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Operation Hailstone

Coordinates: 7°20′21″N 151°53′05″E / 7.3393°N 151.8846°E / 7.3393; 151.8846
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Operation Hailstone
Part of World War II, Pacific War

Japanese ships burning off Dublon Island, Truk Lagoon, on the first day of air strikes conducted as part of Operation Hailstone
Date17 February 1944 – 18 February 1944
Location
Truk, Caroline Islands
7°20′21″N 151°53′05″E / 7.3393°N 151.8846°E / 7.3393; 151.8846
Result American victory, prevented the Japanese reinforcement of Eniwetok garrison, key Japanese warships avoided destruction
Belligerents
 United States  Japan
Commanders and leaders
Marc A. Mitscher Masami Kobayashi
Strength
5 fleet carriers
4 light carriers
7 battleships
10 cruisers
28 destroyers
10 submarines
560 planes		 5 cruisers
8 destroyers
5 other warships
50 merchant ships
350 planes
Casualties and losses
1 fleet carrier damaged
1 battleship slightly damaged
25 aircraft destroyed
40 killed[nb 1]		 2 light cruisers
4 destroyers
3 auxiliary cruisers
6 auxiliaries

32 merchant ships sunk
250+ aircraft destroyed
4,500+ killed

Operation Hailstone (known in Japan as Japanese: トラック島空襲 Torakku-tō Kūshū, lit. "the airstrike on Truk Island"), 17–18 February 1944, was a massive United States Navy air and surface attack on Truk Lagoon conducted as part of the Allies' offensive drive through the Pacific Ocean theater during World War II.

Prior to Hailstone, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) used Truk as an anchorage for its Combined Fleet. The coral atoll surrounding Truk's islands created a safe harbor whose few points of ingress the Japanese fortified with antiaircraft guns and other equipment. Allied estimates of Truk's defenses and its role as an IJN stronghold led newspapers and military men to call it the "Gibraltar of the Pacific," or to compare it to Pearl Harbor. Its location in the Caroline Islands also made Truk an ideal shipping hub for materiel moving from Japan's home islands down through the South Pacific Mandate and into the Southern Resources Area.

By early 1944 Truk was increasingly unsustainable as a forward base of operations for the IJN. The United States Army under General Douglas MacArthur had moved up through the South Pacific, isolating Japanese strong points as part of Operation Cartwheel; and the U.S. Navy, under the command of Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, had seized areas in the nearby Marshall Islands. As a result, the IJN relocated Combined Fleet's forward base to Palau and had begun clearing warships out of Truk in advance of Hailstone.

Nevertheless, the attack on Truk caught a large number of auxiliary and cargo ships in harbor, as well as some warships. Between submarine, surface and air attacks over Hailstone's two days, around 250 Japanese planes were destroyed. Approximately forty ships—two light cruisers, four destroyers, nine auxiliaries, and over two dozen cargo vessels—were sunk. Considerable damage was inflicted on the lagoon's various island bases, including communications centers, supply dumps and a submarine base. Truk remained effectively isolated for the remainder of the war, cut off and surrounded by the Allies' island hopping campaign.

Background

Map of the Caroline Islands

The Japanese occupied Micronesia, including the Caroline Islands, in 1914, and established Truk as a base as early as 1939. The lagoon was first built up to house the IJN's 4th Fleet, its "South Seas Force". After the outbreak of war with the United States, the 4th Fleet was put under the command of the Combined Fleet, which continued to use Truk as a forward operating base into 1944. In addition to anchorages for warships, and port facilities for shipping running between the home islands and the Southern Resources Area, five airstrips and a seaplane base were constructed at Truk, making it the only major Japanese airbase within range of the Marshall Islands.[2]

Despite the impressions of U.S. Navy leaders and the American public concerning Truk's projected fortifications, the base was never significantly reinforced or protected against attack. In fact, the development of Truk only began in concert, and in hurried fashion, in late 1943, when airfields were extended, shore batteries were installed and other defensive measures taken against U.S. encroachment.[3]

Because aircraft stationed at Truk could potentially interfere with the upcoming invasion of Eniwetok, and because Truk had recently served as a ferry point for the resupply of aircraft to Rabaul, Admiral Raymond Spruance ordered Vice Admiral Marc A. Mitscher's Task Force 58 (TF 58) to carry out strikes against the atoll. Three of TF 58's four carrier task groups (TGs) were committed to the strikes. Their total strength consisted of five fleet carriers (Enterprise, Yorktown, Essex, Intrepid, and Bunker Hill) and four light carriers (Belleau Wood, Cabot, Monterey, and Cowpens) embarking more than 500 planes. Supporting the carriers was a large fleet of seven battleships and numerous cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and other support ships.[4]

