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STRATEGY for VICTOR Y N June 1944, the American Pacific Fleet Was Being Reorganised . the Main Reason Was to Increase the Tempo

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STRATEGY for VICTOR Y N June 1944, the American Pacific Fleet Was Being Reorganised . the Main Reason Was to Increase the Tempo CHAPTER 1 5 STRATEGY FOR VICTOR Y N June 1944, the American Pacific Fleet was being reorganised . The I main reason was to increase the tempo of the Pacific War, but th e increased size of the fleet also played its part . The Commander-in-Chief at Pearl Harbour was Admiral Nimitz . His main operational weapons as a result of the reorganisation were two fleets—Third and Fifth . The South Pacific Force had attained all its objectives, and Admiral Halsey wa s brought from that command (where Noumea now became an importan t rear base) and came under Nimitz as Commander Third Fleet . Parallel to Halsey was Admiral Spruance, Commander Fifth Fleet . Commanding all the Pacific Fleet Amphibious Forces was Vice-Admiral Turner, who per- sonally commanded V Amphibious Force . Rear-Admiral Wilkinson com- manded III Amphibious Force . Each amphibious force had a correspondin g amphibious corps of ground troops . Under the reorganisation the Pacific Fleet command, but not the ship s themselves, became two "teams"—Halsey's Third Fleet and Spruance 's Fifth Fleet. In practice they were the same, save for their titles and their commanders and staffs . These last-mentioned alternated in command of th e ships, and while one was operational and carried out an operation, th e other planned and trained for that operation which followed . Thus ships and their companies operated almost continuously and—as Admiral Nimit z described the situation: "The team remains about the same but the drivers change." Vice-Admiral Mitscher commanded the Fast Carrier Force o f the Pacific Fleet, and this was designated TF .38 when under Halsey' s command with Third Fleet, and TF .58 when with Fifth Fleet and Spruance . The same happened with task groups, such as the battle line with the fas t carriers, and the bombardment groups with the amphibious forces . On 6th June, the date of the Allied landings in France, Mitscher' s Fast Carrier Force (Lexington,' Flag) sortied from Majuro in the openin g move of operation FORAGER, the invasion of the Marianas. It did so as a component of Admiral Spruance's Fifth Fleet (Indianapolis, Flag) and was therefore designated TF .58 . It was part of a vast armada drawn from various assembly points, and comprising TF.58's battle line ; both V Amphibious Force and III Amphibious Force and their battleship bombard- ment groups ; and cruisers, destroyers, and ancillaries. When news of the invasion of Normandy was announced to the me n of Fifth Fleet by loud speakers, it "was greeted with a roar of satisfaction" . The united efforts of the British and Americans in European and Pacific waters "made June of 1944 the greatest month yet in military and naval history". Rear-Admiral Ainsworth, commanding one of the bombardmen t groups, expressed much the spirit of Ramsay's order of the day to th e 1 Lexington, US aircraft carrier (1943), 27,100 tons, twelve 5-in guns, 103 aircraft, 33 kts . The mounting pressure of Allied sea power, 1944 26 May-15 Jun U.S. SUBMARINE OPERATIONS 453 Normandy Attack Forces when, in a message to those under his command , he said: Today a large United States Naval Force of which your ship is a unit is on it s way to take the islands of Saipan and Tinian away from the Japs, and make the m give up Guam to its rightful owners . 2 The first naval blows in the actual invasion of the Marianas were struck on 11th June by aircraft from TF.58 which attacked Guam, Tinian an d Saipan, and continued doing so until the 15th . On the 13th, surface bom- bardments began, by the new fast battleships of TF .58, and were continued next day by the older "Pearl Harbour" battleships of Rear-Admiral Olden- dorf's and Rear-Admiral Ainsworth's bombardment groups . Meanwhile there were other movements, touched off by the initial ai r strike by TF.58 on 11th June . News of that decided Admiral Toyod a that the Americans were moving into the Marianas . The next day, as stated earlier, he suspended the KoN operation to relieve Biak, and ordered KoN commander, Ugaki, to join Ozawa in the Philippine Sea . One American view 3 is that the U.S . submarine operations had a marked bearing on the Japanese fleet movements . At the time, eleven U.S. sub- marines were engaged in covering Japanese forces . Three (Harder, Redfi n and Bluefish 4 ) were covering the Tawitawi exits ; three were statione d north of Luzon; three south of Mindanao ; one at the eastern entrance to San Bernardino