Pacific atoll becomes World War II deathtrap for Japanese Navy

Like a giant spider nestled comfortably in its web, the Imperial Japanese Navy lay at anchor in Truk Lagoon in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, surrounded by a 140-mile protective coral reef bristling with guns.

It was Japan’s “Gibraltar of the Pacific.”

Today, the lagoon is the world’s largest ship graveyard.

Japanese Admiral Mineichi Koga, commander of the Combined Fleet, must have been worried about what was ahead as the Japanese Navy licked its wounds following an historic defeat at the Battle of Midway eight months earlier.

Between October 1943 and February 1944, Truk Lagoon was safe harbor for two of the world’s biggest battleships — the Yamato and Musashi, armed with huge guns firing 18.1-inch projectiles. American guns were 16-inch.

Truk Lagoon, strategically located 1,100 miles northeast of New Guinea, was the staging base for Japanese raids on Pacific islands. The atoll had eight passageways to the open sea, with the ships moored inside the ring out of range of ship guns outside the reef.

On the islands that dot the lagoon, the Japanese had five airfields, seaplane and submarines bases and massive storage for supplies, ammunition and fuel.

The U.S. was planning an attack on Eniwetok and the Japanese forces at Truk were a threat. Accordingly, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, overall commander of American Naval forces in the Pacific, decided to attack Japan’s “Gibraltar.”

He picked aggressive Rear Admiral Marc “Pete” Mitscher to command Operation Hailstone, and set the strike date as Feb. 17, 1944.

He was a highly respected commander. “I tell them what I want done. Not how!” he said.

Mitscher assembled Task Force 58 (TF58) that included five fast aircraft carriers — the Enterprise, Yorktown, Essex, Intrepid and Bunker Hill, accompanied by four light carriers seven battleships, cruisers, destroyers and submarines — and more than 500 aircraft.

Tactical command of the operation was under Fifth Fleet Vice Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, the victor at Midway in June 1942.

In the dark of night, the fleet churned toward their target, while flight crews prepared the planes on deck for takeoff, loading bombs and torpedoes.

The Japanese had been warned by intelligence that the U.S. was planning an attack, so Admiral Kogo evacuated the larger warships to Palau, 1,200 miles west.

A few days before the attack, two Marine B-24 Liberators flew 850 miles from Bougainville Island near New Guinea to photograph the base.

The Japanese spotted them and knew what was coming — and waited.

A U.S. Naval Institute report told what happened next:

“Sailing undetected to a point 90 miles east-northeast of Truk, TF 58 launched 72 F6F Hellcat fighters that arrived over Truk at 0800 on 17 February.

“Mitscher’s strategy called for the Hellcats to fully engage the enemy fighters and soften up the ground defenses, clearing the way for the bombers. That idea worked perfectly.”

Of the 80 Japanese Zeros that got in the air, 30 were quickly shot down.

Then the Navy planes shot up the airfields and land facilities — flagrantly ignoring traditional “hit-and-run” carrier doctrine for Nimitz’s new “stay-and-fight” tactic.

More than 4,500 Japanese were killed.

Watching it all was U.S. Marine ace Greg “Pappy” Boyington, born in Coeur d’Alene. He was en route from Rabaul to a POW camp in Japan and the plane happened to land at Truk as the attack was starting. He was hustled into a concrete slit trench where he saw a Hellcat swoop in and destroy the plane he was riding in.

“Mitscher’s fighters, dive bombers, and torpedo bombers carried out 30 strikes, each more powerful than at Pearl Harbor,” the Naval Institute said. “Air opposition was minor and sporadic, the only substantial resistance coming from antiaircraft fire.”

Pappy survived the battle around him and was whisked off to internment in Japan where he stayed until the war ended when he was rescued and later awarded the Medal of Honor and Navy Cross. He was credited with shooting down 26 enemy aircraft — though there’s some dispute about that number.

The Battle of Truk Lagoon raged for two days, with the Japanese losing two light cruisers, four destroyers, three auxiliary cruisers, six other naval auxiliaries, three small warships, and 32 transports or freighters, including five tankers.

U.S. submarines and surface ships including the battleships USS Iowa and New Jersey, with Vice Admiral Raymond Spruance on board, sunk several Japanese ships, including a light cruiser.

After the war, Vice Admiral Shigeru Fukudome said the ships left behind in Truk were so damaged that they weren’t worth saving or couldn’t get underway.

The super battleship Musashi had left Truk on Feb. 10 and was headed back to Japan. The Yamato was based at Truk from August 1943 to May 1944 and left the lagoon for only one day during that time. Neither ship was at Truk during the battle.

Before the war ended in 1945, both of the super battleships were sunk by the U.S. Navy — the Musashi in the Philippines with a loss of 1,023 men, and the Yamato in the East China Sea on the way from Japan to Okinawa for a last stand, losing about 3,200 crewmembers.

