War at the End of the World

by James P. Duffy

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  The absence of a unified command for the entire Pacific War carried with it the possibility of conflict between the commanders. Resolving competing claims for troops, supplies, and priorities rested on the theater commanders themselves, with no local, overall single authority to make these decisions. Despite the Army-Navy rivalry, most of these potential conflicts were settled by the personalities involved, especially when it was between MacArthur and Halsey. Only at the level of the Joint Chiefs in Washington did a unified command exist. This placed on the chiefs a decision-making burden that otherwise would have been handled by the commander in a unified theater command.

  Nevertheless, to the surprise of many military strategists, the two-theater approach proved successful. Each served as the pincers of an envelopment of the Japanese. MacArthur’s forces were the left pincer, striking north through New Guinea and its adjacent islands, while Nimitz’s fleets were the right pincer, pushing north through the central Pacific.

  MacArthur received a taste of what was in store for him when he learned that before he left Corregidor eight U.S. Army transports, escorted by Navy destroyers, had landed over twenty-five thousand American soldiers in Melbourne. Known only as Task Force 6814, the highly secret shipment of men and matériel became the new Americal Division. It included two infantry regiments, a tank battalion, several field and coastal artillery regiments, quartermaster companies, a radar intelligence company, a military police platoon, and even an Army postal unit. The ships arrived at Melbourne on February 27, and the troops disbursed to five major billeting areas. Most of the Australian population in the area thought these were the first of a massive American army sent to defend their homeland. They were sorely disappointed when, on March 6, most of the troops and their equipment were reembarked on the transports and sailed away. Their secret destination was the French island of New Caledonia, located in the Navy’s South Pacific Area. Left behind in Australia were four thousand Americans, comprising two engineer regiments, a signals company, a weather detachment, a reconnaissance squadron, and a hospital staff. When a third infantry regiment landed at New Caledonia a few weeks later, the cigar-shaped island, 250 miles long and 20 to 30 miles wide at its widest point, had more American ground combat troops than did all of Australia.66

  As MacArthur worked on plans to defend Australia, the fate of his army on Bataan and Corregidor was never far from his thoughts. Japanese reinforcements were arriving in the Philippines from Singapore as they prepared for a final crushing blow against the cornered and isolated Filipino and American troops.

  Before leaving Corregidor, MacArthur had anticipated the possibility that General Wainwright would eventually run out of food and ammunition for his forces. He would have no alternative but to surrender. In anticipation of this, MacArthur divided the command of all Allied forces in the Philippines into four separate groups. Wainwright commanded the troops on Luzon, while three other American generals commanded troops in other parts of the Philippines. This way, MacArthur believed that even after the fall of Bataan, the other three commands would be able to continue at least a guerrilla war against the Japanese. Wainwright would be able to surrender only the troops under his command, leaving the other commands free to continue fighting until MacArthur returned with what he expected would be a large American force. Japan would not be able to station enough troops throughout the many islands making up the Commonwealth to control all areas if Allied forces continued fighting. All four generals reported to MacArthur directly. Unfortunately, he failed to tell anyone in Washington why he did this.

  With MacArthur now in Australia, Marshall and the War Department decided they could not run the war in the Philippines by long-distance radio. President Roosevelt, at Marshall’s urging, promoted Wainwright to lieutenant general and gave him command of a new headquarters called U.S. Forces in the Philippines (USFIP). Now Wainwright no longer reported to MacArthur, but directly to the War Department, and all American and Filipino troops in the Commonwealth were under his command.67

  Despite the fact that he was no longer in command of the troops in the Philippines, MacArthur kept up a steady stream of communications with Wainwright and Washington. He offered several ideas for a breakout from Bataan so that the survivors could make their way to the mountains of Luzon and wage a large-scale guerrilla war. At one point, MacArthur claimed he was prepared to slip back onto Corregidor and lead such a breakout himself. Marshall rejected the idea.68

