History of the Second World War (105 page)

The situation in the Pacific at the approach of spring 1944 was that the Central Pacific forces commanded by Admiral Spruance, under the higher direction of Admiral Nimitz, had successively captured the Gilbert and the Marshall Islands, while devastating by air attack the Japanese base of Truk in the Caroline Islands, and thus severely denting what the Japanese had defined as their essential rearward barrier zone of defence. Meanwhile General MacArthur’s forces in the South-west Pacific had successively captured most of the Bismarck Archipelago and the Admiralty Islands, piercing that barrier zone, while effectively neutralising the advanced Japanese base at Rabaul. At the same time MacArthur’s forces had considerably extended their westward advance in New Guinea, and were preparing their next big bound, to the Philippines.

THE RECONQUEST OF NEW GUINEA

The continuance of the campaign in New Guinea was marked by a development of the leap-frogging method that had been tried earlier in the Solomon Islands. In four months MacArthur’s forces advanced a thousand miles by a series of such hops — from the Madang area to the Vogelkop Peninsula at the western end of New Guinea. The Japanese had hoped to keep their hold on the few suitable coastal points where airfields could be built, but the Allies, unable to outflank these positions on the landward side, utilised their superior air and naval strength to carry out by-passing moves along the coast.

The Japanese strategic situation was weak as the main air and naval forces were kept back to meet Admiral Spruance’s next advance in the central Pacific. On the ground, too, the Japanese were dispersed as well as unsupported. The so-called 8th Area Army at Rabaul was left to defend itself, while on the northern coast of New Guinea, the remnants of Adachi’s so-called 18th Army at Wewak were put under Anami’s 2nd Area Army, making a total of six weak divisions to face fifteen Allied divisions (eight American and seven Australian), which were backed by a heavy superiority in the air and at sea.

During April the 7th Australian Division, and then the 11th, pushed westward along the coast from Madang, while MacArthur was mounting a fresh bound, his biggest yet, to capture the key base of Hollandia, on Humboldt Bay, over 200 miles west of Wewak.

The landings were preceded by a series of heavy bombing raids which destroyed, on the ground, most of the 350 aircraft that the Japanese had scraped up to defend the area. Then on April 22 landings were made on either side of Hollandia by two amphibious groups, while another group landed at Aitape (about a third of the way from Wewak) to seize the airfields there as a further precaution. Allied Intelligence estimates had put the Japanese strength at Hollandia as 14,000 and at Aitape as 3,500, so to make sure of success MacArthur employed nearly 50,000 troops, mainly from Eichelberger’s U.S. 1st Corps, in the operation. Actually the defending forces proved to be even less than estimated, and consisted largely of administrative troops, who offered no serious opposition and fled inland after the initial bombardment.

As a result Adachi’s three weak divisions at Wewak were cut off. Rather than make another circuitous and exhausting retreat through the interior he chose to attempt a direct break-out along the coast, but by the time he launched it, in July, MacArthur had reinforced the American lodgement at Aitape with three strong divisions, and the break-out attempt was repelled with heavy loss.

Long before this abortive counterattack the Americans had moved on 120 miles westward to their next objective, the offshore island of Wakde, where the Japanese had built an airfield. In mid-May the Americans landed a force at Toem on the New Guinea coast, and then crossed the narrow strait to Wakde Island — but there the small Japanese garrison put up a stiff though short resistance, while the American coastal advance to Sarmi met more prolonged opposition. Nevertheless the Japanese defence of New Guinea had now become, in the broad sense, sporadic and chaotic. American submarines were causing heavy losses to troopship convoys from China, while the central Pacific threat to the Marianas annulled the hope that further Japanese reinforcements would be sent to New Guinea.

