For the British it had certainly been a disastrous December 10, 1941. They would take no comfort in the knowledge that their allies’ war efforts were progressing disastrously as well. For at almost precisely the same time as the death knell tolled on the Prince of Wales and the Repulse off Singapore, some 1,500 miles away the American military presence around Manila was reeling.
Admiral Hart was in the Marsman Building, with its view of the F-shaped Cavite Peninsula and its US Navy installations, when the air raid sirens sounded just after 12:40 pm.1 A message had come in: MANY ENEMY PLANES APPROACHING FROM THE NORTH. ETA MANILA 1255. While most would set off to shelters, many in the military had no such luxury. Admiral Hart certainly did not believe that he did, as he headed to the roof to see what was going on. Patrol Wing 10’s Captain Wagner stood on the balcony of his office.2 What they saw were 26 Nells, these of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s 1st Air Group under the command of Lieutenant Commander Ozaki Takeo.3 Ozaki’s bombers, each carrying 12 132lb general purpose bombs, broke off from a large group of Japanese aircraft targeting the Manila area, and began approaching Cavite from the east.4
As the sirens wailed, US Navy ships in the harbor tried to get under way to gain maneuvering room for evasive action, with the destroyer John D. Ford having to free herself up from refueling operations at Sangley Point, on the tip of the northern horizontal of the peninsula.5 Four Catalinas of Patrol Wing 10 attempted to get airborne. With some Zeros of the 3rd Air Group as escorts, the Japanese bombers, operating at an altitude of about 24,000ft in waves of nine, flew over the narrow Cavite peninsula at around 1:00 pm without bombing, most likely picking out their targets.6 As the bombers finished their pass at 1:02 pm, four 3in antiaircraft guns at Sangley Point manned by the 1st Separate Marine Battalion opened up on the aircraft overhead.7
But neither the guns of Sangley Point nor the 3in guns at Cavite Navy Yard itself could reach the Japanese attackers, who were flying too high.8 The Marine gunners might as well have been shooting at Venus. The guns of Sangley Point did manage to shoot down one aircraft – unfortunately, one of their own, a P-40 that had been trying to protect the seaplanes desperately trying to take off. The pilot, Lieutenant Jim Phillips, was fished out of Manila Bay unharmed.9
The Japanese were ruthlessly and effectively exploiting the air superiority so easily gained at Clark Field. Lieutenant Commander Ozaki’s bombers circled around Manila Bay to begin another pass at Cavite. It was at 1:14 pm that the Nells finally dropped their first bombs.10
Most of the bombs struck Canacao Bay, the water between Sangley Point and Cavite, near Machina Wharf, sending up a “solid curtain of water, over one hundred feet high and a half-mile long.”11 But this first attack was accurate enough. It seems to have been a bomb from this strike that knocked out Cavite Navy Yard’s power plant.12 With it went the electricity to the yard, rendering the firefighting mains unable to pump water to fight the fires caused by bomb hits.
“[L]ike a flock of well-disciplined buzzards,” according to one witness, Lieutenant Commander Ozaki’s bombers circled Cavite Navy Yard.13 With almost no aerial opposition and with limited antiaircraft fire, the Nells continued the bombing, apparently consisting of four separate runs, that the US Navy itself would call “leisurely and accurate.”14
At a very crowded Machina Wharf, submarine tender Otus, loading supplies, was straddled by two sticks that miraculously missed. She got under way and was not hit again.15 But berthed next to her were submarines Sealion and Seadragon, undergoing refits: Sealion with her engines disassembled, and Seadragon being painted, with loads of paint cans on her deck. Sealion took two direct bomb hits from the second pass, one on her stern that wrecked her engines, the other just aft of her conning tower. Seadragon, berthed right next to her, had shrapnel cut into her own conning tower. Minesweeper Bittern, also berthed at Machina, was set ablaze.16
Destroyers Peary and Pillsbury were also moored, this time at the neighboring Central Wharf, undergoing repairs after sharing a near-fatal collision a few days earlier. Pillsbury was able to get under way and escape. But after several near misses, Peary took a bomb hit that wounded her skipper, Lieutenant Commander Harry H. Keith. Pillsbury was on the receiving end of a near miss. Ferry launch Santa Rita took a direct hit and was instantly vaporized.17
But the ships of the Asiatic Fleet were not the intended targets of this attack. Lieutenant Commander Ozaki was not going to make the mistakes that Admiral Nagumo had made at Pearl Harbor in ignoring the shore facilities. Their main target was the Cavite Navy Yard itself: its machine shops, storage yards, industrial facilities, ammunition dumps, and dockyards. The base, its facilities all cramped together on the peninsula, took an absolute pounding, one that was horrific even by the standards of World War II. The third attack seems to have been particularly damaging, detonating most of the Asiatic Fleet’s torpedo supply and starting a large fire in the closely packed wooden buildings of the base’s industrial area. The early bomb hit to the power plant proved decisive. With the firefighting mains unable to pump water and thus nothing to stop them, the fires increased in intensity and spread quickly, turning Cavite Navy Yard and parts of neighboring Cavite City into a raging inferno threatening everything and everyone on shore or close to shore.
