Chapter 200: The Eastern Solomon Covering Force and the Invasion of Nauru:
Coming from Truck 1057 nmi (1217 mi; 1959 km) the eastern part of Operation MO, the so called Eastern Solomon Covering Force under Rear Admiral Tokohashi Zukado had the mission to cover the right flank. The Eastern Solomon Covering Force composed of the battleships Kii and Owari along with three light cruisers and two destroyers. They were on patrol to look out for any Allied forces that might threaten the right flank of Operation MO, traveling east of Bougainville and along Choiseul, Santa Isabel and turning northeast at Malaita, before San Cristobal. Turning away from the southeastern New Hebrides back north, the Eastern Solomon Covering Force would be 369 nmi (425 mi; 685 km) away from the nearest Imperial Japanese Navy forces at the Battle of the Coral Sea during the time the Imperial Japanese Navy fought the American and Australian forces there. As the Eastern Solomon Covering Force was not spotted by any Allied aircraft or ship and itself not encountered allied forces, they played no part in the Battle of the Coral Sea.
While the intent of the Eastern Solomon Covering Force was to secure the flanks for Operation MO and to eventually encounter Allied ships in the east or even distract the supposedly central Pacific American Carriers from their main forces. What Yamamoto failed to see in all this was, that while this secured the Japanese invasion of Tulagi further, the force was too much out-of-position and too far away to support their own forces during the Battle of the Coral Sea. Had they been closer to support and secure the Japanese 3rd Carrier Force they may have led to fewer Japanese overall losses in pilots, ships and lives. This strategic error lead to the failing of the Port Moresby Invasion Group and thereby the overall failure of the main targets of Operation MO.
But while the Eastern Solomon Covering Force under Rear Admiral Tokohashi Zukado failed to bring success to the Port Moresby Invasion, they managed to unite with the Tulagi Invasion Force under Rear Admiral Shima Kiyohide on their way north. Rear Admiral Shima Kiyohide and his fleet came from the Japanese base at Rabaul, they headed back at Truk, while Rear Admiral Tokohashi Zukado came from Truk and would head to Rabaul after that. During their combined northeastern travel both fleets headed for Nauru, a small Pacific island. This route from the Solomon Islands north took 562 nmi (646 mi; 1040 km) heading for the Pacific island under Australian administration. The island of Nauru itself flanked Japan's South Seas possessions and became of vital concern to Japanese Imperial General Headquarters and in particular to the Imperial Navy. Their plan of protecting Japan's outlying Pacific territories meant that I was vital for Japan to capture Nauru between their occupied Gilbert Islands and the Solomon Islands, to shorten their outer defence lines. The Japanese also hoped to exploit the island's phosphate resources, besides their plan to build up their military defences in the area. They were able to relaunch phosphate mining operations on the island, and additionally would succeeded in transforming Nauru into a powerful stronghold.
The war would deeply affect the local population of Nauru. The Japanese were to enforce a harsh regime, particularly on their forced laborers who they saw as being at the bottom of their Co-Prosperity Sphere hierarchy; forced labor and brutal treatment were commonplace. The Japanese decided to deport the majority of Nauru's indigenous population to the Truck islands, hundreds of miles away, where mortality was extremely high and replace them by Chosen and Chinese workers to have a way more loyal base in this outer defense parameter. Still overpopulated with troops and imported laborers, the island would be subject to food shortages, which worsened as the Allied submarines left Nauru completely cut off. This forces the Japanese troops, their laborers and the natives to heavily rely on supplying themselves with things they could grow on Nauru themselves.
Mining operations on Nauru began in 1906, at which time it was part of the German colonial empire. The island had some of the world's largest and highest quality deposits of phosphate, a key component in fertilizer, making it a strategically important resource on which agriculture in Australia and New Zealand depended. During the First Great War, Nauru came under the control of the British Crown as a trusteeship of the League of Nations, effectively administered by the Australian government. The British Phosphate Commission (BPC), in charge of mining operations, joined with Australian officials and Christian missionaries to establish paternalistic management of the Nauruan people, who showed only limited interest in mining employment, and generally continued to rely on their traditional subsistence activities of fishing and agriculture. The BPC instead imported large numbers of indentured workers, mainly Chinese and Pacific islanders.
