SOUTH CHINA SEA

C A M P A I G N

1945
Task Force 38’s bold carrier rampage
in Formosa, Luzon, and Indochina
A I R

MARK LARDAS | I L LU S T R AT E D B Y I R E N E C A N O R O D R Í G U E Z
A I R C A M PA I G N

SOUTH CHINA SEA

1945
Task Force 38’s bold carrier rampage in Formosa, Luzon,
and Indochina

MARK LARDAS | I LLU STR ATED BY IRE N E C AN O R ODRÍG UE Z

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION4

CHRONOLOGY8

ATTACKER’S CAPABILITIES 10

DEFENDER’S CAPABILITIES 22

CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVES 31

THE CAMPAIGN 41

AFTERMATH AND ANALYSIS 87

FURTHER READING 93

INDEX95
4 Introduction

INTRODUCTION
As Enterprise steamed into In January 1945, Admiral William “Bill” Halsey was where he wanted to be: with the US
Pearl Harbor on December Navy’s Third Fleet in the middle of the South China Sea. The fleet’s Fast Carrier Force,
8, 1941, Admiral Bill
Halsey, on the carrier’s Task Force 38, was conducting a series of air attacks, hitting Japanese bases and shipping
bridge, could see the throughout its periphery. If the sea was the face of a clock, attacks were planned around it.
aftermath of the previous Hammer blows would fall from Formosa at 1.00 to Luzon at 4.00, Camranh Bay and the
day’s attack by Japan’s
Kido Butai, including the French Indochina coast at 8.00, the Chinese coast from 9.00 to 12.00, then back to Formosa.
still-smoldering wreck of It was a campaign Halsey had longed to undertake for three years, ever since he sailed into
the battleship Arizona. Pearl Harbor on December 8, 1941. As his flagship that day, the aircraft carrier Enterprise,
(AC)
steamed in among the wreckage of the Pacific Fleet’s Battleship Force, he wanted revenge.
As he stood on Enterprise’s bridge surveying the carnage, he declared, “Before we’re through
with ’em, the Japanese language will be spoken only in Hell!”
At the time, it would have been easy for someone, especially a Japanese naval officer,
to dismiss this statement as bluster, a meaningless threat by a man whose pride had been
wounded as badly as the US Pacific Fleet. Japan had sent 353 aircraft against Pearl Harbor. In
two waves of attack, they sank or damaged 20 US Navy warships, including eight battleships,
destroyed over 300 US Navy and US Army Air Force aircraft (most on the ground), and killed
over 2,400 soldiers, sailors, and civilians. Five battleships were at the bottom of Pearl Harbor.
Over the next 90 days, Japan swept over the Pacific and Southeast Asia. It destroyed US
forces in the Philippines, Guam, and Wake Island. It had cleared Great Britain out of Hong
Kong, Malaya, Burma, and its Pacific holdings. It overwhelmed the Dutch East Indies and
chased Australia out of New Ireland, New Britain, and northern New Guinea. It had taken
over French Asian possessions in Southeast Asia, the region known as French Indochina,
before attacking Pearl Harbor.
Even though resistance in the Philippines and other parts of the British and Dutch colonial
empires had continued in March, by June 1942, Japan held a perimeter that stretched
from the Aleutian Islands in the north, swept across the Gilbert and Marshall Islands in
the Central Pacific, south to the Solomon Islands, and from there across northern New
 5

Guinea, the Dutch East Indies, and nearly to the Indian border with
Burma. Japan also controlled large parts of eastern China; this included
the industrialized northern Manchurian region, which Japan turned into
the puppet nation of Manchuko. Land communications with China were
cut off after Japanese captured the Burma Road. Japan thus stood as a
colossus over the quarter of the globe formed by the Pacific Ocean and
Eastern Asia.
When Halsey made his oath on Enterprise’s bridge, the US Navy had
only three fleet carriers in the Pacific. Japan had the Kido Butai’s six fleet
carriers that had hit Pearl Harbor, plus eight light carriers in service. The
US Navy had lost its battle line. Japan had ten battleships immediately
available. Allied air forces facing Japan were also outnumbered and
outclassed. Halsey, and the US Navy faced a long path against long odds
before he could fulfill a second vow he had made shortly after Pearl
Harbor: that he would ride Japanese emperor Hirohito’s white horse
through the streets of Tokyo when the war ended.
Despite the initial odds against him, Halsey worked to fulfill both
oaths over the next three years. He commanded several daring single-
carrier raids against Japanese Pacific island bases in the war’s opening months. In April Admiral William “Bill”
1942, he had commanded the two-carrier task force that launched the Doolittle raid against Halsey in a characteristic
pose at a conference
Japan. Circumstances and illness kept him out of the battles of Coral Sea and Midway, but table: cigarette in hand,
in October 1942 he assumed command of the South Pacific Area and South Pacific forces, with a formidable scowl.
relieving a good friend, Vice Admiral Robert Ghormley. He was the architect of
TF38’s raid into the South
Over the next several months, Halsey turned around a desperate situation in the Solomon China Sea. (AC)
Islands. He led his forces to victory, despite a tactical defeat at the battle of the Santa Cruz
Islands. Favorable outcomes at the two naval battles of Guadalcanal – combined with his
aggressive leadership, Japanese attrition, and US reinforcements – led to ultimate victory in
the Solomons by the end of 1943.
His responsibilities and command grew in 1944. In its opening months, he commanded
the Third Fleet in the central Pacific. It grew from five fleet and four light fast carriers in
February to seven fleet and six light fast carriers in June. The Third Fleet then became the
Fifth Fleet and Halsey turned over command to Raymond Spruance.
It was a notional change; only the fleet number and command staff changed. The same ships
were commanded by a different admiral. The war – and the US Pacific Fleet – had grown in
size to the point where planning grew complex. The Big Blue Fleet – the name given to the
ships that formed the Third Fleet and Fifth Fleet – was now large enough, and its operations
so complex, that trading command of the fleet between operations required two command
staffs. One staff conducted the current operation while a second prepared for the next one.
Halsey regained the Big Blue Fleet in October, leading it during the Philippine invasion.
Over the next three months, it fought the battle of Leyte (the largest naval battle in history),
conducted several carrier raids again Japanese-held islands, and weathered a typhoon that
caused almost as much damage to the Third Fleet as the Imperial Japanese Navy had during
the clashes in Leyte Gulf. Halsey was scheduled to turn over the Big Blue Fleet to Spruance
at the end of January, allowing Spruance to use it for the planned invasion of Iwo Jima.
While the Big Blue Fleet gained power and size, the Imperial Japanese Navy withered away.
Losses in the Solomons left it less able to challenge the US Navy. When it did, it suffered
crippling losses. At the battle of Leyte Gulf, the Kido Butai carrier force had grown so anemic
that it served only as a decoy, to lure TF38 (Task Force 38, the Third Fleet’s fast carriers)
away from the main offensive thrust. After Leyte, the remnants of the fleet withdrew to its
ports in Japan and Japan’s remaining overseas possessions. In December, the US Navy was
seeking ways to find and destroy these surviving ships and Japan’s remaining naval aviation.
 6 Introduction

Allied areas of control as of May 1942

Axis areas of control as of May 1942 USSR
Areas controlled by Japan on December 1944
Allied bases (January 1945)
Japanese bases (January 1945)

OUTER MONGOLIA

Sea of Japan

KOREA JAPAN
Yellow Yokosuka
CHINA Sea Hiroshima
Kure
Sasebo
East
PACIFIC OCEAN
China
Sea
BUTAN RYUKYU
BONIN
Okinawa ISLANDS
INDIA Keelung ISLANDS
Iwo Jima
Hong Kong Formosa
Takao
BURMA RICE
Bay of Haiphong
RICE
Bengal Hainan Philippine Sea
RUBBER
Rangoon MARIANAS
TIN SIAM ISLANDS
Bangkok
RICE FRENCH Manila
PHILIPPINES Saipan
INDOCHINA Guam
Andaman Camranh Bay
Mindoro
RUBBER
Sea Leyte Ulithi
Saigon
South China Sulu
Yap Truk
Sea Sea
PALAU Peleliu
TIN
ISLANDS
CAROLINE ISLANDS
OIL MALAYA Celebes
RUBBER Sea
Borneo
Singapore
OIL
BAUXITE Balkpapan
Sumatra RUBBER Celebes
DUTCH EAST INDIES
Batavia Java Sea
RUBBER Flores Sea
Java

INDIAN OCEAN

N AUSTRALIA
0 500 miles

0 500km
 7

OPPOSITE: STRATEGIC OVERVIEW

The Big Blue Fleet had been at Ulithi in late December 1944, making good the damage
it suffered during the typhoon. It was scheduled to support landings planned for Lingayen
Gulf in Luzon in early January 1945. In mid-December, the Third Fleet had thrown the “Big
Blue Blanket” over the Philippines to cover the Mindoro landings. This consisted of two days
of round-the-clock air operations by TF38’s aircraft over Luzon airfields, which successfully
kept the Japanese from leaving their bases to launch kamikaze attacks.
Halsey wanted to do more than that for the Luzon landings. He wanted to end his tenure
with the Big Blue Fleet with a bang; to send Japan a message signed by Bill Halsey by doing
something never before attempted in naval history. He proposed sending TF38 deep into
the South China Sea on a ten-day raid. It was something he had been advocating all autumn.
On November 21, 1944, following the Leyte landing and before the Mindoro operation,
Halsey had asked permission to enter the South China Sea. At the time, Fleet Admiral
Chester Nimitz, commanding US Navy Forces in the Pacific, had felt it too risky and denied
permission for the operation.
TF38 had launched other strategic carrier raids against Japanese possessions, notably at
Truk in February 1944, and most recently against Formosa in October 1944. Raiding the By October 1944, the
Kido Butai had been
South China Sea took things to a higher level. Previous raids had been one- or two-day reduced to bait during
affairs. While they ventured within range of enemy land-based aircraft, they did not linger the battle of Leyte, to lure
there. Halsey proposed having TF38 operate for an extended period in a sea surrounded by TF38 away from Japan’s
main effort. This is the
enemy-held land, unsupported by any other Allied forces. carrier Zuikaku during that
It was aggressive and audacious: classic Bill Halsey. He convinced his superior, Nimitz, battle. The last survivor of
that while aggressive it was neither reckless nor foolhardy. If successful, it could cut Japan’s the six carriers which
attacked Pearl Harbor was
most important strategic artery. Halsey also successfully argued that a Japan chasing TF38 now camouflaged as a
around the South China Sea would be a nation too preoccupied to seriously challenge the battleship. (AC)
Lingayen Gulf invasion. Nimitz, deciding the possible
gains justified the risk, approved the operation. Halsey
was consequently in the middle of a trailblazing action.
Three years made a big difference. Enterprise, his
flagship on December 8, 1941, was present, but it was
not Halsey’s flagship. He had broken his flag on New
Jersey, an Iowa-class battleship that could make 33 knots.
It had been under construction on December 8, 1941,
and was not launched until a year after that. Admiral
John S. McCain was in charge of TF38, with Essex-class
carrier Hancock as his flagship. Enterprise was one of two
dedicated night-operations aircraft carriers – an important
role, but outside mainstream carrier operations.
TF38’s South China Sea sweep had important
strategic and tactical military objectives. It had an
equally important psychological objective. Halsey was
sending the Imperial Japanese Navy and Imperial Japan
a message: “Come out and fight. If you do not, the Big
Blue Fleet will come to you. It will dig you out of your
most secure bases. It will take possession of your strategic
waterways. We can even go into the South China Sea
and you cannot stop us.”
8 Chronology

CHRONOLOGY
1937 1941
July 7 Second Sino-Japanese War begins. July 26 Roosevelt embargoes petroleum sales to Japan
and freezes Japanese assets in the United States in
1938 retaliation for the announced movements of Japanese
May 13 Japan occupies Amoy. troops into all of French Indochina.

October 22 Japan occupies Canton. July 28 Japan sends 140,000 troops to French Indochina
in preparation for invading the Dutch East Indies.
1939
February 9–11 Japan occupies Hainan. December 7 Japan attacks the US Pacific Fleet in Pearl
Harbor and launches concurrent attacks on British,
1940 Dutch, and US holdings in the Far East.
August 30 Japan wins right to base troops in Luichow.
December 10 Japanese troops from Formosa land on
September 22–26 Japan occupies Tonkin and northern Luzon in the Philippines.
French Indochina.
December 25 All Allied forces in Hong Kong
September 27 Japan signs the Tripartite Pact with surrender to Japan.
Germany and Italy, which guarantees that if a
signatory is attacked by a nation with which it is not 1942
currently at war, all signatories will declare war on the January 2 Manila, the Philippine capital, is declared an
attacking nation. open city by the US and occupied by Japan.

October 16 US President Franklin Roosevelt imposes April 10 US resistance on Bataan in the

an embargo of scrap iron and steel sales to Japan in Philippines ceases.
retaliation for Japan’s occupation of Tonkin.
May 6 Corregidor falls to Japanese invasion and US
December 9 France and Japan sign a treaty allowing forces in the remainder of the Philippines are ordered to
Japanese forces to occupy all of French Indochina while surrender.
allowing France sovereignty over its army and civilian
administration in Indochina.

The 7,500-ton troop transport Kumgawa Maru is torpedoed by a US Avenger off Cape St Jacques (today’s Vung Tau) on the coast
of French Indochina. Kumgawa Maru was one of six vessels sunk by TF38 in that convoy. (USNHHC)
 9

1943 January 22 TF38 launches airstrikes against

February 15–16 Japan occupies Luichow. Nansei Shoto.

1944 January 22 Japan withdraws all air forces from the

October 12–16 TF38 launch air raids against Formosa Philippines.
in advance of the Leyte landings.
January 22 US Army Air Force (AAF) begins bombing
October 23–26 Battle of Leyte fought. targets in Formosa in daylight attacks.

November 21 Admiral Halsey proposes raiding the January 26 TF38 returns to Ulithi.
South China Sea with Third Fleet.
January 28 Third Fleet becomes Fifth Fleet, Halsey and
November 30 Admiral John S. McCain takes McCain are relieved by Spruance and Mitcher.
command of TF38.
February 12 AAF begins long-range patrols in the South
December 15 Mindoro invaded. China Sea.

December 28 Admiral Nimitz grants permission for a February 13 AAF B-25s begin strike missions in South
South China Sea raid by Third Fleet. China Sea.

December 30 TF38 and elements of TG30.8 (Task February 19 US Fifth Fleet invades Iwo Jima.
Group 30.8) depart Ulithi.
February 22 First successful strike by B-25s on Japanese
1945 shipping in South China Sea.
January 3–4 TF38 launches airstrikes against Formosa.
February 26 Iwo Jima secured by US forces.
January 6 Lingayen Gulf landings on Luzon.
March Formosa neutralized by AAF.
January 6–7 TF38 launches airstrikes against Luzon.
April 1 Invasion of Okinawa.
January 9 TF38 launches airstrikes against Formosa.
April 9 Sea lanes across South China Sea
January 9-10 TF38 enters South China Sea. permanently severed.

January 11 TF38 launches airstrikes against June 22 Okinawa secured by US forces.

French Indochina coast, sinking every tanker in a
15-ship convoy. August 6 Japan ceases hostilities.

January 14 TF38 launches airstrikes against Formosa August 28 Occupation of Japan begins.
and the China coast.
September 2 Instrument of surrender signed aboard
January 15 TF38 launches airstrikes against Hong Kong USS Missouri in Tokyo harbor.
and Hainan.

January 20 TF38 exits the South China Sea.

January 21 TF38 launches airstrikes against Formosa,

experiencing counterattacks by kamikaze.

January 21 Fourteenth Air Force B-24 sinks the river

gunboat Saga at Hong Kong.
10 Attacker’s Capabilities

ATTACKER’S CAPABILITIES
Task Force 38 at the height of its power

A formation of Grumman The US Navy’s sweep into the China Sea resulted from the growing capability of its
Avengers forming up for a Pacific Fleet, especially the Fast Carrier Force. The US Navy’s forces in the Pacific grew at
strike. The Avenger was
the US Navy’s primary a phenomenal rate over three years. By December 1944, its Fast Carrier Force consisted
torpedo bomber from of eight fleet carriers and six light carriers, accompanied by nine fast battleships, 16
1942 through to the end light and heavy cruisers, and 74 destroyers. They had a total of 956 aircraft in their air
of the war. Highly
versatile bombers, groups.
Avengers operated off It was a massive number of aircraft, dwarfing the total that the Kido Butai launched
fleet carriers, light against Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Intelligence indicated it exceeded the total
carriers, and escort
carriers. (AC) combat aircraft possessed by Japan within reach of the South China Sea. Moreover,
all these carrier aircraft were leading-edge warplanes, more capable than the front-line
aircraft the Japanese air forces possessed.
Three years of war had honed the US Third Fleet to a deadly and effective weapon; one
that was capable of projecting power and operating independently over long distances.
The US Navy had built a logistics infrastructure to keep it supplied and maintained
across the vast Pacific Ocean. As 1944 ended, the Third Fleet never lacked the necessary
beans, bullets, and black oil it needed to take the war to the enemy. It had effective and
innovative weapons and had evolved offensive tactics that got the most out of them.
The real challenge to an attack into the South China Sea would be logistics. The
nearest fleet anchorage capable of supporting the Third Fleet was at Ulithi, some 1,400
miles from the entrance to the South China Sea. That entrance marked the campaign’s
starting point. Ten days of intense combat operations were planned after that, with
another week of operations following departure from the South China Sea. TF38 needed
to bring with it resupply ships at a scale unprecedented until that point in the war.
It was a test of the attacker’s capabilities, in terms of aircraft, logistics and infrastructure,
and weapons and tactics. No previous air campaign – and few subsequent ones –
had ever required such a test. Coming up short in any of these matters would lead
to disaster.
 11

Aircraft
The aircraft the United States Navy used
offensively during the Third Fleet’s South
China Sea campaign were US Navy carrier
aircraft. US Navy floatplanes on battleships
and cruisers provided rescue and other auxiliary
services. Carrier aircraft were all single-engine
aircraft. The main carrier aircraft used were
the F6F, F4U, SBD, SB2C, and TBF/TBM.
Vought OS2U Kingfishers, catapult-launched
floatplanes, played an important air–sea rescue
role during the carrier raids. Each fleet carrier
carried between 38 and 80 fighters, 15–25
dive-bombers (except for the night-flying
Enterprise, which carried no dive-bombers),
and 15–18 torpedo bombers (again, except
the Enterprise, which carried 27). Each light
carrier held 22–25 fighters and eight or nine
torpedo bombers.
There were more fighters than previously, but significantly fewer dive-bombers. Nearly An F6F-5N flies near a
two-thirds of the aircraft aboard TF38 carriers – 601 out of 956 – were fighters. Many of TF38 aircraft carrier. It is
fitted with an AN/APS-6
these doubled as fighter-bombers. Eighteen were equipped as photo-reconnaissance aircraft radar in a fairing on the
and 38 as radar-equipped night fighters. There were 154 dive-bombers and 201 torpedo outer-starboard wing. The
bombers. One torpedo bomber was equipped for photo-reconnaissance and 35 were radar- US Navy made extensive
use of radar-equipped
equipped night bombers. night fighters and
In addition to TF38, TG30.8 had seven escort carriers accompanying it, each with 26–32 bombers during the
aircraft. While these were primarily intended to provide resupply aircraft to the Fast Carrier January 1945 South
China Sea raid.
(USNHHC)

USS Essex carried two

squadrons of Marine F4U
Corsairs during the
January incursion into the
South China Sea. They are
spotted on Essex’s deck as
part of a deckload strike
in January 1945.
(USNHHC)
12 Attacker’s Capabilities

OPPOSITE: THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF MAST-TOP BOMBING

By 1945, the United States Navy largely abandoned dive-bombing and torpedo bombing against naval targets in favor
of fighter-bombers conducting mast-top attacks. Mast-top bombing yielded a higher percentage of hits, and the bombers
became fighters once they delivered their ordinance. Against anything except a heavily armored vessel like a fleet carrier,
battleship, or heavy cruiser, it was more effective. The South China Sea was filled with targets perfect for mast-top tactics.

Force, at least one of the seven was used to provide combat air patrol (CAP) for TG30.8.
The F4F-4 or FM Wildcats were used by those escort carriers for that purpose.
The principal aircraft used by the US Navy in the South China Sea were as follows:
Grumman F6F Hellcat: Appearing in late 1943, the Hellcat was designed to fight the
Zero. It was the Allied fighter most feared by Japanese pilots. By 1944, it was the US Navy’s
primary carrier-based fighter, and remained so through 1945. There were two versions used
during this campaign: the F6F-3 and the improved F6F-5 with a more powerful engine. The
F6F-5 had largely superseded the F6F-3 by December 1944. Three-quarters of Hellcats in
this campaign were the F6F-5 variant. It had a maximum speed of 391mph, a cruising speed
of 200mph, a service ceiling of 37,300ft, and a range of 1,500 miles.
All F6F-3s were armed with six .50cal machine guns, while the F6F-5 could be armed
with six .50cal machine guns or two 20mm cannons and four .50cal machine guns. In
practice, only the night-fighter versions of the F6F-5 – the F6F-5N – carried 20mm cannons.
Except for the radar-equipped night fighters, all Hellcats used in this campaign were capable
of carrying six 5in. rockets in under-wing racks, along with up to 4,000lb of bombs in a
centerline mount that carried one torpedo or one bomb of up to 2,000lb or one bomb of
up to 1,000lb under each wing.
Vought F4U Corsair: The Corsair was a single-engine fighter armed with six .50cal
machine guns. It could also be used as a fighter-bomber carrying eight under-wing 5in.
HVARs (High Velocity Aircraft Rockets) or up to 4,000lb of bombs in under-wing or
centerline brackets. It had a top speed of 417mph, a cruise speed of 220mph, a service
ceiling of 36,000ft, and a 1,000nmi (nautical miles) range. Entering combat in early
1943, it ended the war with an 11:1 kill ratio, 11 enemy aircraft being shot down for
every Corsair lost.
Despite being designed as a carrier aircraft, it proved difficult to land on aircraft carriers.
Early in its career it was largely used by land-based Marine fighter squadrons. However, it
was such a good fighter that by late 1944 the Corsair was making a comeback on carriers.
Only one carrier had Corsairs during this campaign, Essex, which had two 18-aircraft Marine
squadrons. One squadron used the F4U-1, the first production version with the “birdcage”
canopy and the 2,000hp R-2800-8 Double Wasp engine. The other was equipped with
the newer F4U-1D, which had a bubble canopy and the more powerful water-injected
R-2800-8W Double Wasp engine with up to 2,250hp.
Curtis SB2C Helldiver: This single-engine dive-bomber was used aboard US Navy aircraft
carriers during the campaign. The Helldiver, which replaced the Douglas Dauntless as the
Navy’s primary dive-bomber in 1944, carried up to 2,500lb of bombs, had a maximum
speed of 295mph, a cruise speed of 158mph, a ceiling of 29,000ft, and a 1,165nmi range.
Only fleet carriers carried dive-bomber squadrons. The Helldiver experienced development
problems in early 1944 that had still not been worked out by the end of the year.
Dive-bombing was the most effective means of attacking large, armored warships. By the
end of 1944, however, the Japanese Navy had relatively few large warships left. Opportunities
where dive-bombing was most useful were scarce. Mast-top bombing was more effective
against unarmored warships and merchant vessels, with low-level bombing more useful
against ground targets such as airfields. These tactics could be more effectively used by smaller,
more survivable fighter-bombers, which could carry bombloads as large as the Helldiver.
 13

F6Fs spot tankers. Tankers spot F6Fs.

F6Fs turn to attack tankers. Tankers turn to escape.

Wingman F6F begins firing machine guns to suppress AA and damage ship.

Lead F6F fires rockets and drops bomb, hitting ship. F6Fs pull up and out.
14 Attacker’s Capabilities

Although a few Helldivers were retained against the hope the remaining Japanese heavy
warships would come out to fight, they had largely been superseded by fighter-bombers.
Grumman TBF/General Motors TBM Avenger: The Avenger was a single-engine torpedo
bomber with a crew of three. It carried a single 18in. aerial torpedo or up to 2,000lb of
bombs, depth charges, or mines. It had a top speed of 275mph, a cruising speed of 145mph, a
service ceiling of 30,000ft, and a 1,000nmi range. Designed and constructed by Grumman, it
was also built under license by General Motors. Aircraft from both manufacturers were used.
The Avenger was much more versatile than the newer and larger Helldiver. It flew as a
torpedo bomber against shipping, or as a medium- or high-altitude level bomber against
airfields or other land targets, all roles for which there was use in this campaign. Versions
including the TBF-1D, TBM-3D, TBM-3E, TBM-3H, and TBM-3N were equipped
with centimeter-wave radar, typically in a radome on the right wing. These were used for
antisubmarine warfare, radar-guided night bombing, or airborne early warning (AEW). They
were used at night as AEW aircraft to help guide night fighters to targets.
Grumman F4F and FM Wildcat: This was the US Navy’s primary fleet fighter when
World War II began. It held its own against the superior Japanese Zero, but was superseded
by the F6F in 1943. The Wildcat was rugged and reliable, with more forgiving takeoff and
landing characteristics than the Hellcat. It was used by most escort carriers, typically with
14–16 carried. Intended for antisubmarine or ground support duties, it frequently defended
escort carrier units against kamikaze attacks. Armed with four .50cal machine guns, it had
a top speed of 331mph and cruised at 155mph, with a service ceiling of 39,500ft, and a
700nmi range. Wildcats manufactured by General Motors were designated FMs.
Vought OS2U Kingfisher: The Kingfisher, a catapult-launched floatplane, operated off
US battleships and cruisers. It had a maximum speed of 171mph, a cruise speed of 152mph,
a service ceiling of 18,000ft, and a 790nmi range. It had one forward-firing fixed .30cal
machine gun and one flexible. 30cal machine gun aft that was fired by the observer. It carried
up to two 325lb depth charges. The Kingfisher was intended to provide reconnaissance, fire
control, and observation for US Navy battleships and cruisers. Radar replaced its gunnery-
spotting function and carrier aircraft supplanted it for reconnaissance. It served as a lifeguard
aircraft during carrier raids, rescuing downed naval aviators.

