The bitter struggle for supremacy in the Pacific following the American victory at Midway persisted into 1943, and the outcome hung in the balance until late that year. Although the Allies continued to advance in the difficult terrain of both New Guinea and the Solomons, progress remained heartbreakingly slow, and Japanese resistance continued to be tenacious and fanatical. Meanwhile, the rival fleets battled for domination in the surrounding waters. Nevertheless, the Allies took an increasing toll of enemy resources on land and especially at sea and in the air. As time passed, America also transformed its vast industrial potential into actual production of ships, planes, and other weapons on a scale that Japan's smaller industrial base could not even approach.
Starting with an American amphibious assault on the Gilbert Islands in November, it became clear that the initiative had definitely passed to the Allies. In the following months Allied forces won victory after victory in New Guinea and the nearby islands, bringing them within striking distance of the Philippines, while a series of American operations in the Central Pacific brought them ever closer to Japan.
QUESTIONS OF STRATEGY AND LEADERSHIP
As this process unfolded, the United States and its allies grappled with vexing questions of strategy - where and how to strike at the enemy with greatest effect. They also confronted the problem of leadership. Should there be unity or division of command over operations in the vast Pacific? Since Britain devoted its strength overwhelmingly to the war in Europe and to a lesser extent to the defense of India and the proposed reconquest of Burma, the war in the Pacific became primarily an American responsibility. In view of this disparity, American interservice and personal rivalries assumed key importance in the development of strategy.
Early in the conflict, when the Japanese still held the initiative, Admiral King and other naval leaders looked forward to the time when the United States could take the offensive. They visualized Admiral Nimitz as the supreme commander of this great enterprise. But General MacArthur, the hero of Bataan, had other ideas. His defense of the Philippines, though in many respects disastrously inadequate, had captured the imagination of the American people. Even though President Roosevelt had originally proposed one commander for the entire Pacific, MacArthur's dramatic escape from the Philippines and his great popularity contributed to the decision to divide responsibilities between the general and Nimitz.
MacArthur became commander in chief of Allied forces in the Southwest Pacific, an area that included Australia, the Solomons, New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, the Philippines, and all the Dutch Indies except Sumatra. Nimitz, in addition to retaining his command over the Pacific Fleet, became commander in chief of the North, Central, and South Pacific theaters of operations. He also assumed direct command over the North and Central Pacific, while Admiral Ghormley carried out this duty in the South Pacific under Nimitz's overall direction. The Southwest Pacific, thus, became an army responsibility. The other Pacific areas became navy preserves. Britain retained operational control over Burma and the rest of Southeast Asia, including Sumatra.
During the first two years of the war, planning focused on the great naval base that enemy forces had created at Rabaul on the island of New Britain. Control of Rabaul enabled the Japanese to support their forces, which had penetrated into New Guinea to the southwest and the Solomons in the southeast. In March 1942, Admiral King proposed a counteroffensive that would feature simultaneous drives through New Guinea and the Solomons before converging on Rabaul. Soon after the Battle of Midway, MacArthur urged a thrust directly on Rabaul without the preliminaries in New Guinea. He spoke of accomplishing this in less than three weeks with the aid of a naval task force. Clearly such a daring stroke was far beyond American capabilities at this time. MacArthur probably realized this, but his proposal catapulted him into the forefront of the strategic debate. Once confronted by the objections of naval leaders, he quickly agreed that a more gradual approach was indeed preferable. He insisted that since such an operation would take place in his Southwest Pacific theater, it was only just that he should assume command. But King contended that since the participation of large-scale naval forces would be absolutely essential, Nimitz should be the commander.
King and General Marshall finally settled this argument by dividing responsibilities between Nimitz and MacArthur. They shifted the boundary between the Southwest and South Pacific commands slightly to the west to bring the southern Solomons within the latter area. Their agreement called for an advance in the Solomons by forces under Ghormley's command while MacArthur cleared the northeastern coast of New Guinea. When the two commanders had successfully carried out these tasks, they would launch converging attacks against Rabaul. The opening phase of this ambitious undertaking culminated in the capture of Buna on the New Guinea coast in January 1943 and the Japanese evacuation from Guadalcanal a month later.
The navy also favored a thrust through the Marshall, Caroline, and Mariana islands in the Central Pacific. King considered this the most direct route to the Japanese home islands. The key to the success of a Central Pacific strategy was the capture or neutralization of another major Japanese naval base, at Truk in the Carolines. MacArthur much preferred a drive along the northern coast of New Guinea followed by a thrust through the Philippines to Japan. Such an approach would, of course, take place within his Southwest Pacific theater, enabling him to make good his pledge to return to the Philippines.
