1. Sea Power and Maritime Affairs
No more Mahanian battles?
Carrier BG vs. Carrier BG; what do you call it?
Lesson 12: The US Navy in the Pacific,
(Part 2)

2. Break Time…………….
When We Resume: The US Navy and the Offensive Phase

3. Soldiers on the sand of Iwo Jima

4. U.S. Aircraft Production
Japan and Germany had early advantage in air war:
Messerschmit ME-109
Mitsubishi A6M Zero
U.S. aircraft industry produces higher performance aircraft
American industrial base allows rapid and mass production
New flight training programs developed
U.S. gains advantage in air warfare
Air supremacy eventually established in both European and Pacific theaters
American industry adapted incredibly well
Germans would build ten different kinds of tanks and twenty different kinds of aiplanes
We’d have five design types
Emphasis on training that exists today; we have the best trained people flying the best stuff

5. A6M “Zero” or “Zeke”
Fighter

6. F2A “Buffalo”
Fighter

7. F4F “Wildcat”
Fighter

8. Wildcats on the Prowl

9. F6F “Hellcat”
Fighter
Such a powerful engine needed “gull wings” to hold it off of the ground
The answer to the zero

10. F4U Corsair
Fighter

11. SBD “Dauntless”
Dive Bomber

12. SB2C “Helldiver”
Dive Bomber

13. TBF “Avenger”
Torpedo Bomber

14. PBY “Catalina”
Scout

15. U.S. Submarine Force

16. U.S. Submarine Warfare
Simultaneously with Dual advance, US conducts war on commerce
Unrestricted Submarine Warfare ordered immediately after Pearl Harbor -- new role for U.S. submarines
Early operational problems :
Undependable torpedoes - poorly designed magnetic fusing.
Many commanders were excessively cautious.
2,400 people died, but tactically speaking, Pearl Harbor wasn’t such a bad thing
Japanese took out Battleships and airplanes (that wasn’t so great); left submarine fleet
While we were making up for damage, submarines conducted unrestricted warfare (same thing Wilson had decried as immoral during WWI)
All’s fair in love and war

17. Subs in Battle Bataan and Corregidor, Philippines Battle of Midway
Supplied by submarines from the Asiatic Fleet
Evacuation of personnel
Battle of Midway
Guarded approaches to the island
Guadalcanal Campaign
Begin to be more effective at fleet operations
Remember how subs helped McArthur
Weren’t sure at first how to operate
Had all of those conservative captains
Lousy torpedoes (Mark-14) got better (Mark-18_
Wolfpacks? Better alone
Not nearly as much video and photographs of the subs at work

19. U.S. Submarine Warfare Late 1943: Central Pacific Advance
Torpedo fusing problems corrected
Radar installed and sonar improved
Central Pacific Advance
Initially uncontested by Japanese Navy
Battles of the Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf
U.S. submarines support fleet and amphibious operations
Japanese battleship and carriers sunk
Mark-14 torpedo steam-drven and lousy fuzes
big wake
EM fuze wouldn’t detonate when too far from hull
back up contact fuze would dud all of the time if hit too hard
Mark-18 electronic, butter fuze
But sometimes circled around and hit the sub that fired it!
Subs Guerre de Course and some fleet action

20. U.S. Submarine Warfare Search and rescue of downed naval aviators
Commerce raiding of Japanese shipping from East Indies
By /4 of the Japanese merchant fleet sunk
High casualty rates among submarine crews:
Rotation policy: 20% of crew transferred after each patrol.

22. Japanese Submarine Warfare
Long Lance torpedo - smaller variant for submarines
Focused attacks on U.S. warships and avoided supply ships
Used to screen and scout for battle fleets
“Warrior ethos” of Japanese naval leaders
Used for supply of bypassed garrisons

23. Japanese Submarine Warfare
Battle of Midway
Failed to intercept U.S. carrier forces
Torpedoed USS Yorktown under tow
Guadalcanal Campaign
USS Saratoga torpedoed January 1942
USS Wasp sunk
USS Indianapolis sunk -- July shark attacks

26. Prelude to Guadalcanal
Japanese leadership shocked by defeat at Midway
Cancel plans to take Fiji, Samoa, and New Caledonia
Must proceed with plan to take Port Moresby
Within bomber range of major naval operating base at Rabaul
Japanese begin building airfield at Guadalcanal

27. Prelude to Guadalcanal
Nimitz moves to reinforce South Pacific Area
Protect vital sea lines of communication with Australia.
Vice Admiral Robert L. Ghormley
Commander South Pacific Ocean Area (Subordinate to Nimitz).
Two bases established in New Hebrides.