  In the end, Wainwright surrendered his forces to the Japanese on May 6, 1942. He at first attempted to yield only the troops on the fortified islands in Manila Bay, claiming the others were under a different commander who reported directly to MacArthur. The Japanese commander, Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma, refused to accept the surrender. Homma told the American he had seen a copy of the order from Washington placing him in charge all American forces in the Commonwealth. Faced with the possibility his now substantially disarmed troops would be massacred, Wainwright finally agreed to surrender all Allied forces in the Philippines. Several groups refused, slipping away into the mountainous countryside or onto small remote islands from where they kept up guerrilla warfare until MacArthur returned in late 1944. MacArthur would manage to remain in touch with many of these groups, including sending supplies and intelligence to them over the coming years.

  On March 18, 1942, MacArthur received definitive word from Marshall that his theater of war was to remain a minor part of the “global war” until Germany and Italy were defeated. Marshall explained that men and equipment for MacArthur’s theater were limited “by shortages in shipping, which is of the utmost seriousness, and by critical situations elsewhere.” All the Army chief could promise at this time were five air groups and two infantry divisions that were already en route to Australia. MacArthur pleaded for “one carrier, no matter how small,” but none was forthcoming.69

  The two American National Guard infantry divisions that Marshall promised finally did arrive—the 41st Infantry Division on April 6 and the 32nd Infantry Division on May 14. Originally intended for shipment to Europe, these troops had received no training in jungle warfare, and began drilling soon after their arrival. Of much more value to MacArthur was the arrival of two Australian divisions, most of whom had combat experience in North Africa and the Middle East. Elements of the 6th and 7th Divisions had begun arriving in Australia in mid-March, following their near brush with Burma. Deployed since 1940, they were given brief leaves to visit families. In addition, the Australian government had called up militia and other reserve-type units for training.

  The directive MacArthur received from the Joint Chiefs establishing his command stated, among other items, that he was to “hold key military regions of Australia as bases for future offensive operations against Japan. Protect land, sea, and air communications within the South West Pacific Area and its close approaches.” It all sounded very defense oriented, but the sentence on which the offense-oriented general hung his hat was “Prepare to take the offensive.”70

  MacArthur, anxious to get on with the task of stopping the Japanese and driving them back to their home islands, quickly ignored the purely defensive nature of his instructions and, as one biographer describes his actions, “proceeded to operate as if he had full authorization for a major counteroffensive to recapture the Philippines.”71

  On March 23, the fifty-seven-year-old commander of the Australian ground forces in the Middle East, the short and stocky General Thomas Blamey, returned to Australia to assume the post of commander in chief of the Australian Army. Blamey, who had served with distinction in the First World War, was known to be a hard-drinking and controversial officer who got the job done. When reporters questioned Prime Minister Curtin about Blamey’s reputation and his selection, Curtin told them, “I appointed a military commander, not a Sunday school teacher.”

  MacArthur appointed Blamey as Commander of Allied Land Forces, U.S. Lieutenant General George Brett as Co
mmander of Allied Air Forces, and U.S. Vice Admiral Herbert Leary as Commander of Allied Naval Forces in the SWPA. Marshall told MacArthur to be sure to include Allied officers, meaning Australian and Dutch, as members of his senior staff. The general ignored this advice, appointing only Americans to senior staff positions. Many of them were the officers who had escaped from Corregidor with him. Allied officers were included as members of subordinate staffs.

