U.S. Navy’s Multicarrier Experience
Norman Polmar
I take issue with the contention of Jonathan Parshall and Michael Wenger in “Pearl Harbor’s Overlooked Answer” (December, pp. 16–21) that in the U.S. Navy of 1941 “carriers are used for scouting purposes in conjunction with the battle line. They operate solo.”
Not so. As early as the late 1920s the U.S. Navy was operating multiple-carrier groups under Rear Admiral Joseph M. Reeves, the service’s first carrier-division commander. He subsequently envisioned employing the Navy’s three carriers together—making them more efficient by loading all fighters on one ship, scout-dive bombers on another, and torpedo planes on the third. (Reeves became commander-in-chief, U.S. Fleet, in 1934.)
During operations off Hawaii on 17 May 1928—Fleet Problem VIII—the pioneer U.S. carrier Langley (CV-1) launched 35 aircraft in an early morning “attack” that simulated bombing and strafing runs on military facilities. The Army defenders were taken by complete surprise. This was the first of a series of such exercises. Multiple carriers later participated, and they were invariably successful in making surprise attacks on Oahu and the Panama Canal.
These fleet exercises were held on a regular basis, at times several in a given year, until 1940 (Fleet Problem XXI). Multiple-carrier operations continued, and by the late 1930s the Navy was operating four carriers together.
In 1940 in Tokyo, Commander Minoru Genda, soon to become the air operations officer for the fast-carrier force that struck Pearl Harbor, by chance saw an American newsreel in which four U.S. aircraft carriers were steaming in formation. At the time, Japanese carriers normally operated in two-ship formations (i.e., divisions), and never did as many as four steam together.
Genda pondered what he had seen and concluded that several aircraft carriers could operate in a single formation and could easily form their squadrons into one mass striking force in minimal time. The weak point of such a formation would be the possible discovery of all carriers at the same time by an enemy. However, this could be countered by the massing of defensive fighters and the great volume of antiaircraft fire of the combined carrier force and escorting ships.
Genda’s proposal called for Japan’s six fast carriers to operate in a rectangular formation with 7,700 yards between ships. This so-called “box-type” formation was to be used mainly for attacks against enemy ground and port installations. For operations against an enemy fleet, the six carriers would be formed into an inverted-V or “encircling” formation based on two-ship carrier divisions. This proposal was accepted by the commander of the First Air Fleet.
Those formations were adopted, but there was no opportunity to practice them until the rehearsal for the Pearl Harbor attack, just one month before the strike. The box-type formation was used at Pearl Harbor, in the Indian Ocean, and at Midway, all of which were primarily attacks against land targets. This box-type formation did not work well at Midway and was not used after that carrier-versus-carrier battle. The inverted-V formation was never used in combat.
Under Reeves, the U.S. Navy’s carriers ceased only scouting for the fleet and became a striking arm of the fleet.
Mr. Parshall responds:
Michael Wenger and I appreciate Mr. Polmar’s response to our article. He is quite right in pointing out that American carriers had, on occasion, operated together before the attack on Pearl Harbor. He is likewise correct in noting that certain individuals within the U.S. Navy, such as Admiral Reeves, harbored ambitions for developing multicarrier operations. However, it is equally clear that a yawning gap existed between Admiral Reeves’ vision for naval airpower and the prevailing institutional mindset and operational capabilities that actually existed within the U.S. Navy in 1941.
If the Navy actually had a demonstrable facility in multicarrier operations beyond the largely theoretical realm of the Fleet Problems, there is precious little evidence of it during the opening years of the war. One only has to look at the galling lack of coordination between the American carrier task forces at Midway to gain a sense of the service’s wretched state of proficiency in this area. Indeed, as late as November 1942, Rear Admiral George Murray (who had been the Enterprise’s skipper at Midway) noted that the U.S. Navy had yet to operate three carriers together in anything but the most simplistic peacetime conditions (see John Lundstrom, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral, p. 235). Other veterans of the 1942 carrier battles, such as Murr Arnold and John Thach, also roundly criticized American capabilities in this area (Black Shoe Carrier Admiral, p. 566, note 45). Thus, while the prewar Fleet Problems may have described a theoretical need for multideck operations, they had not in any way conjured up a usable operational capacity in that area.
