Season 15, Episode 17: The Pacific War, Part III: Incursion

Although the Pacific War was years away from concluding, the Battle of Midway in early June of 1942 is usually seen as a major turning point in that conflict. The Japanese military had enjoyed the initiative when they struck Pearl Harbor in late 1941 but had spent much of the early months of 1942 being torn by bitter internal debate, developing rivalry between its branches, and a severe underestimation of its enemy. Even prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, there had been disagreement over the immediate next steps. A land invasion of the Hawaiian islands was proposed, and swiftly disregarded by the leadership of the Imperial Army, who were already stretched far too thin by the ongoing war with China and the impending invasion of the Philippines. While small-scale actions like the bombardment of the Ellwood Oil Field were easily executed, their only accomplishment was to spread fear among the American populace. By April of 1942, when an American bomber squadron successfully bombarded many of Japan’s major cities, including Tokyo, it was beginning to seem like Japan had started a war in which it was not entirely certain how to obtain victory.

None of this is to say, of course, that victory was impossible or permanently out of reach. Had Admiral Yamamoto’s ruse at the Battle of Midway worked as intended - with the destruction of the US’s carrier fleet - the Japanese military may have found its footing and at least contained the US while they renewed their offensive efforts in China. Unfortunately for Japan’s imperial ambitions, the ruse failed miserably and four of Japan’s carriers now sat on the bottom of the Pacific, while their own planes managed to destroy only one of the US carriers. The Imperial Japanese Navy’s losses at Midway were significant, and when the guns fell silent they had suffered over three thousand dead while their enemy lost only three hundred. Their naval losses were similarly imbalanced compared with the damage they inflicted on the US Pacific Fleet.

As the US military made plans for following up their success at Midway, in late June a Japanese submarine attacked Fort Stevens, which lies on the northern stretch of the state of Oregon’s west coast, very near its border with Washington State. In a similar maneuver to the Ellwood Oil Field attack, the submarine surfaced in the dead of night and, using its 14-cm deck gun, began bombarding the fort. However, this craft was spotted upon surfacing and the fort commander ordered a base-wide blackout, which made siting of targets very difficult for the Japanese sub crew. They fired regardless, inflicting significant damage to a nearby baseball field, a swamp, and a cluster of telephone cables. A few shells landed near the fort’s batteries and one nearly struck a concrete pillbox, but there were no casualties and the damage considered very minor. In addition to the blackout, the fort commander also gave the order not to return fire, fearing that the muzzle flares from their own guns would give their positions away to the Japanese sub. Although the actual damage from the bombardment was minimal, this fresh attack, combined with the recent seizure of the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, renewed public fears of a mass invasion of Japanese troops on the US west coast.

Meanwhile, the United States was engaging in the largest military mobilization in its entire history, recruiting volunteers, preparing a massive draft, and handing out military manufacturing contracts like candy at Halloween. The US Navy and Army were planning to follow up their victory at Midway by focusing on cutting off Japan’s access to vital resources - namely oil. The Empire of Japan’s invasion and seizure of the Dutch East Indies was motivated, in part, by the fact that those islands housed crude oil. While it was true that there was a decent amount of oil in their puppet state of Manchukuo, this was not crude but shale oil, which comes from shale rock. The Japanese were working on refining the Fushun process, by which usable oil can be extracted from shale, but this was slow-going and could not meet the massive demand of its military.

Thus, a plan was made whereby US Army troops, transported by the US Navy, would seize the Dutch East Indies by force and remove the Empire of Japan’s access to freshly-produced crude oil. In the last episode, we discussed the Battle of the Coral Sea, in which the Imperial Japanese Navy failed to seize Port Moresby on the island of New Guinea. They did manage, however, to seize the port of Tulagi, which allowed them to expand their control of the surrounding Solomon Islands which lie roughly northeast of Australia, east of the Dutch East Indies. Allied reconnaissance revealed that the Japanese were building an airstrip on the island of Guadalcanal, from which the supply line from the United States to Australia would be threatened.

The ensuing joint Navy-Army campaign would begin at the Solomon islands with the objective of taking Guadalcanal and eliminating the threat that it posed to Allied supply lines between the United States and Australia. Tulagi would also be taken and used as a foothold to push the Japanese out of the Solomon islands and eventually out of the Dutch East Indies. From there, they could push north and liberate the Philippines, reversing the Japanese advances in the region.

