US Navy in World War II

64 Pages·2003·33.893 MB·English

by  Mark Henry

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 3
CAMPAIGN SUMMARY 4
• Pearl Harbor • '.'\orth Atlantic • ABO:\
• Coral Sea & \lidwa\' • Guadalcanal
•island-hopping• :'\ormandy •the Philippines
• lwo Jima & Okinawa• Kamikazes
MARK HENRY Is a lifelong
student of military history and
THE SHIPS 13
an experienced re-enactor of
many periods. He served In the
• Battleships • aircraft carriers • cruisers
US Army as a signals officer
•destroyers & escorts• CSCG cutters/frigates
from 1981to1990, In Germany,
Texas and Korea. He holds a • PT boats• submarines
BA degree In history and Is • Con,·o,·s
studying for his Master's •The aircraft: single-seat fighters - dive-bombers -
whilst wortllng In the US Army
torpedo-bombers
museum system. His special
Interest lies In the United
ORGANIZATION 22
States armed forces of the
20th century. • Bureaux • l'S Marine Corps• numbered fleets
• l'S ~avr Resen·e • CS Coast Guard • Seabees
• kmale auxiliaries
SERVICE 24
• Recruitment and training - oflicers & enlisted men
• race • libert\' & shore kan,
• shipboard lift· • naYal medicine
• Special duties: shore patrol - Na,·al Armed Guards -
carrier deck gangs - underwater demolition
UNIFORMS: ENLISTED MEN 31
•Blue & white jumper uniforms, undress & dress
RAMIRO BUJEIAO, previously
•hats• fatigue uniform (dungarees)
the Illustrator of Osprey's
• cold & foul weather gear • insignia & ratings
Warrior 23: US Marine In
• sen·ice stripes • 'striking' • shoulder patches
Vietnam, Elite 88: The Military
Sniper since 1914, and •distinguishing mark.-.• boatswains' pipes
Men-at-Arms 357: World War II • aYiators· wings• submariners' badges
Allied Women'• Services, Is an
• medals & ribbons
experienced commercial artist
who lives and works In his
UNIFORMS: OFFICERS 50
native city of Buenos Aires,
Argentina. His professional •Officers· hat-;• whites• blues• khakis• greys
background Includes many
• flying greens• officers' insignia• CPOs' uniforms
commissions as a figure
• fl~ing clothing• womens' uniforms
Illustrator and strip cartoonist
for clients all over Europe and
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 55
the Americas, Including many
years' work for IPC magazines
In Great Britain. His main THE PLATES 56
Interests are the polltlcal and
military history of Europe In
INDEX 64
the first half of the 20th
century.
THE US NAVY IN WORLD WAR II
INTRODUCTION
RESIDE:'\T RoosEn:u, as a former l'ndersecretary of the Na\'y, had
always considered himself a Na\'y man; and unlike the Army, the
peacetime sea senice retained something of iL~ World War I
strength. The capital ships of the 1939 fleet consisted of 14 battleships
and two carriers, with se\·eral more soon to be delivered. In July 1940
the Congress and President Roosevelt passed the 'Two Ocean Act',
authorizing the Navy to significantly expand its ships and manpower to
cover both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Bv 1941, with war imminent,
the USN had 17 battleships. four caniers,. and manpower including
resenists reached 340,000 men. The escorting of supply convoys on the
western leg of their voyage to B1;tain meant that the l'SN was already
fighting a quasi-war in the North Atlantic; it had acti\'ated all it~ old
World War I four-stack destroyers for convoy escort duty or for Lend
Lease to the British.
After the shocking losses suffered at Pearl Harbor in December 1941,
the American shipbuilding industry went into overdrive to repair
damaged ships and lay down new hulls. The Na\'y was slow to counter the
Atlantic LI-boat menace: but by 1944 the Allied na\ies had won a decisive
December 1944: touching up the ,·ictory, and Allied shipping was able to cross the Atlantic and
tattoos. These were normally Mediterrnnean and to land invasion forces with impunity. Theoretically.
acquired whlle on liberty; the Allies had decided on a 'Em:ope first' strategy; but, the Battle of the
Indeed, a sailor sometimes only
Atlantic not withstanding, there was of course a full-scale naval shooting
discovered a new tattoo when
war going on in the Pacific from i December 1941. Admi'ral Ernest King,
he awoke on the ship the
morning after. These men are the US Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), shifted the majority of Na\'y
from the crew of the new Iowa strength and production into that theater until the imminent 1944
Class 18in. battteshlp USS New D-Day landings in France demanded some rebalancing of resources.
