by Rising Sun Victorious: An Alternate History of the Pacific War
First, the agreement with Churchill that the Germans and the war in Europe would be the first priority of the United States was rescinded; the war against the Japanese would take precedence. The British, the Soviets, and occupied Europe would be essentially on their own again for a while. The plans for Operation Torch—an amphibious operation by U.S. and British forces in French North Africa—was canceled. Forces previously allocated for that operation were sent to San Diego to prepare against any Japanese attempt to land on the Pacific coast and to be ready for future operations against the Japanese. Radar installations and communications relays were hurriedly engineered and constructed at intervals along the coast with the goal of completing a chain to detect air and surface targets well out to sea. Aircraft, artillery, tanks, ammunition, trucks, and, in particular, antiaircraft guns, were sent to California, Oregon, and Washington instead of Britain and the Soviet Union. The only direct response to the Germans to be continued would be operations against U-boats along the Atlantic coast and in the Caribbean. They were directly threatening U.S. operations and could not be ignored.
Second, air forces earmarked for movement to Britain were sent to airfields all along the West Coast to begin preparation and training for antiship strikes against the Japanese. Some of the best-trained fighter squadrons were sent to Panama to reinforce its defenses. The only question was whether they had enough time left for the complex job of assembling the necessary aircraft, support facilities, crews, munitions, fuel, and spare parts to face the Japanese when they arrived. Construction and training became a round-the-clock activity both in Panama and all along the West Coast.
Third, the aircraft carrier Ranger would be sent to join the Pacific Fleet immediately. All submarines available in the Atlantic and the Caribbean would also move to the Pacific for use as scouts and to ambush Japanese vessels in key sea lanes and choke points.
Fourth, training camps throughout the United States began intensive and abbreviated preparations to ready infantry, artillery, antiaircraft, and armor forces for duty at West Coast staging areas.
Fifth, the Army Corps of Engineers, under the direction of MacArthur's headquarters, would have the responsibility for emergency construction of airfields up and down the Pacific coast. The Corps would also be responsible for coordinating and directing the building of coastal fortifications. They had already begun site surveys, and the necessary materials had priority over all rail traffic except for the movement of troops and arms.
Sixth, the aircraft factories for Consolidated Vultee (San Diego), Lockheed (Burbank), Douglas (Los Angeles), North American Aviation (Los Angeles), and Boeing (Seattle) would be dismantled and moved inland from the West Coast to Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. It was anticipated that full operation could be restored in about one year. Only Northrop, Martin, Bell, Chance Vought, Republic, Grumman, and Curtiss would remain where they were and continue design and production unabated. In the offices that were hurriedly emptied, drawing boards were cleared of blueprints, drawings packed in cardboard tubes, and tools, jigs, and wind tunnel models sealed into sturdy wooden crates. This would have an incalculable effect on some types of aircraft. The P-51A Mustang would not receive a proposed re-engine to the Packard Merlin 61, and the P-38F Lightning would continue to suffer from unresolved compressibility effect problems. B-17s and B-24s would have to restart production in Kansas City and Wichita and would be available only in reduced numbers for a while. The Boeing Model 345 or XB-29, and the Consolidated Vultee B-32 and B-36 designs, would stay in their storage tubes for more than six months as facilities to continue design and production were completed. Only the B-26 Marauder could increase production, and the facilities at Glenn Martin's Baltimore, Maryland, factory expanded quickly. The Republic P-47 fighter would become the premier interceptor and escort fighter, and other aircraft companies would be tasked to retool to build them. Contracts for a very long-range bomber, necessary to strike the Japanese home islands, were left to Jack Northrup to accelerate development of his strange flying wing bomber, the XB-35.
Seventh, key facilities and personnel in the Hawaiian Islands would be evacuated to the U.S. mainland. Only those personnel needed for the support of remaining fleet operations and defense of the Hawaiian Islands would remain. The residents of Hawaii were given the option of remaining where they were, transportation to the mainland to temporary resettlement camps, or movement to Molokai, Kauai, Niihau, or Maui, away from the anticipated center of Japanese attacks on Oahu.
