A few days ago, I cranked up my Samsung trans-dimensional search capacitor looking for more airship stuff from the multiverse. After a few dry probes, it came back with a student essay written in 1944 by Midshipman James Carter of the US Naval Academy. I presume this is the same James Carter who graduated from Annapolis in our time line and later became President, but given the potential probability fluctuations when considering the multiverse, this can only be a guess. It’s cool to imagine this was written by “our” Jimmy Carter, however.
The really amazing thing is that Carter’s tantalizingly brief paper appears to have been written in a ‘verse that comes extremely close to that which was imagined in our own time line as a “future history” by Hector Bywater in his 1925 book, The Great Pacific War. There are a few differences between the two ‘verses but, based on what Carter describes, they appear to be very minor. Bywater makes only two passing references to naval airships in his book, but one of them is to a USS “Jackson”, which is name of the ship featured in Carter’s paper. This one reference to the Jackson also places it at the same place and same time as described by Carter. This coincidence would suggest that a least some of the accounts in Carter’s paper below reflect the same ‘verse – or at least one only a few quantum steps away. Certainly, nothing in Carter’s history seems obviously contradictory with Bywater’s imagined Pacific War. This lends credence to the theory that “fiction” at times may reflect an actual subliminal-psychomaterial connection between a writer’s meta-intelligence and lose strands of the multiverse itself. I hope to present a detailed paper on this phenomenon at the 2013 American Conference on Irreproducible Results this upcoming March in Cleveland.
In the decade following the Great Pacific War, much has been written about the courage and determination of the officers and men of our battleships, cruisers, and destroyers in this great struggle. Even more has been written about the Marine and Army units who valiantly resisted the initial Japanese thrusts into the Southwest Pacific and then helped secure victory as the war came to a close. Also, who cannot help but read with excitement the accounts of our submariners, naval aviators and airplane carrier crews, who led the way in these then-new ways of fighting. Even the exploits of our Japanese opponents, who consistently fought with audacity, honor and courage in full adherence to international law, receive plaudits from our historians as well of those in Europe.
Generally lost among this abundant literature are accounts of the US Naval Airship Service, which also contributed in no small way to our ultimate victory. This may be due to the fact that few US airships engaged in direct combat with Japanese warships or airplanes, and in those few instances, nothing of import occurred. But in terms of reconnaissance, intelligence-gathering, logistics, assisting in commerce-raiding, and in air-sea rescue, our small fleet of rigid airships provided much to our eventual victory.
Rather than presenting a dry history full of dates and numbers, I will attempt in this paper to tell the story from the perspective of a single airship, the ZRS-6 USS Jackson, her commander, Zachary Lansdowne, Capt., USNR, and her crew of 47 other officers and men. By doing this, I do not intend to demean the officers and men of ZRS-4 USS Tucson, ZRS-5 USS Austin, ZRS-7 USS Sacramento, and ZRS-9 USS Chicago, who provided equal measures of courage and service to the Navy in this conflict. Especially, and in no way, is this paper intended to slight the ultimate sacrifice given by the officers and men of ZRS-8, USS Springfield, whose ship disappeared with all hands in the mid-Pacific between San Diego and Hawaii in the opening stages of the conflict.
II. Initial Deployments
The USS Jackson was one of five large Tucson-class rigid scout airships (ZRS) put into service between 1926 and 1929. The class was an enlarged version of the German-built ZR-3, USS Los Angeles, and was very similar to but slightly larger than the famous German Graf Zeppelin, which itself was a development of the ZR-3 design. Our airships, of course, were inflated with non-flammable helium and were apportioned for naval purposes. Also, all five Tucson-class ships were provided landing stations and “trapezes” for a single airplane, as well as two additional “perches” along the lower keel upon which additional airplanes could be carried for short times. These airplanes and their pilots were not initially considered part of the ships’ company, but as the Pacific War progressed, the Navy discovered that permanently assigning each airship its own airplane significantly improved their overall value of both airplane and airship for a variety of missions.
At the outbreak of the war, the Navy had at its disposal one brand-new Chicago-class airship (6,000,000 cu. ft.), the five Tucson-class ships (3,900,000 cu. ft.), as well as the USS Los Angeles (2,450,000 cu. ft.), and six small non-rigid coastal blimps. Only the USS Chicago and the five Tucsons were large and capable enough to be of much use in vast Pacific Ocean. In fact, only USS Chicago, with its five hook-on airplanes and much greater endurance, was ideally suited to long distance reconnaissance for the fleet, and the fleet would certainly have benefitted substantially had her two sisters not been cancelled in 1929 as a budget measure. USS Los Angeles was too small for long Pacific operations and was also restricted by treaty with Britain and France to non-military uses. The blimps were devoted entirely to coastal patrol along the Pacific coast, a mission at which they were completely unsuccessful when one considers the daring exploits of Japanese submarines, surface raiders and airplane carriers off the California coast early in the conflict.
The USS Chicago (Capt. Frank McCord), USS Tucson (Capt. William Tibbets) and USS Jackson (Capt. Zachary Lansdowne), were based in Hawaii when hostilities began, assigned to Airship Patrol Squadron ZP-1 based at Pearl Harbor. USS Austin (Capt. James Rosendahl) was operating on independent assignment from a tender in Panama, and USS Springfield (Capt. Thomas Franklin) was stationed in San Diego Naval Air Station.
III. USS Jackson and the Outbreak Great Pacific War
On March 3, 1931, news of the Japanese-American War came to the crew of USS Jackson, as it did to many Americans, confusingly and uncertainly, with reports of a massive explosion in the Panama Canal, followed by huge landslides that promised to block the ship channel for many months. Although many knew that war with Japan was a distinct probability given declining relations between the two Pacific powers, few expected such a brazen first strike using an explosive-laden merchantman manned by courageous volunteer naval personnel willing to commit “hari-kari” to secure their nation an early advantage in the conflict to come.
Within hours of the news, the crew of USS Jackson was recalled from shore leave and their airship, together with USS Tucson, made ready to scout Hawaiian waters for other suspicious ships. USS Chicago moved to Midway Island to scout the mid-pacific. As recalled by Captain Lansdowne several years later, the situation in Hawaiian waters was extremely unsettled:
“We lifted off early on Sunday morning, Hawaii time, having virtually no idea what the overall tactical situation was, whether or not Japanese battleships, subs, or airplane carriers might be nearby awaiting an immediate sortie by the Pacific Fleet, only the foggiest understanding of what, exactly, we should be looking for, and what we should do if we found it.
“Immediately after we reached cruising altitude and left the Oahu coast heading SSE, I ordered all hands to action stations and the N2C scout we happened to have on hand manned and trapezed down, ready for launching at a moment’s notice.
“From the beginning, we encountered all sorts of marine traffic, from coastal pleasure craft, to merchantmen, to ships of the US Navy and local coast guard. Given the shocking circumstances of the Japanese attack in Panama, I challenged all vessels we encountered, regardless of flag or apparent identity, demanding radio or signal identification and, unless I was satisfied it was a legitimate vessel, I instructed each ship to hold its position until it could be fully inspected by a trusted naval or coastguard crew.