Jersey, which joined the Pacific
.Japanese Admiral Yamamoto had warned his government in vain of
fleet In January 1944.
America's industrial might and manpower reserves. By 1943 US yards
were turning out 'Liberty' cargo ships in less than 30 days, and destroyers
in 60 days,. l'S aircraft savaged .Japanese forn~ard areas; in 1944 the
enemy's overstretched ocean supply lines were strangled by l'S
submarines2, and the Navy transported Marine and Arnl)' dhisions to
seize fonrnrd bases at \\ill (though often at considernble cost). Regardless
oflosses, however, the Navy continued to increalie dramatically in size and
power. In 1943-44 the l'S military was able to sustain two simultaneous
1 'Liberty' ships had a C8IQO capacity of about 9.000 tons. and could carry e.g. 440 tanks. By 1944 US yards
were launching cargo vessels al a rate of three per day. By VJ-Day. 2.700 Liberty and 534 of the faster Victory
ships had been built; about 200 had been lost to enemy action.
2 In 1945. while most Japanese shipping had been swept from the open ocean, shallow water and enemy mine
fields inhibited US submarine operations in Japan's coastal and Korean sealanes. In 18 weeks from April 1945,
US Air Corps B-29 bombers air-dropped some 12.000 acoustic. magnetic and pressure-sensitive mines. which
3
sank an extraorthnary 1 . 1 million tons of Japanese shipping in these areas.
The pre-war Navy, May 1939: the drives for Japan: one by Adm. Chester Nimitz across the islands of th
ceremony marking Rear Adm. Central Pacific, the other by Gen. Douglas MacArthur across the uth
Nimitz's handing over command West Pacific and into the Philippines.
of the battleship USS Arizona.
By 1945 the US Navy had approximately 99 carriers and 41,
The officers (left) still wear the
aircraft. and a strength of ewer 3.3 million men. The spent Imp rial
cocked hats and frock coats
of the 1900s. Brothers were Japanese Na\'y was a skeletal shadow of its former strength, and acrificial
encouraged to enllet end serve delaying action w.i.s the only response a desperate Japan could muster.
together on the same •hip, and Shaken but undeten-ed by knmiknu tactics. the American naval 1 via than
the Arizona's crew had 38 sets
weathered the 'Di\ine Wind' and braced itself for the final strnggle. Iw
of brothers; 81 of these 75 men
Jima and Okinawa were a preview of the bloodbath which the Battle f
would be killed during the
attack on the ship at Peart Japan would surely bring. Thankfully. the atomic bombs final1y brough
Harbor. Recalled from duty In the war to an end in September 1945 - and thus saved many hun r
Washington DC, Adm. Nimitz of thousands of Allied and Japanese lives.
was placed In command of the
The a\'erage 19-year-old US sailor who fought this war was n ralJ
Pactflc Fleet on 31 December
brave, intelligent and quick to learn. After the first six months of h
1941.
tilities his leaders learnt to fight aggressively, to adapt, to take chances and
embrace technology. With the industrial might of America behind th m,
they created and \\ielded an umivaled and unstoppable na,·a) power.
CAMPAIGN SUMMARY
Pearl Harbor
In 1938 exercises in the Pacific showed the USN base at Pearl Harb r
Hawaii. to be \'ery n1lnerable to air attack. In 1940 an admiral was fir d
for protesting over the forward basing of the Pacific Fleet at P rl
Harbor. By December 1941 the base and the fleet. including thr
4 carriers and nine battleships (eight of them at Pearl). had been on
·war alert' for some weeks; but although certain precautions were taken
the Navy was still really in peacetime mode. Scout planes were not
systematically scoming the ocean. and the new experimental radar sets
were not actively looking for approaching enemies.
The Pacific Fleet lost all eight of its battleships sunk or se1iously
damaged to the Imperial Japanese Navy's carrier air attack on
7 December I Y-l I.
Seeking Pacific hegemony to pro\ide them with the imported
resources which their industrializing home islands desperately needed,
the Japanese had tried a daring gambit. They believed that the shock to
the decadem and fragile Americans would convince the US government
to seek terms. This misreading of the American national character was
accompanied by both bad luck. and an astonishing failure of nerve
April 1143: the Treuury ClaM
on the part of their task force commander. The first ensured that the
US Coast Guard cutter USS
\ital US carriers were safely at sea during the attack on Pearl Harbor; Spencer depth-charges U·175 In
the second, that no follow-up attack was made to destroy the Navy's the North Atlantic, forcing It to
fuel storage tanks, repair facilities and submarines which had been the surface. A large number of
Cont Guard v....,. were used
overlooked by the first wave. Hawaii would remain the forward base for
for convoy escort and
tht> US fleet. The USA had underestimated the skill and aggressiveness
amphibious operations under
of the .Japanese; the Japanese had underestimated America's \\illingness the command of the Navy.