MacArthur agreed that these steps were inevitable, but he was not the man to allow the United States to be cornered into a defensive fight. He had seen at close hand how the Japanese could move inexorably toward their objectives and had also seen the fate of his men and women, American and Filipino, at Corregidor. The Bataan Death March was something tangible and living to him, and his whole being focused on the problem of how to turn America's situation around into a war-winning offensive. He had disagreed with Admirals Nimitz and King about the gamble at Midway and was grimly vindicated by the results. Now he had the full cooperation of the navy to concentrate on the forces at hand, the forces that could soon be brought to bear to reverse the tide and turn it against the enemy.
One of MacArthur's biggest problems was that his window into his enemy's mind had been closed: Station Hypo, the code-breaking and radio traffic analysis facility in Hawaii, had been closed down and sent to California. It would be weeks before any useful material came from it. To add to that loss, the Japanese must have guessed that the Americans were reading some of their messages, since they changed all of their principal military codes immediately after Midway. JN-25b, as the new Japanese naval code was called, had the Americans starting all over again in the intelligence arena at the worst possible time.4
Although MacArthur was busy, a call from the Secretary of the Navy made him interrupt his schedule to meet with scientists from the Naval Weapons Center at Dahlgren, Virginia, and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. They briefed him about a new weapon development and its capabilities, which they felt could be crucial. Their breakthrough was top secret and phenomenal. They had developed and successfully tested an artillery fuse that used a radio signal to sense its proximity to aircraft and detonated the projectile at the closest point to the plane. They called it the VT proximity fuse, and it could revolutionize artillery effectiveness against aircraft. They showed MacArthur a film of the first live shots fired at drone aircraft and the results were better than they had described. The test plane was literally blown apart with a single shot. MacArthur called for its immediate production and issue to antiaircraft crews. 5
MacArthur could easily see the directions the Japanese could go. They had free run of the Pacific, and if true to form, the United States could expect very bold and aggressive offensive strikes, and soon. He agreed with intelligence estimates that the Japanese would probably attack Hawaii and the West Coast, but didn't agree that they would win. He had one or two ideas about how to sting the enemy and force them off guard. In MacArthur's view, Japan's apparent supremacy over the Pacific could work against them. They were getting almost predictable at this point—they would overrule the peace seekers in their government and continue the offensive somewhere else. The only options available were Southeast Asia and Australia or, continuing in the direction indicated by their victory at Midway, Oahu. The possibility of attacks on the West Coast was nevertheless real, and he knew that reinforcement of the Pacific Fleet depended on keeping the Panama Canal open and functioning. He also knew that if the Japanese chose to bypass Oahu and the United States mainland to go after Australia, they would be using nearly all of their offensive power a long way from American military and industrial centers, allowing the United States to get back on its feet. Conversely, if the Japanese chose to attack Hawaii and the West Coast, they would place their principal striking arm, the Combined Fleet, close to American air power and a long way from their own logistic bases. The Japanese would be at the extreme limit of their range and
too far away to support. Thus, the trick would be to lure them close enough to take advantage of this weakness.
The key became clear just a few short days later: U.S. reconnaissance aircraft spotted a new Japanese airfield under construction in the Solomon Islands, on an island called Guadalcanal.
Western Pacific Operations: the Battle of California
Admiral Yamamoto's flagship, Yamato, had just cleared Truk Lagoon when the astonishing news reached him: an American force had been sighted in Tulagi harbor in the Solomons, and were landing in unknown numbers on Tulagi and Guadalcanal.
