Whirlwind

by Barrett Tillman

  Nobody would admit it—certainly not in writing—but at least some of the impetus for the July operations probably had more to do with service politics than winning the war. Both the Navy and the Army Air Forces were looking not far downrange when the inevitable Washington battle would be joined, determining whether there would be an independent air force. Almost certainly the admirals wanted to run up the score, demonstrating naval aviation’s huge contribution to destroying the enemy fleet, and the fat pickings at Kure became irresistible: over 200,000 tons in major combatants.

  In some ways, Kure represented the greatest flak trap in history. The big harbor contained nothing that could seriously harm the Third Fleet, as the remnants of the Imperial Navy lacked sufficient fuel and trained crews—let alone the raw naval power—to pose a major threat. But geisha-like, Kure smiled (or smirked) behind her ornamental fan, crooked a fetching finger at King, Nimitz, and Halsey, and coyly invited them in.

  They rushed to accept.

  The final campaign against the Imperial Navy began on July 18 when carrier squadrons swept over Yokosuka Naval Base. Just south of Tokyo, Yokosuka (pronounced Ya-kus-ka) harbored a small armada including the battleship Nagato.

  Though hailed as the world’s first 16-inch-gun ship, Nagato’s twenty-four-year career had been unremarkable. Following bomb damage off the Philippines, she had been laid up at Yokosuka since November 1944. Nevertheless, Halsey considered her a prestige target: she had been Admiral Yamamoto’s flagship.

  Recon photos showed Nagato moored pierside beneath one of the largest cranes in Japan, providing the Americans an excellent reference point. In a vain attempt to hide her bulk, the Japanese removed the top third of her mast and funnel to lower the silhouette, but not even bow-to-stern camouflage netting concealed her 42,000 tons. With her boilers idle she had a minesweeper alongside to provide power.

  Nagato’s position in port, with nearby mountains, limited dive approaches, while the shallow harbor precluded torpedoes. Consequently, preliminary air strikes focused on beating down the defenses, estimated at 250 antiaircraft emplacements around the harbor.

  The afternoon target coordinator was Essex’s Commander Harmon T. Utter. He directed his bombers onto the battlewagon while fighters strafed AA guns. Leading the Helldivers was Lieutenant Commander David R. Berry, a 1942 hero with three Navy Crosses.

  Following the skipper, Ensign Ernest E. Hutto jinked his way through bursting flak, looking for the target. Ernie Hutto was a rare bird: he had dropped out of Annapolis, citing physical abuse, and applied for flight training. A year later he was flying missions over Japan.

  Abruptly Berry dived, leaving Hutto with Lieutenant James T. Crawford and Lieutenant (jg) Larry Gordon. Lacking time to reduce throttle or extend his dive brakes, Hutto could only open his bomb bay before nosing over. He recalled, “I passed the other two planes in a blur.”

  With only seconds to line up the target, at 2,500 feet Hutto placed his sight on the bridge and pressed the red button on the stick grip, releasing his half-ton bomb. Then he pulled hard. Under heavy g-force, his Helldiver’s nose came level with the horizon about 1,000 feet over the harbor. He asked his gunner, Radioman Jim Reynolds, “What did it look like?” Reynolds, groggy from the high-g pullout, had not seen the bomb strike.

  Simultaneously, Crawford and other pilots dived from other directions, compounding the enemy gunners’ problems.

  One bomb—likely Hutto’s—was precisely aimed, exploding on the bridge, wrecking the wheelhouse. It killed thirteen of the eighteen-man bridge crew, including retired Rear Admiral Miki Otsuka, who had been recalled to duty in 1939. Location of the hit was symbolic: it was where Yamamoto had issued the order for the Pearl Harbor operation.

  Another heavy bomb, possibly Crawford’s, exploded against the base of Nagato’s number three turret, killing twenty-five AA gunners and destroying four 25mm mounts. In all, Essex aviators claimed six hits while losing two aircraft.

  Amid a deluge of bombs and rockets, some were bound to fall wide of Nagato. One struck the minesweeper tied alongside, blowing it apart. Other strikes sank an aged cruiser (veteran of the 1905 war with Russia), an incomplete destroyer, a submarine, and five lesser vessels. In exchange, the Yokosuka attackers sustained five losses. At least twenty-one aircraft were lost in other missions. Especially hard hit was Bennington’s Air Group 1, which left seven planes at Kure Harbor, while Hancock wrote off four aircraft in a landing accident.

