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The Navy In WWII

UNITED STATES FLEET
HEADQUARTERS OF THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF
NAVY DEPARTMENT
WASHINGTON 25, D. C.

We have every reason to be proud of what our military and naval forces have achieved in Europe. However, we cannot - and must not - entertain any belief that, because organized resistance has ceased on the part of the German enemy, the war is "about over."

We congratulate the United States Army - and the armed forces of our Allies - for effecting the actual entry into Germany and destroying her ability to make war. We congratulate the air forces for their victory over the Luftwaffe, and for their support of those engaged in fighting on the ground.

Though there were few naval surface actions in the Atlantic in the traditional sense, the Navy's contribution to the European victory was substantial. The winning of the Battle of the Atlantic against the U-boats was a requisite to the winning of the Battle of Europe. The Allied navies landed our ground forces on the soil of Normandy and, despite the enemy's U-boat campaigns, maintained the flow of supplies. The Navy further assisted Allied ground forces in the climactic crossing of the Rhine barrier. This operation, as all others, required the closest cooperation between the United States Army and Navy.

While we now congratulate those who have achieved victory in Europe we must not forget those thousands who gave their lives fighting to make this victory possible. They died that we might have the privilege of continuing to enjoy American liberty as we have known it. Our sympathy and our humble appreciation go out to their bereaved families and friends.

During the past year the war in the Pacific has progressed at an accelerated tempo. In that area we are still securing positions from which to launch heavier and more concentrated offensives against the Japanese homeland. At the same time, the closer we get to the heart of Japan, the stronger we find her resistance - as we experienced on Saipan, and on Iwo Jima, and, more recently, on Okinawa. The farther we advance the longer our vital supply lines become, further complicating our already complex logistic system.

The problem of convoying the millions of troops now in Europe halfway around the world to the Far East is one of the most immense which any naval force ever faced. To supply them once they get there will be almost equally difficult. These problems must be - and are being - solved even as we continue to press home the campaigns now under way in the far Pacific. Coordination of effort among the fighting forces and the efforts of workers on the home front have made possible our success so far and will continue to be essential to ultimate victory.

We sincerely wish that this could have been a day of victory on all fronts, but we know that the tough kernel of Japanese resistance remains to be crushed. Hence, we must pursue the war in the Pacific with increased determination, and with the maximum of equipment and trained personnel. Therefore make this not a day of celebration primarily, but rather a day of rededication to the task that yet remains ahead of us - total and rapid defeat of the Japanese enemy.

This 19,900 ton aircraft carrier took terrific punishment in the Midway battle, and is shown listing badly after a bomb attack.

The arena in which the Pacific War was fought is so vast that it challenges the imagination. The distances to be traversed by ships, planes, and armies challenged, too, the genius of naval and army commanders and home front to keep them supplied.

The war front on which the destiny of half the population of the earth was to be decided covered half the globe. The Pacific Ocean itself, which was one vast battlefield, has an estimated area of about 70,000,000 square miles and the Indian Ocean about 30,000,000, a total water area of 100,000,000 square miles. This is more than twice the extent of the continents of Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America combined. The entire United States, with its 3,000,000 square miles, could be dropped into the Pacific, which would hold twenty-three countries its size.

The struggle in the Pacific, like that in Europe but over far more extended areas, was a one-front war with many widely separated but closely integrated sectors. Every battle was another step on the long road to Tokyo. Every man in this great crusade for human freedom was fighting to keep the Japs from the doors to his homeland, for Japanese war documents revealed that they planned to strike at the western coast of the United States in a plotted invasion. These plans were timed with Hitler's grandiose scheme to sink the American and British Navies in the Atlantic in submarine warfare, and to bombard New York and the cities of the eastern coast while the Japs bombarded San Francisco and the western coast cities.

The plans of both Germany and Japan were to force the United States into a two-front war and keep it so engaged that Hitler could send armies from Dakar, in Africa, to land on the coast of South America, thus creating a third front on the south. Under this pressure from three sides, he believed that democracy in the United States would crumble and crash. For this purpose he had further created a formidable "Fifth Column" to undermine faith and confidence in the Government, to rise up at the appointed time in a reign of terror and sabotage.

The vast extent of Japan's simultaneous activities was the final proof that she had planned long and carefully for her multiple strokes. On that fateful December 7, 1941, she had thrown into action well over 1,000 vessels of war: battleships, carriers, submarines, mine layers, and auxiliary craft. Hundreds of transports were crowded with hundreds of thousands of troops, accompanied by hosts of supply ships proceeding to designated points on a meticulously worked-out time-table.