Modernity reached Nauru in the form of imported goods, which had the effect of making the locals increasingly dependent on the Australian economy. Beginning in the 1920s, the Nauruans received royalties for the mining of their lands, an income that allowed them to cover their needs, but which was minimal compared with the actual value of the island's phosphate exports. The population was decimated by several diseases against which they had no immune defences; however, in 1932 they reached the population threshold of 1,500 that was considered necessary for their survival. In spite of the economic importance of Nauru for Australia and New Zealand, the island was left militarily unprotected, since a stipulation of the League of Nations mandate for Australian administration forbade the construction of coastal defences. The island, very isolated geographically, was not under constant surveillance by the Australian navy, and was out of reach of aerial patrols; however, before the outbreak of hostilities in the Pacific theatre, Nauru hadn't seemed to be under direct threat.
The Empire of Japan became firmly established in the vast area north of Nauru as a result of the South Pacific Mandate of the League of Nations, and aggressive development of plantation agriculture in the islands was often facilitated by the use of Nauruan phosphate.
The Second Great War first reached Nauru in early December 1940 when two German armed merchantmen disguised as civilian freighters targeted the island. Their aim was to disrupt production of phosphate and thereby weaken the agriculture-based economies of Australia and New Zealand. Orion, Komet, and their supply ship Kulmerland headed for Nauru with the purpose of destroying the main infrastructure. Due to bad weather conditions, they were unable to make a landing on the island, but sank several merchantmen in the area. On 27 December, Komet returned to Nauru, and though again unable to land a shore party, severely damaged the mining facilities and exposed loading jetties with gunfire. The island's chief administrator, Frederick Royden Chalmers, a former lieutenant-colonel in the Australian Army who had served in the Boer War and First Great War, reportedly stormed along the waterfront hurling verbal abuse at the German ship, which slipped away unharmed.
For the Japanese, the importance of Nauru was twofold: first, they were interested in acquiring the island's phosphate deposits; second, Nauru was potentially a good base from which to launch aerial attacks against the Gilbert Islands that were not yet occupied and to threaten the sea route between Australia and North America. Japanese forces launched simultaneous attacks against US, Australian, British and Dutch forces, on 17 November 1941 (16 November in the western hemisphere). That same day, a Japanese surveillance aircraft was sighted above Nauru. The first attack took place on 20 November; three planes flying from the Marshall Islands bombed the wireless station at Nauru, but failed to cause any damage. The Nauruans, warned by observers on Ocean Island 350 kilometres (189 nmi; 217 mi) to the east, managed to seek shelter before the attack. The following day, another plane made a second attempt on the radio station. The third day, four planes made a low-altitude strike and finally destroyed it. During these three days, 51 bombs were dropped on or close to the station. The governor of the island, Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick Chalmers, sent a message to Canberra stating that he thought the Japanese had not destroyed phosphate production facilities because they intended to occupy the island for its resources. All maritime contact with the rest of the world was interrupted. The BPC ship Trienza, which was en route to the island with supplies, was recalled. Until the end of January 1942, there were daily sightings of Japanese planes over the island.
In other parts of the Pacific Ocean, the Japanese advance rolled forward. They occupied the Gilbert Islands, north-east of Nauru, during November 1941, and in December 1941 they took Rabaul, south-west of Nauru, and established a major base there. Nauru was therefore isolated, situated between the two main Japanese axes of advance. On 19 January 1942, the bombing of Darwin marked the first time in its history that Australia was directly targeted on a large scale by a foreign power. News of the attack caused deep consternation on Nauru.
Following the British declaration of war on the Japanese empire, the leadership of the British Phosphate Commission urged the Australian government to assist in the evacuation of BPC employees. The authorities were slow to respond, due to reports speculating that an invasion of the island by Japan was unlikely because of the lack of a deep-water port or an airstrip. Their reluctance was also fueled by the belief that withdrawal of the Westerners would result in a loss of prestige for Australia among the Nauruans. The evacuation was finally approved at the end of December 1941. The initial plan was to remove all the Westerners and Chinese. Because of growing Japanese naval activity in the area, Le Triomphant, a destroyer operating with the Free French Naval Forces, was selected for the mission. The ship met with the BPC freighter Trienza, which was camouflaged in the bay of Malekula in the New Hebrides islands, loaded with 50 tons of supplies bound for Nauru. After taking some of Trienza's cargo aboard, Le Triomphant steamed at full speed toward Nauru, arriving on 23 February. The unloading of supplies and boarding of civilians proceeded quickly. Contrary to the initial plan, it was decided to take aboard only part of the Chinese population, due to cramped conditions on the ship. Sixty-one Westerners, 391 Chinese, and the 49 members of the British garrison embarked; 191 Chinese were left on Nauru, having been told they would be evacuated later, which, in the event, did not occur, due to the rapid pace of the Japanese advance. Seven Westerners, including Chalmers and two missionaries, chose to remain, feeling it was their duty to look after the islanders. Before evacuating, BPC employees thoroughly sabotaged the phosphate mining facilities.
