The reinforcement of Wake was under way, but soon came under new management. On 15 December, clearly due to Knox’s visit, Stark authorized Kimmel to reinforce Wake and Midway. Kimmel enthusiastically replied with a summary of his plans, including the Jaluit diversion, with which Stark “heartily concurred.” That evening, however, Kimmel saw press reports that stated the navy was being blamed for not being alert at Pearl Harbor and that he was to be investigated. That was why he had listed possible successors in the previously cited letter to Stark. Even so he was crushed the next morning when Washington advised he would soon be relieved of command. It had been a hope beyond hope that he would be permitted to lead his fleet into battle. That afternoon Kimmel forthrightly recommended he be detached at once to clear the decks for his successor, Rear Adm. Chester Nimitz, chief of the Bureau of Navigation. Stark accommodated him. Kimmel never dreamt of the ordeal in store for him after Roosevelt, Stark, Marshall, and the others refused to acknowledge that they, too, never believed Pearl Harbor in peril of a massive surprise attack. They allowed a political firestorm to destroy an honorable man, who should have been allowed to contribute to the enemy’s defeat.1
While Nimitz made his way from Washington, Vice Adm. William Pye, next in seniority, became temporary Cincpac on 17 December. A 1901 Annapolis graduate, sixty-one years old, “short in stature, bushy eyebrowed, thoughtful, quietly efficient,” Pye was regarded as an outstanding thinker and strategist. A former head of the CNO’s War Plans Division, he was an expert on the Pacific theater and also a master tactician never bested in the prewar fleet maneuvers. His classmate and friend Ernest King valued his intelligence but thought he “operated in something of an ivory tower, and was always unable to condense his ideas to reasonable dimensions.” Pye relegated Kimmel’s chief of staff, Capt. William W. “Poco” Smith, to administration and brought his own Battle Force staff officers to serve alongside Cincpac’s staff. The new chief of staff for operations, Rear Adm. Milo F. Draemel (USNA 1906), hitherto senior destroyer flotilla leader in Halsey’s TF-2, was a man much like Pye. Having taught at the Naval War College, Draemel likewise was valued as a strategist and planner. He later remarked he was chosen specifically to rein in Soc McMorris.2
About the time Pye took over, intelligence provided a fresh, if not always accurate, picture of Japanese fleet deployment. On 16 December Stark listed its strength and location based on his own estimates and British data. The main battle fleet (nine battleships, six carriers, a dozen cruisers, and thirty-seven destroyers) was now thought to have deployed south from home waters to Saipan. Its numbers included the force that assaulted Oahu and believed now back with the main body. Two other carriers were in the Philippines. The Mandates (Fourth) Fleet, based at Jaluit, evidently comprised only three light cruisers, nine destroyers, and sixteen subs—in line with McMorris’s optimistic estimate. Commander Rochefort, though, reported that he did not think the commander of the carrier striking force (First Air Fleet) had yet reached the main body, but he could not locate him. Subsequent estimates put the commander in chief of the Combined Fleet in the triangle Bonin Islands–Saipan–Marcus Island, the last only 760 miles northwest of Wake. By 19 December it looked as if carriers and land-based air had reinforced the Marshalls, while Japan tightened its hold on the Gilberts. Pye radioed these vague, conflicting estimates to Brown and Fletcher. Still and all, he reckoned that tough Wake would hold out for the near future despite almost daily air attacks. Although hard-pressed, the atoll appeared in no immediate danger. The same could not be said of Brown and, to a lesser extent, Fletcher. With the ominous buildup in the Marshalls and west of there, Pye and Draemel gloomily reassessed the prospects for success by their widely scattered carrier forces.3
Adm. Husband Kimmel, 1 February 1941, the day he became Cincpac.
Courtesy of Tai Sing Loo, via Col. W. W. Smith Jr.
Yamamoto and most of the battleships actually remained in Japan. He carefully considered whether to unleash Nagumo’s whole Kidō Butai against Wake. Stung by the failure of his 11 December invasion, Admiral Inoue beseeched Combined Fleet for carriers. At the same time Nagumo’s brilliant air staff officer, Cdr. Genda Minoru, devised a bold plan to keep the pressure on the crippled Pacific Fleet. On 13 December during the wide circuit around Midway (which he avoided having to raid), Nagumo radioed Yamamoto to propose that he and Inoue combine to finish off Wake, then capture Midway, Johnston, and Palmyra, all to set up the invasion of Hawaii. Worried about seizing the oil-rich Dutch East Indies (which was, after all, why Japan went to war), the Naval General Staff firmly opposed for the time being any renewed advance east of Wake. On 15 December (14 December in Hawaii), Yamamoto ordered the Kidō Butai to aid the invasion of Wake with “appropriate force.” That day Nagumo decided to bypass Wake and make for Truk, the fleet base in the Carolines 1,140 miles southwest of there. After fueling at Truk on the twenty-second he could sortie against Wake and open the way for Inoue to invade later in December. In that event nothing would stand in the way of Fletcher’s Wake relief expedition. The next day, however, Nagumo’s own underway fueling woes caused him to release most of his forces to Japan to prepare for operations in the Dutch East Indies. He split off a Wake Island Attack Force under Rear Adm. Abe Hiroaki, commander of the 8th Cruiser Division, with Rear Adm. Yamaguchi Tamon’s 2nd Carrier Division (Sōryū and Hiryu), two heavy cruisers, just two destroyers, and an oiler group. Nagumo cautioned Inoue that Abe would only make a single air strike against Wake around 20 December, then proceed to Japan. In fact Abe did not get away that easily. Now with immediate carrier support, Inoue looked forward to capturing Wake on 23 December (twenty-second Hawaiian time). That was one day before Fletcher was to arrive, although Inoue had no idea he was coming. The brisk radio traffic between Combined Fleet, the Kidō Butai, and Inoue at Kwajalein that marked this planning exchange was what led Rochefort to believe something was cooking in the Mandates.4
Pye’s priorities in addition to the Wake relief were to get Halsey’s TF-8 (Enterprise) back to sea after its lengthy patrol north of Oahu and to reinforce the other outlying bases. Halsey’s TF-8 finally entered Pearl on 16 December after the Saratoga sailed. Drawing fuel and provisions, he departed on the nineteenth with the Enterprise, three heavy cruisers, and nine destroyers to serve as backstop for TF-11 or TF-14, should either have to run while pursued. However, his initial position west of Johnston island lay far beyond support range of either Brown or Fletcher. Halsey also lacked fuel for long high-speed runs. The old oiler Sepulga (ten knots) reached Pearl on 18 December, but she was too slow to go with TF-8. No fast oilers would arrive for six days. On 18 December Overesch’s newly formed TF-17 left Pearl with the seaplane tender Wright bound for Midway. Other expeditions were being organized to bolster Johnston and Palmyra.5