This secret armada was spreading out over the Pacific with such startling precision that it devoured everything before it. Like a huge spider web it stretched for thousands of miles and gathered islands and nations into its net. America and all its outposts were in peril. The heavy responsibility of protecting this country from a direful fate fell upon the shoulders of admirals and generals at their posts.

Rear Admiral Kimmel had held important posts with the navy prior to taking command of the Pacific Fleet on February 1, 1941, when he was promoted to full admiral. Among his earlier assignments was special duty with Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1915, when the man who became war President was Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Admiral Kimmel's chief aide on December 7 was Rear Admiral Claude C. Bloch who had fought through the Spanish-American War, and during World War I, when he ran the transport Plattsburg safely through the German U-boat and mine blockade on four trips. Various command posts were filled by Admiral Bloch before he became Commander in Chief of the United States Fleet on January 29, 1938, after which he was named Commandant of the Fourteenth Naval District at Hawaii. He was exonerated of all responsibility for the events at Pearl Harbor on December 7 and retained his post until April 13, 1942, when he was replaced by Admiral David W. Bagley, until Admiral Chester W. Nimitz could take over command. Admiral Bloch returned to Washington as special adviser to Navy Secretary Knox, and later in the year was appointed to the reorganized General Board of the Navy.

In the Philippines three of the most stalwart warriors in the military and naval history of the United States stood guard over American interests: Admiral Thomas C. Hart, Commander in Chief of the Asiatic Fleet; General Douglas MacArthur, Commander of the Philippine Department; and Major General Jonathan M. Wainwright, commanding ground forces.

Admiral Hart was graduated from Annapolis in 1897, just in time to get into the Spanish-American War. Most of his experience was in the Pacific, fitting him perfectly for the test that came to him in his sixty-fifth year. During World War I, he was called to the Atlantic and placed at the head of the submarine and tender forces in European waters. Later he received other important assignments, mainly with submarine forces, and for three years served as Superintendent of the Naval Academy at Annapolis. On July 25, 1939, he became Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet.

During the first weeks and months the tidal wave swept everything before it. Premier Tojo was repeating on land and by sea his Pacific version of Hitler's blitzkriegs in Poland, western Europe, and Russia. Defeat followed defeat for the staggered United Nations. Our occasional tactical victories won at the cost of precious lives served neither to hinder nor to halt the strategical advances by the Japanese.

By the end of the first week of the Pacific War the Japanese had landed in force on Malaya and brought one-man tanks into the steaming jungles to help crush the British defenders. The British had abandoned Kowloon on the mainland and had retired to the island fortress of Hongkong. The Japanese had landed strong forces on the Philippines and begun a pincers movement toward Manila.

With control of the sea and superiority or control of the air the Japanese pushed their landing barges through, regardless of casualties. The enemy did not make the mistake of trying to land in overwhelming strength at a single point where he would be met by the full force of the defense. He established beachheads at numerous widely scattered points, compelling the defenders to spread their meager resources over a wide area, weak everywhere and strong nowhere. Inasmuch as reinforcements for Malaya or the Philippines were out of the question, it was a simple matter for the Japanese to build up the necessary numerical superiority wherever they desired.

During this first week United States bombers sunk, besides the Haruna, at least four transports off northern Luzon and damaged three others. Dutch submarines had sent four more troop-laden transports to the bottom off Thailand. The campaign of attrition against Japanese manpower and shipping had got off to a good start.

The tempo of the Japanese advance grew faster during the second week. Having knocked out sea and air opposition from Malaya, the enemy was able to concentrate upon overwhelming the heavily outnumbered British, Australian, and Indian soldiers. Pushing forward with amazing rapidity through the jungles and swamps infested by tigers, rhinoceroses, vampires, and serpents, the Japanese were halfway down the Malay Peninsula to Singapore. Penang had been evacuated, the southern tip of Burma had been yielded to the enemy, and the Japanese had landed on north Borneo and Sarawak. To counter these latter advances, Australian and Dutch troops occupied Portuguese Timor to keep the Axis out. Farther to the south the Australian Government ordered civilian evacuation of Papua and New Guinea.

The Japanese had been able to make little progress in the Philippines until the end of the second week when they landed in force on the southern end of Luzon. Fierce fighting was going on around Davao, on Mindanao, where the Japanese were trying desperately to establish an air base for use against Luzon and for protection of transports and warships.

