A Retrospective (December 1945)

Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King

Chief of Naval Operations

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, December 7, 1945

To think that all these poor boys died for something as stupid as this war. If the Japanese had a lick of sense, they wouldn’t have attacked in the first place, ‘cause they certainly didn’t have any chance of winning when they started it!

Sure, they hit us hard at Pearl, and if they caught Halsey’s carriers that day we wouldn’t have been able to act as aggressively as we did in 1942. With our building program, all that would have done was to delay “Midway” to sometime in ’43 or ’44.

And while that was going on, our submarine blockade would have been drawing the noose tighter and tighter around their necks. Their anti-submarine capability was a joke throughout the war, their merchant shipping construction rates even worse. Even with defective torpedoes and poor pre-war training and doctrine, we were already sinking more tonnage than they were building in 1942.

Thus it didn’t matter when our hammer blow fell, ‘cause when it did, they would never be able to recover from it.

Could they have stopped us from building that hammer? Not a chance. Hitting Pearl was already a stretch for them, there was no way that they were going to hit the yards on the West Coast. There was no way they could have taken Pearl either, certainly not after we reinforced it.

Could they have stopped us from tying the noose then? I admit it’s possible, but their high command seemed oblivious to the need to protect the ships carrying those vital supplies they started the whole war over in the first place! And they ignored it while constantly pushing outwards, towards the Solomons, the Aleutians, Australia, all efforts that would have drained even more resources for little gain.

Now, I’m not saying the Japs didn’t have a powerful Navy at the start, they certainly did! In a straight up fight, Mahan-esque Battle Fleet versus Battle Fleet we would’ve lost, no question. But as they say, it isn't how big it is, it's how you use it, and to paraphrase our dear Secretary of the Navy, or at least what I think good ol’ Frank Knox wanted to say, “These guys had no idea that they had no idea what the hell they were doing!”

The Beginning of the End (March 1945)

Sergeant Willie Blake

5th Marine Division, Iwo Jima

30th March 1945

Victory is upon us. Our win at Iwo Jima meant only one thing: that the Japanese have finally become weak enough to not be able to defend their own homeland. Iwo Jima also provided us with emergency landing strips for the thousands of planes flying the three-thousand mile trip from Tinian and Saipan. Okinawa should fall in no time. However the fight has not been easy. The Japanese have resorted to suicide kamikaze soldiers to inflict maximum damage on our ships. Thank goodness the British ships are tougher than any of ours and could withstood the attacks with minimal damage. On land, their defence has been stronger than expected. We have been fighting a war of attrition for a few days now. Our technology may have been better, but the harsh terrain nullified any of the potential benefits they may bring. What disturbed me most are the local Okinawans, peaceful traditional agricultural communities torn apart by attacks on both sides. While we have in place policies to deal with them, it is really difficult sorting them out as some of the women are fighting side by side with the Japanese soldiers!

The Beginning of the End (March 1945)

Lieutenant Suzuki Yuuki

5th Division HQ, Hiroshima

28th March 1945

The loss of Iwo Jima was a particularly devastating setback for us. We did not expect to ever lose to the Allies on our home soil. Though we have lost much of what we have gained in Southeast Asia, we were determined to exact a such a heavy cost in Allied lives as they start attacking our homeland. At the very least we would be able to get achieve a negotiated peace as a substitute for unconditional surrender and probably salvage part of our empire rather than losing it all totally. Iwo Jima is just 750 miles south of Tokyo. We have transformed it into a sophisticated observation platform and even erected more than one radar installation which would have made it a perfect base for forward fighters to interdict Allied air strikes on our other islands. Its defence was superior bar none, as it continued to stand even after heavy bombardment by the Allies. Now that we have lost it to them, the tide has turned against us. They are definitely going to use the island’s three airfields to aid in their progress up north towards Tokyo.

But we would not let that happen at any cost. We still have control over Okinawa, the final key island in the Ryukyu chain before mainland Japan proper. We have to defend it at all cost. But our chances look slimmer by the day. Word has it that the British are sending their most superior warships clad in super strong steel to participate in their first Pacific campaign together with the Americans. Once they establish control over the seas, it would be difficult to receive reinforcements and supplies. We have to trust the kamikaze fighters to neutralise those warships before they come any closer. Without supplies we our efforts would be hampered greatly as the Allies try to surround and cut us off from the mainland to strangle us.

Tightening the Noose (October 1944)

Koizumi Nanasake

Captain, Japanese Freighter Kobayashi Maru

13^th October 1944

The Americans are like demons. How else could they be shrugging off the constant defeats dealt to them by our Navy? How else could they possibly sink so much of our shipping? I’ve been to America, I know that they are most certainly not demons. Therefore the fault, as it is becoming increasingly apparent to me, is with our own leadership.

We didn’t begin convoying till early this year, but by then we had already suffered catastrophic losses in terms of merchant shipping sunk. I suppose everyone was expecting the sinking rate to be something closer to that of 1942, but even then the Americans were sinking more ships than we were building. And our convoy escorts aren’t all that effective either. Just last month, despite heavy escort, the Azusa, one of our last few tankers, was sunk by an American submarine.

