As American military forces converged on the Mariana Islands in the summer of 1944, Japanese Navy admirals understood what was at stake. Loss of the islands of Guam, Saipan, and Tinian would leave the Americans in possession of airfields within B-29 bomber range of Japan as well as naval bases for deadly U.S. submarines. The Marianas had to be defended.

Since its crushing defeats at Midway and in the Solomons in 1942 and 1943, the Japanese Navy had concentrated on rebuilding its strength and preparing for the ‘decisive battle’ that Japanese strategists believed would decide the Pacific War. Now that battle was upon them in the Philippine Sea.

But when it came, the ‘decisive battle’ was a disaster for the Japanese. Poorly trained pilots in increasingly obsolete aircraft were massacred by highly-trained Americans flying newer, more advanced planes. Japanese aircraft that managed to escape American fighters were met by a storm of anti-aircraft fire from Pacific Fleet ships. The air battle that was fought on June 19-20 1944 was such a mismatch that American pilots called it a ‘turkey shoot.’ The Japanese lost more than 500 planes; the Americans fewer than 130. Three Japanese aircraft carriers were sunk – two by U.S. submarines – but six others escaped.

While some American officers fumed at the escape of the enemy carriers, Japanese naval leaders understood the true scale of the catastrophe. Carrier decks were useless without skilled aviators to fly from them, and the loss of hundreds of irreplaceable Japanese pilots signaled the end of the Imperial Japanese Navy as an effective fighting force.

“Though Americans were slow to appreciate it,” wrote American historian Ian W. Toll, “they had just won the decisive victory of the Pacific War. Capture of the Marianas and the accompanying ruin of Japanese carrier airpower were final and irrevocable blows to the hopes of the Japanese.”

The loss of the Marianas, a stinging defeat in India, the dogged refusal of the Chinese to capitulate, and the terrifying prospect of B-29 raids against the home islands shocked the Japanese leadership. The loss of Saipan, home to more than 20,000 Japanese colonists, was the first indication to the Japanese public that the war was being lost. Following the fall of Saipan, Hideki Tojo was forced to resign as Japanese prime minister.

Special Attack Units

Japanese Navy leaders searched frantically for a way – any way – to slow the American advance. Facing overwhelming American industrial and military power, with their own fleet tethered to their last sources of fuel in the East Indies, and with American submarines tightening their stranglehold on Japan’s maritime supply lines, Japanese admirals believed that their only chance to avoid catastrophic defeat was to inflict such horrific damage on American forces that the United States would accept some form of negotiated settlement.

But it was clear that the battered Japanese Navy – especially its toothless carrier striking force – would never be able to deliver such a blow. So, slowly, a controversial idea that had not been contemplated in earnest before became a serious consideration.

If conventional air attacks could not succeed, what about unconventional attacks? Could the unsurpassed fighting spirit of the Japanese overcome the massive material and technological advantages of the United States? Japan had plenty of planes, but hardly any skilled pilots. Training pilots took time and fuel that Japan didn’t have. Was there a way to increase the effectiveness of untrained pilots?

It appeared to some that there was.

“No longer can we hope to sink the numerically superior enemy aircraft carriers through ordinary attack methods,” wrote Japanese Navy Captain Eiichiro Iyo, who had commanded the Japanese light carrier Chiyoda at Philippine Sea. “I urge the immediate organization of special attack units to carry out crash-dive tactics and I ask to be placed in command of them.”

Iyo was not the first Japanese officer to recommend creation of suicide units. The concept had been discussed by senior Japanese military leaders as early as 1943, and was familiar to many pilots. Recognizing the dire circumstances Japan was facing, some officers declined to wait for senior-level approval.

In May 1944, before the Battle of the Philippine Sea, Japanese Army Major Katashige Takata, commander of the Fifth Army Air Squadron at Biak Island in New Guinea, led a group of volunteer pilots on a suicide mission against U.S. invasion shipping. One aircraft managed to damage a U.S. subchaser.

In July, while Japanese Navy leaders considered the question of adopting suicide tactics, Captain Kanzo Miura, commander of a Japanese air wing at Iwo Jima, shocked his pilots by ordering them to make suicide attacks against U.S. ships. No American ships were damaged in this attack.

On 15 October, in the Philippines, Rear Admiral Masafumi Arima personally led a strike against U.S. ships. Against the protests of his staff, Arima removed all insignias of rank from his uniform, indicating that he did not intend to return. He did not return, but U.S. Navy records do not report any successful suicide attacks that day.

So, it was no surprise when Vice Admiral Takijiro Onishi, newly installed as Commander of the First Air Fleet in the Philippines, told his subordinates that the only chance the Japanese had to defend the Philippines was to make suicide attacks against American aircraft carriers. Onishi took the idea of creating units of specially-trained suicide pilots to his superiors.

“In my opinion,” he wrote, “there is only one way of assuring that our meager strength will be effective to a maximum degree. That is to organize suicide attack units composed of Zero fighters armed with 250 kg bombs, with each plane to crash-dive into an enemy carrier.” 

Our pilots will not survive anyway, wrote Onishi. “These young men with their limited training, outdated equipment and numerical inferiority, are doomed even by conventional fighting methods. It is important to a commander as it is to his men, that death not be in vain.”

Until now, Japanese leaders had refused to sanction the creation of suicide units. But after Philippine Sea and the Marianas, the hopelessness of the Japanese position caused them to relent.

In the Philippines, Onishi created the first “Special Attack Unit” to carry out formally-ordered suicide attacks against invasion shipping.  On 24 October 1944, Japanese aircraft conducted the first successful kamikaze attacks of the Pacific War, sinking the American escort carrier USS St. Lo (CVE-63) and damaging six other small carriers.

A Shadow Military

It is likely that Onishi’s original intent was to employ suicide attacks only in support of the Sho Plan – the defense of the Philippines. But the sinking of the St. Lo at the cost of a single Japanese pilot seemed to validate the concept. From that point on, suicide attacks became ever-more important components of Japanese defense plans. In January 1945, Japanese Navy and Army leaders ordered all branches of the armed forces to use suicide attacks. By the middle of 1945 the Japanese had created a shadow military of special attack units equipped with specially designed kamikaze aircraft, rocket powered planes, suicide boats, human torpedoes, suicide submarines, and suicide snipers. Plans were underway to equip soldiers with hand-carried anti-tank weapons which they would place against the sides of U.S. tanks, destroying the tank and themselves, and the Japanese Army Air Force had created a special unit to train pilots to conduct suicide ramming attacks against U.S. bombers.

While the initial Japanese kamikaze attacks against U.S. ships in the Philippines were hurriedly mounted, the suicide attacks became increasingly sophisticated as the Japanese carefully studied the results of their early missions and refined their tactics and training. Japanese military leaders recognized the enormity of the sacrifices they were asking their young pilots to make and commanders at all levels made every attempt to give kamikaze pilots the training, equipment, tactics, and support they needed to succeed in their missions and give their deaths meaning.

As the Americans advanced across the Central Pacific and through the Philippines, the creation of special attack units became Japan’s highest priority. They were believed to be Japan’s only hope for fending off the final, unthinkable catastrophe.

The Most Difficult Problem

While some U.S. planners had anticipated the use of suicide tactics, the U.S. Navy was shocked at the initial attacks. Sailors were unnerved by the realization that Japanese pilots were intentionally killing themselves in order to kill Americans.

Worse, the kamikaze attacks were significantly more effective than conventional attacks. The layered anti-aircraft defenses that had proved virtually impenetrable at the Battle of the Philippine Sea could not protect the enormous formations of warships and transports forced to operate for extended periods within range of Japanese land-based aircraft.

From October 1944 through February 1945, kamikaze attacks sank 28 U.S. ships, including two escort carriers and four destroyers, and damaged 140 more, including fleet carriers, battleships, and cruisers.  Overall, the attacks killed more than 3000 U.S. sailors at a cost to the Japanese of approximately 500 planes and pilots. For the Japanese, suicide attacks were an effective and sustainable tactic.

Kamikaze attacks had two main advantages over conventional attacks. First, kamikaze pilots could not be deterred by any conceivable concentration of fighter cover or anti-aircraft fire. Unless destroyed, they were committed to the attack.  Second, even if heavily damaged, or if the pilot were killed during his final dive to the target, the plane – though now uncontrollable – might continue on to strike the targeted ship. U.S. after action reports bulge with accounts of kamikaze planes being shredded by anti-aircraft fire – engines aflame, wings shot off, pilots slumped over – yet continuing on to strike American ships.