The Japanese, meanwhile, understood the weakness of their position at Truk. The IJN had begun withdrawing fleet units from its anchorages as early as October 1943. The effective abandonment of Truk as a forward operating base accelerated in the first week of February 1944, following Japanese sightings of U.S. Marine PB4Y-1 Liberator reconnaissance aircraft sent out to reconnoiter the area.[5]

Attack

1944 U.S. newsreel describing the attack

The three carrier task groups committed to Hailstone moved into position and began launching their first fighter sweep 90 minutes before daybreak on 17 February 1944. No Japanese air patrol was active at the time as the IJN's 22nd and 26th Air Flotillas were enjoying shore leave after weeks on high alert following the Liberator sightings.[6] Similarly problematic for the Japanese, radar on Truk was not capable of detecting low-flying planes — a weakness probably known and exploited by Allied intelligence organizations. Because of these factors, U.S. carrier aircraft achieved total surprise.[7]

Japanese pilots scrambled into their cockpits just minutes before TF 58 planes arrived over Eten, Param, Moen and Dublon islands. Though there were more than 300 Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service (IJNAS) and Imperial Japanese Army Air Service (IJAAS) planes present at Truk on the first day of attacks, only about half of them were operational compared with over 500 operational aircraft among the carriers of TF 58. U.S. Navy fighter pilots in their Grumman F6F Hellcats, with the advantages of speed, altitude and surprise, achieved a one–sided victory against IJNAF pilots flying the inferior Mitsubishi A6M Zero. As many as 30 of the 80 Zeros sent up in response to the fighter sweep were shot down, compared with four Hellcats reported lost. Only token aerial resistance was encountered for the rest of the morning; almost no Japanese aircraft were present by the afternoon.[8][4]

Due to the lack of air cover or warning, many merchant ships were caught at anchor with only the islands' anti-aircraft guns for defense against the U.S. carrier planes. Some vessels outside the lagoon already steaming towards Japan were attacked by U.S. submarines and sunk before they could make their escape. Still others, attempting to flee via the atoll's North Pass, were bottled up by aerial attack and by Admiral Spruance's surface force, Task Group 50.9, which circumnavigated Truk bombarding shore positions and engaging enemy ships.[9]

Torpedo bomber and dive bomber squadrons from the carrier air groups (CAGs) were responsible for the bulk of the damage inflicted on Japanese ground facilities. Early on the first day of Hailstone, Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bomber squadrons from USS Enterprise's Air Group 10 (CAG-10) and USS Intrepid's CAG-6 dropped fragmentation and incendiary bombs on runways at Eten Island as well as the seaplane base on Moen Island. Dozens of aircraft were damaged or destroyed, further blunting any possible response by the Japanese to the strikes. Subsequent joint attacks by dive bombers[nb 2] and Avenger torpedo bombers cratered runways and destroyed hangar facilities.[11][12]

Morning strikes were also launched against shipping targets in the lagoon. Lieutenant Commander (later Rear Admiral) James D. Ramage, commanding officer of Dive Bombing Squadron 10 (VB-10), is credited with sinking the previously damaged merchant tanker Hoyo Maru.[13] Lieutenant James E. Bridges and his crew in one of Intrepid's Torpedo Squadron 6 (VT-6) Avengers scored a direct hit on the ammunition ship Aikoku Maru. The bomb blast set off a tremendous explosion, which immediately sank the ship and apparently engulfed the plane as well, killing all three men inside.[14]

Japanese ammunition ship Aikoku Maru exploding after a torpedo hit, 17 February 1944.

By the second and third anti-shipping strikes of the day, carrier air group action reports listed the apparent enemy mission as "escape".[15] Those ships able to make for open sea steamed for the North Pass exit from the lagoon while weathering repeated aerial attacks. One particular group of warships —cruiser Katori, auxiliary cruiser Akagi Maru, destroyers Maikaze, Nowaki and minesweeper Shonan Maru – was given special attention by carrier bombers. Multiple air groups attacked these ships, inflicting serious damage. Yorktown's dive and torpedo bombing squadrons together claimed two hits on Katori as well as hits on another cruiser and multiple destroyers; Essex bombers claimed as many as five hits on a Katori-class cruiser as well, indicating that the ship was stopped dead in the water after the attack.[16][17]