The Central Wharf was particularly dangerous. Blazing oil from nearby leaking fuel storage tanks had reached the wharf and detonated air storage flasks in the nearby torpedo workshop. Destroyer Peary was in danger of being incinerated when the minesweeper Whippoorwill, under the direction of Lieutenant Commander Charles A. Ferriter, moved in between the Central and Machina wharves and nudged her bow against the Peary’s stern. A 6in hawser was tied to the destroyer and the Whippoorwill backed to pull the Peary free, but the line snapped. They tried it again. The line parted again. Realizing that the Peary still had two mooring lines tying her to the Central Wharf, the Whippoorwill managed to pull the destroyer clear once the lines were removed.18
Over at the Machina Wharf, Seadragon, wounded by the attack on her sister Sealion, was in an almost identical danger to the Peary. The heat blistered and melted the paint on her hull, and the approaching blazing oil threatened to detonate torpedoes on the wharf and incinerate the submarine. Minesweeper Bittern, right next to her, was already ablaze, her magazines threatening to detonate. Seadragon’s skipper, Lieutenant Commander William Edward “Pete” Ferrall, initially abandoned the submarine as hopeless, but quickly thought better of it and brought the crew back. Lieutenant Richard E. Hawes sent in his ship, the appropriately-designated submarine rescue vessel Pigeon. With the Pigeon suffering from a faulty rudder that had to be worked by hand, Lieutenant Hawes ignored the safety of his own ship to sail in with a tow line and, helped by the engines of the Seadragon, pull the submarine clear. As they moved off, a large fuel tank on the wharf exploded, sending blazing oil into the bay and scorching their hulls.19
Admiral Hart continued watching the inferno from the roof of the Marsman Building, oblivious to his own safety. “At least one group of airmen were performing well,” he acidly remarked.20 The admiral’s anger at the Far East Air Force swelled, as did that of most Navy personnel. One man angrily complained: “Where the hell is our fighter protection? If the damn AA can’t reach them why can’t we get a little help from the army guys? They been roasting us about our waddling ducks, and where are they now? Yeah, where?”21
Unfortunately most were twisted, blackened wreckages on the runways of Clark and Iba Fields. But it had already been a very busy day, and indeed a very miserable day for the Far East Air Force.
That morning, the Japanese had landed army troops at Vigan and Aparri, with the objectives of securing the airfield at each location. Upon being informed of the landings, the Far East Air Force – B-17s, P-40s of the 17th Pursuit Squadron and P-35s of the 34th Pursuit – and Patrol Wing 10 began bombing and strafing runs on the Japanese, opposed by a few Ki-27 Nate fighters of the Japanese Army Air Force.22 Five Catalinas of Patrol Wing 10 attacked the heavy cruisers Ashigara and Maya, light cruiser Kuma, and destroyers Asakaze and Matsukaze without scoring a hit.23 The Far East Air Force was more effective. Off Vigan, minesweeper W-10 was sunk by P-35s of the 34th Pursuit, who also strafed transport Oigawa Maru, setting it afire and forcing its beaching. Strafing P-40s damaged the light cruiser Naka while B-17s hit the transport Takao Maru; which was also beached. Off Aparri, three B-17s bombed minesweeper W-19, forcing her to run aground, a total loss. While trying to help the W-19, light cruiser Natori was damaged by a near miss, as was the destroyer Harukaze.24 However, these were only minor inconveniences for the Japanese as opposed to major losses.