“We had little trouble ascertaining the trustworthiness of Naval and other official ships, but civilian traffic posed many problems. Compounding these difficulties were the large number of small fishing or inter-island trade craft manned by Japanese-speaking inhabitants of Hawaii, none of whom we were inclined to trust. On more than one occasion, such boats gave us no intelligible reply so I launched Lt. Giggens in our N2C to buzz them with orders to open fire with his machine guns if they did not heave to and agree to inspection. Although at the time I was somewhat troubled by attacking these apparently defenseless civilian craft, we were all aware that the Japanese in Hawaii posed a potential fifth column against our presence in the islands – a concern that later events proved to be very well founded. Actually, we were comparatively restrained in our actions, as I later heard that a number of Japanese civilian craft were sunk by the Destroyer USS Ward with substantial loss of life.”
USS Jackson spent roughly 72 hours on patrol, during which she stopped 27 vessels, ordered inspections of 20 of them, inspected 5 of these herself, and strafed three Japanese-manned inter-island traders with her airplane, wounding one Nisei man and a mixed-blood Portuguese-Japanese woman. Several years after the war, the US Navy settled a number of claims with Hawaiian civilians injured in these actions and in the later Japanese revolt, including the two people injured by Lt. Giggens in his N2C.
Following the initial hysteria and it became apparent no further attacks such as those in Panama would occur in the immediate future, USS Jackson, along with USS Tucson, returned to Oahu and awaited further orders. The only break in this routine occurred when the airship USS Springfield disappeared on her way to Hawaii. Both Tucson and Jackson spent many days searching in vain along the airship’s expected approach route to Hawaii, but no survivors or any trace of the airship was found. At the time, many believed she may have been destroyed by Japanese surface raiders or even seaplanes, but Japanese records made available after the end of the war make no reference to any engagements. To this day her loss remains a mystery.
IV. The Record Breaking Voyage
From March 1931 through late June 1932, USS Jackson, together with USS Tucson, remained attached to the main Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, being engaged primarily in strategic reconnaissance sweeps of the western approaches to Hawaii. These long missions were not popular with the airships’crews, who chafed at being left out of the actions between the outnumbered and eventually doomed US Asiatic fleet and the Japanese navy. But, because of aggressive Japanese submarine and aircraft carrier strikes against targets in California and US Pacific shipping early in the war, the Pacific Fleet was forced to remain in Hawaii to provide a defense in the eastern Pacific until the bulk of the Atlantic Fleet crossed the Straits of Magellan and reached San Diego.
A break in the monotony occurred when, in August 1931, USS Jackson was temporally detached and detailed to Panama to provide aerial screening for the arriving Atlantic Fleet, under the command of Admiral E.C. Templeton. En route, two Japanese submarines, I-53 and I-58, had lain in wait for the Atlantic fleet as it transited the Straits of Magellan, and sunk the cruiser USS Trenton and several auxiliaries. More critically, in the confusion that followed, a number of other ships, including the battleships USS Utah and USS Florida, were damaged in collisions resulting indirectly from the submarines’ attacks.
Although the main fleet was sailing in company with the airplane carriers USS Wright and USS Lexington, Templeton, a cautious officer by nature, had become so concerned about the possibility of subsequent submarine attacks that he urgently requested that all three surviving airships in the Pacific be assigned to his force as long distance anti-submarine pickets until he completed the transit to San Diego. He was particularly worried about protection of the damaged USS Utah and USS Florida, the repair ship USS Vestal, and a few other support and escort vessels, which had temporarily harbored at Punta Arenas to effect emergency repairs to the damaged battleships. These ships were due to sail for Panama later under the overall command of Capt. Robert Bowling in USS Florida, without any air cover.
In the event, Templeton only received USS Jackson, which after provisioning in Panama, duly met up with the Atlantic Fleet just north of the Tropic of Capricorn several hundred miles off the Chilean coast. In the words of Captain Lansdowne:
“As we rose from Saratoga after taking on fuel, the entire armada swam into sight as the morning mists began to clear. Four battleships, five cruisers, almost fifty destroyers, and a huge train of auxiliaries including, oilers, colliers, supply ships, hospital ships, transports, and tenders extending as far as we could see.”
Recognizing that the main fleet had adequate air cover from the two airplane carriers accompanying it, and further realizing that no other airships would be arriving, Templeton ordered Lansdowne to proceed south to meet up with the stragglers at Punta Arenas and provide aerial escort for them on to Panama, or if later decided, all the way to San Diego.
USS Jackson’s flight to Tierra del Fuego and return to Panama in company with the slow battleships would likely require almost three weeks to complete, which was far longer than any airship had ever stayed aloft before.
In prewar training exercises, US airships had become adept at refueling and replenishing “in air” above the decks of tenders and aircraft carriers, so this aspect of the journey did not overly concern Lansdowne. In fact, he was eager for this challenge to prove his ship’s capabilities and training in wartime conditions.
But Lansdowne knew there was a much more critical concern – helium loss. Throughout the operation, USS Jackson would be removed from any land bases or specialized airship tenders capable of resupplying her with this most critical item. Airships, by their very nature, always lose small amounts of helium and buoyancy while on operations. On normal operations, helium may valved off to descend or to compensate for loss of fuel. Some lifting gas is lost simply because gas cells cannot be made completely impermeable to gas exchange. Also, the extremely thin goldbeater’s skin used in their construction invariably develops small rips or punctures from normal wear and tear. In routine sorties of 3-4 days, this is not a problem, because gas cells are not pressurized and the limited loss of buoyancy can be easily offset by releasing small amounts of ballast. No one had ever tested exactly how long a rigid airship could safely remain aloft before gas loss might become critical, but formulae all airshipmen learn during their training indicated that Lansdowne might be testing this limit even in the best of conditions.
This concern placed significant limits on how USS Jackson could be handled. To ensure that no valuable helium would be automatically valved off, she could never exceed her pressure height of 3200 feet. Lansdowne would also have to minimize as much as possible the controlled valving of helium, which would probably mean that any descents to reconnoiter or take on fuel could only be made in the late evening hours when the helium is not already at its pressure limits from solar superheating. Any sharp maneuvers that would put stress on the structure and cause internal bracing wires to snap and damage gas cells had to be completely avoided. Finally, success completely depended on the airship not encountering any weather (particularly storm fronts and related updrafts) that would also stress the structure or force the ship above its pressure height, requiring use of the valves to prevent this.
Nonetheless, the crew embarked on their record-breaking voyage in extremely high spirits. Finally, after weeks of routine patrolling, they were going to be involved in an exciting and dangerous operation of real value to the fleet. The following letter written by Machinist’s Mate J.R. Slattery to his mother in Boise, Idaho, is reflective of this feeling by all the men on the Jackson:
“Dear mom,
“I can’t tell you any details, but tomorrow we leave for a long and dangerous mission. I am both excited as all get out and nervous. But don’t you worry! Our Old Andy Jackson is the best airship in the fleet and in Captain Lansdowne we have best airshipman there is leading us. By the time you get this, you will have probably heard about our fate, but I just wanted to write this to you anyway. Love to you, Pops, and Emmie.”
The five-day flight from Panama to rendezvous with Capt. Bowling’s detachment at Punta Arenas was accomplished uneventfully, and after arriving, USS Jackson took on fuel and supplies from the repair ship USS Vestal.
