The War Below

by James Scott

  The Office of War Information predicted the Pacific fight could stretch on as much as two years past Germany’s defeat because of greater logistical challenges. U.S. forces needed to move close enough to bomb Japan’s cities to ruin. Furthermore, Navy secretary James Forrestal told reporters that Japan’s pullback from bases across the Pacific to its own islands, the Philippines, and China meant that it could amass its airpower in a smaller theater of action. “The United States Navy will face Jap air power in the coming year that will be stronger both quantitatively and qualitatively,” Forrestal said. “The fight will be a long and hard one.” But the men who fought did not doubt America’s gains. “The news over the radio tonight sounds good to my weary ears,” officer Eugene Malone wrote. “Pretty soon I guess the Jap will be plenty sorry he tangled with us, if he isn’t already. That’s my motto, sink more Jap ships quicker. Then it will be time to go home. And I want to go home. I’m getting fed up with this war.”

  Silversides had returned to Pearl Harbor on September 12, allowing time for voyage repairs and training before departure with the submarines Salmon and Trigger. The three subs would operate as a wolf pack; Tang had been invited to join, but the fiercely independent O’Kane had opted to hunt alone. The senior of the three skippers, Coye would lead the pack, dubbed “Coye’s Coyotes.” Just as the name implies, wolf packs consisted of multiple submarines hunting in tandem. Rather than one submarine attacking a six-ship convoy and hoping to sink one or two freighters, a wolf pack could attack the same convoy from multiple positions, create confusion for the escorts, and sink them all. The Germans had used wolf packs with great success against Allied shipping in the North Atlantic early in the war, sinking 1,094 merchant ships for a total of some six million tons put on the bottom in 1942 alone. That one-year tonnage lost rivaled the size of Japan’s entire merchant fleet at the start of the war.

  The United States in contrast had been slower to adopt the same tactics, largely because the Navy didn’t have the resources. The sprawling Pacific Ocean was too vast—and with too many strategic spots to cover—for the Navy to double and triple up submarines. That situation changed as the war progressed and new submarines joined the fight. Japanese antisubmarine tactics also had improved, prompting American leaders to reconsider the value of wolf packs. The easy prey had disappeared. Gone were the unarmed and unescorted Japanese merchant ships. Japan had launched an expansion of its long-lagging escort fleet and by 1944 more vessels were deployed to guard enemy convoys, making it harder for a lone submarine to penetrate and sink multiple ships. Skippers reported improved depth charge attacks and convoy commanders now knew to scatter immediately after the first explosion, forcing American submarines to spend much of the night hunting down individual ships.

  But one of the most important factors in the decision to employ wolf packs was the collapse of Japan’s merchant fleet. American submarine captains were victims of their own success. They were running out of targets. Submarines in the first six months of 1944 sank almost double the number of enemy ships destroyed in the same period the year before, averaging 115 attacks each month and reaching a peak of 250,000 tons of enemy shipping destroyed in May. The second half of 1944 would prove the most destructive time of the war with submarines ramping up attacks each month to an average of 172, many of them along the coasts of China and the Philippines. Those numbers would spike in October and November with 423 attacks—and 1,574 torpedoes fired—that put 549,000 tons of merchant ships on the bottom. Submarines could team up and inflict greater damage on the few targets that existed. “The total area for submarines was becoming less and less,” Coye recalled. “We were getting new boats out; we were getting more and more submarines, so you had to put them in wolf packs.”

  Despite their benefits, wolf packs created an uncomfortable role for many submarine skippers. Undersea warfare was inherently independent. Working in tandem raised a host of challenges, many of them involving communication. The radios used between submarines didn’t work well—as Coye had discovered when he attempted to work with Balao—and required that submarines be on the surface to use them, which was not always possible. Communication between submarines required a certain creativity. Submarines flipped their radar on and off to communicate via Morse code or simply pulled alongside one another to allow skippers to shout through a megaphone. Coye in particular disliked the added responsibility. “It has its advantages and disadvantages,” he later said. “I didn’t like it as much because you are not only concerned about the safety and whatnot of your own submarine, but you had the problems of the other submarines that were with you.”