  MacArthur kept up a steady drumbeat of requests for more men and equipment. At the time, his air force consisted of no more than fifty serviceable aircraft of all types, and his navy included five cruisers, eight destroyers, twenty submarines, and seven small auxiliary craft. No large warships fell under MacArthur’s command, such as aircraft carriers, battleships, or heavy cruisers. The small force became known as “MacArthur’s Navy.”72

  As far as Admiral King was concerned, MacArthur would never have any ships larger than those he inherited when he arrived in Australia. This was clear in a memo written by King’s assistant chief of staff, Rear Admiral Richard Kelly Turner, on March 19. Turner warned that the general would probably “use his naval forces in the wrong manner, since he has shown clear unfamiliarity with proper naval and air functions.”73

  The general’s pleas and demands to Washington went mostly unheeded. The president was determined on what he described in a memorandum to Harry Hopkins, General Marshall, and Admiral King on July 16 as “the immediate objective of U.S. ground forces fighting against Germans in 1942.” In the same document, he expressed this belief: “Defeat of Germany [in 1942 or 1943] means the defeat of Japan, probably without firing a shot or losing a life.”74

  The White House had been pressing the British for Operation Sledgehammer, a U.S.-inspired plan for an autumn 1942 Allied landing in northern France. The goal was to relieve the pressure on the Red Army battling the Germans west of the Donets, where the Soviets had lost 250,000 men. Churchill and the British Service Chiefs were dragging their feet on the operation, which they considered had little chance of success. They wanted it canceled and replaced by an invasion of French North Africa, code-named Gymnast. Part of the American problem with the British strategy was that on May 30, according to one biographer, the president told Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov “to tell Stalin to expect the formation of a second front in 1942, a premature pledge he would later have occasion to regret.”75

  When British field marshal Sir John Dill informed Marshall on July 8 that the British would not proceed with Sledgehammer, the American general was not above using MacArthur’s needs as a threat. “Marshall implied that he would rather reinforce MacArthur’s offensive, which at least was directed at a real enemy, rather than Gymnast,” which was directed against the Vichy French in North Africa, not the Germans.76

  Despite Marshall’s threat, it is difficult to tell whether the president ever seriously considered redeploying troops to Australia at this time. It might have been a political ploy to indicate he supported the hugely popular MacArthur, or he may have truly wanted to give MacArthur what he needed. If the latter was correct, then his feelings about the general had come a long way since 1934, when he told his economic adviser Rexford Tugwell that MacArthur was “one of the two most dangerous men in America.” (The other was Louisiana Democratic senator Huey Long.)77

  By the end of April, with one American infantry division in Australia, another arriving shortly, and most Australian units returning from North Africa, there were four regular divisions at various bases around the country. In addition, seven divisions of the Civilian Military Forces, a militia with limited training and experience, had been activated. Available airpower consisted of three American bombardment groups (one light, one medium, one heavy) and three fighter groups. The Royal Australian Air Force had about 150 planes. Unfortunately, many of the aircraft of both nations were in need of extensive repairs or waiting for the arrival of spare parts.

  Although MacArthur considered his forces—ground, naval, or air—inadequate for his mission, he quickly moved ahead with plans to gain air superiority over at least a portion of New Guinea, for it was there that he intended to defend Australia and take the offensive against the Japanese.78

  CHAPTER 5

  To Port Moresby by Sea

  Off the northeast coast of Queensland, Australia, is the Coral Sea. Covering a surface area of 1.85 million square miles, its average depth is 7,854 feet, although at its deepest point it plunges to 29,990 feet. In addition to the abundance of living coral, which gives the sea its name, the sea’s marine life is rich with manta rays, tuna, barracudas, whales, turtles, and a variety of sharks, including some proven man-eaters.

  The southeast coast of New Guinea forms part of the Coral Sea’s northern edge. Also bordering the expanse are the Solomon Islands, the Santa Cruz Islands, and the Louisiade Archipelago. Beyond the last is the Solomon Sea. To the east are a series of islands, including New Caledonia and New Hebrides. The Coral Sea’s southern rim reaches to the Tasman Sea and New Zealand. The western border with Queensland includes the sixteen-hundred-mile-long Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral reef. Two and a half times the size of Texas, the Coral Sea is so vast, and has so few navigational hazards, that huge fleets of warships can sail through it without seeing one another. This is precisely what happened in May 1942, when Japanese forces attempted to use the sea as a gateway to invade Port Moresby on the southwest coast of New Guinea.