The battle went for some 36 hours at Truk Lagoon.

Navy planes bombed, strafed and torpedoed Japanese ships and ground facilities, while in the air, fighter planes duked it out.

Lieutenant Commander James D. Ramage sank the previously damaged merchant tanker Hoyo Maru, while Lieutenant James E. Bridges scored a direct hit immediately sinking the ammunition ship Aikoku Maru with a big explosion that also engulfed one of the squadron planes, killing all three.

When the smoke cleared, the ocean floor in and around Truk Lagoon was littered with three Japanese light cruisers, six destroyers, three smaller warships, two submarines, and 32 transport and merchant ships.

Prowling outside the lagoon like sharks were eight American warships ready to devour any Japanese ships that managed to escape into the open sea.

In the battle, 275 Japanese aircraft were shot down or destroyed on the ground, and 80 percent of the supplies on Truk were destroyed, including 17,000 tons of fuel.

U.S. losses included one fleet aircraft carrier and a battleship slightly damaged. Forty Americans were killed and 25 aircraft lost.

For the U.S., the Battle of Truk Lagoon was an historic victory. For the Japanese, it was the beginning of the end.

Truk was no longer a threat so the U.S. called off a land invasion, but just in case it might revive, another raid was made in April to mop up what little was left.

“Plaster Truk with everything you have including empty beer bottles if you have any,” Admiral Mitscher said.

Then B-24 Liberator bombers from the Army’s 13th Air Force and 7th Air Force were flown in to keep the atoll neutralized.

With the ship’s crew watching on Sept. 2, 1945, the Japanese commander and his staff officers at Truk were escorted aboard the heavy cruiser USS Portland, anchored in the lagoon, where the Japanese formally surrendered.

In March 1944, as Japan’s Combined Fleet’s was pulling back from Palau Islands near Truk to the Philippines, Truk’s former commander Admiral Mineichi Koga was killed when his flying boat crashed into the sea during a typhoon.

Admiral Nimitz was promoted to the new five-star rank of Fleet Admiral and was one of the signers of the Japanese surrender documents ending the war on board the battleship USS Missouri on Sept. 2, 1945, in Tokyo Bay.

In the tropical waters of Truk Lagoon, the mortal remains of those who died at that historic battle still lie in the rusting coral-covered wreckage of a once powerful Japanese fleet.

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“These wrecks were not sunk on purpose. Unlike many wrecks sank artificially that are cleaned and made safer for divers, these are actual sunken warships with potential hazards requiring divers to be aware at all times of what they’re doing, especially inside the wrecks.”

“Chester W. Nimitz’s naval career included a few bobbles on the way to Fleet Admiral and war hero. First, he was denied entry to West Point. Shaking off the rejection, the young Texan graduated instead from Annapolis — but grounded his first ship. Still, he persevered and prospered. Shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt told him to ‘get the hell to Pearl and stay there until the war is won.’”

Before World War II, the Imperial Japanese Navy believed in the strategy developed by American historian Alfred Thayer Mahan that the Navy could win a war by fighting and winning a single decisive naval battle. They called “Kanta Kessen” meaning “naval fleet decisive battle.” It worked against the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5), but it didn’t work in World War II.

Lord, thou knowest better than I know myself that I am growing older, and someday will be old.

Keep me from getting talkative, and particularly from the false habit of thinking I must say something on every subject on every occasion.

Release me from craving to try to straighten everybody’s affairs.

Make me thoughtful, but not moody; helpful, but not bossy. With my vast store of wisdom, it seems a pity not to use it all, but thou knowest, Lord, that I want a few friends at the end.

Keep my mind free from the recital of endless details; give me wings to get to the point.

Seal my lips on my many aches and pains. They are increasing, and my love of rehearsing is becoming sweeter as the years go by.

I ask for grace enough to listen to the tale of others’ pains. Help me endure them with patience.

Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally it is possible to be mistaken — that even I may be mistaken.

Keep me reasonably sweet; I do not want to be a saint — some of them are so hard to live with.

Help me to extract all possible fun out of life. There are so many fun things around us, and I don’t want to miss any of them.

Project Recover, a team searching for World War II MIAs has found three U.S. Navy aircraft on the sea floor in Truk Lagoon that were part of Operation Hailstone. They were two SBD-5 Dauntless dive bombers and the TBM/F-1 Avenger torpedo bomber from aircraft carriers USS Enterprise and USS Intrepid that were among the 30 American planes lost in the battle.

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Everyone has a story. Press readers are invited to submit their Community History Popcorn stories (“Tasty little morsels of personal history”) for possible publication. Keep them 600 words or less. The stories may be edited if required. Submission of stories automatically grants permission to publish. Send to Syd Albright at silverflix@roadrunner.com.