Misuse of the Fast Battleship in World War II

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For decades, the battleship was considered the queen of the fleet. But in World War II, the new monarch of the seas ivas the U. S. aircraft carrier, and the battlewagon was relegated to the role of lady-in-waiting. Was it merely had luck that these fast, powerful warships were so often misused throughout the greatest of all ocean wars?

past. How are all the experts going to comm¹

D uring the 1930s, the battleship—not the car­rier—formed the core of the rearmament program of the U. S. Navy. Congress authorized the construc­tion of 17 fast (27 knots or more) battleships with extraordinary offensive and defensive powers. The projected cost was more than $1 billion, an unprece­dented figure for peacetime. Eventually, seven of the vessels were cancelled, but the ten ships which were completed formed a more powerful battle line than all the modern Axis battleships combined. Nonethe­less, this potent American force saw relatively little action and failed to make a contribution commensu­rate with its power.

Part of the explanation can be found in the events of December 1941. The Pearl Harbor attack, and even more important, the sinking off Malaya of the new British battleship Prince of Wales caused the prestige of the big-gun ship to plummet. The idea that the type was hopelessly vulnerable gained wide­spread currency both inside and outside the Navy. Observers denounced battleships as “mammoths” and “sea dinosaurs,” and the hypothesis that they were especially helpless against land-based air power be­came dogma for many officers. Cautious employment in both theaters became the order of the day. Indeed, when the first fast battleship reached the South Pacific, Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher wondered what use he could make of it.¹

Yet by the end of 1942, the fast battleship had undergone a renaissance. This was in part attributa­ble to the ability of the new ships to survive enemy air attacks. Armed with scores of modern antiaircraft guns, especially the 20-millimeter Oerlikon and 40-millimeter Bofors, two of the recently commis­sioned ships, the North Carolina (BB-55) and South Dakota (BB-57), not only held their own but rendered invaluable service in protecting carriers in the South Pacific in two separate actions. At the Battle of the Eastern Solomons in August 1942, the North Carolina destroyed seven planes without suffering significant damage. Two months later, the South Dakota turned in an even more dramatic performance while escorting the carrier Enterprise (CV-6) at the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands. Although the battleship was hit by a bomb, the South Dakota's fighting capa­bility remained unimpaired, and the antiaircraft gunners were credited with destroying 26 Japanese planes, the highest score ever recorded by a naval vessel in one action.²

A second reassuring feature of the performance of the fast battleship was her ability to remain opera- ^!For footnotes, please turn to page 62.

tional after serious damage, as the North Carolina demonstrated on 15 September 1942. A Japanese submarine torpedoed the ship just forward of the first turret. The blast tore a hole 32 feet long by 18 fee¹ high in the ship’s side. Nonetheless, the North Carolina maintained station in the formation, even during radical maneuvers at speeds of 25 knots. De­finitive repairs took two months, but the Bureau of Ships concluded, “We feel rather well satisfied at the performance which the North Carolina system gave.’ Finally, in November, fast battleships gave con­vincing demonstrations in both Atlantic and Pacific oceans that they were potent sea control weapons when presented with the opportunity. During the Allied invasion of North Africa, the Massachusetts (BB-59), on her shakedown cruise, provided key sup­port by silencing the incomplete French battleship Jean Bart docked at Casablanca and by beating back ³ hasty French counterattack on U.S. troopships. The new American battleship helped sink or disable fo^ur Vichy destroyers and one light cruiser. A week later* in an even more crucial situation, the South Dakota and the Washington (BB-56), the principal ships in ³ task force commanded by Rear Admiral Willis ^ Lee, Jr., turned the tide at Guadalcanal by sinking the Japanese battleship Kirishima in a night acting and thereby saving American troops on the islan from a devastating bombardment. Even more signif*' cant, the American victory convinced the Japane^se command to evacuate its forces from the island- Samuel Eliot Morison later concluded that the Na^v3 Battle of Guadalcanal:

”... was decisive, not only in the struggle f°^r that island, but in the Pacific War at large . ■ ■ .

