Sunday in Hell, page 101
When the Shoho was sunk, the Port Moresby invasion force lost its air cover and turned back. This was the first time a Japanese invasion force had been turned back without achieving its objective. Port Moresby was vital to Allied strategy and could not have been defended by the ground forces stationed there. Without a hold on New Guinea, the subsequent Allied advance in the Pacific, difficult though it was, would have been much harder still. As a result the Japanese were forced to attack Port Moresby overland. The delay was long enough to permit the arrival of the veteran Second Australian Imperial [Army] Force to fight the Kokoda Track campaign, defending against the Japanese overland offensive toward Port Moresby.
In 1942 many people in Australia believed their country had been saved from invasion by the Battle of the Coral Sea. A speech at the time by Prime Minister John Curtin made that clear:
Events that are taking place today are of crucial importance to the whole conduct of the war in this theatre…I should add that at this moment nobody can tell what the result of the engagement may be. If it should go advantageously, we shall have cause for great gratitude and our position will then be somewhat clearer. But if we should not have the advantages from this battle for which we hope, all that confronts us is a sterner ordeal and a greater responsibility. This battle will not decide the war; it will determine immediate tactics which will be pursued by the Allied forces and by the common enemy.
In Australia, those who knew what was happening were ready for the worst, though historians have never found conclusive evidence the Japanese planned to invade their country. Nevertheless, until more recently, each year since 1946 Coral Sea Week has been celebrated in Australia with marches by service personnel from both Australia and the USA, and official functions for American dignitaries. These celebrations express gratitude to the United States for its part in the battle and the support given Australia in World War II.
More recently the commemorative emphasis has moved from the “Battle that saved Australia” to the broader concept of the “Battle for Australia,” held on the first Wednesday in September. This now marks not only the Battle of the Coral Sea, but the contribution and significance of all those who helped defend Australia at its most vulnerable time.
For the United States Navy, the Battle of the Coral Sea had other positive consequences. The Japanese had at least two and possibly three less carriers available for the battle of Midway, waged 3-6 June. Midway was to be the decisive battle Admiral Yamamoto had planned in the months since Pearl Harbor. It was a decisive battle, but not the way he intended.25
The Decisive Battle of Midway
The great, complex, swirling, naval Battle of Midway will not be treated in any depth or adequate summary in this work. Suffice it to repeat what Gordon Prange and his co-authors Dr. Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon found years later in their diligent research for another of his classic works, Miracle at Midway. The Battle of Midway was the turning point in the Pacific war.
In the introduction to their book, they acknowledged their “…volume complements, rather than supplants, other fine works in this area.” Particularly, they cited Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan, by Mitsuo Fuchida and Masatake Okumiya, edited by Clarke H. Kawakami and Roger Pineau, as a prime source from the Japanese side, and expressed their indebtedness to them. A special salute was also given Samuel Eliot Morison’s naval history, Coral Sea, Midway and Submarine Actions, and to Walter Lord’s “…wonderfully human Incredible Victory.”
In the preface of Miracle at Midway are these words:
Less than six months after their victory at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese sent forth an enormous, combat-seasoned fleet of eighty-eight surface warships [including the Guard Force which sortied with the Japanese Main Body] with the dual mission of capturing Midway and luring the remains of the weakened U.S. Pacific Fleet to their destruction. This was to be the opening salvo of their second phase operations which contemplated the isolation of Australia at one extreme and possible capture of Hawaii at the other.
But events did not conform to the Japanese pattern. Forewarned through superior cryptanalysis and radio intelligence, American naval forces much inferior numerically to the Japanese (twenty-eight surface warships), but superbly led and manned, sped past Midway and were waiting on the enemy’s flank.
The result was by no means a foregone conclusion. The Japanese spearhead held the veteran carriers Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu, and Soryu, under the command of Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo. This was the admiral and four of the six carriers which had attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, and since then the Nagumo task force had scored one victory after another in the south Pacific and Indian Oceans.
