Admiral Bull Halsey’s Third Fleet hierarchy included Vice Admiral John McCain, who had succeeded Marc Mitscher as commander of the fast carriers. Riding the new Essex class carrier Shangri-La, “Slew” McCain was considered “a real salty old dog” who cultivated a disheveled appearance. He affected a brimmed uniform hat with the grommets removed—strictly nonregulation—and was prone to dribble tobacco on himself when rolling a cigarette. A junior officer who had worked for him in Washington recalled “his striking resemblance to Popeye the Sailor . . . McCain looked as if he had slept in his uniform three nights running.”
Hailing from the Annapolis class of ’06, McCain was a JCL, a Johnny Come Lately to flying. He had received wings of gold in 1936 at age fifty-two and commanded the carrier Ranger but had little cockpit experience. (A subordinate said, “I don’t think he could fly an airplane to save his life.”) In 1942 McCain eked out an undistinguished record commanding aircraft in the South Pacific, then held administrative posts in Washington. However, he performed reasonably well commanding one of Mitscher’s task groups off the Philippines during late 1944 and ascended to command of Task Force 38 the next year. Not quite sixty-one, he had nine weeks to live before his heart failed.
Despite American air and sea supremacy, there was only so much that carrier aircraft could accomplish. In June, Rear Admiral Arthur Radford, a task group commander, noted that the fast carriers’ mission had changed. Previously a mobile striking arm, now TF 38 was less concerned with mobility than blockade. He conceded, “Working with the B-29s, we can do the pinpoint work on small targets, while the big bombers go after large industrial establishments.”
In truth, Radford—a future chief of naval operations—was acknowledging the Navy’s reduced status in the aviation hierarchy; blockade was essentially a defensive measure, whereas the greatest offensive airpower belonged to LeMay’s B-29s. That situation would continue if Operation Olympic-Coronet proceeded, when the carriers’ primary mission would be providing fighter screens over the invasion fleet. However, naval aviators would have a major investment in providing close air support for assault troops who crossed the high tide mark.
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Approaching the enemy coast on July 10, Third Fleet fully expected “the kamikaze boys” to come out in force, hence the welcome cover of weather. Only one Japanese plane was felled by Hellcats, fifty miles from the task force. When the first missions were launched, McCain’s aviators were astonished to find that they owned the sky over Tokyo. Not a single enemy rose to challenge them.
Tokyo ceded control of its homeland airspace for a valid reason. Expecting the invasion in October, the Japanese acknowledged the futility of engaging superior aircraft flown by more skillful pilots. Consequently, Tokyo began hoarding its airpower for massive suicide attacks against the Allied fleet.
Halsey and McCain raised their sights, planning strikes against northern Honshu and part of Hokkaido on July 13. But the weather turned sour, forcing a forty-eight-hour delay. While Japanese fighters remained grounded, carrier planes scoured the coastlines, sinking local shipping and a few minor naval vessels.
Silent Victory: Hokkaido’s Ferries
A far better use of carrier squadrons was a series of attacks against strategic targets on northern Honshu and nearby Hokkaido. American intelligence understood that coal powered most of Japan’s industry, especially on Honshu, which imported 83 percent of its requirement. Analysis further indicated that a significant reduction in Honshu coal would result in immobilizing the island’s rail lines.
On July 14, McCain’s air groups launched against northern airfields to establish air superiority before the planned strikes. But fog forced the pilots to divert from their briefed targets for better weather along the coast. Most of the 850 sorties struck several Hokkaido ports, many crowded with merchantmen sheltering from air-dropped mines. The naval aviators sank a destroyer escort, eleven naval auxiliary vessels, and twelve merchant or military cargo-transport ships.
One of Hancock’s youngsters recorded a spectacular success as Hellcats descended on shipping off the port city of Nemuro. Ensign C. M. Craig ripple-fired his load of rockets into a vessel estimated at 4,500 tons, “setting off an explosion which broke the ship apart.” She was Toyu Maru, actually rated at 1,256 tons, but still the effect was impressive.