At this point reports reached Admiral Spruance concerning the group of warships fleeing through North Pass. The admiral put himself in tactical command of Task Group 50.9, made up of four destroyers, two heavy cruisers and the battleships USS Iowa and USS New Jersey, which he personally led in a surface engagement against the previously damaged Japanese ships. Spruance was so adamant on engaging in ship-to-ship combat that his carrier commander, Admiral Mitscher, ordered his air groups to stop attacking Katori and her companions.[18]

The battered Japanese ships did not stand much of a chance against Task Group 50.9, though members of his staff saw Spruance's decision to engage in surface action when aircraft likely could have achieved similar results as needlessly reckless. Indeed, the Japanese destroyer Maikaze managed to fire torpedoes at the battleship New Jersey during the engagement. Fortunately for Spruance, the torpedoes missed, and the "battle" ended with predictably one–sided results. The U.S. Navy surface combatants incurred virtually no damage. The IJN lost Maikaze, Shonan Maru, Katori and Akagi Maru. Destroyer Nowaki was the only Japanese ship from this group to escape.[19]

Retaliation for the day's strikes arrived late at night in the form of small groups of Japanese bombers probing the task groups' defenses. From roughly 21:00 on 17 February to just minutes past midnight on 18 February, at least five groups of between one and three enemy planes attempted to sneak past screening ships to strike at the fleet carriers. One such plane, a Nakajima B5N2 "Kate" bomber, managed to evade night fighter planes protecting the U.S. task force and dropped its torpedo on Task Group 58.2. The torpedo struck Intrepid on the rear right side of the ship, damaging steering control and killing 11 sailors. Intrepid was forced to retire to the U.S. for repairs and did not return to combat until August 1944.[20][21]

Aftermath

Truk, like so many other Japanese bases, was left to wither on the vine without hope of resupply or reinforcement. Army forces which had arrived at the atoll before the U.S. attacks put increasing strain on available foodstuffs and medical supplies. Dwindling ammunition even limited the ability of shore batteries to fend off intermittent attacks by Allied forces, including experimental raids by Boeing B-29 Superfortresses and attacks by Allied carrier aircraft.[22]

Losses at Truk were severe. Some 17,000 tons of stored fuel were destroyed by the strikes.[23] Shipping losses totaled almost 200,000 tons including precious resources in fleet oilers.[24] This represents almost one tenth of total Japanese shipping losses between 1 November 1943 and 30 June 1944.[25] Moreover, the isolation of this whole area of operations by submarine and air attack began the effective severance of Japanese shipping lanes between empire waters and critical fuel supplies to the south. The ultimate effect of such a disconnect was later seen during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, when IJN forces had to sortie separately from Japan and Lingga Roads due to fuel constraints.[26] The neutralization of Truk, and the seizure of Eniwetok, paved the way for the upcoming invasion of Saipan, which for the first time put U.S. land-based heavy bombers within range of the Japanese home islands.[27]

Truk is renowned today as a tourist destination for divers interested in seeing the many shipwrecks left in the lagoon, many of which were caused by the Operation Hailstone strikes.[28]

List of warships in Truk at the time of attack

List derived from Jeffery's War Graves, Munition Dumps and Pleasure Grounds (2007)[29]

Warships sunk

CL Katori (香取) 5,800 tons
CL Naka (那珂) 5,195 tons

DD Maikaze (舞風) 陽炎型 2,000 tons
DD Fumizuki (文月) 睦月型 1,320 tons
DD Oite (追風) 神風型 1,270 tons
DD Tachikaze (太刀風) 峯風型 1,215 tons

Submarine chaser CH-29, 440 tons
Submarine chaser CH-24, 440 tons

Auxiliary submarine chaser Shonan Maru #15 (第15昭南丸), 355 tons

Motor torpedo boat #10, 85 tons

Warships damaged

Repair ship Akashi (明石) 10,500 tons

Seaplane tender Akitsushima (秋津洲) 4,650 tons

DD Matsukaze (松風) 神風型 1,400 tons
DD Shigure (時雨) 白露型 1,685 tons

Submarine I-10 (伊10), 2,919 tons
Submarine RO-42, 1,115 tons

Submarine chaser CHa-20

Target ship Hakachi (波勝) 1,641 tons

List of merchant ships in Truk at the time of attack

List derived from Jeffery's War Graves, Munition Dumps and Pleasure Grounds (2007)[29]

Merchant ships sunk

Auxiliary cruiser Aikoku Maru (爱国丸) 10,348 tons
Auxiliary cruiser Akagi Maru (赤城丸) 7,367 tons
Auxiliary cruiser Kiyosumi Maru (清澄丸) 6,983 tons