The immutable before and after facts of Midway make clear who won and who lost.
United States
Japan
Casualties
307
2,500
Carriers
1
4
Heavy Cuisers
0
1
Destroyer
1
0
Aircraft
147
332
The destroyer Hammann (DD-412) was sunk north of Midway by the Japanese submarine I-68 (later designated I-168). The submarine had participated in the Pearl Harbor operation and on 12 December had withdrawn to Kwajalein after being damaged during attacks totaling 21 depth charges southwest of Oahu while attempting to penetrate the carrier Saratoga’s destroyer screen. Hammann sank approximately four minutes after being struck by one of I-168’s four torpedoes, and the destroyer’s survivors suffered additional losses when an underwater explosion followed moments after the Hammann went down. Of a total of 13 officers and 228 men, 80 of her crew were lost, many killed by the underwater explosion.
Ironically, I-168 had been ordered to sink the drifting, already-abandoned, badly-damaged, carrier Yorktown (CV-5), which Captain Elliot Buckmaster and a skeleton crew were attempting to salvage. When I-168 found her quarry, Hammann was close alongside aiding in the attempted salvage. One of the four torpedoes missed both ships, but the other two eventually proved fatal to the Yorktown as well. Struck by I-168’s torpedoes the afternoon of 6 June, the carrier amazingly stayed afloat until 0458 the morning of 7 June 1942, when she finally succumbed to the numerous hits she had taken in the Battle of Midway.
Slipping in close to attack a ship with a submarine is generally the easy part. Escaping is another matter entirely. This time I-168 desperately maneuvered until after dark with more than 60 depth charges dropped in attempts to sink her. Pursued by the destroyers Monaghan, Gwin and Hughes, miraculously, I-168 did manage to escape again, but not without serious damage - again.26
Aircraft from the carrier Enterprise, including crewmembers from Scouting Squadron Six (VS-6), the bloodied veterans of Pearl Harbor, were heavily involved in the Battle of Midway. The squadron had suffered the loss of six SBDs on 7 December, five to the Japanese, one to American guns, two pilots and four radiomen/gunners, with two more wounded. Bombing Six (VB-6) had lost one SBD the same morning, and that night Fighting Six (VF-6) tragically lost five F4F Wildcats to American guns. On 1 February, in a raid in the Marshall Islands, VS-6 lost four more SBDs and all eight crew members, including its squadron commander, Lieutenant Commander Hopping, and VF-6 lost an F4F and its pilot on takeoff. On 24 February VS-6 lost another SBD radioman/gunner, who had survived Pearl Harbor, when the aircraft went over the side of the carrier in a night accident. Later in the day, in a raid on Japanese held Wake Island, VS-6 lost yet another SBD and its crew.
The Enterprise and its task force turned south from Wake Island and on 4 March launched a raid on Marcus Island. This time, SBD 6-S-7, with pilot Dale Hilton and radioman/gunner Jack Leaming, both Pearl Harbor veterans, were shot down by enemy guns, ditched the Douglas Dauntless in the ocean, were captured, taken to Japan and interned for the duration of the war. In the Battle of Midway only 19 of 54 aircrews from the Enterprise who flew against the enemy survived, and of these, three were wounded.27
In addition, as a result of the Battle of Midway there were other tangible damages to both sides, but the intangibles were perhaps far more important.
For the second time, a Japanese invasion force was turned back from its objective. Further, a valuable U.S. Naval War College study quoted in Miracle at Midway succinctly stated the battle’s more profound effects:
It had a stimulating effect on the morale of the American fighting forces; …it stopped the Japanese expansion to the east; it put an end to Japanese offensive action which had been all conquering for the first six months of the war; it restored the balance of naval power in the Pacific which thereafter steadily shifted to favor the American side;…it removed the threat to Hawaii and the west coast of the United States;…[and]…the Japanese were forced to a defensive role.
Gordon Prange and his co-authors went on to say, “This is the ultimate meaning. At Midway the United States laid aside the shield and picked up the sword, and through all the engagements to follow, never again yielded the strategic offensive.”
