Chapter 385/Part 2
The Japanese strike was doomed the moment the last Allied planes left the two damaged carriers behind. Not because of a preponderance of enemies for them to fight, though the Allied fighter screen was fairly substantial, but rather because most of them didn't have any ships to return to; and the situation would eventually get worse as progressive damage caused by the flooding would slow down
Shinano to the point where it was eventually decided that she would be scuttled lest her presence doom the only Fleet carrier left to the Imperial Japanese Navy.
At that point though that was still several hours in the future and the Japanese homed in on where they knew the Allied carriers to be. Here the differences in quality between the Japanese aircrew and their Allied counterparts became apparent as well as the technological disparity. Allied RDF pickets were farther out than what the Japanese could manage which gave the defending Allied fighters far more time to intercept.
But for once the Japanese outnumbered their adversaries. Most of the Allied fighters were away escorting their own strike and while the Sea Furies managed to intercept the strike fairly far out and both sides came off even in the furball with eleven Zeroes downed for thirteen Allied fighters, they failed to make even a dent in the strike. That left the defences of the fleet up to the guns, although at least few bombers had been shot down anyway.
Only a few years earlier that would have meant that at least the initial strike would have been effectively unopposed given the sub-par gunlaying methods of the time. However, this was 1944 and the unstoppable march of technology had not stood still. Not only were the guns aimed with the assistance of the TRADIS system across at least the Commonwealth Navies, but every Allied ship present that day had swapped the 'normal' shells for proximity fused ones. Most of the first production runs had been shipped to the Pacific as fast as the freighters would go.
While nowhere near as accurate as a modern AAM, the combination of those two technologies still represented a huge leap by the standards of the time. What limited the Allied fire was the non-presence of Force Z who would normally be there to reinforce the AA coverage of the carriers.
As it was, the fire put up by the carriers, destroyers and few attendant cruisers was highly accurate but not as voluminous as it could have been. Still, it was a veritable wall and greatly disrupted the formations, downing a small but still noticeable share of the enemy planes, and though actual numbers are uncertain, it is generally believed that about eight or nine planes were destroyed outright and many more damaged to the point where they would have been written off later had they had any carriers to return to. Most of the strike concentrated itself on the carriers, although eleven D4Y 'Judy' divebombers attacked HMS
Hood.
There two hits were scored, with several near misses. One bomb destroyed one of the starboard 4 inch guns and started a short-lived ammunition fire, the second one glanced off the deck armour near the A-Turret probably because of the turn the ship was making and in and of itself did little damage before exploding in the water nearby.
Over where the carriers were splitting apart like a pack of rabbits the Japanese strike fared better.
HMCS
Bonaventure attracted the attention of several elements of B7A Grace torpedo bombers that had once flown from
Akagi. However, they all attacked from the same side, loosing two of their number to AA fire before launching a wildly dispersed pattern. The Canadian carrier managed to dodge five of the six fish that came close, with the sixth one running straight and true. It would have impacted about a third of the way down the hull from the bow, had not of the attending destroyers, HMCS
Vancouver not deliberately interposed itself between the fish and her charge. Even so the destroyer was almost missed and lost the first third of the hull to the Japanese weapon, sinking with all hands almost instantly.
Vancouver's heroism is today recognized by a memorial in it's namesake city and a Canadian Type 45/Town Class destroyer of the same name.
Anti-aircraft fire had savaged the Japanese formation, and it showed. Peny-packet attacks made on lone ships, sometimes as few as one or two planes, allowed the Allied carriers to escape with essentially no additional damage after that, with the exception of HMS
Formidable which suffered a direct hit on her aft elevator that started a hangar fire. This was eventually extinguished, but the ship was still unable to operate aircraft and would need several weeks in drydock.
This concluded the actual strike portion of this fight, but then something began to happen that would be all to common for the remainder of the war. Having nowhere to go, the Japanese pilots took to crashing their planes into the nearest Allied ship. Caught unaware by this, few managed to avoid their attackers, and yet the Japanese had taken frightful losses at this point. HMS
Illustrious was clipped by the wing of a Grace that, already on fire, tried to crash into her island, the destroyer
Musketeer was struck by a Judy that likely still had it's bomb because plane and ship alike exploded instantly.
In essence, the Japanese had traded all their remaining carriers for light to medium damage to several allied ships and a single destroyer sunk.
Yet the day was not over. With Force Z away, the surface defence of the carriers lay with HMS
Hood and the three cruisers with her. It must be stressed again that there is no conclusive explanation for why Admiral Somerville split his forces, even though that question was asked almost immediately in the days after the battle.
What happened was that seventeen minutes after the last Japanese plane had crashed into the ocean, one of the picket destroyers, HMAS
Endurance picked up a 'big' formation of ships. Speculating that it might be the rest of Force Z returning, they requested (and received) permission to investigate, but that was quickly halted when an eagle-eyed lookout spotted a Japanese seaplane.
Endurance went about at flank speed, all the while screaming towards the fleet that the Japanese were coming. Obviously this set the cat amongst the pigeons.
