The Conquering Tide (71 page)

Reporting to Spruance at Kwajalein on February 5, Hill learned that he would command the Eniwetok Expeditionary Group (designated Task Group 51.11) and must complete the major operation in less than two weeks. The marine-army expeditionary troops, drawn from a floating reserve of 9,300 men that had not been needed at Majuro or Kwajalein, would be commanded by Marine Brigadier General Thomas E. Watson. Task Group 58.4, commanded by Rear Admiral Samuel P. Ginder and built around the carriers
Saratoga
,
Princeton
, and
Langley
, would continue to pummel the remaining defenses at Engebi and cover the landings from the air. High-and
low-angle aerial photographs were combined with the captured Japanese charts and documents to provide an accurate picture of the objective. Importantly, the Japanese charts provided accurate information about the best deepwater channel into the lagoon at Eniwetok.

Moving up the invasion of Eniwetok required stripping the new garrisons of Kwajalein Island and Roi-Namur of manpower and supplies. The landing boat crews were green and had not trained with the troops. General Watson reported that “the infantry, amphibian tractors, amphibian tanks, tanks, aircraft, supporting naval ships, and most of the staffs concerned had never worked together before.”
²⁷
Nevertheless, the forces available for the operation were plentiful and well equipped. Having presided over the bloody assault on Tarawa, Admiral Hill was relieved to have adequate numbers of amtracs. The Army's 708th Provisional Amphibian Tractor Battalion sailed with 119 LVTs, most of which were the heavily armored newer models. “At Eniwetok, I felt like a millionaire,” Hill later remarked, “but at Tarawa, I was a pauper.”
²⁸

As in
FLINTLOCK
, the
CATCHPOLE
plan of operations called for capturing nearby islands and using them as artillery platforms to sweep the beaches of Engebi. At 6:59 a.m. on February 17, the cruisers and destroyers of the naval fire support group began bombarding the island's defenses. Marine artillerymen landed on smaller adjacent islands and set up field batteries that could hit Engebi's beaches. After twenty-four hours of this treatment, the first boatloads of marines landed on the island and quickly overran it. The flag was raised on the following morning. The islands of Eniwetok and Parry were seized in the following three days.

The marines lost 254 killed and 555 wounded; the army, 94 killed and 311 wounded. Of the 2,700 troops of the Japanese garrison, only 66 were taken prisoner. With the huge lagoon of Eniwetok as its westernmost fleet anchorage, the Fifth Fleet now had a well-situated springboard to strike at the Marianas, which lay scarcely more than a thousand miles away.

A
S THE
A
MERICAN COMMANDERS
took stock of what they had achieved in the Marshalls, their confidence and self-assurance rose to new heights. In less than three months' time, the costly lessons of Tarawa had been refined and integrated into amphibious planning and doctrine, and the results had
been more than satisfactory. To the extent that further improvement was needed, it was in the details of execution rather than any deficiency in the plans themselves. Holland Smith concluded in his final report, “In the attack of coral atolls, very few recommendations can be made to improve upon the basic techniques previously recommended and utilized in
FLINTLOCK
.”
²⁹

Nowhere in the Pacific had the preinvasion bombardment and aerial bombing of islands been more effective. General Schmidt estimated that 50 to 75 percent of the Japanese garrison on Roi-Namur had been killed before the first marine set foot on the island. Those who had survived the barrage were apparently dazed, and patently less ferocious than their counterparts on Betio and other Pacific battlefields. Carrier airstrikes in the three days before the landings managed to knock out nearly every Japanese airplane in the entire archipelago. Upon departing from the targets, pilots noted that “ground installations were reduced to mounds of rubble; hardly a tree was left standing and those remaining were completely stripped of their foliage by the terrific bombardment.”
³⁰

Most of the marine and army assault troops had never experienced combat before
FLINTLOCK
or
CATCHPOLE
, but their training had produced a first-rate performance. The only lapse in discipline had been on Roi, when several units had charged across the airfield and surged ahead to the north shore. The lines had been reassembled before the enemy could attack the exposed flanks. In any event, no ground commander could find much fault in troops who showed too much spirit on the attack. As in other such operations, Japanese stragglers and infiltrators remained a threat behind the advancing American lines, and infantrymen were obliged to do the grim work of cleaning out the bunkers, tunnels, and emplacements one by one with demolition charges, flamethrowers, and hand grenades. By 1944, however, not even the newcomers had any illusions about the enemy's way of waging war.