“The conclusion of this great battle was mark^e by a definite shift of the Americans from the d^e fensive to the offensive, and of the Japanese in opposite direction.”⁴

The action also went far to retrieve the prestige ⁰ the battleship. Under Secretary of the Navy Jam^eS Forrestal praised the ships for saving “. . . Guad^ canal and the many thousands of gallant America^ in that bloodily contested jungle . . . .”⁵ Adm^lf3 Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of m Pacific Fleet, commented publicly: “The engagem^e(lt justifies our faith in battleships.”⁶ Admiral Will*¹¹¹¹¹ F. Halsey, who had sent Lee’s force into battle, jo^¹ lantly wrote to Nimitz,

“I think we proved in Lee’s night action the day of the battleship is far from a thing of ^t'^lC

now? They certainly inflicted terrific damage tW night. The use we made of them defied all con^e⁶ tions: narrow waters, submarine menace, and ⁰

. L is ironic, then, that Lee’s fast battleships were ^^nv°lved in virtually no action during the next year, ^espite an increase in strength from four ships in ^uary 1943 to six in August. His force could have j.^eeri strengthened for offensive operations even ear- 1 ^6r the South Dakota and Alabama (BB-60) had not . sent to the North Atlantic, where they were ^^Ultlessly engaged in operations with the British p°tne Fleet. The fast battleships which were in the ^^acific spent much of 1943 riding at anchor at °^umea, New Caledonia. To relieve the tedium, sailors guzzled cheap champagne bootlegged °ⁿⁱ Australia, while others hunted wild hogs °te. The brunt of the fighting fell to the cruiser p destroyer forces in sharp actions such as Kula ^{7 a}°d Kolombangara. Some battleship officers felt ^at golden opportunities to employ their big guns

stroyers at night. Despite that, the books, and the Earned and ponderous words of the high brows, it forked.”⁷

Lee, in his action report, put his finger on the j^ason for the American victory. He admitted that ^ls force was not superior to the Japanese in experi­^ence, skill, or training; the decisive margin resulted ^a'^fnost entirely, he said, from American radar. But, ^as oiany officers recognized, this was sufficient. Cap- ^tairi Glenn B. Davis of the Washington wrote to Ad- 'fiital Nimitz: “Our radar is effective for accurate 8^unfire at long ranges at night. We should seek ^rather than avoid night action, opening at ranges as ®^reat as satisfactory solutions can be obtained.”⁸ p Ler officers agreed, and articles appeared in the ^°^Ceedings applauding the venturous employment of ^atdeships at Guadalcanal and calling for more of the

same.

were being missed. In the fall, Halsey on three occa­sions asked Nimitz for fast battleships to counter Japanese cruisers interfering with the invasion of Bougainville. Nimitz, however, declined to risk the ships against any lesser target than the Japanese main body, and this force, building its strength, stayed within the bastion of Truk.⁹

With the arrival of the new Essex (CV-9)-class car­riers in the fall of 1943, the U. S. Fifth Fleet, under the command of Vice Admiral Raymond Spruance, a specialist in the big gun, finally took the offensive in the Central Pacific. Spruance was anxious to force a

Admiral William F. Halsey’s decision to take the fast battleships away from San Bernardino Strait in the October 1944 Battle of Leyte Gulf has been hotly debated ever since. He is shown on the bridge of his flagship New Jersey.

SLONIM

showdown with the Japanese battle line, but he de­ployed his heavy ships in a surprising fashion. Short of cruisers and destroyers, he decided to split the fast battleships among the carrier task groups in order to provide both antiaircraft and surface support. In theory, the battle line would not be dissolved. Lee retained his position as Commander, Battleships Pacific, and his staff prepared signals and operations plans for the unit. If the Japanese challenged with their main fleet, Lee would pull his battleships out of the carrier task groups and form up for surface ac­tion. However, as long as the battleships steamed with the carriers, they were under the tactical orders of the carrier group commanders. This arrangement proved so successful from the standpoint of carrier warfare that it lasted until the end of the war.¹⁰

Nonetheless, the continued assignment of the bat­tleships to the carrier task groups condemned them to growing rusty in their surface role. Since Lee’s ships were split among the carriers, he had little op­portunity to assemble his commanders for confer­ences. Some of his chief subordinates were virtual strangers to him. Worse, his ships had almost no chance to exercise as a unit. By March 1944, Spruance had become quite concerned about the mat­ter, and he tried to give Lee the opportunity to hold practice maneuvers. But with the rapid pace of oper­ations in 1944 and 1945, the battle line rarely steamed as a unit. One officer who served with the fleet for the last six months of the war saw the battle line in formation just one time.¹¹

The night training of the battle line especially suf­fered. In contrast to the Japanese, the U. S. Navy had never been very proficient in nocturnal opera­tions. Radar provided a partial equalizer, as the Washington had vividly demonstrated at Guadalcanal, but only practice could make the personnel comfort­able with shiphandling in the darkness. And Lee’s ships did not receive this practice. Spruance worried particularly about this, because the Japanese surface ships generally sought night battle. But in March 1944, when a Japanese challenge to Spruance’s task force seemed imminent, an officer asked Lee how he would form the battle line in the event of a night attack. Lee replied, “Boy, the Jap fleet ain’t intended to come out during this operation.” Fortunately, it didn’t.¹²