Unfortunately, because of unconfirmed radio reports from Chilean sources that an additional Japanese submarine might be operating in the extreme south Atlantic, Bowling decided to delay his departure. Although Lansdowne, concerned for his ship’s endurance, was highly critical of this decision, Bowling was probably correct. His detachment’s speed, limited as it was by the damaged battleships, was less than 10 kts, making them essentially sitting ducks for any submersible that might be lying in wait for them in the narrow straits.
Only after messages were received that suggested the reported submarine was a false alarm, did Bowling give orders for his detachment to leave its sheltered bay and reenter the Straights. By then, USS Jackson was already several hundred miles ahead.
When the detachment reached the open Pacific and began its long, slow, trek north, Lansdowne moved even farther into the van to serve as an early-warning picket. He adopted a wide zig-zag pattern to avoid too far outdistancing the damaged battleships and their accompanying ships. The airship’s single airplane was also used extensively in the search pattern.
On the 14th day of its voyage, USS Jackson found herself roughly 350 miles west of Lima, about 50 miles ahead of Bowling’s ships, whereupon she encountered a large cargo steamer, apparently outbound from Peru, and flying no flag. The ship was riding very high in the water, which suggested she was not carrying any cargo. Considering this odd for an outbound ship, and being well aware that both sides in the Pacific War used armed merchantmen as commerce raiders, Lansdowne quickly overtook the ship and had the N2C fly over and inspect her closely. Seeing the ship’s upper deck filled with civilians, including some women and children, and no sign of armament or preparations for combat, he closed with the ship and signaled her to heave to for inspection. The ship at first did not respond and began to make more steam as if to flee. Lansdowne then ordered the N2C to strafe the sea immediately in front of the freighter’s path, and signaled her to stop or be attacked by the airplane. The ship quickly complied and then surprised the airship’s crew by raising the red meatball flag of the Japanese merchant marine. A signal was received identifying the ship as Lima Maru, outbound from Peru after delivering a cargo of textiles and carrying a large group of Japanese civilians home who had been stranded in Peru by the war.
USS Jackson took station directly overhead. Knowing it was risky, Lansdowne ordered some precious helium be valved to bring the airship down to a low altitude where its personnel basket could be used to land an inspection crew. At first, the inspection team found nothing untoward. Lima Maru was carrying no strategic materials, her passenger manifest was in order, and nothing seemed particularly suspicious about her human cargo. The team was about to finish their tasks when a member of the inspection team was surreptitiously pulled aside by an English-speaking Korean crewmember and informed that among the passengers on board were the Japanese ambassador to Peru, his military attache’, a senior naval officer assigned to the embassy, and their families. Apparently the entire group had been recalled to Japan from Peru because of an internal Japanese political shakeup. Seeing this as a possible intelligence boon for the US, Lansdowne resolved to seize the Lima Maru.
Realizing that his small inspection party armed only with sidearms would be unable to capture the ship or seize the diplomats without resistance from the non-uniformed Japanese military personnel on board who were probably armed, and that his airship had no weapons itself with which it could sink or even damage the Lima Maru enough to force her surrender if she sought to flee, Lansdowne ordered the inspection party to “play dumb and make a hash of the inspection” so as to delay the process until Bowling’s detachment arrived on the scene.
Through a variety of ruses, the team stretched what normally would be a two hour inspection leading to the release of a non-combatant vessel into an eight-hour ordeal of bureaucratic incompetence without once alerting the ship’s captain or his important human cargo to the possibility they would be seized. The inspection team, which fortuitously included a seaman who had been a successful vaudeville actor before joining the Navy, played its role to the hilt, never arousing the Japanese captain’s suspicion. In fact, at the conclusion of the “inspection” the three USS Jackson crewmen were even invited into the captain’s cabin for a celebratory cup of sake before they ascended back into the airship.
As soon as the team returned to the USS Jackson, USS Wyoming lumbered into view on the horizon, and shortly thereafter fired a series of 12-inch “warning shots” that cascaded huge founts of water near the stationary steamer. Seeing that destroyers were also approaching and flight would be impossible, the Lima Maru immediately surrendered to Lansdowne in USS Jackson, and upon the arrival of the destroyer USS Maxwell, the diplomatic and military personnel were taken into custody without incident. Following a much more thorough search in which various important papers were seized, the Lima Maru, her crew, and her remaining passengers were paroled and allowed to proceed to Japan.
Although Japanese newspapers later railed against this “act of aerial piracy on the high seas”, official Japanese reaction was much more muted, most likely because Lima Maru was treated in accordance with the Geneva conventions in much the same way that Japanese commerce raiders treated US vessels encountered in similar situations.
USS Jackson completed the remainder of her southern voyage without incident. Because she had lost several thousand cubic feet of helium, and had little ballast remaining, the airship completed the final 500 miles of the trip flying dynamically at high speed in a “heavy” state. However, Lansdowne was able to obtain sufficient equilibrium to safely moor on the tender USS Niagara by flying off the N2C scout and dumping most onboard remaining fuel before landing. This 20 day aerial voyage remains completely unmatched in the annals of aviation, and is a testament to the courage and dedication of Lansdowne and his entire crew. In addition, intelligence gathered from the interned Japanese diplomats and officers provided the US with useful information regarding continued domestic disturbances and popular dissatisfaction with the Japanese government, information that helped pave the way for the eventual armistice.
V. The Bonins
After several weeks of more routine reconnaissance in Hawaiian waters, during which she located a chain mine field that had been laid southwest of Pearl Harbor, presumably by a Japanese submarine, USS Jackson received orders to prepare for the first major US offensive of the Pacific War. This was the ill-starred surprise thrust to seize the Bonin Islands, deep within the Japanese League of Nations Mandate, as an advance base for fleet operations in the western Pacific.
As has been related in many articles and books, this highly audacious strike was excessively complicated, and depended upon a combination of Japanese errors and ideal conditions to succeed. Nothing of the sort happened, and the resultant disaster which befell the US expedition is among the worst in the annals of U.S. Naval history. Since the Bonin operation has been discussed in detail many times in other accounts, this paper will focus only on USS Jackson’s small part in the operation.
USS Jackson and USS Tucson were detailed to provide advanced screening for the small force of cruisers leading the invasion fleet. USS Chicago provided advanced aerial coverage for the main force anchored off Midway that would follow once the surprise assault was successful. However, as the weather began to turn bad, it became apparent to the captains of Jackson and Tucson that to remain at the van of the strike force would risk the loss of their ships in the coming storm. Receiving permission to abandon their reconnaissance patterns, the airships traced a wide circle and returned to the comparative safety of their temporary masts on Midway Atoll. This probably saved them from certain destruction in the mighty maelstrom that later smashed the US transports and their escorts leaving them nearly helpless to defend themselves when later intercepted by a detachment of Japanese 8-inch gun cruisers.
Although the USS Jackson played no part in the luckless operation, she did provide useful service in a series of air-sea rescue sweeps over the disaster site after the battle, saving as many as 150 men from death in the sea. In this she received indirect assistance from the Japanese, who displayed an honorable tradition of concern for shipwrecked sailors throughout the war.
