On 9 December Admiral Stark essentially restricted the Pacific Fleet to defense east of the 180th meridian and even questioned its ability to hold Midway, let alone Wake. Capt. Charles H. “Soc” McMorris, head of the Pacific Fleet War Plans Section, acknowledged in a 10 December situation estimate that losing the battleships forced the fleet onto the strategic defensive. He anticipated more enemy raids east of the 180th meridian, with attempts to capture Wake, Midway, and Samoa. Oahu must be held at all costs. Although Admiral Halsey desired all three carriers ferry aircraft from the West Coast to replenish Oahu, McMorris declared that too passive a role. Instead the carriers, soon to be joined by the Yorktown from the Atlantic, would remain in the streamlined task forces, each with three heavy cruisers and a destroyer squadron. They should operate “boldly and vigorously on the tactical offensive in order to retrieve our initial disaster” and regain the initiative “at the earliest possible date.” McMorris completely missed the vital concept of massing carrier air power, if not on the scale that integrated six carriers into one mighty striking force, at least in pairs. He was far from alone. Long after Pearl Harbor nearly all senior U.S. naval aviators, JCLs and pioneers alike, thought of carriers in terms of single units and much preferred to keep them apart instead of risking all their eggs in one basket. In the spring of 1942 the Pacific Fleet fought its way back on top, the crucial difference being that another Cincpac concentrated his carriers at Coral Sea and Midway. McMorris, however, did not care to wait until 1942, but wished to “regain the initiative” immediately by holding onto Wake. That grew almost into an obsession.1
Wake Island was the one bright spot in the doom that threatened to engulf the entire western Pacific. Wake, Midway, Johnston, and Palmyra—four tiny central Pacific atolls located west and southwest of Hawaii—had played an essential role in prewar planning as bases for the far-ranging Consolidated PBY flying boats to detect enemy fleet movements. Midway and Wake proved of particular interest. Wake lay only five hundred to eight hundred miles north of a string of atolls in the Marshalls believed to harbor air bases. Kimmel considered Wake an immediate enemy objective that he must defend not just to deny it to the Japanese, but to profit from its obvious desirability in their eyes. If Wake were strongly held, Japan not only must commit considerable naval strength to take it, but also advance those forces to “where we might be able to get at them.” Kimmel intended to contrive, “by every possible means, to get the Japanese to expose naval units.” Yet that depended “objectives that require such exposure.” A strong Wake would put real teeth into the Marshalls diversions.2
In the late summer of 1941 Wake and Midway gained new strategic importance. In a stunning reversal of previous Pacific strategy, the War Department sought to transform the vast Philippine archipelago into a “self-sustaining fortress capable of blockading the South China Sea by air power.” Gen. George C. Marshall, Army Chief of Staff, and Maj. Gen. Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, Deputy Chief of Staff for Air, staked everything on long-range heavy bombers and daylight precision bombing, the true capabilities of which they terrifically exaggerated. The quickest means to deploy the bombers to the Philippines was to fly them through Oahu, Midway, Wake, Port Moresby in New Guinea, Darwin in northwest Australia, and finally northward to Luzon. By that circuitous route they hoped to ferry upward of seventy Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses and Consolidated B-24 Liberators to the Philippines before the end of 1941, and many more soon after. Only in early 1942 would airfields in the South Pacific be ready for bombers to stage from Oahu to the Philippines without passing over or near Japanese-held territory.3
“Because of the great importance of continuing to reinforce Philippines with long range Army bombers,” Stark ordered Kimmel on 17 October “to take all practical precautions for the safety of airfields at Wake and Midway.” Such representations from Washington were music to Kimmel’s ears, because they accorded with his plans for strengthening both bases to support fleet operations. He expedited preparations to base a dozen flying boats and a dozen land planes (fighters or scout bombers) at distant Wake, as well as increasing its antiaircraft protection. Midway would also receive the ability to support a second squadron of flying boats and eighteen land planes. On 4 December, as previously related, Halsey’s Enterprise delivered twelve marine F4F Wildcats to Wake. “We felt,” Kimmel later testified, “that if we could keep Wake reasonably defended—and I think it was reasonably defended—it would serve as bait to catch detachments of the Japanese, the Japanese fleet coming down there, and we hoped to be able to meet them out there in sufficient force to handle them.”4