Facilities and infrastructure

The most important facilities used by aircraft in this campaign were TF38’s 14 fast carriers.
Fleet and light carriers were fast vessels built as warships, with a top speed in excess of
30 knots. The major difference between fleet and light carriers was size and capability.
Fleet carriers in this campaign ranged from 25,000–35,000 tons displacement, carried up
to 120 aircraft, and had sizable antiaircraft batteries, including 5in. guns. Light carriers
displaced between 10,000 and 13,000 tons, carried up to 30 aircraft, and had only light
antiaircraft guns.
All but one fleet carrier in this campaign belonged to the Essex class. Two dozen of them
were built. These carriers displaced 35,000 tons loaded, their waterline was 820ft long, they
had an 862ft flight deck, could reach 32.5 knots, and could cruise 20,000nmi at 15 knots.
They had powerful antiaircraft batteries and excellent internal protection. The other fleet
carrier was Enterprise, sole survivor of the three-ship prewar Yorktown class. It displaced
25,000 tons. While celebrated, it was inferior to the Essex-class carriers and was being
relegated to a backup role. In this campaign, it served as one of two night-operations carriers,
with 65 radar-equipped aircraft.
The US light carriers belonged to the Independence class, conversions modified to aircraft
carriers from Cleveland-class light cruisers while under construction. Each was 600ft long at
the waterline, with a 552ft flight deck. They displaced nearly 15,000 tons fully loaded and
 15

their steam turbines gave a top speed of 31 knots. They could steam 13,000nmi at 15 knots. An Essex-class carrier in a
Designed to carry 45 aircraft, in this campaign they carried just 31. storm in the South China
Sea. The Essex-class
The various battleships, cruisers, and destroyers assigned to TF38 all had the same mission: carriers were the
protect the fast carriers. Their primary function – including the fast battleship, armed with backbone of the Fast
main batteries of nine 16in. guns – was to serve as mobile antiaircraft batteries, shielding Carrier Force. They each
carried up to 100 aircraft
the carriers from air attack. While battleship and cruiser captains dreamed of an opportunity and were excellent sea
for a surface action, their need to defend the carriers came first. The destroyers also provided boats. (AC)
antisubmarine protection.
All warships required food, ammunition, and fuel – beans, bullets, and black oil in Navy
parlance. It had to come from somewhere. Since 1942, the Allies’ Pacific War strategic goal
had been to invade and occupy Japan. Tokyo was nearly 4,500nmi from San Francisco, over
4,200nmi from Sydney in Australia, and 5,700nmi from India’s east coast. These were global
distances. To project power across those distances required a massive and intricately managed
logistical system combining island bases and numerous logistics vessels.
The US Navy began the war with a well-provisioned supply and repair center in the
middle of the Pacific at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, their main prewar base in the region. Japan’s
war-opening attack there concentrated on the US Navy warships in the harbor, neglecting
infrastructure targets such as oil terminals, warehouses, dry docks, and ship and aircraft
repair and maintenance facilities.
As 1945 opened, the war had moved far west of Hawaii. To provide forward bases for its
fleet as it advanced across the Pacific, the US Navy developed anchorages and supply and
repair depots along the way. Ulithi Atoll in the Caroline Islands, taken unopposed by the US
in September 1944, was the US Navy’s westernmost anchorage in January 1945: 2,700nmi
from Pearl Harbor and 1,100nmi from Tokyo.
Ulithi became a major facility with 6,000 ship fitters and other repair personnel. The atoll
provided a sheltered anchorage large enough to comfortably hold every warship in the US
16 Attacker’s Capabilities

Ulithi Atoll was the US Navy, from the smallest PT boat to its largest battleships. It had several floating dry docks,
Navy’s main anchorage including one which could carry an Iowa-class battleship. Other vessels distilled fresh water,
during the winter of
1944–45. It was large baked fresh bread, and provided other comforts to the US Navy’s fleets operating out of the
enough to hold every ship atoll. It even had a concrete-hull ice cream barge capable of producing 500 gallons of ice
in the US Pacific Fleet, cream every six hours and storing 2,000 gallons of it aboard.
with room for more. By
January 1945, it had The US Navy had mastered the art of moving sufficient food, fuel, and munitions to feed
extensive logistics and the fleet operating out of Ulithi, some 4,700nmi from the West Coast. Nevertheless, Ulithi
repair facilities. (AC) was over 1,400nmi from the eastern entrance to the South China Sea, through the gap between
Formosa and Luzon. US Navy warships from Ulithi could reach that distance, conduct combat
operations, and return safely to Ulithi. By December 1944, they frequently had. However, the
Luzon Strait was only the starting point for a move into the South China Sea. Operations were
planned to last ten days, during which TF38 could easily cover another 2,000nmi steaming at
combat speeds. Without resupply, it could end up literally dead in the water.
Even before World War II began, the US Navy led the world’s fleets in underway
replenishment. Anticipating a trans-Pacific campaign, it created a force of fleet oilers which
could fuel its fleet while at sea. After three years of war it had perfected fleet logistics,
expanding it to include transferring supplies and ammunition at sea. TF38 was supported
by TG30.8, the At Sea Logistics Group of Third Fleet. It consisted of 29 fleet oilers, eight
escort carriers, seven ammunition ships, and seven oceangoing tugs, escorted by 14 destroyers
and 25 destroyer escorts.
Of the seven escort carriers, one – USS Altamaha – was an early escort carrier, built under a
Maritime Commission contract at Tacoma, Washington. It displaced 7,900 tons, could make
a maximum of 16 knots, and carried 24 aircraft. The rest belonged to the Casablanca class.
Displacing 11,000 tons, they were mass-produced at Kaiser Corporation shipyards, built
through an initiative of the company’s owner, Henry J. Kaiser. Nicknamed Kaiser carriers,
they were 490ft long, with a 475ft flight deck, and had a maximum speed of 19 knots. They
steamed 10,200nmi at 15 knots and carried 28 aircraft. Fifty Kaiser carriers were built.
 17

Normally, these auxiliaries operated 300–500nmi behind TF38, with TF38 between them TG30.8, the At Sea
and the enemy shore. On previous campaigns, they had fueled the fighting ships a day before Logistics Group of Third
Fleet, accompanied TF38
they attacked. The auxiliaries would then hover near that point as the Fast Carrier Force made into the South China Sea.
a high-speed run to their target, spend a day or two attacking, then make an equally fast exit In addition to fleet oilers,
run. They would then rendezvous with the auxiliaries, refuel, and (if necessary) rearm. From the logistics group
included six Casablanca-
there, the Fast Carrier Force could launch another set of attacks or return to port, whether class escort carriers to
to Pearl Harbor or Ulithi. provide the Fast Carrier
The extended stay planned in the South China Sea made this impractical. In such Force with replacement
aircraft. (AC)
dangerous waters, the Fast Carrier Force could not afford to reduce speed to conserve oil. It
had to keep its fuel topped up to permit continuous high-speed operation. Part of TG30.8
thus accompanied TF38 into the South China Sea to carry replacement aircraft, fuel, and
spare ammunition.
With this fleet train and the mobile airfields provided by aircraft carriers, this would be
the first campaign fought by the US Navy in which all facilities and infrastructure used to
fight the campaign was mobile. Ulithi, which served just as the starting and ending point,
was the only static base used.

Weapons and tactics

The weapons on US Navy carrier aircraft used in the South China Sea included M2 Browning
.50cal machine guns, M1919 .30cal machine guns, M2 20mm cannons, a variety of bombs,
aerial torpedoes, and the 5in. HVAR. Ship-mounted artillery provided antiaircraft protection
for TF38 and TG30.8 against air attack, part of an integrated air defense system.
The M2 .50cal was a highly reliable, air-cooled machine gun. Navy aircraft used a
dedicated aircraft version, the AN/M2. The M2 had a muzzle velocity of 2,910fps and
could fire 750–850 rounds per minute. The gun fired a 52g bullet, capable of penetrating
1in. of armor and the structural steel of unarmored ships. It was a potent weapon against
18 Attacker’s Capabilities

Pallets of HVAR rockets ships, ground vehicles, and buildings, as well as other aircraft. The M1919 was lighter, firing
ready to load on aircraft an 11g round with a muzzle-velocity of 2,800fps. Aircraft versions fired 1,200–1,500 rounds
preparatory to an
airstrike. These 5in. per minute and were effective primarily against aircraft or troops in the open.
rockets traveled at The M2 20mm cannon was a US-licensed version of the Hispano-Suiza HS.404 Mk II
supersonic speed, adding 20mm cannon and was used by both the US Army Air Force and US Navy. It had a muzzle
kinetic energy to the effect
of the explosive warhead. velocity of 2,800fps and fired 700–750 rounds per minute. It fired a 4.6oz (130g) projectile,
(AC)§ and had armor-piercing, high-explosive, and incendiary rounds. The high-explosive round
had between 0.21oz and 0.39oz (6–11g) of explosive.
The US Navy used the Mk XIII aerial torpedo against shipping in the South China Sea.
Developed in the 1930s, the Mk XIII became operational in 1938. When the war began it had
to be launched at low speeds as otherwise it would break up when entering the water, which
made it almost useless in 1942. Nevertheless, wartime modifications meant it had evolved
into an effective weapon by 1944. A nose drag ring, tail shroud, and fin stabilizer slowed the
torpedo enough that it neither broke up nor ran wild on hitting the water. It was 13ft 9in.
long, with a 22.4in. diameter, had a 600lb warhead, and could travel 4,000yds at 33.5 knots.
The main bomb used in this campaign was the high-explosive general-purpose bomb.
Parafrag (parachute-retarded fragmentation) bombs were also used, especially against airfields
with aircraft in the open, as were incendiary and phosphorus bombs. The most common
ordinance used was the 500lb M58 and M58A1 semi-armor-piercing bomb. The M57
(250lb) and M65 (1,000lb) bombs were also used. Roughly half the weight in all these bombs
was the steel case, the remainder being made up of explosive, typically TNT.
The 500lb bomb was highly effective against small warships, cargo ships, tankers, and
harbor craft such as tugs and barges. One hit would cripple these vessels, with a good chance
of sinking them. They were also effective against shore installations such as warehouses,
hangars, and machine shops. Frame and metal roof construction proved extremely vulnerable
to 500lb bombs, which could also fracture runways and concrete foundations.
Against larger warships, including light cruisers, 1,000lb bombs were more effective,
although relatively few of these ships were expected to be in the South China Sea. Except
the battleships suspected to be in Camranh Bay in French Indochina, no ships worthy of a
 19

2,000lb bomb were present. Helldivers and

Avengers could carry four 500lb bombs,
allowing multiple attacks. Fighter-bombers
carrying three 500lb bombs or six HVARs
and a 500lb centerline bomb were more
maneuverable and had longer range than
those burdened with 4,000lb of bombs.
The HVAR was an unguided rocket
intended for use against ground targets.
It weighed 134lb, was 68in. long, and
had a 5in. diameter. Its warhead weighed
45.5lb and contained 7.5lb of TNT or
Composition B explosive. It traveled
at supersonic speeds, accelerating past
Mach 1, and was capable of penetrating
4ft of reinforced concrete. A volley would
devastate a transport or tanker. They
could be launched individually, in pairs,
or all together.
For antiaircraft defense, the US Navy
carried 5in./.38cal guns backed up by an
array of 40mm Bofors and 20mm Oerlikon
antiaircraft guns.
The 5in./.38cal gun was World War II’s finest dual-purpose gun. It was effective and A quad-mount 40mm
deadly against aircraft, especially when accurate aircraft altitudes were provided for fusing Bofors antiaircraft gun.
The Bofors was an
or proximity fuses were fitted. The shell weighed 55lb, of which 7.1–8.5lb was the bursting outstanding medium-
charge. It fired 15 rounds per minute, had a 37,200ft ceiling, and could reach low-flying weight antiaircraft
aircraft up to 8½ miles away. weapon. When paired
with the the Mk 14
Proximity fuses used a radar unit inside the projectile. When the radar detected an object gunsight developed by
(hopefully an enemy aircraft), it detonated the shell just after the closest approach, when the Draper Laboratory
range began increasing. This dramatically increased the odds of the shell exploding within (which determined the
appropriate angle to
a burst radius fatal to an aircraft. lead a target), it was
The 40mm gun was a Swedish Bofors design, built under license in the United States. It devastating. (AC)
fired up to 120 2lb explosive rounds per minute, and had a 22,300ft ceiling. To minimize
the danger of friendly fire, rounds were fused to explode after traveling 12,000–15,000ft.
Within that distance they were deadly.
The 20mm Oerlikon, a Swiss design produced under license, fired a 0.27lb projectile. Its
effective rate of fire was 250–320 rounds per minute and it had a 10,000ft ceiling, although
it was rarely effective beyond 3,000ft. US Navy doctrine was to begin firing the 20mm
guns when the target was 3,900ft away, allowing aimed corrections as the target entered
effective range.
Antiaircraft defense started with radar, which guided Allied aircraft towards attacking
Japanese aircraft and controlled fire when enemy aircraft arrived within range of shipboard
artillery. By December 1944, every warship in TF38 and TG30.8 had radar. Large warships
had some version of SK air search radar, which had a 162nmi line-of-sight range. Destroyer
escorts were normally equipped with SA air search radar, although some were fitted
with SK radar.
By 1944, destroyers and larger warships had fire-control radar to provide both the approach
azimuth and altitude of incoming aircraft. These directed the fire of 5in./.38cal antiaircraft
guns comprising destroyers’ main batteries and the secondary batteries of cruisers, aircraft
carriers, and battleships.
20 Attacker’s Capabilities

OPPOSITE: AIRFIELD ATTACK TECHNIQUES

By January 1945, the US Navy had become very good at attacking enemy airfields, employing three basic tactics:
1. low-altitude strafing by fighters;
2. low-altitude bombing using parachute-retarded fragmentation (parafrag) bombs;
3. high-altitude level bombing.
Each technique had different strengths and weaknesses.

The 40mm Bofors used the Mk 37 director, which was originally an optical system
but by late 1944 was radar-equipped. A Mk 51 director developed later improved 40mm
performance. The 40mm and 20mm guns could be directed locally using the Mk 14
gunsight, which used gyroscopes to calculate how much to “lead” a moving target. Most
of these innovations were pioneered by Charles Stark Draper in the MIT (Massachusetts
Institute of Technology) Instrumentation Laboratory.
By late 1944, the US Navy had achieved remarkable competence in containing and
controlling battle damage, especially firefighting. Wartime experience revealed fire as the
biggest combat risk to ships, especially aircraft carriers, filled with explosives and volatile
aircraft fuel. The Navy increased the number of fire mains aboard ships, installing ones
powered independently of ships’ engines or adding portable, gasoline-powered water pumps.
They were equipped with fog nozzles which sprayed water in a fine mist, maximizing the
exposed surface area. Aircraft carriers also carried foaming systems to quench fuel fires.
The Allies developed sophisticated offensive and defensive tactics for aircraft. Offensive
tactics included beginning attacks against ships or airfields with a morning fighter sweep.
This was used to clear the skies of enemy aircraft before committing more vulnerable bombers
and fighter-bombers over enemy airspace. Multiple waves of bombers and fighters were used,
permitting follow-up attacks on previously damaged targets, wearing down their opponents.
Defense tactics were also developed to protect against kamikaze attacks. On strike days,
radar picket destroyers were placed on either side of the axis of attack 60 miles closer to
the enemy than the carriers. They were equipped with air search radar and aircraft homing
beacons. CAP missions were maintained over these “Tom Cat” picket destroyers to deal
with enemy aircraft.
Friendly aircraft returning from missions flew over Tom Cat destroyers, doing a full
360-degree turn over them. The returning strike then flew to the carriers, tracing a dogleg
course. The CAP “deloused” the aircraft over the Tom Cats, identifying friendly and enemy
aircraft, attacking any hostiles attempting to sneak in with the returning strike. Any aircraft
skipping the Tom Cats, flying a straight course to the carriers, were assumed hostile and
intercepted by the carrier group’s CAP.

USS Maddox in World

War II. Maddox served as
a “Tom Cat” delousing
destroyer during the
campaign. It was hit by a
kamikaze off Formosa on
January 21 while
performing that role. (AC)
 21
Airfield attack techniques
By January 1945 the US Navy had got very good at attacking enemy airfields. They had three basic tactics.

1. Low-altitude fighter strafing

Flights of fighters attack an airfield line abreast at
low altitude, firing their machine guns (and if they
have them, rockets) as they fly over the airfield.
Advantages: Hard for defenders to counter,
effective means of suppressing antiaircraft fire.
Disadvantages: Least amount of firepower, best
against aircraft and personnel in open.

2. Low-altitude bombing with parafrags

Fast bombers (Helldivers, which have 20mm cannon
and are more robust than Avengers) make a low-level
strafing pass over an airfield dropping parafrags.
Advantages: Hard for defenders to hit low-flying aircraft,
parafrags do more damage than gunfire alone.
Disadvantages: Have to time attacks carefully lest
following waves get damaged by earlier ones.

3. High-altitude level bombing

Flights of bombers (typically Avengers)
conduct high-altitude level bombing on
enemy airfields with HE bombs
Advantages: Above light antiaircraft range,
HE bombs can destroy buildings and
crater runways.
Disadvantages: Vulnerable to heavy
antiaircraft fire.
22 Defender’s Capabilities

DEFENDER’S CAPABILITIES
The Japanese in the South China Sea

Early versions of the As with the US Navy, Imperial Japan’s defense during TF38’s sweep through the South China
Yokosuka D4Y Suisei Sea and Ryukyu Islands was the culmination of three years’ preparation. In the case of the
dive-bomber proved
failures. Modifications Japanese, it was three years’ lack of preparation. The seeds they had sown in the South China
fixed most of its problems. Sea since January 1941 yielded a bitter harvest in January 1945.
It was the fastest dive- They began the campaign with one advantage: an outstanding infrastructure of airbases and
bomber Japan had, and
was frequently used as a naval bases ringing the South China Sea which permitted them to operate aircraft and warships
kamikaze. A D4Y3 struck throughout the region. In theory, they could concentrate forces to meet the threat posed by the
Ticonderoga on January US Navy and potentially block passage in and out of the sea.
21, 1945. (AC)
However, executing that required resources the Japanese lacked. They had few trained aircrew
in the region and too few aircraft. The majority of the aircraft they had were obsolescent, if
not obsolete. Furthermore, the fleet assigned there was intended to fight submarines. Some
of its ships had been built before aircraft became a threat. The South China Sea had been a
backwater for many years.
Backwater fever plagued the entire Japanese war machine in the South China Sea. Many of
the personnel there were second- or even third-class. So was their equipment. The best men
and equipment had been sent to active theaters. What remained when the South China Sea
became the active theater was what no one else wanted. While there was a lot there, there was
no coordination.
Worse, they had inadequate equipment and doctrine. Japan lacked tools to conduct an effective
defensive campaign against a determined aerial assault by a capable opponent. It also lacked the
temperament for defense, preferring attack. There was no integrated air defense, coordinating
aircraft and air defense artillery to repel an incoming airstrike against a single target, much less a
coordinated defense for attacks on multiple targets. It lacked adequate antiaircraft artillery, both
in terms of numbers of barrels and effectiveness of individual guns. They were also scattered over
a wide area, unable to concentrate against a foe operating from a central position.
Compounding the problem was that the South China Sea was not a unified command. It
was at the junction of several commands: Formosa, the Philippines, Indochina and China.
 23

The focus in all commands was outward, away from the South China Sea. Divided command, A late-war Mitsubishi
lack of resources, inferior doctrine, and geography all hindered Japanese preparations and A6M5 Reisen (Zero or
Zeke) fighter. By 1945,
capabilities. They were facing a typhoon of steel, but were unprepared for more than a gale. the Zero’s glory years
were in the past. It
continued to be
Aircraft extensively used due to
the large numbers built
In 1944, German soldiers in France used to joke that they could tell the nationality of an and the lack of
aircraft by its color. If it was colored, it was British; if it was silver, it was American; if it was replacement aircraft. It
was used as both a fighter
invisible, it was German. Japanese soldiers and sailors in and around the South China Sea and a kamikaze in this
in January 1945 could have told their own variation on the joke. campaign. (AC)
The China and French Indochina coasts of the South China Sea had been a backwater
since March 1942. To a lesser extent, so had Formosa. Until summer 1944, they were all
deep in the interior of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. There was little need for
aircraft in the area. Combat was nonexistent and flight training was conducted either in
Japan or in the Philippines and Borneo. As Japan lacked aircraft and pilots to meet all its
needs, combat aircraft assigned to the South China Sea were often reassigned to more active
theaters and the pilots retained were the least competent and worst trained. The best pilots
were needed elsewhere.
Formosa and the Philippines became Imperial Japan’s front line only in October 1944.
By then, Japan lacked reserves to guard the South China Sea. What aircraft they had were
shoveled into the Philippines or Formosa to stanch the Allied advance. This included the
new kamikaze corps. Most aircraft in the Philippines were wiped out by mid-December
1944. Those in Formosa, including a small number of kamikazes, were located to respond
to attacks from the Philippine Sea and Pacific, not the South China Sea.
The aircraft remaining to guard the South China Sea were second-line aircraft numbering
in scores (at best) at each location. Due to shortages of fuel and spare parts, they spent
little time in the air, to conserve them for use when US forces did show up. Since the first
indication of the US Navy’s arrival was a surprise fighter sweep at dawn, most Japanese
aircraft were destroyed on the ground before they could take off. Those few that survived
were used defensively to protect airfields and local shipping. Almost nothing was available
to seek out and attack the US Navy.
Imperial Japanese Navy and Imperial Japanese Army aircraft participated in the South
China Sea campaign, including single-engine fighters and bombers and a few twin-engine
night fighters. Although the Army and Navy had developed special attack “tokko” units,
none had been organized within the South China Sea, and the few available – single-engine
Mitsubishi A6Ms and Yokosuka D4Y1s – were stationed on the east coast of Formosa.
24 Defender’s Capabilities

The Mitsubishi A6M The primary single-engine fighters available to the Japanese defenders were as follows:
(Allied codename Claude) Mitsubishi A6M (Zero; Allied codename: Zeke, Hamp, Rufe): The Japanese Navy’s
was the Imperial Japanese
Navy’s primary fighter in infamous Mitsubishi Reisen (Zero) dominated the Pacific in 1941 and 1942. Yet by late
the late 1930s. Relegated 1944 it was hopelessly outclassed by new Allied fighters, especially the F6F and F4U. Zeros
to training duties after the were armed with two 7.7mm machine guns and two 20mm cannons, had a 32,000ft service
A6M appeared, some
remained in China during ceiling, a 1,600nmi range, and a 332mph top speed. They primarily served as fighters in this
the war. They were campaign. A floatplane fighter version, known as the Rufe, had a top speed of 270mph, a
probably among the cruising speed of 184mph, a service ceiling of 33,000ft, and a 620nmi range. The few Zeros
aircraft destroyed on the
ground there by TF38. used as kamikazes were fitted with a 250kg (550lb) bomb.
(AC) Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa (Peregrine falcon; Oscar): The Japanese Army’s standard
fighter when the war began was this single-engine, low-wing monoplane which carried
either two 7.7mm machine guns, two 12.7mm machine guns, or two 20mm machine guns,
depending on the version. It had a 330mph top speed, a 26,700ft ceiling, and 950nmi
combat range.
The Nakajima Ki-44 Shoki (“Devil Queller”; Tojo): Along with the Hein and Hayate,
the Shoki was an early-war replacement for the Hayabusa. All three were low-wing single-
engine fighters. The Shoki, introduced in 1942, carried four 12.7mm machine guns, with
two in the wings and two firing through the propeller. It had a top speed of 376mph, a
cruising speed of 250mph, a 650nmi range, and a service ceiling of 36,700ft. It had a
1,450hp radial engine.
Kawasaki Ki-61 Hien (Flying Swallow; Tony): The only Japanese production fighter
with an inline engine, a 1,160hp V-12, the Hien entered service in 1943. It was armed
with two 7.9mm machine guns and two 20mm cannons. It had a top speed of 360mph, a
310nmi range, and a service ceiling of 38,100ft. Due to its short range it was primarily used
for point defense of airfields.
Nakajima Ki-84 Hayate (Gale; Frank): A first-line fighter introduced early in 1944, the
Hayate was the only one nearing the capabilities of the American Hellcat or Corsair. It was
armed with two 12.7mm machine guns and two 20mm cannons, and had a 2,040hp radial
engine, which gave it a top speed of 427mph. It had a 38,800ft ceiling and a 1,171nmi range.
The few Hayates participating in this campaign were in Formosa.
Also present were Nakajima Ki-27 (Nate) and Mitsubishi A5M (Claude) fighters. Both
were Imperial Japanese Army and Navy (respectively) prewar designs. They had fixed landing
 25

gear and open cockpits, and were armed with two 7.9mm machine guns firing through the
propeller. Both had been retired by December 1941, and were used as trainers during the
Pacific War. Some were stationed in China and thrown into battle as fighters for lack of
better alternatives.
Japan had three main twin-engine night fighters: the Kawasaki Ki-45 Toryu (Dragon
Slayer; Allied codename Nick), Kawasaki Ki-102 (Randy), and Nakajima J1N1 Gekko
(Moonlight; Irving). The Toryu and Ki-102 were built for the Army; the Gekko and Ginga
were Navy aircraft. The Toryu and Gekko were designed in the late 1930s, entering service
in late 1941 and early 1942. They had a top speed of 336mph and 315mph respectively.
Both were heavily armed: the Toryu carried one forward-firing 37mm and 20mm cannon;
the Gekko carried a mix of up to four upward- or downward-firing 20mm cannons.
Both the Toryu and Gekko were converted to night fighters once airborne radar became
available. They were large enough to take the sets, but too slow to be effective daytime
fighters. They were handicapped by poor training for the radar operators and poor radar
performance. They were also handicapped by small numbers: just 1,700 Toryus and fewer
than 500 Gekkos were built, many early in the war. The Ki-102 was a replacement for
the Toryu, entering service in 1944. It had a top speed of 360mph and a 32,000ft ceiling.
Superior to earlier night fighters, only 200 entered service before the war ended. These three
night fighters played a minimal role in the South China Sea campaign, mainly in Formosa.
The only Japanese bomber with a significant role in this campaign was the Yokosuka
D4Y3 Suisei (Allied codename Judy). It was intended as a dive-bomber, replacing the Aichi
D3A, but had a troubled development. Nevertheless, it had developed into an effective dive-
bomber by December 1944. It was fast (a 342mph maximum speed), with a 910nmi range
and a 35,000ft service ceiling. Armed with two forward-firing 7.7mm machine guns and
one rearward-firing flexible 7.7mm machine gun, it could carry 1,000lb of bombs. Although
designed as a carrier aircraft, during this campaign it only operated from land bases. A small
number of these were used as kamikazes in the South China Sea.

Facilities and infrastructure

Japan had an extensive set of facilities to support operations in the South China Sea. Formosa
had been part of the Japanese empire since 1895. While Japan’s oldest Chinese holdings
were in northern China, during the Second Sino-Japanese War (which started in 1937) the
Japanese established toeholds on coastal cities and islands along China’s entire South China
Sea coast, where they had built major military airfields during the 1930s. Japan entered
French Indochina in September 1940 and occupied the entire colony in July 1941. Naval
and air facilities were established in all of these prewar conquests.
The most developed was Formosa, longest held of the Japanese conquests, which had
naval harbors and facilities in Formosa and the nearby Pescadores Islands since Japan
established its rule there. The principal naval facilities were at Takao on the southeast corner
of Formosa and at Kiirun, the principal harbor of Taipei (Formosa’s largest city and present-
day Taiwan’s capital) in the northeast. These were being supplemented by a new naval base
under construction in 1944 and 1945 at Toshien. There was also a minor naval base and
anchorage at Mako in the Pescadores. Other, primarily commercial harbors dotted Formosa’s
coast, in which Japanese warships occasionally sheltered.
During the 1920s and 1930s, Japan established two dozen military airfields on Formosa
and several seaplane bases. Around ten of them had paved runways and extensive facilities,
including aircraft manufacturing and repair centers at Okayama, Heito, and Shinchiku. The
most important Formosan airfields besides these were at Einansho (an air depot), Matsuyama,
Kiko, Kagi, Choshu, and Taito. There was also Chomosui in the Pescadores. Many of the
Formosan airfields were clustered in the south, built prior to the Pacific War to support an
26 Defender’s Capabilities

invasion of Luzon and the Philippines.

