Publicity purporting to emanate from your headquarters gives important details of recent naval action in the South Pacific. The commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet considers that this imposes definite risks upon participating forces.” Here Marshall inserted a handwritten phrase, “and jeopardizes the successful continuation of fleet task force operations.” The message continued: “Information concerning action by land, sea, and air forces under the control of CINCPAC will be released through the Navy Department only.” It concluded by asking MacArthur to work with Australian authorities to put an
end to SWPA's loose censorship practices. The criticism angered MacArthur, as both Eisenhower and Marshall knew it would, but, with another major Japanese offensive pending, they also understood the absolute necessity of protecting the secret of the Allied radio intelligence coup.8
On May 15 a Japanese flying boat based at Tulagi sighted Enterprise and Hornet in position to attack an invasion force operating against Ocean and Nauru. Dutifully, Inoue canceled Operation RY.
For the next twelve days, driven by the suddenly demanding Chief of Staff Ugaki, the Combined Fleet staff worked furiously. Yamamoto never considered canceling the offensive against Midway. Instead, the near certitude that it would entice the American carriers into battle rekindled his energy. His revised strategy involved operational planning along parallel paths. One path had orders dispatched by radio to continue the operation against Midway as planned. The second, true, path involved detailed, hand-delivered instructions that revised the plan entirely. While the Aleutian task force continued as originally planned, two cruisers were to utilize the radio call signs of the light carriers Ryujo and Junyo. Meanwhile, those carriers joined the Midway-bound carrier strike force. A similar radio deception ploy concealed the reassignment of the light carriers Zuiho and Hosho. These measures added some 120 naval aircraft to the strength of the carrier strike force and compensated for the absence of the damaged Carrier Division 5. In addition, Yamamoto shuffled his other surface units to strengthen the carriers' antiaircraft screen. Last, he demanded that the submarines belonging to the Advance Expeditionary Force be in position no later than June 1 to detect the arrival of the American task force off Midway.
Having been ordered to concentrate all resources on the Midway threat, Station Hypo decrypted much of the voluminous Japanese radio traffic. It gave Admiral Nimitz a comprehensive, detailed, and accurate picture of the Japanese order of battle, its division of forces, and its routes of approach to the Aleutians and Midway. On May 27, Nimitz convened a final strategy session designed to place the American carriers in position to ambush the dispersed Japanese forces.
That day, the light cruiser Nagara led the massed carrier and battle strength of the Combined Fleet out from the Hashirajima anchorage on a course east toward Midway. From the bridge of his flagship, Admiral Yamamoto studied his mighty fleet with a sense of great complacency. The battle's outcome could hardly be in doubt. It would be a case of the biter bit.
The Reality
So delicate was the balance of forces during the Coral Sea Midway period—for example, had the bomb that hit Yorktown during the Coral Sea battle struck twenty feet toward her center-line, thereby damaging her flight deck instead of penetrating the comparatively unused lee of her island she would have been disabled for Midway—that it is not hard to suggest “alternative” outcomes. In the event, Allied radio intelligence, the combination of traffic analysis and decryption, was absolutely central to all that took place. Everything in the story occurred through the May 8 carrier exchange. Thereafter, in reality Nimitz circumvented King's orders and covertly instructed Halsey to allow Japanese recon to find his carriers. Nimitz correctly anticipated that this would be enough to abort the Japanese drive against Ocean and Nauru. Unlike King, Nimitz desperately wanted to bring the carriers back to Hawaii to prepare for the Midway campaign. Rachel Bray did not exist. But authorities in Washington were intensely concerned about the possibility of revealing their golden source of intelligence. Indicative of this concern is Marshall's rebuke to MacArthur, which is verbatim and was found with the kind assistance of the George Marshall Museum. Fortunately, in spite of MacArthur's indiscretion and the similar folly of the Chicago Tribune after Midway, the Japanese never suspected that their codes had been compromised until too late.
Bibliography
Bergerud, Eric, Fire in the Sky: The Air War in the South Pacific (WestviewPress, Boulder, 2000).
Dull, Paul S., A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy (1941–1945)(Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1978).
Goldstein, Donald M., and Dillon, Katherine V. (eds.), Fading Victory: TheDiary of Admiral Matome Ugaki, 1941–45 (University of PittsburghPress, Pittsburgh, 1991).
James, D. Clayton, The Years of MacArthur, vol. II: 1941–1945 (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1975).
Layton, Edwin T., “And I Was There “: Pearl Harbor and Midway Breakingthe Secrets (W. Morrow, New York, 1985).
Lundstrom, John B., The First South Pacific Campaign: Pacific Fleet Strategy December 1941-June 1942 (U.S. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1976).
Morison, Samuel Eliot, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, vol. IV: Coral Sea, Midway and Submarine Actions (Little, Brown, Boston, 1949).
Willmott, H. P., The Barrier and the Javelin: Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies February to June 1942 (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1983).
Notes
1. Edwin T. Layton, "And I Was There ": Pearl Harbor and Midway Breaking the Secrets (W. Morrow, New York, 1985), 390.
2. John B. Lundstrom, The First South Pacific Campaign: Pacific Fleet Strategy December 1941-June 1942 (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1976), 86.