28. Army - Navy Dispute MacArthur proposes retaking Rabaul Admiral King
Wants Navy to let him borrow First Marine Division
Admiral King
Objects to Macarthur's plan
Proposes step-by-step advance through Solomons to re-take Rabaul.
Nimitz and Ghormley in command with Marines making amphibious assaults and Navy providing support.
Army forces used as garrisons for islands
McArthur sees Midway as a chance to start campaigning in his theater so he could get back to the Phillipines
Rabaul was a Japanese HQ base, extremely heavily fortified.
It wasn’t a good idea to attack
His idea is pretty simpe: the Navy gives him everything he needs (ie, First Marine Division and few carriers) to go fight his war
Admiral King says, “yeah, right!” Navy forces under Nimitz’ control

29. Operation Watchtower Compromise Three-Stage Plan of Operations
Initial advance in Eastern Solomons under Nimitz
Boundary between Areas moved west
MacArthur takes command after Tulagi secured
Compromised reached
This wasn’t strategy, but politics; you don’t “compromise” when fighting a war
Think about how well the amphibious ops in Europe would go
Marines would take the island of Tulagi, then McArthur would take command of ops
Never got that far, because of intel about airfield being built in Guadalcanal while planning for Tulagi

31. The Campaign
Aug 1942-Feb 1943
Gudalcanal Campaign
Aug 1942-Feb 1943

32. Guadalcanal
Whoever controlled an airfield would control air over the Solomons
Vital SLOC
For both sides it symbolized offensive rather than defensive warfare
What did we say about the importance of SLOC to the Japanese?

33. Force Commanders
Admiral Robert L. Ghormley overall command of Watchtower
Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner - Amphibious Forces
Vice Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher carrier group
Provided support against Japanese fleet during day
Marines very quickly take the Japanese built field and rename it “Henderson Field” after one of their aviators
By day, the marines have air superiority and hold Japanese at bay
By night the Japanese owned the “Slot,” a channel along the Solomons; able to reinforce themselves
A perpetual pattern

34. General Archer Vandegrift
Commander - First Marine Division
Amphibious landing virtually unopposed
Marines take Henderson Field - “Cactus Air Force”.
Frigate named after him

36. Guadalcanal River Crossing

37. “See-Saw” Pattern Japan dominates nighttime action.
“Tokyo Express” down “The Slot” into “Ironbottom Sound”
U.S. dominates daytime with shore and carrier aircraft

38. Actions Battle of Savo Island, 8-9 August 1942
Battle of the Eastern Solomons, 24 August 1942
Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, October, 1942
“Naval Battle of Gudalcanal”, November, 1942

39. Guadalcanal Campaign
Battle of Savo Island - Allies defeated in night surface action
Battle of the Eastern Solomons - carrier battle
USS Enterprise damaged by bombers
USS Wasp sunk and Saratoga damaged by Japanese submarines
1) Battle of Savo Island: night of 8-9 August, while the transports were still unloading supplies for the marines a few miles to the south of Guadalcanal, the US Navy lost four heavy cruisers to night fighting Japanese cruisers
Fletcher and his force were not around to give chase to the Japanese because they had retreated to the northwest to refuel.
2) Two weeks later, 24 August, Battle of the Eastern Solomons, Fletcher engaged the Shokaku and Zuikaku and a light carrier, the Ryujo. His bombers knocked out the Ryujo, but the Enterprise took three hits from Japanese planes USS Wasp is sunk and Saratoga damaged by Japanese submarines.

40. Battle of Santa Cruz Islands
Halsey relieves Ghormley - 18 October 1942
Rear Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid
Hornet sunk and Enterprise damaged
No operational carriers left
Zuiho and Shokaku badly damaged
Tactical defeat by strategic victory?…maybe
Fletcher and Ghormley were not aggressive enough for Nimitz and King, so they’re replaced and Halsey is put in overall command
He hears that a large enemy fleet of four carriers and complemented ships is heading south from a Japanese stronghold in Truk, and sends two carriers and one battleship under command of Thomas C. Kinkaid north to “Attack- repeat- attack!”
We called it a strategic victory, but the margin was pretty thin, because we got beat up pretty badly
(Naval Battle of Guadalcanal - Five Sullivan brothers killed in action on USS Juneau.)