Because Wake as yet lacked radar, Cdr. Winfield Scott Cunningham, the island commander, lost two-thirds of his fighters on the first day of the war. Thirty-six medium bombers winging north from the Marshalls caught them on the ground. Early on 11 December (tenth, Hawaiian time), Vice Adm. Inoue Shigeyoshi’s South Seas Force (Mandates Fourth Fleet) unleashed against Wake what historian Edward Miller aptly called a “scruffy” group of a few old light cruisers, destroyers, auxiliaries, and a small landing force under Rear Adm. Kajioka Sadamichi. Marine coastal guns and the few remaining Wildcats sank two destroyers, prevented the invasion, and sent Kajioka packing. Inoue demanded strong reinforcements before trying Wake again. His only option until then was to continue long distance bombing raids. Wake’s heroism won the admiration of the nation. The rout of the attackers refurbished hope that Wake, if reinforced, could still serve as bait to trap and defeat part of the Japanese fleet. It cannot be stressed too strongly that in the days after Pearl Harbor, Kimmel and McMorris remained confident of Wake’s ability to hold out in the short run. McMorris recognized that eventually “a stronger [attack] may be considered a certainty,” but even an incompletely prepared Wake was a tough nut to crack. Besides, the enemy would not return soon with an amphibious force strong enough to overwhelm it. Instead, Wake would face air raids “from shore bases,” with “possible minor landing attempts,” like the one just repulsed.5
The first priority was to give Wake the means to prolong its effective defense. If reinforced, Cunningham should be able to hold out an additional one to three months, long enough for something more permanent to be contrived. On 7 December Rear Adm. Claude C. Bloch, the Fourteenth Naval District commandant, recalled an unescorted transport, the William Ward Burrows, plodding toward Wake at 8.5 knots while towing a barge. It was particularly unfortunate the William Ward Burrows had not left Pearl prior to 29 November, for she carried, along with supplies and munitions, the SCR-270 air search radar and three SCR-268 fire control radars that Wake desperately needed. Cdr. Ross A. Dierdorff only learned of the recall order on the morning of 9 December (Z-12 time; that is, Greenwich Central Time [GCT] minus twelve hours), after a routine retransmission. When he turned back he was only 425 miles east of Wake. On the evening of the tenth, hearing of Wake’s troubles, Dierdorff offered to cast loose the barge, reverse course, and reach Wake during the night of 12–13 December. He thought he could evacuate about three hundred men and still get away by the next dawn. “If proposal will help the situation,” he radioed Bloch, “am willing to make the attempt.” Bloch testily told Dierdorff to follow orders to withdraw and to maintain radio silence. Dierdorff might have got to Wake a day and a half after the abortive invasion had Cincpac wanted to take the risk. Kimmel, however, had in mind sending much more than just the William Ward Burrows to Wake.6
As a precaution in case the Japanese tried to reprise their Sunday punch, Kimmel endeavored to keep his own flattops away at sea. The Enterprise in Halsey’s TF-8 entered Pearl after dark on 8 December and only partially refueled before sailing prior to dawn with an air group weakened from losses on the seventh. Kimmel then shifted Halsey north of Oahu as a covering force and promptly ignored him. At the same time TF-12 with the Lexington patrolled west of Pearl under Admiral Brown, who joined Newton and Fletcher on 8 December. Kimmel desired Brown to keep close to Oahu, but not in Pearl. Therefore he dispatched the Neosho, his only available fast oiler, and nine destroyers to refuel TF-12 on the morning of 11 December about two hundred miles southwest of Oahu. The Lexington freed up her deck by releasing the marine scout bombers back to Oahu. (They later flew on their own to Midway.) Cincpac directed Brown, once he completed fueling on the eleventh, to detach the Astoria (with Fletcher) and the five original TF-12 destroyers to bring the Neosho safely back to Pearl. Kimmel wanted Brown’s force ready for a special mission, but to have Fletcher available for another task.7
On 10 December McMorris roughed out a plan for the relief of Wake by Brown’s TF-12. After loading marines and ammunition at Pearl, the new seaplane tender Tangier, escorted by two destroyers, could join TF-12 about 13 December. After fueling, Brown would release the oiler and depart for Wake, gathering the William Ward Burrows along the way. After reinforcing Wake and embarking such civilian workers “as may be found expedient without undue exposure of this force,” Brown was to fall back and cover a similar bolstering of Midway. Other forces would succor Johnston and Palmyra islands. McMorris’s draft operations order (Op-Ord) vaguely declared “if enemy contact is made during any of foregoing operations take offensive action against them and give such instructions to vessels being covered as your judgment dictates.” That was certainly no specific blueprint for battle. At that point any plans for the Wake relief were strictly hypothetical. McMorris made no provision for delivering the additional fighters that Wake desperately needed, unless the Lexington left most of her own fighters. Equally important, Brown was not to take the oiler along. Halsey’s TF-8 went near Wake without an oiler, but only briefly to deliver planes and certainly not to linger or fight.8