The navy was probably correct in its belief that the Central Pacific offered the superior route. It certainly was more direct and would facilitate concentration of resources for maximum effect. And because the Marshalls, Carolines, and Marianas consisted of over 1,000 far-flung small islands, the navy could pick its invasion targets. The Japanese clearly could not defend all these islands but would have to stretch their forces thinly to provide for the defense of as many as possible. Finally, the conquest of the Marianas would bring the cities of Japan within range of American long-range bombers while isolating the Solomons, New Guinea, and Rabaul, leaving them to "wither on the vine" in the rear of the American onslaught.
Once again, this dispute over navy and army objectives resulted in a compromise. In April 1943, the Joint Chiefs of Staff opted for a two-pronged strategy that employed both the navy's Central Pacific approach and MacArthur's route. They based their decision in part on the belief that the expenditure in blood, materiel, and effort in the Solomons and New Guinea had been too great simply to terminate these operations. But they designated the Central Pacific as the primary theater and proposed to devote the lion's share of naval strength to this area.
Both offensives employed a bypassing technique. This involved capturing islands or parts of islands and then moving several hundred miles to other objectives, followed by another leap and then another. In the process, the two offensives bypassed many Japanese-held islands, kept the enemy guessing as to where the next blow would come, and made it most difficult for them to concentrate their forces effectively.
AMERICAN MOVES IN THE NORTH PACIFIC
There was also the less important matter of the North Pacific. Japanese troops still held the barren, fog-shrouded Aleutian islands of Kiska and Attu, which they had seized at the time of the Battle of Midway. These forces, however, were too weak to attempt additional landings in the eastern Aleutians or Alaska. The United States probably would have been wise simply to allow them to remain on their bleak outposts while seeking more important objectives elsewhere. But fear that the enemy garrisons might pose a threat to Alaska led to the decision to invade Attu, the more weakly defended of the two islands, on May 11, 1943.
With a 5-to-1 advantage in numbers, the U.S. Army's 7th Division landed without opposition on two sides of Attu. But once ashore, the Americans found themselves subjected to savage artillery, mortar, and machine-gun fire. Snow and mud added to their difficulties as they slogged slowly inland. The defenders resisted grimly until the end of the month, engaging in repeated desperation charges. Almost the entire garrison of 2,600 men fought to the death or committed suicide. The Americans next turned their attention to Kiska. Bombers attacked the island repeatedly, starting in July. But when U.S. troops actually landed on August 15, they discovered that the Japanese had evacuated their garrison two weeks earlier under cover of fog.
ACTION IN THE SOUTHWEST THEATER
Meanwhile, following the capture of Buna and Guadalcanal in early 1943, the Joint Chiefs of Staff again took up the thorny question of command in New Guinea and the Solomons. Since the northern Solomons lay within the boundaries of MacArthur's Southwest Pacific theater, the Joint Chiefs agreed that the general would exercise strategic command over both areas. But Admiral Halsey would retain tactical control in in the Solomons under MacArthur's general directives. Halsey had succeeded Ghormley as commander of Allied forces in the South Pacific during the Guadalcanal campaign. The Joint Chiefs also laid down guidelines for the strategy that MacArthur and Halsey were to carry out during 1943. The two commanders then hammered out a final plan, code-named Operation Cartwheel, in April. It provided for MacArthur to persevere in his advance along New Guinea's northern coast and ultimately to undertake a landing on New Britain's western shore. At the same time, Halsey's forces were to push north, up the Solomons "ladder."
Before these operations could begin, MacArthur's air commander, General George C. Kenney, led his 5th Air Force to a rousing victory against a Japanese convoy in the Bismarck Sea to the north of New Britain. An exceptionally dynamic man, Kenney insisted on maintaining complete control over air operations himself. When MacArthur's chief of staff, General Sutherland, tried to interfere, he informed him in the most emphatic terms that when it came to air operations, he was the expert and Sutherland was the novice.
Land-based bombers had accomplished little in either the New Guinea or Guadalcanal campaigns before Kenney took over in August 1942. They had operated at high altitudes, in keeping with air force doctrine, but Kenney decided to experiment with low-level attacks by B-25 Mitchell medium bombers. These planes, named for the famous advocate of strategic airpower, General William ("Billy") Mitchell, were modified with eight .50 caliber machine guns in the nose for strafing and practiced skip-bombing runs during the fall and winter of 1942-43 from altitudes as low as 150 feet. By the end of the winter, they had mastered this art and were ready to try it on the enemy.