3. Ibid., 100.
4. For a complete discussion of this important delay (an example of how small matters can have large consequences), see H. P. Willmott, The Barrier and the Javelin: Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies February to June 1942 (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1983), 207–208.
5. Layton, op.cit., 399.
6. Samuel Eliot Morison, History of the United States Naval Operations in World War II, vol. IV: Coral Sea, Midway and Submarine Actions (Little, Brown, Boston, 1949), 42.
7. Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V Dillon (eds.), Fading Victory: The Diary of Admiral Matome Ugaki, 1941–45 (University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 1991), 121.
8. Marshall's telegram, complete with his handwritten annotations, is in the archives of the George C..Marshall Museum, Lexington, Virginia. Marshall's attitude toward MacArthur's loose censorship practices at this time is discussed in D. Clayton James, The Years of MacArthur, vol. II: 1941–1945 (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1975), 164–66.
CHAPTER 5
Nagumo's Luck
The Battles of Midway and California
Forrest R. Lindsey
Decisions
Commander C. “Wade” McCluskey, USN, stared out over a seemingly endless expanse of the Pacific Ocean. He was leading a striking force of carrier dive-bombers in search of the four Japanese carriers that were the most important part of a huge enemy force heading for Midway Island. Other American aircraft flying from Midway and from his carriers earlier that morning had been sent out to find them and attack, but he didn't have any news from them and didn't know how successful they'd been. His and thirty-two more navy SBD Dauntless dive-bombers were a powerful instrument. They each carried a 500- or 1,000-pound bomb that would be more than enough to wreck a carrier if they could get close enough for a hit. SBDs were slow and lightly armed, but accurate and rugged, and in the hands of a good pilot could deliver a bomb within a few feet of an aim point. His pilots were good, but most were inexperienced. Once they got to the target, he'd lead the first run in himself, to make sure they knew the best way to get in and get a hit.
The weather was clear and the visibility almost unlimited, but instead of seeing the telltale streaks of white that would denote the wakes of Japanese carriers and their escorts, there was only the smooth and trackless ocean from horizon to horizon. He was following the course they'd predicted would intercept the Japanese fleet at their last estimated speed and course, but there was no sign of them. The original plan covered in his morning briefings was for careful precision: the torpedo bombers would arrive at the target at the same time as the dive-bombers, while the fighters kept the Zeros off of them. With the torpedo bombers hitting the carriers low and the dive-bombers coming from high above, the enemy would have little chance of stopping them. This was the “old one-two punch” that would overwhelm the Japanese defenses
for the critical seconds they needed. Even though they had delayed their SBDs after takeoff to allow the slower Devastator torpedo bombers to get ahead of them, they lost sight of each other almost from the beginning. Worse, he'd used a lot of fuel doing it. Trusting that they would find the Japanese and the rest of the strike force, they had flown steadily toward the spot in the ocean at which the enemy was moving.
Where were the Japanese? He had heard some scraps of radio traffic from the pilots of Torpedo 8 from Hornet as they apparently ran into the Japanese task force, but no indication of where the Japanese were located now. Fuel was critical: they had flown almost 155 miles so far, in additon to the fuel to get to their present altitude and circle his planes over the carriers while waiting for the torpedo bombers to get going.
McCluskey had two choices. He could backtrack to the northwest on the guess that the Japanese had made a major turn toward the U.S. carriers. Or he could turn southeast toward Midway Island on the possibility that the Japanese carriers had moved faster than estimated and were continuing their attacks on that island's defenses. A southeast turn had another advantage: if the enemy wasn't there, he could land his dive-bombers on Midway, refuel, get an updated position for the Japanese, then go after them from there.
Looking balefully at his fuel gauges and then back to a clear, empty ocean, McCluskey tossed the mental coin and turned toward Midway.1
At that moment, Adm. Chuichi Nagumo, commander of the Japanese Carrier Striking Force, had what had been a very tough morning end with a piece of luck. None of the morning's attacks by U.S. land-based bombers or carrier torpedo bombers had even touched any of the ships of his powerful carrier force. The presence of enemy carriers had been a shock—the Americans were supposed to be near Pearl Harbor—but, tardily, a scout plane had located the position of the U.S. carriers, a surprising 200 kilometers to the northeast. His aircraft had finally recovered from the morning strikes against Midway Island and his fighter pilots were getting a break after flying interception that morning. There wasn't enough time to arm all of his aircraft with the optimum mix of torpedoes and armor-piercing bombs for an antiship strike, but he was satisfied that his pilots would successfully destroy the enemy's carriers with the weapons they had. The American attacks were over and the confusion and repeated rearming of aircraft was finished. The attack, the decisive battle against the last strength of the enemy fleet, was what mattered now. At last, signals were flashed from the air fleets aboard his four carriers that they were ready to launch. Twenty-eight minutes after the last of the American torpedo bombers had sunk to the bottom of the deep Pacific, Admiral Nagumo ordered his aircraft to take off and form up for the attack on the American carriers.