On the morning of 11 December Brown met the Neosho and started fueling. Nothing, however, went as expected. Although the sea was not especially rough, a heavy swell and moderate northeasterly wind prevented proper connection. “Had counted on fueling carrier and destroyers today,” Brown explained, but “due to high seas which kept the deck of Neosho awash, found it to be impossible.” Kimmel instructed him to proceed northwest in the direction of Midway while waiting for the weather to moderate. “Since then,” Cdr. Laurence A. Abercrombie, one of the destroyer leaders, later explained, “we have fueled a good many times in weather a lot worse than that, but we couldn’t make it jell that day.” Underway refueling would prove an unforeseen, but fortunately brief, weakness for the Pacific Fleet. Japan’s dramatically demonstrated ability in that regard amazed the U.S. admirals, who wondered how the carrier force managed to fuel while traversing the vast and tempestuous North Pacific. Early on the twelfth Cincpac ordered Brown to attempt recovery of a downed PBY flying boat southwest of Oahu. Fletcher left on this errand with the Astoria and destroyer Drayton. Brown tried once more to draw oil from the Neosho, but similar conditions produced similar results. That afternoon a false alarm of sub torpedoes caused the Chicago to break all fuel connections while maneuvering clear of the oiler. She was the only ship to get any oil. Running out of spare fuel hoses, Brown had to radio Pearl, “Damaged gear prevents further fueling today.” That failure forced an exasperated Kimmel to recall TF-12 to enter Pearl on the afternoon of 13 December.9
Cincpac in fact had much else on his plate other than Wake. On 11 December Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox arrived at Pearl as the president’s personal emissary to investigate the surprise attack and, frankly, to size up Kimmel. Nothing he saw reassured him. Understandably Kimmel and his fellow officers appeared quite shaken by events. Capt. Frank E. Beatty, Knox’s naval aide, described how “the shock effect of the attack” adversely affected them in proportion to their “authority and responsibility.” Admiral Kinkaid, Kimmel’s brother-in-law and Fletcher’s prospective relief, flew into Oahu on the twelfth and graphically described the scene: “If I had been shocked by the sight of Pearl Harbor from the air I was doubly shocked by the appearance of the members of Cincpac’s staff and of the senior officers of the Fleet whom I saw at Headquarters. Each of them looked as though he had not had a wink of sleep in the five days which had elapsed since the Japanese attack. All were in a defiant mood but at the moment none could produce a concrete plan as to how we would ‘get those——.’”
Defiance was one thing, but this crucial juncture demanded clear thinking. During the first meeting between Knox and Kimmel, McMorris urged the relief of Wake despite Stark’s declared desire to restrict fleet defense to Midway and eastward. The next day McMorris barged uninvited into another conference to plead his case and perhaps stiffen Kimmel’s resolve. His presumptuous persistence paid off. By the time Knox departed on the evening of 12 December, Kimmel finally determined to relieve Wake. He congratulated Cunningham’s “splendid work” and told him to “conserve ammunition until arrival replenishments about to be forwarded.”10
Once Knox left, the staff got down to detailed planning for the relief, but the confused interval between 10 and 12 December undermined much of their original calculations. Amazingly, no one thought to tell Cdr. Clifton A. F. Sprague, the Tangier’s captain, to prepare for the new mission. He needed to remove the normal load of bombs and torpedoes to make the room for marine personnel and cargo. That process only began the evening of 12 December, meaning the Tangier could not sail before the afternoon of the fourteenth. At noon on the thirteenth, two hundred marines from Col. Harold S. Fassett’s 4th Defense Battalion started hauling their gear on board. Lacking artillery, they were little more than a gesture, “a mixed bag.” Wake needed constant reinforcements to survive. The William Ward Burrows was no longer in the picture after Bloch diverted her on 13 December southeast to Johnston Island. In turn Brown went nowhere except back to Pearl in order to fuel. Kimmel postponed Fitch’s arrival with the Saratoga to not risk two carriers in port at the same time. McMorris welcomed the delay to allow the fourteen Brewster F2A-3 Buffalo fighters of VMF-221 to shift from the Sara to the Lexington and eventually join VMF-211 on Wake. On the morning of 14 December the Saratoga would be near enough to stage the marine fighters to Ford Island to be hoisted on board the Lex. Thus Kimmel could expect Brown to leave for Wake on the evening of 14 December and probably have the Tangier there on 21 December, Wake local time—20 December in Hawaii. Whether that would be in time was another matter.11