Their opportunity came when Ultra reports indicated that a Japanese convoy of eight troop transports and eight destroyers had left Rabaul on March 1 bound for New Guinea through the Bismarck Sea. Kenney sent B-17s to bomb the convoy from high altitude in the usual manner. But after two such attacks, which sank two transports, B-25s and other medium bombers zoomed in at low level the next day and sank five transports as well as four destroyers. PT boats finished off the last transport that night. Almost 3,000 enemy troops lost their lives. For the first time, land-based bombers had destroyed a Japanese convoy without the aid of naval forces. This placed a premium on such air power in the future and strengthened the American resolve to obtain advance air bases that would bring more remote Japanese strongholds within striking range of U.S. bombers.
Admiral Yamamoto now had to face the fact that the Americans were gaining air superiority in the Southwest Pacific. Yamamoto sought to reverse this trend by sending over 300 planes on a series of raids against Guadalcanal and Tulagi as well as Allied bases in New Guinea during April. But this effort proved ineffective, as the Japanese suffered aircraft losses at least equal to those that they inflicted on the Allies.
Some of the inexperienced pilots who took part in the operation believed that their efforts had been far more successful than was actually the case, however. Their optimistic reports misled Yamamoto, who decided to visit the northernmost island of the Solomons, Bougainville, to congratulate his supposedly victorious flyers. This proved a fatal mistake. American cryptanalysts intercepted messages containing detailed information on the admiral's trip. Eighteen P-38 Lightning fighters were waiting for his bomber and its escort of nine Zeros as they approached southern Bougainville on April 18. One of the P-38s shot down the admiral's plane, killing the architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Yamamoto had chosen his own successor, Admiral Mineichi Koga, as commander of the Combined Fleet. Though capable and efficient, Koga lacked his predecessor's strategic ability and adopted a conservative and unimaginative approach to the war.
By June 1943, Halsey and MacArthur were ready to launch their new operations in the Solomons and New Guinea. The two key targets in the Solomons were New Georgia, which lay to the northwest of Guadalcanal, and Bougainville. Successful landings on these islands would enable Halsey's forces to bypass most of the remainder of the Solomons and provide air bases for raids against Rabaul.
The attack on New Guinea began with landings along the island's southeastern coast late in June. Americans also went ashore on neighboring Rendova Island. Within artillery range of southwestern New Georgia, Rendova provided a convenient jumping-off point for the major invasion near the chief Japanese base at Munda on July 2. Although the inexperienced 43rd Army Division went ashore without opposition, it soon encountered extremely rugged terrain and made agonizingly slow progress against Japanese forces, who held the high ground before Munda. The division's morale became so poor and combat fatigue cases so prevalent that Halsey had to send in two additional army divisions.
The Americans were not able to make a concerted effort to take the airfield at Munda until July 25. Numerous well-situated coconut-log-and-coral pillboxes barred their way. But incessant artillery, air, and naval bombardment gradually took a heavy toll on the defenders, as did that fearsome weapon, the flamethrower, which made its first extensive appearance in the Pacific war. By July 29, the highly capable and resourceful Japanese commander, General Noburu Sasaki, realized that additional resistance was futile and began to withdraw his forces to Kolombangara Island just to the northwest. Munda airfield fell to the Americans on August 5.
Halsey opted to bypass Kolombangara with its garrison of 12,000 troops, and on August 5, he sent 4,500 men ashore on lightly defended Vella Lavella, which lay to the northwest. These forces quickly occupied the island and confronted General Sasaki with the alternative of leaving his troops on Kolombangara to wither on the vine or withdrawing them to Bougainville. He chose the latter, and in late September and early October, the Japanese carried out a nighttime evacuation.
As in the Guadalcanal campaign, rival naval forces fought a series of engagements while the battle raged on New Georgia. In the first of these on July 6, a Japanese destroyer force sank the light cruiser Helena while losing two of its own ships. In another encounter on July 13, the Japanese lost a light cruiser but damaged three Allied cruisers and sank a destroyer. The final engagement came on the night of August 6-7 in the waters between Vella Lavella and Kolombangara. Six U.S. destroyers ambushed a squadron of four enemy destroyers and bested them at their own game, night fighting with torpedoes. They sent all but one of the Japanese ships to the bottom.