There were so many that several had
been abandoned as surplus by 1945.
A similar situation existed on the
coast of China. Chinese ports were
mainly used for cargo. As in Formosa,
Japanese warships sheltered in them as
necessary, for fuel and supplies. The
Chinese coast was so far within the
Japanese Empire that there was little
need for naval bases there. Japan had
built a network of developed airfields
along the coast, with major airbases at
Amoy, Swatow, Canton, Luichow, and
Yulin (on the island of Hainan). Hong
Kong, a British crown colony captured
by Japan in 1941, also had important
port and air facilities, including the
best naval yard on the Chinese coast.
French Indochina had important
facilities too, including a major port
at Haiphong, an Imperial Japanese
Navy anchorage at Camranh Bay,
and airfields at Saigon, Tourane, and
Qui Nhon. All of these, originally
Japan had an extensive developed by France, were improved by Japan after they took over. Camranh Bay served as
network of developed a springboard for the Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies.
airfields in Formosa prior
to the start of the Pacific Outside the South China Sea, airfields in the Ryukyu island chain played a role, notably the
War. One of the largest airfields on Yayeyama, Miyako Rhetto, Okinawa, and Ie Shima. Ishigaki Jima on Yayeyama,
was Shinchiku airfield in Uruku and Yonton on Okinawa, and Ie Shima were improved airfields with paved runways.
central Formosa. Its 1943
appearance is captured in All were targets of TF38 during the South China Sea campaign.
this target map. (AC) Many of these bases were well defended by Japanese standards, strongly protected by
antiaircraft guns. There were also fortifications in Formosa to defend against landings, with
adequate road and railroad communications for most facilities. Japan thus appeared to have
everything it needed to stop an enemy incursion into the South China Sea.
The South China Sea played a critical role in Imperial Japan’s strategic infrastructure. It,
along with the waters north and west of the Ryukyu chain, was the empire’s highway. Japan
started the Pacific War to secure strategic resources. The Home Islands and Manchukuo
provided sufficient iron and coal to meet Japan’s needs, but it lacked most other important
resources. Primarily, it could not produce enough food to feed its population. Japan’s
stated reason for seizing French Indochina was to block the import of war materials to
China through the territory’s northern ports, yet at least as big a consideration was securing
Indochina’s rice fields.
Japan also lacked domestic sources of aluminum, cotton, wool, phosphates, rubber, tin,
copper, and – most vitally – petroleum. It imported 82 percent of the petroleum it consumed.
The US embargo of scrap iron and steel in October 1941 was a nuisance. When the US
embargoed petroleum products in July 1941, Japan chose to go to war to secure access to
its own sources of oil. The main thrust of the Japanese advance was into what were then the
Dutch East Indies, and the oilfields in Malaya and Burma and on Borneo and Sumatra. These
were also vital sources of rubber, tin, bauxite, and copper for Japan. Additionally, Burma was
another rice bowl to feed Japan’s population.
 27

The South China Sea was

one of Japan’s most
important links in its
convoy network. This map
shows Japan’s major
convoy routes,
underscoring the
importance of the South
China Sea. Critical
cargoes had to cross it to
reach Japan’s industries.
(AC)

All of that material had to get to Japan. Imports from Korea and Manchukuo crossed
the Sea of Japan, while those from central China went over the Yellow or East China Sea.
Everything else, including vitally needed oil and rubber, passed through the South China Sea.
For three years, the South China Sea had been a Japanese lake. No enemy aircraft or
surface ships penetrated it. Only submarines challenged Japanese maritime supremacy in
those waters. Over those three years, Japan had built an elaborate network of convoys to bring
strategic goods from its conquered possession to the Home Islands via the South China Sea.
Japanese harbors offered shelter to ships traveling across it, places for them to refuel and if
necessary repair. They also provided bases from which the short-range antisubmarine escorts
could operate. The most vital convoy routes crossed the South China Sea, converging on the
Taiwan Straits before crossing the East China Sea to Japan.
This created a vulnerable jugular. If the flow of strategic goods across the South China
Sea was interrupted, even temporarily, Japan’s industrial engine would stall, stuttering until
the supply resumed. If the flow was permanently cut, Japan’s industries and its war machine
would grind to a halt.
The movement of vital goods could be stopped in one of two ways. Firstly, it could be
interrupted by the presence of an enemy fleet or aircraft. That would be temporary only for as
long as Japan held the Philippines or Formosa. There was no base from which enemy aircraft
28 Defender’s Capabilities

An oil refinery at
Balikpapan in Borneo
(then part of the Dutch
East Indies). Japan started
the Pacific War to seize
control of the rich oilfields
at the southern end of the
South China Sea.
(USNHHC)

could reach the South China Sea, except perhaps aircraft carriers. Japanese war planners did
not believe that carrier airpower could effectively interrupt traffic across the South China
Sea, judging it would be too risky for the carriers.
The second way to cut Japan’s maritime transportation was to sink enough merchant ships,
especially tankers, to deprive Japan of the sealift required to carry sufficient vital supplies. US
Navy submarines had been making heroic efforts to do just this. Throughout 1943 and 1944,
they whittled down Japan’s merchant marine from a high of 6 million tons in December
1942 to just 3 million tons as 1945 started. Nevertheless, this was not enough to precipitate
the desired collapse. The losses were bad, but not yet catastrophic.
Losses could, however, become calamitous if an enemy could find a way to penetrate into
the harbors and shallow waters on the South China Sea route where submarines could not
reach. While merchant ships could comfortably travel in water as shallow as 10 fathoms,
it took a bold submariner to penetrate the 20-fathom line. To target these shallow waters
required aircraft.

Weapons and tactics

The weapons used by Japan in this campaign can be divided into three broad categories:
aircraft guns, antishipping bombs and torpedoes, and antiaircraft artillery, both land-based
and aboard ships. The aircraft it used in the campaign were armed with three principal types
of guns: the 7.7mm machine gun, 12.7mm machine gun, and 20mm cannon.
 29

The 7.7mm machine gun was used on early-war fighters.

A rifle-caliber gun, whose design dated to World War I,
Japan mounted them as had their Great War predecessors:
in the nose of the aircraft, synchronized to fire through the
propeller arc. There were two essentially identical versions
used: the Navy Type 97 aircraft machine gun and the Army
Type 89 machine gun, used by aircraft of their respective
services. It was a licensed copy of the British Vickers .303
machine gun and fired a rifle-caliber round which weighed
6.9g. Like the US .30cal, it was effective against troops in the
open and unarmored aircraft. It could also be used against
armored carrier aircraft, but was relatively ineffective.
Late-war fighters used the heavier 12.7mm (.50cal) Type
1 (or Ho-103) machine gun. Introduced in 1941, it had a
higher rate of fire but lower muzzle velocity than the US M2
.50cal machine gun, which it was a development of. The
lower muzzle velocity yielded less kinetic energy and less penetrating power than the M2. A Type 93 13mm machine
The Japanese Navy used the Type 99 Mk 1 and Mk 2 20mm autocannon for its aircraft, gun. Variants of this gun
were used in Imperial
while the Army equipped its aircraft with the Ho-5 20mm cannon. The Type 99 was Army aircraft and light
developed from the Oerlikon 20mm, while the Ho-5 was an up-gunned M2. The Type 99 land-based and ship-
Mk 1 fired a 200–203g round, the Mk 2 a 221–224g, round and the Ho-5 a 112g round. mounted antiaircraft guns.
Guns used by fighters were
The Type 99 Mk 1 had the lowest muzzle velocity, while the Ho-5 had the highest. belt-fed, but most ground
The only attacks against US ships in this campaign were made by aircraft, typically and sea-based Type 93
kamikazes. By January 1945, skilled Japanese dive- and torpedo bomber pilots were scarce. guns used 30-round
magazines, limiting their
Those available were not in the South China Sea. Instead, Japan was increasingly relying on usefulness. (AC)
special attack (tokku) aircraft, which the Allies called kamikazes. Kamikazes were typically
fitted with a 250kg (551lb) bomb, on the light side for sinking a ship. More damage was An Imperial Japanese Army
Model 10 75mm
typically done by the fires started by the aviation gasoline in a kamikaze, especially on aircraft antiaircraft gun. Effective
carriers. However, Japan kept no kamikazes in the South China Sea, which, as we have seen, against high-altitude level
was a backwater. The only kamikazes available were those stationed in Formosa, and there bombers, the US Navy’s
mast-top bombing tactics
were relatively few there. Most had been sent to the Philippines to oppose the expected severely reduced the gun’s
Luzon landings. effectiveness. The constantly
More important than aircraft in this campaign was antiaircraft artillery. While Japan had changing distances of low-
flying bombers made it
a lot of antiaircraft artillery, flak never caused attacking US Navy aircraft serious casualties. difficult to fuse the shells
The heaviest Japanese antiaircraft artillery, the 12.7cm gun, fired a 23–23.45kg shell, properly. (AC)
and the12cm gun a 20kg round. Both had a theoretical
effective ceiling of 25,000–27,000ft. The Model 88 75mm
antiaircraft gun fired a 6.2kg projectile with an effective
ceiling of 21,000ft, and the Model 10 3in. gun a similar
projectile that was effective only up to 18,000ft. They were
all relatively effective against level bombing at moderate to
high altitudes below 20,000ft.
The ceiling rarely mattered since US Navy carrier aircraft
attacked airfields and ground installations at low altitudes
and favored mast-top strikes against ships. Naval aircraft
were also small, fast, and maneuverable, making them
difficult to hit. Additionally, heavy antiaircraft artillery
depended on time-fused shells, relying on a predictable
distance for effective use. The shell burst, rather than direct
hits, destroyed most aircraft. Low-flying aircraft constantly
changed distance, nullifying the ability to explode the shell
30 Defender’s Capabilities

at a predictable distance. A direct hit was required, but the volume

of fire was too low for high numbers of hits.
Heavy antiaircraft artillery was largely limited to shore installations
in this campaign. The 127mm main guns on Japanese destroyers
and frigates had too low a rate of fire for antiaircraft use. Naval
dual-purpose 127mm guns were limited to secondary armament
of cruisers, carriers, and battleships; those types were absent from
the South China Sea. Older smaller warships and armed merchant
ships often carried 120mm, 88mm, or 75mm antiaircraft guns, but
rarely in quantities sufficient for a heavy barrage. They also tended
to be older, less effective versions of these guns.
Japanese medium and light antiaircraft artillery was more useful,
but only marginally. It was limited to the 25mm autocannon,
20mm autocannon, and 12.7mm and 7.7mm machine guns.
The 25mm version had the potential to be an excellent medium
antiaircraft gun, despite being on the light side. It was effective
up to 5,000ft and fired a .25kg shell. The Japanese 20mm gun
had performance compatible with the Oerlikon, but the 12.7mm
and 7.7mm machine guns were too light to achieve a kill with one
or two hits.
All these guns suffered a fatal flaw: they were magazine-fed
weapons, rather than belt-fed. The magazines were small: 15 rounds
for the 25mm gun and 30 for the machine guns. They could thus
fire only short bursts before requiring reloading. Crews typically
held fire until enemy aircraft were close, to assure a hit. Meanwhile,
the belt-fed machine guns of the carrier aircraft would open up at
long distances, their fire suppressing the light antiaircraft guns of
The 250kg high-explosive the ship they were attacking.
bomb was Japan’s Japanese inattention to antiaircraft artillery was part of a larger pattern in the Japanese
weapon of choice for
kamikazes. It lacked the military, which focused almost exclusively on attack, neglecting the defensive. It had been a
power to sink a warship, policy pursued since Japan’s arrival in the industrial world in the mid-19th century. It was
even a destroyer, with a a simple doctrine: hit your opponent hard enough with the first blow and he cannot strike
single hit, even with the
additional damage the back, or if he does, it will be ineffective. A corollary was that any resources used for defense
attached aircraft caused. were resources unavailable for attack.
Collateral damage This policy had been followed successfully since the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95,
through fire or secondary
explosion of nearby most notably in Japan’s upset victory in the1904–05 Russo-Japanese War. It had become
ammunition was required. doctrine by the 1930s (despite leading Japan into an unending war with China, where it won
(AC) every battle but could not force a peace). It was consequently the basis of Japan’s planning for
the Pacific War. Indeed, it seemed the smart choice during the war’s first six months, when
Japan swept everything before it.
However, its strategic failings became manifest in the months following June 1942, as the
Allies counterattacked. Moreover, the Allied counteroffensive revealed the policy’s tactical
shortcomings. The result was not just the neglect of air defense artillery, as Japanese aircraft
lacked armor and self-sealing fuel tanks to save weight, which left them easy to destroy. Naval
damage control was also neglected, being inferior to that of the US Navy, leading to much
wastage. While US warships frequently returned to port after suffering massive damage,
especially during 1944 and 1945, Japanese vessels with lighter damage often sank due to
poor damage control. Similarly, while Japan had radar, it never integrated it into an overall
air defense system. This rendered its airbases and shore installations (and ultimately its Home
Island cities) vulnerable to Allied air attack.
All these weaknesses would be exposed during TF38’s sweep into the South China Sea.
 31

CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVES
Japan’s critical sea route

For three years, the South China Sea had been an Imperial Japanese lake. Between the third Both sides realized the
week of December 1941 and the mid-December 1944 invasion of Mindoro, no Allied reach and power of the
US Navy’s Fast Carrier
surface warship or aircraft penetrated its waters. Only US Navy submarines had visited the Force. It was dramatically
South China Sea. demonstrated by TF38’s
It was more than simply a Japanese-controlled body of water, however. It was Japan’s attack on Formosa in
October 1944, which
most important conduit of supplies, the aorta that carried the Imperial Japanese military’s included this raid on the
lifeblood: oil, rubber, and tin from the Dutch East Indies and Southeast Asia. Much of Formosan airfield of
the food that Japan used to feed its military and defense workers also crossed the South Karenko. Japan never
thought TF38 would enter
China Sea. the South China Sea.
Cutting this supply route would “kill” Imperial Japan. Japan was dependent on what (USNHHC)
crossed the South China Sea. Without those critical supplies, its oil refineries would run dry,
its munitions factories would slow, and its sclerotic domestic transportation infrastructure
would face even greater stress. US submarines patrolling those waters had already taken a toll
on the ships carrying strategic goods. As 1944 ended, losses to submarines had hurt Japan,
but not yet crippled it. Submarines had not stopped the flow of cargo; it would take aircraft
and surface warships to do that, especially aircraft.
For three years, the South China Sea had been well protected, with Japan holding the
islands controlling access to its waters. The southern approaches, between the Philippines
and the Dutch East Indies, were a maze of narrow channels. The eastern approaches were
straddled by Luzon, Formosa, and the Ryukyu Islands. So long as Japan held these, its aircraft
operating from their airfields could deny passage to surface warships into the South China
Sea and imperil submarines operating within its waters.
Mindoro offered some aerial access to the South China Sea, but not enough. Medium
bombers operating from its airstrips could cover only part of the South China Sea. By
December 1944, they had turned into ship-killers, but they could not reach far enough.
The Japanese could route convoys out of reach of these aircraft.
32 Campaign Objectives

Japanese port
Japanese airfield
Air attacks
TF 38
TG 30.8
Kadena
CHINA
RYUKYU ISLANDS

ait
Kiirun

Str
Amoy

sa
mo
Fo r
Swatow PESCADORES
Formosa
Tainan
Canton 7
Takao
Hong Kong Taito
2
8

Haiphong Luichow

Luzon Strait 1
9
Hainan
3
Yulin
Laoag

Phil ip p in e S e a
Lingayen Gulf Luzon
Tourane S o u t h C hina Se a
4
Clark PHILIPPINES
6
Manila

Sibuyan Sea Nichols

FRENCH Qui Nhon Ulithi

INDOCHINA
Mindoro

Camranh Bay Masbate Samar

5
Panay
Saigon Lahug
Leyte
Tizard Reefs Cebu
Negros
S u lu S e a
Surigao Strait
Palawan
Mindanao
Davao
San Rooque
Events
1. Fuel prior to operation (0800 January 6) Sandakan
2. Air attacks on Formosa (January 9)
3. Air attacks on Luzon (January 10)
4. Refuel (0700 January 11)
5. Air attacks on Camranh Bay and Tizard Reefs
(January 12)
6. Refuel – empty tankers depart to head to Ce le b e s S e a
Ulithi via Surigao Strait (0600 January 13) Borneo
N
7. Air attacks on Hainan, Hong Kong and
Chinese Coast (January 14)
0 200 miles
8. Air attacks on Formosa (January 15)
9. Refuel, return to Ulithi (January 16)
0 200km
 33

OPPOSITE: THE PLANNED MISSION

Once Luzon was taken, the situation would change. But Luzon landings were not
scheduled until mid-January 1945, and it could then take months before enough of the
island was controlled to allow airstrips to be opened and medium bombers to operate from
them. Cutting the lifeline before that happened would bring the war to a close that much
more quickly. Indeed, it could make the invasion of Luzon easier, speeding the US Army’s
advance there.
The United States had a massive fast carrier presence in the Pacific. As it gained in strength,
the Fast Carrier Force had been used in increasingly aggressive ways to project airpower. This
included actions against the Imperial Japanese Navy’s carriers when they came out of port,
as they had during the July 1944 battle of the Philippine Sea and the October 1944 battle
of Leyte. Bill Halsey was now proposing to use his carriers in the most aggressive way yet: a
deep raid into the South China Sea, one that would last over a week.

Allied objectives and plans

Protecting the Lingayen
Even after Leyte Gulf, Japanese air and surface naval power still worried US and Allied Gulf landings was TF38’s
Pacific War planners. The two Allied toeholds in the Philippines, Leyte and Mindoro, were primary mission in
surrounded by Japanese-held territory. Allied intelligence reported the Japanese had 280 January 1945 and one of
two main objectives
aircraft in the Dutch East Indies, 170 in French Indochina, Siam, and Burma, and 500 in during its South China Sea
China, arranged in a semicircle around the two Allied-held Philippine islands. incursion. This image
The Imperial Japanese Navy still seemed formidable, with three battleships in Japan, and shows Yellow Beach at
Lingayen, crowded with
two more, Ise and Hyuga, believed to be in Camranh Bay. In December 1944, a destroyer supplies shortly after the
task force stationed at Camranh Bay, commanded by Rear Admiral Kimura Masatomi, landing. (AC)
34 Campaign Objectives

crossed the South China Sea to launch

a Boxing Day bombardment of the
Mindoro beachhead. That was just a
destroyer raid, but Lingayen Gulf was
significantly closer to Camranh Bay and
Allied planners had nightmares about
a similar attempt against the Lingayen
beaches backed by two battleships.
Allied fears about Japanese capabilities
were overwrought. Aircraft numbers were
exaggerated, as was the readiness of the
Japanese fleet. Yet having been fooled
by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor, war
planners were determined not to let that
happen again.
The concept of the South China Sea
raid came from Halsey, who viewed it as
an opportunity to once again demonstrate
what aggressive use of carrier airpower
could do. He had preceded the landings
at Leyte with a carrier raid on Okinawa
and Formosa in October 1944. Now
he was advocating a similar raid into
the South China Sea in advance of the
Lingayen landings.
The October attack on Formosa had
been the deepest US Navy penetration
into Imperial Japanese waters to that
Battleships Ise and Hyuga point. Its objective had been the reduction of Japanese airpower prior to the landings at
provided the second Leyte, and it had been successful despite the torpedoing of two US Navy cruisers. Halsey
motivation for the carrier
sweep. They were believed used the cruisers to aid his goal of destroying Japanese airpower. As CRIPDIV (Cripple
to be at Camranh Bay, Division) 1, the slow-moving torpedoed light cruiser Houston and heavy cruiser Canberra
having been spotted there lured the Japanese to launch further air attacks. The Japanese aircraft were then destroyed
earlier in December. This is
an aerial reconnaissance by superior US carrier aircraft.
photo of an Ise-class Halsey felt a sweep through the South China Sea could serve the same purpose. He could
battleship. Its flight deck aft destroy aircraft on islands within reach of Luzon with airstrikes preceding the landings at
can be seen, as can its
four remaining twin 12in. Lingayen Gulf. By remaining in the South China Sea after the landings, he could make
turrets. (AC) additional airstrikes against the Japanese airfields ringing the South China Sea. This would
eliminate reinforcements from being staged to Luzon through those airfields from other parts
of the Japanese Empire, especially Japan and China’s interior. Those missed by TF38 air raids
would be occupied fighting TF38 itself, unable to intervene at Lingayen Gulf.
The destruction of Japanese aerial forces was not Halsey’s only objective. The shipping in
the South China Sea was also an attractive target. The petroleum, rubber and food and tin
headed to Japan from Southeast Asia and the Dutch East Indies passed through the South
China Sea in numerous tankers and freighters. There were always scores of these vessels in
these waters, and they were easy meat for carrier aircraft. Allied intelligence believed the
battleships Ise and Hyuga were operating out of Camranh Bay in French Indochina; these
warships were equally attractive targets, highly vulnerable to US Navy aircraft.
This was envisioned as more than a quick hit-and-run raid. It was to be a week-long
rampage within the South China Sea, hitting targets across its shores. Indochina, China, and
Formosa were going to be hit. It was to be a concerted campaign to clear the South China
 35

Sea of shipping and its periphery of enemy aircraft. Halsey and his staff believed it would
force the remnants of the Imperial Japanese Navy and what Japanese airpower remained to
come out and challenge the US Navy’s superior forces. If Japan did not, its logistics lifeline
would be severed.
Not everyone was as enthusiastic as Halsey. This campaign would be far more difficult
than the October attacks on Formosa and the Ryukyus. It required TF38 to enter the South
China Sea, which of itself was doable, despite the limited entry points. Surprise would likely
allow access; the problem would be exiting the region. Once TF38 was within the South
China Sea, the Japanese would be aware of the US Navy’s presence and could concentrate
their forces around the exit points, challenging the task force’s departure.
Moving the Fast Carrier Force into the South China Sea would be a riskier venture than
the earlier raid. A ship crippled by torpedoes – as were USS Houston and USS Canberra in
October – could likely not be towed to safety without endangering the rest of TF38. Those
ships would probably have to be scuttled, and the victims of Japanese torpedoes might this
time be fleet carriers instead of cruisers.
Another consideration was logistics. With TG38 planning to stay a week, it would require
refueling – in fact frequent refueling, and quite possibly resupply of bombs, torpedoes,
and ammunition as well. Expected aircraft wastage meant carriers might need replacement
aircraft too.
At-sea replenishment was routine for the US Navy at the end of 1944, especially refueling.
Oilers had accompanied the Fast Carrier Force on every operation since the Marshall
Islands landing in December 1943, and had refueled the Fast Carrier Force prior to its deep
penetration to raid Truk in February 1944. However, in all previous operations the supply
The sweep was possible
train had waited outside the range of ground-based enemy aircraft. If TG38 went into the only due to the US Navy’s
South China Sea for a week, it would have to be accompanied by a large portion of its At remarkable logistics,
Sea Logistics Group – TG30.8. Fleet oilers, ammunition ships, and escort carriers, none including its ability to
refuel warships at sea,
with a top speed over 20 knots, thus had to enter the South China Sea along with TF39, a any time and under
sea surrounded by enemy airfields. virtually any conditions.
A successful incursion of the South China Sea by TF38 could shorten the war by at least This fleet oiler is refueling
two warships
several months. The potential to sever Japan’s most important supply artery, significantly simultaneously, one on
reduce its already-inadequate merchant marine, and devastate a significant portion of the each side. (AC)
January 6 Luzon Strait Major Japanese airfield January 7 Luzon Strait Major Japanese airfield 36
Japanese airfield Japanese airfield
Cloud cover Cloud and storms
TF 38 Airstrike

Laoag Aparri Laoag* Aparri

TF38
Vigan Vigan
Campaign Objectives

Luzon Luzon TF38

Lingayen Gulf Lingayen Gulf

Baguio Philippine Sea Baguio

Lingayen Lingayen Philippine Sea

Baler Baler
Cabanatuan Cabanatuan

Clark Clark

San Marcelino N N
Florida-Blanca San Marcelino Florida-Blanca
0 50 miles 0 50 miles
Manila Manila
Marivelas Nichols 0 50km Marivelas Nichols 0 50km

Batangas Batangas

Mindoro San Bernadino San Bernadino

Strait Mindoro Strait
Sibuyan Sea Sibuyan Sea

Masbate Samar Masbate Samar

 37

OPPOSITE: LUZON AIRSTRIKES

remaining Imperial Japanese Navy ultimately overcame objections. US Navy warships were
intended to go into harm’s way – it was a tradition dating to John Paul Jones and the
American War of Independence.
Moreover, the campaign, if successful, would demonstrate the power of the US Navy. It
would be proof that it could go anywhere within the waters of Imperial Japan; that nothing
was inviolate. Japan would have to fear the appearance of US naval aviation off the coast of
Japan, in the East China Sea, the Java Sea, perhaps even the Yellow Sea.
It would also demonstrate that land-based aviation was no longer invincible. If carrier
aviation could successfully challenge land-based aviation it would be almost as revolutionary
a change in aerial warfare as the discovery, 80 years earlier during the American Civil War,
that naval warships could successfully defeat shore batteries had been to naval warfare.
Halsey’s proposal was duly adopted, albeit with changes. The most important alteration
was that the raid was delayed until after the Lingayen Gulf landings. TF38 was expected
to spend two days after the landings throwing the Big Blue Blanket over Luzon one more
time to reduce the opportunity for kamikazes to attack the vulnerable landing force during
the critical opening days of the invasion. Additionally, TF38 was to precede the invasion by
raiding Formosa from the Philippine Sea, a reprise of the attacks prior to the Leyte landings.
Only then could the Third Fleet cut loose and enter the South China Sea.
Halsey did not mind the change. It was an opportunity to kill more Japanese. The
requirement for the precursor attacks was simply rolled into the original plan. The planned
operations in the South China Sea were not curtailed, only delayed until the added attacks
were made. Additional attacks were also planned after departing the South China Sea.
To launch the campaign, Formosa’s airfields would be attacked, eliminating any potential
aerial reinforcement of Luzon. This would take place the day of the Lingayen landings. Two
days of attacks on Luzon would follow. TF38 – accompanied by six oilers, six escort carriers,
and several fleet tugs and ammunition ships of TG30.8 – would slip through the gap between
Luzon and Formosa during the night. Any night-flying Japanese aircraft approaching the US
Navy ships would be intercepted and destroyed by night fighters operating off Enterprise and
Independence (the other night-operations carrier).
From there TF38 would streak across the South China Sea and launch strikes at Camranh
Bay (and hopefully sink Ise and Hyuga) and the French Indochina coast from Saigon to
Haiphong, as well as the Tizard Reefs (a shipping lane). The primary targets would be
shipping. The carrier force would then double back and refuel before spending a day hitting
targets on the west side of Formosa, the Pescadores, and China’s coast between Amoy and
Swatow. Doubling back again, it would strike again on the following day, concentrating on
Hong Kong, Hainan, and points between.
From there the task force would move south, for a final refueling in the South China
Sea. The empty tankers of TG30.8 would then head for Ulithi via the Surigao Strait. TF38
would go back to the Philippine Sea between Formosa and Luzon, and launch another set
of airstrikes on Formosan airfields. They would meet with a fresh set of TG30.8 auxiliaries,
including more oilers, then head north for the Ryukyu Islands, hitting the northern parts
of Formosa on their way.
The airstrikes on the Ryukyu Islands would serve as cover for the attack’s main objective:
obtaining photographic reconnaissance for an invasion of Okinawa later that year. After
that, TF38 would refuel and return to Ulithi. The entire campaign was expected to last a
lunar month, 28 days.
38 Campaign Objectives

