The Conquering Tide (54 page)

Many more aircraft carriers, large and small, would steam down the Pearl Harbor entrance channel in the ensuing six months. The new
Yorktown
and
Lexington
, named for the flattops lost at Coral Sea and Midway the previous year, were built on identical lines to the
Essex
. They arrived from the mainland in July and August. The fourth-in-class, the new
Hornet
, would follow by the end of the year. The navy planned to build and commission twenty-four of these huge first-line carriers by 1945. The 11,000-ton light carrier
Independence
(CVL-22), converted from a hull originally intended as a light cruiser, arrived in July and was soon followed by her sisters
Princeton
and
Belleau Wood
. Several diminutive escort or “jeep” carriers (CVEs) joined the fleet that fall. Though too slow to operate with the new fast carrier task forces, CVEs were valuable in transporting and resupplying aircraft and in providing air cover to amphibious operations.

The new fast battleships of the
Iowa
class would not reach the Pacific until 1944, but the
Colorado
and
Maryland
(
Colorado
-class battleships armed with 16-inch guns) were in port to be outfitted with new radar systems and additional antiaircraft mounts. Cruisers, destroyers, destroyer escorts, transports, fleet oilers, minesweepers, minelayers, mobile dry docks, hospital ships, and many other types of combatant and auxiliary ships squeezed into the harbor. A billion-dollar crash-building program in 1942 had produced more than a quarter of a million tons of amphibious landing craft, in a variety of types ranging from small Higgins boats to 300-foot-long tank-landing ships (LSTs). As the fleet grew, it became evident to anyone with a view of Pearl Harbor that a big offensive was in preparation.

The
Essex
-class carriers had been designed with all of the shortcomings of the earlier fleet carriers in mind, and were superior in every respect to their predecessors. They carried a complement of ninety-six planes and tore through the sea at 33 knots. Much of the design work had been coordinated by veteran aviator Jim Russell (who would eventually achieve four-star rank) during a tour of duty in the Bureau of Aeronautics before the war. Russell, who had served in carriers in many capacities for many
years, pushed for new catapults and arresting gear, more and better firefighting equipment, and new maintenance and storage facilities. He placed the three aircraft elevators as far as practicable from the centerline of the ship, to create more elbow room in the hangar and allow for more rapid and flexible cycling of aircraft. More controversially, Russell designed a very large flight deck that retained its width and rectangular shape all the way to the forecastle. Engineers warned that the overhanging forward corners of the flight deck, weakly supported by two steel I-beams, would be vulnerable to collapse in heavy weather. Russell acknowledged the point but maintained that it was worth risking storm damage in order to construct “a proper flying field.”
³⁸
(Both were right: some of the
Essex
-class flight decks did suffer in extreme weather, but the damage was easily repaired and the trade-off deemed satisfactory.)

The
Essex
carriers were designed to be as light as possible within the necessary strength tolerances. As a result, said Captain Duncan, they were much more responsive to their helms: “When you gave [them] the gun, those ships really jumped. It was quite different than some of the older, heavier ships. That I think was an indication of what can be done with very detailed care to things of that kind.”
³⁹

Russell offered “very strong representations” to his superiors about the importance of the pilot ready rooms, which he thought ought to be far more comfortable than those on the older aircraft carriers. They should be air-conditioned, well lighted, and placed as near as possible to the deck spots for each squadron's aircraft. Russell wanted large leather reclining chairs, arranged to face toward a blackboard and a teleprinter linked to Air Plot, so that each pilot could remain seated comfortably while working at his navigation board. He argued that men would be better rested and more effective if they could prepare for their flights in “peace and comfort . . . . instead of standing up and getting on each others' toes, with very poor lighting and poor ventilation as in the ready rooms on the old carriers.”
⁴⁰
The point was brilliantly vindicated when the
Essex
and her sisters went into service.

The new carriers were matched with a new generation of carrier fighters and bombers. By June 1943, the Grumman F6F Hellcat had replaced the obsolete F4F Wildcat. The Hellcat was a very large aircraft, weighing 1,200 pounds unloaded, but it was powered by a monstrous 2,000-horsepower Pratt & Whitney engine and climbed at 3,500 feet per minute. Its flying range was just short of 1,000 miles. The cockpit, slickly faired into the fuselage, was
heavily armored. The F6F carried six electrically charged .50-caliber guns and about twice the ammunition of the F4F.