Halsey's final objective in the Solomons was Bougainville. If the Americans could gain a foothold there, they could ambush airfields much closer to New Britain. This would enable fighter-planes using these bases to provide protection for Kenney's bombing raids against Rabaul. The key to a successful landing on Bougainville was to destroy Japanese air bases on the island. Planes operating from Munda carried out this task with great efficiency.
Halsey decided to bypass heavily defended southern Bougainville and strike at Empress Augusta Bay, about two-thirds of the way up the western coast. The 3rd Marine Division made the assault against weak opposition on November 1 and pushed inland. The Japanese commander, General Hyakutake, who had failed earlier to dislodge the Americans from Guadalcanal, had expected the landing to come in the south. He clung persistently to this belief even after the Americans had established a substantial perimeter at Empress Augusta Bay. His failure to send reinforcements eased the marine advance, although Japanese counterattacks did result in some heavy fighting. By the end of December, the Americans held an enclave ten miles wide and five miles deep and had built three airstrips.
On the first night of the American landing, Admiral Sentaro Omori attempted to attack the transports disembarking troops. He used two heavy and two light cruisers as well as six destroyers for this purpose, but they fell afoul of an American force of four light cruisers and eight destroyers, commanded by Admiral M. Stanton Merrill. In the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay that followed, Merrill's ships denied the Japanese access to the transports while sinking one light cruiser and a destroyer. After this rebuff, the Japanese squadron retired to Rabaul.
Admiral Koga responded to Omori's defeat by dispatching seven heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, and four destroyers from Truk to Rabaul, preparatory to another strike. But U.S. cryptanalysts intercepted messages pertaining to the operation and alerted Halsey. The admiral had no surface ships capable of dealing with such a large number of heavy cruisers and faced a potentially critical situation. He decided to use the only weapon he had, Task Force 38, which he had borrowed from Nimitz to support the Bougainville operation. Admiral Frederick Sherman, who had been captain of the carrier Lexington in the Battle of the Coral Sea, commanded this force. It included the carriers Saratoga and Princeton.
The United States had never tried a carrier strike against a base as powerful as Rabaul. But on November 5, Sherman's planes swooped in for a surprise attack, which, with the aid of considerable good luck, scored a remarkable success. While clouds protected Saratoga and Princeton from Japanese aircraft, U.S. planes had the benefit of bright sunshine over Rabaul. They damaged three cruisers and the same number of destroyers. The Japanese never again attempted to use heavy cruisers in this theater.
PUSHING ALONG NEW GUINEA'S COAST
While Halsey's forces invaded New Georgia and Bougainville, MacArthur continued operations along the New Guinea coast. His objectives were the villages of Salamaua and Lae about 175 miles north of Buna. Important preliminaries for this operation had started in January, when Allied aircraft transported an Australian brigade to strengthen Kanga Force, a guerilla unit that had maintained an airstrip at the village of Wau, 25 miles southeast of Salamaua. These troops repulsed a Japanese effort to capture the airstrip and in February began to push the enemy back toward Salamaua.
In late June, American forces carried out a seaborne landing at Nassau Bay, 15 miles south of Salamaua. This operation opened a supply route to the Australians at Wau and also helped convince the Japanese that the Allies intended to deliver their main thrust toward Salamaua. In reality, their primary objective was Lae, about 25 miles to the north. Lae was the gateway to the Markham and Ramu river valleys, which extended almost 400 miles to the northwest. They formed a relatively easy route to the important Japanese base at Madang. The campaign to take Lae and Salamaua was a grueling affair that featured an abundance of mountains and thick, rain-soaked jungle. Extreme heat and humidity as well as a variety of tropical diseases were ever present. Nevertheless, Australian and U.S. forces finally forced the Japanese to evacuate Lae and Salamaua by September 16.
During the remainder of September and October, Australian forces reached a point only 50 miles south of Madang. On January 2, 1944, U.S. troops landed at Saidor to the northwest in an effort to cut off the enemy retreat. Although the Japanese managed to avoid this fate by sidestepping the Americans with the help of inland trails, they lost almost a third of their original force of 7,000 men. Even those who survived suffered from disease and starvation. In late March, the Australians linked up with the Americans near Saidor. On April 24, Allied troops finally occupied Madang, but its capture proved anticlimactic. The Japanese had already evacuated to Wewak, nearly 200 miles to the northwest.