Through neutral intermediaries, the Japanese informed the US that, for a period of one week, it would take no action against US aircraft and surface ships engaged in humanitarian rescue missions in the Bonins area as long as the Americans refrained from any hostile acts. Accordingly, USS Jackson, with temporary red crosses painted on her sides and upper surfaces, plied the approaches to the Bonins searching for life rafts, finding several survivors and effecting rescues with her personnel basket. She also saved a number of sailors from the few Japanese ships sunk in the one-sided battle following the storm, once even arranging for an at-sea transfer of a seriously injured man to the Imperial Japanese Navy hospital ship Nagoya Maru, which happened to be engaged on a similar mission of mercy in the vicinity.
Following the Bonins debacle, all three airships remained based at Midway Island, which saw its temporary airship facilities reconstructed as a full-fledged airship base with a wooden double hangar capable of housing two airships, helium and fuel depots, and a large permanent high mast. This allowed the three ships to maintain round-the-clock strategic reconnaissance in support of naval operations throughout the central and western Pacific.
VI. The Aleutians, Truk, and the Decisive Battle
The overall strategy of both the Japanese and American navies was ultimately to draw their enemy into a “decisive battle” to effectively bring the war to a sudden conclusion. This was also driven by popular opinion in both nations, whose people came to desire an end to what appeared to be a stalemated war, and in Japan’s case, by economic and diplomatic pressure from Europeans and in an increasingly resistant China. Eventually, through a series of ruses and successful diversionary operations, this battle was fought entirely on American terms against a Japanese fleet that was ill prepared, surprised, and almost hopelessly outnumbered.
As related elsewhere, key to the US Plan were several ruses intended to (1) lead the Japanese to believe US numerical superiority in battleships had dwindled to a point where the Imperial Navy could meet the US fleet on equal or even superior terms, (2) lead the Japanese to believe that US ships had unanticipated design flaws that made them surprisingly susceptible to battle damage, and (3)force the Japanese to confront the American fleet in the most unfavorable possible position.
USS Jackson played no small part in this deception. Initially she was assigned to the decoy US squadron deployed at Dutch Harbor, in the Aleutians. This fleet, which included several large merchants reconstructed to closely resemble US battleships, was intended to create suspicion in Japan that the US aimed to strike at the Kurile Islands and eventually take the war directly to Hokkaido. The airship’s role in this subterfuge was to stage many repeated reconnaissance missions deep into the northwest Pacific with the intention of being seen by Japanese pickets, whose reports would give military planners in Tokyo reason to suspect major US operations in the north Pacific were in the offing.
Because of the frequently bad weather conditions and poor visibility, these missions were among the most dangerous undertaken by USS Jackson during the entire war. Often, the ship remained on patrol in enemy waters for up to 4 days with such poor visibility that she could not achieve her primary objective of being seen by enemy pickets. More critically, in such visibility conditions, she stood an equally high chance of stumbling blindly upon powerful Japanese surface patrols that could easily shoot her out of the sky.
Conditions were also miserable for the airship’s company and hindered the effectiveness of the airship itself. She frequently encountered squalls of freezing rain and or snow that dangerously weighted her down. Her crew often had to contend with below freezing temperatures without any on-board heating. Hypothermia and frostbite was a frequent enemy. Condensed ice formation on the ship’s internal gangways and ladders made travel about the ship extremely hazardous. No fewer than three crewmen lost their lives by slipping off the keel gangway and falling through the thin fabric hull of the ship.
After several months operating in the northern Pacific, during which time one of the dummy “battleships” was “severely damaged” by a courageous Japanese submarine attack, the dummy fleet sailed back to Midway Atoll, where they joined yet another group of merchants made up to resemble battleships. Throughout this exercise, the airships Jackson and Tucson actively patrolled the route between Dutch Harbor and Midway, again less to identify enemy forces than to be identified by them.
Shortly thereafter, a small US strike force occupied Truk in a surprise operation, with its excellent deep anchorage. Over the intervening weeks, the small force occupying Truk was not challenged by the Japanese, who evidently were confused regarding whether or not the Truk operation was another feint.
In one exception, however, a large Japanese submersible cruiser was able to enter the anchorage and damage a number of US ships. In this, she was assisted by the fact that USS Jackson was moored for replenishment and the flying boats on patrol failed to identify her. The submarine was eventually sunk by US destroyers.
Within a few weeks, a huge US “battlefleet” consisting primarily of dummy battleships and carriers lay at anchor. During this period, the detachments from dummy battle fleet staged several operations against Japanese-held islands, including one in which an “invasion” was repulsed by Japanese aircraft and artillery. In this ruse, several of the dummy ships were “severely damaged” or “sunk” when attacked by Japanese level bombers, through use of prearranged explosions and controlled scuttling. The intent of these operations was to let the Japanese see US numerical superiority whittled somewhat down in size, while at the same time lending the appearance that US capital ships would not be equal to their Japanese opponents in staying power when finally engaged. The airships were kept busy throughout the operation as scouts and performing air-sea rescue missions – often rescuing phantom sailors from “battles” that were not battles.
Through media and diplomatic outlets, the US let it be known that the ultimate aim of the operation was the reoccupation of Guam. The real purpose, however, was to dangle the specter of an increasingly small and apparently flawed detachment of the US fleet as bait for a Japan that was becoming increasingly desperate to end the war on favorable terms with a decisive defeat of the US Navy, before she lost access to Chinese resources.
The purpose of this paper is not to detail Admiral Templeton’s masterful plan in achieving victory in the Battle of Truk. Suffice it to say that just after apparently decimating a major element of the US fleet – and expending considerable amounts of ammunition in the effort – the Japanese were shocked to encounter virtually the entire US battlefleet between them and their home base at Yokohama, including more than a few ships they thought were damaged or destroyed just a few hours previously. Initially enjoying an advantage in fleet speed, the Japanese sought to avoid the encounter, but bombing aircraft operating from the big airplane carriers USS Saratoga and USS Lexington achieved enough hits on the giant dreadnoughts to slow them and make flight impossible. This was really the first time the US airplane carriers were used primarily as offensive weapons, rather than for scouting, which made the scouting abilities of the US airships all the more critical. USS Jackson was employed in a wide sweep east of the Japanese battlefleet, during which time she relayed important information allowing one stricken battleship believed to be the Hyuga to be torpedoed and sunk by the submarine USS Tigerfish. The other airships also maintained effective reconnaissance, ensuring that the Japanese fleet could not emulate the success in avoiding combat that the German Navy had 15 years previously at Jutland. In this, the airships were certainly helped by the fact that the Akagi, Hosho, and other Japanese airplane carriers had lost many of their aircraft and most of their ammunition in engagements with US airplane carriers escorting the dummy fleet.
With the defeat of Japan in the Great Pacific War and the outcome of the “decisive battle” that reduced the Japanese navy to less than ½ of its former size, it is unlikely that the US airships will ever again see such a critical role in fleet actions. Already the US Navy is laying down four giant 50,000 airplane carriers, intended not a scouts but as key offensive weapons for the battlefleet. Each ship will carry over 100 modern bombers armed with the largest aerial bombs. It is entirely possible that if the United States again finds itself embroiled in a naval war – perhaps with a resurgent Japan, Soviet Russia, or perhaps even Britain, the sea battles will be won or lost by waves of bombing planes without the battlefleets themselves coming within gun range of each other. In such a world, the unarmed dirigible will be a redundancy.
