Clash of The Carriers

AT 1100 CARDIV TWO BEGAN launching sixty-four planes: twenty-seven Vals and nine Judys plus ten Zero bombers and eighteen escorts. CarDiv One’s contribution was fourteen Zuikaku fighters (ten Zeroes) and six Jills orphaned from Taiho. It totaled eighty-four aircraft, the second-largest raid of the day. Their target: the errant 15 Ri contact some 120 miles south of Task Force 58.

The scene that morning was not so different from the December launch against Pearl Harbor. The carriers bore into the easterly breeze, steam spouting from a vent in the flight deck forward so helmsmen on the bridge could hold the wind straight down the deck. From catwalks and islands, sailors waved their summer-weight caps in wide circles, cheering each imperial aviator on his takeoff run. Based on what little they had heard so far, they believed they were winning the battle.

The pilots ran up their engines to max rpm, then released the brakes and were on their way. With seats elevated for better visibility, the planes launched in turn: the simple elegance of the Zeroes; archaic fixed gear on the Vals; the rakish tails of the Jills; gaping radiators for the Judys’ big liquid-cooled engines.

Lieutenant Zenji Abe led the bomber division from CarDiv Two, composed of his own Junyo squadron plus Hiyo’s and Ryuho’s. He sent three Val squadrons ahead, under Lieutenant Miyauchi, then followed with his nine faster Suiseis and six Zeroes.

En route to the rendezvous, Abe grew increasingly nervous. He felt rusty after forty days out of the cockpit, “as if I were flying with another pilot’s plane.” Additionally, aborts plagued his formation: Two element leaders reversed course, unable to retract their landing gear. Then a Zero developed engine trouble and turned back. Abe pressed on, cruising at eighteen thousand feet.

An hour outbound, Abe shifted in his seat, turning his head to check the formation. Another dive-bomber and three fighters had disappeared. “I really wondered whether they retired . . . due to mechanical trouble or dove into the sea from mental confusion.”

Reaching the expected intercept point sixty miles southwest of Guam, Zenji Abe found only open sea. He wanted a look beneath the clouds, so he retarded the throttle and put his Judy’s pointed nose down. Emerging into the clear at twelve thousand feet, he found no target. He climbed back into formation, running the time-distance equation in his head. Standing orders were to attack the Americans, refuel on Guam, and return to the ship. Yet, with U.S. Marines offshore, each Mobile Fleet aviator knew better: Abe said, “Every Navy pilot understood that the instruction meant ‘land on the enemy’s base.’ ”

With fuel dwindling, Abe had little time to conduct his own search. It was almost a mirror image of Lieutenant Commander Wade McClusky’s dilemma two Junes previously, off Midway. Reaching the expected contact point, the Enterprise CAG found only empty ocean, so he began a methodical box search. His reasoning was perfect, leading him to Kido Butai—and the turning point of the war.

But Raid IV had no such luck. After searching fruitlessly, the squadrons split up. Zuikaku’s eighteen planes turned for “Auspicious Crane” while the Air Group 652 squadrons proceeded to Guam and Rota.

Task Force 58 had to be to the north—there was no reason for the Americans to take their carriers south, away from Guam and Saipan. But with reduced forces and diminishing fuel, Zenji Abe turned his Suisei ’s pointed nose toward the northeast, beginning a letdown to Guam.

Abruptly the intercom burst into life. “Sir! Big enemy formation, left forward,” Ensign Nakajima’s voice crackled over the circuit. Looking toward ten o’clock, Abe saw “a whole ring formation of ships was starboarding the helm with distinct white wakes.” He wasted no time: The Grummans would pounce any moment. “Command was given to all aircraft to commence attack; then I myself accelerated immediately.”

It was a bold move: At that point he personally led six Judys and two Zekes toward Task Force 58. Another eight aircraft were nearby but apparently out of sight.

Of course, the Americans saw them coming. At 1320 Monterey made first contact in 58.2, the southern carrier group. Several minutes later Alabama’s sharp-eyed radar watch got a 150-mile contact to the south-southwest; ’Bama consistently made the earliest or longest hits during the day. However, because the bogeys did not come straight in, it was uncertain whether they were friendly or hostile. The IFF transponder that printed three small dots around friendly blips was not always reliable, and its range was variable. Consequently, Air Group 652’s small contingent got an unexpected reprieve. Sixteen Judys and Zekes lived long enough to reach an American carrier group.

The defenders were beset by complications. Since Monterey had the first contact, her controller tried to alert his own VF-28 but could not establish contact. It was one of the few communication failures of the battle, and while it did not lead to serious problems, it showed how important reliable “comm” could be.

Unable to talk to Fighting 28, Monterey’s FDO called Wasp’s VF-14, with no better results. Consequently, even though Monterey had the best radar picture, control of the intercept passed to Wasp. The resulting lapse allowed Abe’s group to close the distance. He was not confirmed as hostile until 1413, barely fifty miles south of Montgomery’s group.