While the Australians continued the thankless task of pushing along New Guinea's seemingly endless coast, MacArthur staged a series of leapfrog amphibious operations. The first of these took place on April 22 at Aitape, 75 miles from Wewak, and Hollandia, 125 miles farther west. U.S. forces took the Japanese by surprise and quickly gained control of both objectives. Another landing seized the small, weakly defended island of Wakde, 130 miles from Hollandia, on May 17. Ten days later, U.S. forces went ashore on the larger island of Biak, 190 miles to the northwest. Biak became a nightmare. Its garrison was much larger than the Americans had expected, and the Japanese had fortified a multitude of interconnecting caves in the island's steep cliffs. The invaders had to dislodge the enemy from each of these strongholds with the help of TNT, flamethrowers, and ignited gasoline. Resistance finally ended in mid-August.
A CHAIN AROUND RABAUL
In December 1943, while Allied forces were still struggling along New Guinea's coast, and Halsey's troops were establishing their perimeter at Empress Augusta Bay, MacArthur launched still another phase of Operation Cartwheel - the invasion of New Britain. Army troops executed an uncontested landing at Arawe, along the southern coast, on December 15 and successfully fought off Japanese counterattacks. On the day after Christmas, marines easily gained a foothold at Cape Gloucester, near the island's northwestern tip. But they had to overcome a Japanese force entrenched on a nearby hill as well as torrential monsoon before securing their position.
By the end of 1943, the Allies menaced Rabaul from the western end of New Britain as well as from Bougainville and New Georgia. They subjected the great base to repeated air attacks during the months which followed, but they abandoned their original plan for a seaborne assault in favor of bypassing Rabaul. It had gradually become evident that an invasion was not necessary. The great base had been effectively neutralized.
On February 29, 1944, MacArthur's troops provided the last major link in the chain that the Allies were forging around Rabaul when they landed on Los Negros in the Admiralty Islands, almost 200 miles northwest of New Britain. Aerial intelligence had indicated that the island contained only a weak defending force, but in reality it totaled 4,000 men. Fortunately for the Americans, the enemy troops were on the opposite end of the island. By the time the Japanese were able to counterattack, the landing force had firmly established itself.
THE CENTRAL PACIFIC OFFENSIVE
Meanwhile, Nimitz had opened his central Pacific offensive. He had been able to assemble far larger naval forces than were available for the various phases of Operation Cartwheel. By October 1943, the 5th Fleet, under Admiral Spruance, consisted of eight carriers, seven battleships, seven heavy and three light cruisers, and 34 destroyers. Despite the loss of four carriers during 1942, Saratoga and Enterprise were still afloat and recovered from assorted injuries. The navy had also received six new Essex-class carriers, which were faster, more maneuverable, and better armed than the older carriers. In addition, the Pacific Fleet was putting into service another half-dozen light carriers of the Independence class. Actually converted cruisers, these vessels were equal in speed to the larger carriers but could carry only half as many planes. Carrier aircraft had also improved. American designers had studied a captured Japanese Zero and had developed their answer to this famous fighter, the F6F Hellcat. Not only did the Hellcat possess better armor and armament, but also it could both outclimb and outdive the Zero.
The original plan for the Central Pacific offensive called for American forces to bypass the Gilbert Islands, the southeasternmost point in the Japanese defensive perimeter, and strike directly at the Marshalls. But American strategists ultimately decided that it would be best to gain bases in the Gilberts first to provide steppingstones to the Marshalls.
Spruance held overall command of the operation in the Gilberts. Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner led the naval assault force, including the transports, landing craft, and supporting warships, which would actually be responsible for getting the troops ashore. Marine General Holland Smith would take command of the troops once they were ashore. Turner's marked tendency to try to control operations even after the ground forces went into action became the source of friction between himself and Smith. Both "Terrible Turner" and "Howlin' Mad" Smith were formidable personalities, and their jurisdictional squabbles contributed little to the smoothness of the operations.
THE TAKING OF TARAWA AND MAKIN
The objectives of the invasion were two small atolls - Tarawa, near the center of the Gilberts, and Makin, at their northwestern extremity. Plans called for attacks on both targets on November 20, 1943. Tarawa's defenses were much more formidable than those of Makin. They included a garrison of 5,000 men under Rear Admiral Keiji Shibasaki, as well as eight-inch gun batteries housed in concrete and coconut log bunkers. Tarawa consisted of a number of islands and coral reefs surrounding a 15-mile-long lagoon.
The key point was the elongated island of Betio, which stretched for 2 1/2 miles but measured only 800 yards at its widest point. Betio contained the majority of the Japanese defenders and had the protection of a coral reef that surrounded it on all sides. Moreover, the November tides at Tarawa were unpredictable. In fact, an expert on the island's tides warned that the water would not be deep enough to allow landing craft to pass over the reef and urged postponement of the invasion until December. But other former residents of Tarawa insisted that there would be sufficient clearance. Spruance refused to postpone the invasion, a decision that proved to be a mistake.