The really amazing thing is that Carter’s tantalizingly brief paper appears to have been written in a ‘verse that comes extremely close to that which was imagined in our own time line as a “future history” by Hector Bywater in his 1925 book, The Great Pacific War. There are a few differences between the two ‘verses but, based on what Carter describes, they appear to be very minor. Bywater makes only two passing references to naval airships in his book, but one of them is to a USS “Jackson”, which is name of the ship featured in Carter’s paper. This one reference to the Jackson also places it at the same place and same time as described by Carter. This coincidence would suggest that a least some of the accounts in Carter’s paper below reflect the same ‘verse – or at least one only a few quantum steps away. Certainly, nothing in Carter’s history seems obviously contradictory with Bywater’s imagined Pacific War. This lends credence to the theory that “fiction” at times may reflect an actual subliminal-psychomaterial connection between a writer’s meta-intelligence and lose strands of the multiverse itself. I hope to present a detailed paper on this phenomenon at the 2013 American Conference on Irreproducible Results this upcoming March in Cleveland.
Captain Zachary Landsdowne and the USS Jackson:
Exploits of an Airship in the Great Pacific War, 1931-1933
By
James E.Carter, Midshipman,USNA
November 21, 1944
I. Introduction Exploits of an Airship in the Great Pacific War, 1931-1933
By
James E.Carter, Midshipman,USNA
November 21, 1944
In the decade following the Great Pacific War, much has been written about the courage and determination of the officers and men of our battleships, cruisers, and destroyers in this great struggle. Even more has been written about the Marine and Army units who valiantly resisted the initial Japanese thrusts into the Southwest Pacific and then helped secure victory as the war came to a close. Also, who cannot help but read with excitement the accounts of our submariners, naval aviators and airplane carrier crews, who led the way in these then-new ways of fighting. Even the exploits of our Japanese opponents, who consistently fought with audacity, honor and courage in full adherence to international law, receive plaudits from our historians as well of those in Europe.
Generally lost among this abundant literature are accounts of the US Naval Airship Service, which also contributed in no small way to our ultimate victory. This may be due to the fact that few US airships engaged in direct combat with Japanese warships or airplanes, and in those few instances, nothing of import occurred. But in terms of reconnaissance, intelligence-gathering, logistics, assisting in commerce-raiding, and in air-sea rescue, our small fleet of rigid airships provided much to our eventual victory.
Rather than presenting a dry history full of dates and numbers, I will attempt in this paper to tell the story from the perspective of a single airship, the ZRS-6 USS Jackson, her commander, Zachary Lansdowne, Capt., USNR, and her crew of 47 other officers and men. By doing this, I do not intend to demean the officers and men of ZRS-4 USS Tucson, ZRS-5 USS Austin, ZRS-7 USS Sacramento, and ZRS-9 USS Chicago, who provided equal measures of courage and service to the Navy in this conflict. Especially, and in no way, is this paper intended to slight the ultimate sacrifice given by the officers and men of ZRS-8, USS Springfield, whose ship disappeared with all hands in the mid-Pacific between San Diego and Hawaii in the opening stages of the conflict.
II. Initial Deployments
The USS Jackson was one of five large Tucson-class rigid scout airships (ZRS) put into service between 1926 and 1929. The class was an enlarged version of the German-built ZR-3, USS Los Angeles, and was very similar to but slightly larger than the famous German Graf Zeppelin, which itself was a development of the ZR-3 design. Our airships, of course, were inflated with non-flammable helium and were apportioned for naval purposes. Also, all five Tucson-class ships were provided landing stations and “trapezes” for a single airplane, as well as two additional “perches” along the lower keel upon which additional airplanes could be carried for short times. These airplanes and their pilots were not initially considered part of the ships’ company, but as the Pacific War progressed, the Navy discovered that permanently assigning each airship its own airplane significantly improved their overall value of both airplane and airship for a variety of missions.
At the outbreak of the war, the Navy had at its disposal one brand-new Chicago-class airship (6,000,000 cu. ft.), the five Tucson-class ships (3,900,000 cu. ft.), as well as the USS Los Angeles (2,450,000 cu. ft.), and six small non-rigid coastal blimps. Only the USS Chicago and the five Tucsons were large and capable enough to be of much use in vast Pacific Ocean. In fact, only USS Chicago, with its five hook-on airplanes and much greater endurance, was ideally suited to long distance reconnaissance for the fleet, and the fleet would certainly have benefitted substantially had her two sisters not been cancelled in 1929 as a budget measure. USS Los Angeles was too small for long Pacific operations and was also restricted by treaty with Britain and France to non-military uses. The blimps were devoted entirely to coastal patrol along the Pacific coast, a mission at which they were completely unsuccessful when one considers the daring exploits of Japanese submarines, surface raiders and airplane carriers off the California coast early in the conflict.
The USS Chicago (Capt. Frank McCord), USS Tucson (Capt. William Tibbets) and USS Jackson (Capt. Zachary Lansdowne), were based in Hawaii when hostilities began, assigned to Airship Patrol Squadron ZP-1 based at Pearl Harbor. USS Austin (Capt. James Rosendahl) was operating on independent assignment from a tender in Panama, and USS Springfield (Capt. Thomas Franklin) was stationed in San Diego Naval Air Station.
III. USS Jackson and the Outbreak Great Pacific War
On March 3, 1931, news of the Japanese-American War came to the crew of USS Jackson, as it did to many Americans, confusingly and uncertainly, with reports of a massive explosion in the Panama Canal, followed by huge landslides that promised to block the ship channel for many months. Although many knew that war with Japan was a distinct probability given declining relations between the two Pacific powers, few expected such a brazen first strike using an explosive-laden merchantman manned by courageous volunteer naval personnel willing to commit “hari-kari” to secure their nation an early advantage in the conflict to come.
Within hours of the news, the crew of USS Jackson was recalled from shore leave and their airship, together with USS Tucson, made ready to scout Hawaiian waters for other suspicious ships. USS Chicago moved to Midway Island to scout the mid-pacific. As recalled by Captain Lansdowne several years later, the situation in Hawaiian waters was extremely unsettled:
“We lifted off early on Sunday morning, Hawaii time, having virtually no idea what the overall tactical situation was, whether or not Japanese battleships, subs, or airplane carriers might be nearby awaiting an immediate sortie by the Pacific Fleet, only the foggiest understanding of what, exactly, we should be looking for, and what we should do if we found it.
“Immediately after we reached cruising altitude and left the Oahu coast heading SSE, I ordered all hands to action stations and the N2C scout we happened to have on hand manned and trapezed down, ready for launching at a moment’s notice.
“From the beginning, we encountered all sorts of marine traffic, from coastal pleasure craft, to merchantmen, to ships of the US Navy and local coast guard. Given the shocking circumstances of the Japanese attack in Panama, I challenged all vessels we encountered, regardless of flag or apparent identity, demanding radio or signal identification and, unless I was satisfied it was a legitimate vessel, I instructed each ship to hold its position until it could be fully inspected by a trusted naval or coastguard crew.