None of the intelligence services—not least his own staff intelligence officers—had given the slightest warning that the Americans were even capable of attempting something like this. How could they? They had only two carriers in the Pacific, and the supporting forces couldn't amount to more than a light force of cruisers and destroyers. Transports leaving the West Coast ports had been spotted by his submarine reconnaissance, but it was assumed that was a movement to evacuate Hawaii. What were the Americans up to? How could they hope to sustain their invasion, much less win?
Yamamoto's massive operation was just beginning. A strike force centered on the superbattleships Yamato and Musashi was forming at sea to the east of Truk for movement to the California coast. Like an intricate watch, the other parts of Yamamoto's machine, made up of a six-carrier task force and a cruiser-destroyer group under the command of Admiral Nagumo, moved directly east toward California. Simultaneously, another strike force headed for the waters north of Hawaii, and a third for the west coast of Panama. A diversion force with the carrier Ryujo was approaching the Coral Sea for a feint toward Port Moresby and would be close enough to begin executing their portion of the operation by morning. As the diversion force conducted attacks on the Allied forces in New Guinea, Yamamoto's strike force would link with Nagumo's carrier force 300 nautical miles west of San Clemente Island. From there, they would move to launch points for a series of carrier and naval gunfire strikes against the ports and facilities of San Diego and Los Angeles.
Careful night reconnaissance flights by submarine-launched aircraft had pinpointed critical targets, with an emphasis on military and civil airfields, military bases, port facilities, and shipping and shore battery emplacements. Any naval forces or shipping within range would be engaged directly, and the southwest coast of the United States would have its first view of Japan's warships enveloped in flame and smoke as they sent thousands of shells inland. Carrier aircraft would engage any remaining enemy air forces and conduct deep strikes against targets as far as 200 kilometers inland. Much of this striking range wasn't necessary, since the Americans had obligingly located most of their important facilities very close to the coast. Privately, though, Yamamoto had one concern. Admiral Nagumo was his only choice for command of the critical carrier force, because of his apparent success in the operations against Pearl Harbor and Midway; but Yamamoto didn't trust him. He had turned away from finishing the job at Pearl Harbor, and with his inadequate air reconnaissance at Midway, they were fortunate that the Americans had missed his carriers.
The Hawaii strike force, arriving off Oahu at the same time as the strike force off California, would finish off any remaining military capability. This time the attacks would be relentless, destroying any dock, pier, barracks, warehouse, hangar, fuel farm, or ammunition depot they could find. Supported by the army bombers from Midway, this force had enough aircraft and ammunition to stay in place for as long as it took. The objective wasn't to seize Hawaii but to nullify its usefulness. Yamamoto had realized that a Hawaiian landing operation would take more of his available strength than he was willing to allocate in the short time available. This operation would allow him to blunt the thorn in his side while still pinning U.S. forces uselessly on the island. Neutralizing and bypassing Hawaii achieved all of his short-term tactical goals. They could come back for the rest later.
The Panama strike force would launch aircraft from the carrier Zuiho to bomb and torpedo the Pedro Miguel and Gatun Locks while commando teams of the Naval Special Landing Force conducted demolition operations against pump stations and port facilities in Balboa. The main attack would be pressed against the Miraflores Locks using the destroyer Mutsuki as a special attack ship with a volunteer crew that would race into the lock entrance area under the cover of suppressing aircraft and naval gunfire, to drive itself at full speed into the lock itself. At the moment of farthest entry into the lock, the volunteer crew would detonate over 500 tons of explosives and wreck the Pacific entry to the Panama Canal. With the canal sealed, it would be several more critical weeks or months before the Americans could attempt to reinforce their Pacific naval forces.
The only problem was that the Americans weren't just waiting for them on their West Coast. They were in Japan's area of operations, threatening their flank with some unknown operation. In an urgent message to Yamamoto from Rabaul, American aircraft were reported to be above Guadalcanal and it was only a matter of time until the key base at Rabaul was threatened. This could not be allowed; they had to be dealt with. Orders were transmitted to Rabaul to reassign the diversion force from the Port Moresby Operation and to add a counter-landing force under Col. Kiyaoano Ichiki, 28th Infantry Regiment, 35th Brigade, 17th Army. This new force would eradicate the Americans on Guadalcanal.