MacArthur’s next leap was made barely a month after the capture of Hollandia, and only ten days after the landings at Toem and Wakde Island. It was to capture Biak Island, with its airfields, which was 350 miles west of Hollandia (and 220 miles beyond Wakde). This operation did not go so smoothly. In contrast to the case of Hollandia the Americans greatly underestimated the strength of the garrison, which was over 11,000 men, and although their initial landings on May 27 met little resistance the situation changed when they pushed inland to occupy the airfields. For the Japanese had chosen to avoid any attempt to hold the beaches, where they could be crushed by bombardment from the Allied ships and aircraft, and had posted the bulk of their garrison in caves and entrenched positions on the high ground overlooking the airfields, while their counterattacks with tanks even cut off for a time part of the American infantry. Although MacArthur poured in reinforcements, the clearing of the island became a slow, grinding, process — and was not completed until August. It cost the American ground forces nearly 10,000 casualties; a large proportion, however, was due to disease, and deaths in action were only about 400. It was a foretaste of the problem and the trouble they would meet in their landing at Iwo Jima nine months later, in February 1945.

The effect of the very tough resistance of the Japanese on Biak might have been greater if the High Command, in Japan, had persevered with its belated decision to reinforce Biak. Reversing its earlier decision to concentrate on defending the Marianas, it sent a convoy of troop transports to Biak early in June, covered by a large force of warships and aircraft from the Marianas. But the move was postponed five days owing to a mistaken report that a U.S. carrier force was at Biak, while on the second attempt the Japanese encountered a U.S. cruiser and destroyer group and promptly retreated. The Japanese High Command then sent a stronger covering force, including the giant battleships
Yamato
and
Musashi,
but the very day after its arrival near New Guinea, the U.S. carrier groups of the Central Pacific force began their attacks on the Marianas — and the Japanese naval force was rushed back northward to meet this greater threat. The two-pronged American advance across the Pacific had again proved its alternating value in dislocating the enemy’s balance.

By contrast, MacArthur had lost no time when the advance on the Biak airfields was slowed down, and mounted an alternative attack on the nearby island of Noemfoor. This landing was made on July 2, after the heavy air and naval bombardment, and all its three airfields were captured by the 6th.

Having no air-strength left, the Japanese on the mainland had already begun to retire to the extreme western tip of the Vogelkop Peninsula. On July 30 MacArthur put a division ashore near Cape Sansapor, and without any preliminary bombing or bombardment, as there were known to be no Japanese troops in that remote stretch of the peninsula. A defensive zone was speedily constructed, and work started on building further airfields there.

The way was now clear for a leap to the Philippines, supported from three groups of airfields at the western end of New Guinea. The remnants of the five Japanese divisions still in New Guinea could be ignored, and were left for the Australians to mop up.

THE CAPTURE OF THE MARIANAS — AND THE BATTLE OF THE PHILIPPINE SEA

The attack on the Marianas, by Admiral Spruance’s central Pacific prong, marked the American penetration of Japan’s inner ring of defence. From there, the American bombing forces could strike at Japan herself, as well as at the Philippines, Formosa and China. At the same time the capture of the Marianas brought a strangling threat to Japan’s line of communications with her recently acquired southern empire.

In the Marianas the vital islands were, as elsewhere, those with airfields — Saipan, Tinian, and Guam. They were held by garrisons of, respectively, 32,000, 9,000, and 18,000 troops. The Japanese air strength there was nominally 1,400 planes, but actually much smaller as many had been sent to New Guinea and many more destroyed by the carrier groups of Admiral Mitscher’s fast carrier force, which had been striking at the bases from February onward. Even so, the Japanese hoped to have 500 aircraft available if they could obtain some reinforcement from other areas. Their naval forces in the area, under Admiral Ozawa, were organised in three groupings — the main battle fleet of four battleships, with three light carriers, cruisers, and destroyers, under Admiral Kurita; the main carrier force of three fleet carriers, with cruisers and destroyers, under Ozawa himself; and a reserve carrier force under Admiral Joshima of two fleet carriers and one light carrier, with a battleship as well as cruisers and destroyers.

The Japanese had prepared a counter to the American seaborne advance across the Pacific, and hoped to utilise it as a trap for Spruance’s forces, whereby his carriers could be smashed. The plan had been drawn up in August 1943 by the Naval Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Koga, but at the end of March 1944 he and his flying-boat had been lost — when withdrawing his headquarters from Truk to Davao in the Philippines — and he had been succeeded by Admiral Toyoda, who took over the counterstroke plan with some alteration. Toyoda’s hope, and aim, was to lure the American carrier forces into the waters cast of the Philippines, and there ‘pincer’ them between Ozawa’s powerful carrier force and aircraft operating from bases in the mandated islands.