“We had little trouble ascertaining the trustworthiness of Naval and other official ships, but civilian traffic posed many problems. Compounding these difficulties were the large number of small fishing or inter-island trade craft manned by Japanese-speaking inhabitants of Hawaii, none of whom we were inclined to trust. On more than one occasion, such boats gave us no intelligible reply so I launched Lt. Giggens in our N2C to buzz them with orders to open fire with his machine guns if they did not heave to and agree to inspection. Although at the time I was somewhat troubled by attacking these apparently defenseless civilian craft, we were all aware that the Japanese in Hawaii posed a potential fifth column against our presence in the islands – a concern that later events proved to be very well founded. Actually, we were comparatively restrained in our actions, as I later heard that a number of Japanese civilian craft were sunk by the Destroyer USS Ward with substantial loss of life.”
USS Jackson spent roughly 72 hours on patrol, during which she stopped 27 vessels, ordered inspections of 20 of them, inspected 5 of these herself, and strafed three Japanese-manned inter-island traders with her airplane, wounding one Nisei man and a mixed-blood Portuguese-Japanese woman. Several years after the war, the US Navy settled a number of claims with Hawaiian civilians injured in these actions and in the later Japanese revolt, including the two people injured by Lt. Giggens in his N2C.
Following the initial hysteria and it became apparent no further attacks such as those in Panama would occur in the immediate future, USS Jackson, along with USS Tucson, returned to Oahu and awaited further orders. The only break in this routine occurred when the airship USS Springfield disappeared on her way to Hawaii. Both Tucson and Jackson spent many days searching in vain along the airship’s expected approach route to Hawaii, but no survivors or any trace of the airship was found. At the time, many believed she may have been destroyed by Japanese surface raiders or even seaplanes, but Japanese records made available after the end of the war make no reference to any engagements. To this day her loss remains a mystery.
IV. The Record Breaking Voyage
From March 1931 through late June 1932, USS Jackson, together with USS Tucson, remained attached to the main Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, being engaged primarily in strategic reconnaissance sweeps of the western approaches to Hawaii. These long missions were not popular with the airships’crews, who chafed at being left out of the actions between the outnumbered and eventually doomed US Asiatic fleet and the Japanese navy. But, because of aggressive Japanese submarine and aircraft carrier strikes against targets in California and US Pacific shipping early in the war, the Pacific Fleet was forced to remain in Hawaii to provide a defense in the eastern Pacific until the bulk of the Atlantic Fleet crossed the Straits of Magellan and reached San Diego.
A break in the monotony occurred when, in August 1931, USS Jackson was temporally detached and detailed to Panama to provide aerial screening for the arriving Atlantic Fleet, under the command of Admiral E.C. Templeton. En route, two Japanese submarines, I-53 and I-58, had lain in wait for the Atlantic fleet as it transited the Straits of Magellan, and sunk the cruiser USS Trenton and several auxiliaries. More critically, in the confusion that followed, a number of other ships, including the battleships USS Utah and USS Florida, were damaged in collisions resulting indirectly from the submarines’ attacks.
Although the main fleet was sailing in company with the airplane carriers USS Wright and USS Lexington, Templeton, a cautious officer by nature, had become so concerned about the possibility of subsequent submarine attacks that he urgently requested that all three surviving airships in the Pacific be assigned to his force as long distance anti-submarine pickets until he completed the transit to San Diego. He was particularly worried about protection of the damaged USS Utah and USS Florida, the repair ship USS Vestal, and a few other support and escort vessels, which had temporarily harbored at Punta Arenas to effect emergency repairs to the damaged battleships. These ships were due to sail for Panama later under the overall command of Capt. Robert Bowling in USS Florida, without any air cover.
In the event, Templeton only received USS Jackson, which after provisioning in Panama, duly met up with the Atlantic Fleet just north of the Tropic of Capricorn several hundred miles off the Chilean coast. In the words of Captain Lansdowne:
“As we rose from Saratoga after taking on fuel, the entire armada swam into sight as the morning mists began to clear. Four battleships, five cruisers, almost fifty destroyers, and a huge train of auxiliaries including, oilers, colliers, supply ships, hospital ships, transports, and tenders extending as far as we could see.”
Recognizing that the main fleet had adequate air cover from the two airplane carriers accompanying it, and further realizing that no other airships would be arriving, Templeton ordered Lansdowne to proceed south to meet up with the stragglers at Punta Arenas and provide aerial escort for them on to Panama, or if later decided, all the way to San Diego.
USS Jackson’s flight to Tierra del Fuego and return to Panama in company with the slow battleships would likely require almost three weeks to complete, which was far longer than any airship had ever stayed aloft before.
In prewar training exercises, US airships had become adept at refueling and replenishing “in air” above the decks of tenders and aircraft carriers, so this aspect of the journey did not overly concern Lansdowne. In fact, he was eager for this challenge to prove his ship’s capabilities and training in wartime conditions.
But Lansdowne knew there was a much more critical concern – helium loss. Throughout the operation, USS Jackson would be removed from any land bases or specialized airship tenders capable of resupplying her with this most critical item. Airships, by their very nature, always lose small amounts of helium and buoyancy while on operations. On normal operations, helium may valved off to descend or to compensate for loss of fuel. Some lifting gas is lost simply because gas cells cannot be made completely impermeable to gas exchange. Also, the extremely thin goldbeater’s skin used in their construction invariably develops small rips or punctures from normal wear and tear. In routine sorties of 3-4 days, this is not a problem, because gas cells are not pressurized and the limited loss of buoyancy can be easily offset by releasing small amounts of ballast. No one had ever tested exactly how long a rigid airship could safely remain aloft before gas loss might become critical, but formulae all airshipmen learn during their training indicated that Lansdowne might be testing this limit even in the best of conditions.
This concern placed significant limits on how USS Jackson could be handled. To ensure that no valuable helium would be automatically valved off, she could never exceed her pressure height of 3200 feet. Lansdowne would also have to minimize as much as possible the controlled valving of helium, which would probably mean that any descents to reconnoiter or take on fuel could only be made in the late evening hours when the helium is not already at its pressure limits from solar superheating. Any sharp maneuvers that would put stress on the structure and cause internal bracing wires to snap and damage gas cells had to be completely avoided. Finally, success completely depended on the airship not encountering any weather (particularly storm fronts and related updrafts) that would also stress the structure or force the ship above its pressure height, requiring use of the valves to prevent this.
Nonetheless, the crew embarked on their record-breaking voyage in extremely high spirits. Finally, after weeks of routine patrolling, they were going to be involved in an exciting and dangerous operation of real value to the fleet. The following letter written by Machinist’s Mate J.R. Slattery to his mother in Boise, Idaho, is reflective of this feeling by all the men on the Jackson:
“Dear mom,
“I can’t tell you any details, but tomorrow we leave for a long and dangerous mission. I am both excited as all get out and nervous. But don’t you worry! Our Old Andy Jackson is the best airship in the fleet and in Captain Lansdowne we have best airshipman there is leading us. By the time you get this, you will have probably heard about our fate, but I just wanted to write this to you anyway. Love to you, Pops, and Emmie.”
The five-day flight from Panama to rendezvous with Capt. Bowling’s detachment at Punta Arenas was accomplished uneventfully, and after arriving, USS Jackson took on fuel and supplies from the repair ship USS Vestal.
