United States Navy League 1999 Samuel Eliot Morison Essay Contest NATIONAL WINNER The subject: The freedoms we hold dear did not come without a price. The heroism of our Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and US-flag Merchant Marine forces has had a profound impact on preserving these freedoms. Many maritime events have shaped and determined the course of our nation, and today a strong maritime force is still the backbone of our economic prosperity and worldwide influence. Your challenge is to select the one event, between 1900 and the present, which you believe most contributed to preserving our freedoms, and explain its lasting historical impact. The Naval Battle of Guadacanal November 13-15, 1942 By Whitney Blake Price February 13, 1999 ---------------------------------------------------------------- While initially choosing the single maritime event of the twentieth century that most influenced our freedoms might seem a daunting task, a careful process of elimination effectively narrows the scope. By confining the search to this century, one eliminates John Paul Jones, the Civil War, and the naval tradition defining War of 1812. Numerous maritime operations since 1900, including several Caribbean incursions and, though much larger, Desert Storm and Vietnam, were aimed at thwarting petty tyrants or protecting U.S. economic interests. In each instance American freedoms were not directly threatened. The Navy performed brilliantly during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, but ultimately, the threat of nuclear war ended the crisis, leaving only three major global conflicts for consideration. The United States was a late starter in World War I, participating in no significant maritime events. Korea seems similar to Desert Storm, but in reality was a direct confrontation between the world's free peoples and the two most powerful communist nations bent on exporting their societal doctrine. The Korean War contained one significant maritime event, the amphibious landing at Inchon, which completely turned the tide of the war. The landings were completely negated, however, by the unexpected Chinese invasion. While eventually Korea became significant because of the check to communism, Inchon, because all its gains were lost, was not. Only World War II, Samuel Eliot Morison's primary domain, remains for examination. Against Nazi Germany, the Battle of the Atlantic emerges as most important, but it is hard to categorize a five-year long struggle involving hundreds of skirmishes and heavy allied participation as a single event. The largest amphibious landing in history, D-Day, also involved allies. However, the ultimate defeat of Germany was not in doubt prior to the landing. When viewing the Pacific war against the Japanese, a truly maritime conflict, one removes battle losses, most draws, and unopposed (by warships) amphibious landings from consideration. Leyte Gulf and the Philippine Sea exist as triumphs of industrial might. Occurring in 1944, the fleet was simply too strong to be defeated by any navy that the Japanese could muster. Though Midway, an event in June of 1942 where an inferior U.S. fleet sank four enemy aircraft carriers while losing only one, probably arises as the popular choice, further analysis deems this battle a triumph of code breaking and luck more than of great combat skill. American forces fought courageously, and the leadership took advantage of every opportunity, but alter the battle scenario even slightly and the outcome could easily have been different. Ultimately, the consequential battle of the pivotal Pacific campaign, the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, emerges from such vigorous culling as the single maritime event in this century that has most influenced our freedoms. The Japanese plan for winning the war in the Pacific consisted of three parts. First, the threat of the U.S. Navy necessitated immediate action. Removal of this threat was only partially accomplished at Pearl Harbor. Second, territories with needed natural resources, especially oil-rich Borneo and Java, called for a quick and decisive capture. This campaign was completed at an even faster rate than planned. Third, since any direct invasion of the continental United States was utterly impossible, protection of the newly acquired lands demanded construction of a defense perimeter with naval bases and interlocking airfields. The intent was to make any American counterattack so costly that the U.S. would eventually agree to peace terms in which Japan kept its conquered territories. Fortunately for America, this was not quite accomplished. The defense perimeter had a hole in it. The island of New Guinea was the southern anchor in the defense perimeter because of its location as a stepping