McMorris gauged the principal danger to the Wake relief to be land-based bombers and flying boats from island airfields poised south and southeast of Wake. The arcs of their estimated search radii of seven hundred miles extended north and northeast at least two hundred miles beyond Wake. They also overlapped the last five hundred miles of the direct route from Oahu. Wake’s dwindling fighter strength battled almost daily raids by unescorted medium bombers. To McMorris they posed relatively little danger to a mobile carrier covering force. They must locate it at a vast distance from their base and force their way through its own fighters. However, the Tangier and her antisubmarine escorts, when pinned down indefinitely at Wake, would be vulnerable. McMorris remembered the atoll’s renowned difficulty in handling ships. No channel existed into the inner lagoon. Ships had to stand in the open sea and transfer cargo into boats and barges. Under ideal conditions unloading might be accomplished in two days, but seven to eight days was not unusual if seas were rough. McMorris recalled that rugged weather stretched one ship’s unloading to twenty-eight days. Bloch actually proposed to Cunningham that the construction crew continue dredging the ship channel in the midst of the siege, yet another indication of the unrealistic attitude of some at Pearl. Later he relented and told Wake to cease all dredging to conserve fuel.12
Thus McMorris worried the Tangier, even with carrier protection, would face “considerable danger” from shore-based air attack while unloading. The obvious solution was for those enemy bombers to be somewhere else, and the answer was a powerful diversion. On 13 December McMorris dusted off his Marshalls “Reconnaissance and Raiding Plan,” which had been part of his two prewar 1941 fleet plans, WPUSF-44 and WPPac-46. The final version had called for simultaneous, widely separated carrier raids against the northern and southern Marshalls. One carrier group, approaching from the direction of Wake, was to strike the northern bases; the second, after executing a wide detour southeast through the British Gilbert Islands, would hit Jaluit atoll in the southern Marshalls. Now McMorris proposed that Brown’s Lexington task force strike Jaluit one day before the actual relief force was to arrive off Wake, 850 miles north. That attack would draw off land-based air strength far to the southeast and open, at least briefly, the door to Wake. The Jaluit raid might also deter the forces that just seized Makin and Tarawa in the Gilberts. The Lexington was to make only one strike, then at once withdraw to Pearl. Kimmel adopted the plan. “Extensive unloading of men and materiel from ships at Wake in the face of any enemy operation would be impossible.” Therefore in place of the Lex, the Saratoga would go to Wake. She, too, must refuel at Pearl, but could sail on the fifteenth, one day after Brown. Unfortunately the Enterprise could not participate. Kimmel had not bothered to recall Halsey from his make-work patrol north of Oahu in time to return to Pearl for fuel and supplies.13
The absence of the Enterprise to beef up the Wake relief did not deter McMorris. Having assumed only the weak Mandates (Fourth) Fleet, with a few light cruisers and destroyers, threatened Wake, he completely dismissed the danger of carrier opposition. The proposed relief force would be “ample to deal with such surface craft as might reasonably be expected there,” making the chances for success at Wake “excellent.” Kimmel obviously concurred. Had he foreseen or even desired a major battle, he would have put Admiral Pye, his senior and most trusted battle commander, in charge. Nor would he have had Brown’s TF-11 merely raid Jaluit once and retire. In 1951 Vice Adm. Vincent R. Murphy, one of McMorris’s war planners in December 1941, recalled that the Wake operation “was conceived as a pure relief expedition,” with “never any thought that we might seek an opportunity to engage any important part of the Jap fleet. In fact, this was the last thing we were looking for.” Yet that is diametrically different from the way the Wake relief came to be portrayed well after the fact.14
McMorris was correct that as of that date no Japanese carriers had been committed against Wake, but his thinking and Kimmel’s betray an astonishing blindness. No less shell-shocked by the Sunday surprise than their seniors, Cdr. Joseph J. Rochefort of the Fourteenth Naval District’s Combat Intelligence Unit (“Hypo”) and Lt. Cdr. Edwin T. Layton, the Cincpac intelligence officer, cautiously deduced enemy strength and location from fragmentary radio intercepts, traffic analysis of a few extracted unit call signs, and captured documents. They agreed that six carriers had participated in the Hawaiian operation. Ignoring the firsthand evidence of the devastating effectiveness and mobility of the Japanese carrier force at Pearl Harbor, Kimmel and McMorris blithely assumed that all six carriers would just slink off somewhere and conveniently not bother the central Pacific until after the Pacific Fleet reinforced Wake.15 Instead, McMorris’s 13 December brainstorm threw off the whole schedule for the Wake relief and placed significant forces in terrible danger.