Navy transport Houki Maru (伯耆丸) 7,112 ton
Navy transport Yamagiri Maru (山霧丸) 7,112 tons
Navy transport/freighter San Francisco Maru (桑港丸) 5,831 tons
Navy transport Reiyo Maru (麗洋丸) 5,446 tons
Navy transport Seiko Maru (西江丸)? 5,385 tons
Navy transport/passenger/cargo ship Kensho Maru (乾祥丸) 4,862 tons
Navy transport/freighter Hanakawa Maru (花川丸) 4,739 tons
Navy transport/passenger/cargo ship Sankisan Maru or Yamakisan Maru (山鬼山丸) 4,776 tons
Navy transport/freighter Hokuyo Maru (北洋丸) 4,217 tons
Navy transport/freighter Momokawa Maru (桃川丸) 3,829 tons
Navy water carrier/passenger/cargo ship Nippo Maru (日豊丸) 3,764 tons
Navy transport/freighter Unkai Maru #6(第六雲海丸) 3,220 tons
Navy transport Taiho Maru (大邦丸) 2,827 tons
Navy transport/freighter Shotan Maru (松丹丸) 1,999 tons
Navy transport/freighter Gosei Maru (五星丸) 1,931 tons

Freighter Taikichi Maru or Tachi Maru (泰吉丸) 1,891 tons

Army transport Gyoten Maru (暁天丸) 6,854 tons
Army transport/freighter Nagano Maru (長野丸) 3,824 tons
Army transport Yubae Maru (夕映丸) 3,217 tons

Fleet oiler Shinkoku Maru (神国丸) 10,020 tons
Oil tanker Fujisan Maru (富士山丸) 9,524 tons

Auxiliary oil tanker/whaler Tonan Maru #3 (第三図南丸) 19,209 tons
Auxiliary oil tanker Houyou Maru or Hoyo Maru (宝洋丸) 8,691 tons
Auxiliary oil tanker/passenger/cargo ship Amagisan Maru (天城山丸) 7,620 tons

Merchant ships damaged

Cargo ship Sōya (宗谷) 3,800 tons

Footnotes

  1. ^ Deaths included 29 aircrew from assorted carriers plus 11 sailors aboard Intrepid. Aircraft losses included 12 fighters, seven torpedo-bombers, and 6 dive-bombers.[1]
  2. ^ All dive bomber squadrons with the exception of Bunker Hill's VB-17 flew the Douglas SBD Dauntless at this time. VB-17 was the first squadron to use the newer Curtiss SB2C Helldiver, which later replaced the Dauntless as the US Navy's standard dive bomber.[10]

Citations

  1. ^ Morison 1961, p. 330
  2. ^ Jeffery 2003.
  3. ^ Toll 2015, pp. 404–405.
  4. ^ a b Rems 2014.
  5. ^ Prados 1995, pp. 533–535.
  6. ^ Hornfischer 2016, pp. 6–7.
  7. ^ Prados 1995, p. 537.
  8. ^ Toll 2015, pp. 405–406.
  9. ^ Prados 1995, pp. 537–538.
  10. ^ Tillman 1997, pp. 16–17, 31
  11. ^ Gardner 1944.
  12. ^ Harrison 1944.
  13. ^ Toll 2015, p. 407.
  14. ^ Astor 2007, pp. 233–234.
  15. ^ Jeter 1944, p. 15.
  16. ^ Stebbins 1944, p. 3.
  17. ^ White 1944, pp. 85–98.
  18. ^ Toll 2015, pp. 410–411.
  19. ^ Hornfischer 2016, pp. 11–15.
  20. ^ Sprague 1944, pp. 14–15.
  21. ^ Williams 2000.
  22. ^ Prados 1995, p. 538.
  23. ^ Hornfischer 2016, p. 18.
  24. ^ Toll 2015, pp. 413–414.
  25. ^ Wilmott 2005, p. 292.
  26. ^ Prados 2016, pp. 110–111.
  27. ^ Ofstie 1946, pp. 194–195.
  28. ^ Trumbull 1972.
  29. ^ a b Jeffery 2007, pp. Appendix 4.

References

Bibliography

  • Astor, Gerald (2007). Wings of Gold: The U.S. Naval Air Campaign in World War II. Random House Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-307-41777-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Primary sources

Further reading

Video

  • Quest for Sunken Warships: "Operation Hailstone", 2007, documentary, Military Channel, last aired September 30, 2010, 4-5pm MDT.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Operation Hailstone.
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