to fight. The first mistake was costly - the second, fatal. Depth chllrgn ('uh cans'),
which detonated at • pre-set
depth, w ... lnltlally •Imply
North Atlantic
rolled off stem rails as the
After embarassing shipping losses to German LI-boat~ along the eastern escort veael paned mbove
st·aboard in the first half of 1942, the Navy steadily increased its anti the suspected position of •
submarine warfare (AS\\7) assets and competence, and adopted the submarine. As the war
convoy system. With more naval and air units becoming available early in progreued more powerful
charges were produced, and
194'.~. Adm. King instituted the lOth Fleet to control the approaches to
projection 8Ptema using Y-gun
the eastern US and to co-ordinate ASW.
or K-gun launchers. They could
One edge the Allies e~joyed was the pre-war development of both also be dropped br aircraft.
asdic/sonar and radar by
the British - the former to
detect submerged boats,
the latter to detect o~jects
on the surface. Early in
the war the 'pinging' sonar
had limited range; and all
wartime sonar wa~ direc
tional - i.e. it used like
W-dS
a tlashliglH. not for rapid
circular sweeps of the
compass. Escort ships had
difliculty detecting the
small contact of a surfaced
submarine's conning tower
- e:-spccially if it penetrated
a crowded convoy for
mation at night, the U-boat
aces' fa\'ored tactic. As the
war progressed the US
and British significantly
improved these systems, 5
and listening for submarine
engine noise with hydro
phones was used in con
juction \\ith acti\'e sonar.
Bv the middle of the war
radar was becoming a
common fixture on na\-al
escorts and long-range
patrol aircraft. In 1943 the
new centimetric radar sets
could at last pick up
the pre\'iously imisible
LT-boaL'i at night, when they
surfaced to recharge their
batteries, or by day in
the thickest Atlantic fog.
Old-fashioned radio dir
ection-finding and signals
intelligence was also used.
The tight control Adm.
Doenitz maintained over
his 'wolfpacks' demanded
regular radio traffic; rhe
Allies located signaling boats with direction-finders codenamed Sailors In standard shipboard
'Huff/Dufr. and 'Ulu·a' information from the compromised German fatigue unHorm of 'dlxle cup'
naval codes was also judiciously used. hata, chambray shirts and
dungaree trousers loading a
Together with these new detection systems, the steady closing of the
'Hedgehog'. By 1943 these
'mid-Atlantic gap' by escort carriers and long-range land-based aircraft
forward-tiring projectors were
brought all surfaced U-boats under constant threat of air attack, while deployed on destroyers to
'hunter-killer groups' '"ith improved AS\V weapons groped for them allow quicker engagement of
under water with increasing success. The tide turned decisi\'ely in May submarines. This device had six
rows of spigot mortars with 24x
1943. By 1944 the combined efforts of the US, British and Canadian
851b. projectlle warhead• which
na\ies had made active LT-boat operations in the Atlantic extremely risky.
could be tired In a pattem 200
Advanced U-boats v.ith greater endurance appeared in small numbers in yards In front of a destroyer as
1945, but they were too few and too late. It approached a submartne'9
suspected position, Instead of
having to wait to drop depth
ABDA
charges u It paned overhead.
Under the Japanese onslaught of 1941/42 the small US Asiatic Fleet
The alnkJng warheads detonated
scrambled to evade the powerful IJN and play for time. It linked up '"ith If they struck a hull; a mlu
suniving Dutch and British Commonwealth \\larships to form the A.BOA allowed sonar operators to stay
(American, British, Dutch, Australian) squadron. On 27 Febma~' 1942 on their phones, tracking the
contact. A smaller eight
the ABDA ceased to exist, losing half of iL'i ships to superior Japanese
warhead device called a
gunnery and torpedoes in the Battle of the Java Sea, and inflicting little
'Mousetrap' was Installed on
damage on the enemy.
some vessels.
Battles of the Coral Sea & Midway
Alerted to Japanese moves on Port Moresby. New Guinea. and the
consequent threat to northern Australia, the US carriers stopped them
in May 1942 in the Coral Sea. Each side lost a carrier, in the first naval
battle in histo~' in which the opposing fleeL'i never saw one another.
