Yet first he needed the troops, the divisions, the aircraft, and the situation looked grim. The Japanese were already moving, out from their newly captured bastion at Rabaul like a plague of fitful bats. They were pushing into the Northern Solomons….
Chapter 15
In April of 1942 the first phase of the Japanese Operation FS began with the invasion of the large and important island of Bougainville. With good airfields at Buka and Bonis in the north, and at Buin in the south, it promised to serve as a strong initial support base for all further operations in the Solomons. In the center of the island, the wide Empress Augusta Bay offered a good anchorage, and Shortland Island just south of Buin also offered the prospect of a decent seaplane base. As soon as Rabaul was secure, the Japanese committed three strong SNLF battalions to secure these vital bases on Bougainville, and began moving in air squadrons.
This move set off alarm bells in PACOM and MacArthur’s ANZAC command, and the General wanted to know what the Navy planned to do about it. “Nimitz has been dragging his feet with one excuse after another,” he said to his Chief of Staff, the newly promoted Major General Richard K. Sutherland. “One day it’s fuel problems because of those bunkers the Japs took out at Pearl. The next day it’s lack of adequate shipping. I arrive here to find virtually nothing in the cupboard, and now everyone’s pinning their hopes on this Doolittle raid they’re planning.”
“Well we’ve got to do something,” said Sutherland. “We certainly can’t do much with the air assets we presently have.”
“Marshall was crowing that we already had over 500 planes.”
“Right,” said Sutherland. “Oh, it looks real good on paper, until you read the fine print. 125 were lost trying to defend Java, 75 were sent to the Aussies, 74 are under repair, and at least 100 are still not even out of the crates and fully assembled! We’ll be lucky to have 150 planes available for active service, and then with only a few dozen pilots that really have any experience. The rest are fresh off the boat, green as they come.”
“The same can be said for the troops they’re sending me. Oh, they’re having a fine time in the bars of Brisbane, and giving the Australians fits, but the 41st is hardly ready to take on the Japanese, and the 32nd is no better. Nimitz has the 1st Marine Division, but he wants to go for the lower Solomons. We need New Caledonia first. That’s where the Japanese are now, and that’s where we need to be. In fact, I intend to insist on this, even if I have to go directly to the President.”
“I’ve heard Nimitz out on this one,” said Sutherland. “He’s of a mind that if we throw everything we have at the New Hebrides, the Japs will beat us to the table in the Solomons and eat hardy.”
“Perhaps,” said MacArthur, but I’m inclined to think they’ll fight for what they already have. They know full well the importance of their occupation of that island. If we hit them there, they’ll reinforce, and then we’ll do the same. That’s where we start our war. The Solomons will come in time, but not now—not before we get the enemy out of the New Hebrides and secure good airfields to support a drive to the northwest. In the meantime, I’m talking to the Australians about an operation for Milne Bay. The Japanese have already taken New Britain, and they have airfields on New Guinea at Lae and Salamaua. Eventually they’ll see the importance of Port Moresby, which is our only outpost outside Australia in that theater. Milne Bay would cover Moresby’s right flank, and also give us a good anchorage for a line of advance aimed at New Britain. Take that and we cut the Japanese position in the Solomons off at the root.”
“Well if we’re going to ever do that, then we’ll need Nimitz and the Navy, particularly Halsey with the carriers. That’s where our air power is now, not on this clipboard.” He set down the report on air squadrons mustering in Australia. “The pursuit Squadrons are the worst of the lot, he said. Half the planes they sent us are P-39s and the older P-400s.”
“You mean P-40s?”
“No, I mean P-400s. It’s a modified P-39, only worse. Can’t climb worth a damn, and they pulled the 37mm cannon out of the nose and substituted a 20mm gun. The pilots hate ‘em. As for the P-40s, we’ve got all of 92 of those on the roster.”
“Make the best possible use of them,” said MacArthur, “and get them ready, because I intend to move them to Noumea at the first opportunity.”
“Noumea? Who’s going to take that for you General? Surely not the 32nd.”
“No, I think I’ll ask the President to commit the 1st Marine Division there. They’ll take it, then we’ll move the 32nd up and clean shop while they get ready for further operations. Let’s get a letter drafted ASAP.”
After departing Davao, Takami had planned to sail north with the Yamato group to Yokohama, but events were soon to command the interest of Admiral Yamamoto in the south. He learned of the steady deployment of forces from America, having seen the material in Takami’s library, and then verifying it with Japanese intelligence. The Americans were already building up in Australia, and the navy itself was floating plans to do something about it.
Yes, Australia is the one place they can fall back on now, he thought. The Navy floated several proposals for a possible invasion there, but the Army will simply not support it. Now, with this chaos on Java, everything is in disarray. The entire 2nd Division was shattered by that eruption in the Sunda Straits, right in the middle of our landing operation. Java is a complete mess, and my conference with General Imamura indicated that he intended to hold only the eastern segment of the island near Surabaya. For that he has selected the 38th Division. The remnant of the 2nd has been shipped back to Japan to rebuild, and the 48th was graciously offered to support our planned Operation FS.
The warning I received from those strange officers concerning Midway was most chilling. I had long considered that a fitting target to try and force the American carriers into battle. But the disaster I saw in those photographs, the loss of four fleet carriers, was sobering, to say the least. Is that what would happen if I attempt such an operation now? Is the history fated to repeat itself? How else would it get into those books and photographs I saw aboard that amazing ship? And more… the records and logs of what was happening on the flight and hangar decks of our carriers in the Midway operation was most compelling, right down to the signatures of officers that I could recognize on sight. When I showed these to Ugaki, even he was unable to dismiss it as a forgery.
So now these men, claiming to be our distant progeny, come to us and council me to end this war before it gets truly out of hand. I have asked for an audience with the Emperor, but Tojo responded that he would not be available for some weeks. The impudent little air raid staged by the Americans put bombs very near the Imperial Palace, and I have heard about little else since. That was in the books as well—the Doolittle Raid. That Executive Officer aboard Takami tried to warn me about it, and wanted me to alert our air defenses. The whole idea sounded so preposterous that I decided to wait and see if it could possibly happen as he predicted. It did… How could these men have known that unless they are indeed who they claim to be?