pacific war

Fleet Admiral Ernest King was Commander-in-Chief Fleet, or COMINCH, during most of World War II, and in 1942 assigned to also serve as Chief of Naval Operations or CNO.  As CNO he managed the Navy Staff, called OPNAV then (and still is), which allowed him to manage, among other things, all Navy investments in ships and aircraft, as well as all senior Navy officer assignments. 

A funny aside before we jump in.  For some inexplicable reason, prior to King’s appointment, the Commander-in-Chief, US Fleet acronym was CinC-US, pronounced “sink-us.”  When King was appointed he thought the sink-us title was stupid, so he changed the acronym to COMINCH for Commander-in-Chief.   Although that acronym was better, President Franklin Roosevelt actually tried to talk King out of calling himself a “commander-in-chief,” saying the constitution only provided for one commander-in-chief and that was the president.  King said if he was ordered to change the title he would, but Roosevelt was reluctant to make a change like this as we were just entering the war.  So the commander-in-chief title stuck for Navy commanders, that is until Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld finally killed it in 2002 during the George W. Bush administration.  

But getting back to World War II, it was King’s CNO job, not his COMINCH job, that gave him the authority, for example, over Navy administrative matters, such as the assignment of Admirals Spruance and Halsey to command 5th and 3rd Fleets respectively.  The CNO job also gave him a seat at the table with the Joint Chiefs of Staff or JCS, along with Generals Marshall, Arnold, and Admiral Stark, as well as the Combined Chiefs of Staff with our British allies.   The JCS was the body that approved the initiation of campaigns such as Guadalcanal.

But it was the COMINCH job and not the CNO job that allowed King to actually command Navy and Marine forces during campaigns in the Atlantic and Pacific, with Admiral Chester Nimitz as his surrogate as Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet and Pacific Ocean Areas.

King was noteworthy for some personality traits as well.  One he was famous for was his legendary temper.

General Eisenhower, for example, mostly known as an even-tempered man, once said, “Admiral King is an arbitrary, stubborn type with too much brain and a tendency toward bullying his juniors! But I think he wants to fight, which is vastly encouraging.”  

But King was also known as someone who was not a fan of Great Britain.  Once President Roosevelt adopted a “Europe-First” policy, it was King’s job to divert naval forces preferentially to Eisenhower’s theater of operations.  But as King perceived the United Kingdom as dragging its feet in offensive operations in Europe, King took every opportunity to divert naval forces to the Pacific theater.  After all, in King’s mind it was Japan that attacked the US, and he realized that the longer we waited to neutralize the Japanese threat in the Pacific, the more entrenched and difficult to defeat they would become.  And so, the very first major amphibious landing in World War II was not North Africa as many people think, but Guadalcanal in the Pacific.  And that campaign was King’s idea.

But King’s intransigence when it came to Europe led to another famous Eisenhower quote, where he says: “One thing that might help win this war is to get someone to shoot King. He's the antithesis of cooperation — a deliberately rude person —which means he's a mental bully.”

Even King’s own daughter joined the chorus of opinion about her father.  When asked about King’s unpredictable personality, she said, “He is the most even tempered person in the United States Navy. He is always in a rage.”

But personality foibles aside, in my view King gets a bad rap.  He was the main strategist for the Pacific war, and with Nimitz, for the island-hopping campaign that eventually won the war against Japan.  In that regard, at least when it comes to the Pacific theater of Operations, as we say in the title of this episode, history has shown that King was right about almost everything.

Seth, we don’t want to do a biography here, but maybe a few things about King’s background:

• As did everyone, went to Annapolis
• Was a surface officer
• Inauspicious career early on
• Part of the Asiatic fleet as a Lieutenant
• Returned to his ship the Cincinnati one day drunk & disorderly, his captain recorded it in his personnel record.  The Asiatic fleet commander at one time was Admiral Charles B. McVay, Jr, the father of the man who would become the skipper of USS Indianapolis cruiser during World War II.  But King’s behavior problems in the Asiatic are what led to the untrue rumor that King had a vendetta against Admiral McVay, that would cause him decades later to want to court-martial Captain McVay after the Indy was sunk, all despite the fact that when King got in trouble it was actually Admiral Henry Wilson in command of the fleet.  
• He went to submarine school as a captain in a class full of ensigns.  Nevertheless, unlike Chester Nimitz, King never finished his submarine qualification hence was never eligible to wear the highly sought after submarine dolphin insignia.
• At the age of 49, King later goes to flight training because he wants to understand this new device the airplane.  “Aviation is the coming thing in Navy.”  Pilots who went through late career flight training were referred to as “Johnny come lately’s” by aviators who spent their entire career in aviation.  Earned his wings, but then never again piloted an airplane alone.  But King does eventually command an aircraft carrier, the Lexington.
• “The damnest party man in the place.”