Far more importantly, the Navy destroyed seven of the dozen train ferries in the Aomori-Hakodate area. Twenty years previously Japan had produced four 3,400-ton ferries capable of carrying twenty-five railroad cars bearing a total 375 tons of freight. The vessels were powered by steam turbines—rare for the period—yielding 17 knots speed. Other ferries were launched in the late 1920s, carrying forty-three cars at 14 knots. All were crucial to Japanese industry.
Dodging through the weather, flying low to keep visual reference, the pilots found their vital, unglamorous targets. Essex’s air group contributed heavily to the operation: her fighters and bombers sank four ferries and hit another hard enough to force it ashore.
The next day TF 38 squadrons returned to sink a merchantman, four auxiliaries, and another invaluable ferry.
The result was astonishing. Literally overnight the amount of Hokkaido coal delivered to Honshu factories dropped more than 80 percent. Since Hokkaido typically produced one-fourth of Japan’s indigenous coal, elimination of the ferries represented a crippling loss that was not replaced. Scores of much smaller vessels still carried loose cargos but those were sunk by the dozens in low-level bombing and strafing attacks.
For the admirals still obsessed with “the fighting navy,” the Hokkaido strikes represented extreme ambivalence. While proving carrier aviation’s contribution to the overall strategic effort, the operation also demonstrated that lowly ferries represented far greater strategic targets than Japan’s remaining first-line warships.
The Saga of Oliver Rasmussen
The two-day strike against Hokkaido cost forty-four aircraft to all causes and twenty-six fliers. One of the first day’s eight Helldiver losses was Shangri-La’s Lieutenant (jg) Howard Eagleston, who descended into the undercast and smashed into a mountain. He was killed on impact but his gunner, twenty-three-year-old radioman Oliver B. Rasmussen, survived, beginning an incredible ten-week odyssey.
With only the clothes he wore and an empty knapsack, Rasmussen had merely a general idea of his location. But he knew what the Japanese did to prisoners. Part Chippewa Indian (“second generation out of the teepee”), he preferred to take his chances in the Hokkaido wilderness.
As a sailor, Rasmussen instinctively sought the sea. He spent seventeen days reaching the coast, dodging anyone he encountered, living off the land. On July 31, his first genuine nourishment came from an unexpected source: a farmer’s cow. For the next nine nights the aircrewman crept to the tethered animal, helped himself to fresh milk, and returned to his hideout. At length the owner turned the cow loose, apparently concluding she was no longer producing. As Rasmussen related, “He never got wise that I was the guy getting all the milk.”
Next Rasmussen tried launching a small boat but the breakers prevented him from reaching the open sea. Disappointed, he withdrew into the mountains and established himself in a railroad shack. There he dined on raw onions, bird’s eggs, and uncooked rice. On good days he added frog’s legs.
On August 16, thirty-two days into his ordeal, Rasmussen was seen by a Japanese civilian. Probably neither man knew that the emperor had announced surrender the day before, but Rasmussen was wise to scamper away—many Allied airmen were murdered after the radio address.
Scouting around, Rasmussen found a spot within reach of five farms. Using scavenged lumber, he built a small hut and helped himself to the local largesse. His new arrangement was even better than the first farm, since the locals cooled their milk in nearby streams. Skimming the cream, he helped himself to generous servings—his best night was nine quarts.
Then, on the night of September 5, some dogs got the American’s scent—he had not bathed in s
even weeks. Their owners began searching and Rasmussen had to make a break. “Several Japs came out jabbering and some of them started to close in on me. I bowled a couple over and ran like hell.”
Deprived of his commissary, Rasmussen kept moving. When he noted more American planes flying low every day, drawing no gunfire, his hopes soared.
Unable to attract a passing aircraft, Rasmussen opted for a direct approach. On September 19 he walked into the port of Tomakomai. The police chief gave the unexpected guest a cigarette and confirmed that Japan had surrendered. Then, concerned with recent events in his jurisdiction, the chief asked about disappearing milk over the previous month. Rasmussen blandly declined any knowledge of the thefts and enjoyed his first real meal and a bath in sixty-eight days.