Little wonder that a 1945 report from the headquarters of the U.S. Fleet called kamikazes, “by far the most difficult antiaircraft problem yet faced by the fleet.”

A Rapid Response

But though U.S. Navy commanders were surprised by the first large-scale kamikaze attacks, they were quick to respond and within weeks were identifying measures to defend against the new threat.

As soon as kamikaze tactics were identified – and the attack profiles were instantly recognizable to the astonished crews of targeted ships – the Navy began disseminating information about the new threat. Within days of the initial attacks in the Philippines, ships in the area received messages describing kamikaze tactics and suggesting possible countermeasures. Information from after-action reports, intelligence assessments, damage reports, and other sources was rapidly compiled and shared as tactical bulletins, instructions, and other forms of guidance by the new Antiaircraft Operations Research Group – established in October 1944 – and the Special Defense Section of the Pacific Fleet staff. By the end of 1944 the Navy had even produced a booklet for sailors containing the latest information on kamikaze tactics and recommended defensive measures.

By the time of the Okinawa invasion in April 1945, the Navy had developed doctrine, tactics, and procedures that blunted the effect of the massive kamikaze onslaught that the Japanese unleashed.

The Navy’s rapid response was no accident.

Throughout the Pacific War the U.S. Navy had demonstrated a remarkable ability to learn, innovate, and evolve and was quick to adopt new doctrine, organizational structures, technologies, and tactics.  In contrast, the Japanese Imperial Navy never moved on from its pre-war devotion to ‘decisive battle;’ never adjusted its submarine doctrine to prioritize attacks against the U.S. Navy’s vulnerable supply lines; and never modified its aviator training programs to replace the skilled pilots lost in 1942 and 1943. Even Japan’s adoption of suicide tactics came only when they had no other option, and the change came too late to affect the outcome of the war.

By mid-1944 the U.S. Navy had greatly improved shipboard damage control, introduced Variable Timed (VT) fuses for five-inch anti-aircraft shells; increased the anti-aircraft armament of ships, created a vast logistics infrastructure to support mobile fleet operations, developed new task force formations optimized for anti-air warfare, and created combat information centers to coordinate sensor and weapons information aboard ships.

These and other wartime innovations were possible because the interwar Navy had used reforms at the Naval War College; annual fleet problems, and the decentralization of the doctrine development process to transform itself from a traditional institution to a modern, professional organization that valued officer education, experimentation, collaborative learning, information sharing, individual initiative, and adaptability, and which actively sought insights from all levels of the service.

“The result,” wrote author Trent Hone, “was a critical mass of naval officers prepared to make decisions in rapidly changing circumstances.”

Japanese Innovation

But though the Japanese failed to rethink their overall strategy, they were quick to apply lessons learned in combat to refine their tactics and improve kamikaze performance.

As early as November 1944 the Japanese developed an intensive seven-day training course to turn novice flyers into effective kamikaze pilots. Topics covered included basic flight skills, coordination of attacks by multiple aircraft from multiple headings to overwhelm defenses, and recommended approaches to the target ship that avoided combat air patrols and minimized the volume of effective anti-aircraft fire the attackers would face.  

As the war continued kamikaze attacks became more difficult to defeat as suicide pilot training was updated to reflect combat experience and Japanese Navy leaders made larger numbers of attacking planes available. The Japanese also developed tactics that reduced their chances of being detected by American radar, including flying in smaller formations to reduce radar signature, closely following returning U.S. aircraft, and frequently changing altitude and course.

A Desperate Race

Kamikaze attacks threatened to undo two-and-a-half years of U.S. Navy progress in developing effective anti-aircraft defenses. The robust defenses that worked so well at Philippine Sea struggled to cope fully with the increasingly dangerous kamikaze threat. The remainder of the Pacific War would revolve around the growing use of kamikaze attacks and the U.S. Navy’s desperate race to defeat them.

In a detailed analysis of anti-suicide efforts published in August, 1945, the Navy reported that from February through May 1945 – which included the bulk of the Okinawa campaign – Japanese suicide attacks were ten times more effective than conventional attacks. To score a hit on a U.S. ship, an average of 3.6 suicide attacks were conducted, compared to 37 conventional bombing or torpedo attacks. In addition, 27 percent of kamikaze attackers managed to hit U.S. ships, while only 2.7 percent of conventional attackers scored hits. Of course, suicide attackers suffered 100 percent attrition, as opposed to the loss of 17 percent of non-suicide planes.

But during that period, US defenses steadily improved, as the Navy made more efficient use of current equipment, devised more effective tactics, and accelerated the development and deployment of new equipment.

During the Okinawa campaign the Navy employed a highly-organized multi-layered defensive scheme against kamikaze attacks that included air attacks against kamikaze bases; aerial surveillance of Japanese bases; the use of radar picket ships and ground-based radar; enhanced combat air patrols; improvements in gunnery; more effective formations; use of speed, maneuver, and deception; and installation of new equipment.

Attacking the Source

Navy officers understood that kamikaze attacks were impossible to deter and no matter how tight the air and surface defenses were, some suicide planes were bound to leak through. To limit the number of kamikaze attackers that the fleet would have to fight off, Navy commanders ordered repeated carrier air strikes against kamikaze bases in the Philippines, Taiwan, Iwo Jima, and Japan as well as attacks against aircraft manufacturing plants. Since kamikaze pilots were not skilled enough to fly from carriers, all organized kamikaze attacks were launched from land bases and it was hoped that attacks against the sources of the raids would reduce the size and frequency of kamikaze attacks. The Navy also pressed the U.S. Army Air Force to strike kamikaze bases and aircraft manufacturing targets, and though initially reluctant, the Air Force did conduct such strikes.

While these raids destroyed more than one thousand Japanese aircraft, they did not appreciably reduce Japan’s ability to mount kamikaze attacks during the Okinawa campaign. Attacks tapered off near the end of the ground campaign only because the Japanese wanted to preserve their aircraft and pilots for the defense of the home islands. By August 1945, Japan had stockpiled more than 6,000 aircraft of virtually every description to employ as kamikazes against the anticipated U.S. invasion.

Early Warning

At the Philippines, kamikazes had often surprised American ships by approaching at low altitude from nearby landmasses, or using cloud cover to hide their approach. Some ships were struck before they were able to fire at their attackers. In planning for the invasion of Okinawa, where they knew the Japanese would conduct large-scale kamikaze attacks, U.S. leaders established a ring of fifteen radar picket stations 40 to 60 miles from the invasion fleet operating areas to give the fleet advance warning of Japanese air attacks from Kyushu and Taiwan. Since most U.S. combat ships by then were equipped with air search radar that could detect planes from 75 to 100 miles away, the use of radar picket stations extended the fleet’s radar coverage out to 150 miles.

Initially, each station was manned by a radar-equipped destroyer with a fighter direction team embarked, but after several weeks of concentrated Japanese kamikaze attacks against the exposed ships, the Navy began to assign landing craft, patrol boats, and sometimes a second destroyer or destroyer escort to the stations to provided additional antiaircraft capability. Eventually each station was also protected by a Combat Air Patrol of up to 12 Navy fighters, reassigned from CAPs protecting the fleet carriers.

Still, the radar picket ships – operating far from the robust defenses of the fleet – suffered greatly. Of the 206 U.S. ships that served as radar pickets, 60 were damaged or sunk by kamikazes.

As soon as possible, radar stations were established on islands around Okinawa which allowed some of the floating stations to be abandoned, but the stations at longer ranges from Okinawa remained in operation through the end of the campaign.

But though the cost was terribly high, the picket ships were effective, as they extended U.S. defenses, greatly reduced the number of surprise attacks, vectored fighter aircraft to meet incoming raids, shot down many Japanese planes, ensured that no enemy planes were trailing returning U.S. aircraft, and rescued downed American airmen.

Navy planners found the pickets so useful that they developed plans for increased use of ships in that role during the anticipated invasion of Japan. New destroyers were modified by removal of their torpedo tubes and the installation of large height-finding radars and additional anti-aircraft guns. The Navy even equipped some submarines for use in the radar picket role, though the boats that were provided with advanced radars never actually performed the function.

But though the radar pickets were largely successful, they were not a solution to the kamikaze problem. Despite the best efforts of the radar picket ship crews in appalling circumstances, a large fraction of attackers made it through to the invasion fleet. Radar was at that time a new and immature technology, and equipment failures, operator inexperience, and the Japanese use of aluminum strips to jam U.S. radar reduced its effectiveness.