Unfortunately, because of unconfirmed radio reports from Chilean sources that an additional Japanese submarine might be operating in the extreme south Atlantic, Bowling decided to delay his departure. Although Lansdowne, concerned for his ship’s endurance, was highly critical of this decision, Bowling was probably correct. His detachment’s speed, limited as it was by the damaged battleships, was less than 10 kts, making them essentially sitting ducks for any submersible that might be lying in wait for them in the narrow straits.
Only after messages were received that suggested the reported submarine was a false alarm, did Bowling give orders for his detachment to leave its sheltered bay and reenter the Straights. By then, USS Jackson was already several hundred miles ahead.
When the detachment reached the open Pacific and began its long, slow, trek north, Lansdowne moved even farther into the van to serve as an early-warning picket. He adopted a wide zig-zag pattern to avoid too far outdistancing the damaged battleships and their accompanying ships. The airship’s single airplane was also used extensively in the search pattern.
On the 14th day of its voyage, USS Jackson found herself roughly 350 miles west of Lima, about 50 miles ahead of Bowling’s ships, whereupon she encountered a large cargo steamer, apparently outbound from Peru, and flying no flag. The ship was riding very high in the water, which suggested she was not carrying any cargo. Considering this odd for an outbound ship, and being well aware that both sides in the Pacific War used armed merchantmen as commerce raiders, Lansdowne quickly overtook the ship and had the N2C fly over and inspect her closely. Seeing the ship’s upper deck filled with civilians, including some women and children, and no sign of armament or preparations for combat, he closed with the ship and signaled her to heave to for inspection. The ship at first did not respond and began to make more steam as if to flee. Lansdowne then ordered the N2C to strafe the sea immediately in front of the freighter’s path, and signaled her to stop or be attacked by the airplane. The ship quickly complied and then surprised the airship’s crew by raising the red meatball flag of the Japanese merchant marine. A signal was received identifying the ship as Lima Maru, outbound from Peru after delivering a cargo of textiles and carrying a large group of Japanese civilians home who had been stranded in Peru by the war.
USS Jackson took station directly overhead. Knowing it was risky, Lansdowne ordered some precious helium be valved to bring the airship down to a low altitude where its personnel basket could be used to land an inspection crew. At first, the inspection team found nothing untoward. Lima Maru was carrying no strategic materials, her passenger manifest was in order, and nothing seemed particularly suspicious about her human cargo. The team was about to finish their tasks when a member of the inspection team was surreptitiously pulled aside by an English-speaking Korean crewmember and informed that among the passengers on board were the Japanese ambassador to Peru, his military attache’, a senior naval officer assigned to the embassy, and their families. Apparently the entire group had been recalled to Japan from Peru because of an internal Japanese political shakeup. Seeing this as a possible intelligence boon for the US, Lansdowne resolved to seize the Lima Maru.
Realizing that his small inspection party armed only with sidearms would be unable to capture the ship or seize the diplomats without resistance from the non-uniformed Japanese military personnel on board who were probably armed, and that his airship had no weapons itself with which it could sink or even damage the Lima Maru enough to force her surrender if she sought to flee, Lansdowne ordered the inspection party to “play dumb and make a hash of the inspection” so as to delay the process until Bowling’s detachment arrived on the scene.
Through a variety of ruses, the team stretched what normally would be a two hour inspection leading to the release of a non-combatant vessel into an eight-hour ordeal of bureaucratic incompetence without once alerting the ship’s captain or his important human cargo to the possibility they would be seized. The inspection team, which fortuitously included a seaman who had been a successful vaudeville actor before joining the Navy, played its role to the hilt, never arousing the Japanese captain’s suspicion. In fact, at the conclusion of the “inspection” the three USS Jackson crewmen were even invited into the captain’s cabin for a celebratory cup of sake before they ascended back into the airship.
As soon as the team returned to the USS Jackson, USS Wyoming lumbered into view on the horizon, and shortly thereafter fired a series of 12-inch “warning shots” that cascaded huge founts of water near the stationary steamer. Seeing that destroyers were also approaching and flight would be impossible, the Lima Maru immediately surrendered to Lansdowne in USS Jackson, and upon the arrival of the destroyer USS Maxwell, the diplomatic and military personnel were taken into custody without incident. Following a much more thorough search in which various important papers were seized, the Lima Maru, her crew, and her remaining passengers were paroled and allowed to proceed to Japan.
Although Japanese newspapers later railed against this “act of aerial piracy on the high seas”, official Japanese reaction was much more muted, most likely because Lima Maru was treated in accordance with the Geneva conventions in much the same way that Japanese commerce raiders treated US vessels encountered in similar situations.
USS Jackson completed the remainder of her southern voyage without incident. Because she had lost several thousand cubic feet of helium, and had little ballast remaining, the airship completed the final 500 miles of the trip flying dynamically at high speed in a “heavy” state. However, Lansdowne was able to obtain sufficient equilibrium to safely moor on the tender USS Niagara by flying off the N2C scout and dumping most onboard remaining fuel before landing. This 20 day aerial voyage remains completely unmatched in the annals of aviation, and is a testament to the courage and dedication of Lansdowne and his entire crew. In addition, intelligence gathered from the interned Japanese diplomats and officers provided the US with useful information regarding continued domestic disturbances and popular dissatisfaction with the Japanese government, information that helped pave the way for the eventual armistice.
V. The Bonins
After several weeks of more routine reconnaissance in Hawaiian waters, during which she located a chain mine field that had been laid southwest of Pearl Harbor, presumably by a Japanese submarine, USS Jackson received orders to prepare for the first major US offensive of the Pacific War. This was the ill-starred surprise thrust to seize the Bonin Islands, deep within the Japanese League of Nations Mandate, as an advance base for fleet operations in the western Pacific.
As has been related in many articles and books, this highly audacious strike was excessively complicated, and depended upon a combination of Japanese errors and ideal conditions to succeed. Nothing of the sort happened, and the resultant disaster which befell the US expedition is among the worst in the annals of U.S. Naval history. Since the Bonin operation has been discussed in detail many times in other accounts, this paper will focus only on USS Jackson’s small part in the operation.
USS Jackson and USS Tucson were detailed to provide advanced screening for the small force of cruisers leading the invasion fleet. USS Chicago provided advanced aerial coverage for the main force anchored off Midway that would follow once the surprise assault was successful. However, as the weather began to turn bad, it became apparent to the captains of Jackson and Tucson that to remain at the van of the strike force would risk the loss of their ships in the coming storm. Receiving permission to abandon their reconnaissance patterns, the airships traced a wide circle and returned to the comparative safety of their temporary masts on Midway Atoll. This probably saved them from certain destruction in the mighty maelstrom that later smashed the US transports and their escorts leaving them nearly helpless to defend themselves when later intercepted by a detachment of Japanese 8-inch gun cruisers.
Although the USS Jackson played no part in the luckless operation, she did provide useful service in a series of air-sea rescue sweeps over the disaster site after the battle, saving as many as 150 men from death in the sea. In this she received indirect assistance from the Japanese, who displayed an honorable tradition of concern for shipwrecked sailors throughout the war.