Although this v.~as tactically a Japanese \ictory, they \\ithdrew after losing
8 precious aircraft and pilots.
Deceived by their consistently poor na,-,l) intelligence into belie\ing
June 1944: an F8F Hellcat
that all the US carriers in the Pacific had now been sunk, the IJN closed comes In for a landing on the
in on US-held ~lidway Island in.June 1942. \\11en the fleets clashed, LTSN USS LeJt/ngton (CV-18) during
torpedo bombers attacking at wavetop height were massacred by the 'Marianas Turkey Shoot'.
Note the large number of AA
.Japanese fighters, but this drew them out of position to intercept the US
guns, and particularly the twtn
di\'e-bombers, which caught the u~ carriers refuelling and re-aiming 51n./38 turrets.
their attack squadrons. l'ltimately the IJN lost four carriers, a cmiser and By the i.te 1930s the USN
2i5 aircraft: the US lost one carric:-r and 130 aircraft. Japan no longer was experimenting with
held an advantage in carrier numbers or in pilot quality. miniature sideways-looking
radar senaors mounted In shells,
to detonate them when nearby
Guadalcanal
objects were detected. Setting
Aggressi\'ely, in July 1942 the US seized the half-finished airfield on hazes when firing at fast-moving
Guadalcanal to forestall a Japanese build-up. Jn the narrow waters of the aircraft was moetty guesswork;
Solomon Islands the fleet supported the invasion somewhat nervously, this new proximity or Variable
Time (VT) fuze removed the
until a midnight action off Savo Island on 9 August cost it four cmisers.
gueuwork. After lb electronics
The Navy then withdrew, leaving the Marines to bring the airfield
were hardened to survive the
into operation by 20 August. Thereafter the opposing attempts to land Initial firing shock, the VT fuze
reinforcements and supplies on Guadalcanal brought on naval came Into combat uee in late
engagements roughly every three weeks in the channel known as 'The 1942; steadily Improved, from
1M 3 the VT·fuzed Sin. WU the
Slot'. where the IJN's superiority in night fighting told; daylight usually
common AA shell, with a hit
saw aircraft from both sides joining in. 'On 15 September the USN lost a
ratio four times better than
carrier and a destroyer. The fight on 11 October (f'..ape Esperance) cost conventional warheads.
a US destroyer and damage
to others and a cmiser, but
the IJN lost a cruiser, three
destroyers and an admiral.
An action on 26 October
(Santa Cruz) cost a US
carrier but more than
100 IJN aircraft. Leaming
painful lessons, the Navy
began to improve its use of
rndar'. In an action on 12
November (First Battle of
Guadalcanal) the USN lost
two cruisers and seven
1 By 1940 the Bntish and US were
ellP8fimoot1ng with ship-mounted radar
(Radio Direction Finding). The sets in use
on 1942 were pnmrtive and unrellable, and
captains un$Ure how to emplOy them
eKectively. failure 10 master their potential
fof ear1y warning and ranging In night
battles against the -II-trained Japanese
oK Guadalcanal cost the Navy dear.
However. improved equipment and
techniques soon gave the USN a rapidly
1ncreas1ng edge 1n gunnery, earty warning,
and vec1oring defending aircraft onto
oncoming attacks. With commander1I
1ncrea51ng1y monrtoring and controlling
the battle by radar. sonar and radlo. they
spent more tome in their shipboard Combat
lnfotmallon Centers than on the bridge with
binocular.; All these techniques - vital
during the massive kamikaze attacks oK
Olonawa 111 1945. Anothef advantage came
wrth the mounting of radar in night-lighter
aircraft. allowing long range vectoring
by the shop's radar and short range
1n1ercept1on by the aircraft radar. 7
destroyers, the IJN a battleship. a cruiser and two destroyers. After two
more short fight'\ which cost it another battleship. a cruiser and tw
destroyers, the IJN cut its losses and abandoned major attempts t
reinforce Guadalcanal. Both its warships and it'\ earner- and land-bas d
aircraft had extrncted a heavy toll in these battles; bm the .Japanese w re
losing ships and trained pilots which they could never replace. From n w
until \]-Day they would remain on the strategic defensive.
Island-hopping
By mid-1943 the USN was recel\1ng light earners (CVL/CVEs) in
increasing numbers, and the new Essex Class fleet carriers "· r
appearing. Fast (30 knots-plus) ships were split off to form Carner a k
Forces (CTFs) and conducted practice air raids on isolated Japtu: ·
island garrisons. Standard tactics now evolved for suppon in
amphibious landings. The fast CIT would approach the main n m
island/airbase in the area and launch multiple attacks to crater i
runways and destroy its aircraft; the slower bombardment ships and
transports would then hit the targeted island.