Japan needs more resources before it can build more merchants and escorts, but at the same time we don’t have enough merchant ships to bring those resources to Japan. Most of us had already been requisitioned by the Army and Navy anyway. And from what I heard from some of the other merchant captains, most of them dead now, there was nearly no organization at all in transporting those hard fought for materials back home. Two of them even mentioned passing by each other, heading to the port that the other left, while empty. Each was sent to pick up supplies from the other port, something that could have been done by a just one of them in half the time.

We certainly don’t have that sort of luxury anymore. We are currently on a resupply run to the Navy’s island bases, and we just departed Iwo Jima a few days ago. I can’t forget the Army doctor pleading with me for just a few more sacks of rice for his troops. While they weren’t dying of starvation just yet, many of them were suffering from diseases due to malnutrition. I sympathized, but my orders are very clear on how much to deliver. It’s bad everywhere anyway. In any case, our next stop is

[Record Ends]

Cutting the lifelines (May 1943)

Dick O’Kane, Executive officer, USS Wahoo.

23 May 1943

I have been with the men of the USS Wahoo for 5 patrols already and it now time for me to be moving on to command my own submarine, the new Balao-class submarine. But the time spent with the Wahoo is fruitful and I have learnt much from the skipper, Lt-Cmdr Morton.

In the first 2 patrol, we were made to patrol the shipping lanes just off Truk. The ships in that area were practical unescorted, not only for the merchant ships but also the Imperial Japanese naval ships. For instance, we came across an unescorted Japanese carrier but we were not able to attack it and the most defended convoy we saw was escorted only by one destroyer. I think that the Japanese were unaware of US presence in the area. However, even with the advantage that we have, we were not able to inflicted heavy damage on the Japanese. This is partly because of the lack of aggressive of Lt-Cmdr Kennedy, our first skipper, and bad positioning of the ship. The total number of ships we sank during that time was 2 freighters. We could have gotten more if we had been more aggressive in our tactic.

After the first 2 patrols, Lt-Cmdr Kennedy was transferred to the USS Guest and Lt-Comdr Morton took over as skipper of the ship. This change in command changed our fortunes. We departed for our 3^rd patrol on the 16 January and headed for a new patrolling area called Wewak near the north coast of New Guniea. We spotted and sunk a destroyer anchor off the Kairuru Island. On the same patrol, we caught up with an unescorted 4 ships convoy on the 26 January. The battle with that convoy lasted for 10 hours and we expended all of our torpedoes but it resulted in 2 sunken freighters, a badly damaged troop carrier and tanker.

The 4^th and 5^th patrol of the Wahoo produced the similar results. A total of 14 merchant ships were sunk, 11 on the 4^th patrol and 3 on the 5^th patrol. Up to now, the Japanese failed to put improve it protection on the merchant ships. The merchant ships were sailing without any escort nor travelling in huge convoys, this allowed us and the other US submarines to attack their vital supply routes without serious opposition for the Imperial navy. The Wahoo was so successful the Admiral Nimitz awarded Morton his second Navy Cross and other awards on the 22 May 1943. Now is time for the Wahoo to undergo an overhaul and it is time too for me to move on to another ship.

More damage could be done on them if we were equipped with better torpedoes. The Mark 14 torpedoes were unreliable; they would either detonate prematurely or would be a dud. This is very frustrating for us and many other submarines in the fleet. From what I heard from other submarine Cmdrs, they would be equipped with faulty torpedoes for an entire patrol. Rumour has it that a new type of torpedo is currently in developing and I hope that this new weapon would make the submarine force a more potent weapon in the war

The news is in! we got HIM! (April 1943)

18 April 1943

Admiral Nimitz, Commander in Chief, US Pacific Fleet

diary entry: 2210 hours

Yamamoto was escorted by a squadron of Zeros, but our Lightnings managed to break through their shield and shoot his plane down before it could take evasive action. Though we lost several pilots and planes in the attack, our pilots confirmed that Yamamoto's plane caught fire and crashed in the jungle..no way anyone could have survived that.

We’ve now gone part of the way in laying the ghosts of Pearl to rest, may his soul anoint for the men that have been lost, and may his loss to Japan now ensure our liberation of the rest of the Pacific and avenge fully Pearl Harbor!

Mission: Intercept and kill Yamamoto on his journey (April 1943)

10 April 1943

Admiral Nimitz, Commander in Chief, US Pacific Fleet

diary entry at 2330.

What an accomplishment our intel boys have pulled off, we’ve managed to decode a report transmitted on Japanese radio frequencies of that bastard’s Yamamoto decision to tour Japanese outposts in the Pacific. He will leave Rabaul on the 18th for the airfield in Kahili, Bougainville. What luck! His flight plan is just barely within range of our aircraft. Though it will require the maximum possible range of our Lightnings, with additional fuel tanks attached to their planes we can intercept and shoot the bastard down before reinforcements from Kahili can reach him. Though it will cost us more pilots and planes, the losses sustained to get him will suffice to avenge our brave air and ship crews lost in that “cheap shot” of an attack against Pearl. While we mourn, his plan has been herald as a master- class of deployment to take out your enemy unaware by surprise. Well, it time to pay him back with the same tactics, we CANNOT let him get away!