ON DECEMBER 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) carried out a preemptive carrier-borne air attack on the US military base at Pearl Harbour in the Hawaiian Islands. Eight United States Navy (USN) battleships, three cruisers, three destroyers and four auxiliary vessels were damaged or sunk in the harbour and 188 aircraft were destroyed on land.
The American casualties in this raid were 2,200 killed and half as many injured. The USN fleet in the Pacific was virtually annihilated except its carriers, which on the day of the attack were out at sea. Within three days of this telling blow to the American Navy, Japan and USA were at war. Soon after neutralizing the USN in this attack at Pearl Harbour, the Japanese, in quick successions took Guam, Wake Island, Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore and Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) by January 1942. Then, it was the turn of the Philippines to fall in May 1942, when MacArthur had to make way to Australia with his now famous declaration: “I will return.” The sea lanes from the Kuriles to Australian north were now under Japanese control. Australia and Papua New Guinea were threatened. This was a grim moment in the Pacific war theatre.
The Americans quickly regrouped their naval forces in the Pacific, the core of which was four aircraft carriers. This force faced the Japanese task force of seven carriers under the command of Vice Admiral Nagume at the Battle of Midway in June 1942. At this battle, the Japanese lost four carriers, one heavy cruiser, one battleship and one destroyer against the American loss of one carrier and one destroyer. They lost 147 aircraft and 307 men. The IJN lost 322 aircraft and 2,500 men. This was a heavy toll in terms of Japanese carriers and a loss of 300-odd experienced fighter pilots, which could not be fully made up during wartime.
At the next campaign for the Battle of Guadalcanal from August 1942 to November 1942, six battles were fought to cut the Japanese move to conquer New Guinea. In one battle only, i.e. the Battle of Santa Cruz, the USN lost one carrier and suffered damage to another and had to retreat in the face of Admiral Yamamoto’s giant force of four carriers, four battleships 14 cruisers and 44 destroyers. But 100 Japanese planes and crew were lost in this battle.
For the next 18 months, the USN and its amphibious landing forces had to fight from island to island towards the Philippines. By this time, the USN had expanded manifold. Its war industry was in full gear to produce munitions and its shipyards were producing ships and crafts at such a speed that by mid-1943 the USN had dozens of carriers with hundreds of planes and heavy battleships and armadas of cruisers and destroyers.
The USN had 18,000 planes of all sorts and at one time three million persons in the Pacific war theatre to be thrown against Japan. Sadly, the Japanese losses of ships and planes could not be made up at faster speeds by its war industry which was much hampered by blockades and sinking of its merchant ships by USN submarines, carrying vital imports from its conquered lands. But still, the Japanese were giving the Americans a fight worth their money during the Pacific island-hopping.
At the battle of the Philippines, also called the Battle of Leyte Gulf, between October 22-26, 1944, the USN Task Force ‘58’ comprising 15 carriers, seven battleships and a multitude of destroyer flotillas faced the Japanese carrier groups. Wave after awe of Japanese planes could not penetrate American defences. Inexperience or lack of training of the pilots due to heavy early depletions at Midway, Guadalcanal and Coral Sea were now showing up.
The Japanese lost 320 planes. During the closing phase of this battle, the IJN, for the first time, resorted to using Kamikaze (Divine Wind) suicidal pilots — such was the depletion in the ranks of Japanese fighters pilots. Divine Wind (Kamikaze) was the name given to the sea storm which hit the Mongols’ invading armada in the south of Japan in 1542, in which this fleet was destroyed and scattered. This event is still celebrated by the Japanese nation.
The Kamikaze pilots’ only mission was to strike their planes on to the enemy ships in suicidal attacks. They were not fighter pilots and had no air combat experience, but were the most feared lot. Great damage was done to the USN by the Kamikazes. In the battle of the Philippines, at which the IJN was virtually finished, only the inexperienced shore-based Kamikazes remained its punching arm. In the succeeding Battle of Lingayen Gulf for the road to Manila, Kamikazes hit 44 ships, one carrier and one cruiser.
The Americans were now moving to the Japanese home island. In March 1945, severe battles for Okinawa were fought. The Americans had amassed 1,200 ships and 180,000 troops for the assault. By this time, a British carrier group of four aircraft carriers under Vice Admiral H.B. Rawling had also joined the USN task force of Admiral Spruence. The Japanese began launching wave after wave of Kamikaze attacks on this task force. At the cost of many hundred Kamikaze planes lost, the IJN inflicted such a heavy damage that Admiral Spruence contemplated withdrawal till the Kamikaze bases in Formosa were bombed out.
In one attack on March 30, Spruence’s flagship, the Indomitable was damaged and the admiral had to shift his flag to the battleship, New Mexico, which in turn was hit by the Kamikazes on the May 12. The Kamikazes, however, continued attacking the American task force in full fury till June 1945. The 1,900 Kamikaze attacks sank 27 American ships of all sorts and damaged another 164. Some records show these damages to be 34 and 368, respectively. The British contingent also suffered a loss of 29 aircraft on board two of its carriers. Each of its carriers was also damaged severely by the Kamikazes.
The Kamikaze was a last-ditch attack by the IJN in the closing phase of the war in which its youth was bled white. A horrendous loss of human beings on both sides occurred till the misery was brought to an end by another misery in the shape of atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
