Fortress Rabaul (27 page)

Two days after Norman’s Catalina was forced down, Sqn. Ldr. Godfrey Hemsworth and his crew took off for a lengthy reconnaissance flight. Fourteen hours into the mission they came across a pair of Japanese destroyers southeast of Misima Island. Before the initial sighting report could be transmitted in full, a new message from the Catalina stated that the plane was under attack. Once again, nothing more was heard from the aircraft. No Japanese carriers were operating in the area, but the converted seaplane tender
Kamikawa Maru
was busy setting up an advance base at nearby Deboyne Island. Perhaps one of its floatplanes encountered the Catalina and shot it down. Although the circumstances are speculative, this much is known: Hemsworth and his entire crew were killed when their plane crashed near Misima. In a span of two days a total of eighteen airmen—including one of Australia’s most experienced pilots—were lost while patrolling the Coral Sea.

The reconnaissance effort was not in vain. On the afternoon of May 3, Allied planes located the Tulagi invasion fleet in the southern Solomons. The sighting reports were received by Task Force 17, as were a few panicky messages from the Australian garrison at Tulagi. Rear Admiral Fletcher, well south of the Solomons, expected to rendezvous the next day with the former ANZAC squadron commanded by Rear Admiral Crace, but the reports prompted him to alter his plans.

Taking
Yorktown
north at high speed, Fletcher reached a position approximately one hundred miles south of Guadalcanal by dawn on May 4. Although too late to prevent the invasion of Tulagi,
Yorktown
launched twenty-eight SBD Dauntlesses, twelve TBD Devastators, and six F4F Wildcats to attack the enemy naval force. The raiders caught the Japanese totally by surprise, but from the Americans’ point of view the results were disappointing. Problems with fogged-over bombsights and faulty torpedoes limited the damage to only a few confirmed hits, prompting Fletcher to launch two additional strikes. By the end of the day,
Yorktown’s
airmen had dropped twenty-two torpedoes and seventy-six 1,000-pound bombs; they also fired tens of thousands of machine gun rounds while strafing ships or shooting down a handful of pesky floatplanes. Bullets proved nearly as effective as bombs and torpedoes against the lightly constructed vessels, but for all the ordnance expended, only the destroyer
Kikuzuki
was sunk outright. A large minesweeper,
Tama Maru
, was mortally damaged and sank two days later; two other warships suffered minor damage; and two small wooden patrol ships (former whalers used for minesweeping) were blown up by direct hits. The cost to the
Yorktown
: only three planes, with all pilots and crewmen rescued.

Fletcher’s attack stunned the Japanese. At 25th Air Flotilla headquarters in Rabaul, Rear Admiral Yamada scrambled to react. A raid against Port Moresby by G3Ms of the Genzan Air Group was called off and the planes were rearmed with torpedoes to strike back at the American task force.

But the Americans counterpunched first. Six Marauders took off from Port Moresby and attacked Vunakanau airdrome, dropping dozens of 100-pound demolition bombs on the runway area. They found the Japanese bombers parked in the southwest corner of the airfield, and the Marauder crews claimed the destruction of twelve to fifteen G3Ms. According to Japanese records, however, only five were actually hit—and all five were deemed repairable. Evidently, much of what the American airmen saw was the combination of several large fires as fifty drums of fuel, two gasoline trucks, and a utility vehicle went up in flames at Vunakanau.

Continuing to react to the threat posed by Fletcher’s warships, Yamada ordered additional patrol planes to cover the Port Moresby Invasion Force as it got underway from Simpson Harbor on the afternoon of May 4. Australian POWs could not help but be impressed by the size of the fleet steaming out of the harbor. Counting nearly thirty ships, they began to refer to the spectacle as the “Day of the Armada.” Civilian nurse Alice Bowman, held prisoner at Vunapope, watched in amazement as “a sleek Jap aircraft carrier” headed down St. George’s Channel in company with four heavy cruisers.

The carrier was
Shoho
, centerpiece of Rear Adm. Aritomo Goto’s Support Force. The flattop and its escorts from the 6th Cruiser Division had provided cover for the Tulagi operation the previous day, then made a quick dash to Rabaul to cover the departure of the Port Moresby Invasion
Force. Once the transports were safely away, the support force turned toward the last reported position of the American carriers. The invasion fleet, meanwhile, headed south for the Jomard Passage, which would lead them through the Louisiade Archipelago en route to Port Moresby.