Jumping to the war:

• Had been Atlantic fleet
• Named COMINCH right after Pearl Harbor attack
• Named CNO in March 1942
• With Nimitz, author of the island-hopping campaign
• When Briton dragged feet on North Africa landing, diverted naval forces to land in Guadalcanal, first major amphibious landing of the war
• Coral Sea and Guadalcanal personally selected by him to neutralize Japan’s thrust south
• King would select strategic objectives, and initially King would get involved at the operational level “how to do it.”  
• Nimitz was selected by Roosevelt not King.  King didn’t trust him—referred to him as a “fixer”—until after Midway.
• After Midway, he would generally leave Nimitz to do the campaign and battle plans.  Nimitz would often bound the plan off of King before the plan was putting into effect. 
• King’s responsibility spanned both Atlantic and Pacific, so it was a good thing when he decided he could trust Nimitz
• King had the notion that each successive thrust need to move the US closer and closer to mainland Japan, with engagements aimed at Japanese centers of gravity.  To that end, he supported an attack against Japanese forces in Formosa (Taiwan), not Philippines, because Taiwan enabled more direct strikes at the Japanese mainland and would shorten the path to victory.  The only reason to go back to Philippines was emotional—MacArthur’s “I shall return” declaration.
• MacArthur won the argument partly through a veiled threat that Roosevelt’s electability might suffer if he failed to retake the Philippines.  In any case, history has likely proven King to be right.
• Triple objectives: neutralize Japanese Navy through carrier warfare, isolate and strangle mainland Japan through submarine warfare, and seize islands that would enable the strategic bombing campaign to put pressure on mainland Japan.
• The island-hopping campaign eventually worked.  

• What was King wrong about?
• He supported Forrestal’s decision to court-martial Charles B. McVay.  This was a grave error that would haunt the Navy for 50+ years.

While the hit and run carrier raids of February and March tested American carrier doctrine to an extent, and the Pearl Harbor raid as well as Indian Ocean raids tested Imperial Navy doctrine also to an extent, this is the very first time that both navies tested each other’s way of doing things, and in the process found things that worked, and things that well…didn’t work.  Let’s dig into it…

Talking Points:

• What sets off the battle of Coral Sea?

o Outline Japanese plans for Operation MO

 Japanese wanted to seize Port Moresby and all of New Guinea.  By doing this, it would provide Japan with both a way to isolate Australia as well as New Zealand from allied supply lines, specifically American supply lines.  

• Why Rabaul (Opeation R) wasn’t good enough

 This was to be prefaced by the Japanese capture of Tulagi, which is an island we will hear a lot about in the near future.  By capturing Tulagi, in the Solomons, the Japanese could patrol the area and the sea lanes to Port Moresby so as to allow their invasion force a free hand.

 As part of the Port Moresby invasion attempt, the invasion group was to be covered by two separate carrier groups, one which centered around the light carrier Shoho, and another which centered around the fleet carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku.

o US intel at Station HYPO and fleet radio unit Melbourne, or FRUMEL decrypt Japanese messages to an extent, and in turn believe that the Japanese will strike the area of Port Moresby, or the northern coast of Australia on or about the first week of May.

 As a result of this intel, Nimitz deploys the only two carrier task forces at his disposal at this time, those centered around USS Lexington, and USS Yorktown, TF 11 and TF 17 respectively, to stand by the area of the Coral Sea with designs to intercept and destroy the incoming Japanese invasion and support fleets.

• On May 1 the two US CV TFs unite under the command of ADM Fletcher

o May 4, Fletcher detaches CV5 to attack recent Japanese positions on Tulagi

 CV5’s attacks are relatively successful, with damage inflicted on enemy positions and shipping in and around the harbor of Tulagi

• US losses are minimal

• By May 6, Fletcher is aware that Japanese CVs are in the area, and the Japanese invasion fleet is not far behind.  As a result, he detaches ADM Crace’s cruisers WITHOUT air cover to block the invasion force.

o This is potentially a critical blunder by Fletcher.  Crace’s CAs could have been blown out of the water by Japanese CVs, as it was, they were attacked three times by Japanese aircraft and once by MacArthur’s B17s.  

 Japanese reports stated that they had sunk a BB, damaged a second BB and a CA.  Japanese sent no further attacks towards Crace.  His vessels survived due to poor Japanese (and American) accuracy as well as his skillful maneuvering.  

 The sighting of the supposed BBs by the Japanese informed the invasion fleet to reverse course

 Still a horrible decision by Fletcher

• First day of the carrier battle May 7

• Early on the morning of the 7th, Japanese launch searches to find US CVs

o Japanese scout planes from Shokaku find US ships and radio ADM Tagaki of 1 CV, 1 CA, and 3 DD.