  After the attack Nagato’s AA guns were removed for more profitable use elsewhere. She survived the war to expire radioactively in the 1946 Bikini A-bomb test.

  The Kure Blitz

  On July 24, McCain’s aviators began a two-day blitz against Kure Naval Base. The operation included sweeps of airfields around Nagoya and Osaka, though aerial opposition generally was light.

  The Americans had to shoot their way into Kure on the 24th, but the fighter sweep preceding the bombers did its job. Hellcats from San Jacinto and Corsairs off Bennington tangled with two dozen of Captain Minoru Genda’s elite “flying circus,” downing six Georges while losing four Hellcats or Corsairs. In a nose-to-nose shootout, rookie Corsair pilot Lieutenant (jg) Robert M. Applegate traded gunfire with Ensign Kaneyoshi Muto, hero of the dogfight over Atsugi back in February. Both fighters went down but the twenty-three-year-old Oregonian slew “the toughest dogfighter in the Imperial Navy” and lived to tell the tale.

  The main events occurred in Kure Harbor, whose prime targets included the hermaphrodite battleships Ise and Hyuga, both modified with aft aircraft decks. Bull Halsey nursed a grudge against the sisters, which had eluded him at Leyte Gulf and again in the South China Sea. But on the morning of July 24, Ise was rocked by three bombs on the flight deck, main deck, and number three turret. More planes inflicted further damage later in the day.

  Even the fighters attacked warships. In the morning, diving through flak below 3,000 feet, Hancock’s Hellcats scored three observed hits: two on Ise and another on the cruiser Aoba. In the afternoon strike Lieutenant Robert Klinger’s four-plane division dropped aluminum strips to foil Japanese radar, then attacked with bombs. They went after the new carriers Amagi and Katsuragi, claiming a 1,000-pounder on the latter’s fantail. Actually it exploded in a gun tub, killing a thirteen-man antiaircraft crew.

  At noon the blue airplanes were back, thirty going for the battleship Ise. A direct hit on the bridge killed Captain Kakuro Mutaguchi, who received the customary posthumous promotion to rear admiral. Throughout the day Ise took at least five direct hits, leaving fifty dead. The antiaircraft officer, Lieutenant Commander Isamu Morooka, was appointed acting CO—probably the most junior officer ever to command a battleship.

  Ise settled by the bow, but damage repairmen began a long fight against the rising water. Three days later she had achieved an even keel again, and plans were made to tow her to dry dock.

  In more than seven hours of air operations, battleship Hyuga was targeted repeatedly. The crew reckoned that as many as 200 bombs were aimed at her, with ten hits on the old veteran. Some of the heaviest blows were struck by Ticonderoga dive bombers.

  The mission started poorly. Lieutenant Commander Franz Kanaga led a dozen Helldivers, each bearing an asymmetric load of underwing bombs and fuel tanks. On takeoff one plane lurched into the water, the crew lost. The others proceeded as planned.

  Coordinating with Ticonderoga’s Avengers, her bombing squadron nosed into steep dives over Hyuga. Amid blistering flak, Lieutenant H. Paul Brehm closed his dive brakes to reduce his exposure to AA gunners. Ahead of him Lieutenant (jg) E. L. Vaughn crashed alongside the target. Undeterred, Brehm pressed as low as he dared, toggled his bombs, and hauled the stick into his stomach. He blacked out in the high-g pullout, recovering level flight so low that he felt the explosion of his bomb on the stern.

  Returning to the task force low on fuel, in poor weather, Brehm and two other pilots made water landings. They were rescued but the cost was high: twelve Helldivers took off; seven
returned.

  Hyuga’s bridge and conning tower were demolished, killing Rear Admiral Kiyoshi Kusakawa, recalled from retirement to command the ship. The crew counted at least ten bomb hits and at least as many near misses that ripped open her seams, causing immediate flooding. Inundated with tons of water, she was run aground to prevent sinking, but the result was the same.

  The carrier Amagi had been commissioned in August 1944 but had never left home waters. Slightly damaged in the March 19 attack, her 22,000 tons rested fifty meters from shore, bedecked with camouflage netting, trees, and imitation houses. Nevertheless, she was struck repeatedly in three attacks. The heaviest blow, apparently a one-ton weapon, went into the sweet spot: “almost exactly on the centerline, dead amidships between the elevators.”