Combat Air Patrol

In addition to detecting incoming raids, radar picket ships directed Combat Air Patrol (CAP) fighters to intercept positions. The Navy hoped to intercept the raids as far from the fleet as possible to give American pilots sufficient time to break up attacks while staying out of the range of shipboard anti-aircraft fire.

The combination of early warning, fighter direction, air discipline, and robust Combat Air Patrols enabled U.S. fighters to drive off or shoot down nearly half of all kamikaze attackers before they reached the U.S. invasion fleet at Okinawa, including more than 60 percent of planes approaching the American fast carrier task force.

The Navy’s Grumman F6F Hellcats and Vought F4U Corsairs were technologically superior to Japanese planes – including the Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter that had been so successful at the beginning of the war. Japanese aircraft not only lacked sufficient armor, self-sealing fuel tanks, and adequate armament, but U.S. pilots were vastly more skilled. By 1945 nearly all of the most experienced Japanese pilots had been killed and had been replaced by novices.

As Japanese commanders were aware that air-to-air combat would decimate their attacks, Japanese kamikaze pilots and their escorting fighters were instructed to avoid U.S. aircraft whenever possible. When intercepted by CAP fighters, Japanese raids would disperse with a few escorting fighters engaging the CAP aircraft while most of the Japanese planes attempted to evade by diving to very low altitude or scrambling for nearby clouds.

If CAP fighters broke up the Japanese raid more than fifty miles from the fleet, very few Japanese planes would survive to find and attack U.S. ships. If the intercept occurred within 25 miles of the fleet, most of the scattered Japanese planes would reach U.S. ships.

Air interception of incoming raids proved so effective that Navy commanders continually changed the composition of carrier air groups to include more fighters and fewer bombers, though this inevitably reduced the striking power of the fleet.

Gunnery

Japanese aircraft that evaded CAP fighters and managed to find American ships faced a final obstacle: the massed antiaircraft fire of the targeted ships themselves.

Throughout the war the U.S. Navy had continually improved antiaircraft doctrine, armament, and gunfire accuracy aboard surface ships. By 1945, fleet carriers averaged 136 separate guns of various calibers, while heavy cruisers averaged 83 guns and destroyers 42.

Antiaircraft defenses had to be effective at long range for times when Japanese planes were detected early, and also at very short ranges, during the final moments of the kamikaze attack. By the time of large-scale kamikaze raids, the primary long-range antiaircraft weapon was the 5 inch/38 caliber dual purpose gun firing VT “variable time” shells incorporating tiny radar proximity fuses, while the primary machine guns were the 40 millimeter and 20-millimeter automatic cannons. Five-inch guns and 40-millimeter guns could be radar-controlled while 20-millimeter guns were equipped with gyroscopically-stabilized gunsights.

While gunners constantly trained to improve accuracy, the Navy looked for ways to speed up antiaircraft fire response and better coordinate and control the antiaircraft fire of individual ships and formations. The Combat Information Center – first developed in 1942 but continually refined and improved – was critical in providing officers with a clear tactical picture of the confusing and fast-changing air battle. CICs received, coordinated, analyzed, and displayed threat information from radars, radio reports, lookouts, and any other source.

Despite early warning systems and robust Combat Air Patrols around Okinawa, Japanese kamikazes still managed to appear suddenly in the skies above U.S. ships. When that happened, a ship’s survival might depend on how fast its gunners could fill the air with projectiles. Ships responded by opening fire as soon as possible without waiting for perfect firing solutions; using all available directors, including manually-operated directors for five-inch guns; releasing 40 mm and 20 mm guns to sector control; sending up a large volume of fire; and maintaining the maximum rate of fire for as long as possible.

Formations

Since the carrier versus carrier battles of 1942, the U.S. Navy had abandoned single carrier formations and instead formed task forces around multiple carriers. The great battles of Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf in 1944 demonstrated the value of two or more carriers operating together protected by one or more screens of escorting ships. By late 1944, U.S. antiaircraft doctrine stipulated that screening vessels should be stationed between 1500 and 2000 yards away from ships being screened and from other escorting ships. This distance massed antiaircraft fire while allowing individual ships room to maneuver if attacked.

But as Japanese mass kamikaze attacks increasingly threatened task force ships, Navy commanders tightened their formations and looked for other ways to strengthen defenses.

At Okinawa, Navy officers recognized that the best defense against kamikazes was the closest possible formation with a single circle of escorting vessels spaced 1000 yards apart. Some officers recommended even-tighter screens, with escort vessels closing to within 200 yards of screened ships when attacks were imminent. But tighter screens increased the chance of hitting friendly ships when firing at low-level attackers, so Navy commanders stressed the need for antiaircraft fire coordination plans, fire discipline and rigorous training for gun crews.

To maximize the effectiveness of formation antiaircraft defense, task force CIC’s delegated specific defensive tasks like fighter direction or air search to individual ships or groups of ships while serving as the primary CIC for the entire formation.

Speed and Maneuver

High speed evasive maneuvers were universally employed by ships targeted by kamikazes. While piloting a plane to the moment of impact against a maneuvering ship was easier than striking a ship with a bomb or torpedo, it was still no easy task. Kamikaze pilots were mostly novice flyers, and their attack profiles – which culminated in high-speed dives – were difficult to master.

U.S. ships were instructed to go to full speed as soon as attackers appeared, making repeated tight turns and opening antiaircraft fire at maximum range. When kamikaze planes began their final attack run, destroyers and other small ships were directed to maneuver to bring their gunnery directors and the maximum number of guns to bear. This generally meant that ships would turn to present their beam to high-diving attackers, which had the added benefit of increasing the chance that a diving kamikaze would miss the ship. Ships facing low-level kamikaze attacks were instructed to turn away from their attackers to present as narrow a target as possible and protect the ship’s control station on the bridge.

Two problems with high-speed maneuvering, at least on smaller ships, were that it sometimes caused fire control radars to lose the target and it disrupted the aim of shipboard gunners. But when facing a diving enemy intent on crashing a bomb-laden aircraft into his ship, few captains could refrain from ordering up the most radical evasive maneuvers possible.

Deception

 As the toll from kamikaze attacks grew, U.S. Navy commanders looked for any additional steps they could take to reduce the threat. That’s how the high-speed transport USS Barry (APD-29) finished its days as a kamikaze decoy.

A World War I era destroyer later converted to a transport, Barry was hit by a kamikaze and heavily damaged in May, 1945. With a wooden patch on her hull; all useful equipment removed; and lights and smoke pots rigged to simulate antiaircraft fire, funnel smoke, and battle damage, Barry was towed by a fleet tug to a position where it was hoped she would attract kamikaze planes, distracting them from more worthwhile targets.

Unfortunately, the ruse worked better than anticipated, and the unmanned Barry and an escorting LSM were both struck by kamikazes almost immediately. Two sailors on the LSM were killed and both ships sank.

More conventionally, U.S. amphibious ships and transports concealed themselves with smokescreens while escorting ships hid themselves in cloud shadows, rain squalls, and against the dark side of land masses.

Task Force 69

In July 1945, still reeling from the mass kamikaze assaults during the Okinawa campaign and expecting even larger and more sustained attacks during the planned invasion of Japan, Navy leaders established a special task force to develop more effective countermeasures against kamikaze attacks.

Led by Vice-Admiral Willis A. ‘Ching’ Lee, Task Force 69 was directed to test tactics, equipment, ammunition, and other elements of anti-kamikaze defense with an emphasis on improving early detection and tracking, increasing the effectiveness of antiaircraft fire, and evaluating new weapons and procedures. The task force was allotted a former battleship – converted to a trials ship – two cruisers, two destroyers, two destroyer escorts, four auxiliary ships, and two squadrons of aircraft.

The task force issued no report before the end of the war in August 1945, but was renamed the Operational Development Force in September 1945 and continued its work. The organization later evolved into the Navy’s Test and Operational Development Force (OPTEVFOR).

A Higher State of Preparedness

Kamikaze attacks during the final ten months of the Pacific War sank 66 allied ships, damaged more than 250 others, and killed more than 6,000 U.S. sailors.

Yet, the U.S. Navy’s commitment to collaborative learning, experimentation, sharing information, individual initiative and adaptability coupled with the unsurpassed courage and dedication of tens of thousands of sailors enabled the service to blunt the impact of suicide attacks.

