Nimitz smiled. “Admiral,” he said with a grin. “You’ve got your marching orders. We’ll be in contact when you get down south and see if we can coordinate with Fletcher. Until then, you do exactly what you just said—and hit them hard.”
Halsey nodded. “What are you going to tell the boys over at HYPO?”
“That I sent you out to look for a fresh water condenser.” Nimitz smiled.
Halsey would not fail to make good on his boast. He had Enterprise and Hornet riled up and running southwest that very day, the crews still exuberant from their daring Doolittle Raid. Now they were out to hit the enemy again, this time in the Marshalls. The Japanese had put out tentative feelers there from their primary base at Kwajalein, and sent small garrisons to Wotje, Maloelap, and Eniwetok, and they were also looking over Tarawa atoll. Halsey intended to visit a few of these island outposts and ‘ring the doorbell’ as he had put it to Nimitz, while giving his pilots and planes a tune-up in the process.
The first island to feel his bite was Wotje, which was bombed and strafed, shaking up the small detachment there and setting back their plans for an airstrip considerably. But Yamamoto had a sixth sense about the Americans. He wasn’t sure that they would believe the Midway ruse, and knew that they had been making a determined effort to move troops and supplies to Australia and other nearby bases. So he ordered a pair of watchdogs to move east from Truk to sniff out the main enemy line of communications. The small hybrid scout carriers Gozo and Mezu were tagged for the job, and they were now sailing right into the thick of the storm Halsey was bringing, his eyes dark and hard beneath those heavy bristling brows, his ceaseless energy driving hard through a light grey rain in the early morning hours of April 8th, 1942.
Chapter 15
While Nimitz and Halsey were steeling up for action, the Japanese offensive was already in motion. The 144th Regiment, now designated the South Seas Detachment, had boarded transports at a very busy and crowded harbor at Rabaul. Soon they were out into St George’s Channel and around Cape Gazelle, heading for the Solomon Sea, but they were about to meet unexpected company. The Japanese had sent a group of four destroyers ahead of the invasion group to sweep that channel, but they missed something, an undetected US Submarine, S-47, lying in wait to make a bold attack.
The boat was on station, operating out of Brisbane with SubDiv 53, and a little earlier than the old history. In that story, she had trouble with a faulty firing circuit on her number four tube, passed some tense moments being hunted by destroyers and minesweepers, got off a plaintive shot at a lone transport, which rubbed salt in the wound after it missed. The steamer simply turned about and came right at the sub, forcing the boat to dive deep. By the time they got back up to have a look around, the transport had run off, leaving a frustrated Captain and crew, with no hits, and no laurels on their first wartime patrol.
Things would be different this time around, and strangely so. S-47 had been missed in the ASW sweep, and there, right before her hungry nose, came a line of doddering transports. Four torpedoes were fired in a nice spread, and as fate would have it, the number four fish would strike home. The firing circuit had stubbornly refused to fail in this history, and that tiny little component in an old sub laid down in 1921, was going to open the hostilities and draw first blood.
It was the troop transport Aso Maru that was in the line of fate that day, and the troops she was carrying were a rather elite bunch, the Kure 4th SNLF Battalion, assigned to make the first shock attack over the beaches at Port Moresby. They were going to be very late. That number four torpedo blasted into the side of the transport, and within minutes she was shipping water and foundering in the grey dawn. The escorting destroyers were quick on the scene, but old S-47 had taken her bite, and dove deep to lie low. By the time the boat surfaced again, the rest of the convoy had moved on, but Aso Maru wasn’t going to make it to Port Moresby, diverting to Gasmata instead, with a chance the hapless ship might not even make that port safely.
Captain James White Davis could see the oil slick, a tempting path to follow to see if he might finish off his prey. But he could also see the smoke from destroyer stacks on that same horizon, and being a careful man, he elected to continue his hunt elsewhere. The finicky circuit was going to matter in spite of that, for the 4th Kure SNLF would not make it to the invasion site. Word was quickly sent to Rabaul that they were trying to reach Gasmata, but there would be no transport there for the unit to continue the operation. So the Japanese were quickly casting off lines on two more transports, with orders to get to Rabaul with all speed.
Once the convoy rounded the cape near Milne bay and entered the Coral Sea, the Japanese plan called for the Nells based at Rabaul to shed their normal torpedo armament and take on bombs to get out after the airstrip at Port Moresby. The light carriers Zuiho and Shoho would also move in to assume their close air support role, the aim being to prevent any use of that field for Allied aircraft to molest the invasion force. Major General Horii of the South Seas Detachment was already missing his naval shock troops for the planned landing, and now he was quickly briefing his officers to prepare for the attack.
The Japanese had little to fear from Allied air power at Port Moresby. There were just a few Wirraway fighters there, waiting to take a regular pounding with a morning raid by those Nells, and then an afternoon follow-up off the two light carriers. The name of the fighter came from an Aboriginal word that meant ‘Challenge’, but there was little the Wirraways could do when the A6-M2 Zeros showed up. It was basically good for an all purpose trainer, but had no business in a fight with the nimble and deadly Japanese fighters. It was even outclassed by the older A5-M1 Claudes flying off Zuiho, and that was a fairly fitting condemnation.
When dawn came on the 8th of April, the Japanese would see their invasion convoy floating paravanes off the coral reefs of Port Moresby, something that had never happened in Fedorov’s history books. Fletcher had been steaming west around Noumea, wary of the Japanese air squadrons posted there, and he was not going to reach the scene of the battle in time to stumble into what was once chronicled as the first Carrier to carrier duel of the war—the Battle of the Coral Sea. In this history, carriers had already fought each other near the Hawaiian Islands, and a second time in the New Hebrides. Coral Sea would not be fought as it once was, but better late than never, Fletcher was still on his way—and so was Bull Halsey.
TF-16 had come barreling south into the Marianas, and true to his word, Halsey had stomped on the airfield at Wotje. He was about to mount a strike against Kwajalein when Scouting 6 reported what looked like a pair of small escort carriers south near Maloelap. They were, in fact, the two hybrid scout carriers, old converted cruisers with 8-inch guns forward and a small flight deck aft for one squadron of 12 planes.
The Japanese had chosen to put 12 Zeroes on the Gozo, and Mezu was following with 12 Kate Torpedo planes. Half of the fighters were up, and three of the B5Ns were out on patrol, but they were looking in the wrong direction. Ordered to scout the primary line of communications further east, that was what Captain Sujima on the Mezu was doing. Unfortunately, Halsey was well north of his position, approaching Rongelap in the Marshalls. Both Enterprise and Hornet had planes spotted and ready for action against the fledgling Japanese base at Maloelap when that sighting report came in: Two carriers, one destroyer, course 090 East, 40 miles north of Maloelap.