The American invasion armada for the Marianas sailed from the Marshalls on June 9, the landings on Saipan being planned for the 15th. Two days later Mitscher’s carriers began an intensified bombing of the target islands, and by the 13th the U.S. battleships had developed a heavy bombardment of Saipan and Tinian. At the same time Admiral Toyoda ordered ‘Operation A-Go’ to begin — the long-planned Japanese counter-operation — and that decision caused, as already mentioned, the abandonment of the attempt to reinforce Biak Island and retain a hold in New Guinea.

The American armada comprised three Marine divisions, with an Army division in reserve, closely supported by a naval force of twelve escort carriers, five battleships, and eleven cruisers, while behind these was Admiral Spruance’s 5th Fleet, the most powerful fleet in the world, comprising seven battleships, twenty-one cruisers, and sixty-nine destroyers, together with Admiral Mitscher’s four carrier groups (fifteen carriers and 956 aircraft). The task of bringing nearly 130,000 troops to the Marianas from Hawaii and Guadalcanal was finely organised and executed.

On the morning of the 15th the first wave of Marines landed on the beaches of Saipan, covered by heavy naval shelling, inshore gunboats and rocket-firing aircraft — 8,000 Marines being put ashore in twenty minutes, which was testimony to their high degree of training. But although the total troops ashore was increased to 20,000 by nightfall, little advance had been made from the beaches owing to the way that the Japanese controlled the heights, and to their fierce counterattacks.

A more distant but still greater threat to the invasion came from the Japanese fleet, with its battleships and carriers — which had been spotted steaming into the Philippine Sea that morning by U.S. submarines. Spruance thereupon cancelled the intended landings on Guam, put his reserve of troops, the 27th Division, ashore at Saipan to speed up the capture of this key island, and cleared the transports away to safer waters. The 5th Fleet assembled some 180 miles west of Tinian, but did not move farther west in case it missed the Japanese fleet.

This defensive positioning proved wise. Up to now Toyoda’s plan seemed to be working out well, but for the important difference that the second arm of his pincer was not operating — as Mitscher’s carrier planes had wiped out the Japanese air forces on the Marianas. From 8.30 a.m. on June 19, Ozawa’s carriers delivered four successive strikes — but all of them were detected in advance by the U.S. radar, and hundreds of fighter aircraft flown off to meet them, while Mitscher’s carrier-borne bombers again attacked the Japanese island airbases. The outcome of this tremendous battle aloft was the massacre that became known as ‘The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot’. The American pilots gained an overwhelming advantage over the less experienced Japanese, who lost 218 aircraft and brought down only twenty-nine American planes. Worse still, two of the Japanese fleet carriers, the
Shokaku
and
Taiho
, both containing many more aircraft, were torpedoed and sunk by American submarines.

Ozawa, believing that his planes had landed on Guam, still hung around the battle area, and was thus spotted by U.S. reconnaissance planes the following afternoon — whereupon Admiral Mitscher launched a strike by 216 of his carrier-borne planes, although knowing that their recovery would have to be in the dark. Three hours after the sighting, his planes delivered their attack, and so effectively that they sank one fleet carrier (and damaged two more, plus two light carriers, a battleship, and a heavy cruiser), as well as destroying sixty-five Japanese planes. They lost only twenty of their own planes in action, although a further eighty were lost or crashed on the long night return flight. Many of their crews were saved, however, as Ozawa’s ships had fled from the scene, towards Okinawa in the Ryukyu Islands south of Japan.

By that time the Japanese loss of aircraft in the battle had totalled about 480, over three-quarters of their total, and most of their crews were lost. The destruction of such a large proportion of the Japanese planes and carriers was a very serious loss — although by the autumn the planes and carriers were largely replaced. Far worse was the loss of so many pilots, for these could not be replaced. It meant that in any further battle in the near future the Japanese Fleet would be heavily handicapped, and forced to rely mainly on its more traditional armaments.

The Battle of the Philippine Sea thus turned out a very grave Japanese defeat — the American naval historian Admiral S. E. Morison considered it even more important than the subsequent Battle of Leyte Gulf, in October. The way to the Philippines was now wide open, and the land battles in the Marianas were assured of success.