The Wildcat had lagged behind the Japanese Zero fighter in climbing speed and maneuverability. The Hellcat would match the Zero's climbing speed below 14,000 feet and outpace it in a climb at higher altitudes. Its speed on the level or in a dive was superior to that of the Zero at any altitude.

On first impression, many assumed that the massive blue aircraft must be a bomber. Indeed, the new Grumman could be configured to carry 4,000 pounds of bombs or rockets, and it was sometimes used in the role of a fighter-bomber. “The plane was a monster,” wrote Bill Davis, who first encountered it in August 1943. His squadron, VF-19, checked out in the F6F at Los Alamitos Naval Air Station in California. From the moment the engine fired, Davis was thrilled and amazed. “There was a thunderous backfire as flames shot out of the exhaust pipe. A sailor with a fire extinguisher moved toward the plane, but the engine quickly caught and the flames disappeared as the engine started to purr with a mighty roar. I could feel the power through the throttle as well as my ears and every quaking fiber of my body.” Davis taxied to the end of the runway, checked the magnetos, and paused for a moment. He was a bit apprehensive, and had to summon his nerve before opening up the throttle. His description of that first check-out flight is worth quoting in its entirety:

The noise was fantastic. The response was instantaneous. Correcting for the torque of the giant engine, I started straight down the runway. I glanced at the instruments and couldn't believe that I had only applied half the engine's power. I pushed the throttle against the stop; the surge of power and speed was incredible.

The tail came up immediately as I eased the stick forward. A slight pull back and I was in the air. Instantly I hit the switch and pulled the wheels up so that anyone watching would know I was a hot pilot. Crossing the end of the field, I was already at five hundred feet. This thing really sang the song of the birds. I was really flying, and I had six .50-caliber machine guns, unloaded at the moment, but I knew I was ready for those Japs. Revenge would be mine.

I put the plane through every maneuver I knew, and a few more. It was amazingly responsive for a plane its size. It flew like a small
fighter. Approaching the field, I made a tight turn into final approach, I knew everyone would be watching. Rolling out of the turn, I stalled it at the beginning of the runway. Pulling the flaps up as I taxied to the flight line, I knew I was home. This is what I'd been training for; I was ready.
⁴¹

In order to retire the Wildcat and supply the rapidly expanding carrier fleet with new fighters, the Bureau of Aeronautics had pressed Grumman for a terrific ramp-up in production. In the month of July 1943, the Grumman plant in Bethpage, Long Island, turned out 250 Hellcats, and it was on pace to turn out 500 per month by 1944.
⁴²
But Grumman fell behind in its production of spare parts, and when the shortages grew critical in the fall of 1943, the bureau took the drastic step of refusing to accept delivery of new planes until the backlog was filled.
⁴³

The venerable Douglas SBD Dauntless dive-bomber, which had destroyed four enemy carriers at the Battle of Midway and served as a vital workhorse in the air battle for Guadalcanal, was overdue for retirement. With a top speed of 260 miles per hour, the much-loved Dauntless could not keep pace with the TBF Avenger and the new Hellcat, and its bomb load capacity (1,200 pounds in most configurations) was insufficient. But its heir, the Curtiss
SB2C Helldiver (an acronym for “Scout Bomber, Design Number 2, Curtiss”), had been plagued with problems from the start of its career, and its introduction into the fleet was delayed by more than a year. Early prototype SB2Cs suffered from longitudinal instability and structural weaknesses, especially in the tail and main wing beam, and several early test flights ended in crashes. Design modifications addressed some of these problems while creating others. In carrier trials, the SB2C's landing gear often collapsed and its tailhook often missed the arresting cables (or worse, snagged the cable and was wrenched out of the fuselage). The plane was prone to stalls, leaks, hydraulic failures, electrical shorts, and flat tires.

