Now Hara was mulling over the status of Nagumo’s task force, the Shado Fleet. He had 128 more planes, and Hara knew they must be in the air by now, but the majority of those planes were fighters. In fact, Nagumo had sent many Shotai out on long range CAP, and they had been involved in the unsuccessful defense of Hara’s ships. There were only 24 of the new Yokosuka D4Y dive bombers on the battle carriers, the planes the Americans would call “Judy.” He also had 27 new Tenzan B6N Torpedo Bombers. Those planes were in the air, with a small escort, as they hoped to pick up several Shotai from that long range cap as they made their approach to the enemy.
But the weather gods would conspire against them that day. In the thickening cloud cover and light rain, the torpedo bombers veered off course, and neither formation ever found those extra fighters, though they did eventually find Halsey. The dive bombers were over the Americans first, coming down through the rain. But these were not Japan’s best pilots any longer, even though they had the benefit of all those new planes. They were pounced on by 20 fighters, and savaged as they started their diving run, the four Zeroes with them unable to stop the Americans. 13 were destroyed, another damaged, and flak would get one more. Of the eight planes that actually put bombs in the air, none would score a hit.
Ten minutes later, the Tenzan “Jills” finally showed up, the rain heavier now as the torpedo bombers tried to get low to make their runs. Their four fighters ran into many more defending planes, 29 F6 Hellcats and three F4 Wildcats. They got one of those zeroes, and then proceeded to chop up those torpedo planes, getting eight of eleven. Three torpedoes hit the water, and none found hulls. The Shado Fleet had thrown everything it had at Halsey, and hit nothing.
Hara would learn this a little after 10:40 when a message was received from Nagumo: “Attack unsuccessful. Insufficient strike planes to launch a second wave.”
That spoke volumes to Hara, and he immediately knew that Nagumo’s planes must have taken very heavy losses. Now, with the weather darkening and thick rain squalls sweeping through the scene, Hara realized this battle was over. He still had no idea what Yamaguchi had done, but would soon learn that his strike wave had been unable to locate the enemy carriers. With reports of carriers in three places, they should have seen something, but flew right into the gap between Ziggy Sprague’s Taffy 15, and Ray Spruance in Taffy 12. They never found either task force, and coming 300 miles to see nothing, they were forced to turn and head back home.
That decision led to a nice little sneak attack thrown out by Ziggy Sprague. He had three fighters up on a long range patrol, and they spotted the planes off Akagi and Soryu, the heart of Yamaguchi’s task force. Noting their heading, Ziggy sent up every plane he had left and went after them. They would arrive 20 minutes behind the Japanese planes, all in the midst of recovery operations.
The attack caught Yamaguchi completely by surprise, and it would see all his carriers take hits, two bombs on Akagi, which was soon obscured by smoke from the fires, one smaller 500 pound bomb on Soryu near the island that did only minor damage, and one bomb on Hiyo that also started a bad fire. That was most unwelcome news for Hara, for he now knew that Yamaguchi would be lucky if he could complete his recovery, and that no second strike would be likely from his ships either. Then, at a little after 11:00, Nagumo signaled that he was also under attack.
The raid was coming from Essex and Lexington, 24 fighters escorting in 33 dive bombers and 23 Avenger torpedo bombers. The latter would see six damaged by enemy fighters and flak, with one destroyed, yet they pressed on through the squall line and into a clearing. The all got their fish in the water, but the American torpedoes were damn slow at only 33 knots. Many hit the rough sea and detonated as they went into the drink, others were batted off course, and the three that were running true could simply not catch up with their intended targets. The Shado Fleet had fast ships built on cruiser hulls, and those battle carriers could actually outrun the American torpedoes. Their able Captains simply turned their bows on the same line of the American attack, and ran off unscathed.
The dive bombers would do much better. Rain or no rain, down they came, and suddenly ships began erupting with fire. CVB Ryujin would get most of the attention, three bomb hits. Thankfully, they were all 500 pounders, and that carrier had tough skin. It had been built out on the Kii Class battlecruiser hull, a 38,000 ton battle carrier, retaining a well armored deck that absorbed the first hit. The second had been a near miss that spent itself against Ryujin’s 290mm side armor, and the third bomb hit very near the massive 16-inch forward turret, again finding solid deck armor there, and turret armor that was impenetrable. So even though it was hit three times, the Dragon God’s scales were simply too thick, and very little damage was done.
That would not be the case for the super cruiser Kagami and escort carrier Gozo Kiryu. The former took a single 1000 pound bomb right on her stacks, which penetrated to the boilers and sent a massive steam cloud frothing up into the grey sky. Then secondary explosions rocked the ship, damaging hull plates and starting a small leak. The cruiser would survive, but lose about 10% of her flotation to that minor flooding, and see many boilers damaged that would impact her engines and speed.
The last bomb would fall on the much smaller Gozo Kiryu, a ship of only 8000 tons. 1000 pounds of mean steel and explosives would practically wreck that ship, penetrating the small flight deck, smashing right through the hangar deck and into the avgas bunker, which exploded with awful fire. In a matter of minutes, the ship was a searing wreck, afloat, but with terrible casualties, and completely out of the game. Nagumo’s Shado Fleet had been defanged, and he now signaled Hara that he was withdrawing north.
Kong looked at the glowering sky, the rain now lashing the windows of Taiho’s bridge, and thunder adding its angry roll to the whole scene. His second wave was ready on the deck, but the seas were rolling higher, and he knew it would be foolish to send those planes and pilots out into this weather. Though the junior officers urged him to launch, he simply turned to look for his Air Officer.
“Secure from launch operations.”
“But sir…”
“The flight deck will be cleared! Prepare to recover incoming aircraft. All other planes are to be secured, except fighters.”
Hara simply stared out the window, and the silence on the bridge was thicker than the rain. He then slowly walked to the chart room, knowing that he, too, would be fortunate to complete a successful recovery of the planes that would be arriving over his task force in less than one hour. He did not yet know the full measure of the losses sustained by either side, but he could feel the heavy weight of defeat on his broad shoulders, his first setback of the war.
As reports filtered in, the scope of the disaster became more apparent. Eight of the eleven carriers in the Japanese armada had taken damage, though his own ship was still fully operational. Losses to planes and pilots had been severe, and to make matters worse, they could only confirm that two of the American carriers had suffered hits. In effect. Halsey, Sprague and Spruance had simply clobbered the Japanese fleet, and came out of that fight with very little damage. Bunker Hill was still in business, as Ziggy had signaled, and the only real serious damage was to Lady Lex, which needed some time to repair her hull.