Mr. Polmar is also correct in noting that Minoru Genda’s original inspiration for multicarrier operations came from a newsreel showing four American carriers steaming together. However, inspiration is one thing, but the perspiration necessary to bring that mental seed to fruition is quite another. Likewise, there’s a big difference between merely steaming together for the benefit of a cameraman and actually conducting multideck operations. The Japanese Navy alone had put in the effort necessary to figure out the nuts and bolts of how to make multicarrier operations actually work. They then put that hard-won expertise into practice at Pearl Harbor.
The Americans, though, had not yet paid a similar price in perspiration, and it showed in 1941–42. These operational details eventually would be hammered out by the Navy during mid-1943 (over the objections of some admirals, such as William Halsey). But overall, it is clear that—Admiral Reeves’ apparently isolated prescience notwithstanding—America could not match Japan’s capabilities in multideck operations until late 1943, nearly two years after Pearl Harbor had been attacked.
In sum, the point of our article was never to argue that absolutely no one in the U.S. Navy had a clue about multicarrier operations. Isolated individuals certainly did. The material point remains, though, that at an institutional and operational level the Navy had yet to grasp the potential of such operations in 1941. The U.S. Navy as an institution—and this very much included its intelligence organs—simply could not give adequate weight to enemy capabilities that it did not itself possess or even really understand.
Even more important, while some isolated individuals within the Navy may have appreciated the potential of multicarrier operations, certainly no one within the service had any real notion of how quickly and comprehensively Japanese naval aviation capabilities had matured during the eight months between the formation of First Air Fleet and the attack on Pearl Harbor. The combination of very effective Japanese control over the flow of information coming out of their country and the extraordinarily rapid pace of Kido Butai’s evolution meant that the U.S. Navy was operating in the dark regarding these capabilities.
FDO’s Perspective on Santa Cruz
Captain Elton N. Thompson, U.S. Naval Reserve (Retired)
I also have comments regarding the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands and John Prados’ article “Solving the Mysteries of Santa Cruz” (October, pp. 42–49).
From 24 June until 26 October 1942 I was fighter director officer (FDO) in the combat information center of the USS Hornet (CV-8). The Enterprise (CV-6) and Hornet joined up on 24 October, just two days before the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands. Was this sufficient time to coordinate plans and ensure that communications were adequate?
The Japanese carrier Zuiho was sighted by a PBY at 0410 on 26 October and her position reported to the seaplane tender Curtiss (AV-4), but the contact was not reported to the senior U.S. commander, Rear Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid. It was assumed he was guarding the PBY channel. The possibility of an early strike was lost. Matters soon went from bad to worse.
Radar (and fighter direction) gave us an advantage over the Japanese. The existing radar equipment (CXAM in this case) could measure ranges and bearings but could not accurately determine altitudes of contacts. A crude “fade chart” coupled with distance at contact combined to suggest altitude. Contacts made at 75 miles clearly indicated that incoming “bogies” were at 14,000–17,000 feet.
Fighter direction was under control of the Enterprise, the senior admiral’s flagship. The Hornet picked up the Japanese at about 78 miles, bearing about 270 degrees. We plotted the approach of the Japanese planes while waiting to see how the FDO in the Enterprise was going to respond. He sent a group of his CAP (combat air patrol) south and did not put his other fighters at an altitude matching the incoming planes, nor did he send out CAP to challenge the Japanese at a distance from the carriers in order to give his CAP a chance to shoot down enemy planes, break up their formations, or disrupt their aim.
Our pilots shot down many planes but only after they had dropped their bombs and torpedoes. The Enterprise was hidden under a rain squall, but we were in the clear. Relatively unopposed, the Japanese simply overwhelmed us; within a few minutes, we were hit and dead in the water. Just before losing power, Lieutenant Al Fleming, senior FDO in the Hornet, tried to direct some of our CAP, but it was too late.