Soon after sailing, Brown grew more uneasy about tackling mysterious Jaluit. Intelligence hinted at expanding strength in the Marshalls, possibly including carriers, and the target itself was reputed to be a large sub base. The approach to Jaluit in the prewar reconnaissance and raiding plan was from the southeast, via the northern Gilberts. That no longer seemed feasible after Cincpac discovered a seaplane tender and some flying boats (actually three, but said wrongly to number as many as forty) had moved into Makin. Other events also eroded Brown’s nerve. On 16 December two Lexington SBDs mistook a derelict barge for a carrier and bombed, but missed it. Subsequently a strike group could not even find the barge. The next day all the five-inch antiaircraft shells fired by the Indianapolis in a test proved duds. TF-11 commenced fueling from the Neosho on the morning of 18 December, and as usual did not finish until late the next day. By that time Brown was persuaded that he would surely be spotted long before he ever neared heavily defended Jaluit. His concerns engendered pressure for the Lexington Air Group to strike from what the pilots judged excessively long range, “way beyond the airplanes’ capability.” Instead of Jaluit, Brown resolved to raid Makin and Tarawa in the Gilberts. To clear air searches fanning out from the eastern Marshalls, he intended to continue south to about Tarawa’s latitude, then sprint west at twenty-four knots. The attack would go in as scheduled at dawn on 23 December, local time, from a point one hundred miles equidistant from both objectives. As a ruse a destroyer was to sheer off to the northwest to transmit radio messages to imitate a carrier task force threatening the Marshalls.6
The first three days that the united TF-14 lurched westward were uneventful, although Fletcher’s handling of the force during air operations greatly disconcerted the Saratoga. Near dawn on 18 December, the carrier and her plane guard destroyers turned northeast into the wind to launch a routine morning search. Instead of conforming to her movements Fletcher kept the rest of the ships zigzagging westward. That left the Sara feeling exposed to subs. She had to lift her skirts and crank on 22 knots to overhaul the others, taking nearly three hours to regain her place in formation. Fletcher in fact conformed to standard doctrine in which the carrier and plane guards broke off to run into the wind (“flying stations”). Despite disapproval in the flattop he had little choice. With the Neches present TF-14 plodded like a convoy—far too slow to stay with the Sara during air operations. Fletcher counted on the carrier’s increased speed during such episodes to hinder sub attacks. Pearl likewise kept Fletcher informed of the sketchy intelligence on Japanese strength and possible movements. Thus on 17 December he learned that cruisers and destroyers and perhaps one or more carriers might have reinforced the Mandates (Fourth) Fleet. The next day new estimates placed the 24th “Air Squadron” at or near Utirik, 160 miles east of Rongelap and one hundred miles north of Wotje, yet another air base that endangered Fletcher’s left flank. Actually no forces were there. The Astoria intercepted transmissions that appeared to originate north of Utirik, causing Fletcher to wonder if a carrier homed aircraft in its vicinity. On 19 December, despite that concern, he authorized Fitch to break strict radio silence when a squall concealed TF-14 from two dive bombers on search. A short message brought them home.7
Shortly before noon on 20 December (Z+12), when TF-14 was 725 miles due east of Wake, the Astoria monitored a message from Wake, announcing that approximately one squadron of carrier dive bombers attacked at 0830, 21 December, local time. Now with at least one carrier confirmed off Wake, Fletcher implemented what was apparently a contingency plan. At 1155 he altered course 20 degrees starboard to veer TF-14 northwest and keep safely clear, for a while, of air searches he thought emanated from Rongelap, Wotje, and possibly Utirik. Had TF-14 continued west on 270 degrees, fueling the next day would have occurred at the edge of or possibly inside the enemy’s search umbrella. With one or more Japanese carriers frolicking in the neighborhood, Fletcher did not care to have his location revealed until he had finished that necessary chore.8
Earlier the same morning of 20 December (21 December, Wake time), Pye independently ruled out Brown’s diversion. The prewar reconnaissance and raiding plan certainly had not envisioned battling carriers in the Marshalls. Given the buildup of aircraft in the Mandates, the possible presence of carriers, subs, and a warning net of local air and picket boat patrols, Brown’s chances of surprising Jaluit looked remote. Draemel later characterized the Jaluit foray as the “shot in the dark raid.” To lose the Lex at this time would jeopardize Hawaii’s shaky defense. Therefore Pye resolved to bring TF-11 north to support TF-14. He had already decided, but had yet to announce it, when he received electrifying word of the carrier strike on Wake. Now all bets were off. That afternoon, after advising Washington, Pye transmitted new orders to Brown, Halsey, and Fletcher. Fresh forces reaching the Mandates might now include the “4th Carrier Division” (actually, the 5th—Shōkaku and Zuikaku) and possibly the 2nd Carrier Division (Sōryū and Hiryu). Therefore Pye, unaware Brown had substituted Makin and Tarawa for Jaluit, canceled his attack and redeployed TF-11 northward. While retracing his route Brown was to stay at least seven hundred miles from Wotje to avoid being sighted—a substantial detour. Once clear of the Marshalls search zone, TF-11 was to go no farther north than latitude 20° north, roughly Wake’s latitude, unless to succor TF-14. To cover the right flank, Pye sent Halsey’s TF-8 (Enterprise) northwest from near Johnston to north of Midway. He was to remain east of the 180th meridian, unless needed to aid Brown or Fletcher. Pye had restricted the operating areas of TF-11 and TF-8 “to prevent their interference with each other, as both were on radio silence.” His alteration merely reduced, but did not eliminate, the huge defect in Kimmel’s original plan. No one could actually help Fletcher if he did get into trouble off Wake.9
Situation at 1200, 21 December 1941
With a carrier or carriers skulking within striking distance of Wake—a danger Cincpac hitherto disregarded—a fight became a distinct possibility. In message 210157 of December 1941, Pye warned Fletcher to “be prepared for possibility of enemy forces your vicinity,” a contingency not previously contemplated. By ordering the Saratoga and the three heavy cruisers to stay more than seven hundred miles from Rongelap during daylight, Pye ratified Fletcher’s decision to approach Wake from the northeast quadrant. He could still draw as near as 225 miles northeast of Wake, but not take his heavy ships any closer. “When released to approach Wake, Tangier proceed without carrier air support.” This momentous dispatch reached Fletcher about 1530 on 20 December, just before TF-14 turned its clocks ahead to 21 December upon vaulting to Wake’s side of the date line. The directive to leave the Tangier without carrier air protection on her last perilous leg shocked him. If she were lost the whole mission became pointless. Pye provided no additional guidance. To Fletcher it seemed that defense now took precedence over seeing the Tangier safely to Wake. He was profoundly troubled, later telling Sprague that under the circumstances “he felt like he was putting a pistol to [Sprague’s] head.” Sprague himself entertained no illusions. He was prepared, if need be, to run the Tangier aground to save the supplies and join the defenders. Before it was necessary to do anything drastic, however, Fletcher intended to fuel on the twenty-second.10