41. Naval Battle Rear Admiral Willis A. Lee
uses RADAR to his advantage to win nighttime naval battle
Washington and South Dakota outfight Japanese battleships
Warships flee
Transports beach themselves

42. Guadalcanal Campaign
1st Marine Division relieved by Army’s 25th Infantry Division
Japanese forces evacuate Guadalcanal
U.S. forces begin advance up Solomon Islands
Land-based airfields established
Marine Corps’ “Black Sheep” Squadron (VMF-214)
Commanded by Maj Greg “Pappy” Boyington
Medal of Honor Recipient
MacArthur drives Japanese from eastern Papua
Captures main Japanese base at Buna
With 35,000 men and two hundred airplanes, the marines win Guadalcanal by December 1942
And, as usual, the marines do all of the grunt work, then hand it over to the army to hold
Huge psychological victories for the allies
Japanese are getting pushed back overland (island)

43. Aftermath Both sides suffered heavy losses
U.S loses more tonnage at sea, carriers
Japan loses more lives
Japan allowed to dominate sea at night while U.S. dominates day
Battle drags on from Aug 42- Feb 43

44. Aftermath
MacArthur successful in driving Japanese from Papuan Peninsula
By Feb 43 Jap plans for offensives in S. and W Pacific stopped cold
King uses Casablanca Conference to allocate more resources to Pacific
After Guadalcanal, Allies get together to plan the next phase of the war
The British still want a focus on the Mediterranean- of course they do
King is insistent on advancing gains in the Pacific
The Casablanca talks produced no concrete plan for a defeat of either Germany or Japan- and no ironclad commitment to devote a greater percentage of resources to the Pacific. But the British chiefs of staff did conced that the Americans should somehoe retain their hard-won initiative in the the Pacific.
Hagan: “for King this was a green light, however dim” and he successfully fought for more allocation in the Pacific theater in Washington

45. Reconquest of Attu and Kiska Aleutian Islands (January - May 1943)
No real threat to security.
Necessary to end Japanese control of American territory for political reasons.
Battle of the Komondorskis
Last classic surface ship battle.
Americans attack heavily guarded Japanese convoy.
Minimal resistance on Attu, none on Kiska.
We start rolling back the Japanese

46. Operation Cartwheel The Solomons Campaign
Halsey goes to work for McArthur
Leads Amphibious Assault from Guadalcanal along Solomons
McArthur wants direct assault on Rabaul
King and Marshall overrule him
Capture every island BUT Rabaul to isolate it
Rabaul becomes isolated and insignificant
On to the Phillipines (October 1944)
Finally, McArthur got his wish, and the Navy went to work in the Solomons
The ultimate goal was always the Phillipines
The staffers decide to isolate Rabaul; turned out to be a good idea
Rabaul would have been too difficult to take, and it was easier to take the other Islands
This becomes Halsey’s strategy of “bypassing” stronger islands and so isolating them
When it was all over in February 1944, Rabaul was thoroughly boxed off, and MacArthur began to plan his famous leaps across island chains of several hundred miles each. He would stride 1,400 miles in one three-month period of his advance toward the Phillipines, where he landed in October 1944, under the cover of Third Fleet.

47. The Defeat of Japan
Objective: The Philippines and the penetration of the Japanese inner defense zone!

48. The Advance Pacific “Thrust” Vice Admiral Raymond Spruance
Amphib support
Vice Admiral Raymond Spruance
Significant campaigns:
Gilberts
Marshalls
Marianas
McArthur wanted to push up from Australia with himself in command supported by land-based aircraft, which he would do as part of a two-pronged offensive on his way to the Phillipines.
But the real thrust would be from Nimitz, who wanted a central Mahanian type (ie, condensed forces) push across the Pacific to island hop to the Phillipines and Japanese home islands- ie, War Plan Orange
King, back in Washington, had brought Marshall over to this concept. This was going to be a Navy war.
Admiral Nimitz developed an operational concept of seizing one island chain to support operations in the next chain. Before attacking the Marshall Islands, Nimitz's forces therefore had seized Tarawa and Makin in the Gilbert Islands, some 565 nautical miles south of the Marshalls, in November The U.S. Army's 27th Infantry Division had secured Makin against only light Japanese resistance, but the U.S. 2d Marine Division took strongly fortified and defended Tarawa only after suffering some of the heaviest American casualty rates of the war.

