My current book is When the Shooting Stopped: August 1945 from Bloomsbury-Osprey in Britain. Near as I could tell, no single volume covered “the month that shaped the world.”
Inevitably each August produces another reprise of The Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings, though by now it should be obvious there was no acceptable alternative to loosing the atoms. The options were blockade or invasion, both certain to kill more people on both sides. And that did not include the enormous toll in Asia—reckoned postwar at about 100,000 per month. As it was, Japan’s aggression killed at least 17 million people in the Asia-Pacific realm, perhaps closer to 20 million.
For those desiring more analysis, consult the works of John Toland, Richard Frank, and Sir Max Hastings.
Which takes us back to July.
The main event was the Potsdam Conference where the Western Allies and Soviet Union decided the course of the Pacific War and the shape of the postwar world. It was the same time when outgoing British Prime Minister Winston Churchill coined the enduring phrase “Iron Curtain.”
But from an operational perspective I’m drawn to the U.S. Navy air strikes on the main Japanese naval base at Kure, near Hiroshima. Much of Tokyo’s inert fleet had laid up there for months, drawing repeated attacks by Pacific Fleet aircraft carriers from March onward.
It’s still argued whether the cost was worth the results. I’ve had ample opportunity to examine the subject both in Whirlwind (Simon & Schuster 2010) and When the Shooting Stopped. What follows is a compendium.
On March 19 more than 320 Fifth Fleet planes struck Kure, inflicting marginal damage. The heavy defenses downed 25 planes in exchange for damage to nine ships.
That same day Japanese pilots nearly destroyed the fleet carrier USS Franklin (CV-13), killing 800 men and knocking her out of the war. The definitive account is Joseph Springer’s Inferno (Zenith, 2007.)
Kure was back in the crosshairs three times in July.
A cogent assessment was offered by then-Lieutenant Commander William N. Leonard of Vice Admiral John McCain’s Task Force 38 staff. “Some Neanderthals back at PacFleet Headquarters wanted continuation of a navy versus navy fight and we lost many good people to no good purpose. With the Jap navy lying doggo, PacFleet began to assert itself more and more into the assignment of missions and objectives of the fast carriers.”
Leonard’s attitude largely mirrored that of McCain, who considered the Kure strikes “a waste of time” but could only go so far. Occasionally he argued with Third Fleet’s Admiral William F. Halsey, though seldom successfully.
McCain opposed targeting shipping, preferring to strike airfields and aircraft factories. However, his priorities also were skewed: Third Fleet knew the benefits of sinking Japanese coastal traffic such as Hokkaido’s rail ferries. But whatever their service, airmen were magnetically pulled toward the enemy’s aviation industry, while steamers and merchantmen lacked the perceived glamor of aircraft factories.
Without delving into tactics and targets, the Kure strikes offer a lesson in the morality of military leadership.
Nobody would admit it—certainly not in writing—but at least some of the impetus for the July operations probably had more to do with service politics than winning the war. Both the Navy and the Army Air Forces anticipated the inevitable postwar Washington battle, determining whether there would be an independent air force. Almost certainly the admirals wanted to run up the score, demonstrating naval aviation’s huge contribution to destroying the enemy fleet, and the fat pickings at Kure became irresistible: over 200,000 tons in major combatants.
In some ways, Kure represented the greatest flak trap in history. The big harbor contained nothing that could seriously harm the Third Fleet, as the remnants of the Imperial Navy lacked sufficient fuel and crews to pose a major threat. But geisha-like, Kure smiled (or smirked) behind her ornamental fan, crooked a fetching finger at King, Nimitz, and Halsey, and coyly invited them in.
They rushed to accept.
On July 24 the tailhookers left 57 planes in Kure Harbor and adjacent waters, drowning a battleship and cruiser in the shallow harbor and damaging a dozen lesser vessels.
Kure was part of the next day’s strike menu, though no warships were sunk.
Results on the 28th were significantly better: totaling severe damage to three battleships, three cruisers, and three carriers plus lesser victims. Some of the warships were effectively sunk, resting on the muddy bottom.
Overall, Halsey’s three days of strikes on Kure and environs proved costly: at least 126 aircraft with 102 fliers. Eighteen of the losses occurred in “routine” operations over Shikoku.
Whether the cost justified the Kure strikes remains questionable. In his often self-serving memoir, Halsey enumerated four reasons for the strikes. He opined that America’s national honor and morale required total destruction of the Japanese Navy; that such destruction was necessary to prevent interdiction of future convoys to Russia; that Tokyo might use its remaining fleet for negotiating leverage as Germany had done in 1919; and ultimately that he had orders. He concluded, “If the other reasons had been invalid, that one alone would have been enough for me.”
Halsey’s arguments remain transparently unconvincing. In the first place, American morale in no way turned on destruction of the rusting remnants of the Imperial Navy. The greatest morale involved was “Bull” Halsey’s. The huge majority of Americans merely wished the war over, and the main seagoing phase had ended in October 1944.
Secondly, the U.S. Navy could easily dominate the North Pacific in the vastly unlikely event that a Japanese force escaped its mine-choked harbors to deploy more than 1,000 miles from home. Furthermore, absent requests from Moscow, no such requirement pertained.
Halsey’s third point was even more absurd. The Allies’ pre-existing demand of unconditional surrender automatically scuttled any naval bargaining that Tokyo might have attempted in such nonexistent proceedings.
The fourth point would seem the strongest, as King and Nimitz had decreed an end to the “defueled doggo fleet.” But by July 1945 Halsey surely felt bulletproof. He had escaped all accountability (if not major blame) for the Leyte Gulf debacle and failing to avoid a ship-killing typhoon in December.
The defenders of his position were five-star guardians: Pacific Fleet commander Chester Nimitz, who allowed sentiment to trump objectivity, and the decidedly unsentimental Ernest King, chief of naval operations in Washington, who refused to hand the Air Force a political victory. But the fact remained that between Leyte Gulf in October 1944 and “Halsey’s hurricane” in December the Third Fleet commander was widely considered directly or indirectly responsible for the unnecessary loss of seven ships and some 1,450 sailors and aircrew.
Had Halsey declined to expend scores of fliers and over 100 aircraft in a needless exercise, his chances of being replaced approached absolute zero. But rather than take counsel of the Task Force 38 staff, The Bull was eager to comply with orders that gratified his vanity at the expense of at least 83 young men who died attacking impotent, immobile ships.
Halsey’s seeming indifference to casualties drew sharp criticism from subordinates. One aviator spoke for many when he noted, “Halsey is going wild on publicity and we are all fed (up) to the teeth listening to all the crap he is putting out….Halsey is a big disappointment to me as he is to most of us.”
In this 77th anniversary year we might remember that the WW II generation often was ill served by its leaders.