It was a demanding airplane to fly, with high stick forces and a weak aileron response. Pilots did not trust it in a dive and tended to release their bombs high, at the expense of accuracy. The Helldiver was especially balky at low airspeeds, as on a carrier landing approach. The aviators saddled the new plane with various unflattering nicknames: the “Bladder,” the “Big-Tailed Beast,” the “Ensign Exterminator,” the “Son of a Bitch 2nd Class.” The Dauntless pilot Samuel Hynes hated everything about the SB2C, even its name, which he supposed had been chosen by some “public relations man.” The Helldiver, wrote Hynes, “was as showy and as phony as the name, like a beach athlete, all muscle and no guts. It was a long, slab-sided, ugly machine, with a big round tailfin. . . . We were all afraid of the SB2Cs, and we flew them as though they were booby-trapped.”
⁴⁴

Harold Buell, a veteran dive-bomber pilot who had recently taken command of VB-2, checked the Helldiver out in early 1944. He liked the large bomb load and faster airspeed and was not concerned about his own ability to handle the plane. But Buell worried about his squadron's less experienced pilots: “My first reaction was that the Beast, as this Curtiss monster was called, would be trouble for the squadron. Compared to the steady, forgiving SBD, this aircraft required much more pilot ability to fly both operationally and as a dive-bombing weapon.”
⁴⁵

But in late 1943, after long delays, the Bureau of Aeronautics was determined to force the SB2C into service despite the risks, and began pressuring carrier and squadron commanders to cooperate. The plane was justly unloved and no fun to fly, but it did offer essential benefits over the Dauntless, notably its 295-mile-per-hour maximum airspeed (which would allow it to fly coordinated strikes with the other carrier planes), and its much higher bomb load (an internal bomb bay held 2,000 pounds of bombs, and a 500-pound bomb could be carried under each wing). The Helldiver, unlike the SBD, had folding wings, a feature considered indispensable in the new-generation carriers. For all its early problems, the SB2C could be produced rapidly and in the needed quantities. “It was a very complex plane, a very difficult plane to maintain, but there was the capability of ‘cranking them out,' ” said Lieutenant Commander Herbert D. Riley, a planner with the Bureau of Aeronautics. “That's what we had to have, building capacity. It was never a question of money; we could always get the money in those days. It was a question of the capacity of American industry to produce airplanes.”
⁴⁶

By early 1944, the Curtiss plant in Columbus, Ohio, was turning out more than 300 Helldivers per month, and a Goodyear plant in Akron began producing them from Curtiss blueprints later in 1944.
⁴⁷
Eventually, 7,140 Helldivers were built. As dive-bombing squadrons became more accustomed to the aircraft, they grew to tolerate its idiosyncrasies and even began to resent criticism directed against their aircraft. Despite its shortcomings, the SB2C would inflict plenty of punishment on the enemy in 1944 and 1945.

F
OR NEARLY FOUR DECADES,
since the presidential administration of Theodore Roosevelt, analysts at the Naval War College in Newport had studied and planned for a prospective war against Japan. In successive iterations of the “Orange” and “Rainbow” war plans, the navy had contemplated a westward naval-amphibious offensive through the heart of the Pacific. The American fleet would sortie from Pearl Harbor and hop from island to island through the Marshall, Caroline, and Mariana groups. When it penetrated Japan's “outer defense” ring, it would meet and destroy Japan's main battle line. That decisive naval victory would trigger the war's endgame. Japan would be cut off from its territories on the Asian mainland and in the South Pacific. Starved of imported raw materials, the Japanese economy would collapse. An invasion of Japan might or might not be necessary, but in either case victory would follow as a matter of course.

Several related versions of this blueprint sat on the shelves at Navy Headquarters in Washington. It had been evident, following the Japanese strike on Pearl Harbor, that the navy and its sister services lacked the necessary sea, air, or ground forces to undertake such a massive operation in 1942, and would not be able to assemble them until 1943 or 1944, if even then. But it always remained the navy's view—that is to say, the view of Ernest J. King—that the Pacific War would eventually be won by executing the strategy outlined in War Plan Orange. There would be a direct westward assault from Hawaii on Japanese-held islands in the central Pacific. It would be carried out by the Pacific Fleet and the Marine Corps, with the U.S. Army and U.S. Army Air Forces in subsidiary roles. Nimitz and his admirals would be in charge; MacArthur would have no part of it. The only issue to be decided was
when
such a campaign should begin.