Bunker Hill (CV 17) - Naval Cruise Book

Page 255 text:

maxed his series of encirclements in the South Pacific with the occupation of the Admiralties, a Small group of islands lying to the north of New Britain. This move, in conjunction with the occupation of Eniwetok by Admiral T urner's forces, bringing as it did Truk with- in bombing range of Admiral Hoover's Sev- enth Air Force, effectively isolated the Jap strongholds of New Britain and New Ireland and sealed the fate of the enemy in the South Pacific. Our over-all strategy was now tak- ing shape with one arm in the form of General MacArthur's forces stretching northward to the Philippines, while the other arm, in the body of the U. S. Fleet and accompanying amphibious forces, closed the vise from the East. The Army on New Guinea was now ready to take a long hop up the coast to Hollandia, on the border of the Dutch portion of New Guinea. Such a step would encircle large enemy forces to the north of the present allied positions on New Guinea and success- fully avoid a prolonged campaign through the dense forests and jungleland of the coastal regions. As a preview to this major opera- tion, it was decided to send a powerful Am- erican task force to Palau, the last remaining great enemy naval base east of the Philippines and the hub of supply lines to the New Guinea area, for the purpose of further crip- pling the Jap Merchant Marine and with the intention of neutralizing this base for the campaign to follow. In many respects the Navy Department publicly regarded our attack on Palau as the most daring and strategically significant attack up to that time. Nevertheless, the manner in which we handled the enemy at Truk and the Marianas had instilled a feel- ing of genuine confidence aboard ship that We could more than match anything that might be arrayed against us. After a long steam through waters covered by enemy reconnaissance planes, our fleet blasted its way to the target, only slightly more than HVC hundred miles from enemy airfields on the Philippines. After giving it bombing treat- ment for two days, we returned to assist in the execution of the Hollandia invasion. The hop from the Allied position at Saidor, south of Wewak, to Hollandia was so great that the Southwest Pacific forces could not adeClUatClY cover the invasion with land- based planes. Accordingly, the ever-growing carrier strength of our fieet was called in to Support the landings. The weak resistance offered, both in the air and on the ground, was further proof that Jap supply lines to the south of the Philippines had been all but severed by the terrific destruction of their merchant marine by our subs and planes. With the occupation of Hollandia, General MacArthur was in a position to move against Jap air bases on the islands to the north and west, and to bring his Air Force to the perimeter of the Southern Philippines. In point of fact, by this one bold stroke General MacArthur won more territory than he had regained since the outbreak of the war. By summer of 1944 we reaped the further benefits of that campaign. The Japs on New Guinea became desperate because supply lines were completely broken down and they were starving. They could barely live off the land and definitely could not Hght on what could be produced. In truth, the war had taken a mighty surge forward. It was quite apparent that the next naval amphibious operation in the Central Pacific would be the capture of the Marianas. As the only logical step in our drive across the vast Central Pacific, there is little doubt that it was equally obvious to the enemy. Yet our schedule of operations, which was already months in advance of the original conception, was moving at such a rapid pace that the enemy was not expecting us when we arrived off the Marianas in the early part of June. As the campaign developed, two pertinent facts tended to bear this out. The Jap fieet, which had already been committed to the protection of the Marianas against invasion, was steaming in the Philippine Waters with a view to a possible surprise attack on our forces off the northwestern New Guinea coast.

Page 254 text:

As we returned to join the body of the fieet, we were delighted at the unexpected speed with which the conquest had been effected, and perplexed at what would now await us. Already in this campaign we had established some kind of a record by coming closer to Truk than any other surface ship had come in this war. It wasn't long before we were to discover what was next on the program. In typical Navy style, the scuttle- butt increased in tempo until it burst like a storm as the day of our departure grew near. Once again the scuttlebutt was right and the U. S. Fleet, under Vice-Admiral Raymond Spruance, was headed for the keystone of all enemy positions in the Central and South Pacific. While there was much that we did not know about the Marshalls before the invasion, there was little-and very little--that we knew about Truk. Over a period of years this heart that supplied the main arteries of Jap conquests to the South, East and West had taken on the significance of a Gibraltar and Pearl Harbor in the newly acquired Japanese empire. Lack of reconnaissance, and the fact that it was a staging base, made any estimate of its air power only a rough approximation. There was no doubt, how- ever, that this was the strongest enemy posi- tion that our fieet had approached up to that time. In essence, it was to be the great test of whether a powerful island fortress with an unknown but large concentration of air strength could be attacked successfully by carrier-based planes. After fortuitously eluding Jap search planes, the fleet steamed into position for an early dawn strike. The fighters swept the airfields and shot down or destroyed more than 200 aircraft. With the main defense arm of the enemy utterly crushed, he was helpless to ward off the dive bombers and torpedo planes that followed. For two days the several lagoons, packed with merchant shipping and a few combat ships, were just so many shoot- ing galleries for the naval aviators. It is interesting to note in connection with this raid that the battleships, for the first time since Savo Island, were able to bring their sixteen inch guns to bear on enemy naval units and they did not fail. By the afternoon of the second day, the planes were running out of targets, and the fleet's withdrawal was ordered. We had ob- viously stunned the enemy by this daring and thunderous stroke and, on the principle of crowding him and pursuing him before he could regain his bearings, the fleet was dis- patched to the Marianas. This time we were not as fortunate and the afternoon of the day before we were scheduled to launch our strike an enemy search plane picked us up. Shortly after twilight, the Japs launched a series of torpedo plane attacks that lasted until dawn, when our fighters shot down the remnants on the way into Saipan and Tinian. The immediate results of the attack on the Marianas were pretty much a repetition of what had happened at Truk. Wholesale quantities of aircraft and ship- ping were destroyed, but, perhaps, of greater significance was the proof that our fieet could withstand a land-based aerial onslaught from strong enemy insular possessions and fight its way on to complete its mission. The combined operations against Truk and the Marianas had a profound effect on the course of the war in the Pacific. Aside from the fact that enemy losses in shipping and planes were so severe as to force them to abandon whatever lingering hope they may have entertained to hang on in the South Pacific, it established that the waters of the Central Pacific were no longer an exclusive Jap lake. For a matter of more than tW0 years the enemy had shut off our access t0 the Central Pacific by its string of so-called Uunsinkable carriers -the islands-that dot the map in that area. American aircraft carriers with the superior Hellcat fighter, literally tore that string to shreads, and opened the locks of the gateway to the Orient. Simultaneously with the Navy's forages int0 the Central Pacific, General MacArthur cli- X 525 . ,, . ., ,L ,., bZ.' L .