49. Essex Class Fast Carrier
The new fleet carrier
The centerpiece of the new carrier-centered battle groups

50. The Gilberts (Tarawa)
New fleet organization due to new Essex Class carrier fleet production
Objective to gain airfield on Betio Island to launch further attacks in Central Pacific Drive
3 days cost US > 3,000 marines
The first major island on the sea road to Phillipines was Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands
JCS wanted invasion in November, but Spruance would have preferred December for tides and coral. Needed it in November so Brits could not back out of commitment to support in Pacific.
Went in November, boats got stuck on the reefs. The island was captured, but at a loss of the 3,000 marines.
McArthur jumped all over it of course, but the Pacific Campaign was underway- it was the Pacific Theater’s “Overlord”

51. Marines at Tarawa

52. Kwajalein Atoll
Tarawa

53. The Marshalls After the Gilberts, concern for death toll in Marshalls
Nimitz orders RADM MITSCHER attack on Airpower
Destroys Japanese Force
Kwajalein success furthers to the rest of the islands
Total Marshall loss less than first day of Tarawa
Onto Marianas
Although the Japanese had expected an American fleet to appear somewhere in the Marshall Islands, they were surprised when one arrived off Kwajalein. Since Imperial Headquarters in Tokyo had reasoned that the American forces would begin at the outer islands and work inward toward Kwajalein, the building of fortifications on that island had received little priority. In addition, the Japanese believed that any landing would come from the seaward side of an island, as opposed to the lagoon side, and they had oriented their defenses in that direction. Only after receiving intelligence reports from Tokyo concerning the capabilities of the American LVT (landing vehicle, tracked), which had demonstrated its ability to climb over coral reefs, were they now finally beginning to construct defensive positions on the lagoon side of many islands. But ultimately, little in-depth defense was possible because most of the islands were so narrow.

54. The Marianas Draws out Japanese Fleet
Battle of Philippine Sea, June 1944 “The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot”
346 Jap planes downed
3 Jap carriers sunk
Classic Mahanian engagement

55. Liberation of the Philippines
U.S. advance continues after Marianas Campaign
Macarthur's forces capture New Guinea
Air strikes in the Phillipines wipe out two hundred aircraft
Bypass smaller islands and head to Leyte Gulf early
from 20 December to 20 October

56. Battle of Leyte Gulf

57. Battle of Leyte Gulf 24-25 October 1944
Largest battle in all of naval history
U.S. command structure remains divided and confused
U.S. landings in Leyte Gulf
MacArthur “returns”
McCarthur’s in the picture
Seventh Fleet- the fleet working for McArthur (ie, “McArthur’s Navy”)
Third Fleet under Halsey

59. Battle of Leyte Gulf
“In case opportunity for destruction of the major portion of the enemy fleet is offered or can be created, such destruction becomes the primary task.” Standing Order of Fleet Admiral Nimitz
“Where is, repeat where is, Task Force 34? The world wonders.” Nimitz’ (message to Halsey during the battle.)

60. Fast Carrier Task Force
Admiral Marc Mitscher
Commander
Fast Carrier Task Force
Battle of Leyte Gulf

61. Battle of Leyte Gulf
Japanese Combined Fleet divided into three forces:
Northern
Central
Southern
Japanese defeated in a series of separate engagements.
Effective end of Japanese Navy’s ability to control the sea.
The Japanese do a good job decoying Halsey out of the Gulf and he misses the battle
Too late for Japan; they are defeated
Their command of the sea is gone
We’re looking to the Home Islands and another little island inbetween
Iwo Jima

62. Two Coast Guard-manned LST's open their great jaws in the surf that washes on Leyte Island beach, as soldiers strip down and build sandbag piers out to the ramps to speed up unloading operations 1944

63. LST lined up on Leyte

64. Battle of Leyte Gulf

65. Japanese Kamikaze Squadrons
Explosives loaded aboard aircraft.
Japanese pilots fly one-way suicide attack missions against U.S. fleet.
First used at Leyte Gulf.