War swept like a typhoon through the Pacific. In ninety days after Pearl Harbor the Japanese controlled the South China Sea, the Sulu Sea, the Celebes Sea, the Java Sea, the Flores Sea, the Banda Sea, and the Arafura Sea. She controlled the Strait of Malacca and was soon to control the Bay of Bengal dominating India, and the Bismarck Sea with its main islands of New Guinea, New Britain, and New Ireland, and the Solomons Sea - still nearer Australia.

American ships and men were hurried to the battlefronts. Within a few weeks they were forming a bridge of ships across the Pacific and were later to bridge the Atlantic and encircle the globe. More than 600,000 men, with virtually the entire bomber force, floated into the Pacific area with record speed in the early months of the war. The great triangle from Dutch Harbor in Alaska, down the American west coast to the Panama Canal, and then thrusting out to Hawaii, was finally on the alert.

Twenty-four days after our Declaration of War, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz walked into the office at the Submarine Base at Pearl Harbor and assumed active command of the Pacific Fleet. This brilliant strategist immediately made his presence felt. He had been skipped over twenty-eight senior officers when he was named to succeed Admiral Kimmel. At fifty-seven years of age he left his post at Washington as Chief of the Bureau of Navigation to go into action. Nimitz always craved action. After being graduated from Annapolis he had commanded submarines. He was in command of the gunboat Panay, sunk by the Japanese early in the "China Incident." During the First World War he served as Chief of Staff to the Commander of the Submarine Force in the Atlantic and then in the office of Chief of Naval Operations. Before becoming Chief of the Bureau of Navigation he had commanded Battleship Division 1.

During his first weeks at Pearl Harbor Admiral Nimitz was plied with questions about future operations, about the return of the Fleet to offensive action, about pushing the enemy back to Japan: To all of these he gave the placid answer: "Time will take care of that." Unfailingly courteous to all men, he was always fair in his treatment of enlisted men and officers alike. While being rescued from a plane crash in the Pacific the Admiral stood up in the small rescue launch. "Sit down, you!" the coxswain bellowed, not recognizing his passenger. Suddenly seeing the four gold stars on Admiral Nimitz's blouse, the coxswain became confused and started to stammer an apology. "Stick to your guns, sailor," the Admiral advised. "You were right!"

Vice Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., was in command of the carrier task force that was not in Pearl Harbor on December 7. He was two and one-half years older than Admiral Nimitz. The two men had much in common but in other ways differed greatly. Halsey was a salty sailor, with a picturesque tongue not made for a drawing room but perfectly at home on the deck of a ship in battle.

After going through World War I in command of a destroyer squadron hunting down U-boats, and safely escorting troopships to the other side, Halsey served as naval attache at Berlin and other European capitals and then returned to sea again with his destroyers. By that time he had become convinced of the role aviation was to play in future military operations and, when fifty-two years old, qualified as a pilot and flew his own plane. The next year he was named Commandant at the Pensacola Naval Air Station and in charge of the carrier Saratoga.

Nimitz and Halsey complemented each other perfectly, and it was just one month to the day after Admiral Nimitz had taken command at Pearl Harbor that the team first went into action. Since no military move can be undertaken without some time elapsing for the concentration and disposition of forces, it is evident that Admiral Nimitz had established the broad lines of his strategy before he reached Hawaii. The essentials of that strategy were:

1. Japan could not be stopped until she had reached a certain line;
2. The United Nations must prepare to prevent the enemy from progressing beyond that line;
3. Japan must not be permitted to intrench herself in new positions and build up powerful defenses against the day the United Nations were able to assume the offensive and drive the enemy back to her home islands;
4. With the United States Navy stripped of capital ships and no substantial naval help in sight from the Allies the immediate job was to keep Japan off-balance in her new possessions.

Only a few days after the defensive Battle of Macassar Strait, the United States Navy went into offensive action for the first time on January 31, 1942. Admiral Halsey appeared "from nowhere" with his task force off the Marshall and Gilbert Islands.

Admiral Halsey's force consisted of the carriers Enterprise and Yorktown, the heavy cruisers Chester, Louisville, Northampton, and Salt Lake City, the light cruiser St. Louis, and ten destroyers. It had been at sea under a blanket of radio silence for days. The commander, instead of leaving his carrier a hundred or more miles away from the target, led it so close under the enemy's nose he could not see it. Japanese scout planes and bombers searched far and wide but never saw the Admiral's ship which was almost within range of shore batteries all the time. Seven of the nine ships in the harbor of Wotje were sent to the bottom, the entire shore establishment including two hangars, antiaircraft batteries, coastal guns, and large supplies of fuel and oil were wrecked. The new airfield at Taroa was plowed up like a farm field in the spring, all fuel dumps, two hangars, and several industrial buildings were demolished, and twenty-three enemy planes were destroyed. One American bomber was lost, and the Chester, the only naval vessel to be struck, suffered a minor bomb hit in which four men were injured. Some shell fragments spattered over the Enterprise. The immediate effect of the blow was to prevent the Japanese from building up air and naval bases at points closest to Hawaii and the United States.