Brown was about 750 miles northeast of Makin and thirty-six hours short of launching his strike when he learned that Pye canceled the mission. To those in the Indianapolis who first saw it, Cincpac’s message “felt like a kick in the groin.” Frustrated TF-11 staffers even debated whether to show the message to Brown and chief of staff Capt. Marion C. Robertson (uncharitably dubbed “an old woman” by one Young Turk), or just let the raid go ahead. Reason prevailed. Although quite disappointed, Brown had another worry: the voracious expenditure of fuel. Just as Kimmel discovered the week before, the destroyers guzzled 50 percent more oil than expected. Had he gone ahead with the Makin-Tarawa raid, Brown would have had to refuel his destroyers the day after from his heavy ships, no matter the sea conditions or enemy interference. Now while heading north he rang up 16 knots, all that he felt he could spare over the long haul. At that speed he estimated the Lexington could first put planes over Wake on D+2 Day (26 December, Wake time), that is, two days after the relief arrived. He even wondered whether he might have to leave his destroyers to follow at a more economical pace or detach them to fuel from the Neosho.11
In fact Inoue already arranged to seize Wake before the Tangier could ever get there. On 21 December Kajioka left Kwajalein with the second invasion force of three old light cruisers, six destroyers, the motley array of auxiliaries and a thousand troops, plus the four heavy cruisers of Rear Adm. Gotō Aritomo’s 6th Cruiser Division that came east from Guam to fight in the unlikely event a U.S. surface force showed up. Kajioka planned to storm the atoll before dawn on the twenty-third. U.S. intelligence did not discover the existence of his force, and no one sighted it. Abe’s Wake Island Attack Force with the Sōryū and Hiryū closed Wake from the west, expecting to attack on 22 December, the day before the invasion. However on the twentieth, Inoue implored him to strike early the next day, “if at all possible.” Japanese radio intelligence detected hints of U.S. flying boats moving to Wake. Inoue feared they might bomb the approaching transports. (Actually only one PBY Catalina flew to Wake.) Having just refueled, Abe could afford to crank on thirty knots at a colossal expenditure of oil to draw within three hundred miles of Wake at dawn on the twenty-first, dispatch his strike, and close to shorten the return flight. That was a far longer mission than the U.S. carriers could achieve. Far from merely the “squadron” of dive bombers (eighteen planes) that Wake described, forty-nine aircraft (eighteen fighters, twenty-nine dive bombers, and two torpedo bombers) swarmed overhead. After recovering his strike, Abe swung south of the island to protect the advancing invasion force.12
Ever since Fletcher departed Pearl, he and his superiors anticipated refueling before approaching Wake. Even McMorris admitted the necessity for TF-14, “particularly the destroyers,” to fuel prior to closing Wake. He recognized the “hazards of getting 2,000 or more miles away from the base with the fuel of cruisers as well as destroyers depleted [and] where a strong enemy force might be encountered and high speed required.” Not everyone concurred. Morison concluded well after the fact that the fuel present was wholly adequate for Fletcher’s needs as he conceived them. If the destroyers ran short, the cruisers and capacious Sara herself could have provided oil. “It is clear there was no immediate danger of the destroyers going dry unless the force tanker was sunk.” After the publication of Morison’s account, Fletcher responded that fueling his destroyers at that point was “not merely desirable but absolutely necessary.” He contended even the cruisers needed oil.13
Situation at 1200, 22 December 1941
By 22 December Fletcher’s destroyers averaged 63 percent of capacity after steaming slowly for six days at economical speed, mostly thirteen knots. Of course, higher speeds vastly increased fuel consumption. Based on reliable data compiled later in the war, the Bagley class of destroyers in Destroyer Squadron (Desron) Four burned roughly 1.8 times the fuel at twenty knots than at fifteen knots, 3.9 times at twenty-five knots, and 8.4 times at thirty knots. High-speed bursts were commonplace during carrier air operations and essential in battle. Task force commanders reckoned available fuel according to estimates of endurance at fifteen knots (“patrol speed”) and twenty-five knots, according to the ship with the least fuel. Later, more accurate, calculations showed that Desron Four, with the oil on hand on 22 December, should have been able to steam about 10.5 days at fifteen knots and 2.7 days at twenty-five knots.14 Fletcher and the other task force commanders lacked exact fuel expenditure tables valid for wartime conditions, instead of unrealistic peacetime exercises. All they knew at the time was their ships burned oil far more quickly than expected. In 1976 Vice Adm. Ralph Earle Jr., who in December 1941 was skipper of the Ralph Talbot, averred that refueling on 22 December was “necessary and wise.”15
The heavy ships could certainly fuel destroyers, but that required quiet daylight hours with decent seas and no enemy pressure—precisely what Fletcher could not guarantee. Averaging 75 percent, the three heavy cruisers were much better off than the destroyers, but as Hayes, the Astoria’s engineer, had warned, they still might not have enough oil to ensure getting to Wake and back on their own. The insatiable Saratoga was already down to roughly 63 percent (about 57 percent of her radius oil, what she could actually use). That limited the oil she could provide in a pinch. Fletcher had to anticipate a tactical situation that could force him to separate from the slow Neches. If a sub did sink her (her fate in January 1942, which compelled another task force to abort a raid on Wake), TF-14 would really have been in a tight spot because no other oiler was available. He could not count on any fuel from Brown unless the Neosho was actually present, or from Halsey in the unlikely event he met either. Under the actual tactical circumstances, as opposed to postwar omniscience, it would not have been daring but folly for Fletcher to mount the last lunge for Wake without refueling. A 1945 navy study on war service fuel consumption remarked that after the outbreak of the war, “task forces engaged in operations ran low on fuel appreciably earlier than expected,” and that “the actual radius of all ships was appreciably less than originally expected, and in the case of destroyers and some cruisers it was inadequate.”16
The refueling woes evident earlier smote TF-14. At dawn on the twenty-second with Wake some 515 miles southwest, Fletcher changed course northeast to head into the wind and remain out of enemy search range. Lt. Cdr. George A. Sinclair brought the Bagley (at 53 percent the low destroyer) alongside the Neches. Nothing went as planned. Twenty-knot northeasterly winds, moderating to fourteen during the day, posed no big problem, but long cross-swells made it difficult for oiler and destroyer to hold proper position alongside. Hoses and occasionally tow lines parted, greatly slowing the process. In 1976 Capt. Richard D. Shepard, former gunnery officer of the Ralph Talbot—the second destroyer to fuel that day—recalled: “Many things went wrong. Hoses were not smartly passed. Communications broke down. There were oil spills. Destroyers came alongside the oiler not ready to receive, tanks not consolidated and the like.” By sundown (1642, Z-11), only four tin cans had managed to fuel, leaving five more to go and, if time allowed, the Sara and the cruisers as well. Even worse, the oiler rapidly exhausted her supply of spare hose sections.17