Now events accelerated. With Raid IV distressingly close, more fighters were scrambled. Cabot launched two standby divisions whose Hellcats clawed for altitude.

At 1420—an hour after U.S. radar first “painted” the wandering Japanese—Monterey fighter pilots called the tallyho. But VF-28’s three divisions were out of position, being held as high CAP against the last known enemy altitude—twenty-five thousand feet—while the raid came in at twelve thousand.

Wasp’s fighters had the only shot at Raid IV. Fighting 14 knocked down two Zekes and a Jill, but it was too little, too late. And for some obscure reason, the “Iron Angels” failed to report the bandits’ altitude—information the FDO badly needed.

Two minutes after the intercept, Yokosuka dive-bombers rolled in over 58.2. The first indication to most men was cruiser Mobile’s opening salvo on two Judys. Most ships immediately began maneuvering, complicating Cabot’s emergency scramble. Fighting 31 was still trying to get off the deck when the Japanese appeared at six thousand feet.

Abe picked the nearest large carrier and went for it: probably Bunker Hill on the engaged side of the disposition. He was quickly taken under AA fire, and the volume appalled him: “That was dreadful for me.” Flak knocked down relatively few planes, but it often spoiled an attacker’s aim; so it was with Abe. He dropped his bomb amid jostling concussion from five-inch shells, pulled out, and sped for the edge of the screen.

Air Group 652’s bombing left something to be desired. Bunker Hill plotted three hits between fifty and two hundred yards off the mark, but the ship’s high-speed maneuvering caused problems. A Hellcat parked near the deck edge went over the side with the plane captain in the cockpit. The youngster went for “a wild ride,” but providentially he was rescued.

Meanwhile, Montgomery’s AA gunners were hard at work. One of the Judys that assaulted Bunker Hill survived the torrent of flak over the carriers but crashed beyond the destroyer screen. Cabot’s gunners shot the tail off another. A Judy aimed its bomb at Wasp and followed the ordnance straight into the sea.

Captain Sprague had already demonstrated his ship-handling ability during Raid II. Now, making twenty-two knots, Wasp heeled fifteen degrees to starboard in a port turn, spoiling the tracking of more Judys but not his gunners. They stayed on target and claimed three planes splashed. There was concrete proof of one: It crashed so close that four men of an Oerlikon crew were knocked off their feet by a large piece. They bounced back up and continued tracking and loading.

Wasp was repeatedly near-missed. One bomb threw up a fountain of water that cascaded over the catwalk, drenching several VF-14 personnel. Two more exploded close together about eighty yards off the starboard quarter, and then a phosphorous bomb erupted three hundred feet overhead. The greedy white tendrils looked eerily evil, but only one Wasp sailor was injured from any cause during the attack.

Raid IV was a vivid contrast to the other attacks. It was the main antiaircraft action, as shipboard gunners splashed five, maybe six, versus only three for the fighters.

When the attack was over, blunt-nosed silhouettes met the survivors. Beset by four Hellcats, Zenji Abe shoved everything to the firewall. There was no chance of reaching Guam, let alone returning to Junyo. He made for Rota, landing his shot-up Suisei, immensely grateful for the escape. Wide eyed, he exclaimed, “I never saw so many Grummans!”

Ozawa realized that he needed to open the distance between himself and Mitscher; even if his missing squadrons were safe on Guam, they could not protect him. Therefore, at 1430 he ordered a turn north. Shokaku had just erupted, and Taiho’s survival looked doubtful, leaving A Force with only Zuikaku.

Shortly after 1700 Ozawa shifted his flag to cruiser Haguro, which offered the most immediate accommodations for staff work: an operations room and adequate communications. Zuikaku would have been preferable, but she was just over the horizon at that moment.

Shortly after leaving his flag, Ozawa was trying to make sense of the situation when Haguro experienced a low, rumbling sensation. That was Taiho departing. Rescue efforts were impeded by the terrific heat of her fires, and at least 660 men were blasted, drowned, or incinerated. She capsized to port and went down stern first, taking thirteen planes on the twenty-five-hundred-fathom voyage to the bottom.

Captain Ohmae’s immediate task for his admiral was to restructure secure communications. As fleet flagship, Taiho was the only ship capable of sending and receiving the highest priority code. However, a lower-level flag officers’ code was agreed upon, and eventually Admiral Toyoda learned the grim news.

The scorekeeping began that afternoon. Mitscher knew that his CAPs had badly hurt the Japanese, but he wanted a more specific idea of what he still faced. Around 1530 he asked each task group to report its tally of shoot-downs thus far. As of 1500, totals indicated over two hundred destroyed and a few dozen probables. With CAPs and searches still airborne and others scheduled, Montgomery’s 58.2 reported seventy-eight splashes, led by Cabot’s twenty-six. Clark’s 58.1 tallied over sixty with Hornet and Yorktown’s big bags. Reeves’s 58.3 and Harrill’s 58.4 both had notched fifty-plus, on strength of Lexington and Essex.