Intent on finding these naval forces, the Allies launched dozens of reconnaissance flights from Queensland, Horn Island, and Port Moresby. At 1035 on May 4, a Mitchell crew from the 90th Bombardment Squadron reported “a carrier and two heavy cruisers” sixty miles southwest of Bougainville. Before they could send more details, the B-25 was driven away by enemy fighters. The next day, another B-25 from the 90th found the carrier, which turned out to be
Shoho
, and loitered overhead for more than an hour while the radio operator transmitted a homing signal. The idea was that B-17s would track the radio frequency and attack the carrier, but no friendly bombers responded.

At Port Moresby that evening, a crew from the 40th Recon Squadron prepared to continue the surveillance of the
Shoho
. “We are to go out tomorrow at 12:45 A.M. and locate an aircraft carrier & its escorts,” John Steinbinder noted during his overnight stay. “
Three B-17s came in
tonight loaded with 600# bombs. We are to go out and spot [the carrier] so that we can radio its position and these 3 are to bomb it.”

The B-17s, all from the 19th Bomb Group at Townsville, would augment the 40th Recon Squadron over the next several days. Their presence at the crowded airdrome was a calculated risk. The big bombers made easy targets for Japanese raiders, but the Allies were determined to put as many aircraft as possible into the skies over the Coral Sea.

The early morning mission went off as planned, although the recon Fortress did not take off until 0345 due to mechanical problems. By 0800 the crew found the
Shoho
in company with two destroyers, two cruisers, and a seaplane tender. “We circled above them at 14,000 and radioed their position back to Moresby,” noted Steinbinder in his diary. Back at Seven Mile, the waiting B-17s rumbled into the air and headed for the coordinates given by Steinbinder. For a while, the lone Fortress continued to shadow the Japanese warships, but when a pair of fighters took off from the carrier’s flight deck and climbed rapidly, the B-17 judiciously headed north “at full speed” to begin the next segment of its scheduled mission.

The B-17s from Port Moresby attacked
Shoho
in the vicinity of Bougainville, but just as with every previous attempt to bomb ships from
high altitude, the Fortresses failed to record a single hit. The lack of success did not surprise Dick Carmichael. “
We couldn’t hit the side of a barn
,” he acknowledged later. “With the Norden bombsight, which is all we had at that time, on a clear day at twenty thousand, twenty-five thousand, or thirty thousand feet … a B-17 or B-24 is not going to make any hits on a ship maneuvering below, any kind of a ship.”

The first attempt to sink
Shoho
had been a failure, but now the carrier’s location was well known—and the next attack would have a much different outcome.

AT ALMOST EXACTLY the same hour, the crew of a Kawanishi flying boat sent an important message to Rabaul. They had allegedly sighted “one battleship, one aircraft carrier, three A-class cruisers and five destroyers” approximately 420 miles southwest of Shortland Island. The news thrilled Rear Admiral Yamada and his staff, who presumed
Yorktown
and Task Force 17 had been located. Fletcher had no battleships, but he did have three cruisers and six destroyers. The Japanese simply mistook the 9,950-ton
Astoria
, largest of the cruisers, for a battleship. At Vunakanau, ground crews again began loading torpedoes into G3Ms of the Genzan Air Group, but headquarters decided the American fleet was too far away, and the attack order was never issued.

By the afternoon of May 6, after casting about for two days in search of each other, the opposing forces had developed a relatively clear tactical picture. Yamada ordered the
rikko
units at Vunakanau to prepare for dawn searches and possible strikes against the American carriers. Aboard
Yorktown
, now in company with the
Lexington
task force, Fletcher deduced that the Port Moresby invasion fleet would pass through the Louisiade Archipelago. He ordered his combined forces—which also included Rear Admiral Crace’s cruiser support group—to cut them off.

Daybreak on May 7 found the opposing sides sending out dozens of planes to reconnoiter the Coral Sea. Before long, the radio channels were filled with sighting reports. First, the crew of a Nakajima B5N from
Shokaku
found two American ships, the oiler
Neosho
and the destroyer
Sims
, approximately 160 miles south of the MO Striking Force. Somehow the airmen mistook the big oiler for a carrier, possibly because it was located approximately where Rear Admiral Hara expected to find the American flattops. Upon receiving the erroneous
sighting report, Hara began launching strike planes from
Shokaku
and
Zuikaku
at 0800.