There obviously was a marked failure in underway refueling in all task forces. The U.S. Navy had started refueling destroyers at sea in 1917 and heavy ships in 1939. During 1941 the Pacific Fleet practiced underway refueling, but “rarely, if ever,” as historian Thomas Wildenberg wrote, “in anything but a calm sea.” As Pye later testified, “When you get out in these broad swells they have here in the broad Pacific it is a difficult job.” The elderly Neches was poorly equipped for underway refueling, particularly in such a sea. Kimmel had intended her only for harbor use. Her winches were too small and, like all the other oilers, her fuel hoses were the wrong type, too heavy. Moreover, the destroyers were not yet equipped with quick release hose couplings. That was not the whole story. Shepard noted the U.S. Navy in December 1941 was “simply not well trained in fueling at sea, particularly under combat conditions.” Capt. Joel C. Ford, who was engineer officer of the Jarvis, commented in 1976, “It is true that fueling at sea procedures were cumbersome at that time—long slow approaches, all manner of lines across, secured and settled down before passing a fuel hose, and then only one hose as a rule. Later it became whip alongside, pass two hoses (never mind the other lines in normal circumstances) pump at high pressure and clear the side.” Few destroyer skippers had much experience in underway refueling. The draft of the first standard manual for destroyer refueling was only submitted on 5 December and approved by Pye the day TF-14 first fueled at sea. By early 1942 improved fueling rigs and more experience quickly transformed underway refueling to a great strength for the U.S. Navy.18
At 1601 on 22 December, when the fourth destroyer broke away from the Neches, the distance to Wake had increased to about 550 miles, a thirty-five-mile loss. Fletcher turned northwest at the usual 12.75 knots, so by the next dawn [D-1 Day] to draw one hundred miles closer to Wake. There, still beyond enemy air search range, he would complete refueling and proceed with the relief. After sunset he received two messages from Cincpac. Based on radio direction finding, Pye placed the “Soru [sic]” north of Wake. In fact the Sōryū and Hiryū were actually south of Wake. The second message recounted more raids that afternoon against Wake by dive bombers and fighters and land-based bombers, but boasted two plucky marine Wildcats downed several attackers. “Material damage” at Wake was said to be “slight.”19 Despite increasing pressure, the outlook for the besieged atoll remained hopeful, but such optimism did not last long.20
Later that evening, 21 December in Hawaii, Pye’s staff debriefed a weary Ens. James J. Murphy, who had just brought his PBY back from a long solo mission to Wake to deliver the relief plan. His flight was what had troubled Inoue, who thought many more flying boats were involved. Murphy departed Wake just prior to the first carrier raid. He completely contradicted the rosy view that Pearl held of Wake despite its daily radio reports. Wake was “a shambles,” and nearly half of VMF-211 was dead. For the first time the Cincpac staff perceived Wake was in terrible danger, barely holding on. One War Plans officer, marine Lt. Col. Omar T. Pfeiffer, described the tone of Murphy’s revelations as “grim, grim, grim.” The news hit Pye like a splash of cold water. Only now, in his words, did circumstances “warrant taking a greater chance to effect [Wake’s] reinforcement even at the sacrifice of the Tangier and possible damage to some major ships of Task Force 14.”21
Shortly after midnight, to the vast relief of McMorris and others on the staff, Pye radioed a new battle plan to Halsey, Brown, and Fletcher. For some unknown reason he reduced the number of flattops supposed lurking in the Mandates or off Wake to just one, “possibly Siryu [sic].” That was wishful thinking to say the least. Therefore he removed all restrictions on Fletcher’s movements and authorized him to “furnish Tangier air support at discretion.” Wake advised the marine fighters arrive after 1500 to escape air raids. Upon reaching the objective the Tangier was to land her radar set first of all. That adhered to the schedule created the week before at Pearl, without additional orders to hurry the relief. Cincpac likewise rearranged the supporting cast. He lifted the restriction on Brown going no closer than seven hundred miles to Wotje, which entailed a lengthy northern detour before TF-11 could turn west toward Wake. Now Brown need only keep five hundred miles from Rongelap. Pye set the western limit for TF-11 at longitude 172° east, about three hundred miles east of Wake. Hitherto Halsey was not to cross longitude 180° or go south of latitude 20° north, but now Pye likewise authorized him to proceed 480 miles farther west to longitude 172° east. These “area assignments,” the order explained, existed “solely to prevent interference between task groups[;] disregard as circumstances dictate.”22
Near midnight on the twenty-second after a long and frustrating day, Fletcher read Pye’s new orders. He looked forward to resume fueling at dawn about 440 miles northeast of Wake. The Selfridge, the destroyer leader wearing Flynn’s pennant, would first go alongside the Neches. As soon as she got her drink of oil, by 0900 at the latest, Flynn was to proceed with the Tangier and three other refueled destroyers directly southwest to Wake. At fifteen knots, Flynn could be there shortly after local noon on 24 December, right “on schedule,” as Fletcher noted in his report. Once the remaining four destroyers fueled, the Neches and Helm would leave for Pearl as ordered, while Fletcher followed Flynn with the Saratoga, three heavy cruisers, and four destroyers. Fitch, at least, contemplated having the Saratoga in range in time for VMF-221 to fly to Wake before sundown. Even if that were not possible, if fueling took all the daylight on the twenty-third, an overnight run at twenty knots nevertheless would, by dawn on the twenty-fourth, bring Fletcher only a hundred miles astern of the Tangier group and 180 miles northeast of Wake. VMF-221 could depart at dawn, while the Sara searched for the Japanese carrier and attack if within range. Thus TF-14 confidently looked forward to completing the relief of Wake.23
Around 0325, 23 December, Fletcher was surprised by Wake’s flash report of “ships to southward and gunfire to northeast.” A half hour later another message warned of a “bombardment and apparently landing attack at Wake.” Two old destroyers crammed with special landing force sailors had deliberately run aground; more green-jacketed troops splashed ashore from landing barges. Wake’s marines put up a terrific defense. To subdue roughly four hundred marine defenders bereft of naval support of their own, Kajioka eventually committed nine hundred men, supported by naval gunfire and, after dawn, by aircraft from the Sōryū and Hiryū, now west of Wake.24
Track chart TF-14, 20–23 December 1941
With endangered Wake still 440 miles distant and far beyond strike range, Fletcher decided he had to stick with the plan and complete fueling as quickly as possible. Sea conditions were little better than the previous day, with swells prodded by a northeasterly wind of twenty knots. He turned due north, keeping as far out of the wind as feasible and still facilitate the fueling. Nineteen minutes before sunrise the Selfridge eased alongside the Neches. Things looked bad, but if Wake could only hold out, the Tangier and her escorts would soon be on their way, followed by the rest of TF-14 after it fueled. Likewise following the grave situation, Brown took seriously his assignment to support TF-14. At 0444, 23 December (Wake local time), he changed course directly toward Wake and upped speed to eighteen knots. A few minutes later he broke radio silence to advise Fletcher that in forty-eight hours (0500, 25 December, Wake time), TF-11 would reach a reference point 180 miles east of Wake. Until then Fletcher was on his own, which again demonstrated the basic flaw of the original Kimmel-McMorris plan.25
About 0655 (Z-11) while the Selfridge still drew oil, Fletcher read another Cincpac message addressed also to Halsey and Brown: “Relief or evacuation of Wake now impossible. TF-14 and 11 retire on Pearl searching enroute. Report positions when within 700 miles of Pearl. TF-8 retire toward Midway and cover Wright now enroute Midway due to arrive about daylight 24 December.” Pye had decided to abandon Wake and recall his task forces without a fight.26