Upon return to the Shangri-La, Oliver Rasmussen related his exceptional adventure to a rapt crew, then caught an aircraft for the States, traveling Priority Two. He spent a full career in the Navy but died of cancer in 1980, only age fifty-seven.
Allies
In mid-July, Task Force 38 received reinforcements. The Royal Navy task group, built around four fast carriers, represented the striking arm of the British Pacific Fleet (BPF), which had participated in the Okinawa campaign under Mitscher’s Task Force 58.
British naval policy in the Pacific had been established at the Quebec Conference in September 1944. After discussing Allied occupation of a defeated Germany, Roosevelt and Churchill turned to the Royal Navy’s role against Japan. Churchill offered the Americans a sizable Royal Navy force in the Pacific, and Roosevelt readily accepted. The details were left to the respective admiralties.
The BPF had been established in November 1944 with its main base at Sydney, Australia, and the advanced base at Manus in the Admiralties (“Scapa Flow with bloody palm trees”). Its mission was at least as much geopolitical as operational, since London insisted that British forces appear as an active if junior partner in operations against Japan’s home islands. The Royal Navy regarded a front-rank role “of the utmost importance” in contrast to General Douglas MacArthur’s frequent use of Australians in supporting actions.
With barely 150 ships in the world’s greatest ocean, the BPF was top-heavy with braid. In overall command was Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser, who remained ashore in Australia. His seagoing commander, Vice Admiral Sir Henry Bernard Rawlings, was a battleship and cruiser officer who had seen combat in the Mediterranean. More relevantly, Vice Admiral Sir Philip Vian commanded the carriers: HMS Formidable, Indefatigable, Indomitable, and Victorious. A nonaviator, Vian had extensive experience in the North Sea and Mediterranean, and directed the Royal Navy’s landings in Normandy. Though capable, he irritated many of his countrymen, some of whom described him as “a very nasty piece of work with an acid tongue, and a snobbish social climber to boot.”
Halsey—always companionable—enjoyed His Majesty’s admirals as social and drinking partners but kept a professional distance. In truth, few Americans wanted the British poaching on U.S. Navy turf. Third Fleet staff saw the “Brits”—correctly—as latecomers to the game, whose government might expect to share the inevitable victory. While Halsey indulged the Royal Navy as much as diplomacy required, he usually sent the BPF on lesser errands with concurrence of America’s profoundly Anglophobic chief of naval operations, Ernest King.
Nevertheless, Halsey extended what courtesy he could, sailor to sailor. Given a choice of integrating into TF 38 or operating independently, Rawlings readily accepted the former. Thus united, the allies agreed upon the tasks at hand: maintain air superiority over Japan, strike worthwhile targets inland, attack remaining enemy shipping, and probe northern Honshu and Hokkaido.
Vian later wrote that Halsey seemed “fully aware of our difficulties, and from that moment onwards, by kindly word or deed, he availed himself of every possible opportunity to offer encouragement and to smooth our path.”
Certainly the nautical path needed some smoothing. Britain’s Fleet Air Arm was not expected to match the more experienced Americans’ operating tempo, though Vian strove mightily. Halsey later wrote disingenuously that the British “were able to match us strike for strike.” In truth, there was little opportunity, as RN aircrews only flew over Japan for the last four weeks of hostilities.
To paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, the Americans and British had two navies separated by a common language. That certainly applied to communications; the BPF had no choice but to adopt U.S. codebooks and procedures. Additionally, standard phraseology differed. Royal Navy catapults were “boosters” and elevators were “lifts.” British landing signal officers were “deck landing control officers” or “batsmen” who used different signals. The American signal for “high” meant “You are too high” but in the Fleet Air Arm it meant “Go higher.” The Brits had no signal for “too slow,” and the two services used opposite signals for “lower your hook.” Apparently the differences were never fully resolved.
Furthermore, Britain’s aerial torpedoes were incompatible with Grumman aircraft bomb bays so RN Avengers only carried bombs. Standard “kit” such as radios and even oxygen masks also were different.