  The delayed-action bomb detonated on the hangar deck. In that confined space, the blast effect was incredible: it blew out the hangar walls and both sides of the hull, flinging a 150-foot section overboard. A twenty-five-foot hole was torn in the upper hangar deck, and fragments penetrated to the lower hangar. The overpressure ruptured the flight deck over a length of 200 feet and collapsed the forward elevator into its well. Additional bomb and rocket hits on two port-side boiler rooms started flooding, further settling the carrier.

  Though she was not in danger of sinking—the harbor was too shallow—the unrelenting violence unnerved Amagi’s senior officer. (The captain may not have been aboard.) In any case, around noon somebody yelled “Abandon ship,” reinforced by a rocket sizzling past the bridge and yet another bomb that started flooding astern. Some dedicated sailors ignored the order until that afternoon. The next day Amagi remained afloat, listing slightly to port, though the flight deck was destroyed.

  Escort carrier Kaiyo was moving to safer shelter when the Anglo-Americans arrived overhead. While maneuvering she struck an airdropped mine that damaged her rudder and caused partial flooding in an engine room. Then British Avengers scored two bomb hits, causing increased flooding. Towed to Beppu Bay on Kyushu’s east coast, the small flattop was grounded. Eventually the crew pumped out most of the water and began sealing the hull.

  The senior combatant in the area was the heavy cruiser Tone. Her career read like a Pacific War roadmap: the Pearl Harbor force, Indian Ocean, Midway, Guadalcanal, Philippine Sea, Leyte Gulf. Stashed in Hiroshima Bay west of Kure, the big, handsome warship was selected by Monterey’s Avengers, which scored three bomb hits. Her hull was blasted open and she began settling, so was pushed ashore to facilitate salvage.

  Overall, the July 24 missions cost the fast carriers twenty-nine fighters and twenty-eight bombers. In exchange, they knocked out a battleship and cruiser, sinking three lesser vessels and damaging at least thirteen warships.

  The next day Task Force 38 again spread its wings over the Inland Sea, Kure, and elsewhere, sinking three tankers and a merchant ship and damaging a cruiser plus five other vessels.

  The two-day total of U.S. aircraft losses came to eighty-seven, nearly identical to the initial home island strikes in mid-February. Relatively little had been accomplished other than keeping the pressure on Japan, but that pressure immediately increased. While the task force replenished, global events were underway in Europe. On July 27 the Allies issued the Potsdam Declaration, calling for Japan’s unconditional surrender. The Tokyo war cabinet ignored the ultimatum, setting in motion events that no one in Japan—and few in America—could possibly envision.

  July 28

  The tailhookers were back on the 28th, hoping to finish off the crippled warships and perhaps turn up new targets.

  At 0745, McCain’s flagship, Shangri-La, launched thirty-six planes against the battleship Haruna and light cruiser Oyodo, both damaged on the 24th. But the two-day layoff had given Kure’s gunners time to recover. Pilots reported intense flak with an Avenger shot down. Nevertheless, several direct hits left both ships burning, and Oyodo later capsized.

  Haruna held the rare honor of being bombed more than any Japanese battleship. She had escaped with light damage in three previous attacks but now became the focus of multiple squadrons. The thirty-year-old heavyweight absorbed so many hits and near misses that Captain Matake Yoshimura could not provide a definite number; possibly eight or more. That afternoon some seventy Okinawa-based B-24s attacked ineffectively from altitude. But shortly the Navy was back, twenty-nine of “Shang’s” aviators plus Wasp’s air group. All planes concentrated on Haruna, which was again seriously damaged. Holed in her port side, she took on tons of water and sank next to the pier. In the two July attacks she lost sixty-five officers and men.

  Nor was that all. Ise had been lightly damaged on March 19 and hit five times on July 24, but she was clobbered on the 28th. Pilots from at least three air groups claimed sixteen hits and likely scored fourteen. Hancock’s Corsairs alone contributed five half-ton bombs to the total.

  The carrier Amagi was bombed again on the 28th, though to what extent is uncertain since the crew had abandoned four days earlier. The next morning she lurched to port and capsized to about 70 degrees. At that extreme angle most of the shattered flight deck and both aircraft elevators toppled overboard. Now fully grounded, the Imperial carrier lay a ruined relic, her starboard screws exposed to the sun.

  Amagi’s sister, Katsuragi, lightly damaged on the 24th, was mauled on the afternoon of the 28th as a one-tonner struck near the carrier’s island. The bomb exploded with massive force in the hangar space, blowing out twenty feet of the port hull and thirty feet of the flight deck. A blizzard of splinters swept the bridge, killing the executive officer and twelve others.