In a postwar history of the Navy, Captain Edward L, Beach wrote that “ships in the attack zone kept themselves in a higher state of preparedness against air threat than any warships had ever done the world over.”  

October 14, 2021

A version of this story was posted on the Military History Now website: https://militaryhistorynow.com/2021/10/12/the-kamikaze-war-inside-the-u-s-navys-race-to-defeat-japans-suicide-pilots/

Sources:

Beach, Edward L., CAPT, USN, (Ret); The United States Navy: 200 Years; Henry Holt and Company; New York; 1986.

Benedict, Ruth; The Chrysanthemum and the Sword; Patterns of Japanese Culture; Houghton Miffin Company; New York; 1946,.

Evans, David C., editor; The Japanese Navy in World War II; second edition; Naval Institute Press; Annapolis, MD; 1989.

Hone, Trent; Learning War: The Evolution of Fighting Doctrine in the U.S. Navy, 1898-1945; Naval Institute Press; Annapolis, MD; 2018.

O’Neill, Richard; Suicide Squads of World War II; Hippocrene Books; New York; 1989.

Smith, Peter C.; Kamikaze: To Die for the Emperor; Pen & Sword Books; South Yorkshire, UK; 2014.

Stern, Robert C.; Fire from the Sky: Surviving the Kamikaze Threat; Seaforth Publishing; Barnsley, Great Britain; 2010.

Stewart, Adrian; Kamikaze Japan’s Last Bid for Victory; Pen and Sword Books; Yorkshire, UK; 2020.

Timenes, Nicolai; Analytical History Of Kamikaze Attacks Against Ships Of The United States Navy During World War II; Center for Naval Analysis; November 1970.

Toll, Ian W.; The Conquering Tide, Volume Two of the Pacific War Trilogy; W. W. Norton and Company, New York, 2015.

United States Navy Department; Anti-Suicide Action Summary; August 1945; http://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/a/anti-suicide-action-summary.html     Retrieved 7.5.2015.

Woodford, Shawn R. Ph.D., Historian, NHHC Histories and Archives Division; The Most Difficult Antiaircraft Problem Yet Faced by the Fleet; Naval History and Heritage Command website; June 2020;  The Most Difficult Antiaircraft Problem Yet Faced By the Fleet (navy.mil) ; Retrieved 8.4.2021

It was no chance encounter.

When the Confederate warship CSS Alabama glided out of the French port of Cherbourg, her Captain, Rafael Semmes, and her crew knew that the USS Kearsarge was waiting just offshore.

It was Sunday, June 19, 1864. The U.S. Navy had been chasing Alabama since her commissioning 22 months earlier. During that time Alabama had destroyed 65 U.S. merchant vessels and one U.S. Navy warship in a cruise that had taken her from Great Britain, where she was built, to the U.S. east coast, the Gulf of Mexico, across the South Atlantic, through the Indian Ocean, into the South Pacific, and now back to the English Channel.

Kearsarge – like Alabama, a modern steam-powered sloop-of-war – was one of dozens of U.S. Navy ships searching for Alabama and the handful of Confederate cruisers that were preying on U.S. merchant ships around the world. U.S. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Wells was using his most capable ships in the effort, and he had created a rudimentary global surveillance network to support them. For the crew of the Kearsarge, this was the payoff for more than two years of searching the Atlantic for Confederate warships. For the crew of Alabama, the Confederacy’s most successful raider, it was their last chance to escape before additional U.S. Navy ships could arrive.

Ironclads, Blockade Runners, and Commerce Raiders

The globe-spanning voyage of the Alabama and her approaching contest with Kearsarge were the predictable result of the Confederacy’s decision to wage war afloat while avoiding direct confrontations with the U.S. Navy.

With no navy of their own at the start of the war, and no chance to build one that could match the U.S. Navy, Confederate leaders adopted an asymmetric naval strategy that they hoped could contribute to victory despite the U.S. Navy’s commanding advantages in ships, sailors, and industrial capacity.

Confederate strategy aimed to protect Confederate ports and river commerce with forts, gunboats, and ironclad ships; to break the U.S. naval blockade by using specially-fitted vessels; and to conduct world-wide attacks against U.S. merchant shipping by a mix of privateers and government-owned commerce raiders.

Confederate leaders hoped that continued river traffic and blockade running could maintain the critical flow of arms, munitions, and other supplies from foreign sources while commerce raiding would weaken the blockade by forcing the U.S. Navy to send warships in search of Confederate raiders. Additionally, they hoped that the destruction of U.S. merchant ships would damage the U.S. economy and strengthen anti-war sentiment in Northern states.

But though the Confederacy’s naval strategy enjoyed some early successes, by 1864 the U.S. Navy’s counter-strategy had overcome Confederate efforts. The U.S. Navy had gained control of key waterways, including the Mississippi River; the blockade had grown tighter as more U.S. Navy ships were employed and their tactics improved; U.S. armies had captured additional Confederate ports; and commerce raiding had not significantly harmed the U.S. war effort.

Confederate commerce raiding did slash the number of merchant ships operating under the U.S. flag, as the threat of attack caused insurance rates to spike, leading many U.S. ship owners to sell their vessels to foreign operators.  But though the damage to the U.S. commercial shipping industry was serious and long-lasting – the number of U.S.-flagged merchant ships declined from about 5,000 in 1861 to around 2,500 in 1865 and did not recover until World War I – the great majority of the “lost” ships were merely reflagged and continued to operate as before, though under foreign rather than American ownership. While Confederate cruisers destroyed more than 200 U.S. merchant ships during the war and caused the reflagging of thousands, U.S. foreign trade actually increased.

None of that was clear to U.S. officials in the first months of the war, however, and as Confederate commerce raiders began sinking U.S. merchant ships in 1861, fear gripped U.S. ship owners and importers/exporters. Their complaints prompted Secretary Welles to develop a plan for countering Confederate commerce raiding.

An Act of Folly

A career political journalist from Connecticut, Welles was appointed Secretary of the Navy in recognition of his New England roots and his steadfast support of Abraham Lincoln during the 1860 presidential campaign. His naval experience was limited to two years as the civilian head of the Navy Department’s Bureau of Provisions and Clothing during the Mexican-American War.

Yet Wells proved to be a resourceful and effective strategist and administrator, and with the capable aid of Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavius Fox, he oversaw the growth of the U.S. Navy from 76 ships and 7,600 sailors in 1861 to nearly 700 ships and more than 51,000 sailors in 1864.

Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles  Photo: US Library of Congress

Operationally, the joint efforts of the U.S. Navy and U.S. Army gained control of western rivers and seized or blockaded most Confederate ports, strangling Confederate commerce. Though he had initially opposed the plan to blockade the Confederacy as a violation of international law and as a task far beyond the capability of the pre-war U.S. Navy, Welles succeeded in creating an effective barrier that reduced Confederate cotton trade to 5 percent of its pre-war levels.

As for commerce raiding, Welles recognized that the Confederacy could muster few ships for that purpose. At no time did the Confederacy have more than eight cruisers at sea, and the damage they could inflict on the U.S. war effort was certain to be limited. Taking U.S. Navy ships away from blockade duty – which was the core of U.S. naval strategy – would be “an act of folly,” he said. It made no sense “to detach vessels from the blockade and send them off scouring the ocean for this roving wolf, which has no country, no home, no resting-place.”

Yet Welles could not ignore the growing political pressure, so he did what he could. Limited by logistical, technological, manpower, and diplomatic constraints, he took a number of forceful steps to limit the impact of commerce-raiding.

Global Surveillance

Welle’s primary problem was that the U.S. Navy he was building was designed for the nation’s strategic priorities: amphibious operations and coastal blockade. Only a handful of the hundreds of new ships acquired or constructed by the Navy during the war were suitable for open ocean operations. In addition, the intelligence-gathering and communications capabilities of the Navy were woefully inadequate for locating, tracking, and intercepting individual raiders. Information on the activities of Confederate ships was frequently inaccurate, and virtually always was obtained many days too late.

Welles had sixteen modern ships that were technologically capable of catching and defeating Confederate raiders and he used them nearly exclusively in that role. These ships – including Kearsarge – were propeller-driven steam sloops – nearly identical to the most capable Confederate raiders, the British-built steamships Alabama, Florida, and Shenandoah.  Constructed between 1858 and 1862, the U.S. ships were designed for ocean cruising, were heavily armed, and could reach speeds of 10 to 12 knots. Welles kept these powerful ships at sea as much as possible in a relentless effort to destroy Confederate cruisers.