  The three submarines arrived in recently captured Saipan on October 3. Silversides swapped out a defective torpedo and topped off its diesel before the wolf pack set off again at 5:15 p.m. the next afternoon. The subs passed two days through a severe typhoon with heavy seas that forced them to slow to seven knots to avoid sloshing dangerous amounts of water down the conning tower hatch. A wave crashed over the bridge and almost washed Lieutenant Carl Heidel overboard, leaving him with a severe head wound for six days. The seas moderated by October 8 and Silversides increased to three-engine speed as the submarines approached the northeastern coast of Formosa. In preparation for the invasion of the Philippines, America planned massive air strikes on the island to cripple the enemy’s air strength. Carrier pilots flew 1,378 sorties on October 12 followed by 974 the next day and 146 on the third, destroying more than 500 Japanese planes as well as hangars, ammo depots, and industrial plants.

  American war planners had expected the Japanese navy to put up a fight for the Philippines, as in the Marianas, but how much of a battle remained to be seen. The once feared Japanese navy had become a shell of its former self. While it still boasted a sizable surface fleet—including nine battleships, one shy of the ten available at the war’s start—Japan lacked the fuel to fight. Years of war had chewed up Japan’s pilots and planes, leaving its few remaining carriers with empty hangars. The Battle of the Philippine Sea had only exacerbated Japan’s woes, robbing the nation of three carriers and almost 500 planes. For the defense of the Philippines the navy cobbled together a force of four carriers, nine battleships, fifteen cruisers, and twenty-nine destroyers. The United States in contrast boasted an armada Admiral Nimitz could have only dreamed of at Midway, including forty-six fleet, light, and escort carriers, twelve battleships, twenty-three cruisers, and 178 destroyers.

  Similar to the Battle of Midway, Japan had devised an overly complicated plan designed to trap American forces. Timed to coincide with General MacArthur’s invasion of Leyte, the plan called for the Japanese to divide into three forces: northern, central, and southern. The northern force, centered around four carriers, would steam down from the Inland Sea. These flattops had a combined total of only 116 planes, which because of inexperienced pilots had to be hoisted on the carriers with cranes. These tempting targets, Japan hoped, would lure Admiral Halsey and America’s powerful carriers on a chase to the north, leaving the invasion forces vulnerable. Japan’s central and southern forces would approach from Borneo, steam through the Philippine Islands, and encircle the invasion force in a pincer movement. The battleships, cruisers, and destroyers would wipe out America’s amphibious forces and then escape before Halsey’s hoodwinked carriers returned.

  America’s deployment of submarines throughout Philippine waters paid off. The skippers of the submarines Darter and Dace discussed how best to patrol together in a midnight rendezvous October 23 in the Palawan Passage when Darter picked up Japan’s central force of five battleships, twelve cruisers, and fifteen destroyers. “We have radar contact,” Commander David McClintock shouted through his megaphone. “Let’s go.” McClintock fired off repeated contact reports as the submarines shadowed the warships until dawn, Darter targeting the convoy’s western column, Dace the eastern. McClintock fired ten torpedoes at the first two cruisers, watching as the explosions rocked the enemy. “Whipped periscope back to the first target to see the sigh
t of a lifetime,” he wrote. “She was a mass of billowing black smoke from number one turret to the stern. No superstructure could be seen. Bright orange flames shot out from the side of the main deck from the bow to the after turret.”

  Four torpedo hits sent the 15,781-ton heavy cruiser Atago—the flagship of central force commander Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita—to the bottom along with some 360 officers and crew. Two more torpedoes rocked Takao, sidelining the heavy cruiser for the rest of the war. Dace skipper Commander Bladen Claggett watched his colleague’s attack unfold. “Darter is really having a field day. Can see great pall of smoke completely enveloping spot where ship was at last look,” he wrote in his report. “Ship to the left is also smoking badly. Looks like a great day for the Darter.” Claggett hurried to set up a shot, watching the parade of cruisers and battleships. “This is really a submariner’s dream,” he wrote, “sitting right in front of a task force.” Claggett fired six torpedoes, scoring four hits and sinking the 15,781-ton heavy cruiser Maya. “Heard tremendous breaking up noises. This was the most gruesome sounds I have ever heard,” Claggett wrote. “Sounded as if she was coming down on top of us.”

  “We better get the hell out of here,” Dace’s diving officer quipped.