Meanwhile, the Japanese Naval Air Force was conducting a massive attack on the Manila area that included the 1st Air Group’s raid on Cavite and raids by the Takao Air Group on the Nichols and Del Carmen airfields, which had largely escaped the devastating air raids of December 8. At 11:15 am, the 5th Pursuit Command had received warning of enemy aircraft approaching from the north. The 17th and 21st Pursuit Squadrons had been brought up to strength from the remnants of the other squadrons destroyed on December 8, and they now tried to do what they had not been allowed to do two days earlier. The 17th covered Manila Bay, the 21st covered the port of Manila and Cavite, and the 34th covered Bataan.25
But the attacking bombers had an escort of 56 Zero fighters of the 3rd and Tainan Air Groups. The 17th and 21st Pursuits took on the 3rd Air Group’s escorts and made superhuman efforts to break through the escorts, but there were too many Japanese fighters. In all 11 Warhawks failed to return, either shot down or running out of fuel. The American pursuits were simply overwhelmed.26
Not overwhelmed, amazingly enough, was a single Patrol Wing 10 Catalina flying boat, P-5, flown by Lieutenant Harmon T. Utter. Flying to safety, Utter’s slow, unarmored PBY was attacked by three Japanese Zeros of the 3rd Air Group. Utter’s bow gunner, Chief Boatswain Earl D. Payne, sitting in a compartment underneath the cockpit, managed to shoot down one of the deadly Zeros, head on, no less. In so doing, he scored the US Navy’s first verifiable air-to-air “kill” of a Japanese aircraft in the Pacific War.27 Utter’s PBY was badly shot up with the starboard engine out, but he was able to land on the sea near Corregidor and taxi to shore for repairs. He was fortunate; Catalina P-12, piloted by Ensigns Robert Snyder and William Jones, returning from an attack on the invasion beaches, was ambushed by a Zero as the flying boat tried to land at Laguna de Bay. It exploded in midair with no survivors.28
Nichols Field was hit by a punishing bombardment by the Takao Air Group. Del Carmen was covered by dense clouds and so avoided bombing, but the Zeros of the Tainan Air Group went in for low-level strafing runs, catching many of the 34th Pursuit’s P-35s just after they had landed from their earlier counterattack. Antiaircraft defenses for Del Carmen, like Nichols, were pathetic, and some officers resorted to shooting their .45cal pistols at the strafing aircraft. Oil tanks and 18 P-35s were destroyed, and the field was temporarily abandoned.29
As the Japanese aircraft flew off after “two hellish hours,” Cavite Navy Yard was not so much a navy base as a lake of fire worthy of Milton, a colossal conflagration.30 With no power to pump the firefighting equipment, the massive fires burned deep into the night, giving the sky over Manila and Manila Bay an orange glow. Almost the entire base was literally turned into molten slag.31 The Asiatic Fleet suffered a massive loss of some 230 torpedoes, which would cripple its destroyers later on.32 One of the giant radio towers at Sangley Point was knocked down.33 The low-frequency transmitter used to communicate with submerged submarines was destroyed, meaning that submarines could only communicate with the base on the surface, usually only at night.34 There is simply no way to overstate the devastation at Cavite Navy Yard. PT Boat skipper Lieutenant John Buckley described the base as “flattened.”35 The US Navy Official Chronology would describe it as “practically obliterated.” Admiral Hart called it “utterly ruined.”36 Author Dr John Gordon, defense analyst and retired US Army officer put it in appalling perspective: “The Japanese bombing of the Cavite Navy Yard was the most devastating attack on a US naval installation since the British burned the Washington Navy Yard in 1814.”37
It was while standing on the roof of the Marsman Building, watching with anger, horror, and helplessness as Cavite burned, much as Priam watched burning Troy from Pergamon, that a Navy yeoman gave Admiral Hart the latest breaking news, which seems to have arrived at light speed from Singapore: the Prince of Wales and the Repulse were sunk.38 Admiral Phillips, whose one meeting with Hart had left the American admiral very impressed (no mean feat), was gone, as was the backbone of any Allied naval resistance in the Far East.
