Admiral Yamamoto had moved his admiral’s flag from the battleship Yamato to Rabaul to command at the front. He did this with the intention of forcing a showdown in the air, concentrating the entire air power of the Imperial Japanese Navy on the battle. However, his opponent was the US Army Air Force, and instead of a showdown the battle gradually became a war of attrition. The problem then was the supply of planes and pilots, and that proved to be our weakness. In view of these conditions, Yamamoto diverted the full contingent of carrier pilots from the Third Fleet to land bases with the excuse that necessity knows no law, and he sacrificed most of them in the aerial war of attrition.
This is the kernel of my third argument that Admiral Yamamoto was a mediocre admiral.
At the time, the Japanese military was not aware yet that the US military had formed two fronts against Japan, the MacArthur Line and the Nimitz Line. They did not recognize that Guadalcanal was a precursor of the MacArthur Line, and that before long, Nimitz would begin mobilizing his task force of 10 carriers at the core and advance to strike the Mariana Islands by way of the Gilbert and Marshall Islands. That was why the carrier pilots of the Third Fleet were deployed for land use, and we ended up losing them in Operation I-Go. Obviously, they should have held the Third Fleet in reserve for combat with the US task force fleet at the Nimitz Line.
However, in the end, the supply lines for Operation I-Go were cut. Coupled with the hopeless situation in the land battle on Guadalcanal, Imperial Headquarters finally decided to abandon the island. Then, Admiral Yamamoto discontinued Operation I-Go, moving our remaining air power down to the Marianas in order to recover and rebuild. They called this movement a “strategic Anabasis” [the long march of the Greek Ten Thousand from the coast to the interior as described by the general and historian, Xenophon], but it was nothing but a general retreat.
All of a sudden, the ground troops stationed at the front lines in Rabaul were left without air cover; the skies were absent of Japanese wings. One day, Japanese planes engaged in combat with US planes in the air, and the next they were gone, leaving the skies a “one-man show” dominated by US planes. Naturally, our ground troops were demoralized. Admiral Yamamoto then saw the need to visit the ground troops at the front line to encourage them and boost their morale.
Accordingly, Admiral Yamamoto headed for Bougainville Island accompanied by his Chief of Staff Ugaki in two Mitsubishi G4M Bettys, escorted by six Zero fighters. It was April 18, 1943, and they started from Rabaul at 0600. Their objective on that day was an inspection of the front line as well as a visit to General Hitoshi Imamura, Commander-in-Chief of the 17th Army, with whom they cooperated closely in the defensive and offensive battles at Guadalcanal for nine months. While Yamamoto’s travel arrangements were top secret, the commander of Shortland Base in the Solomon Islands thought that this was an ordinary inspection visit, and he sent Yamamoto’s arrival schedule to the troops under his command using aviation abbreviation codes with a lower degree of security than normal.
This message was intercepted immediately by the Intelligence Unit of the US Pacific Fleet’s High Command in Pearl Harbor. Without delay, the High Command notified Henderson Base on Guadalcanal so that they could intercept Commander Yamamoto. The American commander there was Major John Mitchell, and he waited above Moila Point, leading 16 Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighters.
It was 0740. Captain Thomas Lanphier led the group that attacked the Mitsubishi G4M Betty in which Yamamoto was flying. The plane was shot down, crashing in the deep jungle of Moila Point at the southern edge of Bougainville Island, and Admiral Yamamoto was killed in action. His attaché, Commander Kurio Toibana, died with the Admiral. The second plane was also hit, but it ditched in the sea nearby. While Ugaki survived with a minor injury, his attaché, Commander Suteji Muroi died. Both staff officers were top graduates of the Naval Academy who had received special swords as an Imperial Award. I knew them both very well.
Years later, I heard the story of the US interception from Captain Lanphier himself on the occasion of his visit to Japan. At the time of Yamamoto’s death, I thought that, based on the results of battles in ancient times, the death of the leader of our entire force in action meant nothing short of defeat in the war. I lost interest in engaging in any further research on battle lessons.
33
Operation Sho-Ichi-Go
The operation Sho-Ichi-Go was a defensive operation to counter the US invasion of the Philippines. Because the US forces landed at Leyte Gulf, the US side called it the Battle of Leyte Gulf. However, what startled the world was a decoy operation called the Battle off Cape Engano.