To support his ships’ operations Welles established coaling depots in overseas ports and deployed ships to various locations around the world. He also directed that merchant ships carrying certain high-value cargo sail in convoys protected by naval vessels.

Welles also established a rudimentary global surveillance network, that would, he hoped, provide critical information on the activities of Confederate warships. In creating the network, Welles relied heavily on the hundreds of U.S. consulate offices that were already located in foreign cities, including most major ports.

Consular officers provided a steady stream of intelligence about Confederate ship construction, sailing schedules, and industries targeted by the cruisers as well as sketches and descriptions of the commerce raiders. Some agents even managed to provide photographs of Confederate ships. Consuls gathered information from many sources, paid and unpaid, including port workers, host government officials, deserters from Confederate cruisers, seamen who had been captured by Confederate ships and released, and shipping agents. They also intercepted or purchased stolen letters and papers being sent by Confederate officers.

This information was sent to Washington where it helped the Navy Department understand how Confederate cruisers operated and provided clues that could help U.S. ships anticipate Confederate operations. Welles relied on this intelligence when he drafted sailing orders for navy ships. But the lack of rapid communication meant that even when U.S. agents knew that a Confederate ship had entered a foreign port, there was no way to quickly alert the Navy Department or for the Navy Department to quickly notify a nearby ship.

Alabama is Found

But not all information passed through Washington. U.S. Navy captains gathered their own information about recent sightings of Confederate cruisers and consular officials could contact U.S. ships directly with information when U.S. ships were in port.

Which is exactly how Kearsarge found Alabama.

When Alabama entered Cherbourg on June 11, Kearsarge was less than 400 miles away at the Netherlands port of Vlissingen. U.S. agents quickly advised Kearsarge of the Confederate cruiser’s arrival, and the U.S. ship arrived at Cherbourg on June 14.

Upon arrival, Kearsarge entered the port where her commanding officer, Captain John A. Winslow, attempted to take on the prisoners from captured ships that had been released ashore by Alabama. But Alabama’s Semmes protested to French authorities, arguing that bringing aboard the prisoners would augment Kearsarge’s crew to the detriment of Alabama and would violate French neutrality. French authorities agreed and would not allow the transfer. Rebuffed by French neutrality, Winslow sailed Kearsarge out of the port, taking station in the open waters off the harbor mouth where he would wait for Alabama.

A Calculated Risk

Semmes now faced a hard choice.

His ship badly needed repairs. Her executive officer John Mcintosh Kell later wrote, “Her boilers were burned out, and her machinery was sadly in want of repairs. She was loose at every joint, her seams were open, and the copper on her bottom was in rolls.”

But the French so far had denied Alabama permission to enter the government-owned shipyards while officials waited for approval from the emperor, who was away from Paris.

Entering Cherbourg had been a calculated risk for Semmes. His ship needed work but he knew that U.S. agents would quickly report his arrival. If a warship had to be dispatched from the American east coast, he might have three weeks or more to effect repairs and escape. But if a U.S. Navy ship were nearby – as Kearsarge was, though Semmes did not know it – they might arrive before Alabama could be repaired.

The arrival of Kearsarge before Alabama had even entered the shipyard must have surprised Semmes, but it didn’t necessarily portend disaster. This was the sixth time Semmes had been confronted by a U.S. Navy warship.

In July 1861, while in command of CSS Sumter, the Confederacy’s first commerce raider, Semmes had broken through the U.S. Navy blockade and escaped to sea by outrunning the sloop-of-war USS Brooklyn.

Four months later, while coaling at Martinique, he was blockaded by the sloop-of-war USS Iroquois. Again, he was able to escape, this time by slipping out of port during the night.

In January 1862 Semmes took Sumter across the Atlantic, but the ship was damaged during the stormy crossing and was forced to seek repair services at British-controlled Gibraltar. But the British refused permission for major repairs or even refueling, and soon enough a succession of U.S. Navy warships – including Kearsarge – arrived and took station nearby, waiting for Sumter to emerge. Trapped and unable to repair or refuel his vessel, Semmes and his officers abandoned Sumter and made their way to Britain, where they took positions on the Alabama, then under construction in a Liverpool yard.

In June 1862, now in command of Alabama, Semmes was again caught at Martinique, this time by the veteran steam frigate USS San Jacinto. But Semmes slipped away through the rain and easily escaped the ponderous San Jacinto, which he derisively described as “this old wagon of a ship.”

In January 1863, while operating off Galveston, Alabama fought and sank a U.S. Navy blockading vessel, the converted ferry USS Hatteras. In the dark, when hailed by Hatteras, Semmes identified his ship as a British vessel before delivering a surprise broadside at point-blank range. Hatteras returned fire, but was quickly overwhelmed and sunk.

So, Semmes had reason to think that he might again escape. He could try to slip past Kearsarge in the dark or during bad weather, as he had done at Martinique. He could try to fight his way past Kearsarge before other U.S. warships arrived, as he had done at Galveston. Or he could abandon Alabama and escape with his officers, as he had done at Gibraltar.

Abandoning Alabama now would mean the loss of the ship and the disbandment of the crew, two serious blows to the Confederacy, which was already reeling. By June of 1864 the pivotal U.S. victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg were nearly a year in the past. General U.S. Grant’s Army of the Potomac had driven Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia into the trenches surrounding Petersburg, where they would fight a ghastly battle of attrition for the next nine months. And General William T. Sherman’s western armies had invaded Georgia and were threatening Atlanta. Foreign recognition of the Confederacy was not going to happen and U.S. anti-war sentiment, though still strong, was ebbing as U.S. victories accumulated.

Semmes believed that Alabama, even in her weakened condition, was the equal of Kearsarge, and though his basic orders were to avoid combat with U.S. Navy ships that were his equal, he was loath to allow his ship to be lost without a fight. During her career, Alabama had not been seriously challenged, and Semmes had confidence in his crew and ship.

So, Semmes decided to fight. He sent a note to his agent in Cherbourg stating, “My intention is to fight the Kearsarge as soon as I can make the necessary arrangements. I hope these will not detain me more than until to-morrow or the morrow morning at farthest. I beg she will not depart until I am ready to go out.”

He needn’t have worried. Kearsarge wasn’t going anywhere. Before leaving Vlissingen, Winslow had telegraphed Gibraltar to send the USS St. Louis to assist.

Built for War

Semmes had good reason to be confident in his mostly-British crew. But Kearsarge was no under-armed ferryboat like Hatteras. She could match Alabama’s speed and maneuverability, and her armament was equal to Alabama’s. She was in better material condition, and her crew was well-trained.

In Kell’s words, Kearsarge “was built for a vessel of war, and we for speed, and though she carried one gun less, her battery was more effective at point-blank range.  While Alabama carried one more gun, Kearsarge threw more metal at a broadside and while our heavy guns were more effective at long range, her 11-inch guns gave her greatly the advantage at close range. She also had a slight advantage in her crew, she carrying 163, all told, while we carried 149.”

And Kearsarge had two additional advantages that that would shape the outcome of the coming fight. Unknown to Semmes and Kell, Kearsarge’s sides had been draped with chains, providing an effective, if unconventional, type of armor. Winslow’s crew had covered the chains with wooden planks, so the armor was hidden from view and was not detected by Semmes or his crew even when Kearsarge had entered the port at Cherbourg.

Kearsarge’s hull armor had been installed more than a year earlier, and it was intended to protect the ship’s engine and boilers when the ship’s coal bunkers were not filled. In contemporary accounts of the battle, Semmes explained that had he known of Kearsarge’s armoring, he would not have fought the U.S. ship.

Kearsarge’s second advantage was in the reliability of her ammunition.

Without access to Confederate ports, Alabama had no easy way to replenish or refresh its ammunition supply. Much of her powder was more than two years old, and all of her powder had been exposed to heat and water and was degraded.

Semmes was aware of problems with his powder and munitions. Gunnery drills conducted in the months before his battle with Kearsarge had revealed problems with the fuses on his shells and with the reliability of his powder. The problems were serious enough that Alabama’s crew dumped seven barrels of damp powder overboard the night before their fight with Kearsarge.

But there was nothing Semmes could do to correct these problems before the battle.

One Hour and Ten Minutes

Between 9:00 and 10:00 am, Alabama weighed anchor and began gliding slowly towards the harbor mouth. As Alabama exited the harbor, Kearsarge headed offshore, slowly building speed, to ensure that the battle would take place in international waters. After 45 minutes, now seven miles offshore, Kearsarge turned towards Alabama, and the two ships rapidly closed the distance between each other. Alabama – whose largest guns were more effective at long range, fired first, but she scored no hits.