Strait and one at the ea.;tern entrance to Surigao Strait. Harder, which left Fremantle on 26th May, sank three Japanese destroyer s in the Celebes Sea between 6th and 9th June . This had a psychologica l effect on Toyoda, who was very submarine conscious and, "alarmed b y the Harder foray he pulled the trigger on the A-Go plan as soon he hear d of the preliminary skirmishing in the Marianas" . Ugaki sailed from Batjan in the morning of 13th June, on which da y Ozawa sailed from Tawitawi, his departure reported to Pearl Harbour by Redfin. Ozawa fuelled on the 15th in Guimaras Strait, between Panay and Negros Islands, and the same evening entered the Philippine Se a through San Bernardino Strait—his exit therefrom being observed an d reported by U.S. submarine Flying Fish . 5 That day Admiral Toyoda, from his flagship in the Inland Sea, sent his message to his flag and commanding officers : On the morning of the 15th a strong enemy force began landing operations in th e Saipan-Tinian area . The Combined Fleet will attack the enemy in the Marianas are a and annihilate the invasion force . Activate A-Go operation for decisive battle . Five minutes later, in another message to them, he repeated the signa l addressed to his fleet 39 years earlier by Admiral Togo on the eve of the Battle of Tsushima. 2 Morison, Vol VIII (p. 173), whence largely comes the material for this description of FORAGER. 2 T . Roscoe, United States Submarine Operations in World War II (1949) . ¢ Harder, Redfin, Bluefish, US submarines (1942-43), 1,526 tons, one gun (3- to 5-in), ten 21-in torpedo tubes, 20 kts. Harder sunk Philippines, 24 Aug 1944. 5 Flying Fish, US submarine (1941), 1,526 tons, one gun (3- to 5-in), ten 21-in torpedo tubes , 20 kts . 454 STRATEGY FOR VICTORY 15-17Iun 1944 The fate of the Empire rests on this one battle . Every man is expected to do his utmost. Ozawa transmitted these words to every man in the Mobile Fleet as it left Guimaras anchorage. Ozawa and Ugaki (whose presence, as Ozawa left San Bernardin o Strait, was observed and reported about 200 miles E .S .E. of Surigao Strait by U.S. submarine Seahorset ) joined forces at 4.50 p .m. on 16th June 350 miles east of Samar Island in the Philippines . Their combined strength amounted to 9 carriers, 5 battleships, 11 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers , 28 destroyers . Their mission was to "annihilate " an invasion force whos e covering fleet was numerically superior in every category but one, consistin g as it did of 15 carriers, 7 battleships, 8 heavy cruisers, 13 light cruiser s and 69 destroyers. In carrier-borne aircraft strength that of the American s was a little more than twice the Japanese—956 to 473 taking all categories . And in total aircraft strength Ozawa was comparatively weaker than h e thought : first because he was relying upon some 500 land-based aircraft at Guam, Yap, Tinian and the Palaus, to swing the balance, and that strength had been largely drained away by the TF .58 air attacks ; and second because his carrier fliers were inadequately trained . In the meantime, as Toyoda said in his message activating A-Go, th e Americans assaulted Saipan on the morning of the 15th, and the firs t wave landed at 8 .44 a.m . after heavy pre-landing naval and air bombard- ments. The land forces, under the command of Lieut-General Hollan d M. Smith, had embarked on a "long, tough job" .7 By nightfall, by which time about 20,000 assault troops had been landed, little more than hal f the planned beach-head had been occupied, and there had been heav y casualties. But on the morning of 17th June, when Ozawa was fuelling just to the eastward of where Ugaki had joined him, the beach-head was secured. Each side had by this time a rough idea of the position and composition of the other's forces . Spruance got his information from submarines, an d Ozawa mainly from air searches . It is notable that on the American side, submarines played a large and important part in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, not alone in reconnaissance, but in action also. The Japanese sub- marine story was different, and that service, on which so much had bee n staked as one which would largely restore the naval balance for the Japanese Navy, failed in this vital battle . "At least 25 RO-boats and I-boats," says the U.S. naval historian , were employed in one way or another during the Marianas campaign . They gleane d no valuable information ; they failed to sink or even to damage a single Unite d States ship ; and 17 of them were sunk by United States destroyers, destroyer escorts, or planes .8 e Seahorse, US submarine (1943), 1,526 tons, one gun (3- to 5-in), ten 21-in torpedo tubes, 20 kts .
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