Gone, too, was the backbone of Allied air resistance. After its failed attempt to stop this Japanese attack, the V Interceptor Command was left with only 30 pursuit aircraft – 22 P-40s and eight near-useless P-35s. They could no longer offer hope for even a semblance of adequate protection for the air and navy bases on Luzon, and would be limited to reconnaissance work only.39 The 18 remaining B-17s were withdrawn to Del Monte, and eventually Australia.40
That night, Admiral Hart informed Washington that the US Navy’s position in Manila – and the Philippines – was untenable.41
Although the heavy cruiser USS Houston was in Iloilo and not in Cavite, she went through her own narrow escape. Admiral Glassford had arrived in his PBY Catalina late in the afternoon of December 8. The cruiser immediately got under way. An hour later her lookouts spotted antiaircraft fire from Iloilo and a ship on fire in the harbor. Once again, Japanese intelligence had been very good. They had known about the cruiser’s presence on Panay and had come for her, taking out a helpless freighter instead. They had missed her by only an hour.42
Later that night, Radio Tokyo broadcasted news of Imperial Japan’s victories that day, including Pearl Harbor, Clark Field – and the sinking of the USS Houston. The crew found the propagandist’s claims amusing; the cruiser would be reported sunk so many times that later on in the Java Sea Campaign she would earn the nickname “Galloping Ghost of the Java Coast.”43 That night Houston also received orders to join up with the light cruiser Boise and the destroyers Paul Jones and Barker for her first mission of the war: to escort the seaplane tender Langley and the tankers Trinity and Pecos out of Philippine waters to the Netherlands East Indies.44
On the morning of December 9, the Houston made her rendezvous with the Boise and the destroyers. Even though the Houston was designated as the heavier ship and had bigger guns, the crew felt much more comfortable having the Boise with her 15 rapid-fire 6in guns and radar alongside. Shortly thereafter, the Langley, the Trinity, and the Pecos were spotted heading southward at their best speed of 10 knots. They had been ordered by Admiral Hart to flee Manila for the Indies on December 8, given that there was no longer any air cover to be had.
Three lightly armed ships packed with flammable bunker and aviation fuel traveling unescorted through a war zone were bound to make the crews nervous. That day the Langley sighted a shining object in the sky. Determining that it was an attacking aircraft, the seaplane tender’s 3in antiaircraft guns fired 250 shells at the target. Watching the confrontation were the crew of the Pecos, including their skipper Commander E. Paul Abernethy – that is, until the Filipino mess attendant, after bringing Abernethy a sandwich, asked, “Why for Langley shoot at Venus?” Sure enough, the Langley had been shooting at the second planet from the sun. Watching the exchange from the Houston, Lieutenant Lee Rogers commented, “They’re really protecting us.”45 Abernethy would say the incident was a good pointer drill even though there was no ammunition “for interplanetary target practice.” The crew of the Langley would respond that they “had brought Venus down.” The incident became a running, good-natured joke in the Asiatic Fleet, especially on the Langley.46 They were grateful to have the Houston, the Boise, and the four-pipers here to guard them from threats both international and interplanetary.
Throughout the night and into the next morning, the crews of Admiral Glassford’s little force kept receiving bad news. The US Navy now acknowledged that two battleships had been sunk at Pearl Harbor. Commercial radio out of the Philippines reported that US forces were being heavily hit. Not so, according to one solitary broadcaster out of Manila, who during his noon newscast on December 10 said that the Americans were actually doing quite well. His station immediately went off the air. At the same time, the US Navy radio station at Sangley Point reported Japanese bombers over Manila; then it, too, went dead. It did not take long to figure out Cavite had been bombed.47
Admiral Glassford would be tested during this voyage. The officers of the Houston were not impressed with their new flag officer. As pilot Lieutenant Thomas B. Payne explained, “We just didn’t have the same confidence in Admiral Glassford as we did in Admiral Hart. He didn’t have any fleet experience. That wasn’t his fault, but that was the situation.”48
And, in the eyes of many, Admiral Glassford would fail that test. At sunset the lookouts on the Houston reported funnel smoke to the west. The Houston, Boise, Paul Jones, and Barker immediately headed toward the contacts. Silhouetted by the setting sun, they were identified as a cruiser and two destroyers, all Japanese. At a range of 28,000yd, the Houston and Boise trained their guns on these men-of-war.49 But that was all they did. The bemused crews watched as Glassford seemed unable to make up his mind as to what to do, first slowing to 10 knots, then speeding up to 20 knots, then slowing once again. Finally, the admiral gave the order to turn away from the enemy ships. The admiral never gave the order to fire and the opposing forces went their separate ways.50
The crews of the US warships were outraged at Admiral Glassford. Houston pilot Walter Winslow was “thoroughly disgusted” and “silently cursed the admiral for being a coward.”51 Gunnery officer Al Maher said Glassford did not know what he was supposed to be doing with the task force.52 Here he had three Japanese targets dead to rights and with an apparent massive advantage in firepower. Already not popular with the men, Glassford was viewed more as a politician than as a fighting sailor, and this incident played into that image.