The carriers ran as fast as they could away from the battle area, effectively removing themselves from the battle, with their aircraft off somewhere in the wild blue yonder as well as Admiral Somerville temporarily incommunicado after hitting his head on the map table aboard HMS
Illustrious and the rest of Force Z was at that moment engaging the Japanese, in what would be the last time fleets fought line against line. Thus advised, Captain Phillips knew that he was effectively alone, even more so when he was forced to send the damaged
Penelope on with the carriers.
So
Hood and the three undamaged cruisers remaining turned towards the no less than six Japanese cruisers, ranging from the smaller light cruisers, both remaining units, to the bigger
Nagara.
One their own, none of these would pose a danger to a single Admiral-Class Battlecruiser if she was handled well, but all together they were deadly. And yet none of the British ships budged and instead they all joined
Hood as she turned to unmask her entire main battery. What followed rivalled the battle raging a few dozen miles away in ferocity, though not size.
Both sides suffered terribly, with the British loosing one of the smaller cruisers, HMS
Devonshire, when she was hit by two torpedoes out of the only salvo of those weapons fired during that part of the battle, early on. The other cruiser, HMS
Mercury, was eventually forced to retreat with damage so heavy that she was declared a constructive total loss after her return to Singapore, with only her anchor remaining as part of the Síngapore War Memorial.
That left
Hood on her own. Her longer-ranged guns had already begun to even the odds, with
Nagara quickly falling prey to her shells and two more ships being dispatched over the course of the next half hour. That left 'only' another three.
It was then that Captain Phillips would earn his Victoria Cross.
To quote the citation:
'South China Sea, 3rd April 1944, Captain Lesley Phillips, Royal Navy (HM Ship
Hood)
On 3rd April 1944, during the ongoing Battle of the South China Sea, HMS
Hood was tasked to escort the main carrier force of the Allied fleet. Captain Phillips and the officers and other ranks of
Hood carried out this task diligently while under heavy attack by enemy aircraft. Shortly afterwards, a group of six enemy cruisers was spotted approaching their location. As senior officer of the escort, Captain Phillips charged the carriers to exit the area at all possible speed, while he took his own command to confront the enemy in order to buy the Allied carriers valuable time to escape.
Hood was hit multiple times, starting several smaller fires. After three quarters of an hour of battle during which Captain Phillips conducted himself with bravery and competence, the ship was hit by a tight group of shells, impacting just above the bridge. Of those present, only Captain Phillips and three others survived, all heavily wounded.
Having suffered grievous wounds, including the loss of a finger and a considerable amount of blood, Captain Phillips refused more than basic medical attention and continued to direct his ship for the remainder of the battle, even after reinforcement in the form of Her Majesty's Ship
Exeter arrived, having been sent to reinforce the escort. Only after both vessels had dispatched the remaining enemies did Captain Phillips relinquish command.'
What might have happened had
Exeter and her escorts not arrived in the nick of time like the proverbial U.S. Cavalry is one of the more speculated upon moments of the battle, but suffice it to say even a handicapped dreadnought was enough to quickly end things, and enough to save more than one career that day. It also helped raise morale aboard the damaged cruiser after having been forced to leave behind the place where even more history was made.
~**---**~
Force Z in the meantime was ending an age, with every single remaining Japanese dreadnought there for the occasion, including the brand new
Nagato on her first operational cruise.
Upon forming into line, both them and the Japanese opened fire around the same time, and once again technology, experience and training told, with the Allies scoring the first hit, a shell fired either from HMS
Warspite or the French
Richelieu impacting on
Fuso. What followed was nothing short of slaughter, and not only because Murray kept the range at a distance that allowed the Allies to be far more accurate than their Japanese counterparts. In less than two hours all five Japanese dreadnoughts had been reduced to burning and/or sinking wrecks. How is this possible?
Modern research suggests several causes. When the official Japanese report on the battle was recovered after the war it spoke only of 'superior enemy forces', however that was merely the version presented to the cabinet. When the actual losses were finally admitted to the Emperor, the Japanese High Command, according to several partially recovered minutes of the meeting, concluded that not only had the level of training severely degraded because the system could not keep up with the pace of losses and new construction; that was something that affected
Nagato first of all but was a factor on all ships. Ironically, had the Jaapanese done worse earlier in the war and not been able to at least partially replace their losses in capital ships it would have been much less of a problem. Between shell shortages and the carriers getting absolute priority for fuel it wasn't that surprising. The same minutes also suggest that what ammunition there was at least partially fitted with faulty fuses, a possibility known to the Japanese who were forced to use them anyways because they had nothing else on hand, and in fact all the Allied ships later had several duds removed from their hulls. One of those had come to rest
inside Warspite's forward shell magazine, forcing the ship to fight the rest of the battle that way. Long story short, the Allies slaughtered their Japanese counterparts at every turn, to the extent that the Captain of the
Richelieu refused the Croix de Guerre when it was suggested to him for his part of the battle, saying that a child could have won that day. While that is a simplistic view of things, it is certainly understandable coming from those that were there.