Though the heavy LTSMC losses on Tarawa in November 1943 bri fl
ca'\t the amphibious docu;ne into doubt, lessons were learned th · r
by both the Navy and Marines, and the ever-growing amphibiou
juggernaut moved on to Guam, Saipan and Tinian.
8
February 1945: a wounded
Amtrac drtver Is helped Into an
LCVP for evacuation from lwo
Jlma to a nearby medical LST or
ship. These Coast Guardsmen
wear the kapok life vest; the
lieutenant on the right wears
the C02 life belt, Marine Corps
fatigues, and a knife and .45
Colt on a pistol belt.
OPPOSITE February 1945:
Marines help move aupplln
across the black sand beaches
of lwo Jlma. The amphibious
ships are a modtfted LCT
(Landing Craft, Tank) In the
"
foreground with larver LS1S
(Landing Ship, Tank) beyond. Off the Marianas in June 1944 the Japanese concentrated their
The 328ft.·long, smooth· carrier-and land-based aircraft for a last ditch conventional attack on the
bottomed LST, designed to fleet. US fighters took on the poorly trained Japanese pilots in what
British spect&atlona, could
became known as 'The Marianas Turkey Shoot', destro)'ing 480 enemy
land 18 to 20 tanks or 1 eo
aircraft for the loss of I 04 - and unlike the Japanese, the Navy recovered
troops directly onto the beach
through Its 14tt.-wlde bow many of its downed pilots.
doors; It was also converted Gen MacArthur's sweep of the S\\.' Pacific had been aimed at the
for a variety of other roles. Of major Japanese base of Rabaul, but as he drew closer he decided to
some 940 LSTa, only 39 were
isolate and by-pa"s it and press on to the Philippines. Admiral Nimitz,
lost to enemy action.
too, had been lea\ing many Japanese-held islands in his wake; without
Despite limited pre-war
exercises with the USMC, the aircraft, and mostly starving, these toothless garrisons could safely be
Navy had shown an uneven ignored. Nimitz favored Formosa a" the next step towards Japan, but
Interest In amphibious tactics MacArthur finally won the argument.
and equipment; the Marines
and Anny took the Initiative In
Normandy
developing landing craft, and
continued to provide slgntftcant So many troops, tanks, guns and supplies were assembled for the first
manpower to crew landing step in the liberation of NW Europe that it was said that the barrage
vehicles until 1945. By the
balloons were the only thing keeping Britain afloat. Before first light on
middle of the war the USN
6 June 1944 some 5,300 Allied vessels anchored off the coast of
was beginning to muter the
amphibious role, though as late Nonnandy. Since about two-thirds of the force was provided by the Royal
as 1944 In Europe lnte,..aervlce Naw. the British Adm. Sir Bertram Ramsev \\-as in command of the
,. I
rivalry would continue to bedevil seaborne phase (Operation Neptune). The USN prmided the aging
operational planning. However, battleships Texas, Nrvada and Arkansas, three cruisers, 34 destroyers
by late 1944-earty 1945 Navy
and innumerable smaller vessels. After a short but massive one-hour
amphibious operations were a
bombardment the first waves of landing craft went in. The US Army's 4th
well-oiled machine. The lnvaalon
of Okinawa ..w two Anny and Division were landed on the westernmost Utah Beach, out of position
two Marine divisions landed but successfully and for few casualties.
almost simultaneously In a
The much more stoutlv defended Omaha Beach was assaulted bv the
textbook operation. The US ' '
lst and 29th Divisions. Naval demolition engineers (NCDUs) took heavy
Navy's ability to project power
losses and only partially cleared the beach obstructions for the following
against a hostile shore was
unprecedented In history. infantry. The air and naval bombardment had inflicted little damage on 9
KAMIKAZE
fi t
The Fletcher Class destroyer USS Braine (00-630) was
hit by two kamlkaz.es off Okinawa in August 1945,
suffering 67 men killed and 102 wounded. Amazlngty,
she retumed to the USA under her own power and was
reb1,.1llt, remaining in US service until after the Vietnam
rui ·er
War before being sold to the Argentine Navy.
lit (\'{
turr
kill d r \\' und kin wa, th L of arly
admiral and 31
a ci n.
The
D pit
k mikaze hi 's Langle)' and
Ticonderoga ( l Jan) and the -th FI r' ~' · Yorktown,
\,1~lSP and Franklin (21 March) befor the a full
awok t h impti ation o the Divin Wind. ff
10