While that view would prove to be largely correct, in terms of this incident it was largely unfair. Admiral Glassford’s orders were to escort the convoy, not engage the enemy. Additionally, the accuracy of the sighting is questionable. Postwar research of Japanese records revealed no Imperial Japanese Navy warships in the area. The closest unit was the 2nd Destroyer Flotilla, commanded by Admiral Tanaka in the flagship light cruiser Jintsu, leading several destroyers. But this flotilla was far off to the east.53 Precisely what the lookouts saw is unknown.54 In any event, it was dusk and any combat action would have dragged on into the night, which would have hindered the American chances of success.
The next day, December 11, saw Admiral Glassford’s fleet make a hair-raising transit through the Sibutu Passage, where they expected to find Japanese submarines lying in wait. Fortunately there were none, but any relief at that thought came crashing down with the news about the Prince of Wales and the Repulse. As Winslow put it, “These two ships were to have been the backbone of our naval strength for the defense of Southeast Asia, especially since reinforcements from our crippled Pacific Fleet were not available. It seemed to us that every damned break of the game was going against the Allies.”55
The new backbones of the Allied defense of Southeast Asia were now the Houston and the Boise, who led the convoy safely into Balikpapan on December 14.
By far the strongest arm of the US Asiatic Fleet was its submarine force. They were, in effect, the guerilla fighters of the US Navy, able to sneak behind enemy lines and wreak havoc. High hopes had been placed in their ability to disrupt the operations of the currently numerically superior Japanese, especially since most of them were armed with the Mark 6 magnetic exploder.
The submarine Seawolf, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Frederick Burdette Warder, headed to Aparri, where the Japanese had landed on December 10. Sneaking around a destroyer that was, for some reason, running its sonar, Warder got into the harbor and found a Japanese seaplane tender sitting at anchor. Warder lined up a shot, with a range of 3,800yd, and fired four torpedoes from his bow tubes. Two torpedoes were set to run at a depth of 40ft and two were set to run at 30ft so they would detonate under the ship’s keel and actuate the Mark 6 magnetic exploder.
Yet no explosion resulted. Warder turned the Seawolf around to run quickly out of the harbor, but managed to fire his four stern tubes at a range of 4,500yd at the still-anchored target. He watched through his periscope and saw a plume of water, but no explosion. The exploder must have failed. Furious at having wasted eight precious torpedoes, Warder led the Seawolf out of Aparri into the Pacific.56
The Seawolf was not alone in her experience. For example, on Christmas Day, submarine Skipjack, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Charles Lawrence Freeman, operating in the Palaus, came across a Japanese aircraft carrier, apparently the Ryujo, and a destroyer. She fired three torpedoes at a range of 2,200yd. All missed; the sonarman later decided that he had underestimated the range by 1,000yd or so.57 That same day the submarine Perch under Lieutenant Commander David Albert Hunt fired four torpedoes at a steamer off Hong Kong. Three torpedoes missed; one circled around and headed back for the Perch, exploding off the submarine’s beam.58
The worst miss came off Lingayen Gulf, on the northwest corner of Luzon. For decades the Lingayen Gulf had been considered the gateway to Manila and the most likely site of an enemy invasion. For reasons known only to Admiral Hart and Captain Wilkes, the US Navy had placed no mines or other static defenses in the gulf and stationed only one submarine, Lieutenant Commander John Roland McKnight, Jr’s S-36, inside it. Perhaps not surprisingly, this, the only American defense for the gulf, was pulled out in a communications mixup. Wilkes tried to replace the S-36 with the Stingray, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Ray Lamb, but the Stingray was suffering from leaky pipes that could give away her position to enemy destroyers on the surface. At 5:13 pm on December 21, while Stingray was returning to Manila to have the pipes replaced, she sighted funnel smoke. Turning his submarine to investigate, Lamb found multiple smoke columns – an invasion convoy – headed into Lingayen. He immediately sent out a contact report. Due to the lack of aerial reconnaissance because of Japanese control of the skies, this was the first indication that the Japanese were now making their long-expected, main invasion into Lingayen Gulf. In response he was ordered to attack the convoy and he was in perfect position to do so. But Lamb’s efforts were at best half-hearted. The Stingray returned to Manila without having fired a single shot and Lamb was immediately relieved of command.