Japanese objectives and plans

While, on paper, it appeared the US and their allies had much to fear from the Japanese forces
ringing the South China Sea, reality was much different. Of the 950 aircraft in the Dutch
East Indies, Burma, French Indochina, and China, most were committed to operations in
their individual theaters. Aircraft in the Dutch East Indies, for example, were needed to
protect oilfields and refineries in that region, while Japanese forces in China were moving
against the Chinese armies. Forces in Indochina, meanwhile, were intent on helping their
compatriots in Burma repel a British incursion.
There were 300 or so aircraft in Formosa in late December 1944, including kamikaze
units. Formosa could send about half of its aircraft to repel landings in Lingayen Gulf or
other landing sites in northern Luzon. The rest had to be reserved to defend Formosa, which
was a vital part of Japan’s war industry. Commanders there were concerned about air attacks
from the Philippine Sea. There were another 350 combat aircraft in Japan, mostly naval.
These were intended to provide air groups for the few remaining carriers, but their pilots
were incapable of operating off carriers. Consequently, little help could come from there in
the short term.
Similarly, there were few Japanese Navy aircraft assigned to the South China Sea. Fighters
and bombers intended to attack ships were in short supply and needed elsewhere, as were long-
range maritime patrol aircraft. The few aircraft available were used for antisubmarine patrols.
That left perhaps 250 aircraft remaining in the Philippines, mainly in Luzon. About two-
thirds were kamikazes. Many were training aircraft formerly used in now-closed Philippine
flight schools. Luzon was preparing to defend against an invasion, and these aircraft were
being reserved to attack the invasion fleet.
Nor was the Imperial Navy in a position to intervene. It was down to three aircraft
carriers (all without air groups), five battleships, and five heavy cruisers. Less than two dozen
destroyers led by two light cruisers were available as escorts. The Navy was thus in no position
to challenge the Third Fleet or even the Seventh Fleet (the latter guarding the invasion force
with seven old battleships, ten cruisers, and over 359 carrier aircraft on 16 escort carriers).
In early January, the Imperial Navy was split up, with the carriers, the three most powerful
battleships, and one heavy cruiser in the Inland Sea. The remaining battleships and heavy
cruisers were at Singapore. They were too widely separated to combine for a coordinated
attack on anything,

Hong Kong harbor was

Japan’s most important
port on the South China
Sea coast. It had extensive
shipbuilding and repair
facilities that were used by
Japan’s merchant vessels
and its warships. It was
always crowded with
shipping, as this 1945
reconnaissance
photograph shows. (AC)
 39

Within the South China Sea, the Imperial Navy was focused on antisubmarine warfare This small war-emergency
(ASW) defense. It consisted entirely of light forces: destroyers, destroyer escorts, and frigates tanker was built to
supplement Japan’s
with antisubmarine patrol craft. A few training cruisers and superannuated armored cruisers prewar tanker fleet. Japan
served as flagships. No Japanese submarines operated out of the South China Sea in late 1944 never had enough tankers,
and early 1945: there were no Allied surface warships operating there prior to January 1945 which were priority targets
for TF38 aircraft. (AC)
(the primary targets for Japanese subs). Furthermore, it was too easy for Japanese submarines
to be confused with US subs; it was safer to keep them out of the region.
Japan was critically short of bunker fuel for its warships and aviation gasoline for its
aircraft. At the beginning of 1945, Japan was receiving only one-third of the petroleum
products it had during the early months of 1942. It had too little to use for training, with
fuel having to be reserved for combat and vital operations. As a result, readiness was suffering.
The Japanese were not even considering the type of counterattack on the Philippines the
Allies feared. A halfhearted local defense of Luzon was as much as they planned or could
manage. Retaking Mindoro, much less Leyte, was off the table. Instead, in late December,
Imperial General Headquarters was drafting a new war plan. In this new plan, released on
January 20, the Home Islands were to be the site of the “final decisive battle”, with the new
outer defensive perimeter running from the Kurile Islands, sweeping around to the Bonin
Islands, Formosa, China north of Hangchow, and Korea. Even that was to be held only as
a delaying action.
In a sense, Japan had foiled one of the two major US objectives in sending TF38 into
the South China Sea. The carrier sweep could not distract the Japanese from launching a
counterattack against the Mindoro–Luzon line, as Japan was incapable of mounting such
an offensive and uninterested in doing so.
This left TF38 plenty of opportunity to achieve its second objective. Multiple convoys
crossed the South China Sea daily. Saigon, Takao, Hainan, and Hong Kong were major
arrival and departure points for convoys, while Camranh Bay, Takao, and Hong Kong were
naval anchorages where convoy escorts gathered. The entire South China Sea was, from the
viewpoint of an attacker, a target-rich environment, second only to the Inland Sea.
From a defender’s viewpoint, it was a nightmare. Two major problems plagued Japanese
commanders. The first was that there was no unified command within the South China Sea.
The second was that no one was looking inward, considering a defense of the South China
Sea; everyone’s attention was focused on external threats.
The South China Sea was at the junction of several commands, all with divided
responsibilities. The Imperial Navy was responsible for the safety of shipping crossing
the South China Sea. It concentrated its efforts on antisubmarine responsibilities and the
protection of its naval bases in the region. The Japanese 14th Air Force held responsibility for
Imperial Army air operation over all of China, including the coast. However, the Army did
40 Campaign Objectives

not control all of coastal China between Hong Kong

and Hangchow; it controlled only coastal enclaves
around major port cities. The army command in
Indochina was independent of that in China, whereas
Formosa was ruled by a governor general – an Imperial
Army officer – responsible for its defense. Similarly,
the Philippines constituted a separate military district.
Each command concentrated on its own area
of responsibility. The Japanese Navy defended its
bases and airfields – at Takao, Mako, Hong Kong,
and Camranh Bay. The 14th Air Force guarded its
airfields at Hangchow, Winchow, Foochow, Amoy,
Swatow, Hong Kong, Canton, Luichow, and Yulin
(they protected the city and harbor at each of these
locations). Imperial Army Air Forces in French
Indochina safeguarded their airfields at Tourane, Qui
Nhon, and Saigon. The governor general of Formosa
The assembly line for similarly concerned himself primarily with defending locations in Formosa. Japanese forces
Ki-67 twin-engine in the Philippines were concerned almost exclusively with repelling the invasion expected at
bombers. The structural
aluminum and rubber Luzon. Moreover, due to inter-service rivalry, Japanese Army and Navy commands cooperated
used to build the bomber, only reluctantly. Coordination virtually took an Imperial command from the Emperor.
as well as most of the fuel The result was that each command planned and fought individually, without coordination.
to fly it, had to cross the
South China Sea to reach The only exception was any pre-planned coordination. The sole example of that in early
Japan from the Dutch East January 1945 was Philippine and Formosan cooperation to repel a US invasion of Luzon.
Indies. Severing the Formosa was prepared to shift aircraft to Luzon when that happened, and also to launch
supply line would make
construction impossible. kamikazes against the invasion fleet. Yet that was less an example of a coordinated defense
(AC) than a coordinated attack.
Furthermore, this coordination was action against an anticipated enemy movement. No
Japanese commander really considered the possibility of a US Navy carrier sweep within the
South China Sea. The power and mobility of a carrier task force fell outside the experience
of Japanese Army commanders. While the Imperial Navy carriers supported Army activities
in China during the opening phases of the Second Sino-Japanese War, they were operating
individually from bases relatively close to the coast of China. Additionally, the concentration
achieved by the Kido Butai – formed in 1941 – was absent. The accomplishments of the Kido
Butai at Pearl Harbor and in the Indian Ocean were an abstraction to Army commanders.
Japanese Navy officers in the South China Sea were equally blinkered. Japanese carrier
commanders and naval aviators understood the potential havoc that TF38 could generate.
Many had experienced it first hand at Truk, the Admiralties, the battle of the Philippine
Sea, and most recently at the naval battle of Leyte. The October carrier raid on Formosa
and the Big Blue Blanket thrown over Luzon during the invasion of Mindoro gave them an
appreciation of the ability of the Fast Carrier Force to project power.
They also understood the logistical issues involved with the distances to be covered simply
to reach Formosa from Ulithi. To move into the South China Sea required the Fast Carrier
Force to bring slow and vulnerable fleet oilers with them, within reach of land-based aircraft.
It was a greater risk than the Kido Butai had taken when it attacked Pearl Harbor – its oilers
had remained far away from Hawaii.
Only Combined Fleet commander Yamamoto’s insistence had convinced the high
command to take that risk. Since its officers considered the Imperial Japanese Navy the
boldest in the world, they assumed the US Navy would not exceed that level of risk. It was
a failure of imagination that proved fatal, meaning they would fight any action within the
South China Sea as a series of individual and uncoordinated battles.
 41

THE CAMPAIGN
Into the South China Sea

On December 28, 1944, the US Third Fleet was in Ulithi, resting after a busy month. It The 10,000-ton tanker
began with a reorganization of the Fast Carrier Force. The mix of bombers and fighters Akashi Maru is beached
and ablaze off Cape St
aboard fleet carriers had been altered from a roughly even split of fighters, dive-bombers, and Jacques south of Saigon.
torpedo bombers to one where fighters became two-thirds of the load, doing double-duty as It was hit and sunk by
fighter-bombers. The change was prompted by TF38’s new commander, Vice Admiral John aircraft from TG38.1.
(USNHHC)
S. McCain, as part of new anti-kamikaze measures developed by his staff.
The changes had been tested – and proven effective – during the middle of the month.
In support of the Mindoro landings, TF38 had thrown the Big Blue Blanket over Luzon.
One of the new tactics developed involved fighter sweeps to clear the skies, followed by
continuous coverage over every possible airfield from which kamikazes could operate. This
round-the-clock coverage destroyed hundreds of Japanese aircraft and stopped the kamikazes
cold, with little loss to TF38.
Third Fleet took more damage shortly after that action in a battle with Mother Nature. A
typhoon struck Third Fleet on December 18, sinking three destroyers and damaging three
others, along with one cruiser, five light and escort carriers, and four destroyer escorts. Third
Fleet returned to Ulithi to recover and repair.
The respite was brief. On December 28, Nimitz visited Ulithi. Nimitz, commander
of all US naval forces in the Pacific, had come to confer with Third Fleet’s commander,
William Halsey, who had been pushing for a massive carrier raid into the South China Sea
for two months. Nimitz, concerned with preserving Third Fleet to protect Seventh Fleet
(commanded by Vice Admiral Thomas Kinkaid and tasked with the Philippine landings),
had been reluctant to cut Third Fleet loose to carry out Halsey’s vision.
However, Nimitz now believed the time had come. He approved the raid if major Japanese
units were sighted in the South China Sea, once Halsey had ensured Japanese aircraft in
Formosa and Luzon did not unduly trouble Seventh Fleet’s landing at Lingayen Gulf. The
raid was scheduled for January 9. From Halsey’s view, that condition was a bonus, allowing
42 The Campaign

him to soften up the Japanese before entering

the South China Sea. Orders were issued as the
conference ended. Two day later, Third Fleet
departed Ulithi.

The South China Sea: July 7,

1937, to December 29, 1944
The South China Sea is bounded by southern
China to its north (which gives it its name), the
Indochina peninsula to the west, the island of
Borneo to the south, and the Philippines and
Taiwan (or Formosa) to the east. It covers 1.4
million square miles. In the early 21st century,
one-third of the world’s trade crosses it. During
World War II, it was Imperial Japan’s most
important maritime highway.
To Imperial Japan, its value lay in more than its
use as a highway. Its southern periphery remains
one of the world’s most important sources of
fossil fuels. Burma, Malaya, Sumatra, Siam, and
Borneo lay atop a vast pool of petroleum, crude
oil so rich it could be used as bunker fuel without
refining. A lust for that oil led Japan to launch
the campaigns of conquest that instigated World
War II, and oil from that region was Japan’s most
“Murderer’s Row”: an important source of energy during the global conflict.
iconic photo of five TF38 The sea also contained rich fisheries, and the lands around its periphery were agricultural
aircraft carriers at Ulithi in
December 1944. The marvels. Formosa produced 75 percent of Japan’s sugar, while the Mekong River in French
carriers in the center are Indochina was a rice bowl; so was Burma’s Irrawaddy River, close at hand. All these resources
(front to back): USS Wasp could feed a hungry people, and Japan always had more people than food.
(CV-18), USS Yorktown
(CV-10), USS Hornet Access to the South China Sea was limited. It could be entered from the Taiwan Strait
(CV-12), USS Hancock between the Chinese mainland and Formosa in the north, and the gap formed between
(CV-19), and USS Luzon and Formosa in the east. A maze of channels through the Philippine archipelago
Ticonderoga (CV-14).
(AC) allowed passage to the southeast and south. To the west, the Straits of Malacca permitted
passage, and to the southwest was the Karimata Strait.
These passages and straits shared something in common: all were wide enough to allow
generous sea room and too deep to mine adequately. Yet the gaps were also narrow enough
to allow easy monitoring of traffic in and out by patrol aircraft. All it took was airfields, and
there were plenty of places suitable for them.
Japan began taking possession of the South China Sea soon after the start of the Second
Sino-Japanese War in 1937, which erupted with Japan swarming out of Manchukuo in July
1937. Although victorious on the battlefield, Japan had started a war it could not finish.
China was too large for the Japanese Army to occupy all of it; so long as China refused to
surrender, the war continued.
China started the war unprepared, but was soon receiving weapons and munitions from
sympathetic neutrals, notably the United States and Soviet Union. These flowed into Free
China from unoccupied harbors along the South China Sea. Japan calculated that if it could
cut off these supplies, the Chinese Army would collapse.
While they could not take all of China, the Japanese could take any part they desired.
They began invading China’s principal remaining ports, using naval forces to lift troops into
 43

the Chinese rear. They captured Amoy in May 1938, gobbling up nearby Foochow a few A British map of Hong
weeks later. They then landed at Swatow in June, carving out an enclave around the port. Kong as it appeared after
World War I. Note the
Canton was next, with a massive invasion in December 1938. Japan occupied a large chunk extensive shallow portions
of coastal China around Canton, enveloping then-neutral Hong Kong, a British Crown of the harbor which
Colony. This sealed off Hong Kong from Free China. It capped this off by occupying Hainan stymied US torpedo
bombers in January 1945.
in February 1939, from where it could monitor Luichow, then a French concession in China. Much of Kao-lung (or
These invasions failed to stop the flow of supplies to China across the South China Sea. Kowloon) Bay is filled in
Ships delivered them to ports in French Indochina, most notably at northern Haiphong. today. (AC)
From there, goods were shipped by rail into Free China. Some traffic continued to flow
through Luichow. While remaining neutral and still at peace, France – a major colonial
power – was sympathetic to China.
Occupation of Chinese ports gave Japan a series of harbors ringing the northern half of
the South China Sea, from Yulin in Hainan arcing north along the Chinese coast across
the Taiwan Strait to Formosa as far south as Takao, including the Pescadores. Japan did not
hold this territory deep into the Chinese interior. Even in Hainan, the island’s interior was
controlled by Chinese guerillas. Furthermore, Japan did not bother to occupy the entire
coast, leaving great uncontrolled gaps between harbors. That did not matter, as holding the
ports transformed the northern half of the sea into a Japanese lake.
Things stood at that pass for a year. Then in September 1939, war broke out in Europe,
with France, Britain, and the Netherlands drawn in as belligerents. In June 1940, the
Netherlands and France were overrun by Nazi Germany. While the Dutch chose to fight
on, with a government in exile, France surrendered, signing a peace treaty with Germany. It
effectively became a non-belligerent ally of Germany.
Following the fall of France, Japan acted to threaten its eastern colonies. In late June
1940, Japan demanded France close supply routes to China, allow Japanese inspectors
into Haiphong to monitor compliance, and permit Japanese naval vessels basing rights at
Luichow. France conceded to closing supply lines, but resisted occupation demands until
September. That month, Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy, creating
a formal military alliance.
44 The Campaign

Amoy in 1928, during a In an alliance where might made right, that left France as the junior partner to Japan. Japan
.

visit by the US Navy’s acted on its status. In late September, Japanese Army units, led by officers impatient over the
Asiatic Fleet. Amoy
became Japan’s first negotiations, invaded Tonkin province, the most northeastern in French Indochina. Such a
conquest on the South move was unauthorized, and they were ordered to withdraw by the Japanese Government.
China Sea during the Japan issued an official apology, but took a “boys will be boys” attitude to the invasion of
Second Sino-Japanese
War. The Japanese landed a sovereign and theoretically allied nation.
there in 1938, part of After this, the French agreed to allow the Japanese to station up to 6,000 troops in Tonkin,
their effort to deny China and ceded three airfields there for use by Japan. The Japanese received basing rights at
resupply by sea.
(USNHHC) Luichow too. This cut off all aid from reaching China by sea. Thereafter, it had to be flown
in or transported by trucks over the primitive Burma Road connecting China with the British
colony. It also expanded Japanese control over the South China Sea.
France continued to administer Indochina, despite the Japanese occupation of Tonkin. It
was an Alice in Wonderland relationship where the French pretended to rule and the Japanese
pretended they were letting the French rule. French and Japanese troops even cooperated
in fighting a nationalist guerilla movement in Indochina. In July 1941, the Japanese went
further: they “negotiated” a new deal with the French government in Indochina that allowed
Japan to station troops throughout Indochina. It also granted Japan eight airfields, plus
Camranh Bay as a naval anchorage.
The naval base and airfields effectively flanked the Philippines, allowing Japan to attack the
US colony from the west as well as the north. They also offered a springboard for operations
deeper in the South China Sea. Any attack on British or Dutch holdings bordering the South
China Sea – including the Malay States, Brunei, Sarawak, and the Dutch East Indies – could
now depart from Camranh Bay. Previously, any invasion force would have left from Takao,
nearly 1,000nmi farther north. It made an invasion of these territories possible.
The US had embargoed sales of scrap iron after Japan occupied Tonkin. When Vichy France
and Japan signed a Protocol Concerning Joint Defense and Joint Military Cooperation,
allowing Japan to occupy Indochina, the US issued an ultimatum. It believed the threat posed
 45

to US, British, and Dutch territories

bordering the South China Sea by
the expansionist Japanese from their
forces in Indochina was too high. It
thus demanded Japan evacuate its
forces from Indochina and China
and withdraw from the Axis. The US
backed up this demand by freezing
Japanese assets in the United States.
A week later, the US imposed an
embargo of petroleum sales to Japan.
Britain and the Netherlands soon
followed suit.
This, in Japanese eyes, made war
necessary. Japan had a six-month
reserve of oil when the oil embargo
became total. Its economy, and more
importantly its army and navy, would
grind to a halt by the end of March
1942. It decided to stake everything
on a war to seize the resources it was
being denied by the embargo. As
it had with Russia 37 years earlier,
Japan began negotiations with the
US as it prepared for its offensive
against the United States, Britain,
and the Netherlands.
By November 1941, the three nations opposing Japan diplomatically suspected something French Indochina’s Tonkin
was up. British intelligence had intimations of troops heading to Camranh Bay and Saigon, province was occupied by
Japanese troops in the
while US signal intelligence was also picking up indications of Japanese troop movements summer of 1940. The
– the majority of them in and around the South China Sea. On November 27, US Chief of move prompted the United
Naval Operations Admiral Harold Stark sent the following message to the commanders of States to embargo scrap
iron and steel from being
the US Pacific and Asiatic Fleets: sent to Japan, a major
step in drawing the US
This dispatch is to be considered a war warning. Negotiations with Japan looking toward into a war with Japan.
(AC)
stabilization of the conditions in the Pacific have ceased and an aggressive move is expected
with the next few days. The number and equipment of Japanese troops and the organization
of the naval task forces indicates an amphibious expedition against either the Philippines,
Thai, Kra Peninsula, or possibly Borneo. Execute an appropriate defensive deployment
preparatory to carrying out the tasks assigned in War Plan 46 [the US Navy’s war plan].

A similar message was sent by the US Army’s command. Everyone expected the South
China Sea to be a focus of trouble. The entire northern half was Japanese-controlled,
with little known about what was occurring there. Due to that, Admiral Thomas Hart,
commanding the US Asiatic Fleet, began aerial reconnaissance of the South China Sea.
Between November 30 and December 4, US Navy Catalina flying boats flew patrols along
the Manila–Camranh Bay line. Ominously, they spotted 21 transports and a large number
of warships in Camranh Bay. It would be the last time for over three years that Allied aircraft
would penetrate that deep into that part of the South China Sea.
The transports were carrying 25,000 troops to invade the Malay Peninsula and Dutch
East Indies. Another force was set to invade the Philippines from Formosa. However, Japan
46 The Campaign

did not limit its war plan to the South China

Sea. Landings throughout the Central Pacific
were planned, including further invasions of the
Philippines from Palau. The biggest surprise was
an air attack at Pearl Harbor to knock out the
Pacific Fleet’s battle line. The attacks all began on
December 7 or 8, depending on which side of the
International Date Line the targets were.
In a three-month campaign, Japan swept
everything before it. By the time it ended, the
Japanese owned the South China Sea. Every
territory around it was controlled by Japan. Allied
naval forces only briefly challenged Japanese control
of the South China Sea, culminating in the loss of
the Royal Navy ships Prince of Wales and Repulse on
December 10. Thereafter, the Allies conceded the
region to Japan and were soon chased out of every
body of water surrounding the South China Sea.
From January 1942 until December 1944, the
South China Sea was wholly controlled by Japan.
It owned the oilfields in the south, shipping the
petroleum pulled from them to Japan. The sea
was now so deep within the heart of the Japanese
empire that they set up flight schools next to it; it
simplified transporting the fuel needed for flight
US soldiers in the training. (Japan never had enough tankers to meet its needs, and there were refineries in
Philippines surrender to the region.) Except for submarines conducting a war of attrition against Japanese shipping,
Japanese troops in March
1941. Japan’s conquests no Allied warships, aircraft, or soldiers (apart from guerillas) fought in the South China
during the war’s first six Sea – or even entered it
months left the South It took the US landings at Mindoro to bring the Allies back into the South China Sea.
China Sea a Japanese
backwater for the next That December 15, 1944 landing barely put a toe into the South China Sea. The invasion
two–and-a-half years. beaches were at the southern end of the Mindoro Strait linking the Sulu Sea to the South
Allied forces did not China Sea. Some of the support carrier aircraft ventured into the South China Sea, but Japan
return until December
1944. (AC) remained firmly in control.

Preliminaries: December 30, 1944, to January 9, 1945

If Mindoro was a toe in the waters of the South China Sea, the Lingayen Gulf landings by
US forces, scheduled for mid-January, was a dive head-first into the sea. Lingayen Gulf was
well within the South China Sea, and had been the site of the main Japanese landings on
Luzon in 1941. The US Navy’s Seventh Fleet had to traverse the South China Sea to get the
US Sixth Army to the beaches. It either had to go up the west side of Luzon from Mindoro
or through the Luzon Strait to approach Lingayen Gulf from the north. Either route was a
direct challenge to Japanese control of the South China Sea.
That mass of American ships had to be protected as it moved towards Lingayen Gulf, but
even more so during and after the landing. When the Third Fleet sortied from Ulithi on
December 30, 1944, protecting Seventh Fleet was its primary objective. It would remain
the focus of the initial phase of the operation. Two days of airstrikes against Formosa would
open the campaign, followed by a day hitting Luzon, a third set of strikes against Formosa,
and then a return to Luzon. All of these attacks were to be made by January 9, the scheduled
landing day at Lingayen.
 47

The Fast Carrier Force departing Ulithi consisted of four fast carrier task groups. Three of Planning and training
the task groups – TG38.1, TG38.2, and TG38.3 – had two fleet carriers and one or two light occupied TF38 during the
first few days of the South
carriers. Each was accompanied by three fast battleships, five cruisers, and anywhere from China Sea operations.
16 to 24 destroyers. The fourth task group, TG38.5, consisted of fleet carrier Enterprise and Here pilots sit in the ready
light carrier Independence, guarded by six destroyers. It was a night-operations group. During room, making notes prior
to a flight. (AC)
the hours of darkness, it operated independently. When dawn came, it joined TG38.2 (the
only daytime task group with one light carrier), finding shelter within its antiaircraft screen
until dusk. Then it would depart again to rule the night once more.
TF38 was accompanied by part of TG30.8, commanded by Captain Jasper T. Acuff, for
logistics support. The six tankers and six escort carriers would accompany TG38 on the first
leg of the voyage and on into the Sea of Japan. They would provide replacement aircraft and
refill the bunkers of the fleet’s thirsty ships.
It took four days for the Fast Carrier Force to reach its first launching point for a set of
strikes on Formosa. Surprise was essential. To prevent detection, air patrols from Guam and
Leyte swept the seas around and ahead of TF38, screening it from possible discovery by
Japanese patrol aircraft or picket boats. Anything discovered was quickly destroyed. Even if
these snoopers radioed a contact report, it raised no alarm with the Japanese as they were
being attacked by land-based aircraft.
During these four days, TF38 conducted training exercises. While the ships were veterans,
many green pilots and crewmen were aboard. Training went on during daylight hours and
into the night. January 2, 1945, the day before the first scheduled attacks, was spent refueling
from Acuff ’s oilers. The predawn hours of January 3 found TF38 at its initial launching point
140nmi east of Formosa’s airfields. Surprise was total.
At this point, TF38 had split into three groups. TG38.2, commanded by Rear Admiral
Gerald Bogan, accompanied by TG38.5 (under Rear Admiral Matthias Gardner), struck at
southern Formosa and the Pescadores. This was the region where the Japanese concentrated
most of their aircraft, to oppose the anticipated Lingayen landings. Rear Admiral Andrew
Radford’s TG38.1, meanwhile, was assigned northern Formosa, and TG38.3, commanded
by Rear Admiral Forrest Sherman, was split between central Formosa and some long distant
strikes against Okinawa and the Sakishima Gunto. Blanket tactics were the order of the day,
except for the strikes at the Ryukyus.
48 The Campaign

Murphy’s Law then intervened. A storm

front lay between the carriers and Formosa. The
initial sweep, launched before dawn, had to fly
though solid clouds and overcast. It was the
first of many encounters with bad weather that
would bedevil the operation and hamper flying.
Some pilots were unable to reach their targets,
forced back by the weather or misled by tricky
navigation. Blanketing Formosa’s airfields would
not be possible.
Yet what fortune took with one hand she gave
back with the other. The weather was so bad that
the Japanese remained on the ground, their pilots
unable to cope with the thick cloud. The US
carrier aircraft that did find their target airfields
consequently also found them filled with parked
Japanese aircraft. Navy aviators claimed a bag of
85 aircraft destroyed during the morning strikes
on January 3. There were no afternoon strikes;
the weather was too bad and they were canceled.
The pattern repeated itself the following
day, January 4. The storm front remained over
TF38 announced its arrival Formosa and the ocean between that island and the US carriers. Another set of limited
at Formosa with a series morning airstrikes were launched against Formosan airfields, with virtually identical results.
of strikes on Japanese
airfields there. Attacks The Japanese again stayed on the ground. Another 85 Japanese aircraft were claimed
were made as far south as destroyed on the ground. The weather worsened as the day progressed and the afternoon
Takao and as far north as strikes were again canceled.
the Sakishima Gunto. (AC)
The bad weather prevented assessment of the two days’ worth of bombing strikes. Given
the natural overestimation by pilots, the actual total of 170 aircraft claimed destroyed was
probably overstated. Multiple pilots sometimes claimed the same aircraft. Some aircraft
claimed destroyed on the January 3 may have been attacked and “destroyed” a second time
the next day, or some might have been repaired overnight.
The more likely assessment made by naval intelligence was that 100–120 aircraft were
destroyed. Regardless, the strikes accomplished their purpose. When the Seventh Fleet
reached Lingayen Gulf on January 9, they were unmolested by attacks from Formosa. In
exchange, the strikes cost TF38 22 aircraft.
TF38 spent January 5 refueling while heading to the Philippines. Their next task was to
throw the Big Blue Blanket over Luzon. They had done so three weeks earlier, covering the
Mindoro landings. The foul weather had delayed that effort by one day.
Seventh Fleet and the Lingayen invasion forces had departed Leyte Gulf on January 2,
heading to Lingayen Gulf via the Surigao Strait, across the Sulu Sea and through the Mindoro
Strait into the South China Sea. At that point there were some 350 Japanese aircraft in Luzon;
120 were at Clark Field, the rest at Nichols or scattered at other airfields throughout Luzon.
(Clark and Nichols were prewar airfields, built by the US Army, the most developed airfields
in the Philippines.) Roughly two-thirds of them were kamikazes. Attacks on the fleet began
on January 3, while it was entering the Sulu Sea.
At the time, TF38 was starting its attacks on Formosa. Seventh Fleet had to rely on US
Army Air Force fighters and the Wildcats aboard the 18 escort carriers accompanying the
invasion force. The carriers maintained a CAP of 40 fighters in the air at any one time. The
Army Air Force did what it could. At times it had up to 68 aircraft covering the fleet, but
they were better at attacking enemy airfields than providing cover to a moving fleet.
 49