The first attempt to occupy Nauru began on 11 March, when an Imperial Japanese invasion force consisting of a cruiser, two mine-layers and two destroyers, with Special Naval Landing Force units, under the command of Rear Admiral Shima Kiyohide, departed Rabaul. The task force was attacked by the United State Navy submarine S-42, leading to the loss of the minelayer Okinoshima. Attempts by the rest of the task force to continue with the operation were called off after Japanese reconnaissance aircraft sighted the American aircraft carriers USS Yorktown and Hornet heading towards Nauru.
A second invasion force departed Truck and Rabaul later as part of the Operation Mo, a company of the 43rd Guard Force (Palau) under the combined fleets of the Tulagi Invasion Force under Rear Admiral Shima Kiyohide and the Eastern Solomon Covering Force under Rear Admiral Tokohashi Zukado conducted an unopposed landing on Nauru and assumed occupation duties. They were joined by the 5th Special Base Force company, which departed Makin on 15 March and arrived at Nauru two days later. By April 1942, there were 11 officers and 249 enlisted Japanese soldiers on Nauru. On 7 February 1943, Captain Takenao Takenouchi would arrive to take command of the garrison (known as 67 Naval Guard Force); he, however, was ill and bed-ridden throughout his tenure, and command would effectively be held by Lt. Hiromi Nakayama, who had led the initial landing force. On 13 June, Captain Hisayuki Soeda arrived to replace Takenouchi as commander of 67 Naval Guard Force, a position he held until the end of the war.
The five Australians who had remained on Nauru - Lieutenant-Colonel F. R. Chalmers (Nauru’s administrator), Dr. Bernard Haselden Quinn (Government medical officer), Mr. W. H. Shugg (medical assistant), Mr. F. Harmer (BPC engineer), and Mr. W.H. Doyle (BPC overseer) - were interned and placed under guard in a house near the island's hospital. They would later be forced to help administrate the island's natives and help restart the phosphate industry. The two missionaries, Father Alois Kayser (an Alsatian) and Father Pierre Clivaz (a Frenchman), were, for a time, permitted to continue their religious work. Soon after their arrival, the Japanese appointed Timothy Detudamo as the chief of the natives. The Nauruans were ordered to obey him, otherwise they would be "skinned and treated as pigs". The Japanese did not treat them as equals and allies like other native populations inside the Co-Prosperity Sphere, because they planned on annexing and populating the island with Japanese citizens. Detudamo had served as Head Chief of the Council of Chiefs in the pre-War administration and was respected by the Nauruans. Under the Japanese regime, however, he had no true autonomy; his duty was only to take orders from the occupiers and apply them. Those who did not follow the Japanese rules could be severely punished. The Nauruans would witness the beheading of several Chinese, Gilbertese, and even Japanese accused of breaking the law.
The Japanese requisitioned several houses abandoned by their inhabitants after the landing, as well as all vehicles owned by the natives. They established a rationing system under which Japanese workers and Nauruans were entitled to 900 grams of rice and 45 grams of beef per day. All men on the island were obliged to work for the Japanese, and, along with Korean and Japanese workers, were immediately put to work building an airstrip. The construction took place at breakneck pace, and the forced workers were beaten if they were unable to work as fast as ordered. The Japanese occupiers tried to seduce the natives using propaganda, educational programs, and entertainment to have them willingly collaborate. They opened a Japanese school, a language which many Nauruans learned during the war, and hired native dancers for celebrations they organized, which brought the Nauruans extra money. They opted not to interfere with the work of the two European priests, who had great influence among the population, and allowed religious services to take place. They also hired some of the employees of the former administration.
The organization of Nauru's defences was the first task of the occupiers. They sited 152 mm artillery pieces around the coast and placed 12.7 mm anti-aircraft machine guns on Command Ridge. They built pillboxes on the beach, bunkers further inland, and an underground hospital. Their main work was the construction of an airstrip. To build it, they brought in 1,500 Japanese, Chosen and Chinese workers, as well as using Nauruans, Gilbertans, and Chinese as forced labor. The creation of the airstrip on the narrow coastal belt led to the expulsion of many natives from the districts of Boe and Yaren, where the best lands of the island were located. The airfield became operational in October 1942. Work on airstrips in Meneng and Anabar were also begun but did not finish until March 1943 and August 1943 completed.