In Washington, the Emergency Council met again to discuss MacArthur's latest recommendations—though with the general's personality and style, “recommendations” were always much stronger than that. They had begrudgingly approved the landing at Guadalcanal, partially because Admiral King had agreed with MacArthur, a rare enough occurrence, and partly because Adm. Bill Halsey had been given overall command of the operation. It had still been a difficult and contentious decision. It involved the risk of America's only remaining Pacific Theater carriers and four scarce cruisers to support the landings until the airfield on Guadalcanal could be made ready for air operations. Those same fleet units were desperately needed to support Oahu and the West Coast, but a deal was made to move the carriers back quickly once the landing force became self-sufficient and the airfield there was ready to accept its own air units. Unknown to the Japanese, the aircraft carrier Ranger was just leaving the Panama Canal and entering the Pacific, and the launching and preparations for sea trials of the new carriers Essex and Independence had been accelerated by round-the-clock operations. The Emergency Council members were comforted by the first news out of Guadalcanal, that the landing force— the 1st Marine Division under General Vandegrift—had seized the island's airfield against light opposition and was rapidly solidifying its position.6
The president had more to worry about. His British allies were angry and increasingly desperate. Rommel continued to hold out in North Africa despite Montgomery's victories against him, and the Axis whittled away at British and ANZAC troops in a back-and-forth bloodletting of attrition warfare. The Nazis had stepped up U-boat operations in the mid-Atlantic, just out of reach of the Coastal Command's aircraft, and large and well-coordinated “wolfpacks” of enemy submarines savaged convoy operations. America was helping as much as it could but every surface combatant down to the size of minesweeper was being used to protect its two coasts. FDR couldn't spare anything more at sea or in the air. Britain's Bomber Command was pushed to the limit to carry on attacks against Germany and German targets in Holland and France. It had tried daylight bombing against industrial targets but the attrition was too high and now it had adopted mass night attacks. These were considerably less accurate but carried the war to the enemy nonetheless.
FDR's Soviet allies were also getting more strident. The Nazis were at Moscow's gates and had seized the center of Stalingrad on the Volga after desperate fighting. America said that it couldn't spare anything more to support the Soviets, and Stalin was becoming more convinced that America was double-dealing them. They desperately needed a second front to divert the full force of the Wehrmacht away from them.
As bad as thin
gs were with his allies, FDR knew that the next few months were critical to America's survival. While most intelligence estimates held that Japan could not invade the United States at this point, any more reverses in the Pacific would keep America from helping in the European theater of operations and even more focused on defense against Japan. His own political position was deeply threatened. The November elections were just two months away and his reelection was in doubt. His leadership was more and more suspect to the American people, and even his own party was beginning to openly question his judgment, talking about having “someone new and fresh” to run for president. As much as MacArthur was a strong dose of salts to take, he had the faith of the American people so far. Now they would see whether his strategic plan would work or not.
MacArthur himself was worried, even if he didn't show it. While maintaining a public confidence—even arrogance—he knew how bad things could be. Intelligence from the Australian listening posts had determined that large Japanese forces were on the move. A submarine posted at the entrance of Truk Lagoon confirmed that major enemy fleet units had put to sea and were gathering for movements east. He had moved as many forces west as he could get, but concentrated on air forces. His only real means of defense for the West Coast and Panama were attack bombers and submarines, and he and Admiral King had allocated all of the army and navy assets available to prepare for in-depth reconnaissance, attrition, and then destruction of enemy units. The key was to keep the enemy strength off balance and to delay their blows until American forces could be brought up to offensive parity. The navy was feverishly training new carrier crews, and estimated that Essex and Independence would be available for combat as early as January–February 1943, but not arriving in the Pacific until April or May, if the Panama Canal stayed open.