This concept of a decoy operation was my original idea, developed in my position as Staff Officer of the Combined Fleet, but we did not impose it as a headquarters order. At Kure Naval Port, when I visited Commander Jisaburo Ozawa on the Zuikaku, the Third Fleet’s flagship, I talked to him about this operational concept, and he was all for it. He said, “Good. I will recommend the idea to the Combined Fleet as my own initiative. You keep quiet.”
As a consequence, based on the recommendation by Commander Ozawa, the Combined Fleet’s Commander-in-Chief, Soemu Toyoda, decided to approve the plan.
At that time, the Combined Fleet’s Headquarters believed that the US invasion of the Philippines would commence with a landing at Leyte Gulf. However, the Command Center at our Davao base sent us a message saying that the enemy troops were attacking Davao. While Headquarters was about to issue an order for the mobilization of the Sho-Ichi-Go operation immediately, I asked them to wait a while as it appeared suspicious to me. I thought that there must be reasonable people in the rational US forces. It was unlikely that they would make their initial invasion of the Philippines in a backwoods area like Mindanao Island. Before long, it was proved that my observation was correct. It turned out to be a hoax. When a war is in its final stages, the ancient example of the Heike clan—which was startled by the sudden movement of water birds and mistakenly thought it was an enemy attack—is a good one to remember.
However, the issuance of what turned out to be a hoax warning by the Davao Command Center was not necessarily a panic caused by the flapping of water birds’ wings. In those trying times, frequent air-raids were carried out by US air attack squadrons across the entire Philippines, and Davao experienced fierce air-raids as well.
The assault by the US task force fleet started on October 10, 1944 and continued for two weeks. On the first day of the assault, a powerful and fast task force fleet—consisting of 17 carriers, 5 battleships, 14 cruisers and 58 destroyers— attacked Okinawa. The fleet’s air squadron stormed through Okinawa and the Ryukyu Islands, bombarding Japanese ships, air bases and military facilities. This squadron belonged to the US Third Fleet, and the carrier task force was commanded by Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher.
Following this assault, the American task force fleet raided Taiwan and Luzon. Their air-raids went on for five successive days. Our Third Fleet, commanded by Ozawa, was supposed to counter-attack, but it had been defeated in the A-Go Operation in battle with the US fleet in the Mariana Sea area. As of October 1, 1944, the Third Air Division, under Ozawa’s direct command, consisted of four carriers—the Zuikaku, Chiyoda, Chitose and Zuiho—and their carrier-based No. 653 Air Squadron and the Fourth Air Division, commanded by Rear Admiral Chiaki Matsuda.
The Fourth Air Division, in turn, consisted of the battleships—Hyuga and Ise—light carriers—Junyo and Ryuho—and their carrier-based No. 634 Air Squadron. The rear decks of the Hyuga and Ise had been remodeled as flight decks to carry aircraft, but the decks were not long enough to allow either takeoff or landing. The light carriers, Junyo and Ryuho, were engaged primarily in the transport of “Red Dragonflies” to Singapore.
At the time, our southern lifeline was increasingly exposed to threats from enemy submarines, and it was impossible to ship in oil. Because there was a shortage of gasoline, the idea was to transfer what they called the Red Dragonfly Squadron, comprised of training planes fr
om the Kasumigaura Air Training Squadron, to the oil-rich airfield in Singapore. Junyo and Ryujyo were employed for this transport mission.
In addition to the task force already mentioned, two regular carriers, the Amagi and Unryu, and their carrier-based No.601 Air Squadron of the reorganized First Air Division, led by Rear Admiral Keizo Komura, were incorporated into the Third Fleet. However, the Amagi and Unryu had just been completed in August, and they did not have aircraft or air crews yet. Finally, the 10th Division was assigned as an escort troop, along with the flagship light cruiser, Yahagi, and four groups of destroyers.
As mentioned earlier, while eight carriers remained in our Third Fleet Task Force, there were neither planes nor crews to carry on the ships. Even if we could somehow pull out planes and crews like rabbits from a magician’s hat, there was no time for training. The US side, of course, did not allow us such time. While we gave the Americans a generous two years after Pearl Harbor to allow them to construct such a powerful fleet, they did not give us even a month now.