Although warships and land-based aircraft blasted Tarawa with the heaviest bombardment ever to precede an invasion up to that time, the Japanese defenses withstood this frightful tattoo. Worse, the warning about the reef turned out to be true. New amphibious tractor landing craft (amtracs), which were capable of climbing over the reef, carried the first three waves of marines to the beach with relatively little trouble. But the troops that followed were not so fortunate. Since there were too few amtracs, they had to make do with deep-draft landing craft. These became caught on the reef, and the marines had to wade through shoulder-high water for hundreds of yards to reach the beach. Many of them fell victim to Japanese fire. Even those who had landed earlier found themselves pinned down on the beach. By nightfall, 5,000 men had landed, but 1,500 of them were dead or wounded. The marines clung to a beachhead that did not exceed 300 yards in depth.
More savage fighting took place the next day, but the marines, with the help of flamethrowers and TNT, gradually forced the defenders back. The tide also finally increased in depth, allowing the landing of artillery, while naval guns and carrier planes blasted the Japanese positions. By the third night, the marines had pushed the enemy into the western end of the island. The Japanese now resorted to desperation attacks, which the Americans repulsed with heavy losses. Resistance ended on the afternoon of November 23.
"Bloody Tarawa" had been a rude shock, not only to the marines of the 2nd Division, who experienced the battle, and those who had planned it but to the American people as well. It had cost over 1,000 dead and more than 2,000 wounded, a terrible price for such a small atoll. After the battle, when General Smith observed the tremendous strength of the Japanese defensive positions, he expressed his amazement that his men actually were able to take them. "By God, those marines just kept coming," he declared. " Many of them were killed, but more came on. It looks beyond the realm of a human being that this place could have been taken." The Japanese had suffered a far worse fate. Only 17 of them survived.
The assault on Makin also proved more difficult than expected. Although army troops, who greatly outnumbered the defenders, were able to establish a beachhead against little resistance, they found their progress inland slowed by snipers. The pace of the advance quickened the next day, but the Americans did not gain complete control of the atoll until November 23.
THE LEAP TO KWAJALEIN
Possession of Tarawa and Makin set the stage for the next operation, a thrust northwestward into the Marshall Islands. Spruance, Turner, and Smith, who were to repeat the roles they had played in the Tarawa operation, assumed that the invasion target would be in the eastern Marshalls, which lay closest to the Gilberts. All three men were horrified when Admiral Nimitz informed them that he intended to leap ahead 400 miles to attack Kwajalein atoll in the center of the island chain. They warned that such a daring operation would expose both ships and landing force to bombing attacks from many Japanese air bases in the Marshalls. But Nimitz's decision was not as wild as his dumbfounded subordinates thought. He had received Ultra reports that clearly indicated that the Japanese were expecting an attack against the outer Marshalls and were making their troop dispositions accordingly.
Nimitz did agree to Spruance's demand that Task Force 58, commanded by Admiral Marc Mitscher, carry out raids against airfields in the Marshalls. Unlike most U.S. naval commanders at this time, Mitscher was actually an aviator and proved a master at handling carriers. He also took a keen personal interest in his men, who in turn held him in exceptionally high regard. But Mitscher's carriers had to return to Pearl Harbor for refitting and could not undertake their mission until January 1944. In the meantime, army and navy planes, operating from airstrips on Tarawa and Makin, began the process of pounding the enemy bases. When the task force returned, it made quick work of the remaining Japanese aircraft.
Kwajalein possessed defenses comparable to those of Tarawa, but the invading Americans outnumbered the Japanese 41,000 to 8,000. On February 1, two marine regiments landed on Roi and Namur islands at the northern end of the atoll's lagoon, while two army regiments went ashore on Kwajalein island itself in the extreme south. The Japanese did not contest the landings, and the preinvasion bombardment was more prolonged and devastating than at Tarawa. The marines made rapid progress on Roi and Namur, and by the end of the second day, resistance had ended. The troops that landed on Kwajalein advanced more slowly and did not complete their operations until February 4. The conquest of the atoll cost far fewer casualties than Tarawa - 373 dead and 1,500 wounded.