Situation at 0800, 23 December 1941
The first warning from Wake reached Pearl about 0415, 22 December (Hawaii time). Pye, Draemel, and McMorris discussed the grave situation and debated various responses until long after sunrise. By 0530 they realized Wake had probably been invaded. Just a few hours before, Pye had determined to go ahead with the relief even at the risk of severe damage to TF-14. Now with Wake’s weakness so evident, he and Draemel were taken aback when Japan struck so quickly without warning. To further complicate matters, the CNO suddenly changed his tune about aggressive action at Wake. About 0645 Pye received a message that Stark sent, not because of the swiftly developing crisis (of which he was not yet aware), but from concern over Pye’s newly found—but now rapidly waning—resolve to push the relief. Reverting to his earlier caution, Stark declared: “General considerations and recent developments emphasize that Wake is now and will continue to be a liability.” He sanctioned its evacuation “with appropriate demolition” and urged that “efforts to strengthen and hold Midway should continue.” He added, “King concurs,” in reference to Ernest King, about to become the new Commander in chief of the U.S. Fleet. Busy gearing up for the visit of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, President Roosevelt and Secretary Knox did not know that Stark and King had given up on Wake. For his own part Pye was only too aware that he was only a caretaker Cincpac. Who was he to argue with the two top admirals?27
At 0700 Draemel questioned whether the relief of Wake was still possible with the Japanese apparently present in strength. They might be laying a trap for TF-14. At the very least, proceeding with the Wake mission boded a major battle that could engulf the Pacific Fleet’s scattered carrier groups. Pye declared the time to save Wake was past. “The Wake relief expedition,” he explained later that day, “was a desperate move to give reinforcements to the gallant defenders, and I was willing, if no enemy activity other than bombing was in progress, to sacrifice the Tangier and several destroyers in the attempt.” That situation no longer pertained. The question became whether he should risk a significant portion of TF-14 to retaliate for the invasion and perhaps even trade the Saratoga for meaningful damage inflicted on the Combined Fleet. “The offensive spirit shown by our Navy may be worth the sacrifice.” However, even that might not be possible. Like Draemel, Pye feared a trap. The timing of the invasion seemed too opportune in view of Fletcher’s approach. For the time being, though, he kept open the option of TF-14 (minus the Tangier and Neches) swiftly closing Wake for one air attack before retiring.28
Another Wake message that Pye received around 0730 seemed to signal the end. “Enemy on island. Issue in doubt.” The issue was in doubt, too, at Pearl. As usual McMorris favored the aggressive response. At 0800 he submitted a memo entreating Pye to loose TF-14 against ships off Wake, while moving Brown and Halsey up in support. Fletcher could smash the invasion, perhaps even in time to save the garrison. Radio intelligence, McMorris stressed, could only confirm the presence of the carrier Sōryū, erroneously thought to displace only ten thousand tons with a capacity of forty-two aircraft. Actually she was sixteen thousand tons with nominally fifty-four planes, not to mention the Hiryū was also there. The little lone carrier seemed easy meat for a beefed-up Saratoga that included two fighting squadrons instead of one. McMorris thought the odds were “strongly in her favor.” (In fact the Sara lacked nine of thirty-six fighters McMorris thought she had.) He beseeched Pye not to squander this “golden opportunity,” one that was “unlikely to come again soon.” No one could dispute his conclusion. “We are in great need of a victory.”29
Pye called in McMorris, Capt. Lynde D. McCormick, and Cdr. Vincent Murphy from War Plans. He reiterated that Wake, despite its gallant defense, could not be saved and addressed whether the carriers should fight near the embattled atoll as McMorris advocated. “With extreme regret,” Pye’s answer was no. He feared that Fletcher, even if Brown joined later, might become embroiled with superior forces enjoying shore-based air support. If defeated, they must run a gauntlet and sacrifice any cripples. Black-shoe Pye felt reluctant on general principle to fight a major fleet action far beyond Pearl without battleship support. It is hard to blame him, for Kimmel had long felt the same way. Following Washington’s lead, Pye set as top priority the defense of Midway, Hawaii, and Samoa. When Pye announced his decision, McMorris interrupted: “Is that final, Admiral, or may I speak?” Pye replied, “It’s final.” Leary and Draemel supported his actions, but Poco Smith and McMorris barely contained their fury and contempt. At 0911, 22 December, in Hawaii (0641, 23 December, Wake time), Pye radioed the recall order that so stunned Fletcher and the fleet. Cunningham sent his valedictory at 0652: “Enemy on island. Several ships plus transport moving in. Two DD [destroyers] aground.” A half hour later he sought formal surrender. At 1400 the last of the Wake garrison laid down their arms and went into brutal captivity.30
Understandably the response to the recall on board the Astoria and the rest of TF-14 was bitter. Lt. (jg) Jack E. Gibson, a junior gunnery officer, watched in fascination as Fletcher disgustedly threw his gold-braided cap to the deck. Years later Lt. Harry Smith, staff duty officer, primly (and unconvincingly) denied that such an outburst ever took place. He recalled the admiral never said a thing (which was true), but “simply carried on as usual.” Some of the staff advised Fletcher to find some way to advance toward Wake, but he refused. Morison later insinuated he should have disobeyed Pye’s recall, quoting one unidentified cruiser captain, “Frank Jack should have placed the telescope to his blind eye, like Nelson.” Indeed Fletcher felt “tempted to disregard orders” and charge the enemy forces off Wake. In 1964 he commented: “My reaction was that as much as I disapproved I had no information which Cincpac did not have and that they probably had some that I did not have, so I had no reason to disobey orders.” The fact that Pye was now in charge also played a factor. In 1950 Vice Adm. Poco Smith recalled how Fletcher “and all of us had great confidence in Admiral Pye.” Although imperturbable (at least afterward) in front of his juniors, Fletcher let his hair down with a sympathetic Kinkaid. “I could do nothing else, could I?” Without hesitation Kinkaid replied “No.”31
On the flag bridge high in the Saratoga’s island, the blow landed equally hard. In hopes of getting VMF-221 off that day, Fitch was conferring with its senior officers. The Cardiv One staff questioned the decision to turn back with such vehemence that Fitch judged “actually mutinous” their urgent advice to disregard orders. He left the bridge to not “(officially) to hear such talk,” and also not to display his own great anger. “Such intense indignation and resentment” raged in the Sara as Fitch never before knew in the navy. Everyone hoped to go ahead with the relief, or if that was no longer possible, to get a crack at that “one little carrier” sitting off Wake. Captain Douglas requested Fitch’s permission to recommend to Fletcher that the Sara make a high-speed run toward Wake, launch searches, and strike anything located. He even wanted to press on without Fletcher’s leave, if need be. Although fully in sympathy, Fitch refused. He, too, thought a great opportunity was being wasted to smash the invasion force. Much later he recalled how he wished he could have conferred privately with Fletcher, perhaps to contrive some way to get around the recall order, but that was not possible. It is instructive that the officer whom the critics deemed better fitted for command of TF-14 reacted to Pye’s order exactly as did Fletcher, with dismayed obedience, not defiance.32