To counter the convoy, Captain Wilkes rushed six submarines – S-38, S-40, Salmon, Permit, Porpoise, and Saury – to the scene. But it was too late; the Japanese had already set up an antisubmarine perimeter in the shallow waters of Lingayen Gulf. The only Asiatic Fleet submarine to get through was S-38, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Wreford Goss “Moon” Chapple. Chapple’s boat came upon a line of four transports coming in. Waiting until they closed to about 1,000yd, Chapple fired four torpedoes. No hits. This was becoming a pattern, and a disturbing one at that. A destroyer had apparently seen the torpedo wakes but could not find S-38. Chapple reloaded his bow tubes, reset the torpedoes for a shallower depth, and launched two torpedoes at an anchored transport. One explosion later, the 5,445-ton transport Hayo Maru went to the shallow bottom.59 In evading a destroyer counter attack, S-38 ran aground. Chapple was able to work his boat free and eventually came back to attack again, only to be foiled when a Japanese plane dropped a stick of bombs on his submerged boat. All missed. Surfacing that night, the S-38 suffered a battery explosion and was forced to withdraw.60
The other submarines fared miserably. The Hayo Maru was the only ship sunk out of more than 80 the Japanese had sent into Lingayen Gulf.61 Lieutenant Commander John Burnside, commanding the Saury, rounded San Fernando on the night of December 23 to enter the gulf and ran into a flotilla of destroyers. He found one stopped and fired a torpedo at it. It missed. Saury was ordered out and Salmon in. Salmon was commanded by Lieutenant Commander Eugene Bradley McKinney. Running on the surface on the night of December 23, he tried to penetrate the gulf but ended up boxed in. Two torpedo attacks on Japanese destroyers registered no hits. Lieutenant Commander Nicholas Lucker Jr, commanding the S-40, tried to get into the gulf on a submerged run just after dawn. He launched four torpedoes at a ship at a range of 1,000yd without any hits. Mechanical problems gave away the submarine’s position to the escorting destroyers and S-40 was treated to a whipping counterattack, but survived. Porpoise, under Lieutenant Commander Joseph Anthony Callaghan, could not get in at all and was turned away by a destroyer dropping 18 depth charges. Permit, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Adrian Hurst, was the last to try. On a daytime submerged approach to the gulf, Hurst fired two torpedoes from his stern tubes at two destroyers from a distance of 1,500yd. Both missed. As he was diving to avoid a counterattack, he was told that the main induction – the main air line to the engines – had flooded. The boat became difficult to control and he was forced to withdraw.62 Submarine historian Theodore Roscoe later called the Lingayen Gulf “a crucible of frustration.”63
But that crucible had begun before Lingayen Gulf and extended well outside it, and the disturbing pattern was everywhere. On December 14, the Sargo, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Tyrell Dwight Jacobs, had been vectored to intercept three Japanese cruisers. He did so but was unable to close range. Guessing they were escorting a convoy, Jacobs kept tailing them and was proven right, coming upon a freighter. He launched a torpedo; it exploded prematurely. Was something wrong with the Mark 6 magnetic exploder? Or perhaps even the Mark 14 torpedo itself? Had the Japanese found a way to make it explode prematurely? As an experiment, Commander Jacobs and his executive and torpedo officers decided to deactivate the exploder. On December 24, Jacobs sighted two cargo vessels through his periscope at a range of 1,000yd. He launched two torpedoes at the lead ship and one at the trailing ship. No hits. As the merchantmen fled, he launched two more torpedoes at the lead ship from his stern tubes, range 1,800yd. No hits. Later, two more merchantmen came into the Sargo’s sights. Two torpedoes emerged from the stern tubes at a range of 900yd. No hits. An hour later, two more freighters came into sight. Jacobs decided to take his time and confirm every aspect of the attack with his executive officer, doing all in his power to ensure a hit; 57 minutes later, he fired two torpedoes at the lead ship and two torpedoes at the rear ship, range 1,000yd. No hits.64
Furious, exasperated, and mystified, Jacobs again discussed the attacks with his executive and torpedo officers. They guessed that the torpedo was running deeper than set; the depth setting had been calibrated under peacetime conditions, with a dummy warhead that was lighter than an actual warhead. At the next opportunity, making a submerged daylight attack so he could be sure of the range and confirm everything with his executive, he fired one torpedo at a range of 1,200yd at a slow-moving tanker. In spite of the tanker’s explosive cargo, there was no earth-shattering explosion. Commander Jacobs broke radio silence to report to the Asiatic Fleet Submarine Command. He had fired 13 torpedoes in six different attacks.65 He had deactivated the Mark 6 magnetic exploder. He had adjusted the torpedoes’ depth setting. Even so, he had recorded no hits.