On the morning of 14 December Brown briefly conferred with Kimmel and learned that he would sail that afternoon with a task force renumbered TF-11. He would have the heavy cruisers Indianapolis (his flagship), Chicago (Newton’s flagship), Portland, the Lexington (with sixty-eight aircraft), nine destroyers, and fleet oiler Neosho. The fleet was taking “the offensive.” Getting reinforcements to Wake was to be “our main effort for the moment,” with the ultimate goal to inflict “as much damage as possible on the Japanese naval forces supporting the [Wake] attack.” Cincpac’s Operation-Order 40–41 to Brown defined “D-Day,” during which the relief force was to reach Wake, as the twenty-four-hour period that would begin at 0000, 22 December, Hawaiian local time (Z+10.5). According to Wake and Jaluit local time (Z-11), that translated to late evening (2130) on 22 December. In turn Brown was to attack Jaluit “as near to local daylight D minus one day as practicable,” that is, at dawn on 22 December, Jaluit time, and one day before the relief force was to reach Wake. TF-11 was to execute only one air strike, then withdraw directly to Pearl. That single gesture, Brown was assured, would “draw the Japanese Navy to the southward, while [the Wake relief] arrived the next day.”16
Vice Adm. Wilson Brown had the Scouting Force since February 1941, following three years as superintendent of the Naval Academy. A 1902 Annapolis graduate, he was an intelligent paragon of old school formality, as evidenced by his duty as naval aide for presidents Coolidge, Hoover, Roosevelt, and Truman. A few months shy of his fifty-ninth birthday, the wan, thin, and frail Brown looked every bit of his age and more. A slight head tremor caused young officers to dub him “Shaky,” and his stamina was in doubt. The upcoming Jaluit operation was not for the faint of heart. Cincpac lacked detailed information on enemy strength in the mysterious Marshalls, but according to Brown “it was believed to be quite powerful.” That was a dramatic difference from the Cincpac chart maneuver in the summer and fall of 1941 to play the opening scenario of WPPac-46. Then Halsey’s Enterprise task group had simulated the ransacking of northern Marshalls, while Admiral Leary’s Lexington took care of Jaluit. Now Brown with only one carrier would simply knock on the door not knowing who was home. According to an admittedly cautious Brown, Kimmel seemed “reluctant to risk further naval casualties at this time,” and “appears to have consented to the proposed attack only because of the urgent need for the immediate relief of Wake.” Thus to the disgust of the vehement McMorris and the Lex’s Capt. Frederick C. “Ted” Sherman, he readily assented to Brown’s request for discretion to switch targets, or not to attack at all. Perhaps McMorris accepted the risk of widely separating the carrier task forces because it offered at least some opportunity for face-saving offensive action, instead of simply staying on defense. In fairness it must be said other senior officers also judged a foray into the Mandates to be a fine idea. Pye later described himself as its “strongest advocate,” but he soon changed his mind.17
It is interesting to consider what might have been the impact on Stark, Kimmel, Pye, and McMorris had the Kidō Butai gone forward with another raid that Nagumo seriously contemplated. Two destroyers shelled Midway on the night of 7 December to prevent its search planes from harassing the carriers on their way out. As a contingency, Nagumo could also bomb Midway should the attack on Pearl Harbor be particularly successful, or if fuel ran low and he could not risk detouring around it. In either event the 5th Carrier Division (Shōkaku and Zuikaku) was to hit Midway on 9 December, local time. Furthermore, on 9 December (8 December, local time), Yamamoto ordered Nagumo to pummel Midway, “so as to make the further use of it impossible,” but also gave him discretion not to attack if he thought it was impractical. Braving high winds and heavy seas, Nagumo refused to unleash his aerial might against such an insignificant target, a useless “tiny island” according his chief of staff Rear Adm. Kusaka Ryūnosuke. The high command, Kusaka complained, “didn’t know the way to treat heroes.” The Kidō Butai had virtually won the war and must be allowed to go home and reap the reward. Citing horrible weather that hindered refueling, Nagumo managed to delay, and ultimately on 15 December (14 December in Hawaii) cancel the Midway strike. Had hundreds of carrier aircraft pounced on Midway between 11 and 15 December, Cincpac’s desire to relieve Wake or venture into the Marshalls would have vanished over fears that Midway, too, was about to be invaded. Washington would almost certainly have insisted any relief expedition sustain Midway instead of the more distant Wake.18
Rear Adm. Wilson Brown, circa 1945.