U. S. NAVY PHOTO COURTESY OF CAPTAIN G.

In any case, the unreadiness of the battle line to function effectively in the dark was doubly unfortu­nate. For one thing, American fleet commanders were thereby deprived of their only strong weapon iⁿ a night battle, since carrier aircraft capabilities had not advanced to the surface ships’ level. The l6-in^c^ artillery laid by radar should have given task forc^e commanders a powerful alternative to daytime aif' craft carrier operations. The potential was certainly there; the fact that it remained undeveloped cost the fast battleships on two occasions the chance to deal crushing blows to the Imperial Navy.

The first opportunity came during the June 19^ invasion of Saipan, which the Japanese tried ^t0 counter by a sortie of their battle fleet. Spruance placed great reliance on Lee’s ships to defeat the Japanese force and quickly sketched his intentions: “Our air will first knock out enemy carriers ^aS operating carriers, then will attack enemy battle' ships and cruisers to slow or disable them. TG 58- [Lee’s ships] will destroy enemy fleet either W fleet action if the enemy elects to fight or by sink' ing slowed or crippled ships if enemy retreats. A^c' tion against the retreating enemy must be pushe vigorously by all hands to ensure complete ^^e' struction of his fleet.”¹³

Spruance turned over the responsibility for making more detailed plans to his two chief subordinate^5, Lee and Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher, the top carri^ef commander. The latter quickly calculated that if ^ Japanese kept advancing, the American fleet, moving to meet them, might force a surface ^etl gagement at night. He radioed to Lee,

“Do you desire night engagement? It may that we can make air contact late this afterno⁰¹¹ and attack tonight. Otherwise we should retire ^c° the eastward for tonight.”¹⁴ Lee answered,

• ht

“Do not repeat not believe we should seek mg* engagement. Possible advantage of radar than offset by difficulties of communications ^an lack of fleet training in fleet tactics at nig^' Would press pursuit of damaged or fleeing enemy’ however, at any time.”¹⁵

tion

was partly the result of Admiral Halsey’s impul-

^S'^Veness and partly the lack of night training, spanese officers, who in planning for this last-ditch °^rt, staked their hopes on their five fastest battle- ^tllP^s> including the 18-inch-gunned Yamato and

Hals,

^aff,

^ⁿg to Halsey that four of Lee’s six battleships be fetched ^t0 g^uar<J the strait, but Mitscher refused to JWard the plan since Halsey had not asked for ad­. ^e- On board the Iowa, top officers including Rear tniral Oscar Badger, “were unan’.nous in believ- ^° that a major error had been made.”¹⁸ Lee was ^lsruayed. His flag lieutenant, Guilliaem Aertsen,

Commodore Arleigh Burke, proposed suggest-

Spruance agreed with Lee that “the chances inherent ^ln night fighting would neutralize American ^Superiorityand the matter was dropped.¹⁶ Mitscher and his staff were “most disappointed.” So ^Were Nimitz’s officers at Pearl Harbor. On board *-^ees ships, some officers expressed surprise at their commander’s decision. The gunnery officer of the l°u>a (BB-61) later wrote,

“I recall being surprised that the stated reason for not sending the fast battleships to look for the Japs in the Philippine Sea battle was lack of prac- ^rice in night engagements. As far as my gunnery department was concerned, all our engagements, except for shore bombardments had been night shoots against Jap planes, and the main battery under full radar control couldn’t have cared less whether it was day or night. I believe the other gunnery officers felt the same way.”¹⁷ . ^any event, Spruance played a cautious hand dur- ‘ⁿg the battle, and the Japanese surface fleet escaped ^essentially unscathed, although the fleet air arm was ^v'ttually destroyed.

At Leyte Gulf four months later, the Imperial ^avy a second time offered the opportunity for fleet ^accion, but again the fast battleships missed the gut. This time the failure to engage in surface ac­

^Usashi, under Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita. This ^rce would have no chance of reaching the American j^usports unless Halsey’s task force, which contained |^Ces six battleships and Mitscher’s carriers, could be ^ ^red away from its position outside the San Bernar- _vⁿ° Strait. To accomplish this, the Japanese dangled ^lce Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa’s carriers, which lacked Ration components of any consequence, as bait to ^e Uorth of Halsey.