The Solomon Islands Campaign began on the morning of August 7, 1942, as US Marines made landings at Tulagi and several surrounding islands, including the large island of Guadalcanal. Stormy local weather conditions allowed the US ships to approach unseen, though their radio traffic had been intercepted by Japanese defenders, who prepared to launch scout planes to determine their location. While many Japanese pilots were still warming up their aircraft, US planes dive-bombed and strafed them, striking a significant blow against Japanese air power at the beginning of this engagement.

The beach landings at Guadalcanal Island were initially very calm affairs as the Japanese were not yet aware of the situation. By the time they were made aware, it was too late to mount an effective defense. However, this did not mean that US troops had an easy fight ahead of them. Japanese commanders realized very quickly the hopeless nature of their situation and ordered their troops to fight to the death. There was no way for Japanese defenders to win this battle; they chose instead to make the entire experience as unpleasant for their enemies as possible.

Meanwhile, the landings on other nearby islands proceeded with far greater immediate resistance. The Battle of Tulagi stretched over three days and the Japanese defenders chose to launch their offensives under the cover of darkness, often resorting to guerilla tactics. More than once, the many skirmishes that erupted along the line turned into hand-to-hand affairs, and accounts from surviving US soldiers often recount how the enemy often came so close that grenades needed to be used with real care, lest they injure or kill their fellow marines.

Another factor in the Guadalcanal campaign was the environment. These islands were covered in thick jungle growth which could provide advancing troops with extra cover, but also provided Japanese forces with plenty of hiding places from which they could launch their night raids. Being near the equator, the islands were also very hot and humid in late summer, and tropical disease was also a concern, though it was a bigger concern for Japanese troops which had been stationed there for some time and often suffered outbreaks of Malaria.

Shortly after the initial landings on Guadalcanal and its neighboring islands, however, disaster struck that nearly caused the failure of the entire offensive. Under the cover of darkness, a Japanese fleet launched from the nearby port of Rabaul, another eventual Allied target, hoping to locate US carriers, which were still high priority targets for the Imperial Japanese Navy. After winding through the labyrinth of islands and pressing through a broad area of open sea in the center of the Solomon Archipelago, the Japanese fleet managed to get the drop on two combined US-British fleets, using airdropped flares and powerful spotlights to guide their nighttime ordnance. The ensuing Battle of Savo Island was an unequivocal Japanese victory, and the combined fleet lost four heavy cruisers while three other cruisers suffered significant damage and endured over a thousand casualties while the Japanese fleet suffered only some minor damage and a death toll of only fifty-eight. In the aftermath, the Japanese commander, vice admiral Mikawa Gunichi, pondered taking his navy past the now-wrecked Allied fleet and striking the transports which served to ferry troops and supplies between the islands. Had he succeeded in sinking these transports, it is likely that the overall effort to take these islands would have failed. However, his ships were now out of formation and would need to be maneuvered back in place, their ammunition was nearly exhausted, and the task of reloading the now-empty torpedo tubes would be time-consuming and difficult. Because the morning was fast approaching, and Allied naval reinforcements were probably already en route, Vice Admiral Mikawa chose instead to withdraw back to Rabaul.

The Battle of Savo is ranked by some military historians as one of the worst battlefield disasters ever suffered by the US Navy. Poor coordination between the fleet groups meant that the southern group, who was struck first, never informed the northern group of what was happening, leaving them vulnerable to the devastating attack which ensued. Initial aerial recon reports which spotted the approaching Japanese fleets had misidentified or miscounted the ships, so when their reports reached Allied naval commanders, the Japanese fleet was written off as enemy recon and thus the crews were caught off guard when the shooting started. Though it was the worst defeat suffered by Allied naval forces during the Pacific War, it would not be the last.

The Guadalcanal campaign lasted for six months, finally ending in early February of 1943.  It was a hard-fought affair for both sides and the outcome was constantly in doubt. While total disaster for the Allies had been narrowly avoided, almost by sheer luck, during the Battle of Savo, it was nearly realized by the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands in late October. A few days before this consequential sea battle, Japanese ground forces had attempted to storm Henderson Field, a Japanese-built airfield on Guadalcanal which US forces had seized and were using to enable air support. The massive ground offensives launched by Japanese troops in late October failed, however, and the Imperial Japanese Navy sought to try to cut off US ground forces from their seaborne supply lines by attacking the nearby US naval forces.