BUT TASK FORCE 17 was not where the Japanese anticipated. Instead, the carriers were more than three hundred miles to the west, approaching Rossel Island in the Louisiade Archipelago. Nearby, the cruiser support group under Rear Admiral Crace had just detached from the main force and was proceeding directly toward the Jomard Passage, where Crace planned to block any attempts by the invasion fleet to reach Port Moresby. His warships had hardly separated from Task Force 17 when a floatplane from the heavy cruiser
Furutaka
found them.

The floatplane’s sighting report reached 25th Air Flotilla headquarters at approximately 0830, and amplifying information was received from two additional search planes soon thereafter. Yamada responded by ordering an immediate strike. Lieutenant Kuniharu Kobayashi led twelve Type 1
rikko
armed with torpedoes aloft at 0950, followed by an escort of eleven Zeros. Slightly more than an hour later, nineteen Type 96
rikko
carrying bombs took off and headed independently toward the last position given by the
Furutaka’s
floatplane.

Meanwhile, the crew of an SBD scout bomber from
Yorktown
had found
Shoho
about forty miles northwest of Misima Island at 0845.
Yorktown
and
Lexington
both began launching aircraft at 0926, and within forty-five minutes a force totaling ninety-three aircraft was on its way to attack the Japanese flattop. Ironically, there were now four different attack groups in the air—three Japanese and one American—each searching for distant targets.

The blue-gray planes of the U.S. Navy struck first. A trio of dive-bombers opened the attack on
Shoho
at 1110, and for the next twenty-one minutes the flattop was at the mercy of dozens of dive-bombers and torpedo planes. But no mercy was given. For the first time since Pearl Harbor, American forces had the upper hand on an enemy carrier. The Navy pilots literally smashed the diminutive
Shoho
, hitting the flattop with thirteen bombs and seven torpedoes. It sank at 1135, only four minutes after the captain gave the order to abandon ship.

AFTER A LENGTHY SEARCH, Lt. Cmdr. Kakuichi Takahashi, leader of the combined strike force from
Zuikaku
and
Shokaku
, reached the
frustrating conclusion that the American carriers were not where the scout planes reported they would be. Only two ships had been found, a large oiler and a destroyer. The Nakajima Type 97s with their heavy torpedoes were getting low on fuel, so Takahashi directed them to return to their carriers along with the Zeros. He then turned his thirty-six Aichi Type 99 dive-bombers loose on the oiler and its escort.

The antiaircraft gunners aboard
Neosho
and
Sims
could not cope with so many attackers. At 1126 three bombs struck
Sims
in quick succession and broke her back. The destroyer sank quickly, stern first. Scores of sailors leapt into the water, but two powerful explosions from the ship’s depth charges killed many of the struggling swimmers. A whaleboat picked up only fifteen survivors, all enlisted men, two of whom later died from massive injuries.

The much larger
Neosho
was pummeled by seven direct hits, and the pilot of a crippled dive-bomber deliberately crashed his plane into the mangled ship. Eight more bombs struck the water near
Neosho
, causing severe splinter damage, but the sturdy oiler refused to sink. Dead in the water, the oiler drifted for four days, her wretched survivors trapped on board. Help did not arrive until May 11, when the American destroyer
Henley
rescued what was left of the crew and then finished off the abandoned wreck with torpedoes.

HUNDREDS OF MILES to the west, eight B-17s lumbered into the air from Townsville to attack the Japanese invasion fleet. Major Edward C. Teats recalled, “We were to find the Jap convoy and hit it before sunset, if possible.” It was a tall order. The enemy ships were more than seven hundred miles to the northeast, yet General Brett sent the heavy bombers in the hopes of accomplishing something positive for a change. Two B-17s turned back because of engine trouble, but the remaining six crossed the Coral Sea in pairs, each element separated by about five minutes. After several hours of flying, the first element sighted the Port Moresby Invasion Force. Bursting antiaircraft shells alerted the other two flights, and Teats looked down to see ships “maneuvering wildly in all directions, like an aggregation of excited water bugs.”