Did the Japanese win the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands? Yes, but at a terrible price. Despite poor fighter direction, our pilots shot down many planes, and antiaircraft fire destroyed many others. Captain Akihito Yoshida, JMSDF (Retired), compared Midway to Santa Cruz as turning points in the war (see “In Contact,” February 2006, pp. 6–7). He pointed out that Japan’s heaviest losses at Midway were in planes and ships, not pilots, but at Santa Cruz the Japanese lost many of their finest pilots and leaders.
After Santa Cruz the Japanese had superiority in the number of carriers and surface ships, yet they didn’t engage in carrier action until the middle of ’44. Why? Their “A team” was shattered, and they had to build a new cadre of pilots and aircrews. When the Marianas “Turkey Shoot” took place, the “B team,” though courageous and determined, was not in the same class as the superb group of pilots and airmen with whom Japan had entered the war.
Our objective at Coral Sea, the Eastern Solomons, and Santa Cruz was to deny Japan control of the sea-lanes to Australia and New Zealand. We won that battle.
General Yamashita’s Trial
Allan A. Ryan
Jonathan Parshall’s article “A Grim December” (December, pp. 22–28) aptly describes General Tomoyuki Yamashita’s conquest of Malaya and Singapore as both deft and aggressive. Yamashita had four divisions available but decided to go with only three, sacrificing firepower for mobility in a brilliant campaign that culminated in the surrender of Singapore, which Winston Churchill glumly called the worst defeat in the history of the British Empire.
But the caption to the photograph on page 25 erroneously states that Yamashita was tried and convicted for “war crimes committed in Singapore and the Philippines.” In fact, the 1945 trial focused exclusively on the atrocities committed by Japanese troops in the Philippines. Singapore was never mentioned.
The charge and the trial have been controversial ever since. General Douglas MacArthur convened the tribunal—the first war crimes trial of World War II—in September 1945, charging that Yamashita had lost control of his troops, thereby “permitting” the atrocities. But the evidence showed that Yamashita had ordered his troops out of Manila when the Americans landed on Luzon in January 1945. A subordinate naval officer flatly disobeyed the order and remained in the city; his troops were the ones who committed the atrocities. Yamashita, who had retreated into the mountainous jungles of northern Luzon, had lost communication with Manila during the ferocious battle there and had no information—certainly no clear knowledge—of what was happening.
Nonetheless, he was convicted in a monthlong military-commission proceeding conducted by five Army officers, none of whom were lawyers. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the charge and the verdict, and Yamashita was hanged in February 1946.
Editor’s note: Mr. Ryan’s book Yamashita’s Ghost: Our Enemy, Our Law and the Accountability of Command will be published in 2012 by University Press of Kansas.
The Book Was Much Better
Lisle A. Rose
In his article “Happy 65th Birthday, Mister Roberts” (December, pp. 54–57), James C. Roberts lauds the film version of Mister Roberts as “bittersweet . . . at times uproariously funny and at times tear-inducing.” It was, in fact, among other things one of the most vicious, stereotypically prejudiced depictions of Navy enlisted men ever presented. I read the book before I enlisted at age 17 in 1954 and found its depiction of the Reluctant’s sailors both realistic and sympathetic; a reaction confirmed when I joined the fleet and my first ship, the USS Warrick (AKA-89), a sister of Mister Roberts author Thomas Heggen’s own Virgo (AKA-20). My shipmates were smart, irreverent, and professional. Not all were the sharpest knives in the drawer, but they were decent and productive young people.
The film shocked me. Sailors were portrayed as barely literate cretins—credulous and above all childish, far beyond what the circumstances could justify and far different than Heggen’s novelistic depictions. In fact, two of the novel’s chapters, one dealing with a sensitive and innocent young seaman finding love on his first real time ashore, and the other about an older petty officer denied leave to see his seriously ill wife by the spiteful captain, were dropped from the film. The resulting product was an unbridled insult to U.S. Navy enlisted men. If you don’t believe me, watch the film again.