In any event, it was the last time one dreadnought fired at another in anger. None of the ships under construction in Japan at the time, including the first, unnamed A-150-Class ship, were ever completed.
~**---**~
After this, the remnants of the Japanese fleet withdrew towards Formosa. It was a sad sight indeed for anyone who happened to be looking. Of the fleet that had so proudly set sail, only one of the carriers, none of the dreadnoughts and a handful of the cruisers returned, all overloaded to the gills with wounded with thousands more having died that day. Having ceded the field to the Allies, the Japanese could not spend much time picking up more.
The Allies on the other hand did so, or at least tried, as a frightening number of them rather killed themselves than be captured, and eventually Admiral Somerville withdrew his fleet, abandoning the rest of them to their fate, something that would haunt him for the rest of his life, but was a reasonable thing to do at the time as he couldn't know that no Japanese submarine was closer than Manila harbour.
For the Japanese the aftermath was horrible. They had gambled everything and lost in the worst way imaginable. The Japanese high command investigated and it took them three
months before they admitted the full scale of the defeat to the Emperor, while the general public didn't find that out until after the war. Had Nagumo not died aboard his flagship then he surely would have given the final apology to the Emperor. As it was, the Captain of
Akagi offered to do so, but this was denied as he had merely been following orders and managed to bring his ship back in spite of the odds.
For their Allied counterparts the battle was a cause for jubilation. Negligible losses had been taken in return for effectively destroying the Imperial Japanese Navy, and by the time the triumphant carriers returned to Singapore, the true scale of their victory had filtered through to the general public and an appropriate response was mounted by the city. Jubilation reigned across the Allied nations, but it was something special for the British Empire. More than any other the British define themselves through and with their Navy, UK and Imperial subjects of the crown alike even then, so when Prime Minister Churchill proclaimed victory in 'the greatest seafight since the days of the great Horatio Nelson' the celebrations were massive. To illustrate the appreciation the Empire had for it's fleet, when HM Queen Elizabeth II took formally took the throne later that year, in the same speech where she announced a coronation 'after hostilities are successfully concluded', she also took special care to thank the men of the Allied Pacific Fleet for their service in the South China sea in addition to the rest of the armed services.
Patriotic fervour aside, the battle had a big impact on the war, and on the strategic situation after the war. As it has already been indicated, the Japanese Navy was finished as an offensive force, and for the remainder of the war they were limited to local defence, not having the strength for anything more, which is why the Allied landings on Formosa and later Okinawa were effectively unopposed, at least at sea.
By far the biggest impact was felt by the Americans. From what is known in the European bloc, the American People's Navy looked at the results with equal parts envy and fear. They envied especially the British their advanced aircraft carriers and planes and feared the prospect of having to fight them ship to ship on the open sea. Their own performance in the war so far had not been up to the heritage of the United States Navy, even though they had managed to deflect the Japanese push out of the mandates and re-taken Wake and Midway, and were gearing up for a second attack on Guam. For the better part of three years they had traded ineffectual blows with the Japanese while Allies, with the supposedly smaller and worse equipped Royal Navy in the lead, had systematically demolished their adversaries at every turn. They were aware that the situation was more complicated than that and that the British had taken their fair share of blows over the years, but it was clear that the Japanese had gotten the worse of it. In American eyes the British had gone from an underfunded and technologically outmoded fleet on the decline and with poor doctrine back to where they had been in 1914, a massive fleet lavished with funds, at the forefront of technology as well as doctrine and barely a peer competitor now that one of the two had been destroyed at sea with seemingly little effort. No one seems to have said it officially, but various reports indicate that in several offices to comparison to the German High Seas Fleet was made.
Immediate steps were taken to redress at least some of this. With the economy in the state it was in even with war production, matching the Royal Navy in numbers wasn't possible, so instead the American leadership took steps to finally reform APN tactical doctrine. To do this they reactivated a host of mid-level and lower senior officers that had been forcibly retired after the civil war due to political reasons, among them the later head of the APN Naval Tactics Directorate, and tasked them with figuring out a way with which the APN could stand up to the Royal Navy. The task was a long and hard, and discussing the shift in doctrine is something for another time and place, but the current mix between carriers, submarines and long-range naval bombers has it's origins in the discussions of those days.
For the British the South China Sea validated their tactical and technological concepts in the biggest way possible. Aggressive carrier tactics carried out with top of the line aircraft had yielded impressive results and had cemented the position of the Royal Navy in the world for the next century as well as the position of the aircraft carrier as the queen of the seas. All to the point where the suggestion that the aircraft carrier may have become outmoded by nuclear-tipped anti-ship missiles toppled Harold Wilson's Government in the 1960s. The confident stance with which the Royal Navy now conducts operations across the globe has it's foundations in the South China Sea and while the war was far from over, it certainly was decided during that day.
tbc
Anyone still reading? I had this written and ready to post, but then a software bug/glitch or whatever ate everything of this but the first third. It took me months to even look at this again. The fight between the lines isn't very detailed because it was awfully one sided. None of my ships took more than maybe 10% damage during that battle!