The plan worked. As soon as Halsey discovered ^ ^e whereabouts of the Japanese carriers, he took all ships north, leaving not even a destroyer to watch ^e strait despite the news that Kurita’s battleships ,°^re headed in that direction. Most of the officers in ^ey’s force were taken aback. Mitscher’s chief of

remembered,

“We thought we could clean them up . . . Lee . . . wanted to take his battleships and stand up and down in front of the straits. Lee’s sole purpose was to take on the Jap fleet. It was a chance of a lifetime for the battleships.”¹⁹ Lee was even willing to forgo air support if necessary. He felt so strongly that he sent his unsolicited views to Halsey, whose only reply was “Roger.” Lee tried again when more information about Kurita’s course was received, but to no avail.

To compound matters, Halsey did not make espe­cially good time in approaching Ozawa’s carriers, since the movement occurred at night. He delayed his fleet when he ordered Lee very early in the morn­ing to form the battle line 10 miles ahead of the carriers. This entailed pulling the battleships out of formation in total darkness, and Lee insisted that his ships slow to 15 knots until the maneuver was com­pleted. His chief of staff, Commodore Thomas P. Jeter, protested, “Admiral, what are you trying to do? We’ve got to get the ships together.”²⁰ But Lee insisted that higher speeds would be too dangerous. Because of these delays, “the next morning [Ameri­can sailors] woke to a cloudless sky, a bright blue sea and gentle breezes, steaming North at 20 knots with battle flags flying,” but with Ozawa still over the horizon.²¹

Halsey soon received word that Kurita’s heavy ships were assaulting American light forces covering the approaches to Leyte Gulf. After considerable hesitation and a query from Nimitz as to the where­abouts of the fast battleships, Halsey turned back. As Morison wrote, “It almost broke [Halsey’s] heart to pull out Task Force 34 [Lee’s ships] just as the bat­tleships were on the point of reaching good gunfire targets.”²² In fact, Lee’s ships were only 42 miles from Ozawa’s force. Typically, Halsey took all six battleships south, but he had hesitated too long, and the ships reached the strait three hours after Kurita had made his escape.

Thus, although the Japanese had taken a severe beating at the Battle of Leyte Gulf, most of their battle line had once more gotten away. These ships remained a thorn in the side of American planners for some time. Halsey futilely sent the New Jersey (BB-62) and Iowa all the way to the Indochina coast to try to catch two of the fugitives. When Spruance reassumed command of the fleet, he inherited this concern. At both Iwo Jima and Okinawa, he had to prepare for a possible surface action and was thus forced to cut back on the bombardment support that the fast bat­tleships could have given the hard-pressed marines. However, the Japanese fleet simply did not have the

Tl*

in

oil to mount a full-fledged effort, so the fast battle­ships spent the last days of the war fueling de­stroyers, providing antiaircraft support for the car­riers, and shelling Japanese coastal cities.²³

Valuable as these duties might have been, they were clearly secondary to that of sea control, and in this, the carrier by the middle of the war had supplanted the battleship. Yet within range of her guns, the battleship remained unquestionably the most powerful type of warship, both offensively and defensively. The basic problem facing battleship commanders had been to bring their ships into con­tact with the enemy, and doing so invariably exposed the irreplaceable vessels to risks. Throughout the war, sailors ranging from ordinary bluejackets to high-ranking officers called for a more audacious em­ployment of the big-gun ships, but the battleships were saved for the climactic fleet showdown that was narrowly missed on two occasions. Other navies fell victim to the same caution. The Japanese hoarded their most powerful battleships through the Guadal­canal campaign, even though they might well have turned the tide.

Nonetheless, the fact that a full-scale battle lin^e action did not occur is no indictment of the entitf fast battleship program. Surface ships were a signify cant threat during World War II. Of the 23 larg^e combatant ships that the U. S. Navy lost, nine sue- cumbed to surface ship torpedoes or gunfire. Capi^ ships retained to the end a high degree of resistance to battle damage, as the Japanese battleships amply proved. The fast battleship remained a viable weapoⁿ in the sea control mission. Only bad luck and caU' tious employment kept her from a fuller vindication-

Dr. Muir was graduated from Emory University ^,n 1965 with a bachelor of arts in history. He earned h^|S master’s degree in European history the following y^e3r from Florida State University with a thesis titled “^^e

,________ _i____ German Submarine Campaign in the Eastern Sea F^f°ⁿ

tier, 1942.” From 1967 to 1972, he was assistant p^r°* Eft fessor of history at Middle Georgia College in the U^nl*

versity of Georgia system. In 1976, he received his Ph.D. in America military history from Ohio State University. His dissertation was

Fast Battleship Program in the United States Navy, 1934-45 1976-1977, he was a lecturer in the Department of History at State. Since 1977, he has been teaching military history at Austin State University in Clarksville, Tennessee.