If carrier pilots do not have the basic skills required for takeoffs and landings, it does not do any good to have planes on the carriers. However, it also does not make any sense to assemble the remaining carriers at our naval ports and expose them to air attacks just to be sunk. It was unsightly, but the carriers could be camouflaged by covering their decks with pine branches, and then dispersing them among the small islands in the Inland Sea of Seto.
In any case, it was no time for us to sit idly by in the face of the unrelenting behavior of the enemy task force. The Combined Fleet attempted a fierce counterattack by mobilizing the entire land-based air power in and outside the country, but we were no match for the enemy. At that time, this effort was called the Aerial Battle of the Taiwan Seas.
At the bases on Taiwan, the air squadron of Carrier Division 2, led by Vice Admiral Shigeru Fukudome, was engaged in training. And the reconstituted air squadron of Carrier Division 1, commanded by Vice Admiral Takijiro Onishi, was transferred to Clark Field in Luzon. However, most of the pilots of these land-based air squadrons had just completed the short Red Dragonfly training course, and they were far from being combat-ready with their low degree of flight proficiency. Nevertheless, they all performed their counter-attack sorties in high spirits.
Additionally, from inside the country, the T Troop, commanded by Captain Shuzo Hisano, sortied as required. The T (short for Typhoon) Troop was based on the concept of annihilating the enemy while they temporarily halted operations because of the threat of typhoon, and our planes would fly despite the bad weather. It was an elite unit conceived by Genda at Imperial Headquarters. However, the battle achievements of both of these land-based aviation squadrons were not so commendable.
In any event, I was checking their battle reports before sending them on to Imperial Headquarters, and I was surprised by their announcement of a sweeping victory in the Aerial Battle of the Taiwan Seas. They had by-passed the head of the Combined Fleet Headquarters and were broadcasting the Warship March with a great deal of fanfare. I wondered who on earth was giving such an exaggerated report of the battle results.
I should mention that the Imperial Forces Air Force also participated in the Aerial Battle of the Taiwan Seas. I was very knowledgeable about the background of their participation in air battles over the ocean. When I was Chief of Staff of Carrier Division 1, based on orders from Imperial Headquarters, I trained two large-plane air groups belonging to the Army’s First Air Division on torpedo bombing techniques. I also instructed the medium-range attackers of Carrier Division 1’s Dragon Group at Konaya Air Base occasionally. I failed to confirm their performance level after the training as I was assigned to the Staff of the Combined Fleet soon after, but these same two Army Air Force groups participated in the Aerial Battle of the Taiwan Seas carrying torpedoes. Moreover, theirs was a night attack.
Even for me, with countless battle experiences over more than a decade, a torpedo attack at night on an enemy fleet that was freely moving around was extremely difficult. It was asking too much for crews of the Army Air Force, who were complete amateurs when it came to combat over the ocean, to attempt a torpedo attack at night. It is admirable that they did this anyway. But, unfortunately, there efforts produced no results.
What was even more regretful was that they misrepresented their battle achievements. For instance, after one of their planes launched a torpedo, the wingman was shot down and plunged into the sea in flames. The other crews mistakenly thought that the torpedo which had just been launched hit the enemy ship, and they sent a radio report stating, “One enemy carrier sunk.” More than a dozen similar reports were sent out, and when Army Headquarters received these reports, they concluded that more than a dozen enemy carriers had been sunk.
Until this battle, the Army Air Force had never participated in or cooperated with the Navy in a battle over the ocean, so it was an epoch-making event. Furthermore, based on the battle reports that indicated that their Air Force had achieved enormous success and annihilated the enemy task force, it was easy to imagine the degree of enormous joy at Army Headquarters.
Without delay, the Army News Service, whose duty was to broadcast significant news to the public, overly embellished reports of the Air Force’s battle results. At the time when this battle occurred, as far as news broadcasts were concerned, the distinction between the Army and Navy had been abolished, and the Army’s exaggerated report was broadcast with the Warship March being played in the background. Listening to the radio broadcast at the Combined Fleet’s Headquarters, I was totally disgusted. If more than a dozen enemy carriers had been sunk, the enemy task force fleet should have been demolished, but, in actuality, the enemy went farther to the south, where they conducted fierce and frequent air-raids across the entire Philippine islands.
