Chapter 382
While Field Marshal Alexander was methodically demolishing Army Group Centre in Europe, in the Far East Admiral Cunningham unleashed his own forces. Though there is no evidence that this timing was anything other than a coincidence, it did make an impact, as it showed that the British Empire was capable of fighting major actions on opposite ends of the Earth. This view of course does not consider that one was primarily carried out by the Army, while the other was the area of the Royal Navy, and neither really needed much of the other for it.
The first Allied units to leave port for Operation Jaywick were the escorting units of Force Z, since the gunline was the slowest of the Task Forces and the idea was for all units to arrive in the area at the same time. They sortied from Singapore, after hurriedly re-provisioning HMCS
Arizona, closely followed by the Fleet Train that carried the second wave of reinforcements.
The faster Carriers followed a day later, their own escorts.
On the 20th, with the official beginning of the rainy season on Hainan little more than a week away, hastily prepared airfields all over northern Vietnam were abuzz with activity. Many of them were little more than rough dirt strips hacked out of the jungle, but they all hosted every troop-carrying Douglas Dakota that the Air Transport Command owned, along with the often irritated but by now very well acclimatized members of the Royal Parachute Corps. Three Divisions, the 6th, the 1st and the Indian-Burmese 10th Airborne Division. While the Anglo-Canadian Marine Force would land conventionally by sea, the Paras would introduce vertical envelopment to the Japanese Army on a grand scale. Elsewhere logistics, the terrain or the sheer distance of the target would prevent further operations of this sort, such as Jaywick Two where the Paras would not take part.
On that day however, their mounts could easily make the distance with range to spare, and even though the terrain was far from perfect and would indeed cause frightful losses on some units that missed their dropzones or where intelligence was faulty. Overall though the attack was entirely unexpected in spite of the lengthy preparations. The 6th would reach it's dropzones first, with the Royal Gurkha Airborne Rifle Brigade and the 101st Airborne Regiment once again bringing up the lead, both units long since having been returned to full strength.
The airborne portion of the attack was timed so that the units arriving over their dropzones would have enough light to fight and to see the terrain, because unlike in the various operations in Europe, the dropzones were confined and very substandard in many respects, leading to post-war accusations that Cunningham had forced the use of the paras.
While there may be some truth to it as some of the early drafts that the Admiral is known to have read did not contain that component, but there is no definite proof.
In any case, as usual the battle did not come off as planned. While the timing was accurate and the jumps of the 6th Airborne went, for once off as planned and with minimal casualties, the 1st was scattered more than expected and dropped onto ground that turned out to be far more rocky than expected. Casualties there were severe. 10th Airborne had the worst deal and the greenest troops. They jumped right into an unforeseen exercise of a company of Japanese regulars with a few squads of Chinese auxiliaries attached. A Burmese Regiment was torn to shreds still in their chutes.
Eventually the Japanese were overwhelmed and killed to the last man.
In spite of the losses, the British Army had established itself on Hainan.
Out at sea, the Japanese had yet to respond when the Dreadnoughts hove to and trained their guns at the shore even as farther inward the Marines boarded their landing craft. As the small vessels departed, the heavy naval guns spoke. The bombardment was aimed at the Japanese beach defences, but everyone knew that this would have only limited effect against the sturdy Japanese field fortifications. Five British, one Canadian and one French Dreadnought, together with two British Battlecruisers fired their heavy Artillery at Japanese positions in the dawn light, already supported by aircraft from the CANZAC Carrier Group that provided close support while Force A was farther north, covering them against air attack from Formosa and in case the Combined Fleet came out.
The Japanese forces at the beach hunkered down in their fortifications and tried to ride out the shelling. Since almost all of them had originally been part of the Kwantung Army and therefore stationed on the Island for several years, their memories from the conquest of China did not adequately prepare them for the sheer volume of fire the Allies could put out. Even though the shelling lasted only fifteen minutes, many of the men were so dazed by it that the first wave of Free Chinese Infantry had already begun to land before the Japanese opened fire. The resulting fight was brutal and savage, but mercifully also relatively short. As was the usual Allied tactic, Tanks had been landed with the first wave, and the Japanese had little that could do more than scratch the paint of a Centaur.
The Heavy Support Company of the 3rd Tank Battalion was the last holdout of the venerable type, and on that day it showed why, since the howitzers they were armed with made short work of the Japanese fortifications, never mind that the entire frontage on which the leading Brigades landed was defended by what was a single Japanese Infantry brigade on paper but which had maybe the equivalent of half that in real terms.
Farther north fighting was more substantial and spread out. The first response to the Allied landing was an uncoordinated mess as single units went to investigate the fighting they had heard in sometimes only platoon strength. Against elite light Infantry they stood little chance, but they accomplished their mission. By mid-morning the Japanese were now aware that there was a substantial Allied force sitting astride the few roads south, cutting the bulk of the Sino-Japanese forces on the island off from their comrades in the south.