Courtesy of Naval Historical Center (NH-51561)
Besides grossly dispersing the limited American carrier strength, the Jaluit diversion inflicted two severe handicaps on the Wake relief. Just to get to Jaluit, twenty-three hundred miles southwest of Pearl, a task force had to count on refueling at least once; the same was true for Wake two thousand miles to the west. The prewar supporting plans always provided an oiler for a carrier group transiting such a long distance. As noted, sea conditions at Wake’s unprotected anchorage made it highly uncertain how long the Tangier had to loiter while requiring carrier air support. That was another powerful reason why a relief force must refuel prior to approaching the atoll. On 14 December Kimmel had available only three fleet oilers: the fast Neosho (eighteen knots) and two relics, the fourteen-knot Neches and the ten-knot Ramapo. Only the Neosho was properly equipped and trained for underway refueling. The schedule required for the new diversion plan compelled Brown to take the Neosho. It was to be as serious a detriment as failing to concentrate the carriers. The Wake relief force had to make do with the elderly Neches, commissioned in 1921 and possessing half the capacity and a fueling rig less capable than the modern Cimarron-class fleet oilers. Although rated at fourteen knots, thirteen was the best anyone thought the Neches could do these days. The Tangier herself could make 16.5 knots, and the combatants, of course, much more, but prior to refueling, the Wake relief expedition could only steam as fast as the Neches. The nominal difference of two knots between the Neches and a normal speed of advance (fifteen knots) meant forty-eight fewer miles per day out to the refueling point. Moreover just switching the Saratoga for the Lexington and the Neches for the Neosho would postpone for one day the departure of the relief force. No one at Pearl comprehended how critical these delays would prove.19
The morning of 14 December Fitch sent most of the Saratoga Air Group and VMF-221 to Pearl and made ready to enter himself. Then a sub scare in the harbor itself resulted in “conflicting orders,” the upshot of which postponed Fitch’s arrival until 0900 on the fifteenth. That, of course, set back by still another day the Sara’s departure for Wake, although the slower elements of the relief force could go on ahead. On the afternoon of the fourteenth the Saratoga re-embarked most of her air group to remain combat-ready and proceeded southwest of Oahu, passing Brown on his way out to sea. That evening Fitch learned the Saratoga was critically low on fuel, and that water improperly used as ballast had adulterated the oil remaining in some of the tanks. Only after some anxious moments did her engineers extract just enough fuel oil and diesel oil (used to power emergency generators) to reach port. Coming into Pearl the next morning the Sara ran out of usable fuel. As her last two working boilers lost fuel suction, she gratefully moored at Ford Island. Orders awaited Fitch to refuel and load without delay. The VMF-221 ground echelon hastily boarded the Tangier just before she sailed, while the Sara hoisted the fourteen marine fighters back on board. The last piece necessary for the Wake relief expedition finally seemed in place.20
On 15 December, the same day the Saratoga finally reached Pearl, Kimmel placed Fletcher in charge of Task Force 14, the Wake relief force, of one carrier (eighty-one aircraft including VMF-221), three heavy cruisers, nine destroyers, one seaplane tender, and one fleet oiler. Fletcher would run TF-14 from the Astoria. His flag secretary, Lt. Cdr. Samuel E. Latimer (USNA 1924), came with him in 1939 from the Bureau of Navigation. He was also intelligence officer. Tall, debonair Lt. Harry Smith (USNA 1930) was flag lieutenant, handling the admiral’s signals and doubling as operations officer. The staff radio officer was Lt. Leland G. Shaffer (USNA 1931). Lt. Cdr. Myron T. Evans, commanding officer of Cruiser Scouting Squadron Six (VCS-6), also served as the staff aviation officer. The Crudiv Six enlisted flag allowance numbered twenty-two bluejackets (yeomen, signalmen, radiomen, cooks, and stewards) and six marines.21
It is not known when Kimmel actually brought Fletcher into the picture as prospective Commander, Task Force 14 (CTF-14). The revised Cincpac Op-Ord 39–41 for TF-14 is dated 0900, 15 December, but Fletcher did not get it, or the one previously issued to Brown (Op-Ord 40–41), until that afternoon. In the meantime someone on the Cincpac staff finally realized that taking the sluggish Neches did not permit TF-14 to reach Wake as originally scheduled. Thus the revised Op-Ord 39–41 postponed D-Day for twenty-four hours, resetting its start to 0000, 23 December, Hawaiian local time (2130, 23 December, at Wake). That deferred the Tangier’s arrival to during daylight on 24 December (Wake time). The Tangier and Neches, the slowest ships, were to sail the evening of the fifteenth; the rest of TF-14 the next day. Four destroyers under Capt. Harvey E. Overesch, Commander, Destroyer Squadron (Comdesron) Five, would escort the two auxiliaries to Point Jig, four hundred miles southwest of Oahu, where Fletcher would catch up on the seventeenth. On the evening of 15 December Kimmel radioed the change in schedule to Brown and delayed his Jaluit attack by one day to the dawn of 23 December, Jaluit local time. Thus after subtracting the day lost crossing the date line to westward, Fletcher received a week to cover the two thousand miles to Wake. Once he gathered the Tangier and Neches at Point Jig, he could only count on thirteen knots—the speed of the Neches—until he refueled and detached the oiler. Kimmel also arranged for the Drayton to conduct a radio deception mission from 16 to 18 December to mimic a carrier task force loitering three to four hundred miles southwest of Hawaii.22
Cruiser Division Six staff, 1941. Seated: Admiral Fletcher, Lt. Cdr. Samuel E. Latimer. Standing (left to right): Lt. Leland G. Shaffer, Lt. Harry Smith, Lt. Cdr. Myron T. Evans.