Although the Japanese threw kamikazes at Seventh

Fleet throughout January 3, none scored a hit. The
next day, at 1712hrs, a twin-engine Ki-45 dove out of
the clouds to crash into escort carrier Ommaney Bay.
The fleet was at this time approaching Mindoro Strait.
Nearby islands shielded the attacking aircraft from
radar and visual lookouts missed seeing it until it was
too late. It crashed into the carrier’s flight deck, one of
the bombs exploded in the hangar deck, and a second
penetrated to an engine room. Fires soon raged out
of control. Ommaney Bay sank shortly after 1830hrs.
The misery continued for the Seventh Fleet
throughout January 5. By then it could maintain
a CAP of only 24 aircraft. Additionally, they were
moving along Luzon’s coast, close to Clark and Nichols
fields. Army Air Force fighter support dropped off.
Seventh Fleet was beyond the range of single-engine
fighters out of Leyte, and the Army Air Force had
been operating out of Mindoro airfield for only a
few weeks. Worse, rain had shut down Mindoro’s
sodden runways. It was more of the rain that had been
impeding TG38 in Formosa.
Some 50 kamikazes were thrown at Seventh Fleet on January 5, and 55 the next day. Ten TF38 switched its attention
ships were hit and damaged by kamikazes on the 5th, including two heavy cruisers and two to the Philippines on
January 6 and 7,
escort carriers, although none were sunk. They were less fortunate the next day, when 13 attempting to throw the
ships were hit and the destroyer-minesweeper Long was sunk. Big Blue Blanket over
TF38 was scheduled to attack Luzon on January 6. The Army Air Force’s Fifth Air Force, airfields throughout Luzon,
including this one at Baler.
commanded by General George C. Kenny, was operating in the Philippines. To avoid Army Protected by overcast on
Air Force and US Navy aircraft attacking each other, Fifth Air Force and TF38 had set January 6, it was attacked
operational boundaries for their aircraft prior to TF38’s departure from Ulithi. on January 7. (USNHHC)
The events of January 5 alarmed General Douglas MacArthur, commanding US Army
forces in the Pacific. Seventh Fleet would not be landing troops for three days after its
January 6 arrival at Lingayen Gulf. MacArthur’s soldiers were aboard those transports,
vulnerable to kamikazes. Despite the risk of friendly-fire incidents, MacArthur requested
that Halsey ignore the dividing line and send his aircraft across it. Halsey was only too happy
to accommodate MacArthur.
TF38 completed fueling on January 5 and raced to its launching point, 120nmi southeast
of Cape Engaño, where it had attacked Vice Admiral Ozawa’s Mobile Force aircraft carriers
on October 25–26, 1944. By dawn it was at its launching position, 90 miles due east of
northern Luzon. Operations had pulled together a plan to cover the entire northern part of
Luzon from Batangas to Aparri with US Navy aircraft. It was to be a repeat of the Big Blue
Blanket they had dropped over Luzon to support the Mindoro landings. All three carrier
groups were to be used, with TG38.5 folded into TG38.2.
The weather once again foiled US intentions. Baler and all of the airfields north of it were
clouded in by heavy overcast. Visibility at Clark Field and nearby Angeles Airfield (another
prewar airstrip built by the US Army) was marginal. Most of the Luzon airfields south of
Clark Field, including Nichols, were obscured by clouds for most of the day.
The Navy destroyed only 32 Japanese aircraft that day – 18 of them on the ground. The
US Navy lost 22 aircraft. It was an unsatisfactory exchange rate. More maddening was that
the weather, despite being bad enough to keep the Navy from attacking Luzon’s airfields,
permitted small numbers of Japanese kamikazes to take off. They continued to attack Seventh
50 The Campaign

Fleet in small numbers throughout the day. Their

effectiveness even improved.
Photoreconnaissance flights after the day’s
missions revealed the paltry results. Analysts counted
237 operational aircraft at Japanese airfields around
Luzon. Most were clustered at Clark Field and
nearby airfields, dispersed and camouflaged. Halsey
decided another round of airstrikes was needed to
neutralize the threat.
The weather cleared significantly on January 7.
The pilots had been briefed on their targets, with
the photo interpreters using the new photographs
to show where the camouflaged aircraft were. Thus
prepared, they launched the next day. From dawn
at 0600hrs until three hours after sunset at 2100hrs,
TF38 aircraft flew missions over Luzon, throwing
the Big Blue Blanket over Luzon’s principal airfields.
The Japanese largely remained on the ground,
with only four Japanese aircraft reported to have
launched to challenge the Navy; all four were shot
down. Another 75 Japanese aircraft were reported
destroyed on the ground by TF38 aircraft. In all,
TF38 flew 757 sorties against Japanese-held airfields
On January 9, Third Fleet on Luzon, despite deteriorating weather which made evening and post-sunset operations
returned to Formosa. hazardous. TF38 lost 28 aircraft that day, but only ten in combat. The rest were operational
Among other targets hit
was shipping in Takao. losses, wastage due to accidents and mishaps.
The two ships shown hit Nor did TF38 strike unassisted. Eleven escort carriers from Seventh Fleet joined in the
and burning in this target air attacks against the Japanese airfields. They flew a total of 143 sorties against airfields,
photograph might be the
freighters Fukama Maru devoting one-third of their total missions for the day to destroying kamikazes on the ground.
and Hisagawa Maru, The Army Air Force also joined in.
both of which were sunk The net result was neutralization of Japanese air forces in Luzon. Reinforcement of Japanese
at Takao that day.
(USNHHC) aircraft in Luzon ceased as of January 9. Most of the reinforcements that had arrived between
January 3 and 8 had come from Japanese-occupied islands in the southern Philippines. There
were no further aircraft there. None had come from Formosa; that door had been slammed
shut by TF38’s attacks there on January 3 and 4. Within a few days of January 9, Japanese
aircraft were not flying into Luzon; they were evacuating it. January 6 proved the kamikaze’s
high water mark. Although attacks continued after that day, the numbers were smaller and
soon dropped to almost nothing.
By January 8, TF38 was again steaming northwest, preparing for another round of strikes
on Formosa. Halsey wanted to ensure Formosa would not be troubling Seventh Fleet. He
also hoped to strike shipping around Formosa, a task neglected earlier. Along the way, he
refueled from TG30.8.
He also made one change in the lineup, exchanging two Fletcher-class destroyers between
TG38.2 and TG30.8. He sent USS Hailey to TG30.8 and took USS Trathen from TG30.8,
sending it TG38.2. The move puzzled Hailey’s captain, who sent a dispatch to Halsey asking
what deficiency had led to the switch from a fast carrier group escort to guarding auxiliaries.
Halsey quickly replied, “Relax Com Third Fleet still loves you. Wanted to give 30.8 a radar
jammer.” TG30.8’s need for beefed-up electronic countermeasures would soon become
apparent. Hailey was restored to TG38.2 shortly after TF38 returned to Ulithi.
On January 9, while soldiers of the US Sixth Army were going ashore on the Lingayen
beaches, TF38 was again attacking Formosa and the Ryukyus. TG38.3 again targeted the
 51

Ryukyus but ran into a storm front that prevented them from finding airfields at Sakishima TF38 aircraft also struck
Gunto. They had to turn back. Later in the day, they joined aircraft from TG38.2 attacking airfields throughout
Formosa on January 9.
Formosa and in launching a successful strike against Miyako Jima. At Heito, in southern
TG38.1 hit the southern half of Formosa, launching two strikes from its two fleet carriers Formosa, US Navy pilots
and one from each of its light carriers. There was not much there to hit. Pilots from Hancock discovered the fighter strip
was occupied by dummy
reported Hieto, the airfield they attacked, was mostly filled with dummy aircraft. Instead, aircraft intended as bait.
they destroyed two steamrollers there, used to repair the runways. TG38.1 also attacked The flyers struck facilities
shipping in their area. They sank two small Japanese warships – a destroyer escort and a at the airfield instead of
the dummies. (AC)
patrol craft – and three merchant ships. The destroyer Hamakaze and three merchantmen
were damaged.
Forty-two aircraft were reported destroyed, although some were dummies. TF38 flew a
total of 727 sorties and dropped 212 tons of bombs on January 9. In total, since January
3, TF38 flew 3,030 combat sorties in support of the Lingayen landings, dropped 700 tons
of bombs, and lost 86 aircraft, 46 of them in combat. It was now time for the task force to
enter the South China Sea.

To Indochina: January 9–12, 1945

Up to this point, nothing TF38 had done would have surprised the Japanese. TF38 had
raided Formosa in October 1944, and had executed airfield blanketing in December to
protect the Mindoro landings. TF38 had done a better job on those earlier visits, despite
having fewer carriers attacking. That difference was largely due to more available targets in
the earlier attack and better weather. You cannot attack aircraft that do not exist, and the
rainy weather hobbled the attacks made by TF38.
Regardless, to Japanese eyes the raids were essentially repeating what the US Navy had done
before. The Japanese were probably beginning to believe they had the measure of the US
Navy. So long as the fast carriers remained in the Philippine Sea or the Pacific Ocean south
of the Bonin Islands, Japan could absorb any damage caused and keep going. It might even
work to Japan’s benefit: the carriers could continue pounding away on these outer barriers
without significantly reducing Japan’s war-making capabilities. The time they spent there gave
Japan more time to prepare defenses for its final homeland battles. Supplies and especially
52 The Campaign

January 12 was the first petroleum could continue to flow to Japan through the South China Sea, unmolested except
day of airstrikes in the by submarines. Even if ships could no longer use Formosan ports, they could follow the
South China Sea and the
most successful day of Chinese coast and remain out of reach of carrier aircraft in the Philippine Sea.
operations. Thirty-two Halsey and McCain knew this. It was one reason why Halsey had advocated a South China
merchant vessels were Sea raid since November. With his direct support for the Lingayen landings complete, he
sunk, including this one,
ablaze as a Helldiver was ready to execute his next set of orders. He was so ready that the orders for the movement
flies past it. (AC) were issued at 0900hrs on January 9, while the day’s attacks on Formosa were occurring.
US naval intelligence reported the Ise and Hyuga were at Camranh Bay. That satisfied
Nimitz’s requirement that there be major Japanese units in the South China Sea. The two
battleships were among the oldest Japan had. They had been designed before World War
I and were contemporaries of the US Navy’s Arkansas class. They were also the slowest
battleships Japan had. Both had one-third of their main battery removed when they were
converted to hermaphrodite aircraft carriers in 1942 and 1943.
Part battleship and part aircraft carrier, they did neither job well. They could carry only
24 aircraft, and these had to be floatplanes if they were to be recovered by the launching
battleship. Since Japan lacked pilots capable of launching from ships, they had no aircraft
aboard in January 1945. The conversion reduced their main battery to eight 356mm (12in.)
guns. A new US Alaska-class large cruiser (armed with 9 12in. guns of longer range) could
have probably bested Ise or Hyuga in a single-ship action. Yet the pair were still battleships
and represented 40 percent of Japan’s remaining battleship force. Their presence sufficed to
justify Halsey’s incursion into the South China Sea.
Once the airstrikes on January 9 ended, TF38 and TG30.8 set course for the South
China Sea. On the evening of January 9–10, TF38 passed through the main part of the
Luzon Strait, an 80nmi gap between Formosa and Itbayat Island, into the South China Sea.
TG30.8 took the more southerly and narrower Balintang Channel between the Batanes and
Babuyan Islands.
 53

The night-operations carriers put an aerial umbrella over both groups of ships to prevent
detection of the Third Fleet during the passage. Radar-equipped Hellcats patrolled the skies,
aided by both carrier radar and Avengers serving as primitive electronic early warning aircraft.
They encountered no Japanese aircraft hunting for the Americans. Fighters from Independence
did intercept and shoot down three Japanese aircraft fleeing Luzon for Formosa; they were
part of a final aerial evacuation of the Philippines, and were unlucky enough to blunder into
TF38’s nocturnal spider web. Third Fleet thus slipped undetected into the South China Sea.
Bad weather followed Third Fleet into the South China Sea, with high seas hindering
planned refueling on January 10. Instead, fueling was completed on the following day. By
sunset, Halsey and McCain were making plans for a surprise attack on the Indochina coast
on January 12. The Japanese, absorbed by the Lingayen landings, remained unaware of Third
Fleet’s presence. An efficient CAP combined with a little luck kept snoopers away from Third
Fleet during its refueling operations.
On the evening of January 11, Halsey began shuffling ships, sending heavy cruisers
Baltimore and Boston with five destroyers from TG38.1 to join TG38.2. This left Vice
Admiral Bogan with two battleships, two heavy, three light, and one antiaircraft cruiser, and
20 destroyers to escort his two fleet and one light carrier. This task group pushed ahead,
with air cover provided by the trailing TG38.1 and TG38.3. TG30.8 fell back to the center
of the South China Sea, halfway between the coasts of Luzon and Indochina. TG38.5, with
the night carriers, split off to conduct a predawn reconnaissance of the Indochina coast.
Halsey planned for TG38.2 to separate during the night, with the battleships, cruisers,
and a third of the destroyers in a surface combat group and the carriers and their screen in

Night action
By January 1945, two of TF38’s 14 fast carriers were dedicated to night operations: fleet carrier Enterprise and light
carrier Independence. These carriers provided air cover during the hours of darkness with night fighters. On the night
of January 9–10, when TF38 crossed the Luzon Strait to enter the South China Sea, they patrolled the skies around
both TF38 and TG30.8. Their mission was to ensure Third Fleet made the passage undetected by Japanese aircraft.
Thus, Independence put up a curtain of fighters to intercept and shoot down any Japanese crossing the Luzon Strait
between the Philippines and Formosa.
The scales were tipped in favor of the Americans. Air-search radar from TF38 ships scanned the Luzon Strait, allowing
air controllers aboard the carriers to vector fighters to intercept bogeys (unidentified aircraft). The fighters were radar-
equipped. They could intercept a bogey beyond visual sighting distance, identify it as a “bandit” (enemy aircraft), and
attack it before its victim realized it had been spotted, much less was under attack.
Making the situation even worse for Japanese aircraft crossing the strait that night was that they were totally unaware
enemy aircraft were in the vicinity. No one in the Japanese military realized TF38 was entering the South China Sea.
The aircraft crossing the strait were not maritime patrol aircraft hunting enemy ships. Instead, they were part of an air
evacuation of the Philippines, taking high-value personnel out of Luzon following that morning’s landing at Lingayen
by the US Eighth Army and Seventh Fleet. Instead of reaching safety, three of these aircraft were intercepted and
shot down.
The illustration shows one such kill. The F6F-5N Hellcat is recognizable by the radome on its wing. Having made
contact, it intercepted its quarry by approaching from behind and below, reducing the opportunity for the bandit to
realize it was being stalked. It is a moonless night, and the dark blue F6F is invisible against the midnight blue.
The target is an L2D – a version of the Douglas DC-3, built by Showa and Nakajima, two Japanese aircraft
manufacturers, under a license acquired in 1938. Production began in 1940 and it became Japan’s most important
transport aircraft, with nearly 500 built. The US codenamed it “The Tabby”. Several were captured in Luzon during the
US liberation of the island. This aircraft is unarmed, but even those which were, only carried a pair of light machine
guns mounted on passenger windows.
The crew and passengers of this plane do not know they are being stalked. The pilot of the Hellcat has placed himself
where the guns could not bear even if they were used. He has The Tabby just where he wants it, as a few bursts with
the fighter’s guns will bring it down. The attack will be so sudden the crew will not even be able to report what is
happening to them. The secret of TF38’s passage will remain secret.
54 The Campaign
55
56 The Campaign

Japanese ships scattered another. At dawn, the surface combat units would run in and bombard Camranh Bay as the
and beached near Cape carriers launched airstrikes on the anchorage.
Paderan, after being
caught and attacked by At 0330hrs on January 12, four-and-a-half hours before dawn, aircraft from Enterprise and
aircraft from TG38.2.The Independence made a search of the Indochina coast. They radioed in the locations of Japanese
burning ship may be the ships along the coast and enemy installations ashore. While they found plenty of targets,
tanker Ayayuki Maru. The
beached freighter is likely they did not find Ise and Hyuga. They feared the two battleships were too well camouflaged
Totu Maru. (USNHHC) to spot. In reality, the pair had gone.
Naval intelligence had not been wrong about the elderly Japanese battleships having been
in Camranh Bay. Both had arrived there on December 12, 1944. Their mission was to attack
the transports heading to Mindoro in the hope of breaking up the invasion. The Japanese
apparently detected the first convoy of ships headed to Mindoro, the Slow Tow Convoy
which sailed on December 11. It was ill-defended against surface attack, a perfect target for
the old Japanese battleships, which were ordered up from Singapore.
By the time the convoy came into striking distance, it was apparent why it left so early:
to coordinate its arrival with the faster elements. These included a force of three battleships
– West Virginia, Colorado, and New Mexico – three cruisers and six aircraft carriers. They
were escort carriers, but the Japanese did not know that. It was hard to distinguish between
a fleet and an escort carrier at the distances Japanese reconnaissance aircraft had to keep to
maintain a reasonable chance to return a report.
The three US battleships could have beaten Ise and Hyuga even without the aid of the
aircraft carriers. They had been part of Admiral Jesse Oldendorf ’s battle line at the battle of
Surigao Strait, where they helped sink Fuso and Yamashiro, two battleships newer and more
powerful than Ise and Hyuga.
Imperial Headquarters calculated the odds against a successful strike on the troop transports
were too low, so they canceled the sortie. Ise and Hyuga were kept on standby at Camranh
Bay for the rest of December, hoping for a chance to strike. Finally, Imperial Headquarters
realized the opportunity was gone. On December 30, the day Third Fleet departed Ulithi,
they ordered the battleships back to Singapore. Two days later, on New Year’s Day, the pair
steamed out of Camranh Bay, unaware of how close to destruction they had come.
By 0600hrs, TG38.2 was 50 miles east of Camranh Bay, with TG38.1 and TG38.3 close
behind. At 0640hrs, Halsey detached the surface combat group. At 0730hrs, all three carrier
groups began launching aircraft for a dawn strike. The night contingent from Enterprise and
Independence, despite having been flying for the past four hours, joined in the attack before
heading for their carriers. Thereafter, they refueled, rearmed, and continued strike operations
for the rest of the day.
 57

The first planes reached their targets as dawn

broke, catching the Japanese by surprise. They were
still unaware a US fleet was in the South China
Sea; much less that one was under 50 miles from
the Indochina coast. The Japanese had expected a
routine day. Three convoys were moving along the
Indochinese coast, with numerous other vessels,
sailing individually, in pairs, or groups of three.
The first vessel attacked by TF38 was the
American USS Rock, a submarine on lifeguard
duty off the Hon Lon lighthouse. At 0500hrs,
USS English, an Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer
with TG38.2, was on picket duty when it spotted
the surfaced Rock. Although Rock fired recognition
flares, English concluded the submarine was a
Japanese-controlled sailing vessel and opened fire.
Rock promptly submerged and evaded English. The
destroyer lost contact with its target (or assumed
it had sunk) and eventually left. Rock remained
submerged until 0651hrs, when it rigged US colors
at the masthead and on deck. Forty minutes later,
the first air wave passed over Rock; it recognized
it – and its purpose – and flying directly overhead,
put on a show for its lifeguard, waggling wings. USS English, a destroyer
The attack was soon under way. The carrier aircraft attacked on a wide front, covering assigned to TG38.2,
made the first attack of the
420 miles of the Indochinese coast. They ranged as far north as Tourane and its airfield and day on January 12,
as far south as Saigon, striking both its airfields and harbor before the day ended. Weather 1945. Unfortunately, its
was mixed, with frequent showers throughout the day. That proved only a minor deterrent target was USS Rock, a
US lifeguard submarine
to the attacking aircraft. Pickings were rich. stationed off French
One victim was a 15-ship convoy, Hi-86, returning to Singapore from Takao. It was Indochina to rescue
discovered by TG38.3 aircraft north of Qui Nhon. Two waves of aircraft struck it in downed fliers. English’s
aim proved as good as its
succession. When it was over, 14 of the merchant vessels were sunk, along with three of the recognition skills: Rock
five escorts. Sunk in the first wave by US Navy aircraft attacking the convoy were destroyer survived uninjured.
escorts No. 23 and No. 51. (USNHHC)
Also struck and sunk were seven tankers: the 10,000-ton Kyokuun Marou, 7,300-ton San
Luis Maru, 7,000-ton Eifan Maru, 2,900-ton Ryusho Maru, 834-ton Horai Maru No. 9 and
Nanryu Maru No. 2, and 533-ton Banshu Maru No. 63. Seven freighters were also sunk: the
6,900-ton Otsuyama Maru, 5,700-ton Yoshu Maru, 5,400-ton Tatsubato Maru, 4,500-ton
Tatehe Maru, 2,800-ton Shoei Maru, 1,500-ton Daikyu Maru, and 600-ton Yusei Maru.
Last to go was the cruiser Kashii, commissioned in 1941. By then the convoy’s remnants
were south of Qui Nhon, fleeing their attackers. The second wave found them there,
roughly three hours later. Kashii was struck amidships by a torpedo and aft by two bombs
dropped by a Helldiver. Those detonated its depth charge magazine. It sank, stern-first,
shortly thereafter. Luck was with the remaining freighter and two escorts, which survived
the onslaught and escaped.
Kashii, although new, was a training cruiser, too weak for surface combat, used mainly
as an administrative flagship and to command convoy escort groups. A sister ship had been
sunk off Truk when caught by the US battleship Iowa. Regardless, Kashii would be missed.
The tankers were riding in ballast, returning to the oilfields, and the freighters were lightly
loaded with goods for the Malay and Dutch East Indies garrisons. Japan could ill afford the
loss of an additional 27,000 tons of oil transport and 27,400 tons of cargo volume.
58
The Destruction of Convoy Hi-86
The Campaign

The Hi series of convoys ran from Japan to Singapore. They were made
up of high-value ships: tankers and transports. The tankers typically rode
in ballast to pick up oil to return to Japan. The transports and freighters
carried military supplies to support the army, returning to Japan with food
and raw materials.
On January 12, 1945, aircraft from TG38.3 attacked Convoy Hi-86 off
the coast of Qui Nhon in French Indochina, with two waves of deckload
airstrikes from fleet carriers Essex and Ticonderoga, spaced three hours apart.
2
4
It was a spectacular demonstration of naval airpower. It also highlighted the
danger of using the South China Sea for transporting goods.

5
4

7
4
1. 1000hrs. Aircraft from Essex (CV-9) and of a freighter and going through the hull
Ticonderoga (CV-14) arrive within sighting plates on the ship’s bottom.
distance of Convoy Hi-86. Each strike
2. 1015–1045hrs. Hi-86 is attacked by
launched is made up of roughly half the
US Navy aircraft. Thirteen ships are sunk,
aircraft on each carrier – the most that can be
including two of the destroyer escorts
spotted on the flight deck at one time. Each
guarding the convoy, six tankers (displacing
strike consisted of 90 aircraft: 52 fighters, 23
29,000 tons), and five freighters.
dive-bombers, and 15 torpedo bombers. Half
the fighters are armed with bombs, but even 3. 1100hrs. Having expended their ordnance,
the escorts are deadly. The six .50cal guns fire the US Navy aircraft depart the area,
bullets capable of penetrating the deck plates returning to their carriers.
 59
1
4
3
4

1
4

3
4

6
4

6
4

US Forces:
4 CV-9 Air Group

4 CV-14 Air Group

Japanese Forces: sunken vessels

Surviving ships:
No.27 Destroyer Escort, 800 tons
Daito Destroyer Escort, 940 tons
Ukuru Destroyer Escort, 940 tons
Unknown Transport
4. 1245hrs. Aircraft from CV-9 and CV-14 arrive 6. 1345hrs. US Navy aircraft depart the area,
to launch a second strike against Hi-86. returning to their carriers.
5. 1300–1330hrs. Hi-86 is attacked a 7. 1430hrs. Four surviving ships continue to
second time by US Navy aircraft. Four more Singapore. Fourteen of the convoy’s 15
ships are sunk, most spectacularly the merchantmen have been sunk (including eight
training cruiser Kashii,which sinks after its tankers), also three of its six escorting warships.
depth-charge magazine explodes. The four
survivors are three elusive destroyer escorts
and a very lucky transport, all of which
somehow avoid getting hit.
60 The Campaign

While this was the greatest loss experienced by the Japanese that day, it was far from the
only one. A convoy of seven ships and four escorts was caught off Cape St Jacques (Vung
Tau today) by aircraft of TG38.1. Three destroyer escorts – Chiburi, No. 17, and No. 19 – a
1,000-ton tank landing ship, the 10,000-ton tanker Akashi Maru, and the 7,500-ton troop
transport Kumgawa Maru were either sunk or beached. Fighters in the strike strafed surviving
soldiers escaping across the sand dunes.
Farther north, off Cape Padaran, TG38.2 aircraft attacked another convoy, sinking two
destroyer escorts, a patrol craft, the tankers Eiho Maru (5,200 tons) and Ayayuki Maru (2,900
tons), and the 4,500-ton freighter Totu Maru.
At Saigon, two freighters and a tanker were sunk. The French cruiser Lamotte-Picquet
was anchored nearby. A Duguay-Trouin-class light cruiser, it had been serving as the French
Marine Nationale’s flagship in the Far East when France fell. Caught at Saigon when the
Japanese moved in, it had been immobilized and disarmed. What US Navy pilots saw was a
warship in Japanese waters. Ignoring the French tricolor flag it flew, they attacked and sunk
it. Nearby was the French surveying vessel Octant, which was also sunk.
Shipping all up and down the coast was struck. In total, TF38 aircraft sank 12 warships,
ranging from the 6,000-ton Kashii to a pair of 440-ton submarine chasers. A minesweeper,
seven destroyer escorts, and an armed yacht rounded off the tally. The tank landing ship,
which flew an Imperial Japanese Navy flag, was the 13th Imperial Navy ship sunk that day.
Losses to Japan’s merchant marine were far greater, with 32 going down. Of these, 12,
of an aggregate 59,000 deadweight tons, were tankers, including three of over 10,000
The Japanese training
cruiser Kashii, sinking tons. Fifteen others were freighters, while the remaining five were troop transports
stern first on January 12, or passenger vessels; these 20 ships displaced an additional 78,000 tons. The vessels
1945. Part of the escort lost ranged from the 7,500-ton passenger-cargo ship Kumgawa Maru to the 600-ton
for Convoy Hi-86, it was
struck aft by a bomb Yusei Maru.
which detonated its depth- The damage went beyond that. Between two and four destroyer escorts, three vehicle
charge magazine. Only landing ships, a minesweeper, five freighters, and two tankers were damaged that day by
ten of the ship’s 621-man
crew survived the sinking. US aircraft. Of these, perhaps half were wrecked when a storm rolled through before they
(USNHHC) could be repaired.
 61

Nor were ships the only targets on January 12. Airstrikes were made against Japanese US Navy aircraft return to
airfields from Saigon to Tourane, as well as on the seaplane base at Camranh Bay. Twenty USS Hancock after a busy
day in the South China
floatplanes were destroyed at Camranh Bay and 77 aircraft on the ground at airfields Sea. TF38 lost only 23
throughout Indochina. Japanese air opposition was light. Perhaps 40 Japanese aircraft were aircraft on January 12,
able to get off the ground that day, of which 15 were shot down. around one aircraft for
every two Japanese ships
In all, TF38 flew 1,465 sorties on this day with the 850 aircraft available for use on the sunk that day. (USNHHC)
Fast Carrier Force’s carriers. Of these, 481 were CAP flights while 984 were attack missions,
sweeps and strikes over French Indochina and offshore. The casualty bill was low. Twenty-
three aircraft were lost, but most of the aircrew were recovered, some by the faithful Rock,
waiting offshore. The majority of aircrew shot down over Indochina were rescued by friendly
locals and spirited to Free China by anti-Japanese and anti-Vichy guerilla groups.
Although the pilots of TF38 undeniably had a successful day on January 12, the surface
strike force had no major Japanese warships to target in Camranh Bay. Indeed, Kashii was
likely the largest warship within 500 miles of TF38. Due to the absence of targets, the surface
strike force was recalled and rejoined TG38.2. Their participation for the rest of the day was
limited to watching US carrier aircraft take off and land on the task group’s carriers. It was a
disappointment to those who had been hoping for a fight with Ise and Hyuga.
Three minutes after sunset, at 1931hrs, TF38, its day’s work accomplished, set a course of
east by northeast and steamed away from the French Indochina coast.