In the meantime, in Hawaii, controversy surrounding the imposition of martial law was growing. The military judiciary which replaced the civil courts consisted of two types of bodies: a military commission, which tried cases involving punishment of more than $5,000 fine and five years’ imprisonment; and several provost courts - three were in Honolulu - each with a single judge, which heard lesser offenses.
Controversy had begun almost immediately after the declaration of martial law when a joint military-civilian commission was appointed to deliberate the more serious class of offenses. In the commission’s first meeting, the civilian members questioned the legality of martial law and the authority of the military governor to appoint the commission. They were apprehensive of their personal liabilities should they participate in the commission’s proceedings. The atmosphere of the meeting became quite tense. A few days later, the military governor issued a new general order appointing a new commission consisting entirely of Army officers. In the coming months lawyers and others began increasingly criticizing the provost courts’ functions.
The summer of 1942, Governor Poindexter’s term of appointment ended, and Ingram M. Stainback succeeded him. The new governor immediately appointed Garner Anthony, Hawaii’s most vocal critic of martial law, as his attorney general. The shattering defeat of the Japanese at Midway had considerably reduced enemy military pressure on Hawaii, which accelerated the questioning of continued martial law. Successful steps were begun through various avenues almost immediately to back the military away from its tight control of Hawaii’s civilian authority, but not until 24 October 1944 was martial law finally ended.28
The Death of Imperial Japan’s 7 December Carrier Striking Force
Not one Japanese ship or submarine involved in the attack on Pearl Harbor survived World War II. Following the loss of the first midget submarine to the guns and depth charges of the destroyer Ward outside the harbor early the morning of 7 December, the first major submarine sunk was I-70 on 10 December, the victim of Lieutenant Clarence Dickinson’s dive bomb attack launched from the carrier Enterprise. The first Japanese surface vessel lost was the carrier Soryu, at 1910 hours on 4 June 1942, in the Battle of Midway, followed fifteen minutes later by the sinking of the carrier Kaga.29
Akagi and Hiryu were also sunk at Midway. They were the last of four veteran Pearl Harbor carriers sunk at Midway. The final two Pearl Harbor carriers, Shokaku and Zuikaku, which were at the Coral Sea but missed Midway remained in operation until the United States was deep into its strategic offensive in 1944. The Shokaku was sunk 19 June 1944, during the Battle of the Philippine Sea, by the submarine Cavalla, operating from Pearl Harbor. The Zuikaku was sunk off Cape Engano by American carrier aircraft on 25 October 1944.
Ironically, on 15 June 1944, after Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa’s failed naval Battle of the Philippine Sea, in which the Japanese lost 500 aircraft, Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, who commanded the Carrier Striking Force at Pearl Harbor, and his Army peer, General Yoshitsugu Saito, attempted to defend the island of Saipan against the American assault. On 6 July, in the final stages of the Battle of Saipan, Nagumo committed suicide, not in the traditional method of seppuku, but rather a pistol to the temple. His remains were later found by American Marines in the cave where he spent his last days as commander of the Saipan defenders. The Japanese posthumously promoted him to admiral.
Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, who commanded the Carrier Striking Force at Pearl Harbor, and his Army peer General Yoshitsugu Saito attempted to defend the island of Saipan against the American assault. On 6 July, in the final stages of the Battle of Saipan, Nagumo committed suicide. NHHC
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Imperial Japanese Navy, was killed on Bouganville Island in the Solomons 18 April 1943, by coincidence Easter Sunday and the first anniversary of the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo, when his Mitsubishi G4M “Betty” transport bomber was shot down by Army Air Force P-38G aircraft flying out of Henderson Field on Guadalcanal. Portrait photograph, taken during the early 1940s, when he was Commander in Chief, Combined Fleet. NHHC
The last survivor of Admiral Nagumo’s 7 December Carrier Striking Force was the heavy cruiser Tone. She was caught and sunk at her moorings at Kure, in the Inland Sea, in the great raid of 24 July 1945 when American and British carrier groups put 1,747 of their aircraft over the Inland Sea, its bays, its harbors, and its islands.