One of the goals of the Japanese in invading Nauru had been the takeover of the island's strategic phosphate industry. A few days after their landing on Nauru, the occupiers brought in 72 employees of the Nanyo Kohatsu Kabushiki Kaisha (South Sea Development Company) to assess the condition of the mining facilities sabotaged by the Australians before their departure. Nauru was mostly used as a link in the chain of Japanese defences in the Central Pacific Ocean.
After the Battle of the Coral Sea, Milne Bay and Midway, a possible American counter-offensive loomed in the relatively close Islands. Because of it the garrison on Nauru continued to improve its defences, unaware that the American Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a meeting in August, had decided to bypass the island. For them it seemed unwise to leave an island with an airfield only 380 miles from nearby allied islands in enemy hands. But, the more Nauru was studied, the less anyone liked the idea of assaulting it. For Nauru is a solid island with no harbor or lagoon, shaped like a hat with a narrow brim of coastal plain where the enemy had built his airfield, and a crown where he had mounted coast defence artillery. The hilly interior was full of holes and caves where phosphate rock had been excavated - just the sort of terrain that the Japanese liked for defensive operations.
Although spared a pitched battle, Nauru would be subject to regular aerial bombardment from nearby Allied islands, while Allied warships made it increasingly difficult for supply ships to get through to the island, or for transport ships to depart from here.
On Nauru the Japanese established a huge garrison relative to the size of the island. In Mai 1943 there were 5,187 inhabitants, 2,000 more than in 1940. This figure includes 1,388 military personnel and 1,500 Korean, Chineseand Japanese workers, as well as 400 non-Nauruan Pacific Islanders and Chinese previously brought in by the BPC. The 1,848 Nauruans were therefore a minority on their own island. At the end of Mai, 1,000 more military personnel were brought to Nauru.
The authorities, fearful of starvation on an overpopulated island kept under blockade, resolved to deport most of the native Nauruan population. Shortly after the arrival of the last military convoy, the Japanese called together a Nauruan council and made the announcement of the deportation of some of the islanders under the leadership of Timothy Detudamo. They refused to tell the Nauruans their destination, which increased anxiety among the population; they were only told that the island to which they would be sent had an abundance of food. Just before departure, Nakayama, second in the military hierarchy of the island, gave Detudamo a letter bearing the seal of the emperor Hirohito, indicating that the Nauruans were under his protection.
On 29 May 1943, 600 Nauruans and seven Chinese were brought to the waterfront and taken aboard the freighter Akibasan Maru. The following day the boat set sail, escorted by a small navy ship, for the Truk Islands, site of the headquarters of Japanese forces in the Central Pacific, 1,600 km north-west of Nauru in the Caroline Islands.
Following this departure, the Japanese committed what is considered their worst war crime on Nauru: the massacre of 39 lepres, who lived in a colony built by the Australians in Meneng. Before the arrival of the Japanese, the lepers had been able to receive visits from their families, and in certain instances, have their children live with them. The occupiers, fearful of contagion, isolated them completely as soon as they landed, and included their families in the first boat to Truk. On 11 June 1943, the 39 lepers — having been told they were to be transferred to a colony on Ponape — were placed aboard a fishing boat, which was then towed out to sea by the Japanese picket-boat Shinshu Maru. Once the boats were out of sight of Nauru the towrope was cut and sailors aboard the Shinshu Maru began firing on the fishing boat with the ship's 50 mm cannon and 7.7 mm machine gun. The Nauruans were finished off with rifle fire, and the boat capsized and sank. Lt. Nakayama, the de facto commander who had ordered the massacre, would later tell the new garrison commander, Captain Soeda, that the lepers and their boat had been lost in a typhoon while being taken to Jaluit atoll.
The following month, 659 emaciated Banabans were brought to Nauru from neighboringOcean Island, which was also under Japanese occupation. A new contingent of 1,200 soldiers arrived 6 July 1943, and the same day, another group of 601 Nauruans, mainly women and children led by the two Catholic priests, Alois Kayser and Pierre Clivaz, were sent into exile. There had not yet been any news of the whereabouts of the first group. Although cramped, conditions aboard the boats bringing the Nauruans to the Truk islands were bearable. For the vast majority of the exiles, it was the first time they had left their isolated island; therefore, along with the general anxiety, there was some excitement, particularly among Nauruan youth. On 11 August, the boat which was to be used to deport the remaining Nauruans arrived off the coast of the island, only to be destroyed by a torpedo from an American submarine. This stopped the Japanese from completing their plan of removing the entire Nauruan population for a month, when a new boat arrived. This last shipment allowed the Japanese only uprooted people without specific land rights to remain on the island. The 1,200 remaining Naruans left, were replaced by a larger number of Japanese and Banabans, thus doing nothing to alleviate food shortages. Because of this the garrison had to rely on what they could grow themselves way more then on supply convoys.