Nimitz's decision to spring past the fortified outer islands and aim the main attack at Kwajalein had been vindicated. The Japanese, surprised by the landings, had been robbed of time to strengthen their defenses on the beaches. Japanese garrisons had been left in possession of several atolls in the southeastern Marshalls, but Nimitz was in no hurry to clean them out. The airfields were pressured by daily air raids, and whenever new planes were flown in from Truk or Rabaul, they were destroyed in short order. Daily
“milk runs,” staging from the Gilberts or the Ellice Islands, continued until the end of the war. The routine bombing raids were conducted largely by F4U Corsair fighters escorting army medium bombers. Rarely did the raiders encounter any air opposition at all. The garrisons wasted away for lack of supplies and provisions. Many were killed in the relentless air bombardments; many others took their lives in desperation.

Tokyo had staked its defense of the “unsinkable aircraft carriers” of the Gilberts and Marshalls on the concept of a network of mutually supporting terrestrial airfields. Within the overlapping radii of the nodes of that network lay a vast zone of ocean wastes and low-lying coral atolls. Over the breadth and width of that zone, so it was hoped, Japanese naval fighters and bombers would sustain local control of the skies. Any concerted naval or amphibious attack would be repelled with the help of air reinforcements moving freely and quickly between the nodes. That entire strategic concept, so vital to Japan's hopes, had been exposed as a chimera by the concurrent expansion and qualitative upgrade of American carrier airpower. Impotently dispersed across dozens of atolls, subjected to a rain of ruin from the air and sea, the defenders could barely even delay the American advance. In less than three months and with relative ease,
FLINTLOCK
and
CATCHPOLE
had kicked down Japan's mid-Pacific barricade.

For the victors, possession of the western Marshalls brought a windfall of strategic rewards. Control of the spacious lagoon anchorages and fine coral airfields allowed American naval and air forces to stage from bases on the threshold of Japan's new “absolute defense line,” which ran through the nearby Marianas. Admiral Lockwood's submarines could be circulated back into their patrol areas more rapidly, with the effect of increasing the number of submarine patrol days in the sea-lanes south of Japan by approximately one-third. Admiral Koga had not yet committed his main fleet to a decisive stand, but he could not afford to hold it back indefinitely. The mighty Fifth Fleet was now poised to strike into Japan's inner ring of defenses, and could be confident of forcing a major naval confrontation in the next stage of its westward drive. With overwhelming superiority in carrier aviation, the Americans stood a reasonable hope of scoring a victory on the scale of the great fleet battles of Tsushima or Trafalgar, an event that would guarantee the eventual defeat of Japan.

O
PERATION HAILSTONE
, the carrier air attack on Truk, had been long on the drawing board. On December 26, 1943, Nimitz had informed King that he thought the operation would become feasible by the following April, but he pledged to do it earlier if circumstances allowed: “Much depends on extent of damage inflicted on enemy in all areas in next 2 months.”
³¹
The crumbling of Japanese airpower in the Marshalls was just such a favorable development. CINCPAC headquarters had also been mulling over plans for an invasion of Truk, an operation that would have required five divisions plus an additional regiment, making it the largest amphibious operation yet attempted in the Pacific.
HAILSTONE
might or might not obviate the need to capture Truk—the raid's outcome would do much to reveal whether the big atoll was a suitable candidate for bypass.

Located 669 miles southwest of Eniwetok, Truk was another colossal atoll with a fringing reef enclosing a lagoon roughly thirty by forty miles in size. Its topography and appearance were different from those of the Gilberts and Marshalls. A cluster of about a dozen islands near the center of the lagoon ascended to 1,500-foot volcanic peaks, their soaring slopes alternately rocky and heavily forested. About 2,000 Micronesian natives lived on the islands, most in thatched-hut villages on the grassy plains above the beaches. Since mid-1942, Truk's enormous lagoon had served as the Combined Fleet's major southern fleet anchorage. It was so large, in fact, that high-speed fleet exercises had been held within its reef-protected confines. For most of the war, the superbattleships
Yamato
and
Musashi
had ridden at anchor behind torpedo nets, immobilized for the sake of fuel economy. The fleet's administrative headquarters was located in a modest complex of wood-frame buildings on the island of Tonoas, south of Weno.

