XX: Divided Attention, October 1942
Any admiral seeking a decisive battle on October 20th would have been bitterly disappointed by the short and inconclusive battle that was fought, and had it not been for the arrival of some heavy rains near New Caledonia, several more strikes would surely have been ordered. While Fletcher was disappointed, and hoped that the rain would disperse quickly, Yamamoto was satisfied with his own progress: the first wave of troops had been landed, now storming across New Caledonia’s mountainous spine before they were met by serious opposition. Kaga would be useless until it could be repaired: a job that would take at least six months plus however long it would take to return to Japan; several cargo ships had also run aground on the huge coral reefs when the tides lowered, two were left irreparable and had to be abandoned. Yamamoto hoped that Fletcher would waste his bombs on the wrecks.
The bad weather would prove extremely useful to Yamamoto, who wanted to get the second wave of troops ashore as soon as possible. Ready to embark from Efate as soon as the ships arrived, they would need just over a day for the trip to Thio. Along with roughly 5000 veterans of the vicious fighting on Fiji, the second wave would carry the bulk of the supplies required for the next few weeks of fighting: the first wave had travelled light so that they could establish a position as close to Noumea as possible, but the second would be needed to fight the battle for the city. Unlike Fiji, here there would be fewer opportunities to acquire food from the locals.
Escorting the supplies had by now become a routine for the Japanese captains, who had spent months running ships to and from Fiji and the New Hebrides, but Yamamoto also had the decisive battle to fight. Fletcher had already announced his navy’s presence on the 20th, and Yamamoto expected he would be willing to fight again: it was now just a question of where, and when. Too early, and a disaster could doom the second wave’s unloading efforts, too late, and fuel would make pursuit more difficult after victory. If the navies stayed on opposite sides of New Caledonia, his superior surface units including the mighty Yamato would not have the opportunity to engage, but if he went around the island then the cargo and support ships off the northern coast would be more exposed.
“What good is the fleet if we don’t ever use it to fight?” Yamamoto remarked to Yamaguchi as he drew up his attack plan on the night of the 20th. “If we surround the island, Fletcher can either fight, and give us the carriers, or run, and give us Noumea. Either way, a blow will be dealt, and the death of the other shall follow.” Within two hours, Yamamoto was giving out orders once more.
On board the Saratoga, Fletcher was less concerned about the decisive battle that was referenced so many times in intercepted Japanese messages. While he was prepared to fight the Japanese, he knew that the Allies’ greatest weapon in this war was time: the longer the conflict dragged on, the more of an advantage America’s enormous industrial capabilities would be.
It was this line of thinking that led him to request the transfer of MacArthur’s submarines to his command. Attrition would weaken the Japanese just as effectively as a single large confrontation would. His target was not Yamamoto’s warships, which would surely show up for battle at some point, but his slow, vulnerable cargo ships. If enough of those were sunk, operations in New Caledonia would become impossible.
The first time this strategy would be tested would be the second invasion convoy, which left Port Vila in the evening of the 21st. Six submarines were positioned in the waters between Efate and Thio, where they would ambush the convoy in the mid-morning of the 22nd. Several ships were hit, but only two suffered serious damage: one would sink shortly afterwards, the other limped on to Thio, to be unloaded and then scuttled. The strategy showed promise, especially in light of Japan’s ineffective ASW tactics which failed to damage any of the submarines. Poor quality torpedoes would once again prove an issue however, preventing no fewer than three more critical hits on Japan’s most vulnerable ships. Had they been as effective as the dreaded Japanese ‘Long Lance’, the second wave may have never made it ashore at all.
While the second wave began to unload at Thio, a desperate race for control of central New Caledonia was unfolding. General Yi was pushing south with whatever forces were available, hoping to secure as much land as possible before he met the Americans: once the two sides met, every following inch of land would have a price measured in blood. On the other side of the mountains, General Patch’s force was dispersed across the island: west of the village of Moindou was the 132nd Regiment, tasked with the defence of the western half of the island; next was the 182nd Regiment, closest to the Japanese with their bases along the Ouameni river at the village bearing the same name; further east, the 164th Regiment would defend Tontouta and Noumea.
Only two roads of any consequence serviced the battlefields-to-be: a north-south route through the mountains connecting the villages of Thio and Bouloupari, and a longer road parallel to the island’s southern coastline. The first would be used by the Japanese as they advanced through the hills, while General Yi hoped to cut the American defences in two by occupying part of the second road: this road would then be used by the Japanese as they marched on Noumea. With a holding force left to guard the western flank, the Japanese could feel secure in their plans: few north-south routes existed further west while the mountains would obstruct other paths, and the best the northern coastline could offer was a series of mule tracks. Short of another amphibious landing, neither side would be able to outflank the other.
In the race to control the mountain road, General Yi had the advantage. While his forces had landed immediately in front of the road, the 182nd Regiment had been based twenty kilometres west of Bouloupari at the road’s southern end, and the other American regiments were too far away to be of use in the initial battle. The Japanese rushed south just as they had in Fiji, while Patch grew concerned over where the second Japanese invasion force was to land: if the first wave was just a diversion, he could not risk exposing Noumea to the second. The 132nd Regiment would eventually be directed to head east once it became clear that the Japanese had no interest in the island’s west, but only after Yi’s troops met the Americans just 10 kilometres north of Bouloupari, at the very edge of the mountain range.
Once the battle began however, it would be the Americans who held the best cards. Much of Yi’s heavy equipment, including tanks, cars and artillery, was still at sea in the second wave, as Yamamoto and Hyakutake had decided bodies would be more important than equipment for the first. While the Japanese outnumbered the American regiment, the American equipment, including some M4 ‘Sherman’ tanks, could make up the difference. The remnants of the area’s bad weather continued to ground air forces, leaving field commanders uncertain of their position in the battle. After a short clash, it was Yi who decided to retreat first, feeling that he would need his reinforcements to break out of the mountains. The American commander, waiting on the 132nd Regiment from the west, occupied the battlefield but decided further pursuit into the mountains would be unwise.
- BNC