Courtesy of Cdr. Samuel E. Latimer Jr.
Two hours after the slowpokes sailed, Fletcher and Kinkaid greeted Fitch and Capt. Cornelius W. Flynn (Comdesron Four) in the Astoria to hammer out the details of the Wake relief. Fitch and Fletcher were close friends. It rankled Fitch not to lead TF-14, but he never held it against Fletcher. Following the Cincpac operations order, Fletcher divided TF-14 into two task groups: TG-14.1, the escort, led by Fitch, and TG-14.2, the train, under Sprague. The basic assumption was the island would not fall prior to the arrival of TF-14. Thus the objective was to see the Tangier safely to Wake, whereupon Sprague would land additional marines, radar, ammunition, and supplies to last the garrison at least another month. The Tangier would also take off the wounded and 650 civilian workers, although many more were actually there. That process was expected to take at least two days even if the weather cooperated, perhaps considerably more if it did not. Fitch was to fly VMF-221 to the airstrip on Wake at the earliest opportunity. Although the operations order did not mention total evacuation, Kimmel wisely reserved that option. In one day the Tangier could simply embark all personnel after demolishing the installations—if the weather and the Japanese permitted. Kimmel declared later that he had intended to wait until the Tangier arrived before deciding whether to remove the garrison. His main source of information was Cunningham’s daily radio report. The task force commanders also monitored these messages, which Kimmel in turn rebroadcast with additional comments.23
The route that Kimmel and McMorris optimistically dictated to TF-14 followed the direct line from Oahu to Wake, rather than the course ninety to a hundred miles farther north that Halsey took just before the war to avoid search planes. Thus Fletcher could expect to encounter enemy searchers when slightly more than five hundred miles from Wake. A more northerly, but longer, approach like Halsey’s would have reduced that risk by three hundred miles. Aside from subs that could appear at any time, Kimmel and McMorris pegged aircraft based in the northern Marshalls as Fletcher’s main opposition. Wake reported upward of forty medium bombers that attacked almost daily. Cincpac intelligence remained vague as to exactly where they and the wider-ranging flying boats originated. Rongelap, 475 miles south of Wake, was the most likely site, but other suspected bases included Eniwetok (520 miles southwest) and Kwajalein (620 miles south). Wotje, located 170 miles east of Kwajalein, might also have an airfield. In fact the medium bombers in the Marshalls flew only out of Roi in Kwajalein atoll. The Chitose Air Group, part of the 24th Air Flotilla, numbered thirty-four Mitsubishi G3M2 Type 96 “land attack planes” (later code-named Nell). Rongelap and Eniwetok were not even garrisoned. The Yokohama Air Group comprised thirty-two Kawanishi H6K4 Type 97 four-engine flying boats (code-named Mavis) split among Roi, Wotje, and Jaluit. On 14 December, following the seizure of the Gilberts, three flying boats advanced to Makin, a movement U.S. radio intelligence detected that very day but greatly exaggerated.24
Cincpac’s Op-Ord 39–41 to Fletcher simply stated: “Fuel from Oiler at discretion.” On 16 December, though, the “Greybook” (Cincpac War Plans Section war diary) stated that both Brown and Fletcher were to refuel “before beginning active operations,” that is, before the risk of being sighted. For Fletcher later was better. He had no idea how long the Tangier must loiter off Wake and how much oil his thirsty ships would expend in the interval. Fuel certainly troubled him. After the first Cincpac conference on the fifteenth, he summoned Lt. Cdr. John D. Hayes, the Astoria’s engineer officer, to discuss her radius of action. Hayes flatly avowed that despite the endurance figures cooked up by the War Plans Section, the New Orleans—class heavy cruisers could not go to Wake and back without refueling. Fletcher’s questioning of Hayes stemmed from a crisis brewing in the Cincpac staff. Reports since 7 December showed what Kimmel called “excessive and alarming rates of fuel consumption.” In some cases cruising radius was half of what was anticipated. Kimmel called it “a matter of the gravest concern.” Indeed the logistical planning that underpinned the vast fleet movements in WPPac-46 seemed in jeopardy. Kimmel blamed “engineering performance” and chided force commanders and captains to be “careful in calling for speed, boiler power and reserve requirements.” He was wrong. The theoretical steaming estimates were seriously flawed, and the economies and tricks engineers used in peacetime to win fuel conservation awards availed little during wartime. Just maintaining readiness to go to full power in an emergency consumed considerable oil. Fuel would be a major liability in the upcoming Jaluit and Wake operations.25