The aviators and crewmen of Task Force 58 shared a sense of dread about the impending raid. The enemy's “mystery base” at Truk had acquired the reputation of an unassailable fortress. In the past, carrier task force commanders had been wary of attacking major terrestrial airfields because the enemy's long-range bombers could deliver devastating counterstrikes on the vulnerable flattops. Such raids had always been brief, followed by a speedy withdrawal. But
HAILSTONE
was to be a sustained foray deep into enemy waters. Task Force 58 would lie off Truk for two full days, well within range
of aerial counterattack. The operation seemed considerably more dangerous than any previously attempted by the fast carrier forces.

A dearth of intelligence about Truk had enhanced its mystique. The atoll's distance from Allied bases had rendered aerial reconnaissance impractical before 1944. It was thought to be a major hub of Japanese airpower, defended by hundreds of crack airmen in Zero fighters. Its soaring peaks were supposed to bristle with antiaircraft guns. Its channels were reportedly treacherous to navigate, heavily mined, and amply defended by coastal artillery. Newspapers had nicknamed Truk “Japan's Gibraltar” or the “Japanese Pearl Harbor.”

Lieutenant James D. Ramage, a Bombing Squadron 10 pilot on the
Enterprise
, recalled his slack-jawed reaction to the news that his ship was bound for Truk: “Wow!” Ramage's radio-gunner, David Cawley, added that the squadron was “tense and concerned” as Task Force 58 steamed into enemy waters—“For the previous two years of the war,” he said, “the very thought of approaching Truk seemed fatal.”
³²
Admiral Mitscher, according to a story that circulated through the crew of the
Yorktown
, had remarked, “The only thing we knew about Truk was in the
National Geographic
.”
³³
A mordant cartoon published in the
Essex
cruise book depicts the skipper speaking through a bullhorn from the bridge. He announces that the
Essex
is headed to Truk. In the next moment he is struck speechless by the sight of his entire crew diving into the sea.

The fearsome reputation was undeserved. Truk Lagoon offered a well-protected anchorage for the Combined Fleet, and was suitably located on the sea route between Japan's southern territories and its home islands—but the Imperial Japanese Navy had never poured much effort or resources into developing its airfields, port facilities, shore fortifications, or repair shops. The comparison to Pearl Harbor was absurd. In 1944 the atoll had a single midsize floating dry dock. There were no major power stations, no piers capable of accommodating large ships, and no underground fuel storage. Damaged ships usually had to make the long passage north to Japan for repairs. Ship-to-shore transfers of supplies and troops were carried out by lighters and other small craft. Truk's four airfields lacked advanced ground installations and were too small to allow proper dispersal of parked planes. Only in late 1943 did the Japanese navy begin a crash program to expand and extend the airfields. Labor was in short supply, so working parties were drafted from the crews of the warships in the anchorage. “The sailors actually
enjoyed the work because it allowed them to go ashore,” recalled an air officer on the carrier
Zuikaku
.
³⁴

In February 1944, the atoll was garrisoned by about 7,500 army troops and another 3,000 sailors and support personnel. Fixed antiaircraft defenses were limited to about forty batteries. Admiral Shigeru Fukudome, who held several important jobs on the Combined Fleet staff, told interrogators after the war that Truk had been little more than a staging area, a way station for ships and aircraft traveling between Japan and the South Pacific. Not until the end of 1943 had there been any concerted attempt to fortify it against attack. In his judgment, the atoll would have fallen easy prey to the sort of amphibious invasion the Americans had just completed in the Gilberts and Marshalls.

Admiral Koga had evidently understood as much, because he pulled most of his major combatant ships out of Truk after the fall of Kwajalein and Majuro. He was forewarned by a reconnaissance overflight on February 4, when two marine PB4Ys flew high over the atoll, and by radio intercepts in the following week, which his staff interpreted as evidence that the American carrier task force was on the move. The planes were sighted and identified, and easily outran the floatplane Zeros that rose to intercept them. Koga gave orders to move most of his larger warships to Palau and thence to Tawi Tawi in the Sulu Archipelago of the southern Philippines. Ships began heaving up their anchors and speeding for the exit channels. Koga, in his flagship
Musashi
, departed for Tokyo Bay with a fleet of cruisers and destroyers on February 10. He was resolved to keep his main fleet intact to fight a decisive battle at some future date. Left in the lagoon anchorages were a handful of light cruisers, destroyers, auxiliary naval vessels, about twenty
marus
(cargo ships), and five oil tankers. Including small craft, there were approximately fifty vessels in mid-February.