The Imperial Japanese Navy’s ongoing hunt for aircraft carriers had borne fruit in recent months. Toward the end of August, the USS Enterprise was severely damaged during a major engagement near the eastern Solomon Islands and made for Pearl Harbor to be repaired. About a week later, the USS Saratoga was hit by a Japanese torpedo and put out of commission, requiring three months’ worth of repairs. In mid-September, the USS Wasp was struck by three torpedoes while supporting a supply run and ultimately had to be scuttled. For the remainder of September and most of October, the only US carrier in the Solomons theatre was the USS Hornet. However, on October 23 the USS Enterprise had been repaired, received a fresh air group, and joined the USS Hornet near Guadalcanal. During the time the Enterprise had been away, developments around Guadalcanal had settled into a stalemate, but her return forced the hand of the Imperial Japanese Navy, who launched an attack, once more targeting US carriers in a desperate bid to regain the upper hand.

The ensuing Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands was a harrowing and dramatic affair. The Japanese Combined Fleet fielded five aircraft carriers and enjoyed the support of seasoned veteran pilots. Throughout October, the Combined Fleet supported the renewed offensive against Henderson Field through artillery bombardment and air support. However, after it became clear that this new offensive had failed to remove US troops defending the field, the fleet set its sights on the next best thing: destroying the two remaining US Pacific Fleet’s carriers.

On the morning of October 26, both sides spotted each other through reconnaissance flights and prepared to attack. Obtaining the first strike in such engagements often leads, ultimately, to victory, and it was the Imperial Japanese Navy who managed to strike first as a convoy of dive bombers, torpedo bombers, and fighters attacked the USS Hornet. As the morning progressed, the Japanese pilots experienced great difficulty when trying to locate the USS Enterprise, which was concealed with its escorts by a sudden squall. Meanwhile, it was launching its own planes, organized in smaller groups in an attempt to better locate the Japanese carriers and carry out their attacks. This tactic worked fairly well: the Japanese air combat patrols were often kept busy chasing one small group of American planes while another would swoop in for the attack.

Around mid-morning, the USS Hornet was struck by three bombs, two torpedoes, and two Japanese planes which had been fatally struck by anti-aircraft fire and crashed into her deck and port side, respectively. As she was being towed away from the action, she was struck by another torpedo from an approaching aircraft and the order was given to abandon the ship. This left the USS Enterprise as the last US carrier still floating, and she had been spotted by Japanese pilots returning from their attack on the USS Hornet.

The anti-aircraft gunners stationed on the USS Enterprise fired relentlessly at approaching Japanese planes, managing to destroy quite a few. Two bombers managed to score hits against her deck, however, causing dozens of casualties and jamming the flight elevator. Torpedo planes arrived and three managed to deploy their weapons, which the men on the deck of the Enterprise could see racing toward them. Her captain ordered the ship’s pilot to cut hard to the right, hoping to evade the oncoming torpedoes and save the damaged vessel. Those on the deck watched with bated breath as the three torpedoes sailed past on their port side, which is the ship’s left for those who don’t speak nauticalese. However, another torpedo bomber now deployed his weapon, which sailed toward the ship’s starboard, or right, side. This time the captain ordered it to cut hard to port, and once more the torpedo sailed harmlessly past.

The USS Enterprise dodged at least nine torpedoes in this manner and managed to safely withdraw from the battle. The ship, and those on board who survived, would live to fight another day. The engagement continued for two more days, with battleships on both sides exchanging fire from their deck guns and Japanese planes enjoying control of the skies. The Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands was, technically, a Japanese victory. However, I tend to think of it as a tactical victory, but a strategic defeat. Although they had managed to sink the USS Hornet, they had done so at great cost and had failed to similarly destroy the USS Enterprise. Most of the Japanese pilots who were killed in action at this battle were experienced veterans whose loss would be deeply felt in future skirmishes. Also, with the offensive on Guadalcanal having already ended in defeat, there was no practical way to follow up this victory. The Japanese Combined Fleet also withdrew after chasing the US Pacific Fleet away, needing to refuel, resupply, and replace the pilots they had just lost.

Meanwhile, US Marines continued to make progress securing Guadalcanal and its surrounding islands. In late November, a Japanese destroyer fleet attempted to run the US naval blockade to deliver supplies to their beleaguered countrymen on Guadalcanal in the dead of night near an area called Tassafaronga. US ships fired on the destroyers but these shots exposed their positions and the Japanese fleet scored another victory, sinking one heavy cruiser and severely damaging three more. However, one of their own destroyers was sunk and they withdrew regardless of their victory, taking the much-needed supplies with them.