Other problems rose from the keel up. British carriers were designed to operate in the freezing Atlantic and the balmy Mediterranean, posing serious habitability problems in the sweltering Pacific. Additionally, the size and nature of the Pacific War forced unaccustomed strains upon the Royal Navy, which historically operated near bases much closer to home. Consequently, the British had too few tankers—often old, slow ships ill suited to operating with fast carriers. Additionally, the RN still used the stern-to-bow method of refueling at sea, far slower than the Americans’ more efficient side-by-side method. A British correspondent who had been aboard USS Lexington marveled that the Yanks refueled a fleet carrier in barely two hours whereas the RN took most of a day.
Nine of the BPF’s fifteen carrier squadrons flew American aircraft: Hellcats, Corsairs, and Avengers. The Seafire, a “navalised” version of the legendary Spitfire fighter, proved an excellent if short-legged performer but suffered under the severe strains of carrier landings. The two-seat Firefly fighter-bomber represented an outdated concept, designed under the assumption that a carrier pilot needed a navigator.
With armored decks, RN carriers were more resistant to bomb and kamikaze damage than their wooden U.S. counterparts. However, with smaller hangar decks the Fleet Air Arm embarked fewer planes in its largest carriers, and often was hard pressed to keep up with perennially heavy losses to all causes. In one series of strikes the BPF lost forty-one planes in just 378 sorties—a 10.8 percent loss rate that would have rocked even the casualty-numbed RAF Bomber Command. There was also a high incidence of operational losses, sometimes more than half the total.
Despite serious drawbacks, the British Commonwealth aircrews and sailors stuck to their duty. In four weeks operating over Japan, BPF aircraft sank or destroyed at least three warships, two transports, and a coastal defense vessel.
The British fliers paid a high price for their contribution, but they took pride in their work. A TF 38 staffer recalled a British Corsair pilot who landed aboard USS Shangri-La to refuel. “The kid was 18 or 19 years old but he handled an F4U perfectly well. I was impressed.”
The Immobile Fleet
Through much of the war the Imperial Navy’s striking arm was designated the Mobile Fleet. But in October 1944 the Battle of Leyte Gulf ended Japan’s offensive naval capability, prompting the American taunt of the “immobile fleet.”
On paper the emperor’s remaining armada appeared impressive: Kure Naval Base in the Inland Sea boasted three carriers, three battleships, and three active cruisers plus nautical cats and dogs. But the ships represented no threat beyond the traditional naval “force in being.” Undermanned, lacking sufficient fuel oil, deprived of meaningful air cover, they could only sulk in their mined-in harbors.
Nevertheless, Admiral Ernest King in Washington wanted the Kure armada put on the muddy bottom in July 1945. Nimitz concu
rred, and Halsey was delighted to comply.
The official explanation for the July attacks appears a facade to cover other agendas. Officially, the Joint Chiefs held that when the Soviets finally entered the war they would demand increased Lend-Lease supplies. With the Third Fleet overwhelmingly committed to supporting Operation Olympic from October onward, presumably early strikes to knock out the remaining Japanese warships would reduce the need for powerful forces up north.
A cogent assessment was offered four decades later by then Lieutenant Commander William N. Leonard, McCain’s assistant operations officer. Leonard recounted, “Some Neanderthals back at PacFleet Headquarters wanted continuation of a navy versus navy fight and we lost many good people to no good purpose. With the Jap navy lying doggo, PacFleet began to assert itself more and more into the assignment of missions and objectives of the fast carriers.”
Leonard’s attitude largely mirrored that of Commander Task Force 38 (CTF-38). McCain considered the Kure strikes “a waste of time” but could only go so far in objecting. Occasionally he argued with Halsey, though seldom successfully. Instead, he talked to pilots over coffee, asking their opinions and sometimes accepted their advice.
McCain opposed targeting shipping, preferring to strike airfields and aircraft factories, though he kept his counsel for the moment. However, his priorities also were skewed: events had already shown the benefits of sinking Japanese coastal traffic such as Hokkaido’s rail ferries—a task that carrier aircraft could accomplish with relative ease. But whatever their service, airmen were magnetically pulled toward the enemy’s aviation industry, while steamers and merchantmen lacked the perceived glamour of aircraft factories.
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