THE NEUTRALIZATION OF TRUK
Nimitz's next objective was Eniwetok atoll, at the far western edge of the Marshalls. His original timetable did not call for its capture until May. But the surprisingly easy victory at Kwajalein had justified the admiral's boldness and inspired a longing to take risks in other commanders. Spruance, Turner, and Smith urged an assault on Eniwetok as quickly as possible. They knew that the island was lightly defended but feared that this situation would not last long. Nimitz was in complete agreement. But one great danger confronted such an undertaking. Eniwetok lay within striking distance of Japanese air and naval forces at the great base of Truk in the Carolines. Even though Koga had withdrawn the bulk of his naval forces after the fall of Kwajalein, any attempt to take Eniwetok would be dangerous unless American air power neutralized Truk first. On February 17-18, Mitscher's carrier planes delivered repeated strikes against Truk, which destroyed 200 aircraft, sank eight warships and 24 merchant vessels, and damaged one carrier. The raids ended Truk's value as a major base.
In stark contrast to the case with which Mitscher's flyers shattered the legend of Truk's invincibility, the conquest of Eniwetok proved a tougher task than anticipated. The Japanese had created a system of interlocking trenches, foxholes, and pillboxes that resembled a spiderweb. They greeted the invaders with heavy machine-gun and mortar fire, and as usual, the majority of the defenders fought to the death. Four days passed before resistance ended.
The quick succession of U.S. victories in the Gilberts and Marshalls as well as the neutralization of both Rabaul and Truk stunned Japanese leaders. A number of the close associates of the late Admiral Yamamoto feared the war was lost. Even Tojo appears to have believed that the wisest course would be to seek peace but feared to broach the subject in view of the fanatical attitude of most army officers.
ASSAULT ON THE MARIANAS
The capture of Kwajalein and Eniwetok gave the Americans effective control over the Marshalls and left the remaining Japanese garrisons on islands in the chain to wither on the vine. Nimitz and Spruance now planned to bypass Truk and the other Caroline Islands and leap forward all the way to the Marianas, over 1,000 miles northwest of Eniwetok. Their objectives were Saipan, Tinian, and Guam, which contained the three largest Japanese garrisons in the Marianas. Unlike the atolls of the Gilberts and Marshalls, the Marianas were substantial islands that lay only 1,200 miles from Japan. Their capture promised to open a multitude of objectives to Allied planners: an assault on the Philippines to the west, a northward thrust toward the Bonin Islands, within 700 miles of Japan, and the establishment of air bases from which long-range bombers could attack Japanese cities.
In addition to his 5th Fleet, Spruance had 127,000 troops available for the invasion, by far the largest force yet committed to any operation in the Pacific. Mitscher's task force attacked Japanese air bases for months prior to the invasion and virtually destroyed enemy air power in the Marianas.
Nimitz chose Saipan, the northernmost of the three major islands, as his first objective. Admiral Turner again commanded the amphibious force that made the assault, and General Smith led the ground forces. Mitscher's battleships hammered the island for two days before the actual invasion, and Turner's warships added their bombardment on the morning of the landings, but neither eliminated the enemy defenses. When two marine divisions landed on the southwest shore on June 15, they encountered fierce opposition and did not consolidate their beachhead until nightfall. During the next two weeks, with the help of army reinforcements, they fought their way northward to the main enemy defenses, which extended across the center of the island.
Admiral Nagumo, who had led the Japanese carrier striking force to its rousing victory at Pearl Harbor and its grim defeat at Midway, commanded the defending forces. Although the Japanese resisted desperately, the Americans ground slowly northward. On July 6, Nagumo and the island's army commander, General Yoshitsugu Saito, both took their own lives in an effort to encourage their troops to make a final attack. This assault came on the night of July 6-7 in the form of suicidal charges that decimated the remaining troops. But one last gruesome chapter remained - the mass suicide of perhaps as many as 8,000 civilians in the last hours of the battle. They threw themselves off cliffs on the northern tip of the island, touched off grenades against their bodies, or simply walked into the ocean to drown.
While the marines were pushing northward on Saipan, an even more dramatic struggle took place in the skies over the Philippine Sea, the portion of the Pacific between the Marianas and the Philippines. Admiral Koga had died in an airplane crash in April, and Admiral Soemu Toyoda had taken over as commander of the Combined Fleet. A much more aggressive leader than Koga, Toyoda reacted to the news of the impending invasion of Saipan by ordering Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa to move from the Philippines with his 1st Mobile Fleet to destroy American naval units off the Marianas. Ozawa had long been a leading advocate of carrier warfare. Next to Yamamoto, his American opponents considered him the most skillful Japanese admiral of the conflict.