Thus in spite of their tactical victories, one of which nearly eliminated US naval air power in the area, the Imperial Japanese military realized in late 1942 that they had no hope of retaking Guadalcanal or any of the islands in its vicinity. In mid-January, a battalion of fresh Japanese troops were delivered to Guadalcanal but this was not the beginning of a new offensive effort - it was a rearguard action to protect an evacuation. The ten thousand Japanese troops who remained on Guadalcanal were ferried off the island while the Imperial Japanese Navy launched aggressive air strikes against US naval vessels to divert the enemy’s attention. By February 8, the last Japanese soldiers on the island were boarding their transports and the islands were effectively abandoned to US forces, who were extremely surprised to find the eastern Solomon Islands now under their effective control.

The naval maneuvers of the preceding three weeks had been mistaken by US intelligence for supply runs, reinforcement, and preparation for new offensives. While saving the lives of ten thousand of their own soldiers was commendible, there had been thirty-six thousand protecting those islands when the Marines first arrived. Twenty-six thousand had been killed, wounded, or captured in the course of the Guadalcanal campaign.

Now that US troops had faced off against their Japanese counterparts in actual battle, they marveled at how many Japanese soldiers were willing to engage in desperate last stands rather than surrender, as well as how many used surrender as a trap. On more than one occasion, a Japanese soldier surrendering would walk, hands up, toward American troops, only to pull the pin on a grenade when he came within range, killing himself and whomever was unfortunate enough to be standing within range. As a result of these surrender-suicides, it became somewhat commonplace among US Marines as the six-month Guadalcanal campaign pressed forward, to shoot surrendering Japanese soldiers before they came within grenade range. However, some Japanese soldiers did manage to peacefully surrender without suicidal intention and without being killed by suspicious enemies. The expectation among US high command was that such men would be poor sources of information on account of their being trained for near-religious loyalty to the emperor and to Japan itself. Ironically, the reverse turned out to be more often true.

While Japanese troops had been trained to devote their lives and death to the emperor and serve him faithfully, there was no room within that oath for what one should do if they surrendered. As POW camps began to be populated with Japanese prisoners, the US government approached the Japanese government about arranging prisoner exchanges, only to be curtly informed by their Japanese counterparts that there were no Japanese prisoners of war. The Japanese government had no interest in bringing their prisoners home, as these soldiers had vowed to fight to the death against Japan’s enemies and had, by virtue of allowing themselves to be taken prisoner, broken their word. As far as the Japanese government was concerned, these men were no longer Japanese. Surprisingly, this seems to have also been the attitude of the Japanese POWs in question, and they often proved to be a trustworthy source of vital, invaluable intelligence.

Although they had been forced to cede the eastern Solomon Islands to US control for the moment, Japanese high command had good reason to be optimistic about the ongoing war effort in China and southeast Asia. The UK colony of Burma, which corresponds to modern-day Myanmar, had been seized by Japanese troops in late 1941, coinciding with their invasion of the Philippines and the attack on Pearl Harbor. The loss of Burma meant that Chinese forces were nearly completely cut off from valuable supplies and materiel which had been arriving from the US and UK. The British hoped to reverse this misfortune in June of 1942 by launching a massive offensive against Japanese troops in Burma with the objective of reestablishing control and reopening supply lines to Chinese troops.

There were a few pre-existing disadvantages for the Allied offensive in Burma, however. The UK and US agreed on a “Europe First” policy when coordinating their joint allied efforts against the Axis Powers. While it would later be revealed that the US actually shoveled far more resources toward halting and reversing the Japanese advance after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the seizure of the Philippines, the UK very much prioritized defeating Germany above every other enemy in every other theater of the war. This meant that the coming offensive, while boasting an impressive four hundred fifty thousand British and American Allied troops, was not a top priority for the UK’s military.

Burma would be invaded from India, but this deployment was somewhat complicated later on as the Quit India Movement, led by Mahatma Gandhi, disrupted the UK’s colonial hold on its south Asian crown jewel. Further complicating matters was the fact that Burma experiences annual monsoon seasons wherein most of the nation is drenched by near-constant rainfall and occasional flooding from May through October. While it is true that these seasonal torrents likewise hindered Japanese efforts, they had already dug in and fortified for a hearty defense. A surprise offensive against encroaching Allied troops was considered but rejected by officers in the field due to the same logistical concerns facing their approaching enemies.