The fact that Nauru was so isolated and at the very end of a long supply line linking the Pacific islands to Japan made it hard to supply. The American submarines raiding the Japanese supply lines, made supply missions to Nauru very difficult. In August 1943, a 6,000ton freighter loaded with supplies for the Japanese garrison was sunk off the island. In addition, the annual monsoon rains largely failed during the 1943-1944 season, resulting in a severe drought on the island. In early January 1944, only two Japanese supply ships made it to Nauru. The second boat arrived on 10 January, and was the last surface ship to resupply the base for the duration of the war. A much needed delivery of provisions and ammunition was made by two submarines in August 1944.
The situation forced the inhabitants to look for alternatives to imported goods. Their main concern was to compensate for the lack of food supplies, especially the rice that was the staple food under the Japanese occupation. One of the Nauruans' methods to reach self-sufficiency was to exploit their gardens to the fullest. They cultivated many edible plants and were soon imitated by the Japanese, who began to farm every space available. They grew eggplant, corn, pumpkin, and sweet potato. Still lacking sufficient output, they created pumpkin plantations, using half drums filled with night soil which had been collected from the population by forced workers. This method turned out to be extremely productive in Nauru's tropical weather, but as a result, dysentery spread, killing several people. Swarms of flies appeared around the plantations, and the smell was unbearable. Toddy, brewed with the sap of coconut trees, was a valuable dietary supplement and at times the only food available. All the trees used for toddy were inventoried and allocated to the population, three for each Japanese, Chosen and Chinese two for a Pacific Islander, and one for a Chinese. They were used to such an extent that they were no longer able to produce coconuts.After learning that rubber tree fruit was edible, the Japanese forbade the Islanders from gathering it, and started eating it themselves. There was an upsurge of hunting, fishing, harvesting, and other traditional practices which had fallen into disuse during colonisation. Men would go up the cliffs hunting black noddy, a local small bird, while women were collecting sea food in the reefs; everyone was fishing as much as possible. Nauruan women produced twine, made of coconut tree fiber, which was used for construction in lieu of nails, as well as for canoe making and fishing. From pandanus leaves, they made a strong fabric used for mats, baskets, shelter-pieces, and sails.
To stop the building of the Japanese airfield and fortifications, allied air raids on Nauru were common as long as the front line was close by. About 40 Nauruans had been killed in the attacks, and many more injured. The food shortage became more and more acute. Several Chinese workers died of starvation, and islanders of all stripes suffered from various diseases, made worse by malnutrition, dwindling medical supplies, and the increasingly unsanitary conditions on the island. But for the most part, however, the Nauruans on Nauru were faring better than their kinsmen who had been deported by the Japanese.
The Nauruan exiles had been relocated to Tarik, Tol, Felan, and other islands in the Truk archipelago. As on Nauru, they had been forced to work for the Japanese. Despite the best efforts of Timothy Detudamo, Father Kayser, Father Clivaz, and others, conditions were made worse in Truk by complete lack of medical care for the Nauruans and their status as aliens. The native Chuukese resented having to share scarce resources with the interlopers, while the Japanese treated them much more harshly than on Nauru. Many of the exiles suffered beatings, and many women were sexually assaulted. All were forced into long hours of heavy labor, mainly excavating defensive positions and growing food for the Japanese garrison.
Once the airfields were finished, the Japanese launched only a handful of raids from them on nearby allied islands and convoy routes. Nauru played an important role in the campaigns of the Central Pacific. It was too well-defended to invade, yet its airfield and strategic location made it too threatening to ignore, making it a perfect pillar for the Japanese defence lines. The Americans had to divert considerable effort and resources to keep it neutralized if they wished to fight and oppose the Japanese in the region. Militarily, the Japanese on Nauru did their job very effectively. Over 300 of them died from malnutrition, disease, and enemy action. To extract more Phosphate the Japanese built facilities and brought in new workers, so that production was resumed in September 1942. Sanitary conditions on the island were as quickly restored as possible by the Japanese garrison, but gt worse, when they overpopulated the small island, therefore they deported most of the natives from Nauru.