As the two ships approached each other on opposite courses, Kearsarge sheared to port so that the ships would pass each other starboard to starboard. As the ships came abreast of each other, at a range of about a mile, both began firing broadsides. As they passed, Winslow turned to starboard to swing behind Alabama and rake her – a highly effective tactic in those days. Semmes countered by also turning to starboard, which resulted in the ships tracing circles in the sea while they pounded each other with their starboard batteries for the next hour.

The two ships were similarly armed. Each carried two large-caliber guns mounted on the centerline of the main deck. These pivot guns moved on metal rails on the deck and could be trained to either side. Kearsarge’s guns were both 11-inchers while Alabama carried two 8-inch guns.

In addition, each ship carried a small number of smaller guns mounted on traditional carriages and which were fired through gunports on the side of the ship. Kearsarge carried four 32-pound guns – 32 pounds being the weight of the projectile being fired – while Alabama carried six slightly heavier 32-pounders. Kearsarge also carried one 30-pounder rifle, for a total of seven guns against Alabama’s eight guns.

During the fight, Alabama’s gunners fired more rapidly – they managed more than 370 shots at Kearsarge, while the U.S. gunners fired more deliberately, getting off only about 177 shots. But Kearsarge’s gunners were more accurate, repeatedly hitting Alabama’s hull, while Alabama’s shots struck Kearsarge’s hull just 13 or 14 times, according to Winslow.

Kearsarge’s slower rate of fire was a result of Winslow’s instructions for his crews to “make sure of your aim.”  The disciplined and well-trained gun crews fired only when they had a target, waiting patiently for smoke to clear from previous shots before aiming and firing again. Winslow had also directed that his smaller guns be used to clear Alabama’s decks, while Kearsarge’s 11-inch guns were to concentrate their fire on Alabama’s hull below the waterline. Alabama’s gunfire, in contrast was “rapid and wild,” according to Winslow, with most shots tearing through Kearsarge’s rigging, and doing little damage to the ship or crew. Kearsarge suffered no fatalities during the fight, though one of the three sailors who were seriously wounded died later of his injuries.

Early in the battle, Semmes had seen that Alabama’s shells were striking Kearsarge, but were failing to explode. He directed his gunners to switch to solid shot, and for the rest of the fight they alternated between shot and shell. It made no difference.

As the ships circled each other blasting away, the circles gradually became tighter, shortening the distance between the ships. By the eighth circle, Alabama and Kearsarge were only 400 yards apart. By then, wrote Winslow, the Confederate cruiser’s “firing became better.”

A Sinking Condition

But it was already too late for Alabama. The carefully aimed fire of Kearsarge had torn great holes in Alabama’s hull, half of Alabama’s main battery had been disabled, her rudder had been damaged, and her engine was inoperable. She was, wrote Semmes, “in a sinking condition.” Dead and wounded men were scattered across Alabama’s decks. One of her pivot guns had been struck and eighteen members of the gun’s crew had been killed or wounded. On the ship’s seventh circling, a Kearsarge shell had penetrated Alabama’s hull and exploded in a coal bunker, extinguishing the fires in her boilers and disabling her engine.

Under sail, with water pouring in, Alabama veered away and attempted to run for the coast of France. But Semmes quickly realized that Alabama would never make it and he ordered his flag struck.

Semmes later complained that Kearsarge continued to fire on the sinking Alabama after her flag had been pulled down, though Winslow wrote in his report that Alabama fired at least two broadsides at Kearsarge after hauling down her own flag. In the confusion, smoke, and noise of nineteenth century naval combat, flags were often shot away and gun crews – consumed with their task and unable to hear commands from the quarterdeck – were sometime slow to respond to orders to stop, so it would not be surprising if both captains were correct.

Semmes and Winslow both reported that as Alabama turned towards shore, she left herself vulnerable to devastating raking fire from Kearsarge. Winslow, however, saw a white flag being hoisted on Alabama and ordered his crew to hold their fire.

Semmes also complained that Kearsarge was slow to send boats to rescue Alabama’s crew, who were abandoning their sinking ship. He also implied that there was something unsporting in Kearsarge’s hidden chain armor, though he never disputed Winslow’s right to protect his ship.

As Alabama sank stern first, Kearsarge sent boats to rescue Alabama’s crew. But a British yacht, the Deerhound, which had followed Alabama to the scene of battle and had been asked by Winslow to assist in rescue operations, picked up 41 members of Alabama’s crew, including Semmes, and fled to England, saving Semmes and many of his men from capture as prisoners of war. Though no one knows for certain how many men were aboard Alabama when she left Cherbourg, a detailed review of various reports and muster documents by Marshall University identified 145 men aboard the Alabama, of whom eight were killed in action, 21 were missing and presumed drowned, 66 were captured by Kearsarge, 41 escaped on Deerhound, and nine were rescued by other vessels.

An Admiral and a General

Winslow remained in command of Kearsarge until February 1865 when he was assigned to supervise construction of ironclad warships. He later commanded the Portsmouth Navy Yard, was promoted to rear admiral, and commanded the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Station. He died in 1873 at the age of 62.

Semmes remained in Europe for several months before returning to the Confederate States. In February 1865 he assumed command of the Confederacy’s James River Fleet. When Richmond fell, he ordered his ships burned and escaped to Danville, VA, where he became a brigadier general and converted his former sailors into an artillery brigade. When the Confederacy surrendered, he was pardoned, arrested, imprisoned, and pardoned again. He died in 1877 at the age of 68.

The USS Kearsarge was decommissioned in 1866, but returned to active service in 1868. After two years of service in the Pacific, she was decommissioned again in 1870, but was placed back in commission from 1873-1878. She continued alternating periods of commissioned service with decommissioned periods until 1894, when she was wrecked on a reef in the Caribbean Sea.

August 5, 2021

A version of the article was posted on the Military History Now website: https://militaryhistorynow.com/2021/08/03/the-battle-of-cherbourg-when-union-and-confederate-warships-clashed-off-the-coast-of-france/

Sources:

American Battlefield Trust website; Ten Facts: Civil War Navies; https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/10-facts-civil-war-navies Retrieved 2.9.2021.

Dickinson, Jack L.; C.S.S. Alabama: An Illustrated History; Marshall Digital Scholar; Fall 10-11-2017;  https://mds.marshall.edu/css_al/  Retrieved 6.14.2021.

Dudley, William S.; CSS Alabama: Lost and Found; Naval History and Heritage Command website; Published: Wed May 13 09:50:03 EDT 2020; https://www.history.navy.mil/research/underwater-archaeology/sites-and-projects/ship-wrecksites/css-alabama/css-alabama-lost-and-found.html; Retrieved 7.15.2021.

Foster, Kevin; The Diplomats Who Sank a Fleet: The Confederacy’s Undelivered European Fleet and the Union Consular Service; Prologue Magazine; Fall 2001, Vol. 33, No.3; National Archives website; https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2001/fall/confederate-fleet-1.html           Retrieved 6.23.2021.

Kell, John McIntosh; Cruise and Combats of the “Alabama” Battles and Leaders of the Civil War Vol. IV; American Battlefields Trust website: https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/cruise-and-combats-alabama ; Retrieved 2.19.2021.

Marvel, William; CSS Alabama; Encyclopedia of Alabama website, Published  February 2, 2007 | Last updated:  November 14, 2016; http://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-973 ; Retrieved 6.23.2021 ; Retrieved 6.23.2021.

Prickett, Jeffrey W. LCDR USN; The Leadership of John A. Winslow and Raphael Semmes: A Comparative Case Study; U.S. Army Command and General Staff College; Fort Leavenworth, KS; 2018; https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD1084518.pdf     Retrieved 6.15.2021.

Ringle, Dennis J.; Life in Mr. Lincoln’s Navy; Naval Institute Press; Annapolis, MD; 1998.

Rupert, Joseph Murray, CDR, SC, USN: Hurry All To Sea: Union Naval Strategy To Counter Confederate Commerce Raiding; U.S. Naval War College; Newport, RI; June 1992; https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a268096.pdfRetrieved 4.17.2021

Symonds, Craig; Kearsarge and Alabama, The Civil War’s Classic Ship-to-Ship Duel; American Battlefields Trust website: https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/kearsarge-and-alabama ; Retrieved 2.19.2021.