The initial target of the Allied offensive in Burma was Akyab Island, which hosted an airfield. The larger strategy was to use that airfield to support further incursions, enjoying the air support which it would provide. However, in spite of bold offensives against Japanese positions, the Allied attacks were largely repulsed by Japanese troops who enjoyed the protection of cement pillboxes and competent artillery support. Morale soon collapsed among the British and American troops, who persisted in the region throughout late 1942 and early 1943 but were ultimately pushed out of Burma by a smaller but far better adapted force of Japanese defenders.

Meanwhile, in Russia, Operation Barbarossa seemed fatally stalled. You may recall that the objective was for German troops to press into Russia all the way to an imaginary line between Arkhangelsk and Astrakhan, conquering the cities of Leningrad, Stalingrad, and Moscow along the way. German troops came the closest to success at Stalingrad, a high-stakes siege which, if it ended in their favor, would allow them not only proprietary access to the Volga River, but also open the Caucasus region to the south to be raided by the Nazis for its crude oil deposits.

The Battle of Stalingrad raged for over six months and the city came dangerously close to capitulation several times. Stalin, desperate to prevent the conquest of his nation, appointed Georgy Zhukov to defend the city that bore his name. In fact, Zhukov’s fortunes had taken a turn for the worse in recent years, in spite of the victories he engineered at the battles of Khalkin Gol. Stalin had placed him in charge of the defense of the city of Kiev in Ukraine, and the subsequent German Blitzkrieg had resulted in the deaths of six hundred thousand Soviet troops. The city was taken and occupied soon after the army’s defeat. However, he was reassigned to the Leningrad Front where he oversaw the Yelyna Offensive, which resulted in the first Soviet victory over German forces. He later commanded the defense of the Battle of Moscow, and managed to prevent the completion of a successful German pincer maneuver, afterward organizing a massive counterattack which repulsed the invaders and secured Russia’s capital in early January of 1942.

When German forces renewed their offensive in the summer, Zhukov commanded a bold defense of Stalingrad which successfully held the defensive line together long enough to eventually reverse Russia’s fortunes. In February of 1943, the German armed forces around Stalingrad were pulling up stakes and retreating. While the siege of Leningrad would remain in place until early 1944, the German withdrawal from Stalingrad gave the Red Army just enough breathing room to plan a fresh counter-offensive of its own which would soon avenge their losses against the Nazi aggressors.

Back in southeast Asia, Allied forces were preparing a fresh offensive of their own. With the eastern Solomon Islands now under US control and the Japanese forces still reeling from the strategic losses they suffered in spite of their tactical victories, Allied commanders planned to continue pushing Japanese forces out of the rest of the Solomon Islands and out of the Dutch East Indies as well, with the ultimate target being the port of Rabaul.

Operation Cartwheel began on June 30, 1943. The planning phases of this operation saw heated debate between General Douglas MacArthur, who wanted to press hard against Rabaul and capture it before the year’s end, and most of the other commanders, who preferred to capture the easier targets in Rabaul’s orbit and gradually isolate that well-defended port so that it could more easily be taken when the time came. MacArthur was overruled, and Operation Cartwheel commenced with a fresh amphibious assault against the island of New Georgia.

The naval battles that ensued favored the Allied forces as the Imperial Japanese Navy in southeast Asia was still recovering from its losses and repairing its many damaged vessels. This naval superiority allowed Allied ships to lend artillery support to the troops on the island and their Japanese opponents abandoned the island in August after several major Allied successes on the ground. The next target was an island called Vella Lavella, and it would prove a much more difficult objective. The fighting there lasted for nearly two months, stretching well into October, but ultimately resulted in an Allied success.

The island of Bougainville was also subjected to an Allied offensive, though this rather large, mountainous, jungle island would prove very defensible and the Allied troops there would be bogged down in hard fighting until the end of the Pacific War in 1945. Several other islands in the vicinity were given their own amphibious landings and assaults and by late 1943, the port of Rabaul was effectively cut off from Japanese troops in its vicinity. When the Imperial Japanese Navy attempted to reinforce Rabaul by sending around three hundred pilots from nearby carrier craft to reinforce the base, these proved to be little more than targets for Allied bombers, whose raids killed between two to three hundred of the veteran pilots now stationed at the port. These were losses which the Empire of Japan could not easily make up and which would ultimately prove fatal to its war efforts.

Next time, we will continue this multi-part series discussing the Pacific War as the Allied forces in the south Pacific continue making costly gains against a determined but now disadvantaged opponent.