Fletcher’s many detractors also ignored that he did not jump at the opportunity to withdraw once the Selfridge was done fueling at 0811, but instead steamed slowly north. In fact he hung around all day to fuel all his remaining destroyers and be ready to fight should Cincpac have a change of heart. Turning northeast at 1040 directly into the wind eased sea conditions. The fueling went more smoothly. The Neches delivered more oil, but used the last of her fuel hoses. By 1630, fifteen minutes before sundown, TF-14 had increased its distance from Wake by only some seventy-five miles while finishing the destroyer fueling. Only then, after no further word from Pye, did Fletcher finally relent and point his ships eastward. After dark new orders from Cincpac concerned Midway not Wake. Fletcher was to fly VMF-221 to Midway on 25 December and release the Tangier and two destroyers to arrive there the day after. On the second 24 December (after recrossing the date line), Fletcher detached Sprague with the Tangier, Ralph Talbot, and Blue northeast to reach Midway on 26 December, while he shaped course for Pearl. The reinforcements that never fought at Wake helped hold Midway the next time the Japanese fleet showed up in the central Pacific.33
Years later fully informed, unlike Pye and Fletcher, of the intentions and movements of the second Wake invasion force and Abe’s carriers, Morison decreed that word alone of a carrier air strike on Wake should have spurred Fletcher to drastic action. On the evening of 21 December Fletcher should have canceled plans to refuel and charged ahead at twenty knots. Supposedly that would have placed him in perfect position at dawn on 23 December to smash the invasion ships. To Morison the failure to act at this time spelled the doom of Wake, and he never ceased to upbraid Fletcher for this perceived dereliction. In his view, Fletcher shirked his duty because he chose to slow down and fuel, a totally unnecessary delay.34
Operational plans and orders are, of course, how commanders exercise control over their subordinates and coordinate their activities to accomplish the mission. Such prognostications, though, can never account for every situation that might occur. Also they can be unrealistic and flawed. Circumstances arise when a subordinate is fully justified in altering the plan and proceeding according to his own best judgment. Was that a valid course of action for Fletcher in this particular instance? Morison offered his assessment long after the fact based strictly on hindsight. The key point is that no one on the U.S. side knew of the existence of a force en route to invade Wake. Pye did not feel that a carrier attack alone put Wake in immediate danger. On the contrary, he was even willing to risk the Tangier’s final approach without the Saratoga’s air support. There is no evidence at all that before Wake was actually invaded anyone at Pearl recommended that Fletcher race ahead and engage the Japanese carrier force.
For the sake of argument, one can speculate what might have happened (aside from severe fuel shortage) had Fletcher pressed ahead on 21 December on his own at twenty knots. That meant disobeying Pye’s direct order, just received, to keep the Saratoga and the cruisers seven hundred miles beyond Rongelap during daylight. It also would have cast aside the whole plan by isolating TF-14 even further from the support that Pye was mustering. Had Fletcher taken the bit in his teeth and pushed straight to Wake, he would gone on the direct line to southwestward. Even so, the Sara’s 22 December afternoon air search would have fallen short of the invasion forces and Abe’s carriers coming up from the south. Perhaps the most Fletcher might have accomplished that day was to launch VMF-221 at extreme range to land at Wake before sunset. However, those fighters would have been useless against a predawn invasion, but their absence would gravely weaken TF-14. The Saratoga’s own Fighting Squadron Three counted only a dozen operational Grumman Wildcats.35
Yet by proceeding directly west toward Wake, TF-14 would have risked running afoul of the Japanese air search on 22 December. Four flying boats left before sunrise to sweep 630 miles north of Wotje. Chances would have been good that at least one might have spotted TF-14 and alerted Abe’s carriers. Overnight on 21–22 December Abe closed the Wake Island invasion force approaching from the south. On the twenty-second he turned northward and by mid afternoon was about 150 miles south of Wake. His morning strike numbered six fighters and thirty-three carrier attack planes. VMF-211 downed two bombers, but the escort Zeros finished off the last two Wildcats. If Abe had learned of the existence of TF-14, the advantage would have switched decisively to him for the knock-out blow the morning of the twenty-third. Had neither Fletcher nor Abe discovered each other on 22 December, the dawn of the twenty-third could have found TF-14 only one hundred miles east or northeast of Wake. Overnight Abe moved northwest of Wake. The two carrier forces could have been well within range of each other at sunrise. The odds would have favored the carrier commander who first found his opponent and attacked.36
Morison and others wrote exuberantly of Fletcher’s chances of crippling or sinking the Sōryū and Hiryū. Adm. Frederick C. “Ted” Sherman (no Fletcher enthusiast) later speculated, on the basis of Morison’s interpretation, that had the Saratoga conducted an “adequate air search,” the Sōryū and Hiryū “were open to attack [and] might have been destroyed.”37 He did not explain how the Saratoga could have searched “adequately” and retained enough aircraft to ensure sinking those two formidable targets. She wielded about seventy-seven flyable aircraft (twenty-six F4F and F2A fighters, forty SBD dive bombers, and eleven TBD torpedo bombers), as opposed to the ninety-four planes (thirty-four Mitsubishi A6M2 Type 0 “Zero” fighters, twenty-nine Aichi D3A1 Type 99 carrier bombers, and thirty-one Nakajima B5N2 Type 97 carrier attack planes) of the Sōryū and Hiryū. Except for dive bombers, Japanese aircraft enjoyed a distinct edge in performance over their American counterparts, especially with regard to range. Their aerial torpedoes were vastly superior. Unlike the great 1942 carrier battles, most U.S. carrier planes, like their nimbler opponents, as yet lacked pilot armor and self-sealing fuel tanks. The 2nd Carrier Division comprised superbly trained, battle-hardened aviators who played a lead role at Pearl Harbor. Although well trained, the Saratoga flyers lacked combat experience. Even so, McMorris, for one, felt confident of victory should the Sara engage an enemy carrier. Rather surprisingly given Japan’s brilliant performance at Pearl, he declared on 22 December, “Such indications we have indicate no overwhelming [Japanese] superiority and our carrier people are good themselves.”38 That certainly was true by spring 1942 after the U.S. carriers flexed their muscles against weak targets. Yet in December 1941 American carrier aviation was still woefully green. Defensively TF-14 enjoyed the advantage of the Sara’s air search radar, but the cruisers and destroyers lacked radar of their own, whereas Japan excelled in night surface combat. Shipboard antiaircraft in both navies was weak in number and largely ineffective, a state of affairs that the United States rapidly changed for the better in 1942.