Page 256 text:

l ' 2 1 1 I 5 l 2 2 3 i l -2 E X f . l it 1 P i 1 1 I l -.W ......-....,.. I... . .d. , . 5 - . ,M M I 1 l I 1 . i g., ij. U Q,k,..f' .5 ,J hifi: 1, f Clearly it seems they were expecting a con- centration of American naval might in the northern New Guinea area to assist a likely thrust into the eastern East Indies as a re- sult of the invasion of Biak, early in June. Point two was the large troop convoy head- ing for Guam, which our task force picked up and annihilated. The invasion of the Marianas followed the regular pattern of previous amphibious opera- tions. The three key islands, Saipan, Tinian, and Guam, in this chain, that belonged to four major powers in the last fifty years, were first subjected to intense aerial bombard- ment with particular attention paid to Sai- pan, the site of the flrst landings. The battle- ships were then brought in to shell with murderous effect strategic installations. When the island had been sufllciently softened up, the troops stormed the beachheads. From all appearances it had the earmarks of a routine mission for the carriers once the enemy air power within reach had been crushed. The Japs on the other hand, for the first time since Guadalcanal, had made plans to combat the invasion of the Marianas with the use of their fleet. Because of their geographic location, within bombing range of Tokyo by our Super-fortresses, and because they are an all-important link in the chain of supply stretching from Pearl Harbor, to the Marshalls and Palau to the Philippines and Formosa, the enemy considered them of sufficient significance to risk exposing a vital part of the fleet in the hope of outmaneuver- ing us and dealing us a staggering blow while We were engaged in supporting the landing operations. In short, the Jap naval brains felt that the long-awaited moment of great tactical advantage had arrived. For two days the opposing fleets jockeyed back and forth. The Japanese tactics were based on striking at us with their carrier air groups while keeping their fleet safely out of the range of our planes. In order to achieve this craftily conceived scheme they devised a plan of launching from far out and, after attacking the American Fleet, landing their planes at Guam, refueling and rearming, and then striking again on the way back to their carriers. To augment their striking power, planes were flown into Guam from the Caro. lines, the morning of the all-out attack. Thus the American Fleet was to be caught in a, gigantic aerial vise between the island of Guam and the Jap carriers. The opening phase of the greatest air en- gagement of the war found our carrier-based planes striking at Guam. By this action we not only denied the enemy the use of the landing fields but destroyed a host of air- craft poised for the big blow. Vals, Kates, Judies, and Zekes lined the overcrowded strip and others were circling the field looking for a landing spot as our fighters swept out of the skies. In the meanwhile, Jap carrier-based aircraft were on their way to the U. S. Fleet. For the better part of nine hours they were engaged by our fighters. At the end of the day the Japs had lost more than four hundred planes and the cream of the flying personnel in the Jap Empire, at a cost of twenty-five planes and minor damage to a few surface units. The following afternoon, the enemy was spotted, fleeing to the west. A strike was immediately sent out which definitely sank one Hayataka class carrier, one DD, and two AO's, and probably sunk two carriers of the Hayataka and Zuiko class, one DD, and one AO. In addition, damage was done to one Skokaku class carrier and one CVL, two BB'S of the Kongo class, and two heavy cruisers. A true assessment of the full significance of this battle of the Eastern Philippines iS not yet possible. Like all battles of great strategic consequence, only time can reveal the exact measure of its importance. It W2S a source of tremendous disappointment t0 all concerned that every ship in the enemy fleet wasn't obliterated, yet the staggering losses to their air groups, and the realization on their part that their fleet was hopelessly outclassed by ours, doubtlessly had a PTO' found effect on the Japanese Imperial com- mand in their conduct of defense as we drew closer to the Orient. . 'ir . :- ,,,,,'.. Q... , A