Welles, Gideon; Annual Report of the Navy Department: Report of the Secretary of the Navy 1864; Government Printing Office; Internet Archive Website; posted 2.21.2009; https://archive.org/details/annualreportsna13deptgoog/page/n738/mode/2up?q=Kearsage Retrieved 2.20.2021.

Winslow, John A. and Semmes, Raphael; Sinking of C.S.S. Alabama by U.S.S. Kearsarge, 19 June 1864; Naval History and Heritage Command website; Published: Tue Oct 31 12:09:39 EDT 2017; https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/s/sinking-of-css-alabama-by-uss-kearsarge-19-jun-1864.html; Retrieved 7.15.2021.

“You won’t get thirty miles,” said the young naval officer. “Those destroyers out there are thicker than flies. They’ve been patrolling all day and all night for weeks.”

Lieutenant Commander John Morrill didn’t care what the officer from the USS Tanager (AM-5) thought. He was leaving and the sailors gathered around him could join him or they could stay. It was May 6, 1942. Earlier that day, U.S. Army General Jonathon Wainwright had surrendered Corregidor to the Japanese, ending five months of stubborn but increasingly hopeless resistance.

Now, Morrill, commanding officer of the USS Quail (AM-15), was standing in the stern of a 36-foot diesel-powered boat idling in Manila Bay, asking the remnants of his crew if they wanted to come along with him in the open boat as he made his way through the Japanese cordon to Mindanao, 600 miles away.

Damned Fast if We Are Going

Though white flags had been raised over Corregidor’s battered topside barracks and over the island forts that dotted the bay, Japanese artillery was still blasting American positions and the sound of machine gun and small arms fire drifted across the water. LCDR Morrill had received no direct orders to surrender himself or his crew, and he wasn’t inclined to wait for any. Even before the Japanese had landed on Corregidor, communications between American units had been spotty at best, and with Quail now sunk in the bay – scuttled by Morrill and his crew a few hours ago – Morrill had no way to communicate with anyone else.

Having completed his last mission, Morrill had gathered the remnants of his crew in two small boats off Caballo Island, two miles from Corregidor.  In the evening darkness he told them of his plan and invited them to join him.

“You all know that the situation is,” he said. “On a logical basis your chances of remaining alive are probably better staying here, and some of our officers feel that escape is impossible.” Already the Japanese were tightening the noose of search planes, destroyers, patrol boats, and barges that had surrounded Manila Bay since December.

But five months of brutal warfare against the Japanese had convinced the Quail crewmen that they were unlikely to experience humane treatment if captured. If there was a chance to avoid surrender, most were eager to take it.

“I think I can get you through,” said Morrill. But, he added, “We’ve got to get out of here damned fast if we are going.”

Abandoned to Their Fate

Morrill and his crew had watched ruefully when the Asiatic fleet’s major surface ships had been ordered out of Manila Bay as war became increasingly likely.  On December 7, all three of the fleet’s cruisers and nine of thirteen destroyers were well south of Manila. The fleet’s 29 submarines had remained in Manila, along with the tender USS Canopus, to defend against the expected invasion, but they achieved no significant successes against the actual landings and by the end of December all of the submarines were gone as well. Canopus remained to support the PT boats, minesweepers, and gunboats that were left, until April 9 when the steadfast old tender was scuttled by her crew in Mariveles Bay on Bataan as Japanese forces advanced to the tip of the embattled peninsula.

By then the PT boats were gone, too, having left on the night of March 11 to carry General Douglas MacArthur, his family, and his key staff south to Mindanao.

As the Japanese battered American and Filipino defenses on Bataan, more than 2,500 U.S. Navy sailors and officers had been left to their fate on Bataan and Corregidor, including the crews of the tender Canopus, the salvage vessel Pigeon, six minesweepers, five gunboats, and two tugs; the members of Patrol Wing Ten whose aircraft had all been destroyed; and hundreds of support personnel from the base at Cavite.

A handful of Navy personnel had been evacuated, including the cryptanalysts assigned to the radio intelligence unit at Cavite, but as the allied defenses crumbled, nearly everyone else found themselves drafted to support army or marine units as gunners, communicators, runners, or infantry. More than 500 sailors from various units along with a handful of Marines and Filipino troops were organized into a naval battalion by Commander Frank Bridget and despite their almost total lack of training fought credibly on Bataan.

The Last Missions

The minesweepers, though, had retained their crews, as the 188-foot ships were still able to provide useful service to the troops ashore. Armed with a pair of three-inch guns and a handful of machine guns, the little ships provided gunfire support to troops on Bataan, patrolled against Japanese landing attempts along the coast, and provided anti-aircraft support wherever they happened to be. They also transported troops and supplies as needed and maintained the mine field that stretched across the mouth of Manila Bay.

Once Bataan fell, the sweepers had just one more critical job: opening a second channel through the minefield so that boats from Corregidor could exit the bay to rendezvous with US submarines that might arrive on resupply or evacuation missions. The original swept channel was too close to Bataan, now that Japanese artillery could be placed anywhere on the peninsula.

During the next few weeks, the crews of the three surviving minesweepers worked each night to clear the channel. Eventually, more than a third of Quail’s crew were drafted to serve ashore as gunners, taking several of the ship’s machine guns with them. As Japanese bombing and shelling of Corregidor intensified, and the entire bay fell within range of Japanese guns, the remaining crew of the minesweeper moved ashore during daylight hours, returning to the ship at dark to continue work on the minefield.

The final submarine mission was completed on May 3, when the USS Spearfish evacuated six Navy officers, six Army officers, eleven Army nurses, one Navy nurse, and the wife of a Navy officer.  As the submarine was departing, the Japanese unleashed a massive artillery barrage that signaled the beginning of their final assault on Corregidor. The initial Japanese landing took place on May 5.

On the night of May 5, Morrill, the ship’s three other officers, 24 crewmen, and an additional officer from the sunken Tanager, made their way back out to the Quail to man the ship’s remaining guns. The rest of the minesweeper’s crew was ordered to man defensive positions on Corregidor.  The next morning, May 6, as Japanese troops advanced on Corregidor, Morrill and his men were ordered to leave Quail on the ship’s boats and head to Fort Hughes, a coastal artillery battery on Caballo Island, two miles south of Corregidor, where the sailors would man anti-aircraft guns.

They were there that afternoon when General Wainwright surrendered Corregidor.

Stay or Go?

At first, no orders to surrender were sent to Fort Hughes. Instead, Morrill was ordered to take a party out to the anchored and abandoned Quail, which, despite unrelenting Japanese air attacks, was somehow still afloat, and scuttle the ship.

Morrill and five men made the trip in a small boat, braving Japanese dive bombers, artillery, and machine gun fire. After boarding Quail, breaking open valves to flood the ship, and setting demolition charges in the magazine, they hurried off. As they doubted that they could make it back to Caballo’s dock against the Japanese planes and artillery, they took refuge on the wreck of the Ranger, a Navy tug which had been abandoned by her crew and was beached in shallow water near the island.

While they waited for darkness aboard the Ranger, they grabbed anything they thought they could use on a voyage south, including charts, binoculars, a sextant, navigating instruments, rifles, food, water, lubricating oil, cigarettes, dynamite, and four drums of diesel fuel.  Finally, the sun set and they made their way to their anchored 36-foot diesel-powered whaleboat – an open boat used as a workboat – which Morrill planned to use for their escape.

As they stowed their supplies aboard the diesel boat, the other boat went back to Caballo and returned with around twenty members of Quail’s crew and the officer from Tanager. When Morrill offered them the choice of heading south in the diesel boat or returning to Caballo and captivity, several opted for Caballo.

For some, the months of constant tension, short rations, disease, death, the knowledge that they had been abandoned, and the shock of Corregidor’s sudden capitulation had been too much. They were exhausted, mentally, physically, and spiritually. Though it had been apparent for months that no reinforcements were coming to the Philippines, the finality of their predicament and the uncertainty of their fate still shocked many of the Americans.

“I want to go,” one petty officer told Morrill, “but I just haven’t got the heart to make any more effort. I placed all of my faith in the Rock not surrendering, and now that it has, it just seems that the bottom has fallen out of everything.”

Altogether, sixteen members of Quail’s crew joined Morrill in the diesel boat and made ready to go. Fully loaded, the boat had just six inches of freeboard, so once they were clear of Manila Bay, they would need to toss out some of their gear. They expected the boat to average four nautical miles per hour when underway.

But first they needed to get out of Manila Bay. And before they could do that, they needed to return to the Caballo dock and pick up one final crewman who had earlier begged to be included.