67. USS Lexington (CV 16) Essex Class Fast Carrier
Mitscher’s Flagship -- Battle of Leyte Gulf

68. Admiral Thomas Kinkaid
Commander
U.S. Seventh Fleet
Battle of Leyte Gulf

69. The Sands of Iwo Jima Mount Suribachi

70. The Road to Japan
Iwo Jima
Okinawa

71. Iwo Jima Emergency landing field and fighter escort base desired.
Midway between Marianas and Tokyo
Support B-29 strategic bombing of Japan
26,000 casualties
2,400 Emergency landings - 27,000 aircrew
General Holland Smith
“Iwo Jima was the most savage and most costly battle in the history of the Marine Corps.”
Admiral Nimitz
“Uncommon valor was a common virtue.”

72. Okinawa Campaign April-June 1945
Staging base for invasion of Kyushu
Joint amphibious operation
Marines under Army command
Japanese use delaying tactics at the beach
Continued heavy resistance inland

73. Okinawa Campaign Kamikaze raids continue Over 40,000 U.S. casualties
34 U.S. ships sunk
4,900 Sailors killed in action
Over 40,000 U.S. casualties
Carrier groups begin raids on Japanese home islands.
U.S. has established complete control of the seas.

74. USS Benjamin Franklin
-- Damaged in Kamikaze raid during invasion of Okinawa - March 1945.

75. Japanese Battleship Yamato
Sunk by U.S. carrier-based aircraft during Okinawa Campaign.
7 April 1945

76. U.S. Carrier Raids on the Japanese Home Islands July 1945
Instead of estimated four days, it took a month to capture Iwo Jima in February and March Some nineteen thousand Americans were wounded, and seven thousand died. Kamikazes disabled the heavy carrier Saratoga and sank the escort carrier Bismarck Sea.
Okinawa in April, May, and June was worse for the Navy, “the most costly naval operation in history.” The fifth fleet lost thirty-four vessels sunk and 368 damaged, many irreparably. About five thousand sailors died, and almost tha tnumber were wounded, many grotesquely burned. Toward the end of May Nimitz relieved Spruance, Mitscher, and Turner, who were stressed almost beyond endurance by remaining continuously on station at the two invasions.
Hence the desire to bomb Hiroshima with an atomic weapon.

77. Manhattan Project = Atomic Bombs
President Truman orders two bombings.
Hiroshima - 6 August 1945
Nagasaki - 9 August 1945
Believed potential for casualties during a prolonged struggle for the Japanese home islands is too high.
During the Potsdam Conference with Stalin and Churchill outside of occupied Berlin, Harry S Truman learned that an atomic device had been exploded successfully in a test at Alamogordo, New Mexico. An atomic attack might obviate the need to invade Japan at an estimated cost of 500,000 American casualities. Truman gave the order to bomb Hiroshima.
The atomic age was born on 6 August, 1945.
Unconditional surrender

78. Hiroshima

79. Japan Surrenders
Japanese officially surrender aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945.
MacArthur commands U.S. army of occupation.

80. Next time: The US Navy in the Early Cold War, 1945-1953
Discussion
First Air Force One, FDR’s!!!!
Lessons of World War II in the Pacific
1. The students should assess the relative importance of the various facets of sea power used by the United States to win the war in the Pacific: Carrier aviation, surface units, submarines, and amphibious forces.
2. The students should examine the role of strategic bombing in the Pacific in World War II, including fire-bombing and atomic bombing, and compare its efficacy with the European theater of operations.
3. The students should contrast Pacific war strategy with that employed in the Atlantic and Mediterranean and assess why there were such major contrasts.
4. The students should weigh the merits and salient characteristics of the outstanding leaders of the Pacific war: King, Nimitz, Halsey, Spruance, and MacArthur.
5. The students should comprehend the revolution in naval technology and strategy that characterized the war in the Pacific:
a. The unanticipated maturation of carrier aviation as an offensive weapon of war. This subject should include gaining an appreciation of the revolutionary logistical systems developed during the war, including forward basing and underway replenishment for the fast carrier task forces.
b. The unexpected effectiveness of the American submarines as weapons of interdiction of the industrial base of Japanese war machine.
6. Discuss the long-term geopolitical effects of the Pacific war on the postwar order in Asia.
a. An Asian nation forcibly overcomes Europe­an/American control of hundreds of millions of colonial subject peoples.
b. These events accelerate national freedom movements -- India, Indonesia -- genesis of the "Third World."
c. Have enormous significance in colonial areas around the world in reducing prestige of colonial powers.
d. Forced colonial powers to make deals/acknowledge future independence claims in return for native population cooperation.
Next time: The US Navy in the Early Cold War,