  Submarines had destroyed two heavy cruisers and damaged a third. Darter’s contact reports proved equally as important, warning American forces of the enemy’s approach. Carrier-based planes roared into the skies, hammering Admiral Kurita’s central force in some 259 sorties. Pilots singled out the battleship Musashi. The 70,000-ton monster and its sister ship, Yamato, held the title for the largest battleships ever built, boasting almost twice the displacement of the United States’ North Carolina class battlewagon. Wave after wave of pilots from the carriers Intrepid, Cabot, Essex, Lexington, Franklin, and Enterprise drilled Musashi, scoring by some estimates as many as twenty torpedo hits, seventeen bomb hits, and eighteen near misses. The goliath battleship capsized and sank with more than 1,000 officers and crew. The aerial attack prompted Kurita to reverse course beyond the range of American planes, a move that led Admiral Halsey to conclude Japan’s central force was in retreat.

  Carrier planes had spotted Japan’s southern force the morning of October 24. Two battleships, one cruiser, and four destroyers planned to slip through the narrow Surigao Strait into Leyte Gulf that night, followed a half hour later by a support force of three cruisers and four destroyers. The United States built an impenetrable defense line. More than three dozen torpedo boats crowded the fifteen-mile-wide strait, backed up by several destroyer squadrons. Any ships fortunate enough to make it past them would collide with a battle line of six battleships and eight cruisers. The lopsided numbers promised not a fight but a slaughter—and America delivered, sinking both battleships, three of the four destroyers, and crippling the cruiser, later lost to carrier planes. The carnage triggered the trailing support force to abort the operation. “Most beautiful sight I ever witnessed,” one destroyer squadron commander remarked. “The arched line of tracers in the darkness looked like a continual stream of lighted railroad cars going over a hill.”

  The Japanese trap sprang. The mission of Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa, commander of the northern force, was to lure Halsey far from Leyte Gulf, a mission Ozawa knew if successful would lead to the annihilation of his own four carriers. The Japanese admiral hoped to bait Halsey with a strike against America’s carriers October 24. Bad weather forced some of the Japanese planes to land on Luzon while others splashed down. Of Ozawa’s 116 planes, just twenty-nine remained. But Halsey was snared. The ambitious admiral ordered his forces north to battle Japan’s toothless carriers, leaving a hole in the defensive net. Pilots roared into the skies at first light on October 25, pounding Ozawa’s sacrificial flattops in 527 sorties. The Chitose vanished at 9:37 a.m., followed that afternoon by the 29,800-ton Zuikaku, the last survivor of the six carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor. The crippled Zuiho dove next, followed by the Chiyoda, finished off by blazing guns of American cruisers.

  Ozawa had accomplished his mission. Kurita’s central force, which Halsey had believed was whipped, doubled back, slipping unmolested through San Bernardino Strait. Gone was the threat of Halsey’s ten carriers, six battleships, eight cruisers, and forty-one destroyers, all now steaming north. Despite the earlier bruising, Kurita’s force remained formidable, including four battleships, eight cruisers, and eleven destroyers. The tall masts of Kurita’s battlewagons that crested the horizon minutes after sunrise on October 25 must have terrified the unsuspecting American lookouts of Taffy 3, a small force of six escort carriers guarded by just three destroyers and four destroyer escorts. These “baby flattops” resembled the Navy’s powerful fleet carriers in name only. Often converted tankers and freighters, escort carriers hauled only twenty-seven planes, tasked to cover amphibious forces and provide combat air and antisubmarine patrols. Such ships boasted so little defensive armament that sailors joked the escort carrier’s designation CVE stood for “Combustible, Vulnerable, Expendable.”

  Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague, commander of Taffy 3, sized up his chances. Not only were all of Halsey’s forces far beyond range—a fact few realized—but the warships that throttled the Japanese in Surigao Strait had to first take on ammo. Sprague knew the five-inch guns of his escort carriers would prove powerless against Kurita’s battleships and cruisers. His only hope: run. Two other escort carrier groups operated south of Taffy 3. These sixteen flattops mustered 143 torpedo planes and 235 fighters. Until that help arrived, Sprague was on his own. The outgunned admiral ordered his carriers up to flank speed as planes shot into the skies. Sprague’s forces poured out smoke to provide cover, but not enough as the Japanese guns zeroed in on the American ships. “The enemy was closing with disconcerting rapidity and the volume and accuracy of fire was increasing,” Sprague wrote in his report. “At this point it did not appear that any of our ships could survive another five minutes of the heavy-caliber fire being received.”