Return to Formosa: January 13–15, 1945

The task force’s destination was a rendezvous with TG30.8, which was still circling near the
spot where it had been waiting since January 11: 14 degrees north and 114 degrees east.
This was north of a typhoon churning its way across the South China Sea from Mindanao
to a landfall on the Indochina coast between Camranh Bay and Qui Nhon. By January 13,
the tropical cyclone was just south of the planned rendezvous.
Unlike the 13th-century typhoons which scattered two Mongol fleets and saved Japan from
invasion, this typhoon aided Japan’s opponents. TF38’s swift withdrawal, combined with the
clouds and winds of the typhoon, allowed it to break contact with the Japanese. The storms
lashing Indochina kept Japanese reconnaissance aircraft grounded, allowing TF38 to remain
undetected during the critical refueling period.
 Japanese port Events
1. TF 38, TG 30.8 depart Ulithi (30 December 1944)
62
Japanese airfield Kadena 2. Refueling (1200–1500, 2 January 1945)
Date of typhoon
19 3. Air attacks on Formosa (3 January 1945)

ait
Str
Kiirun RYUKYU ISLANDS 4. Air attacks on Formosa (4 January 1945)

osa
Amoy 5. Refueling (1200–1500, 5 January 1945)

m
CHINA

Fo r
6. Air attacks on Luzon (6 January 1945)
PESCADORES 7. Air attacks on Luzon (7 January 1945)
Swatow Formosa 8. Refueling (1200-1500, 8 January 1945)
Tainan 4 18
9. Air attacks on Formosa (9 January 1945)
The Campaign

Canton Takao Taito

9 PACIF IC 10. Refueling (1200–1500, 11 January 1945)
Hong Kong 3
11. Air attacks on French Indochina (12 January 1945)
OCEAN 12. Refueling (1200–1500, 11 January 1945)
14
Haiphong 13. Refueling (1200–1500, 13 January 1945)
Luichow 2 14. Air attacks on Formosa and China coast (15 January 1945)
15 20
15. Air attacks on Hong Kong and Hainan (16 January 1945)
Luzon Strait 8 16. Refueling (1200–1500, 17 January 1945)
Hainan 5 17. Refueling (1200–1500, 19 January 1945)
Yulin 18. Air attacks on Formosa (21 January 1945)
13 19. Air attacks on Nansei Shoto (22 January 1945)
Laoag 6 20. Refueling (1200–1500, 24 January 1945)
Lingayen 21. TF 38 returns to Ulithi (26 January 1945)
16
Gulf
Luzon 7
Tourane S o u t h C h i na S ea
17 Clark PHILIPPINES
FRENCH Manila
12
INDOCHINA Sibuyan Sea Nichols P h i l i ppi n e Se a
Qui Nhon 10

14 January 11 Mindoro

Camranh Bay Masbate Samar

Panay Lahug
Saigon Tizard Reefs Palawan Leyte
13 January 1
Cebu 21
12 January Negros
Su l u Se a Surigao Strait Yap Ulithi
11 January
Mindanao
Davao
San Rooque 10 January
PALAU
Matina
ISLANDS
9 January
Sandakan N
8 January
0 200 miles

Borneo Ce l e be s Se a
0 200km
 63

OPPOSITE: THE MISSION EXECUTED

Yet the typhoon also hindered TF38.The rough seas kicked up by the storm made refueling
the bigger ships difficult and replenishing the always-thirsty destroyers hazardous. The waves
made it even more important for the destroyers to keep full tanks. Empty tanks caused them
to ride high, decreasing stability and making them more exposed to the winds’ force. Half-
empty tanks were more dangerous still as their contents shifted to the low side during a roll,
increasing and amplifying the roll.
Under normal circumstances, fuel could be consolidated into full tanks, with the empty
bunkers ballasted with salt water. The ballasted tanks could not be refilled with fuel oil until
they had been thoroughly cleaned of the corrosive salt, a time-consuming process best done
in sheltered waters. Any ballasted tank would be rendered useless until this was done, most
likely at Ulithi. That would dramatically reduce the range of any destroyer ballasting with
salt water, an unacceptable penalty.
Despite the high seas, by the end of the day all destroyers had managed to take on enough
fuel to prevent the need for ballasting. The fleet oilers and TF38 moved 200nmi northeast
during January 13, seeking calmer waters.
TF38 spent most of January 13 searching the South China Sea for Imperial Japanese Navy
heavy units. The all-weather night aircraft gave Third Fleet the ability to search despite the
overcast, but there was simply nothing to find. All Japanese battleships, aircraft carriers,
and heavy cruisers were hidden away at Singapore or in the Home Islands. None wished a
hopeless clash with the Third Fleet in the South China Sea.

Heavy seas kicked up by

a typhoon heading
towards Indochina forced
postponement of fueling
planned for January 13.
Its effects can be seen in
this photo, taken as an
Allen M. Sumner-class
destroyer plows into a
wave trough on that day.
(USNHHC)
64 The Campaign

The January 15 operations January 13 also brought orders from the US Navy’s commanding officer, Fleet Admiral
against Formosa began Ernest King, in Washington DC. Fretting about the safety of the forces at Lingayen, King
well before dawn. Night
fighters were launched at “directed that the Third Fleet be maintained in a strategic position to intercept enemy forces
0400hrs, patrolling the approaching the Lingayen Gulf area from either the north or south.” Nimitz relayed the
skies around TF38 and directive to Halsey.
over Formosa, seeking
enemy aircraft. (AC) Halsey interpreted his orders in the most aggressive possible way. As far as he could see,
the best strategic position to intercept enemy forces approaching the Lingayen Gulf area was
exactly where he was: in the middle of the South China Sea. Since he was there, he could
best thwart Japanese forces from attacking Lingayen Gulf by attacking them first. Better still,
Nimitz advised Halsey that if Halsey could not find more important targets, he could strike
Hong Kong. That was all Halsey needed to put Hong Kong on his list.
First, however, TF38 needed to make another strike at Formosa. Halsey had hit western
Formosa and the Pescadores before entering the South China Sea, but from the Philippine
Sea they were distant, difficult targets. From the South China Sea he could get close to them,
attacking in concentrated numbers with full bomb loads.
On January 14, refueling recommenced, all destroyers topping off their bunkers. The
heavy ships, however, loaded to a minimum of 60 percent of their capacity. This partial load
was necessitated because Acuff ’s oilers were now low on fuel themselves. Once fueling was
complete, TG30.8 broke away from TF38, heading for Mindoro. The six empty fleet oilers
would rendezvous with relief oilers sent from Ulithi via the Surigao Strait. Full oilers would
then exchange with empty ones. Once that was done, TG30.8 returned to TF38.
 65

Meanwhile, TF38 steamed northeast to its Formosa strike position. It slowed to 16 knots TF38 opened the morning
as the weather worsened, a northeast monsoon blowing which made conditions miserable with fighter sweeps
attacking enemy airfields.
for both Third and Seventh Fleets. Less than two dozen
The weather continued getting worse. At 0300hrs, Admiral McCain recommended Japanese aircraft were
reversing course and postponing the attacks until February 16. Halsey, after reviewing the destroyed on the ground
by these attacks, largely
weather data and their position, decided it was not possible to withdraw outside attack range because there were few
from where they were. He had TF38 continue northeast. aircraft to target at the
Throughout the night and despite the weather, TF38 kept sending up search planes to fields hit. (AC)
reconnoiter potential targets – Amoy, Swatow, Hong Kong, Hainan, and the Pescadores.
The big prize would be the Ise and Hyuga. No one in TF38 had given up on finding the
elusive vessels, everyone believing they were somewhere in the South China Sea. Even if
they did not find the battleships, the intelligence gathered from the snooping aircraft could
help craft future attacks.
Somewhere between 0600hrs and 0630hrs, TF38 reached its launching positions 170nmi
west of southern Formosa. The fleet was 250nmi from the China coast. Night-fighter Hellcats
from Enterprise had been airborne since 0400hrs, patrolling the skies over the South China
Sea and Formosa, searching for enemy aircraft. At 0730hrs, the first airstrikes were launched.
Unlike off Indochina, the first round of airstrikes ignored shipping. Rather, they were fighter
sweeps, intended to neutralize enemy air activity. TF38 was within range of Chinese airbases
for the first time in the war.
Six fighter sweeps were sent against airfields at Swatow and Amoy. In a technique first
tried at Truk in February 1944, waves of fighters swept over these airfields. Any airborne
enemy aircraft were engaged and eliminated. Fighters then came in at low altitude, attacking
everything on the ground. Aircraft, especially those on taxiways or runways ready to take off,
were the highest priority. Antiaircraft positions came next. Once those threats to subsequent
attackers were dealt with, hangars, maintenance facilities, and aircraft in revetments were
systematically worked over by waves of fighter-bombers and bombers following after the
fighter sweeps.
It was a well-practiced exercise by January 1945. Its effectiveness had been improved
by the addition of fighter-bombers and the addition of HVAR missiles, which delivered a
66 The Campaign

5in. warhead at supersonic speed. The Navy had also added the Army Air Force-developed
parafrag bombs to the mix, dropping those from torpedo and dive-bombers.
Ten fighter sweeps were flown over Formosa airfields. Attention was paid to those in
southern Formosa and in the Pescadores. There were eight major airfields within 30 miles of
the port of Takao, one of TF38’s main objectives. Takao airfield was just east of Takao harbor,
while Okayama airfield, a dozen miles north of Takao, had three intersecting paved runways.
The latter was immediately west of the Okayama Aircraft Plant, an assembly plant and the
most important air depot in Formosa. Tainan airfield, built in 1935 and with two concrete
runways, was one of Imperial Japan’s earliest and most important airbases in Formosa.
Five other lesser airfields ringed Takao in a semicircle along the shores of the South
China Sea: Kato, Choshu, Heito I and Heito II, and Toshein. Since the two Heito airfields
were adjacent and could be dealt with through one sweep, these eight airfields represented
the targets for seven of the fighter sweep missions. Airfields at Kagi, Suirin, and Kobi on
the Formosa side of the Pescadore Strait, separating the Pescadores from Formosa, were
probably the targets of the other three sweeps. They were the closest airfields to the Pescadores
anchorage, another target for the day.
Yet the real focus of the day was not Formosa’s airfields. These had been bombed on
three previous occasions, in October and twice in January. Most of the aircraft that had
been in Formosa at the beginning of the month, especially in southern Formosa, had been
destroyed, at least according to intelligence assessments. During the January 9 attacks, Heito
was discovered to have been filled with dummy aircraft.
Fighter sweeps were conducted as a precaution, to cover the possibility that Formosa’s
air garrison had been reinforced. The Navy’s and Halsey’s real interest was Takao’s harbor
and naval port, with eight strikes planned against shipping in the harbors of Takao and
adjacent Toshien.
Takao, known today as Kaohsiung, was Japan’s most important and developed naval base
in the South China Sea. It was also the heart of Japan’s naval presence in the region. It had
been the major Japanese naval base there for nearly 50 years, since shortly after they liberated
Formosa from China and then incorporated it into the Japanese Empire when the new
Formosa Republic proved insufficiently submissive. Japan had built significant repair and
supply facilities there, and ringed Takao with minefields and shore batteries.
Japan’s military had also installed formidable antiaircraft batteries at Takao in the years
immediately prior to World War II, anticipating air attacks from the US-held Philippines in
the war’s opening months. They never occurred; the 1941 Japanese assault on the Philippines
moved too quickly to afford the US the luxury of striking Takao. The guns remained unused
over three peaceful years: it was more trouble to move them than to let them remain.
Takao was the center of Japan’s convoy and antisubmarine warfare systems in the South
China Sea. It was the arrival and departure points for two sets of convoys: those going to
and from the resource centers elsewhere in the South Chinas Sea, and those carrying raw
goods to Japan and returning from the Home Islands with manufactured products, including
munitions. Toshien was southern Formosa’s principal commercial port. Both sites were always
filled with ships, both merchant vessels and warships. Potentially, the attacks could yield a
larger haul than those against Camranh Bay, which was only a naval anchorage.
The weather was horrible, with low cloud ceilings over much of the attack area. Rainstorms
blew through, further complicating operations. TF38 attacked Takao regardless. The
attacking aircraft were pelted by almost as much antiaircraft fire as they were by heavy rain.
It was the heaviest antiaircraft fire they had faced to date on the raid, and would prove to be
the most they would face in the whole South China Sea operation.
The pilots persisted despite the difficulties and achieved some positive results. Hatakaze,
a Kamikaze-class destroyer launched and commissioned in 1924, had arrived at Takao in
late December after escorting a convoy from Kyushu. Still there two weeks later, it was
 67

found and sunk by US Navy aircraft that day. Transport No. 14, a 1,500-ton high-speed Takao and adjacent
transport, was hit by a bomb. It must have been carrying explosives, because it detonated Toshein were a focus of
the January 15 attacks on
with a massive explosion that created a concussion shock ring around the vessel. Finally, Mirii Formosa. Four ships were
Maru, a 10,600-ton tanker was bombed in Toshien’s harbor and damaged so badly it had to sunk. One, Transport No.
be beached to prevent it from sinking. A constructive total loss, it was never refloated. Two 14, must have been
loaded with explosives. It
other minor ships were damaged in the attacks: the army cargo ship Enoshima Maru and blew up with enough force
auxiliary minelayer Maroshima. to create a concussion
The weather finally forced the US Navy to abandon strikes on Takao. Instead, they sent ring visible in the water
around it. (USNHHC)
the final strikes to Mako, the Imperial Japanese Navy’s old anchorage in the Pescadores. This
location lacked the antiaircraft defenses of Takao, but not by much. The weather was much
better though, allowing the carrier aircraft to see what they were attacking. The problem
was that there really was little there, and even less that was worth attacking. Carrier aircraft
caught the old Momi-class destroyer Tsuga in the roads just outside the naval anchorage at
Mak-o-Ko and sunk it. Launched in 1920, it displaced 1,020 tons when deeply loaded and
armed with three 120mm guns and four 533mm torpedoes. It was not much of a scalp.
The Japanese Navy maintained a minor weather station, listening post, and radio stations
at Pratas Island, located in a small atoll roughly 170nmi southeast of Hong Kong and 170nmi
southwest of Takao. The atoll was a notorious navigation hazard. Pratas Island was the largest
island in the small circular reef enclosing a lagoon. Enterprise sent eight radar-equipped
aircraft to bomb Pratas. While the base was minor, it could have located Third Fleet when
it passed near while traveling to its position for the strike on Hong Kong. The attack seems
to have prompted abandonment of the station. It was eventually raided by a landing party
from the submarine USS Bluegill on May 29, 1945. The weather station, a radio tower, and
several buildings were still there, but the garrison had gone.
68 The Campaign

Mako, a Japanese naval TF38 had relatively little to show for its day’s work. Very few Japanese aircraft took
anchorage at Boko-Retto to the air over Formosa: only 16 were shot down. The haul of aircraft destroyed on the
in the Pescadores, was the
final target for January ground was little better, the attacking aircraft being credited with just 18 successes. TF38
15. It offered few targets. had succeeded in clearing out most of Formosa’s aircraft earlier, and what few aircraft that
Only the old Momi-class were left – either airworthy or needing repair – were widely dispersed and camouflaged. In
destroyer Tsuga, anchored
in the roads, was there. It exchange for destroying four Japanese ships totaling 14,000 tons and 34 Japanese aircraft,
was duly sunk (AC) TF38 lost 12 aircraft.
Better weather would have improved the US Navy’s score. Halsey would make one more
attempt at Takao’s harbor and its ships before the campaign was over; however, the law of
diminishing returns appeared to be kicking in. The US Navy seemed to be running out of
targets in the South China Sea, especially around Formosa. It had cleaned out Indochina
too. The January 12 visit had proved fruitful, but there was little left there. Ise and Hyuga
still could not be found. The remaining part of the South China Sea that seemed worthy
 69

of attention was the Chinese coast. It had yet to be visited, except for the six fighter sweeps
conducted against airfields on the Chinese side of the Formosa Strait.
At 1644hrs on January 15, TF38 called it a day, concluding the attacks on Formosa and
the northern coasts of the South China Sea. The task force then set a course to the southeast,
to reach the launching points for the next day’s attacks on Hong Kong and the central China
coast. It had been a busy but frustrating day.

Breaking China: January 16–19, 1945

Hong Kong was to be TF38’s primary target on January 16. It was a familiar location to
many prewar sailors in the Third Fleet, especially those, like Halsey, who had served in the
Asiatic Fleet in the years between the two world wars. It was a British Crown Colony and a
frequent stop for US Navy ships visiting the southern China coast during peacetime.
Like Portuguese Macao, French Luichow, the Shanghai International Settlement and
(before World War I), German Tsingtao, Hong Kong was one of the European treaty ports
dotting China’s coast. While China technically held sovereignty in many, for all practical
purposes they were bits of China run by foreign nations. Pilots from Hornet examine
Hong Kong was the oldest, wrested from China during the First and Second Opium a target map of Hong
Wars in 1841 and 1843. It had extended farther in 1860 with the transfer of the Kowloon Kong prior to the day’s
mission on January 16.
Peninsula to British sovereignty. It expanded still further in 1898 when Britain obtained a The Chinese shoulder
99-year lease on the mainland New Territories. Under British rule, Hong Kong had evolved patches and the pistols
from a collection of impoverished fishing and farming villages to become one of the world’s and combat knives worn
by these pilots were
major commercial centers. From a largely uninhabited peninsula, it had been transformed carried in case they were
into one of the world's greatest trading seaports and an important naval anchorage. shot down. The patch
British rule ended in December 1941, when Japan scooped Hong Kong up to complete identified them as allies to
local Chinese, while the
its collection of treaty ports. (Only Macau, run by neutral Portugal, remained unoccupied weapons were to be used
by Japan, although after 1943 it admitted Japanese “advisors” as an alternative to formal in combat. (USNHHC)
occupation.) Since then Hong Kong
had been run for the benefit of Imperial
Japan. It remained an important port, a
vital link in the Japanese trade network.
Like Takao, Hong Kong was well
defended by antiaircraft batteries.
It had also been hitherto neglected
by TF38, along with that stretch of the
Chinese coast. On January 16, TF38
fixed that neglect. During the night
of January 15/16, TF38 had slid west
by southwest some 215nmi to reach
the new launch position. At 0732hrs,
it was launching its first strikes against
the Chinese coast.
The weather remained bad and
bedeviled aircraft sent against Hong
Kong. The attackers found Hong Kong
harbor filled with anchored merchant
vessels and firing antiaircraft guns.
This troubled the torpedo bombers
the most as they had to attack at low
altitudes, exposing them to the intense
antiaircraft fire.
70 The Campaign

US Navy aircraft attack

the Taikoo Dockyard on
Hong Kong Island on
January 16. This was the
most important repair
facility in Hong Kong,
TF38 mission planners
making it a priority target.
(USNHHC)

To compound their misery, many of the torpedoes burrowed into the harbor bottom when
dropped. Upon striking the water after being dropped, momentum often carried torpedoes
as deep as 50ft, over 8 fathoms. Their steering system would then guide them back up to
their preset depth. Most of the areas where ships were anchored in Hong Kong had depths
of just 3–6 fathoms. The torpedoes dropped in those waters struck the bottom before they
began to rise, and their engines then drove them deeper into the mud at 30 knots.
It must have been an extremely frustrating moment for a torpedo-bomber pilot.
Opportunities to drop torpedoes were rare, and the Avengers were mostly used against land
targets. Finally, these pilots had a chance to use their training. Their targets were anchored,
making a miss almost impossible, despite the antiaircraft fire. They were worthwhile targets,
too, as Hong Kong was filled with dozens of ships, many of which displaced 10,000 tons or
more. It was the opportunity of a career – thrown away when your torpedo bottomed out.
Fortunately, fighter-bombers and dive-bombers also participated in the strike, and they
were far more successful. By the end of the day, TF38 claimed five ships sunk for a total of
13,000 tons, plus a further 75,000 tons – perhaps another 15–20 ships – damaged. None
of the five claimed sunk at Hong Kong appeared in the postwar JANAC (Joint Army–Navy
Assessment Committee) report. Either it was a case of overeager pilots, or the ships “sunk”
were actually beached and later repaired.
The strike against Hong Kong was not a total write-off. While heading to attack Hong
Kong, TF38 aircraft found convoy Hi-87 50nmi south of Hong Kong. It had been steaming
from Moji in Kyushu to Singapore, and was only passing by Hong Kong. The aircraft tore
it apart, sinking five of its ships and damaging six more. Three tankers and two freighters
went to the bottom. Of these, three displaced over 10,000 tons: the transport Dosei Maru
(10,900 tons) and tankers Matsushima Maru (10,500 tons) and Tenei Maru (10,200 tons).
Also sunk were the 6,000-ton tanker Sanko Maru and the 1,000-ton freighter Anri Go No.
2. The list of ships damaged included the 17,000-ton fleet oiler Kamoi, fast transport T.108
(probably 1,500 tons), Momi-class destroyer Hasu, 955-ton destroyer escorts Shinnan and
 71

Nomi, and coast defense vessel No.60. Kamoi was badly damaged, limping to Hong Kong
for repairs, where it was sunk during a later airstrike in April 1945.
Aircraft from the three carrier task groups ranged the Chinese coast from Swatow in the
north to the Luichow Peninsula and Hainan Island in the south. In the north, US Navy
aircraft found the 834-ton motor tanker Nanryu Maru No. 6 and damaged it so badly that it
capsized and sank off Amoy four days later, on January 20. Off Yulin, Hainan’s biggest port,
they caught and sank the 10,000-ton tanker Harima Maru and damaged its escort, destroyer
escort Daito. Finally, east of Hainan they sank the small patrol boat No.1 Taiyo Maru.
Fighter sweeps hit Japanese airfields over the same length of coast, but the results were
disappointing with only 13 aircraft destroyed. In all it was a disappointing day. Eight Japanese
ships sunk was a respectable score, especially considering that six were tankers aggregating
38,000 tons. Putting down a 10,900-ton transport and knocking a 17,000-ton oiler out of
the war sweetened the result. However, the missed opportunity at Hong Kong had to hurt,
especially after the disappointing results at Takao the previous day.
Antiaircraft fire and bad weather combined to create significant losses to TF38’s air groups.
Twenty-two were brought down, almost exclusively due to antiaircraft fire. Another 27
became operational losses for a total of 49 aircraft lost, half again the complement of one
light carrier.
This third set of attacks in the South China Sea by TF38 led Japan to deploy a new tool
in its efforts to contain the Third Fleet: the propaganda arm. It could not be less effective
than the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy had been. Japanese news services began running
bulletins about how TF38 had been driven away from Formosa by “brilliant results achieved
by the Imperial Japanese Forces.”