When Spruance received reports of Ozawa's approach, he dispatched Mitscher's task force along with additional ships from the 5th Fleet to repel the enemy challenge. American strength included seven heavy and eight light carriers and a large number of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers. The Japanese countered with five heavy and four light carriers and a smaller supporting force. Ozawa launched an air strike on the morning of June 19, but American radar alerted the task force to the enemy's approach. U.S. fighters intercepted the Japanese planes 50 miles to the west. The Americans enjoyed a big numerical advantage with a total of 956 planes, including 475 fighters. The Japanese had only 222 fighters out of a total of 473 aircraft.
To make the discrepancy even greater, American pilots were better trained and more experienced. They had alternated between periods of combat and intervals in which they had served as flight instructors. This practice enabled them to give new pilots the benefit of their experience and expertise. The Japanese, by contrast, had committed their veteran pilots to a steady diet of combat. By the summer of 1944, few of them were left.
Japanese aircraft carried out four mass attacks on Mitscher's task force, but few of them were able to penetrate the U.S. fighter screen. They inflicted minor damage to just one vessel, the battleship South Dakota. Their own losses were staggering - 275 of the 373 planes actually engaged. Only 29 American aircraft failed to return safely to their carriers. The Battle of the Philippine Sea was so one-sided that it earned the nickname "the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot." To add to Japanese woes, two American submarines, Albacore and Cavalla, sank the carriers Shokaku and Taiho. Shokaku was a veteran of the Pearl Harbor raid; Taiho was the largest carrier in the Japanese navy.
Despite this great victory, the Americans did not discover the location of Ozawa's fleet until the afternoon of June 20. Unfortunately, it was 340 miles to the east, a distance that made it unlikely that many American planes would have enough fuel to return to their carriers after attacking the enemy ships. Those that did make it back would have to land in the dark, a most dangerous assignment. This predicament was due to Spruance's concern before the battle began that Ozawa might divide his fleet and send one force to attack the transports off Saipan. To prevent such a possibility, he had refused Mitscher's request to close in on the enemy. Instead Spruance had ordered the task force to fall back toward Saipan.
Despite the danger to his aircraft, Mitscher was determined to attack the Japanese fleet. Given the problems involved, the results were good. Dive bombers and torpedo planes sank the carrier Hiyo, badly damaged three others, and destroyed 65 enemy aircraft. But 80 U.S. planes failed to make it back to their carriers or crashed while landing. Mitscher, defying both navy doctrine and possible enemy submarine attacks, ordered all ships to turn on their lights to guide the returning pilots to their destinations. Rescue ships and planes recovered the majority of the crews who had ditched at sea the next day.
Spruance's decision to turn back toward Saipan rather than to keep Task Force 58 moving toward the enemy fleet has caused continuing controversy. Some have argued that had he sent Mitscher farther west, his planes might have virtually destroyed the enemy carrier force. Others have contended that under the circumstances, Spruance acted correctly. They point to the fact that by keeping their distance, no American ships were lost, while the Japanese sacrificed their aircraft in vain. Regardless of which view is correct, it is clear that the Americans had administered a crippling defeat to Japanese naval air power, one from which it would never recover.
Even before the fall of Saipan, U.S. ships and planes pounded Tinian, which lay just to the southwest. The actual invasion came on July 24, when the same two marine divisions that had made the initial landings on Saipan went ashore on the north end of the island and encountered little opposition. The Japanese had expected the assault to come in the south, where they had massed the bulk of their strength. Again, the Japanese fought with blind heroism. But this time, the marines were able to overrun the island in only eight days.
Marine and army forces had actually landed on Guam three days before the start of the invasion of Tinian. Unlike the situation on Tinian, the enemy resisted the landings, and the Americans moved inland only after heavy fighting. Once again the Japanese withdrew to the northern end of the island, where they made another suicidal last stand. Organized fighting ended on August 1, but mopping up operations continued in parts of the island until the end of the war.
The loss of the Marianas and the disastrous Battle of the Philippine Sea represented a shattering blow to Japanese hopes of winning the war. Nine days after the fall of Saipan, Tojo and his government accepted the consequences of defeat and resigned. General Kuniaki Koiso succeeded the task of halting the American momentum. Prospects were far from bright. The United States was now in a position to strike at the Philippines, an action that would threaten Japan's oil supply from the East Indies. American engineers were already transforming the airfields of the Marianas to accommodate the new B-29 Superfortress bombers. The range and bomb capacity of these great planes gave them the capability of bringing death and destruction on a massive scale to the crowded and inflammable cities of Japan.