One of the great fears that had driven Allied planners during the run-up to Jaywick One was that the Japanese might concentrate aerial assets and strike at the invasion fleet, which had dictated the deployment of the carriers. In general this proved to be unfounded as the mainland air assets had started redeployment northwards and away from the danger posed by the increasingly bold Chinese partisans in the area and for the first day were simply unable to respond.
On Hainan itself there simply were no more planes that could pose any sort of threat to the Allies. What little there still was from what had been two full Airfleets each from the Naval and Army Air services was for the most part caught on the ground by Canadian, Australian and New Zealand Naval aviators. A few Japanese fighters managed to take to the air, but they proved to be almost laughably outclassed against the Hawker Sea Fury.
So for most of the morning the Allies had a relatively easy time of it. Even though it was hellishly difficult by roving Allied aircraft, by mid-afternoon the Japanese commander of the southern defences had managed to assemble what he felt to be large enough of a force to counterattack against the 10th Airborne. If it was him underestimating just how much firepower the average Parachute Company carried or dismissal of the Burmese and Indian troops as racially inferior is unknown (since he would perish in an air raid before the day was out) but the ferocity of the assault put paid to any idea that the Japanese on Hainan would give up. In and of itself the outcome of the action was predetermined, the only thing it was remarkable for was the first use of a new technology that would soon change the face of warfare, the proximity fuse.
Even though each Division had only been issued with a few dozen of the precious shells, the Artillery commander of the 10th made good use of them. Each shell that exploded above the ground instead of in it showered the area around in lethal shrapnel. The Japanese troops were devastated.
Thus ended the first and largest attack on the Allied position.
~**---**~
The two Hawker Sea Furies belonging to the Royal New Zealand Navy were nearing the end of their patrol. The Commander (Air) of the
Melbourne had been very insistent that no one was to fly over the northern coast of the Island, lest they be forced down on the mainland. Both pilots didn't really mind that. Even though news from there was scarce it was obvious that going there would be a really, really bad idea. Black One and Black Two therefore scanned the air and the ground for targets.
Two spotted something on the ground. “Two,One. A couple of Nip lorries down on that road at 9 o'clock.”
“Let's pay them a visit then. Tally ho, tally ho.”
With those words, both planes banked away, curving around to approach along the road instead of perpendicular to it. Both planes had already fired their rockets and dropped their bombs, but shells for the 20mm cannons were still plenty. The convoy Two had spotted consisted of a staff car and two lorries acting as an escort and travelled roughly northwards, away from the fighting. The Japanese conscripts driving the forward lorry didn't see the two dark spots in the air until they were almost upon him and before his world ended in the roar of engines, and flicker of guns and a sea of fire.
The two pilots would never find out that they had just killed the commander of the Japanese forces on Hainan, and by the time they returned to Melbourne, the tide had already changed.
~**---**~
The lack of cohesive leadership between the commander of the southern defences going missing and his deputy taken over was devastating to already doomed defenders. By sheer coincidence a half-troop of the 3rd Tank Battalion supported by a company from the 231st Infantry Regiment broke through and almost literally ran into the forward sentries of the Gurkha Airborne Rifles, linking up with the Paras less than nine hours after the initial landings. So far things had gone far better than anyone had expected, mostly because General Sakai was aware that he would not be able to hold the Island against determined Allied attack. He had however severely underestimated the firepower the Paras could bring to bear and the speed at which the Marines could move.
He had expected them to act much like the Japanese during the invasion of the Phillippines, in that they would establish and then consolidate it before moving inland, giving him more than enough time to move up his own forces. The use of Paratroops caught him on the wrong foot, as did the ferocity, speed and skill with which the Free Chinese advanced. When being told of the identity of many of the Allied troops he was dismissive of them. Few documents survived the hellish fight for his headquarters, but one of the few surviving staff officers later told Allied interrogators that Sakai somehow saw it as a personal slight against his person when the FCA Divisions did not scatter like the old National Revolutionary Army during the later stages of the Chinese conquest. The rest of the campaign was conducted with correspondingly brutal methods being used on both sides.
The 1st Guards Infantry Division of the Imperial Japanese Army had been positioning itself to make an attack against the 6th Airborne, by which time all the Free Chinese Army Divisions in fighting conditions, three Infantry and one armoured (though the latter was more of a reinforced Brigade at this point, having been declared operational only a month earlier) had their combat elements ashore and those had in turn stepped into line beside the Paras. So when the 1st Guards hurled themselves against what they thought was one division of British lights, they ran into two, one of them very determined and and a chip the size of Mount Everest on their collective shoulders.
Upon discovering what they thought was the British using Chinese as auxiliaries much like the Japanese practice, the commander of the 1st Guards tried to re-direct his attack against the 1st Chinese Infantry Division in order to scatter them much like it had happened time and again on the mainland. Everything from Lee-Enfield Rifles to 25pounder field artillery quickly ended that notion. However the push was by no means over....
tbc
There we are, I've written for this for the first time in months....