 What the Japanese actually sight is the detached oiler Neosho and her escort DD Sims.  

• How did the Japanese pilot screw this up this bad?

• Japanese arrive over oiler and DD, realize their mistake and continue their search, they return and attack and sink Sims and force Neosho to be abandonned

• At 0815 a CV5 SBD piloted by John Nielsen finds the Japanese screening force under ADM Goto, which includes light carrier Shoho.  

o An error in Nielsen’s coding made the message read 2 Japanese CVs instead of 1.

• Fletcher loses his mind on Nielsen when he lands and clarifies his message

 Believing this to be the main Japanese CV force, Fletcher launches everything he has.  

• 93 aircraft are flung at Shoho

o 18 F4Fs, 53 SBDs, 22 TBDs from CV2 and CV5

• Lexington Air Group, under Bill Ault arrive over Shoho first

o The SBDs attack first, and score at least 2 bomb hits and the TBDs score 5 torpedo hits

 This is the only real successful TBD attack of WW2

• Lex AG executes a hammer and anvil attack and leave Shoho a wreck

 Talk about Walt Nelson and Ted Wiebe

• Yorktown Air Group arrive next and continue to pummel Shoho.

o Estimated 11 bombs and 2 more torpedoes

o She is barely afloat as US aircraft leave and is gone by 1135

• Lexington VB2 CO, Bob Dixon sent a prearranged radio signal back to Fletcher that simply said, “Scratch One Flattop”

• Second day of the carrier battle May 8

• Both Japanese and US locate each other almost simultaneously

o US launch first at 0900, Japanese at 0915

 Opposing forces actually pass each other on the way to their targets

• US attack Japanese first

o The well-coordinated attack of May 7 gives way to the mess of May 8

 US aircraft have trouble finding the targets due to squally weather

• When they do find them, they can’t coordinate their attacks as the previous day

 Yorktown aircraft under Bill Burch find and attack Shokaku.

• The ship is moving radically but is still hit with 2 1,000 pound bombs which puts her flight deck out of action.

• Lex Air Group attacks and half of her SBDs find Shokaku and attack, hitting her once, the other half of the attackers from Lex can’t find the ship.

• All TBD torpedo attacks by both Air Groups miss their targets or the weapons fail to explode

• Japanese attack on US fleet

• Enemy is picked up 68 nautical miles away by US radar

o Poorly executed fighter direction operations positioned the US CAP too low to intercept the incoming enemy strike.

• One of the stranger aspects of Coral Sea is that SBDs were utilized as anti-torpedo plane CAP

o The assumption was that the Japanese Kate was as slow and sluggish as the TBD, which was obviously false

 One of the anti-VT pilots was Swede Vejtasa

• Talk about Swede’s dogfight against Zuikaku aircraft

• Despite the best efforts of the US CAP, the Japanese break through

o The Kates attack CV5 and miss, yet a hammer and anvil attack against CV2 succeeds

 CV2 turned like a whale and could not evade the torpedoes.  

• She takes two on her port side, one ruptures her avgas tanks, which eventually seal her fate

o The Vals attack Lex and hit her twice

o The Vals attack Yorktown and hit her severely damaging her as well

• Lexington goes down

o Avgas fumes spread throughout the ship, it is thought that a spark from a DC powered motor ignited the fumes which eviscerated the internals of the ship, starting uncontrollable fires.

 The first major explosion kills Lex’s main DC party

 IF WE HAVE THE TIME, LET’S GO THROUGH LEX’S DEATH

• Outcome

o Coral sea is technically a draw

 Seen as US strategic victory in that it is the first time the Japanese are stopped

• Port Moresby is not invaded, and the Japanese expansion, at least for now, is checked

 Tactical defeat for the US Navy

• Losing Lex in exchange for Shoho is not acceptable in any way

o Poor FDO operations stationing CAP too low and out of place contributed to losing Lex

o Poor design (prewar design) heavily contributed to Lex’s loss

o Poor US coordination on the morning attack against Shokaku and Zuikaku allowed both to escape the battle

 Sho and Zui would be unavailable for the Midway operation

• Sho due to damage and Zui due to heavy aircrew losses

o What lessons do we learn regarding future operations?

Hot on the heels of losing a 20-year war in Afghanistan, Internet couch potatoes and armchair warriors want to try their hands (well, other people's hands) with an even bigger foe. Specifically, China.

Yes, some folks want the West to "stand up" to China–i.e. go to war–with China over Taiwan.

Frankly, hearing these people does my head in. I really wish they'd just grow up! 😠

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