  The war plan the Japanese developed in November 1941 included the invasion and occupation of New Britain, with the intent to use Rabaul as a defense perimeter to assure the security of their South Pacific base at Truk. The Japanese knew that if Rabaul remained in Australian hands, it would make Truk vulnerable to air attack.

  Following the successful occupations of New Britain and New Ireland, the planners at Imperial General Headquarters had decided the perimeter should be extended farther to include Port Moresby. They had two reasons for this. The first was to isolate Australia from the United States. Planners recognized that Australia could serve as the Allied base for counteroffensive operations against Japanese positions, especially in the resource-rich Dutch East Indies, where most of the world’s rubber supply existed. The area also held huge quantities of oil, which could fuel Japanese bombers flying out of airfields at Port Moresby to threaten cities in northeastern Australia. The second reason was that Rabaul was within bombing range of Port Moresby; if the Allies expanded the airfields there, they would be able to attack Rabaul almost at will.1

  As we have seen, Allied aircraft had already conducted several successful bombing raids on Rabaul and on the Japanese beachheads at Lae and Salamaua from Port Moresby. To assure the security of these sites, Japanese strategists insisted that Port Moresby had to be captured.2

  The first step to taking control of Port Moresby was to soften up what defenses the Allies had in place. On February 3, eight Type 97 flying boat bombers of the Yokohama Air Corps left Rabaul and bombed Port Moresby between one thirty and two a.m. While the raid caused only minor damage and resulted in a single death, the population was so terrified that the Japanese would soon be invading that it began fleeing the town. One journalist reported, “The road from Moresby to Porebada village is black with a long line of refugees heading out of town and heading with such speed that a path of dust hangs constantly over the road.”3 The next night a second raid by five flying boats did additional damage. Tension mounted in the town as more raids were expected.4

  Bomber raids on Port Moresby would continue on an irregular basis over the next few weeks. The garrison there, which was small and composed almost exclusively of Australian reserve forces, having learned what happened when Australian troops withdrew from Rabaul with only minimal supplies, moved food and ammunition out of town to a nearby gorge that they expected could be easily defended for a prolonged time against a larger force. This would be their fallback position if the Japanese successfully invaded the town.5

 
The bombing raids on Port Moresby were a sideshow and holding action, intended to keep the Allies from building up the town’s defenses until the Imperial General Headquarters could sort out a dispute between the army and navy over the next step in what had been until now a surprisingly successful campaign to expand the empire southward. From early on, the navy wanted to invade Australia. The army opposed this, taking the position that the Imperial Army lacked enough troops to occupy the entire continent. In the words of Army Chief of Staff General Hajime Sugiyama, “If we take only part of Australia, it could lead to a war of attrition and escalate into total war.”6

  In December 1941 the Imperial Navy General Staff had insisted on the occupation of strategically important locales in northern and northeastern Australia. The army countered that what was needed was to strengthen the defensive perimeter against the growing Allied threat in Australia by capturing Port Moresby, the Solomon Islands (mainly Tulagi), and several other islands along the route between North America, Hawaii, and Australia. The army’s approach was to isolate Australia and force it to withdraw from the war and take a neutral position. The ease with which Rabaul fell and the bombing raids on Darwin convinced army leaders that Australia had little with which to defend itself. Better to let Australia withdraw from the war and give the Army, which was already stretched thin, time to consolidate its territorial victories.

  A member of the Navy Ministry, Captain Ishikawa Shingo, explained the navy’s position: “There will be no security for the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere unless we make Australia the main target in stage two of our basic war plan and annihilate it as a base for the American counteroffensive.”7

  The officers who headed the planning section of each service made clear their differing views concerning Australia. The Army’s Major General Tanaka: “Blinded by victory, our onslaught in the Pacific is getting dangerous. We must realize our limits in the Pacific offensive.” The Navy’s Captain Tomioka: “War operations’ first stage had gone according to schedule . . . As we were moving to stage two, what I worried about most, was Australia.”8