  The much abused escort carrier Kaiyo (damaged twice previously) was found at Hiji Harbor in Beppu Bay, northeastern Kyushu. Among others, Essex’s Corsairs unloaded a barrage of 5-inch rockets that killed twenty men. One rocket exploded in the switchboard room, knocking out circuits and generators. Without electricity, the carrier’s pumps stopped. Port-side flooding could not be contained and the ship settled to the bottom.

  The next day, the 29th, a naval doctor inspected Kaiyo’s engine room, noting the miserable situation. Like most seaports, Hiji’s saltwater contained a malodorous mixture of fuel oil, sewage, and dead fish. The doctor declared the situation unhealthy and suggested abandoning. Captain Shuichi Osuga agreed, but before departing he flooded the boilers, allowing the ship to settle firmly.

  Cruiser Aoba, already put on the bottom on the 24th, received more attention the 28th. That morning McCain’s pilots hit her four times, causing a fire in the hulk. Late that afternoon more 7th Air Force Liberators scored with four more 500-pounders. Aoba’s abused hull split open and the stern collapsed.

  Helldivers and Hellcats also pounced on the light cruiser Oyodo, compounding her previous damage with four more bomb hits that killed 300 men. She rolled over and capsized to starboard, an inglorious end to her brief tenure as flagship of the Combined Fleet.

  Because many ships settled on an even keel in the shallow harbor, they appeared undamaged from overhead. Consequently, AAF bombers attacked unnecessarily, though, as postwar analysis showed, the ships were “completely flooded and permanently out of commission.”

  Kure bloomed as a violent garden where Navy Crosses grew. A credited bomb hit on an enemy capital ship was rewarded with “a Cross,” just as fighter pilots were decorated for an ace-in-a-day feat. As a result of July’s three strikes, an incredible 170 aviators received Navy Crosses, five posthumously. In comparison, the four-day Battle of Midway in 1942 yielded Navy Crosses to 154 Navy men and marines including air, sea, land, and submarine personnel.

  Lieutenant Commander Elmer A. Kraft was a Hellcat squadron commander on the Randolph. One of his junior pilots was killed shortly after the Kure strikes but Kraft, who had scored a hit on a ship there, credited the feat to the youngster. When a squadron mate questioned Kraft’s generosity, the skipper said, “Don’t you suppose that ensign had a mother and a father who wanted to be proud of him? What difference does it make if I don’t get a medal? It means a
hell of a lot to them.”

  Overall, Halsey’s three days of strikes on Kure and environs proved costly: 126 aircraft (seventy-three fighters, fifty-three bombers) were lost with 102 pilots and aircrewmen. Eighteen of the losses occurred in “routine” operations over Shikoku.

  Whether the cost of the Kure strikes was worth the result remains one of the least examined questions of the Pacific War. In his often self-serving memoir, Halsey enumerated four reasons for the strikes. He opined that America’s national honor and morale required total destruction of the Japanese navy; that such destruction was necessary to prevent interdiction of future convoys to Russia; that Tokyo might use its remaining fleet for negotiating leverage as Germany had done in 1919; and ultimately that he had orders. He concluded, “If the other reasons had been invalid, that one alone would have been enough for me.”

  Halsey’s enumerations remain transparently unconvincing. In the first place, American morale in no way turned on destruction of the rusting remnants of the Imperial Navy. The greatest morale involved was Bull Halsey’s. The huge majority of Americans merely wished the war over, and the main seagoing phase had ended in October 1944.

  Secondly, the U.S. Navy could easily dominate the North Pacific in the vastly unlikely event that any Japanese force escaped its mine-choked bases to deploy more than 1,000 miles from home. Furthermore, absent requests from Moscow, no such requirement pertained.

  Halsey’s third point was even more absurd. The Allies’ preexisting demand of unconditional surrender automatically scuttled any naval bargaining that Tokyo might have attempted in such nonexistent proceedings.

  The fourth point would seem the strongest, as King and Nimitz had decreed an end to the “defueled doggo fleet.” But by July 1945, Halsey surely felt bulletproof. He had escaped all accountability (if not major blame) for the Leyte Gulf debacle and failing to avoid a ship-killing typhoon in December. The defenders of his position were five-star guardians: Nimitz, who allowed sentiment to trump objectivity, and the decidedly unsentimental King in Washington, who refused to hand the Air Force a political victory. But the fact remained that between Leyte Gulf in October 1944 and “Halsey’s hurricane” in December, the Third Fleet commander was widely considered directly or indirectly responsible for the unnecessary loss of seven ships and some 1,450 sailors and aircrew.