That done, the 36’ boat, crammed with eighteen navy men, with its gunwales just six inches above the waves, got underway. Ahead lay many hundreds of miles of shoal water, unknown currents, unseen reefs, pounding surf, and thousands of islands – many occupied by the Japanese – all heavily patrolled by Japanese ships, boats, and aircraft.

More Patrol Boats Than We Could Count

Their plan was to travel by night and hide each day in small coves along lightly populated sections of the coast. They thought that villagers – when encountered – would likely be friendly, but they also knew that there were Japanese sympathizers on the islands and that Japanese troops were already posted throughout the archipelago. Further, they knew that their presence would be extremely dangerous for any Filipinos in the area if the Japanese found out that they had been there. So, their goal was to minimize any contact with locals and to avoid Japanese troops at all cost, though they also knew that they would need to obtain food, water, and fuel at times to complete their journey.

As they motored out of Manila Bay, they had just a few hours of darkness until the moon rose and visibility would increase. They hoped to make as much distance as they could before they had to stop and hide.

But the officer from the Tanager – who had declined to join them – had been correct. Japanese destroyers and patrol boats were everywhere. In the first several hours they encountered four enemy destroyers and, in Morrill’s words, “more patrol boats than we could count.”

They knew, though, that in the dark they were almost impossible to see from any distance. Sitting low in the water, with no deck structure at all, from hundreds of yards away their boat would appear to be a log as long as everyone aboard kept down and they showed no lights at all.  They also hoped that if they ever were spotted, they might be mistaken for a Filipino fishing craft.

As the moon rose, they pulled into a small cove on the Luzon coast and quickly began cutting branches and small trees to conceal their boat. Later, when dawn arrived, they were shocked to find out that they had barely made five miles against the current. They could actually see Corregidor in the distance.

They got a bigger shock a few minutes later when a Japanese search plane flew directly over them at a height of 500 feet. But the Japanese pilot apparently never saw them and no Japanese boats or patrols approached.

During that first day, hidden in the trees and rocks near their camouflaged boat, they saw numerous Japanese warships and patrol boats pass by. In the morning they saw a column of sixteen patrol boats heading for Manila Bay. In the afternoon they saw the same column heading the other way with their decks now crammed with American prisoners – as many as 2,400 they estimated.

As darkness fell, they uncovered the boat and prepared to get underway. But they stopped abruptly when a Japanese destroyer entered the cove heading straight toward them. Fortunately, the warship was looking for a place to anchor for the night, not for a boatload of American sailors. Intent on anchoring securely in the unfamiliar waters, the Japanese crew never spotted the Americans, just 500 yards away.

Safe for the moment, the Americans were trapped where they lay. They spent an uncomfortable night staring at the Japanese ship, clutching their weapons, and listening for sounds of anyone approaching. In the morning the Japanese left, but there was no way the Americans could get underway in the daylight.  They spent a second day hidden in the cove. That night, as they again prepared to leave, another Japanese destroyer – or perhaps the same one – approached their hiding place. But this time the ship pulled into a neighboring cove to anchor. Holding their breath, the Americans slowly edged their way out of the cove and into the darkened channel.

And so it went.

Across the Pacific if We Had to

For 31 days they made their way south, jumping from island to island through the Philippines and the East Indies, avoiding Japanese patrols, steering clear of heavily populated islands, but receiving generous help and courageous support from countless friendly villagers, rich and poor, that they met on the way.

Over and over again, as they made their way through the Philippines, they were offered food, water, shelter, and information about Japanese activity. Early in their voyage they were told that Mindanao was occupied by the Japanese. Okay, they figured, then they would just have to continue on to Australia. It was 1,400 miles farther south, but they were determined to avoid falling into the hands of the Japanese. If they had learned that Darwin was in Japanese hands, Morrill later wrote, “We wouldn’t give ourselves up. We would seize a boat bigger than ours, one that could go across the Pacific if we had to.”

They didn’t end up crossing the Pacific, but they did cross more than 1,000 miles of roiling open water between the Philippines, Indonesia and Australia. Their undecked, flat-bottomed, and overloaded boat, never intended to survive ocean storms, struggled through heaving seas while the crew bailed continuously for hours, but they pushed through.

During their voyage they evaded countless Japanese patrol vessels, weathered several serious storms, and rebuilt the engine of their boat – finishing the task, as Morrill wryly noted, “with no pieces left over.” Their engineer even carved a bearing from driftwood to repair the boat’s stern tube.

Finally, on June 3, they sighted the coast of Australia. On June 6 they skirted the anti-submarine net and motored into the harbor at Darwin. They had completed a voyage of nearly 2,200 miles in a 36’ open boat through the Japanese-occupied Philippines and East Indies, and escaped what would have been an astonishingly brutal captivity.

Not the Only Ones

Morrill and his crew were not the only Americans to avoid capture by the Japanese in the Philippines. Many hundreds of Americans managed to evade Japanese troops for at least a time, while a smaller number – probably fewer than one hundred – joined groups of Filipino and American guerillas. These intrepid men spent the years of the Japanese occupation providing intelligence to American forces in Australia and, especially later in the war, mounting attacks against Japanese forces.  But the Japanese were brutal and relentless occupiers, and many American and Filipino guerillas were caught and killed.

There is even an account of two American Army officers named Damon Gause and William Osborne who avoided capture and eventually made their way out of the islands in a decrepit 22-foot fishing boat and were picked up by an Australian Navy ship.

The U.S. Army reported that 25,580 American soldiers were captured in the Philippines between Dec 7, 1941 and May 10, 1942 and 10,650 died in captivity. The U.S. Marine Corps reported that 1,487 members of the 4^th Marines were captured on Corregidor and 474 died in captivity. More than 33,000 Filipino soldiers were also captured at Bataan and Corregidor.

Of the 70 crewmen known to be aboard the USS Quail in October, 1941, 52 were captured by the Japanese. Like all of the other American prisoners, they endured a hellish three years of forced labor, starvation rations, primitive medical care, repeated beatings, and executions. Sixteen died in captivity.

Morrill and 15 of the 17 men who accompanied him survived the war. Upon arrival in Darwin, thirteen men were allowed a few weeks rest and then were assigned to various ships or units in the Southwest Pacific. Several were on ships that were later sunk, and one man – Chief Quartermaster Philip Binkley – was aboard the destroyer USS Jarvis when she disappeared with all hands after being torpedoed during the U.S. landing at Guadalcanal in August, 1942. The remaining five, including Morrill, were transferred to commands in the United States.  Morrill was awarded the Navy Cross for his actions in scuttling the Quail while the five men who assisted him received Silver Stars.

Morrill returned to combat during the invasion of Palau in 1944 as commodore of a flotilla of large landing craft (LCI’s). He retired as a Rear Admiral in 1955.

February 18, 2021

Sources:

Morrill, John and Martin, Pete; South from Corregidor; Simon and Schuster, NY; 1943.

Waldron, Ben D. and Burneson, Emily; Corregidor: From Paradise to Hell; Pine Hill Press; Freeman, South Dakota; 1988.

Williams, Greg; The Last Days of the United States Asiatic Fleet; McFarland and Company; Jefferson, NC; 2018.

McGowan, Sam; “Guerrilla War on Luzon During World War II”; Warfare History Center website; https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2015/08/12/guerrilla-war-on-luzon-during-world-war-ii/ Retrieved 2.10.2010.

Miller, J. Michael; “From Shanghai to Corregidor – Marines in the Defense of the Philippines”; Marine Corps University website; https://www.usmcu.edu/Portals/218/From%20Shanghai%20to%20Corregidor-Marines%20in%20the%20Defense%20of%20the%20Philippines%20PCN%2019000314000.pdf?ver=2018-10-30-095002-760  Retrieved 2.12.2021.

Speak Out packet; American ex-Prisoners of War website; http://www.axpow.org/medsearch/speakouta.pdf  Retrieved 2.11.2021.

Office of the Provost Marshal General Report, November 19, 1945; American Prisoners of War
in the Philippines; Center for Research Allied POWS Under the Japanese website; http://www.mansell.com/pow_resources/camplists/philippines/pows_in_pi-OPMG_report.html#INTRO Retrieved 2.10.2021.

A version of this article was posted on the MilitaryHistoryNow website: https://militaryhistorynow.com/2021/02/17/escape-from-corregidor-meet-the-americans-who-refused-to-surrender-when-the-philippines-fell/