These results led Commander Jacobs to question the reliability of not just the Mark 6 magnetic exploder, but the Mark 14 torpedo itself.66
Although the fall of the Philippines may have been inevitable, the destruction of the Far East Air Force had made it almost effortless, at least for Japanese air assets. With no fighters to oppose them, Japanese bombers appeared over Manila every day at noon. “You could set your watch by them,” remarked Captain Wilkes.67
The destruction of the Far East Air Force had also stretched the US Asiatic Fleet to breaking point. Admiral Hart had counted on General MacArthur’s B-17s to provide reconnaissance information for submarine attacks, but now Hart had to use his own PBY Catalina flying boats – slow, unarmored aircraft – to provide that information, invariably without fighter escort, usually in skies controlled by the Japanese. Worse, owing to the loss of MacArthur’s B-17s, Hart’s PBYs now had to be used for suicidal bombing attacks. They had indeed been designed for bomb and even torpedo attacks, but not in contested skies, and now the flying boats were derided as “flying coffins.”68 The plight of the Catalina’s flight crews was best summarized by a message, made famous in a later battle and said to be from a PBY on reconnaissance duty: HAVE SIGHTED ENEMY PLANES … PLEASE NOTIFY NEXT OF KIN.69
Through all this – the complete destruction of their base and the continued bombing – Admiral Hart tried to keep the Asiatic Fleet operating in some semblance of support for the defense of the Philippines. Missions continued as usual as far as possible; Catalinas were sent on reconnaissance missions; submarines were sent on war patrols; even the battered destroyer Peary, having gotten some emergency repairs and a new commander in Lieutenant Commander John M. Bermingham, was sent out for her first war mission, an antisubmarine patrol between Luzon and the Philippine island of Mindoro.70
But almost nothing went according to plan. The Japanese had landed at Legaspi on December 11. Some of the Far East Air Force’s few remaining B-17s bombed the invasion convoy to little effect while submarines achieved little in the way of results. On December 12, seven of Patrol Wing 10’s Catalinas operating out of Olangapo were sent up to attack a force of Japanese warships reported off Subic Bay. The report was false, which left Admiral Hart outraged – and understandably so.71 Nine Zeros of the Tainan Air Group, led by Lieutenant Seto Masuzo, found the seven sitting in a line in the waters of Subic Bay refueling. The Catalinas tried to fight back with their machine guns, but their tracers were observed bouncing off the Zeros – the practice ammunition they had been issued had little piercing power.72 All seven were destroyed on the water. An hour later, three Zeros of the 3rd Air Group made another strafing attack.73 The Catalinas were so shot up – ten out of the original 28 flying boats were now gone – that Hart ordered their withdrawal the next day.74
But the worst performance seemed to be that of General Douglas MacArthur. Whereas before the war he had shown no interest in the affairs of the Asiatic Fleet and had even denigrated its status as a fleet, now he wanted to know every day what Admiral Hart was doing to defend the Philippines. Nothing was ever enough. Lack of numbers or air cover meant nothing to him. The disaster taking place before his eyes required a scapegoat and MacArthur would make sure that scapegoat was Admiral Thomas C. Hart. Well aware of this Hart opined, “[MacArthur] is inclined to cut my throat and perhaps [that] of the Navy in general.”75 The general’s messages back to Washington continually referenced Hart’s “inactivity.”76 As the Philippine situation got worse, so did MacArthur.
The general had two major complaints. One was the almost total ineffectiveness of US Navy submarines in opposing the Japanese landing convoys. It was a legitimate complaint, to which Admiral Hart, just as frustrated as MacArthur with the submarines, had no answer. Only slowly were Hart and his crews coming to recognize the problems with the Mark 14 torpedo and Mark 6 magnetic exploder.77
The second, greater complaint was centered on Convoy No. 4002, which consisted of eight transports and freighters escorted by the heavy cruiser USS Pensacola, and therefore known as the Pensacola Convoy. This convoy, originally intended to reinforce MacArthur’s forces, carried the ground crews of the 7th Bombardment Group and other air combat and service personnel with a total of 4,690 officers and men; 18 P-40 Warhawks intended for the 34th Pursuit Squadron to replace its obsolete P-35s; 52 disassembled A-24 Banshee dive bombers for the 27th Bombardment Group (Light); artillery, machine guns, and large supplies of aviation fuel and ammunition.78 This convoy had originally been intended to reinforce MacArthur’s forces.
