LVI: Power of Production, March 1944
By March 1944, the US Navy was by far the largest navy in the world, and nowhere was this more obvious than in the Central Pacific. US Task Force 39 had included more than half of the major American ships in the theatre since the invasion of Wake, and had been continually reinforced throughout the past year. By the time Yamamoto left Tokyo Bay in preparation for the decisive battle, which both sides knew would be fought somewhere near, probably north of, Japan’s major base at Truk, Task Force 39 had grown to a truly staggering size.
Yamamoto had long believed that in the decisive battle he would be facing around six to eight American carriers, and felt that his own eleven would give him the advantage in a battle that would likely be fought entirely in the air, with neither side’s ships seeing each other. Had Yamamoto considered only full-sized fleet carriers, he would have accurately guessed Spruance’s strength of seven: two veterans of the campaigns of 1942 in Saratoga and Hornet, and five newer carriers (Essex, Lexington, Yorktown, Bunker Hill and Intrepid), four of which had seen their first major action at Wake.
Spruance’s total carrier force grew to twenty-five decks once smaller ships were also counted. These included seven Independence-class light carriers (Independence, Princeton, Belleau Wood, Cowpens, Monterey, Langley and Cabot), and a further eleven escort carriers (Sangamon, Suwannee, Chenango, Santee, Casablanca, Liscombe Bay, Corregidor, Port Moresby, Timor, Fiji and New Caledonia).
Japanese intelligence efforts also greatly underestimated the strength of the American battle line, believing most of it to have been sunk at Pearl Harbour and several more lost in the actions of 1942. Yamamoto’s ten battleships were more than enough for the three or four Americans he expected to encounter, but only gave him parity with Spruance’s surface fleet, which was made up of the Pennsylvania, Tennessee, California, North Carolina, South Dakota, Indiana, Massachusetts, Alabama, Iowa and New Jersey.
Spruance could also call upon eight heavy cruisers and seven light, to Yamamoto’s seven and two respectively. Fifty-two destroyers would provide escort for the fleet, which also included a huge number of tankers, minesweepers, other supporting vessels and the landing craft that would allow 30,000 Marines to storm ashore and capture Truk.
Only in submarines did Yamamoto have a clear advantage, with no fewer than fifteen patrolling the waters north and east of Truk, where the battle was set to take place. American intelligence had yet to discover any major Japanese plans for the battle, forcing Spruance to guess Yamamoto’s strategy, but the signals teams had managed to intercept several orders describing the intended positions of many of these submarines. Efforts to sink those submarines that were known by March 15th proved unsuccessful however, as most were out of position. Yamamoto had hoped to ambush the American fleet before it could reach the Carolines, instead the only notable occurrence that day happened when the I-22 sank as a result of an accident.
One of Spruance’s submarines, the Paddle, had spotted part of the Japanese fleet shortly after it left port at Palau, finally confirming that this was going to be the battle that the Japanese had been waiting for. No-one among the American high command had any doubt that they would be fighting almost the entire Imperial Navy, and while intelligence was correct in believing that the Americans had a numerical advantage, the advantage was not so great as to allow the fleet to be recklessly divided into small groups.
Keeping the entire fleet together as one gargantuan mass would not be ideal either. At least until the invasion force could be landed and the transports unloaded, the advantage of mobility would lie with the Japanese. Any ships committed to the invasion, most importantly those tasked with protecting the vast transport and cargo fleet, would be forced to stay fairly close to Truk. Ships not directly assigned to the Truk mission would still need to stay within a few hundred kilometres of the island, in case Yamamoto struck the invasion fleet with his full force, in order to make supporting that fleet possible. The Japanese on the other hand had complete freedom to move throughout the Central Pacific before making their move. Intelligence had picked up on a major reaction in Tokyo after the sinking of two tankers at the end of the previous year, but the thought of the Japanese running out of fuel mid-battle was never taken seriously. Truk was in the very centre of the Japanese Empire. It was unthinkable that they would not be able to fight here.
Spruance thus decided to split his forces into two major groups. The first group (TF 39.1) was placed under Admiral Richmond Turner, who was tasked with protecting the invasion force and ensuring Truk was captured. As this force could not be moved without dooming the landing effort, the three slower battleships (Pennsylvania, Tennessee and California) were assigned to the force, in a conscious effort to avoid making the same mistake that had doomed Halsey in the previous great battle. If everything went according to plan, the battleships would not need to do anything more than provide gunfire support to the invasion, which was to be conducted in accordance with MacArthur’s suggestions. In the event that Yamamoto attempted to destroy the invasion force, battleship fire would be directed at any Japanese ships that came within range. As these would likely be surface vessels, Turner was also assigned four fast battleships, the Indiana, Massachusetts, Alabama and New Jersey. The eleven escort carriers, to slow to be attached to the main battle fleet, would provide air cover to the group, which was also assigned three heavy and three light cruisers.
Having extensively studied Yamamoto’s previous battles, off New Caledonia and the South Pacific, Spruance felt confident that once again it would be the carriers that decided the battle, and in all likelihood his opponent would target them at the first opportunity. Placing his second group (TF 39.2) under Admiral Marc Mitscher, Spruance concentrated the best of his carrier force into a huge strike force. The seven smaller decks were filled with fighters and ordered to maintain a massive combat air patrol; the seven large carriers (including Spruance’s flagship, the Saratoga) would hunt the Imperial Navy’s best ships.
Although three battleships and a swarm of smaller surface vessels were part of this group, Spruance was determined to avoid a surface battle if at all possible. The Japanese surface fleet had proven itself time and again to be a fearsome opponent, and the US Navy had come off second best many of those times. Mitscher was given orders to retreat to the east if the Japanese attempted to engage the carriers in a gunnery duel. This fight was to be decided in the skies. Judging by the atrocious performance given by Japanese airmen over the past year, Spruance was confident of a decisive victory.
- BNC