For the time being Fletcher would have had to show the wisdom to ignore the Wake invasion until after he dealt decisively with the carriers. His one chance to strike and emerge unscathed was to land the first blow and knock out the enemy flight decks, if not sink the carriers outright. If Wake fell in the meantime, he would have no way to get it back. The tactical situation was such that he had no land-based air support, unlike later at Coral Sea, Midway, and the Eastern Solomons. That crucial deficiency rendered him blind beyond the limited search radius (three hundred miles) of the Sara’s dive bombers. However many SBDs the vital, wide-perimeter dawn search absorbed correspondingly reduced the strength of the strike. Perhaps Fletcher could have counted on only twenty SBDs and the eleven TBDs for a first attack wave, with a fighter escort only if he had retained VMF-221 on board. Prior to dawn on the twenty-third, Abe dispatched small strikes against Wake. Thus it would have taken time, once he became aware of Fletcher’s presence, to regroup, locate the Saratoga, and attack. In that interval the 2nd Carrier Division would be especially vulnerable, although with two flight decks as opposed to Fletcher’s one, Abe was less likely to be crippled by a lucky hit. The Sara’s own search had to perform flawlessly, with clear radio communications and accurate position estimates (which happened rarely even in 1942) to enable her strike to find the target. That attack had better be especially accurate just to give Fletcher a chance to survive. The Japanese enjoyed a far superior search network in the crucial area. An attack in strength by the 2nd Carrier Division, particularly with torpedoes, would imperil the Saratoga. Thus the odds definitely favored the Sōryū and Hiryū. Perhaps the most Fletcher could have accomplished was to trade the Sara for one carrier. Admiral Murphy judged in 1951 that the outcome of a fight between the two elite Japanese carriers and the Saratoga would have been, “to say the least, very doubtful.” Even the addition of the Lexington might only “have assured less than an even chance of victory.”39
Kinkaid later concluded that if Pye and Fletcher really knew ahead of time of a second Wake invasion force, they might have taken “extraordinary steps.” Vice Adm. Paul D. Stroop, who in 1941 was Fitch’s flag secretary, speculated that had his boss been in charge the night of 22 December he might have taken the Saratoga ahead along with some of the fueled destroyers and left the rest to follow with the Tangier. The goal would be to get the marine fighters to Wake as early as possible after dawn on the twenty-third, launch a strike on the invaders from two hundred miles out from Wake, then run in to 125 miles to recover those planes. Stroop did not anticipate a carrier battle until the twenty-fourth, an unreasonable surmise given the actual movements of the 2nd Carrier Division. For his own part Kinkaid thought nothing that actually did occur justified a change in plan. He deemed any wild rush toward Wake as pure recklessness.40
What if Pye had unleashed Fletcher after the invasion of Wake? When he ordered the recall, he had no clear idea, due to strict radio silence, exactly where two of his three carrier forces were. Based on the plan, which he had every reason to believe Fletcher was following, he assumed TF-14 (Saratoga) was five hundred miles northeast of Wake. Actually Fletcher was 440 miles northeast. Pye knew from Brown’s message that TF-11 (Lexington) steamed northwest just beyond the five-hundred-mile air search arc from Wotje. In fact, Brown was 975 miles southeast of Wake and 660 miles southeast of TF-14 and could draw just within air strike range of Wake at sunrise on 25 December. For Halsey’s TF-8 (Enterprise), Pye could only go by the operating limits he set. Halsey was about 1,140 miles northeast of Wake and 750 miles east of TF-14. Such long distances, coupled with his lack of a fleet oiler, prevented Halsey from offering support anywhere near Wake. Indeed no task force was within a day’s steaming of another. Fitch, on the other hand, “felt convinced that a vigorous move-in to the atoll would result in hitting the Japanese when they could least afford to receive such a blow.”41
Fitch was correct. If at 0400 on 23 December Fletcher had cast loose the Tangier and Neches and started in at twenty knots with his fueled destroyers, he would still be too distant for the Sara’s aircraft to locate any enemy forces that day or even to search immediately adjacent to Wake. By sunset the main Japanese supporting cast had retired out of range—Abe’s carrier force west for a hero’s welcome in Japan and Gotō’s heavy cruisers south to Kwajalein. TF-14 could not have harmed the enemy on 23 December. Neither could TF-11. Even had Brown raised speed to twenty knots, a long run hurdling the date line would, by dawn on 24 December, have put him no closer to Wake than five hundred miles. Much would have depended on whether air searches spotted either TF-14 or TF-11 on 23 December. That day five land-attack planes based at Roi assumed air search duties around Wake and east of there. They did not fly far enough to sight either TF-14 or TF-11 had Fletcher or Brown continued to advance.42 The door was wide open for a nasty surprise at Wake on 24 December. Lulled by the devastation at Pearl, Combined Fleet certainly discounted any serious attempt to relieve Wake or to counterattack. A dawn raid on the twenty-fourth by the Saratoga would have raised havoc with the light cruisers, destroyers, and transports huddled around Wake and given the Allies a wonderful, though fleeting, Christmas gift. Wake would remain Japanese no matter what Fletcher could have done. Afterward TF-14 should have retired beyond range of any possible counterattack and rejoined the Neches well to the northeast. The criticisms of Fitch and the many others over Pye’s recall were valid. However in Pye’s defense, he could not know the Japanese were so lackadaisical, that their heavy forces would pull out almost immediately and that no bombers were based at Rongelap, which was considerably closer to Wake than the real base at Kwajalein. Most importantly he felt little inclination to gamble with the Pacific Fleet’s few remaining assets.