On 18 April 1943, by coincidence Easter Sunday and the first anniversary of the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander of the Combined Fleet and architect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, was killed on Bougainville Island, in the Solomons, when his Mitsubishi G4M “Betty” transport bomber was shot down by Army Air Force P-38G aircraft flying out of Henderson Field on Guadalcanal. On 14 April, the U.S. Naval intelligence effort code-named “Magic” intercepted and decrypted orders alerting affected Japanese units in the I-Go operation - the disastrous Japanese withdrawal from Guadalcanal - to a morale building tour of the units by Yamamoto.
Information was passed to President Roosevelt who requested Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, “Get Yamamoto.” Admiral Nimitz consulted with Admiral Halsey, and, because Navy fighters hadn’t the range to carry out the mission, it fell to the Army Air Force’s 339th Fighter Squadron, 347th Fighter Group, Thirteenth Air Force. In a near perfectly planned and flown mission assigned the 18 aircraft in the 339th, Yamamoto’s aircraft was intercepted and shot down after a two hour and nine minute flight to the planned intercept point. (Ten of the pilots came from the other 347th squadrons.)
A “Killer Flight” of four P-38s led the low level mission fifty feet above the wave tops to a point short of the intercept where the remaining fourteen, which included two spares, climbed to 18,000 feet and provided top cover against expected reactions by Japanese Zeroes flying top cover for the two Bettys. The mission proved to be the longest intercept mission of the war. Both Betty’s were shot down, the second carrying members of Yamamoto’s staff.30 But the war’s road to that point for the Allies had been long and hard.
Ghosts of Pearl Harbor: Tragedy, Irony and Inspiration
Two of America’s Pearl Harbor battle line could never be resurrected, Arizona and Oklahoma. Arizona and her 1,177 men lost with her, in death became at once the living symbols of “…a date of which will live in infamy…” and individual courage, valor and sacrifice in behalf of a free people. Following the “Battle of the Bands” on the night of 6 December 1941, and the next day’s attack, the Arizona band was later posthumously recognized as the best of all in the musical contest.
On 12 December 1950 a plaque was placed on the Arizona, in memory of all who died on the ship. The Arizona Memorial grew out of a wartime desire to establish some sort of memorial at Pearl Harbor to honor those who died in the attack. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who helped achieve Allied victory in World War II, approved the creation of the Memorial in 1958, construction was complete in 1961, and it was dedicated in 1962.
The architect, Alfred Preis, describes the design of the Memorial, which attracts over a million and a half visitors a year:
Wherein the structure sags in the center but stands strong and vigorous at the ends, expresses initial defeat and ultimate victory…the overall effect is one of serenity. Overtones of sadness have been omitted to permit the individual to contemplate his own personal responses…his innermost feelings.31
The first chaplain to die in World War II, was Chaplain Thomas L. Kirkpatrick, on the Arizona, followed in death a few minutes later by Father Aloysisus Schmitt, on the Oklahoma. Chaplain Kirkpatrick is still on the Arizona.
Beginning 15 July 1942, the Oklahoma was the subject of a massive salvage undertaking, involving turning her upright, patching her damages and re-floating her. Twenty officers and 395 enlisted men were either killed or missing.
Preparations for righting the overturned hull took 7 ¾ months. The actual righting took 3 ¼ months, between 8 March 1943 and 16 June, with Oklahoma towed into dry dock on 28 December. She was stripped of guns and superstructure, and repaired sufficiently to make her relatively watertight. Determined to be too old and badly damaged to be worth returning to service, Oklahoma was formally decommission in 1 September 1944. She was sold for scrapping on 5 December 1946, to Moore Drydock Company of Oakland, California. Oklahoma sank in heavy weather on 17 May 1947, 540 miles out of Pearl Harbor while being towed to San Francisco.32