Through neutral intermediaries, the Japanese informed the US that, for a period of one week, it would take no action against US aircraft and surface ships engaged in humanitarian rescue missions in the Bonins area as long as the Americans refrained from any hostile acts. Accordingly, USS Jackson, with temporary red crosses painted on her sides and upper surfaces, plied the approaches to the Bonins searching for life rafts, finding several survivors and effecting rescues with her personnel basket. She also saved a number of sailors from the few Japanese ships sunk in the one-sided battle following the storm, once even arranging for an at-sea transfer of a seriously injured man to the Imperial Japanese Navy hospital ship Nagoya Maru, which happened to be engaged on a similar mission of mercy in the vicinity.
Following the Bonins debacle, all three airships remained based at Midway Island, which saw its temporary airship facilities reconstructed as a full-fledged airship base with a wooden double hangar capable of housing two airships, helium and fuel depots, and a large permanent high mast. This allowed the three ships to maintain round-the-clock strategic reconnaissance in support of naval operations throughout the central and western Pacific.
VI. The Aleutians, Truk, and the Decisive Battle
The overall strategy of both the Japanese and American navies was ultimately to draw their enemy into a “decisive battle” to effectively bring the war to a sudden conclusion. This was also driven by popular opinion in both nations, whose people came to desire an end to what appeared to be a stalemated war, and in Japan’s case, by economic and diplomatic pressure from Europeans and in an increasingly resistant China. Eventually, through a series of ruses and successful diversionary operations, this battle was fought entirely on American terms against a Japanese fleet that was ill prepared, surprised, and almost hopelessly outnumbered.
As related elsewhere, key to the US Plan were several ruses intended to (1) lead the Japanese to believe US numerical superiority in battleships had dwindled to a point where the Imperial Navy could meet the US fleet on equal or even superior terms, (2) lead the Japanese to believe that US ships had unanticipated design flaws that made them surprisingly susceptible to battle damage, and (3)force the Japanese to confront the American fleet in the most unfavorable possible position.
USS Jackson played no small part in this deception. Initially she was assigned to the decoy US squadron deployed at Dutch Harbor, in the Aleutians. This fleet, which included several large merchants reconstructed to closely resemble US battleships, was intended to create suspicion in Japan that the US aimed to strike at the Kurile Islands and eventually take the war directly to Hokkaido. The airship’s role in this subterfuge was to stage many repeated reconnaissance missions deep into the northwest Pacific with the intention of being seen by Japanese pickets, whose reports would give military planners in Tokyo reason to suspect major US operations in the north Pacific were in the offing.
Because of the frequently bad weather conditions and poor visibility, these missions were among the most dangerous undertaken by USS Jackson during the entire war. Often, the ship remained on patrol in enemy waters for up to 4 days with such poor visibility that she could not achieve her primary objective of being seen by enemy pickets. More critically, in such visibility conditions, she stood an equally high chance of stumbling blindly upon powerful Japanese surface patrols that could easily shoot her out of the sky.
Conditions were also miserable for the airship’s company and hindered the effectiveness of the airship itself. She frequently encountered squalls of freezing rain and or snow that dangerously weighted her down. Her crew often had to contend with below freezing temperatures without any on-board heating. Hypothermia and frostbite was a frequent enemy. Condensed ice formation on the ship’s internal gangways and ladders made travel about the ship extremely hazardous. No fewer than three crewmen lost their lives by slipping off the keel gangway and falling through the thin fabric hull of the ship.
After several months operating in the northern Pacific, during which time one of the dummy “battleships” was “severely damaged” by a courageous Japanese submarine attack, the dummy fleet sailed back to Midway Atoll, where they joined yet another group of merchants made up to resemble battleships. Throughout this exercise, the airships Jackson and Tucson actively patrolled the route between Dutch Harbor and Midway, again less to identify enemy forces than to be identified by them.
Shortly thereafter, a small US strike force occupied Truk in a surprise operation, with its excellent deep anchorage. Over the intervening weeks, the small force occupying Truk was not challenged by the Japanese, who evidently were confused regarding whether or not the Truk operation was another feint.
In one exception, however, a large Japanese submersible cruiser was able to enter the anchorage and damage a number of US ships. In this, she was assisted by the fact that USS Jackson was moored for replenishment and the flying boats on patrol failed to identify her. The submarine was eventually sunk by US destroyers.
Within a few weeks, a huge US “battlefleet” consisting primarily of dummy battleships and carriers lay at anchor. During this period, the detachments from dummy battle fleet staged several operations against Japanese-held islands, including one in which an “invasion” was repulsed by Japanese aircraft and artillery. In this ruse, several of the dummy ships were “severely damaged” or “sunk” when attacked by Japanese level bombers, through use of prearranged explosions and controlled scuttling. The intent of these operations was to let the Japanese see US numerical superiority whittled somewhat down in size, while at the same time lending the appearance that US capital ships would not be equal to their Japanese opponents in staying power when finally engaged. The airships were kept busy throughout the operation as scouts and performing air-sea rescue missions – often rescuing phantom sailors from “battles” that were not battles.
Through media and diplomatic outlets, the US let it be known that the ultimate aim of the operation was the reoccupation of Guam. The real purpose, however, was to dangle the specter of an increasingly small and apparently flawed detachment of the US fleet as bait for a Japan that was becoming increasingly desperate to end the war on favorable terms with a decisive defeat of the US Navy, before she lost access to Chinese resources.
The purpose of this paper is not to detail Admiral Templeton’s masterful plan in achieving victory in the Battle of Truk. Suffice it to say that just after apparently decimating a major element of the US fleet – and expending considerable amounts of ammunition in the effort – the Japanese were shocked to encounter virtually the entire US battlefleet between them and their home base at Yokohama, including more than a few ships they thought were damaged or destroyed just a few hours previously. Initially enjoying an advantage in fleet speed, the Japanese sought to avoid the encounter, but bombing aircraft operating from the big airplane carriers USS Saratoga and USS Lexington achieved enough hits on the giant dreadnoughts to slow them and make flight impossible. This was really the first time the US airplane carriers were used primarily as offensive weapons, rather than for scouting, which made the scouting abilities of the US airships all the more critical. USS Jackson was employed in a wide sweep east of the Japanese battlefleet, during which time she relayed important information allowing one stricken battleship believed to be the Hyuga to be torpedoed and sunk by the submarine USS Tigerfish. The other airships also maintained effective reconnaissance, ensuring that the Japanese fleet could not emulate the success in avoiding combat that the German Navy had 15 years previously at Jutland. In this, the airships were certainly helped by the fact that the Akagi, Hosho, and other Japanese airplane carriers had lost many of their aircraft and most of their ammunition in engagements with US airplane carriers escorting the dummy fleet.
With the defeat of Japan in the Great Pacific War and the outcome of the “decisive battle” that reduced the Japanese navy to less than ½ of its former size, it is unlikely that the US airships will ever again see such a critical role in fleet actions. Already the US Navy is laying down four giant 50,000 airplane carriers, intended not a scouts but as key offensive weapons for the battlefleet. Each ship will carry over 100 modern bombers armed with the largest aerial bombs. It is entirely possible that if the United States again finds itself embroiled in a naval war – perhaps with a resurgent Japan, Soviet Russia, or perhaps even Britain, the sea battles will be won or lost by waves of bombing planes without the battlefleets themselves coming within gun range of each other. In such a world, the unarmed dirigible will be a redundancy.