With all of the subsequent changes in plan, it is difficult to reconstruct the original TF-14 timetable. It appears that Fletcher intended to start fueling at dawn on 22 December (D-2 Day), Wake time, when about five hundred miles east of Wake and near the edge of the enemy’s air search. Fueling would take the daylight hours, which meant little if any progress toward Wake or even a loss of distance. With an overnight run, though, he could anticipate closing within four hundred miles of Wake by dawn on 23 December (D-1 Day) and resume fueling if necessary. That day TF-14 would be well within enemy air search range of Rongelap and Wotje, risking detection and a bomber attack that early afternoon. Once fueling was completed the Neches and a destroyer would leave for Pearl, while the rest of TF-14 started for Wake at fifteen knots. Upon reaching Point Love (150 miles east of Wake) perhaps an hour prior to sunrise on 24 December (D-Day), the Saratoga would launch the fourteen marine fighters and also, presumably at Fitch’s suggestion, one of her two dive bombing squadrons with eighteen SBDs. These aircraft would land at Wake shortly after dawn. At the same time Flynn, with the Tangier and four destroyers was to advance from Point Love, arrive at Wake that afternoon, and begin unloading. The Wake-based planes would cover his approach. In the meantime Fletcher would leave for Point Roger (one hundred miles north of Wake), from where he could provide air support at a slight hazard of air strikes from distant Rongelap. That he planned to base half his dive bombers at Wake during the Tangier’s approach and sojourn offers more dramatic evidence that no one expected real trouble, certainly no carrier battle. Their absence would greatly reduce the Saratoga’s own attack strength, because her remaining SBDs must also fly routine searches. After the Tangier completed her task (however many days that took), the SBD squadron would rejoin the Sara at Point Roger. Afterward TF-14 was to reassemble either at Point Love or eastward and return to Pearl.
Sources confirm this scenario. TF-14 Op-Ord 1–41, issued on 19 December, provides the basic sequence, but it lacked specific times because everything depended on how long the refueling would actually take. In 1948 Fletcher recalled that he was to be at Wake beginning at 0700 on a particular day. Likely that was when the first element, VMF-221, would land there. On 17 December Pearl informed Cunningham that the Tangier would arrive during daylight on the twenty-fourth, but cautioned “this is subject to change.” VMF-221, though, might show up “prior to that time.” Cincpac Op-Ord 42–41, issued on 18 December to Halsey, placed the Tangier at Wake “beginning D-Day probably after local noon [24 December].” If the fueling worked out well, however, Fletcher might be ahead of schedule, and could send VMF-221 and the SBDs on the twenty-third.26
Kimmel directed TG-14.1 to sail at 1000, 16 December, and overtake the Neches and Tangier the following morning at Point Jig. Fletcher departed on schedule with the cruisers and destroyers, but at the last minute Fitch reluctantly requested a delay. The Saratoga simply lacked time to prepare. Despite having the Ramapo alongside pumping for twenty-four hours, she only fueled to roughly 83 percent of full capacity (in terms of usable fuel—radius oil—about 80 percent). Part of the delay was due to having to purge seawater out of some of the fuel tanks.27 The failure to fuel near to capacity was a serious deficiency, given her propensity to burn oil at a vast rate. Nor was all of her ammunition loaded on board. At noon Fitch’s patience came to an end. If he waited any longer, he must waste oil on a highspeed run to reach Jig on time. Accosting Capt. Archibald H. Douglas on the flight deck, he gave the order in “appropriately peremptory fashion” to get under way immediately.28 Once the Sara was clear of the harbor, five destroyers considerately provided by Fletcher slipped into antisubmarine formation to see her safely to the rendezvous. Fitch steamed at twenty knots and, like Fletcher, arrived on the seventeenth at Jig without incident. At noon Fletcher released Overesch’s four destroyers to return to Pearl and set course due west toward Wake. Although TF-14 optimistically rang up thirteen knots, 12.75 knots was the most that Cdr. William B. Fletcher Jr. (no relation) could coax out of the Neches’s tired power plant. At least that snail’s pace conserved oil.