I took this as the prelude to the US forces’ invasion of the Philippines. The situation developed as I had anticipated, and in a successful campaign carried out over more than one month, the enemy task force commanded by Admiral Halsey mopped up our air power and ships in the entire areas of Okinawa, Taiwan and the Philippines.
In addition, while the enemy did not lose a single carrier in the Air Battle of the Taiwan Seas, there was a crippled light cruiser that put out a distress signal. Their message was picked up by our enemy signals communications team, and it was used to endorse news of huge damage inflicted on the enemy. In the end, Imperial Headquarters’ announcement of our sweeping victory in the Air Battle of the Taiwan Seas was nothing but a whopping lie.
In spite of the news of victory, Combined Fleet Headquarters regarded the landing of US forces on Leyte Gulf as inevitable. They decided to prepare for the landing by assembling all the remaining forces of the Combined Fleet. However, they did not have the capability to engage the enemy in a conclusive battle. Therefore, they aimed, at a minimum, to annihilate the enemy’s landing convoy. The objective was to inflict roughly 300,000 casualties at the inception of their invasion on the Philippines. At that time, I expected the enemy would mobilize approximately 100 ships. Assuming that each ship would carry 3,000 soldiers, the total enemy force size would be 300,000. Our intention was to send all the ships to the bottom of the sea along with their soldiers. It may sound brutal, but it was the reality of war.
After the war, some history buffs called this the Sho-Ichi-Go Operation, an unprecedented sea battle in the history of the Pacific War. Some called it the last fleet battle of the war. The expression “unprecedented sea battle in the history of the Pacific War” may be appropriate, however to call it “the last fleet battle of the Pacific War” is not applicable.
Fleet battles between our two sides had ended with the A-Go Operation, and the war had already shifted to pure blood-letting operations. Blood-letting operations or, more precisely, planned mass killings were an attempt to induce peace overtures by inflicting substantial loss of life and casualties on the enemy.
The Pacific War was fundamentally air warfare, and, being the person w
ho held a key position in aerial warfare as Chief Aviation Commander of the Combined Fleet, I knew too well that there was no longer any chance for us to win the Pacific War. Sun Tzu, the great ancient Chinese master of the art of war, said, “If you know your enemy and yourself well, you will not lose in 100 battles.” Now I knew both the enemy and ourselves too well, and I was very concerned about this particular battle.
However, I kept it to myself as it was a taboo subject at a time when inside the fleet they were elated with the conviction that victory was certain. But I saw it as inevitable that we would end up in unconditional surrender if things continued to develop as they had. Therefore, we intended to cause substantial blood-letting casualties in an effort to force peace overtures. This would somehow indicate to the enemy that if they accepted our conditions, we would terminate the war at the current stage. However, if they refused, they should be ready for us to inflict double or triple the amount of casualties.
Based on our experience at Pearl Harbor, I thought that a weak point of the American people was their reaction to loss of personnel. However many ships and aircraft they lost, they thought that they only had to produce more to correct the situation; but when it came to personnel loss, the loss could never be made up. Our aim was to take advantage of this weakness by inflicting losses of 300,000 soldiers during their initial move to invade the Philippines.
Fortunately, our division of surface vessels was intact at Lingga Anchorage. “Intact” sounds better, but it was not something to be admired as they only remained intact during the war because they were kept in reserve. Lingga Anchorage was located across from Singapore, with abundant oil supplies from the Island of Sumatra. It did not make sense to provide oil transported from the south to this idle fleet of surface vessels while they stayed inside Japanese waters. As I mentioned earlier, our lifeline in the south was exposed to the threat of enemy submarines, and a drop of oil brought into Japan was as precious as a drop of blood. Therefore, at this stage of the war, the oil-eating fleet of surface vessels was sent to oil-rich Lingga Anchorage. This division of surface vessels was comprised of a group of battleships, headed by the super battleships, Yamato and Musashi, a troop of heavy cruisers, and light cruisers and destroyers of the torpedo troop for added protection. All were led by the Commander of the Second Fleet, Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita.
For That One Day: The Memoirs of Mitsuo Fuchida, Commander of the Attack on Pearl Harbor Page 17