On Christmas morning Adm. Chester Nimitz emerged from a flying boat to meet Capt. William W. Smith waiting in the admiral’s barge. He asked about the Wake relief and, when informed of the recall, inquired whether the order came from Washington. Told it had not (which was not entirely true), Nimitz kept his thoughts to himself. Although “disappointed,” he considered the failed Wake relief to be “all water over the dam & finished business.” He “did not waste time in speculation on what might have been done [his emphasis].” TF-14 was understandably embittered over drawing so close to Wake, but not fighting to save it or ravenge its fall. To slink away was especially disheartening. Very few knew the whole story. Of those who did, no one faulted Fletcher for following the plan, for being precisely where he was supposed to be, and for obeying direct orders to withdraw. Likewise Stroop noted that Fitch evinced no resentment at all over Fletcher’s handling of the relief. Meeting Fletcher and Kinkaid upon their return, Pye apologetically explained that the “heart breaking” decision to recall TF-14 had been difficult but reflected “his best judgment.”43
In Washington the reaction also was dismay and anger, but never directed at the largely anonymous Fletcher. The president had followed the progress of the Wake relief, even querying his naval aide, Capt. John R. Beardall, about the characteristics of the Tangier, too new to be in his naval register. Capt. Frank Beatty, Knox’s aide, asked Stark whether he would tell the president of Pye’s recall order. The CNO sighed, “No, Frank, I wouldn’t have the heart.” Knox himself reluctantly took the bad news to the White House and later confided to Beatty that Roosevelt considered not fighting for Wake to be “worse” than Pearl Harbor. Knox commiserated with a sympathetic Churchill, who blandly observed it was “dangerous” to “meddle” with admirals, although that never stopped him. Stark formally requested Pye’s reasons for the recall, and in January 1942 the Roberts Pearl Harbor Commission grilled him about the abortive Wake relief. “Perhaps Pye’s decision about the relief of Wake was correct,” King later commented. “I do not blame him.” Roosevelt did not feel as charitable. Pye incurred his lifelong wrath over Wake.44
The defense of Wake rightly held the spotlight as an exemplar of U.S., more specifically, Marine Corps heroism. After the war Wake came under new scrutiny by Morison and marine Lt. Col. Robert Debs Heinl, who rode the Tangier during the relief and strongly regretted not reaching Wake. Their books colored the image of Fletcher that appeared in most subsequent treatments.45 Yet they showed no clear understanding of the actual circumstances behind the Wake relief, why it was attempted, and how Cincpac and his task force commanders went about it. Morison and Heinl did not realize that yet again Kimmel’s fundamental error was to underestimate the Japanese and continue to act as if he knew their intentions rather than carefully assessing their true capabilities. Despite radically changed conditions, Kimmel and McMorris opted for essentially a reprise of the prewar Marshalls reconnaissance plan. They strongly believed that in the short run Wake could hold out. The Japanese were not going to return in time to interfere with the relief. Inexplicably given how the enemy carriers proved so devastatingly effective in the Pearl Harbor attack, Kimmel and McMorris completely ignored possible carrier opposition off Wake. Despite committing three carriers, the U.S. forces were too far from each other and could be destroyed in detail by a weaker, but concentrated force. Having not discerned this root cause of the relief fiasco, Morison and Heinl compounded their error with a shallow analysis that failed to probe the series of key blunders that proceeded from Cincpac’s original misjudgment. Kimmel saw no need to execute the relief with all possible haste. His staff failed to expedite preparation of the Tangier. Kimmel then split his limited carrier strength. If he had truly worried about the imminent fall of Wake, he should have immediately sent the Lexington and Tangier, followed by the Saratoga and Enterprise in support.46 Moreover, the Jaluit diversion deprived the relief force of the only available fast oiler, leaving Fletcher with the Neches as his ball and chain. Morison and Heinl never examined the reality of the Pacific Fleet’s first harsh experiences with underway refueling in wartime and the unsettling discovery that the actual radius of action of all ships proved dramatically less than peacetime experience ever hinted.47
The inability of Brown’s TF-12 to refuel at sea on 11–12 December and the delay in readying the Tangier effectively ended any real chance for aid to get to Wake ahead of another, far more powerful assault. That was not what an embattled Kimmel came to believe. In 1964 he described his relief plan, which was never intended to engage strong enemy forces, as an “attack.”48 Kimmel’s partisans deplored the failed Wake relief as a tragically lost opportunity for his vindication. One book incredulously characterized the original relief plan as a “bold and tactically imaginative scheme” to “lure the Japanese into a trap,” which, when Kimmel was relieved, the enemy was “preparing to steam right into.” Although Kimmel had “disposed his forces for a decisive naval engagement,” Pye and Fletcher subsequently spoiled the chances for victory by their timidity—or perhaps even outright cowardice—with Fletcher possibly “intentionally prolonging his refueling.”49 In the same vein Capt. Edward L. Beach, a severe critic of Fletcher as well as a strong Kimmel supporter, recently declared that Kimmel’s orders for the relief, “if carried out as planned,” would “unquestionably have succeeded.” Beach speculated, “Most likely Wake would not have been captured at all,” or the garrison would have been “rescued . . . with ease.”50 The reader can judge whether the facts support these suppositions.
Because of Heinl and Morison and those who echo their assertions, Fletcher is cast in folklore as the gutless admiral who “let the Corps down . . . when he had been sent to relieve the beleaguered men on Wake Island and turned back pleading lack of fuel, though his own logs proved he had plenty.”51 Instead, the historiography of the Wake relief is a classic example of the pitfalls of history written by biased contemporaries without the benefit of the whole story. Admiral Murphy’s scathing review of Morison’s treatment of the Wake relief called it “not even a reasonable facsimile of history,” that “does grave injustice to Admiral Fletcher.” Murphy was certainly in a position to know the real facts. He judged the “failure to relieve Wake was due, not to poor seamanship and want of decisive action, but to the presence of two Jap first line carriers.” Due to postwar rancor, Fletcher unjustly became the scapegoat for the fall of Wake. His detractors refused to realize that in December 1941 the badly wounded Pacific Fleet simply was not capable of functioning properly immediately after such a huge disaster as Pearl Harbor. Someone had to take the blame for Wake, and Fletcher was an altogether too convenient mark.52