Admiral Nimitz characterized Halsey - known in the navy as "Fighting Bill," "Wild Bill," and "Slugger" thus: "Aggressive, audacious, yes; but not reckless. He has an uncanny ability to feel out the enemy." The "Slugger" was on the loose and the Japanese did not know where he would strike next. On February 24 he took the Enterprise, two cruisers, and seven destroyers on a trip to Wake Island where he succeeded in catching the enemy by complete surprise. Two patrol boats and three large seaplanes riding peacefully at anchor were sunk, the new airfield and installations, upon which the Japanese had been feverishly working since they had captured the island, were demolished. Antiaircraft and coastal batteries were wrecked.

A week later, on March 4, Admiral Halsey's task force showed up at Marcus Island, 769 miles north-northwest of Wake and less than 1,000 miles from Yokohama. The "Slugger" sailed deep into enemy waters and in a pre-dawn blow, during which the targets were illuminated by flares, leveled hangars and installations and chopped up the airfield. There were no enemy ships or aircraft present. One American plane was lost at Wake Island and one at Marcus. After this attack a task force centered around the Lexington was sent under Vice Admiral Wilson Brown into the Bismarck Sea - Solomons area. A combined sea and air attack was planned against Rabaul, just captured by the Japanese on New Britain.

It was Admiral Brown's force, approaching for the attack, which was sighted on February 19 by two Mitsubishi 96 twin-motored bombers off Bougainville. The enemy aircraft were promptly disposed of but not before they had had time to flash to their base the fact that hostile craft were headed toward Rabaul and to give their positions. The elements of surprise having been lost, the planned attack was put aside, but another battle not anticipated soon developed.

Late in the afternoon nine more Mitsubishis appeared in V formation. Only three survived the defense sent up by American fighter planes, and massed antiaircraft fire, long enough to reach the release point over the Lexington from which to drop their bombs. The Jap squadron leader was hit. He sent his plane into a suicide dive straight for the carrier. The plane exploded when only 100 yards from the flight deck and skilful navigation kept any of the wreckage from striking the ship. A half hour later a second wave of nine enemy planes attacked. All the American fighters, except two, were back on the carrier for more fuel. It was here that Lieutenant (j.g.) Edward H. O'Hare, an Annapolis graduate from St. Louis, Missouri, made fame. The attacking V formation was sighted a dozen miles from the ships at 12,000 feet. The two Americans started to attack. Then Lieutenant O'Hare noticed that his partner's guns had jammed and were unable to fire. He sailed into the nine Mitsubishis, first passing down the left side, then up the right and repeating the process five times. Five of the bombers reached the release point over the carrier, when Lieutenant O'Hare followed the enemy through his own antiaircraft fire. The whole engagement lasted about four minutes. When it was over the score showed that Lieutenant O'Hare - "Butch" to his mates - had destroyed five of the nine planes and had wounded a sixth so badly that it was counted lost. Eighteen of the twenty planes that had attacked the Lexington during the day had been destroyed. Two United States planes were shot down, but the pilot of one was saved.

President Roosevelt, in awarding the first Congressional Medal of Honor to go to the navy in the war, said Lieutenant O'Hare's feat was the "most daring single action in the history of combat aviation." It was the first time one aviator had destroyed so many enemy planes in one battle. Lieutenant O'Hare was promoted several grades to Lieutenant Commander and remained a terror in the Pacific for almost two years, when he was shot down during a terrific night battle off Tarawa not very far from the scene of his heroic accomplishments.

Miller, Francis Trevelyan; with a Board of Historical and Military Authorities. . Riverside Book & Bible House Iowa Falls, Iowa. 1945.

Carrier Clash This is the definitive combat history of the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, which was history's third carrier clash - a collision between U.S. Navy and Imperial Navy carriers in the wake of the invasion of Guadalcanal. Carrier Clash is also filled with detailed descriptions of the history of the aircraft carrier, the development of carrier-air tactics, the training of pilots, and numerous operational considerations. You'll even take to the air with Dauntless dive-bomber pilots as they dive onto the light carrier Ryujo and with Wildcat pilots defending their ships against an onslaught of Val dive-bombers.

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