stone to the Philippines. The recapture of the Philippines by the Americans would cut off Borneo oil supplies. The island is two flat land masses separated by an almost impassable mountain range. The Australians, bolstered by General Douglas MacArthur's growing American forces, held the southern half. Victory by the Japanese rested on the defeat of these forces. Overland attempts failed in the easily defended mountains and in May of 1942, an amphibious landing was postponed because of the draw suffered in the Coral Sea Battle. The disaster at Midway in June forced a cancellation of the entire landing as the Japanese navy could no longer provide air support. The only way to dislodge MacArthur was to cut off his supplies. To that end the Japanese occupied an island in the southeastern end of the Solomon's chain and began building an airfield there from which Japanese aircraft could slice through the already long and tenuous American supply line to Hawaii. The island was Guadalcanal. The U.S. leadership understood the significance of the airfield on Guadalcanal. A marine division, traveling to another location, was rerouted to the island, landing on August 7th, 1942. The Japanese were completely surprised, and the still unfinished airfield was easily captured. Both sides began a furious troop build-up, and the marines completed construction of the runway, naming it Henderson Field after a marine pilot who perished at Midway. No Japanese ship was then safe within two hundred miles of Guadalcanal in daylight. Japanese troops and supplies for Guadalcanal departed from Rabaul, New Britain, under the command of one of the war's most capable officers, Admiral Raizo Tanaka. He was forced to use warships, mainly destroyers with a small cargo capacity, to ferry the supplies because only they were fast enough to dart in from the two hundred mile limit and return before the dawn brought American dive bombers. Every third night or so Tanaka completed a run, nicknamed the "Tokyo Express," but each provided barely enough supplies to sustain the troops on the island. On land neither side had enough men to defeat the other. Henderson Field controlled the seas around the island during the day, but the superior Japanese surface fleet controlled them at night. Since so many ships of both sides were sunk in the waters just north of Guadalcanal, the area became known as "Iron Bottom Sound." The Japanese fleet commander, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the architect of the Pearl Harbor raid, realized that be had to send large quantities of troops and supplies to Guadalcanal to break the stalemate on land which was sustaining MacArthur in New Guinea. To do this he would have to use large capacity, but slow merchant transport ships that would be easy prey for bombers. Therefore, all American air power, both Henderson and the aircraft carrier fleet, had to be eliminated. Unfortunately for Yamamoto, the Americans had held a slight advantage in carriers since Midway. Nevertheless, he got his chance in October when submarines damaged the Saratoga and sank the Wasp. Yamamoto then gathered all his available carrier strength to destroy the American fleet. In the resulting Battle of Santa Cruz, the Japanese sank the Hornet and forced the badly damaged Enterprise to flee south to safety. However, two Japanese carriers suffered severe damage and nearly one hundred Japanese planes were lost. With both aircraft carrier fleets impotent, Yamamoto formulated a new plan. Ten thousand troops and a month's worth of supplies were crammed into eleven transports and sent to the two hundred mile barrier under Tanaka who was to wait there until he received word that Henderson was neutralized. Tanaka needed two days free of Henderson planes, one for the trip and the other to unload when he arrived. Yamamoto planned to give him one day extra by having three bombardment groups shell Henderson into submission on the nights of the 13th-l5th of November. The first group, led by Admiral Hiroaki Abe, centered around two battleships, the Hiei and Kirishima, loaded with guns firing huge 1400-pound shells. The second, commanded by Gunichi Mikawa, consisted of three heavy cruisers with smaller eight-inch guns firing 250-pound shells. The last under Nobutake Kondo, grouped together two more heavy cruisers and Abe's battleships after loading more ammunition. Opposition by the United States Navy was not expected. The American area commander, Admiral William Halsey, uncovered the Japanese plan when his search planes discovered Abe's ships heading for Guadalcanal. At that instant a convoy was unloading supplies for his marines ashore. Halsey ordered the convoy's escorting warships under Admirals Daniel Callaghan and Norman Scott to block Abe's Henderson attack. These