  Sprague refused to go down without a fight, ordering his escorts to attack the Japanese with torpedoes as the carriers escaped into a rainsquall. The attacks created diversions that slowed pursuit and drew enemy fire away from the carriers but came at great sacrifice. The skipper of Hoel later estimated in his report that the Japanese fired more than 300 two- and three-gun salvos at his ship, including armor-piercing shells that punched through the destroyer’s steel skin. Demolished by more than forty hits—and with the engineering spaces flooding—Hoel capsized and sank at 8:55 a.m. The destroyer escort Samuel B. Roberts suffered a similar fate seventy minutes later. Enemy cruisers and destroyers likewise encircled Johnston and unleashed what the senior surviving officer described as an “avalanche of shells.” The destroyer rolled over at 10:10 a.m. Survivors reported that a Japanese officer, watching Johnston vanish from the bridge wing of a nearby destroyer, raised his hand and saluted.

  American planes from all three escort carrier groups bore down on the pursuers with torpedoes, bombs, and machine guns. Pilots out of ammo even executed dry runs just to distract enemy gunners. Four cruisers, despite interference from escorts and planes, pulled ahead. The skipper of Gambier Bay, who dodged the enemy’s salvos for half an hour, watched the cruisers creep closer. The escort carrier soon fell under the enemy’s guns, dropping out of formation as the Japanese pounced like piranhas. Gambier Bay capsized and sank at 9:07 a.m. American torpedo bombers and fighters retaliated and pounded Chokai and Chikuma, forcing the Japanese later to scuttle the crippled cruisers. Just as his warships nipped at the heels of the flattops, Admiral Kurita ordered the chase halted at 9:11 a.m. His initial plan to reassemble his scattered forces and press on toward Leyte Gulf crumbled under the realization that he faced certain defeat. American sailors watched in shock as the enemy warships retired.

  “Goddammit, boys,” shouted a signalman on the bridge of the carrier Fanshaw Bay. “They’re getting away!”

  The war’s first kamikaze attacks would hours later claim the escort carri
er St. Lo, but the organized surface fight off the island of Samar had ended. The Battle of Leyte Gulf had robbed Japan of twenty-six warships, including four carriers, three battleships, ten cruisers, and nine destroyers. The United States in contrast lost just six ships, though the destruction could have been far greater. Not until Kurita’s forces collided with Sprague’s escort carriers did many senior leaders realize Halsey had left not a single ship to guard the San Bernardino Strait. Despite Ozawa’s postwar admission to interrogators that his force had served as a decoy, Halsey still argued he had made the right choice. “My decision was to strike the Northern Force,” he wrote in 1952. “Given the same circumstances and the same information as I had then, I would make it again.” Halsey’s first face-to-face encounter with Sprague, however, appeared to indicate the brash admiral harbored doubts. “I didn’t know,” Halsey confessed, “whether you would speak to me or not.”

  Sprague criticized Halsey in a letter to his wife as “the gentleman who failed to keep his appointment,” though in person he appeared inclined to forgive. “Why Admiral Bill,” Sprague answered. “I’m not mad at you.”

  “I want you to know,” Halsey then declared, “I think you wrote the most glorious page in American naval history that day.”

  • • •

  Coye had listened to radio communications of the October 25 battle that raged east of the Philippines. In contrast, his patrol to date had dragged. Trigger had at least rescued a downed pilot from the carrier Bunker Hill and stalked a force of cruisers before the Japanese drove off the boat, even firing a torpedo that streaked past the submarine’s starboard side. The news over the radio, however, promised a possible remedy. Coye ordered Silversides south to intercept the enemy’s retiring forces, picking up Trigger and Salmon that night. Trigger’s high periscope revealed the tops of two battleships at 8:36 a.m. at a range of twenty-five miles. Coye’s Coyotes gave chase with Trigger hoping to execute an end around to the east. The enemy warships increased speed and pulled ahead. Trigger skipper Commander Frederick Harlfinger II could only watch in frustration as the tops of the enemy’s prized battlewagons grew smaller on the horizon, replaced by puffs of smoke that soon vanished.