Target: Hong Kong

The Taikoo Dockyard and Engineering Company was one of Hong Kong’s two biggest shipyards during World War II.
Completed in 1907, it was located on the north side of Hong Kong Island in Quarry Bay. It had the capability for
building large vessels: the 10,000-ton cargo Glen Line passenger-freighter Breconshire was completed there in 1939.
The shipyard had a 787ft graving dock and four building slips. Although shipping was the main focus for TF38, the
ability of Taikoo Dockyard to repair damaged ships made it a prime target when the task force attacked Hong Kong.
The attack killed two birds with one stone. The dockyard would be a magnet for ships; those under repair and
awaiting repair would be tied up there, as would ships carrying shipbuilding supplies to it. Damaging the shipbuilding
and repair facilities would slow repair times. The longer a damaged ship had to wait before undergoing repairs, the
longer it would be before it would be carrying cargoes to fuel Imperial Japan’s industries.
Aircraft from Admiral Bogan’s TG38.2 attacked Hong Kong on January 16, 1945. They consisted of air groups from
Essex-class fleet carriers Lexington, Hancock, and Hornet, along with Independence-class light carrier Cabot. TG38.2
had half as many SB2C Helldivers again as TG38.1 and TG38.3, and a shore installation like a dockyard was an
attractive target for dive-bombers and the F6F Hellcat fighter-bombers from Lexington. Not all of the task group’s 325
aircraft conducted attacks that day, and not all of those that did sortie attacked Hong Kong harbor or Taikoo
Dockyard. Regardless, a sizable contingent struck Taikoo Dockyard and gave it a thorough going over.
This illustration captures some of the action that occurred that day, when a mix of aircraft attacked. Helldivers were
sent to conduct mast-top bombing against the ships near the dockyard. They would also have been used to dive-bomb
the facilities there, smashing workshop and disabling cranes, construction railroads, and machinery. They would have
been assisted by Hellcats, both fighter-bombers that joined in bombing warehouses and antiaircraft positions, and
fighters which would have been used to strafe the yard, concentrating on antiaircraft positions.
Avengers accompanied the attack, targeting the ships moored at or near the dockyard. It was an opportunity to use
the planes for the purpose for which they had been designed. The torpedo bombers had been highly successful in that
role up to this point in the campaign, but the shallow waters of Hong Kong harbor stymied their efforts on January 16.
Many of their torpedoes struck the bottom after being dropped and ended stuck in the harbor’s muddy floor.
It was not a one-sided fight, however. Hong Kong was filled with Japanese antiaircraft artillery, placed there to protect
Hong Kong from high-level bombers from the China-based US Fourteenth Air Force. Additionally, most of the ships
carried antiaircraft guns for protection against air attacks when at sea. These guns were used too. TF 38 aircrew thus
faced the heaviest antiaircraft fire of the campaign.
72 The Campaign
73
74 The Campaign

Convoy Hi-87 was Reports of TF38 made Radio Tokyo’s nightly English-language broadcast. Aimed at US
passing Hong Kong on the troops in the Pacific, it used a sultry-voiced woman, dubbed “Tokyo Rose” by her listeners.
day of the raid. TF38 duly
seized this target of On January 16 and 17, she proclaimed that TF38 was bottled up in the South China Sea,
opportunity, sinking five of issuing dire threats as to what Imperial Japan would do to it. She further amused TF38
its ships and damaging sailors by declaring, “We don’t know how you got in, but how the hell are you going to get
the surviving six. The
17,000-ton fleet oiler out?” It probably caused even greater amusement among the sailors of TG30.8, elements
Kamoi was so badly of which continued to slip in and out of the South China Sea through the Surigao Strait to
damaged it had to go to keep TF38 fueled.
Hong Kong for repairs.
(AC) Getting out was less of a concern on January 17 than simply getting refueled. TF38
steamed south by southeast after finishing combat operations on January 16. The weather
worsened on January 17, going to near-typhoon status. Flying was dangerous and seas were
rough. Nevertheless, TF38 commenced fueling at 1000hrs about 200nmi west of Lingayen
Gulf. Waves made station-keeping a challenge, and refueling was still going on when night
fell. TF38 and TG30.8 then reversed course, steering north at 8 knots in search of smoother
water. Fueling continued into the night.
On January 17, TF38’s hunt for Ise and Hyuga finally ended. Reconnaissance had spotted
them in Lingga Roads off Sumatra, south of Singapore. This was 1,000nmi from Camranh
Bay, which was another 750nmi from the Philippine coast. At the aged battleships’ 14-knot
 75

cruising speed, it would take them at least a week to reach either the Luzon landing beaches Japan found it impossible
or the supply route stretching from Mindoro to Lingayen Gulf. It was possible they might to find TF38 while it was
in the South China Sea,
intervene, but not likely. Upon getting this information, Nimitz signaled Admiral King in much less attack it. That
Washington with the news, copying in Halsey, MacArthur, and Kinkaid on the message. did not stop the Japanese
That message was plain: the two battleships were no longer a factor. propaganda machine.
Newspapers in Manila,
It was now time to wrap things up in the South China Sea. TF38 had been there for over along with placards on
a week. Having hit Indochina, Formosa, and the South China coast, the sea offered no city buses, declared the
fresh targets. The low-hanging fruit within the South China Sea had been harvested. Halsey US fleet badly beaten by
the Japanese. (AC)
wanted to head back to Ulithi in time to support future operations in the Central Pacific,
starting with the invasion of the Bonin Islands and Iwo Jima scheduled for the third week
of February. Late on January 17, Halsey radioed his intentions to Nimitz. He planned for
TF38 to refuel again on January 18, depart the South China Sea by the Balintang Channel,
and make one final set of attacks on Formosa before heading home.
Mother Nature rewrote these plans. The weather became so bad that winds carried away
part of escort carrier Nehenta Bay’s flight deck. It was one of six escort carriers with TG30.8
to provide TF38 with replacement aircraft and TG30.8 with air cover (when operating
independently of TG38). Despite this damage, Nehenta Bay continued flight operations with
a truncated flight deck. But monsoon winds continued throughout January 18, making it
impossible to refuel that day.
Third Fleet reversed course once more, heading south seeking better weather on the
downwind side of Luzon. Fleet aerologists predicted the bad weather would continue until
January 19. Given the poor weather and the inability to refuel, Halsey decided to scrap
the final Formosa attack and head home. He radioed this decision to Nimitz, advising his
commander that he intended to refuel on January 19 and then take TF38 through the
Surigao Strait.
76 The Campaign

Japan located TF38 only Nimitz disliked this choice. Mindanao was still held by the Japanese, and to reach the
after it left the South China Surigao Strait TF38 would have to pass close enough to Japanese-held territory to be spotted.
Sea. On January 21,
while TF38 was attacking Nimitz wanted to keep the Japanese guessing as to where Third Fleet was, especially on
Formosa for a final time, January 18. Seventh Fleet commander Vice Admiral Kinkaid had long been unhappy
Japanese kamikazes about any proposed independent sweep by Third Fleet into the South China Sea. He felt
struck. Ticonderoga was
the second ship hit, struck it distracted Third Fleet from what he believed should be its primary role: keeping the
by a kamikaze that Japanese away from Seventh Fleet, so Seventh Fleet could concentrate on invading the
smashed into its flight Philippines. These objections had been a major reason Nimitz refused to let the raid occur
deck, hitting the forward
elevator. (AC) on November 21, 1944.
On December 30, 1944, the day Third Fleet left Ulithi, Kinkaid had delivered his new
operations plan for Seventh Fleet for activities following the Lingayen landings. With
MacArthur’s support, Kinkaid planned to hang on to elements lent by the Pacific Fleet
to Seventh Fleet, including the prewar battleships used to provide pre-invasion shore
bombardment, ships needed at Iwo Jima. He also wanted Third Fleet to continue shielding
Seventh Fleet, citing MacArthur’s fear that Japan might concentrate its six remaining
battleships against Seventh Fleet.
On January 18, Nimitz refused to authorize Kinkaid’s new plan. He doubted Japan’s ability
to concentrate the two dispersed battleship forces, with two off Singapore and the remaining
three (one of the two Kongo-class battleships had been sunk by a submarine) in the Inland
Sea. He also advised MacArthur that the best way to ensure Japan did not send its battleships
against the Philippines was not static defense by Third Fleet, but aggressive offensive action
that kept Japan too busy reacting to TF38 to trouble the Philippines.
 77

Nimitz requested Halsey depart the South China Sea through the Luzon Strait, a route
that made it less likely TF38 would be spotted. It would also allow a final set of strikes on
Formosa and the Ryukyus, and meant if the Japanese battleships in the Inland Sea did sortie,
TF38 would be between them and the Luzon–Mindoro line. Nimitz left the final decision
to Halsey.
The plan sounded good to Halsey and TF38 spent January 19 steaming north, about
100 miles west of Luzon. All ships were able to refuel, topping off for the next few days’
operations. By the time this finished, the TF30.8 oilers were themselves low on fuel. They
broke away from TF38 and headed for Ulithi, taking the Surigao Strait. It did not matter if
they were spotted. Once they were gone, TF38 set a course for the Balintang Channel, one
of the passages in the Luzon Strait.

Closing actions: January 20–27, 1945

TF38 spent the predawn hours of January 20 steaming north by northeast, parallel to the
coast of Luzon. At 0800hrs, it turned northeast to head to the Balintang Channel. While this
southern passage through the Luzon Strait offered distance from Formosa, it was narrow, a
perfect spot for a submarine ambush. A destroyer division swept through the channel ahead
of the three task groups to ensure the way was clear.
A constant and aggressive air patrol was also maintained around TF38 to guard against
air attack. None developed, Japanese aerial forces apparently busy conducting a final air
evacuation of Luzon. They were caught by surprise by the presence of US carriers. US Navy

Kamikaze counter
Following their December 30, 1944, departure from Ulithi, Third Fleet managed to go for three weeks without its ships
being attacked. Despite rampaging through the South China Sea, surrounded by Japanese-held land, neither TF38 nor
TG30.8 was troubled by enemy aircraft, submarines, or warships. The Japanese just could not find the fast-moving
carrier task groups, or even the slower but still highly mobile auxiliaries supporting them. TF38’s luck ran out on
January 21.
By then they were back in the Philippine Sea, spending a final day attacking Formosa. They had started before dawn
and spent the morning working over both Formosa’s airfields and the harbor at Takao. The attacks had been thorough:
over 100 aircraft had been destroyed on the ground that day. Despite that, it was not thorough enough, as there
proved to be holes in the Big Blue Blanket.
The Imperial Japanese Navy had sent the Niitaka unit to Formosa shortly before January 21. It was made up of
volunteers from the 221st Naval Air Group, a fighter unit, and the 765th Naval Air Group, a bomber unit. Just how
many aircraft left Japan is unknown. Some of the unit was likely destroyed on the ground, because only 20 were able
to get airborne and attack TF38: 15 A6Ms and five D4Y3s.
At this stage of the kamikaze campaign, the pilots were still true volunteers. They were also likely to have been
experienced pilots with several hundred hours of flight time, including combat hours. They were not the barely trained
recruits seen during the Okinawa campaign. Given their performance that day, they were probably flyers who had
volunteered for special attack missions earlier, but who had been denied permission to fly a tokko special attack
mission due to their experience. Perhaps they had escorted earlier missions. Whatever the case, they made canny
attacks, demonstrating knowledge of their aircraft’s capabilities and what to expect from US Navy defenders.
The blow fell heaviest on TG38.3, the northernmost task group. Two waves struck: the first between noon and 1210hrs
and a second 40 minutes later. Only three Japanese aircraft struck home, and just two ships were hit: Langley and
Ticonderoga. Ticonderoga suffered most damage, hit once by a single kamikaze in both waves. The first, a D4Y3,
crashed into the flight deck, hitting the forward elevator and going through to explode between the flight deck and the
hangar deck. The second, a Zero, smashed into the island, creating a massive gasoline fire that took hours to control.
This illustration shows the instant before the first kamikaze struck. The pilot used the clouds to approach Ticonderoga
undetected, then dove out of the sun, reaching the carrier before its antiaircraft guns could shoot him down. The D4Y3
Suisei carried a 250kg bomb, large enough to do damage but light enough not to slow down this fast bomber. Before
it was all over, Ticonderoga would suffer 345 casualties: killed, missing, or wounded. That total included its captain,
Captain Dixie Keefer, who was badly burned in fires started by the second kamikaze.
78 The Campaign
79
80 The Campaign

fighters found and shot down 15 aircraft evacuating essential (or well-connected) personnel
from Luzon to Formosa. None came within sight of TF38 or probably even realized where
the enemy aircraft had come from.
By 2200hrs, TF38 was entering the Philippine Sea. Its 11 days in the South China Sea
were over. Although the US Navy presence in the South China Sea continued, TF38 never
returned. It did not need to. What was left could be dealt with using Army Air Force aircraft,
land-based US Navy patrol aircraft, and warships smaller than fast carriers. Yet the mission
was not complete. Five days, including two more days of intense combat, remained before
TG38 arrived at Ulithi.
At 0100hrs on January 21, TF38 set course for its morning launching positions for that
day’s attacks on Formosa. By 0630hrs, it was 120nmi east of Takao. For a change, the
weather was good. There were clouds but none of the driving rain and high winds of the
previous week. The clouds offered cover for aircraft, but did not impede visibility of targets
such as ships.
The three task groups were spotted in a line, like the pips on the face of die, spread 12
miles apart. TG38.1 was to the south, with TG38.2 in the middle and TG38.3 to the
north. All three task groups launched fighters for predawn sweeps to neutralize Formosa’s
airfields. Airfields throughout Formosa and in the Pescadores were visited. TG38.3 sent
fighter sweeps as far north as airfields in Sakishima Gunto, the southernmost islands in
the Ryukyus.
The fighter sweeps over Formosa continued all day, by the end of which 104 aircraft had
been claimed destroyed on the ground. Few Japanese aircraft got into the air. Only three
enemy fighters were spotted over Formosa that day: two were shot down, the third escaping
without stopping any US aircraft.
Following on from the fighter sweeps were bombing runs at harbors and ports throughout
Formosa and the Pescadores. Kiirun, Tainan, and Takao were the most heavily hit. TF38 flew
a total of 1,164 sorties over this region and claimed ten ships were sunk that day. Postwar
analysis matched that tally at Takao. The ten sunk were the 1,000-ton tank landing ship
Transport No. 101, five tankers (the 10,500-ton Kuroshio Maru, 6,500-ton Manjo Maru,
5,100-ton Eiho Maru and Shincho Maru, and 900-ton Hoei Maru No. 3), two freighters
(Yamazawa Maru and Nichiyu Maru No 2, both 6,900 tons), the 7,100-ton passenger-cargo
Teifu Maru, and the fishing boat Brunei Maru.
Five more ships were damaged at Takao, but not sunk: the destroyers Kashii and Sugi
(wartime-built Matsu-class vessels, new, but not very large or powerful), tank landing ships
Transport No. 114 and Transport No. 143, 1,900-ton freighter Yulin Maru, and 5,000-ton
transport Nikko Maru. Additionally Harukaze, a Kamikaze-class destroyer launched in 1923,
was damaged at Mako in the Pescadores.
Damage assessment was difficult to carry out in the shallow waters of Takao’s harbor. It
made it tricky to determine whether a ship sitting on the bottom was wrecked or merely
damaged. Sugi and Yulin Maru were both sunk within a month at ports distant from Takao,
Nikko Maru suffering the same fate later in 1945. Their ability to travel long distances so soon
after being hit indicates their damage had been only slight. Harukaze was badly damaged,
however, so much so it had to be towed to Sasebo Naval Yard in Japan for repairs.
The Japanese Empire got some measure of revenge for the strikes that afternoon. For the
first time since the Third Fleet left Ulithi on December 30, 1944, Japanese aircraft attacked
TF38. The Japanese had reinforced Formosa, sending aircraft from Japan, including more
kamikaze units. Small groups of these aircraft managed to leak out from under the Big Blue
Blanket of the fighter sweeps throughout the day.
It would be an all-Imperial Navy show on January 21. While the Imperial Army had
joined the Imperial Navy’s kamikaze offensive in November and December 1944, they
ran out of units in the area, having expended them trying to stop the Lingayen invasion.
 81

The Imperial Navy was also low on kamikazes by January 21, with only three attacks Ticonderoga would be
involving ten kamikazes occurring. struck a second time, this
time near its island. By
The first blow fell on TG38.3, shortly after noon. According to US reports, seven aircraft late afternoon, however,
were involved: four kamikazes and three escorts. These were probably D4Y3s from Niitaka all fires were out and
Unit No. 2 (named after the highest mountain on Formosa) operating out of Tainan. How damage control teams
were conducting repairs,
they evaded both roving fighters and the CAP over the carriers is a mystery, but kamikazes sweeping the deck of
only needed to get lucky once. At 1206hrs, a lone aircraft came in from the sun in a shallow debris and planning
dive and dropped two bombs on the forward flight deck of the light carrier Langley. One hit repairs to the flight deck.
(USNHHC)
home, starting fires and tearing a 10ft by 14ft hole in the flight deck.
The fires were brought under control and a patch put on the flight deck. Within three
hours of being hit, Langley was recovering aircraft that had been aloft when the carrier came
under attack. Three men of its crew were killed and 11 wounded. The ship was back in
action the next day.
Ticonderoga was less fortunate. At 1210hrs, having used the clouds to escape detection, a
D4Y3 dove out of the sun and onto Ticonderoga. It was carrying a 250kg bomb. The aircraft
smashed through the flight deck and the bomb exploded between the hangar deck and the
gallery deck (where the light antiaircraft guns were mounted). The hangar was filled with
aircraft armed and fueled for an airstrike. They caught fire, the hangar blaze spreading to
the second and third decks.
Ticonderoga fell out of formation, seeking a course that minimized the spread of flames
as its crew fought the fire. Admiral Sherman, commanding TG38.3, re-formed his ships
around Ticonderoga, both to offer antiaircraft support and to permit other ships to assist
Ticonderoga’s firefighting efforts. They were beginning to take effect when a second wave of
kamikazes appeared over TG38.3 at 1250hrs.
This time the ships were hit by eight kamikazes with five escorts, both groups of which
appear to have been Zeros. Most were intercepted by CAP, with six of the kamikazes shot
down. However, two reached the task group, both choosing the burning Ticonderoga as their
82 The Campaign

Flagship Hancock was target. Antiaircraft fire downed one before it could reach the carrier, but the second smashed
also damaged on January into the carrier’s island, which was engulfed in flaming aviation gasoline.
21, but the damage was
self-inflicted. An Aircraft were still on the deck for the launch that had been interrupted by the first kamikaze.
unexpended bomb fell off Some now caught fire, adding their fuel to the flames, while others suffered damage due to
an Avenger shortly after it the ensuing explosions. Ticonderoga’s captain ordered the magazines to be flooded to keep
landed; it exploded and
caused a massive fire on them from exploding. Gallons of water from the firefighting and damage from the explosions
the flight deck around the caused a 9-degree list, complicating damage control. Yet by 1415hrs, all the fires were under
island. (USNHHC) control and damage control teams could begin correcting the list.
By 1800hrs, the crisis had passed. The list had been reduced to 3 degrees, all fires were out,
all compartments ventilated, and steps taken to restore Ticonderoga to a fighting condition.
But the two kamikazes had caused serious damage and heavy casualties: 143 dead or missing
and 202 wounded, including Ticonderoga’s captain, with 36 of its aircraft destroyed, one-
third of those it carried.
Just as the northern task group was suffering its two attacks, the southern group, TG38.1,
detected enemy aircraft approaching from the south. They were 13 aircraft that had departed
from Tuguegarao airfield, a prewar US Army Air Corps base in northeast Luzon captured
by Japan in 1941. Possibly the last flyable Japanese combat aircraft left in Luzon, they were
spotted as they flew over the Babuyan Islands marking the southern end of the Balintang
Channel. The attack was intercepted by eight fighters vectored to them from light carrier,
Cowpens. The Hellcats shot down most of the intruders, the remainder breaking off the
attack well before reaching TG38.1.
Nevertheless, TG38.1 did not escape undamaged that day. Maddox and Brush, two
Sumner-class destroyers assigned to TG38.1’s screen, were the “Tom Cat” picket destroyers
doing delousing duty that day. They were 35nmi from their task group, serving as traffic
control for the group’s strike aircraft, directing the CAP fighters, and rescuing downed pilots.
A bomb-carrying Zero joined one of the returning flights of carrier aircraft. One of two A6Ms
sent from Taitung that day, it managed to escape detection until close enough to attack the
pickets. It then dove into Maddox, crashing amidships, where the bomb exploded. Damage
 83

was moderate and the fire started by the crash was quickly brought under control, but it left The following day, TF38
Maddox with seven dead and 33 wounded. struck targets in the
Ryukyu Islands. This
Although those were the day’s last combat casualties, one final incident caused casualties included the airfield at Ie
that day in the central task group, TG38.2. At 1328hrs, an Avenger landed on fleet carrier Shima, just north of
Hancock, Admiral McCain’s flagship. Although it made a routine landing, as it was taxiing Okinawa, which is
shown under attack. (AC)
up the deck an unexpended 500lb bomb fell out of its bomb bay and exploded. The flight
deck was soon ablaze and the fire spread to the gallery and hangar decks. Damage-control
parties doused the fire on the hangar deck by 1345hrs, and all fires were under control 20
minutes later. By 1510hrs, Hancock had completed repairs on its flight deck and was once
again operational. However, 52 crewmen were dead and another 105 wounded.
Hancock was still capable of fighting; Ticonderoga was not. When night fell, Halsey detached
Ticonderoga, sending it back to Ulithi escorted by two light cruisers and three destroyers. He
included Maddox as part of the destroyer contingent, detaching the damaged destroyer as
well. Maddox was patched up at Ulithi and back in action by mid-March, but Ticonderoga
required a trip to the West Coast of the US for repairs and did not return until late May.
TF38’s next destination was Okinawa. Launch operations were set to begin roughly 90nmi
south of Okinawa and 120nmi east of Myakojima. Along the way, the night-carrier group
launched a strike at Kiirun’s harbor. Seven radar-equipped Avengers loaded with bombs left
their carrier at 0200hrs on January 20. Kiirun was Formosa’s most important northern port,
a center of petroleum and coal storage.
The crews used a technique to make radar-guided night attacks which had first been
tested with great success during the February 1944 raid on Truk. The Avengers were armed
with four 500lb bombs, their pilots having practiced low-level approaches at night, using
radar to maintain altitude and track a target. After taking off from the carrier, the Avengers
rendezvoused using their running lights and Aldis signaling lamps to find each other. They
flew into Kiirun as a unit, dousing all lights as they neared the port.
They made their attacks at one-minute intervals. Using radar both to determine their
altitude and identify their targets, they flew in at 180 knots, maintaining mast-top height.
Careful individual runs were made on a target, dropping one bomb at a time. Three Avengers
were lost that night, yet the raid was worth it as in exchange the attackers found and sank
Munakata Maru, a 10,000-ton tanker.
Flight operations against the Ryukyus began at 0615hrs, 30 minutes before dawn. The
day’s primary objective was photoreconnaissance: an invasion of Okinawa was scheduled
84 The Campaign

3
4
6
4

KIIRUN
 1
4
85
Navy night bombers at Kiirun Harbor
During the night of January 20–21, seven radar-equipped Avengers from Enterprise’s VTN-90
attacked Kiirun, a major energy center producing electricity and distributing and storing oil
and coal. The strike sank the year-old 10,000-ton tanker Munakata Maru.

7
4

2
4

5
4

Radar night bombing had been pioneered by 2. 0215hrs. An Avenger spots Munakata Maru on radar.
Enterprise in early 1944, being successfully
3. 0220hrs. He drops the first pair of 500lb bombs on
demonstrated in February that year in the Hailstone
the tanker. Typically, the pilots drop one bomb per pass.
raid against Truk Atoll. By January 1945, Enterprise
bombers were old hands at the technique. It was 4. 0222hrs. The pilot realizes he has missed. If the
always used against anchored targets in a harbor. first bomb misses, he will make a second (and if
The bombers on a mission took off at night, necessary third and fourth) run on the target.
rendezvoused once all the aircraft were aloft, and
5. 0227hrs. The Avenger starts a second bomb run on
flew in loose formation to the target using running
the tanker.
lights and Aldis lamps to maintain formation. Upon
reaching their destination (in this case Kiirun), the 6. 0230hrs. The Avenger drops another bomb and hits
Avengers made individual runs against targets. the tanker, which catches fire and eventually sinks.
One 500lb bomb hit usually sinks a freighter or
1. 0200hrs. Avengers enter harbor. Each Avenger is
tanker, either by flooding the ship or due to the fires
armed with four 500lb bombs. The Avenger pilots
the bomb creates.
make low-level night approaches, using radar
for altitude control and target tracking. Flying at 7. 0245hrs. The Avengers exit the harbor. The technique
180 knots at mast-top height, they make careful, has worked well. The only ship sunk on this raid is
individual runs on targets, using the same altitude for Munakata Maru, but it is probably the biggest ship in
each run. Through practice they know when to drop Kiirun that night. With the losses Japan has already
their bomb to ensure it hits the target. taken, it is possibly the only worthwhile target.
86 The Campaign

for April, and naval intelligence wanted to

gather as much information about the island
as possible while avoiding drawing attention
to this intelligence gathering. A series of strikes
against airfields and shipping was a good way to
camouflage the photography.
A wide variety of targets was attacked over the
course of the day. Naha, Yontan, and Kadena
– Japan’s prewar airfields on Okinawa – were
attacked. So was the Baten Ko seaplane base.
An airfield was believed to be on Ie Shima; it
was investigated and its presence confirmed.
Another airstrip was reported to be on Kume
Shima, west of Okinawa, but examination
proved it did not exist. Further afield, the
airstrips at Miyako Retto and Yayeyama
Retto, in the southern part of the chain, were
visited one more time for completeness. TF38
destroyed a total of 28 Japanese aircraft on the
ground in these strikes. There were no enemy
operations that day.
Shipping was also hit. The biggest prize that
day was the 2,100-ton freighter Hikosan Maru,
sunk between Ie Shima and Okinawa. In the
outer Ryukyus, TF38 aircraft sank two small
motor sailships – Iroha Maru No.1 and Myooei
Maru – and fishing boat Waei Maru No.1. The
freighter Suma Maru was discovered in harbor
at Kume Shima (probably by aircraft seeking
the nonexistent airfield) and sunk. Two small
Third Fleet made extensive tankers, Nanko Maru No.2 and Nanshin Maru No.2, were similarly sunk near Miyako Retto.
attacks on shipping TF38 aircraft also caught and sank the patrol boat Chitose Maru No. 6 halfway between
throughout the Ryukyus,
including this facility at Miyako Retto and Okinawa.
Okinawa. In all, TF38 All of these were small vessels, hardly worth making an effort to sink, but since TF38
sank eight ships in and aircraft were there and the ships were there, it really took no effort and relieved the tedium
around Okinawa on
January 21. (AC) of endless patrolling with no reward. In all, 682 sorties were flown on January 22, including
47 photoreconnaissance missions. No TF38 ships were attacked, none was damaged, and
there were no combat losses of aircraft. It might as well have been a training exercise with
live ammunition and real targets. Roughly two hours after sunset, at 2000hrs on January 22,
the task force started south. It was time to head for home.
TF38 would spend the next three days steaming to Ulithi. It had been met by fresh fleet
oilers from TG30.8 shortly after reentering the Philippine Sea. The oilers had departed Ulithi
even as those which had passed through Surigao Strait were heading to Ulithi. Jasper Acuff
had done a masterful job of juggling oilers throughout. Having last refueled from Acuff ’s
oilers on January 19, the ships of TF38 drank deep of the oil they carried on January 23.
Even the battleships and fleet carriers needed fuel – they had been topping off the destroyers
during that period.
For a change, the weather cooperated, the monsoon winds and waves that TF38 experienced
during its days in the South China Sea deciding to take a rest. The two-day trip to Ulithi
following refueling proved uneventful. TF38 arrived at Ulithi at 0600hrs on January 26, one
hour shy of 28 days since it had departed.
 87

AFTERMATH AND ANALYSIS

At midnight on January 26, William Halsey struck his flag on the New Jersey, while Admiral US success had been built
Raymond Spruance raised his flag on the battleship, taking command. At that instant Third on a foundation of
logistics. The ability of
Fleet became Fifth Fleet, and the Fast Carrier Force transformed into Task Force 58. Only the TG30.8 to keep TF38
commander and his staff changed. Fifth Fleet and the Fast Carrier Force contained the same fueled and armed made
ships – less casualties – they possessed when they departed Ulithi on December 30, 1944. the South China Sea
operation possible.
Even Hailey, lent to TG30.8, returned to the Fast Carrier Force. Halsey and his staff would (USNHHC)
retire to plan operations against Japan, while Spruance and his staff prepared to execute the
Iwo Jima and Okinawa operations they planned during Halsey’s tenure with the Big Blue Fleet.
Before departing, Halsey sent a message expressing his pride and gratitude for the
performance of the Third Fleet over the last four months. In it he described the sweep
through the South China Sea as a hard operation and concluded by stating, “We have driven
the enemy off the Sea and back to his inner defenses.” It was a good summation of Third
Fleet’s accomplishment during that period. It had redefined Japan’s outer defense perimeter.
Indeed, in many ways the raid marked the beginning of the end of Imperial Japan.
Third Fleet spent 11 days in the South China Sea. During that period, TF38 steamed
3,800nmi in waters previously exclusively controlled by Japan. It met no real opposition
from the Japanese and encountered no serious mishaps during that period. Yet the South
China Sea excursion was only part of Third Fleet’s activities, and measured by time was a
minority part. Third Fleet remained continuously at sea over 27 days. Prior to entering the
South China Sea, it had conducted four days of intense combat operations; after departing,
it spent two more days hitting Japanese targets.
TF38 took a terrible toll on the Japanese. It claimed 625 aircraft destroyed, most on
the ground. It also destroyed over 300,000 tons of enemy shipping. According to postwar
assessment, 30 warships and up to 73 civilian vessels were sunk.
While TF38 was in the South China Sea, it sank the training cruiser Kashii. The tally was
two cruisers if the Vichy French Lamotte-Picquet was included; it probably would have been
88 Aftermath and Analysis