American ships were woefully inadequate for the assignment. Callaghan had eight destroyers carrying standard, but puny, five inch guns and three light cruisers with only one carrying guns larger than five inches. Two heavy cruisers were his most powerful ships. Abe, in addition to his battleships, commanded one light cruiser and eleven destroyers which were comparable to the American destroyers in all but one respect--the Japanese ships carried the best torpedo in the world. Nicknamed the "long lance," it carried more explosives and had double the range of its American counterpart. The stage was set for the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. The U.S. formation, a single column with the cruisers in the middle, was faulty as the destroyers were almost useless. Moreover, the American leaders did nor trust their new radar. The newest ship with the newest radar model was placed last in the column. The Japanese formation was faulty also, but not by design. With no radar, Abe had stationed his destroyers well out ahead and on the flanks of his big ships, but he had ordered several turns to avoid blinding rain squalls, so the fleet was scattered. At 1:00 a.m. when Abe was about to enter Iron Bottom Sound, his lead destroyers were actually behind him straining to catch up. Abe's huge mistake was not waiting for them, as he simply assumed that no enemy would be present. The battle started when his flagship, the Hiei, and a flank destroyer blundered into the ungainly American column. Sighting the cruiser Atlanta, both Japanese ships switched on their searchlights and opened fire. Almost all of the American ships responded immediately, shooting at the enemy pinpointed by their lights. The destroyer was shot to pieces in seconds, and the Hiei began receiving an alarming number of hits. She switched off the lights, but she could still be seen in the darkness because of deck fires started by the small American shells. In a hailstorm of fire, Abe ordered a retreat until he could assess the situation. It was his last battle order as the Hiei's radio room was hit, and Abe lost the ability to control any of his other ships. The situation for the Americans was even worse. The Atlanta was hit by the Hiei, killing Admiral Scott as the San Francisco mistakenly also fired on the Atlanta in the darkness and confusion. The unseen Kirishima, along with the Hiei, pummeled the San Francisco with thirteen hits, killing Admiral Callaghan. With both American admirals dead and Abe unable to communicate, the battle degenerated into what became known as the "barroom brawl." Both fleets vainly tried to obey the last received orders no longer relevant to the actual situation, thereby causing the Americans to sail right through the turning Japanese. Ships designed to fight at ranges of many miles found themselves shooting at a range of less than one. Several of Abe's staff officers were wounded when an American destroyer passed by only yards away firing machine guns in through the windows. Finally, the trailing Japanese destroyers arrived and used their long lances effectively. After an hour the fleets separated. The carnage was horrible on both sides, The Americans lost a light cruiser and four destroyers, and both heavy cruisers and a destroyer were grievously damaged. The Japanese lost two destroyers and left with three more badly damaged as Abe's intact surviving ships sailed off to join Kondo. And then there was the Hiei. Unable to move after more than sixty hits, she was sunk after daylight by dive bombers from Henderson. The retreating Americans just tried to escape, but the cruiser Juneau was lost to a submarine later that morning. In terms of ships lost and men killed, the Japanese emerged victorious, but Henderson Field had been spared, so on this day at least, the Americans prevailed. Even as Halsey mourned the death of his friends, scout planes found Mikawa's cruisers as well as Kondo's more distant force. Halsey detached his two new battleships from guarding the Enterprise and sent them north under command of Admiral Willis Lee to protect Henderson. They arrived too late to block Mikawa who entered the sound unmolested and fired thirteen hundred shells at the field. However, the lighter cruiser guns did not sufficiently damage the runway. At dawn all three of Mikawa's cruisers were hit by dive bombers, one sinking, and another horribly damaged. Mikawa braced himself for another assult, but scouts had found Tanaka's now advancing transports. Repeated attacks during the remaining daylight hours sank seven transports and crippled an eighth. Tanaka pressed on with the remaining three after darkness fell, hoping Kondo's ships could protect him. Lee with the Washington, South Dakota, and four destroyers entered the sound that night. Unlike