Though the Pensacola Convoy had left Honolulu for Manila on November 29, two days after the “war warning” of November 27, the transports and freighters had not had their defenses augmented, nor had their cargo been loaded with thought of immediate usage or fast unloading. When word of the Pearl Harbor attack came, Washington became anxious for the safety of the convoy and its valuable supplies – and was not exactly sure what to do with it. Between December 7 and December 12, the Pensacola Convoy’s orders were changed six times, which included redirecting the convoy to Sydney, then back to the Philippines, then to Honolulu, then to Brisbane, then back to Honolulu, before finally, by order of President Roosevelt on December 12, sending it back to Brisbane.79
The turn to Brisbane took place against a background of a political tug-of-war between the US Army, as directed by General MacArthur, and the US Navy. Essentially, MacArthur wanted the convoy to push through to the Philippines. Admiral Hart, with what might be termed lukewarm backing from the US Navy, believed that Japanese control of the air meant that any reinforcement efforts by sea were doomed and he did not want to have his few ships committed to a suicide mission. MacArthur termed this Japanese blockade as only a “paper blockade.”80 The general’s belief may have been “delusional” and “out of touch with reality,” as one author described it, but it was fully supported by MacArthur’s superiors in Washington.81 Considering that the US Navy had tried to get the Pensacola Convoy recalled to Honolulu, just getting it directed to Brisbane was a political victory for MacArthur. But the convoy never did reach the Philippines; Washington came to its senses and ultimately directed most of the Pensacola Convoy’s supplies to Australia and the East Indies.
For events had overtaken the convoy. On December 22, the Japanese had made their biggest landing – 43,000 troops of General Homma Masaharu’s 14th Army – at Lingayen Gulf. On December 24, 7,000 more Japanese troops landed at Lamon Bay, southeast of Manila. With the Japanese advancing everywhere, at 9:00 am on December 24, one of MacArthur’s staffers told Admiral Hart that Manila was to be evacuated within 24 hours because it was to be declared an “open city,” meaning that MacArthur would not defend it.82 In a belated accordance with Rainbow 5, he ordered all his army forces on Luzon to abandon Manila and withdraw to the Bataan Peninsula and the islands in Manila Bay. The withdrawal might have been palatable if Manila had been immediately threatened, which it was not, or if Bataan had been stockpiled with supplies in accordance with Rainbow 5, which MacArthur had not done because that would have been “defeatist.”83 Declaration of Manila as an open city meant that it could not be attacked under international law. But the Japanese continued to bomb Manila.
Admiral Hart was furious with the lack of notice, but could do nothing about it. He scrambled to move Asiatic Fleet supplies stored in the city, including most of the submarines’ spare parts and a large stockpile of Mark 14 torpedoes, but found they mostly had to be abandoned.84 Where he personally would go was another question. After consulting with his staff in the Marsman Building, Hart decided to leave the Philippines and head to Soerabaja, in the Netherlands East Indies, where the Asiatic Fleet could regroup. As if to endorse his decision, three Japanese air attacks shook the building.85 The disastrous air situation had already prompted General MacArthur to order General Brereton to head to the Netherlands East Indies and Australia to rebuild the devastated Far East Air Force.86
So, on Christmas morning, Admiral Hart turned over the naval command in the Philippines to Rear Admiral Francis Rockwell, commandant of the 16th Naval District. Rockwell would fight from the island of Corregidor in Manila Bay with a few PT boats and other small remaining naval assets. The submarines were to stay and fight as long as possible, then join the rest of the Asiatic Fleet at Soerabaja.87
Admiral Hart had planned for his withdrawal, and had ordered two PBY Catalina flying boats reserved in Laguna de Bay so that he and his staff could use them. Things were getting worse by the hour. Hong Kong surrendered to the Japanese on Christmas Day, as did the island of Jolo, west of Mindanao. The fall of Jolo threatened Hart’s route of escape; he needed to leave immediately. But just as the Catalinas were uncovered and he was heading for them, so was a Japanese air attack. Both PBYs were strafed and exploded on the water.88
If Admiral Hart wanted to escape the Philippines and continue the war in the Netherlands East Indies, he would have to get creative.