Although TF38 failed to forcibly incorporated into the Imperial Japanese Navy when Japan overturned the Vichy
find Ise and Hyuga, it took regime following Germany’s surrender. Also sunk were two destroyers, seven frigates, two
a heavy toll on Japanese
warships during this submarine chasers, four minesweepers, one patrol boat, three tank landing ships, and two
mission. The losses felt fast transports. A French survey ship can be added to that tally.
most heavily by the One frigate and two submarine chasers were sunk by Third Fleet around Formosa during
Imperial Navy were those
of its antisubmarine the January 9 raids conducted before it entered the South China Sea. Another two tank
warfare vessels, such as landing ships and a guard boat were sunk at Formosa and the Ryukyus after TF38 departed
this frigate, sunk off the South China Sea. To that tally can be added the ships damaged by TF38 between January
Indochina on January 12.
(USNHHC) 9 and 22: four destroyers, ten frigates, three submarine chasers, two minesweepers, three fast
transports, and a naval auxiliary.
Although the 30 warships lost by the Imperial Japanese Navy, and the 23 that were
damaged, were second-string ships – auxiliaries, older warships, and small escort or patrol
vessels – they were losses the Japanese could ill afford at this time. Most were antisubmarine
vessels, a category in which Japan had critical shortages. The Allied submarine campaign
had been draining Japan before January 1945. Japanese losses due to TF38 would stretch
Japanese ASW resources still further.
Japan’s merchant ship losses were even greater. Depending upon the sources, TF38 sent
between 65 and 73 civilian vessels to the bottom of the sea, ranging from a 10,900-ton
transport to a 250-ton motor sailship. Another score were damaged. Nearly three-quarters
of these losses occurred when TF38 was in the South China Sea, with two-thirds of those
occurring on January 12.
The biggest hit was in tankers, with Japan losing 175,000 tons worth of tankers to all
causes during January 1945. It was Japan’s worst month of the war for tanker losses, exceeding
the combined total of all subsequent tanker losses through to the end of the war by 20
percent. Japan lost one-third of its tanker fleet in January. Over 150,000 tons of the tankers
sunk in January were sent to the bottom by TF38, including seven over 10,000 tons in size.
 89

The South China Sea raid

devastated Japan’s tanker
fleet. Tanker losses neared
200,000 tons in January,
the highest loss of any
month in the war. This
represented the destruction
of nearly a quarter of
Japan’s total tanker fleet.
(AC)

The cost to Third Fleet was almost trivial, with 201 carrier aircraft lost during the entire
operation through all causes, combat and accident. Aircrew losses totaled 167. The January
21 kamikaze attacks killed 205 sailors and left another 350 wounded. One Essex-class carrier,
an Independence-class light carrier, and a destroyer were damaged by combat, a second
Essex-class carrier by misadventure. One Casablanca-class escort carrier was damaged by a
typhoon in January. It was a remarkably low cost for what had been accomplished by TF38.
Several factors made TF38 as effective as it was during this campaign. The first was that the
tactics the US Navy had developed since the beginning of 1944 had matured, with ineffective
methods weeded out and valuable ones retained. This included tactics to fight kamikazes,
which had been developed only a month earlier, yet had already been proven in battle. Tools
like delousing occasionally failed. When they did, they generally lured kamikazes to attack
the picket destroyer, less valuable than a carrier.
Examples of other tactics developed during 1944 and practiced during this operation
included opening the day’s operations with fighter sweeps, switching to mast-top bombing
against merchant vessels and small warships, substituting fighter-bombers for dive-bombers,
and using the Big Blue Blanket to smother kamikaze attacks.
Another important factor was the maturation of night-carrier operations. This had several
positive effects, both offensive and defensive. Defensively, it provided air supremacy over US
Navy carrier groups during the nighttime hours. It also robbed the Imperial Japanese Navy
of its ability to attack US Navy surface ships at night, one of their last remaining offensive
aerial tools in 1945. It was a major factor in TF38’s ability to slip into the South China Sea
undetected. Approaching aircraft were detected, intercepted, and disposed of before they
could spot the US forces.
Night carriers were also a critical offensive tool. Predawn reconnaissance was conducted
by night aircraft, which provided critical intelligence for the upcoming day’s raids. Night
fighters and bombers conducted predawn attacks on shore installations with the potential to
90 Aftermath and Analysis

detect the presence of TF38 and provide warning of an upcoming attack. (The best example
of that was the attack on Pratas Island, which silenced a radio-detection center.) They also
enabled TG38 to strike harbors at night, providing a round-the-clock threat.
Another major factor contributing to US success was TG30.8, TF38’s supply train.
The TG30.8 oilers, escort carriers, and supply ships fueled TF38, replaced lost aircraft,
and replenished ammunition. They did this over the course of four weeks, under adverse
conditions; on several occasions they refueled ships under near-typhoon conditions. They
never failed to provide fuel when it was needed. Without these vessels, the incursion into the
South China Sea would have been impossible. Instead, it appeared effortless.
Even more remarkable, TF30.8 made a passage through the Luzon Strait, flanked on
either side by Japanese-held islands with numerous Japanese airfields. Its ships then operated
in the South China Sea, previously a Japanese-controlled lake, for ten days. They steamed
with impunity where they wanted, establishing a shuttle service by which empty oilers were
replaced by loaded ones from Ulithi. Acuff ’s supply operation was a masterpiece of planning
and execution, a factor often ignored in naval history.
That 20-knot naval auxiliaries could steam so openly in the South China Sea was a
testament to the demise of Japanese aerial strength and the rise of US Navy airpower during
1944. At the end of 1943, Japanese fliers were still holding their own against Allied pilots.
Yet the systematic destruction of Japanese airpower over the course of 1944 – starting with
Rabaul and New Guinea, and progressing through the air assaults on Truk and the battle of
the Philippine Sea – meant that by October 1944 the Kido Butai was reduced to serving as
a decoy during the battle of Leyte.
When the Pacific War began in December 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy had some
of the best pilots in the world, along with superior aircraft. Their pilots had averaged 700
hours of flight training under realistic conditions. Imperial Army pilots were less trained
(with only 500 hours of training), but were at least as good as the US Army Air Force pilots
they faced in the Philippines. Both services typically trained only small numbers of the best
possible candidates.
Once the war started, the United States built a massive training infrastructure, while Japan
kept its prewar training system intact through the first year of combat. When the Japanese
finally expanded training, it was handicapped by shortages of both training aircraft and
aviation fuel for flights. While the US Navy rotated its best combat pilots back to the United
States, where they served as instructors, Japan kept its elite in combat until they were killed
or badly injured. Moreover, whereas the US went to great lengths to recover and preserve
downed pilots, Japan neglected rescuing theirs.
The result was a precipitous drop in the quality of Japan’s aircrews between the start of 1943
and the start of 1945. Pilot training times plummeted; by January 1945, Imperial Navy pilots
were being sent into combat with only 250 hours of flight time and Imperial Army pilots
with less than 150. Additionally, the Japanese Navy and Army introduced kamikaze tactics in
October and November respectively. After a burst of initial success, the kamikaze campaign
further drained the pool of experienced pilots. Only a few experienced pilots remained; the
rest had rudimentary flying skills, and inadequate navigation and bombing training.
What few experienced pilots remained were stationed where the Allies were expected, and
not in the South China Sea. The kamikazes were husbanded to attack the fleet expected for
the Luzon invasion. Because of their deficient navigation, many found it a challenge to find
a stationary fleet known to be in Lingayen Gulf. There were few combat-ready Japanese
aircraft in the airbases surrounding the South China Sea, and except in Formosa, no kamikaze
units. There were simply too few aircraft to allow Japan to provide an in-depth air garrison
in the South China Sea.
The result was a massacre. TF38’s first attacks at Formosa and Luzon between January
3 and 7 destroyed Japan’s most capable warplanes. After that, so long as it remained in the
 91

The US Army Air Force

and shore-based naval
patrol squadrons
operating out of Luzon
finished the job started by
TF38. By April 1945,
travel between Japan and
the ports reached through
the South China Sea was
completely severed. (AC)

South China Sea, TF38 could strike at will with little fear of a Japanese counterstrike. There
were too few Japanese aircraft to penetrate the CAP of either TF38 or the escort carriers in
TG30.8. Even those few proved incapable of finding the Third Fleet while it remained
in the Sea of Japan.
The consequence of all this was inevitable. As Halsey observed while reporting the results
of the January 12 strikes on Indochina, “Japanese supply routes from Singapore, Malaya,
Burma and the Dutch East Indies were severed, at least temporarily.”
Temporary soon became permanent. The buildup of US-controlled airfields in Mindoro
and Luzon assured that. Even as TF38 was attacking Formosa for the final time in this
campaign on January 21, US Army Air Force B-24s sank the Japanese salvage vessel Haruta
Maru at Hong Kong. Within a month of that, gun B-25s, modified to strike ships, were
beginning to range the South China Sea in search of prey, operating from newly opened
airfields in Luzon.
The Army Air Force opened a bombing campaign against Formosa on January 22, the day
after TF38’s final visit. Over the next two months, the bombers neutralized Japanese airpower
in Formosa, destroyed Formosa’s industries, and denied its resources to the Home Islands.
More importantly, they completely isolated Japan from its holdings on the southern fringe
of the South China Sea. Oil shipped to Japan in February plunged 50 percent from what
it had been in January. Japan was also starved of critically needed rubber, metals, and food.
Singapore, Malaya, Burma, and the Dutch East Indies became isolated outposts. Japan was
reduced to the condition that motivated it to begin the Pacific War – and unable to reverse it.

Surviving aircraft and ships

It is probable that no Japanese aircraft that fought in this campaign survived. Many were
destroyed on the ground over the course of the campaign. Of those which got into the air,
the majority were shot down or expended as kamikazes. Most of those that survived were
destroyed in the Army Air Force campaign that followed that by TF38 in the South China
Sea. The few which survived the war were scrapped in its aftermath. They were second- or
third-line aircraft in 1944, and after the war ended they were more valuable as scrap metal
than as aircraft. Even examples of the types of aircraft used in this campaign are scarce because
relatively few Japanese military aircraft survived World War II. Most consist of bits and pieces
of different aircraft put together to form one complete aircraft.
Of the most commonly used Japanese aircraft, few examples remain. Some 30 A6M Zeros
still exist, along with a few replicas. Two D4Ys (along with Zeros used as kamikazes during
92 Aftermath and Analysis

An F6F-5 on display at the

Kalamazoo Aviation
History Museum in
Kalamazoo, Michigan.
This was the most
commonly used Hellcat
variant during the South
China Sea campaign.
(Michael Barera
photograph, Wikimedia
Commons)

this campaign), two Ki-27s, five Ki-43s, and one Ki-84 are known to survive. Most are not
flyable, and some are not on display. Most are in museums in Japan and the United States.
No Ki-27s are known to exist.
There are many more surviving examples of the types of Allied aircraft which fought the
kamikazes, including flyable examples. The Allies won the war, and the late-war variants
of the participating aircraft were far more likely to survive during postwar years. Whether
any of these actually participated in TF38’s sweep through the South China Sea is hard
to say. With 190 examples, it would be nice to believe at least one flew with Third Fleet
during January 1945. However, it is beyond my ability to determine whether one of the
survivors did.
Of the fighters, 31 Wildcats still exist, most of them the various FM types built by
General Motors and flown off escort carriers in this campaign. Most are in the United States,
including 15 airworthy examples. There are also 31 surviving F6F Hellcats, one in Britain,
the rest in the United States. Sixteen are airworthy and 14 under restoration. None appears
to be radar-equipped F6F-3Es, F6F-3Ns, or F6F-5Ns. Some 60 F4Us survive, with 45 in
the United States, including 26 that are airworthy. This total includes several postwar aircraft
which could not have participated in the South China Sea raid, but which are representative
of those that did.
Seventy-nine Avengers still survive, including 42 that are airworthy. A surprising number,
24, were built as radar-equipped TBM-3Es flown off Enterprise and Independence in this
campaign. Not all of these still have their radars. SB2C Helldivers are considerably more
scarce. Only nine exist, seven in the United States. Just one is airworthy, owned by the
Commemorative Air Force, which preserves World War II-era combat aircraft.
For those interested in seeing the different types of aircraft which participated in the South
China Sea campaign – Japanese and Allied – your best choice seems to be the Pima Air and
Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona.
Several ships that participated also remain, including seven fast battleships, Essex-class
carriers Yorktown and Lexington, and the Fletcher-class destroyers The Sullivans and Cassin
Young. The Sullivans is at the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park in Buffalo,
New York. Cassin Young is now part of Boston National Historical Park in Massachusetts.
All of these ships are open to visitors.
 93

FURTHER READING
The most important source for this book was Volume XIII of Morison’s History of United
States Naval Operations in World War II: The Liberation of the Philippines: Luzon, Mindanao,
the Visayas: 1944–1945. Its sections on Third Fleet’s cruise from December 30, 1944,
to January 26, 1945, provided an outline for the Campaign section of this book. It was
supplemented by other volumes in Morison’s series, as well as MacArthur’s report on Japanese
activities, the fifth volume of the Army Air Force official history, and postwar assessments,
including the JANAC report and Cressman’s chronology. The last two filled in important
details about what was attacked and what happened.
Other sources supplied other details, including Carter’s excellent Beans, Bullets, and Black
Oil, which covered the logistics involved (a critical and often overlooked aspect of this
campaign). There was a scavenger hunt aspect to finding missing details. This included going
to numerous websites and printed sources for a single vital fact or two. I also used four online
sources for information on weapons, ships, and facilities:
Off duty in the crew
http://www.navweaps.com/ quarters of the aircraft
https://www.wrecksite.eu/ carrier Yorktown. Sleep,
https://www.navsource.org/ reading letters from home,
or writing them were
https://pacificwrecks.com/ poplar pastimes when off-
All proved extremely valuable in delivering data when needed. duty (AC)
94 Further Reading

Principal secondary sources used for this book are as follows(books marked with an asterisk
are available online):
Carter, Worrall Reed, Beans, Bullets, and Black Oil: The Story of Fleet Logistics Afloat in the
Pacific During World War II, Department of the Navy, Washington D.C. (1953)*
Craven, Wesley Frank & Cate, James Lea (eds.), The Army Air Forces In World War II, Volume
Five: The Pacific: Matterhorn to Nagasaki, June 1944 to August 1945, Office of Air Force
History, Washington D.C. (1983)*
Cressman, Robert J., The Official Chronology of the U.S. Navy in World War II, Naval
Historical Center, Washington D.C. (1999)*
The Joint Army–Navy Assessment Committee, Japanese Naval and Merchant Shipping
Losses During World War II by All Causes, US Government Printing Office, Washington
D.C. (1947)*
MacArthur, Douglas & Willoughby, Charles Andrew, Japanese Operations in the Southwest
Pacific Area, Volume II Part II, US Government Printing Office, Washington D.C. (1966)*
Morison, Samuel Eliot, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Volume
XIII: The Liberation of the Philippines: Luzon, Mindanao, the Visayas: 1944–1945, Little,
Brown, Boston, Mass (1959)
Wallace, Robert, From Dam Neck to Okinawa: A Memoir of Antiaircraft Training in World War
II, Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, Washington D.C. (2001)*
United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Air Campaigns of the Pacific War, Military Analysis
Division, Washington D.C. (1947)*
United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Japanese Air Power, Military Analysis Division,
Washington D.C. (1946)*
United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Japanese Air Weapons and Tactics, Military Analysis
Division, Washington D.C. (1947)*
United States Strategic Bombing Survey, The War Against Japanese Transportation 1941–1945,
Transportation Division, Washington D.C. (1947)*
 95

INDEX
Page numbers in bold refer to illustrations Canberra, USS 35 flagship 7
and their captions. Cape Paderan, 56 intercept orders 64
Cassin Young, USS 92 objectives 34–35
air power 37 casualties and losses 49, 61, 61, 77–79, 81, orders, Jan 9 52
Akashi Maru 41 82, 89, 90–91 raid proposal 7, 33, 34, 37
Altamaha, USS 16 friendly fire 57 Hancock, USS 7, 42, 51, 61, 71–73, 82, 83
Amoy 44, 65–66 Japanese forces 5, 8, 48, 50, 51, 56, Hart, Admiral Thomas 45
anchorages 15–16, 16 57, 60–61, 60, 67, 67, 68, 68, 70, Harukaze 80
antiaircraft defense 19–20, 19, 29–30, 29 70–71, 74, 80, 88, 89 Hatakaze 66–67
Arizona, USS 4 merchant ships 28, 31, 41, 60, 70, 80, Heito 66
86, 87, 89 Hong Kong 26, 38, 43, 64, 67, 68, 69–71,
Baltimore, USS 52 Pearl Harbor 4 69, 70, 71–73, 91
Bluegill, USS 67 China 26 Hornet, USS 42, 71–73
Bogan, Vice Admiral Gerald 47 chronology 8–9 Houston, USS 35
bombs and bombing 12, 12–13, 18–19, Colorado, USS 56 Hyuga 33–34, 34, 37, 52, 56, 61, 65, 68,
30, 51, 66, 83 Convoy Hi-86 57, 58–59, 60, 60 74–75
Bonin Islands 75 Convoy Hi-87 70–71, 74
Borneo 28 Coral Sea, battle of 5 Imperial Japanese Army
Boston, USS 52 Curtis SB2C Helldiver 12, 14, 71–73, 92 aircraft 23, 24
Brush, USS 82 antiaircraft guns 29
damage control 20 command responsibility 39–40
Cabot, USS 71–73 dummy aircraft 51, 51, 66 Kido Butai carrier force 40
campaign 62(map) Dutch East Indies 31, 45 Imperial Japanese Navy 77–79
December 30, 1944, to January 9, 1945 aircraft 10, 23, 24
46–51, 48, 49, 50, 51 English, USS 57 aircraft carriers 38
January 9–12, 1945 51–53, 52, 53–55, Enterprise, USS 4, 7, 11, 14, 47, 53–55, aircraft dispositions 38
56–57, 56, 57, 58–59, 60–61, 60, 61 56, 65, 92 antiaircraft defense 29–30
January 13–15, 1945 61, 63–69, 63, 64, Essex, USS 11, 12 antisubmarine warfare focus 39
65, 67, 68 cannon 29
January 16–19, 1945 69–71, 69, 70, Formosa 4, 7, 23, 25–26, 26, 31, 34, casualties and losses 5, 8
71–73, 74–77, 74, 76 38, 91 command responsibility 39–40
January 20–27, 1945 77, 80–83, 81, 82, airstrikes 31, 37, 46–48, 48, 50, 50, 51, facilities 25, 26
83, 84–85, 86, 86 51, 64, 65–69, 65, 67, 80, 90–91 kamikaze offensive 80–83, 81, 82
assessment 87–91 command responsibility 40 Kido Butai carrier force 5, 7, 10, 90
attack on Convoy Hi-86 57, 58–59, evacuation 80 lack of preparation 22
60, 60 Japanese invasion of 45 strength 4, 33–34, 38
attack on convoy Hi-87 70–71, 74 Kiirun harbor attack 83, 84–85 Independence, USS 53, 53–55, 56
departure from South China Sea 75–77 French Indochina 4, 26, 38, 43–45, 45, 52, Ise 33–34, 34, 37, 52, 56, 61, 65, 68,
Formosa airstrikes 31, 37, 46–48, 48, 56–57, 60–61 74–75
50, 51, 51, 64, 65–69, 65, 67, 80 Iwo Jima 75
French Indochina attack 52, 56–57, Gardner, Rear Admiral Matthias 47
60–61 Ghormley, Vice Admiral Robert 5 JANAC report 70
Halsey proposes raid 7, 33, 34, 37 Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere 23 Japan 5, 26
Hong Kong strike 69–71, 69, 70, 71–73 Grumman F4F/FM Wildcat 14, 92 strategic infrastructure 26–28, 27, 28,
kamikaze attacks 49, 76, 77–79 Grumman F6F Hellcat 11, 12, 53, 53–55, 31, 39, 39
kamikaze offensive 80–83, 81, 82 65, 82, 92, 92 US embargo 44–45
Kiirun harbor attack 83, 84–85 Grumman TBF/General Motors TBM Japanese advance 4–5
launch 41–42 Avenger 10, 14, 83, 92 Japanese forces
Lingayen Gulf landings 33, 34, 37, 41, Guadalcanal, battle of 5 air defense 22
46, 46–47 aircraft 22, 22, 23–25, 23, 24, 33,
Luzon airstrikes 36, 49–50, 90–91 Hailey, USS 50 34, 40
night-operations 53, 53–55, 89–90 Hainan Island 71 aircraft dispositions 38
passage through Luzon Strait 52 Halsey, Admiral William “Bill” 5, 50, 52, airfields 25–26, 26
preliminaries 46–51, 47 65, 83, 87, 91 backwater fever 22
return to Ulithi 86 assumes command of the South Pacific bombers 25
Ryukyu Islands airstrikes 37, 50–51 Area and South Pacific forces 5 casualties and losses 48, 50, 51, 56, 57,
South China Sea entry 52–53, 53–55 campaign launch 41–42 60–61, 60, 67, 67, 68, 68, 70, 74, 80
Takao airstrikes 66–67, 67, 80 departure from South China Sea 75–77 command control 22–23
Camranh Bay 4, 56, 61 desire for revenge 4, 5 command responsibility 39–40
lack of preparation 22
96 INDEX

naval facilities 25, 26 objectives 7, 31, 32(map), 33 Theatre of operation 6(map)

night fighters 25 Allied 33–35, 37 Ticonderoga, USS 42, 76, 77–79, 81–82,
pilots 23, 90 Japanese 38–40 81, 83
strength 33–34 Okinawa 34, 83, 86, 86 Tokyo 15
tactics 30 Ommaney Bay, USS 49 Tokyo Rose 74
weapons 28–30, 29, 30 Tom Cat destroyers 20, 20, 82–83
see also Imperial Japanese Army; Imperial Pearl Harbor 15–17 Tonkin 44, 45
Japanese Navy Pearl Harbor, attack on 4, 4, 46 Transport No. 14 67, 67
Pescadores, the 66, 68, 80 Trathen, USS 50
kamikaze attacks 7, 23, 29, 49, 76, 77–79, Philippine Sea 77–79, 80 Tripartite Pact, the 43–44
80–83, 81, 82, 89, 90 Philippine Sea, battle of 33 Tsuga 68
Kashii 57, 60, 60, 61, 87 Philippines 4, 5, 7, 23, 31, 40, 44, 50, 76
Kawasaki Ki-45 Toryu 25 Japanese invasion of 45, 46 Ulithi 7, 10, 15–16, 16, 17, 41, 77, 80, 86
Kawasaki Ki-61 Hien 24 Pratas Island 67 underway replenishment 16–17, 17, 35,
61, 63, 64, 87, 90
Kawasaki Ki-102 25 Prince of Wales, HMS 46
US Army Air Force 49, 91
Kenny, General George C. 49 propaganda, Japanese 71, 74, 75
US Pacific Fleet 5
Kiirun harbor attack 83, 84–85
aircraft 10, 10, 11–12, 11, 14
King, Fleet Admiral Ernest King 64, 75 Radford, Rear Admiral Andrew 47
aircraft carriers 7, 11–12, 14–15, 15
Kinkaid, Vice Admiral 41, 75, 76 repair depots 15–16 antiaircraft defense 19–20, 19
Kumgawa Maru 8 Repulse, HMS 46 damage control 20
resupply ships 10 dive-bombers 11, 12, 14
Lamotte-Picquet (French cruiser) 60–61, 87 Rock, USS 57, 61 escort carriers 16–17, 17
Langley, USS 77–79, 81 Ryukyu island chain 26 fast battleships 15
Lexington, USS 71–73, 92 Ryukyu Islands 31 fighter aircraft 11
Leyte Gulf, battle of 5, 90 airstrikes 37, 50–51, 83, 83, 86, 86 fire control 19–20
Lingayen Gulf 90 light carriers 14–15, 15
Lingayen Gulf landings 7, 33, 34, 37, 41, Saigon 60 logistical system 15–17, 16, 17
46–47, 52 Second Sino-Japanese War 25, 40, strength 4, 10
Lingga Roads 74–75 42–43, 44 submarines 31
logistics 10, 15–17, 17, 35, 35, 37, 87, 90 Sherman, Rear Admiral Forrest 47 Tom Cat destroyers 20, 20, 82–83
Long, USS 49 Shinchiku airfield, Formosa 26 torpedo-bombers 11, 14
Luichow Peninsula 71 Singapore 56 weapons 17–20, 18, 19
Luzon 4, 31, 33, 37, 48–49, 49, 49, 82 Slow Tow Convoy 56 US Pacific Fleet formations
airstrikes 36, 49–50, 90–91 Soloman Islands 5 Fast Carrier Force 33, 41, 47, 87
evacuation 77, 80 South China Sea 34 Fifth Fleet 5, 87
Luzon Strait 16, 52, 53–55, 77, 90 access 42 Seventh Fleet 46, 48–50, 76
approaches 31 Task Force 38 see Task Force 38
MacArthur, General Douglas 49, 76 departure from 75–77 Task Force 58 87
McCain, Admiral John S. 7, 41, 52 Japanese conquest 42–46, 43, 44, 45, 46 TG30.8 16–17, 17, 35, 37, 47, 50, 52,
Maddox, USS 20, 82–83 strategic importance 26–28, 27, 31, 64, 74, 87, 90
Malay Peninsula, Japanese invasion of 45 33, 42 TG38.1 47, 50–51, 52, 56, 82–83
Manchukuo 26 Third Fleet entry 52–53, 53–55 TG38.2 47, 50, 56, 56, 61, 71–73
Masatomi, Rear Admiral Kimura 33–34 Spruance. Raymond 5, 87 TG38.3 47, 50–51, 52, 56, 81
merchant ships 28, 31, 41, 60, 70, 80, 86, strategic carrier raids 7 TG38.5 47, 52
88, 89 strategic goal 15 Third Fleet 4, 5, 7, 10, 41–42, 46,
Midway, battle of 5 52–53, 56, 75, 76, 87
The Sullivans, USS 92
Mindanao 76 Surigao Strait 75–76, 77
Vought F4U Corsair 11, 12, 92
Mindoro 31, 91 Swatow 65–66, 71
Vought OS2U Kingfisher 11, 14
Mindoro landings 34, 46, 49
Mitsubishi A5M (Claude) 24–25, 24 tactics 10, 47
Wasp, USS 42
Mitsubishi A6M (Zero) 12, 14, 23, 24, airfield attack 20–21, 65–66 weapons
91–92 antiaircraft defense 19, 89 antiaircraft guns 19, 19, 29–30, 29
defensive 20 cannon 18, 29
Nakajima J1N1 25 Japanese 30 machine guns 17–18, 28–29, 29
Nakajima Ki-27 24, 92 mast-top bombing 12–13, 89 rockets 18, 19
Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa 24, 92 offensive 20 torpedoes 18, 70
Nakajima Ki-44 Shoki 24 Takao 66–67, 66–68, 80 weather 48, 49, 61, 63, 63, 65, 66, 68, 69,
Nakajima Ki-84 Hayate 24, 92 Task Force 38 4, 5, 7, 33, 41, 47–48. see 75, 80, 86
Nehenta Bay, USS 75 also campaign West Virginia, USS 56
New Jersey, USS 7, 87 aircraft carriers 42
New Mexico, USS 56 effectiveness 87–91 Yokosuka D4Y Suisei 22, 25, 92-93
night-operations 53, 53–55, 89–90 groups 47 Yorktown, USS 42, 92
Nimitz, Fleet Admiral Chester 7,41–42, resupply ships 10
64, 75, 76–77 strategic carrier raids 7 Zuikaku 7
OSPREY PUBLISHING Author’s note
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