Abe, Kondo sent a cruiser and destroyers into the sound to see if any enemy lurked nearby before entering with his big ships. A fierce fight erupted between these and Lee's destroyers. All four American ships were hit, three sinking, and the South Dakota was illuminated by burning hulks. Surprised to find an enemy battleship present, Kondo reacted quickly, and the South Dakota was hit more than thirty times. The unseen Washington, however, literally blew the Kirishima apart, forcing Kondo's retreat. Lee then departed behind his crippled destroyers. The next morning all three of the arriving Japanese transports were obliterated by planes from Henderson. Only a two-day supply of rice and two thousand troops reached the shore. The troops were too few to win the airfield, so they merely became more mouths to feed. The Japanese troops would be eating their leather shoes before the month was out. The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal ended quietly. Without knowing it, the Americans had clinched victory for the entire campaign. At this point, the Japanese on the island still had to be fed, ensuring that there would be other ship clashes, some of which the brilliant Tanaka would even win. The battle of Tassafaronga Point in which he torpedoed four U.S. heavy cruisers became the Japanese fleet's last victory. Tanaka's most spectacular feat came in February 1943 when, over three days, he evacuated all the surviving Japanese from Guadalcanal without losing a single ship. The results of this American victory reached far and wide. MacArthur's supply lines resumed working order, and his New Guinea advance would flourish. Admiral Chester Nimitz was on the verge of beginning his island hopping in the central Pacific. Additionally, a third avenue toward Japan was now open, up the Solomon's, through Bougainville, towards Rabaul. The Japanese could not defend against all three at once. Their Navy had been bled white, and they were unable to build ship replacements fast enough. A year after Tanaka's evacuation, the two fleets would meet again in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. The United States would fight with fourteen new aircraft carriers. The Japanese would have only one new carrier and lose it. Had Abe disabled Henderson Field, there would have been no third avenue, and MacArthur would probably have withered on the vine. Nimitz would have proceeded as planned, but the Japanese could have concentrated to meet him. Inevitably, the Americans, equipped with such immense industrial capacity, would have won the war, but victory would have been prolonged for at least another year. The atom bomb would still have been available in the summer of 1945, but it could only be used against Japan proper; dropping it on occupied territories with friendly civilian populations was out of the question. Most likely, the Philippines would not have been invaded at all. Delay events a year and MacArthur's friend, President Roosevelt, would have died before deciding where to invade. Harry Truman would have accepted Nimitz's easier plan to capture Formosa in order to cut off Borneo oil supplies to Japan. American prisoners of war in the Philippines would have languished in despair at least until 1946. Obviously, the American victory at Guadalcanal saved lives on both sides. The surviving leaders who took part in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal followed destinies that mirrored that of their fleets. Willis Lee and Halsey and were promoted, the latter becoming the fourth and last man ever to gain the rank of five-star admiral. Abe was forced to resign. Mikawa and Kondo would be assigned to staff duty for their performances. Even Tanaka was not immune to the repercussions of the campaign failure. The man who had done the impossible time and again finished out the war on a staff in Burma. Yamamoto did not see the final surrender. In April 1943 the code breakers pieced together the itinerary of one of his base inspection trips. Long-range army fighters ambushed his plane and sent it crashing into the Bougainville jungle. It is only fitting that the Americans that killed him had taken off from Henderson Field. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Bibliography Ballard, Robert D. The Lost Ships of Guadalcanal. Warner/Madison: New York, 1993. Dull, Paul S. A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy (1941-1945). Naval Institute: Annapolis, Maryland, 1978. Janes Fighting Ships of World War II. Military: New York, 1989. Morison, Samuel Eliot. History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Volume V. Little/Brown. Boston: 1950. Parshall, Jon. Kaigun: Imperial Japanese Navy Webpage. www.skypoint.com/~jbp/kaigun.htm. ----------------------------------------------------------------