Halsey’s orders had been given, the men and planes and ships all set in motion by his bawling commands, and now he could only stand there, waiting, listening, eyeing that Mission Board and wondering how many of those men would make it safely back to the ship. This was the hardest part of the job for Halsey, and the skin ailment that had been brought on by all the stress of these last months was making the wait even worse. They had opened a can of ‘Peerless Coffee,’ a Bay Area special that had been roasted there since 1924. Halsey picked up three cans before they left the west coast, but now, as the weather loosened up a bit and Enterprise came into the clear, he looked to see the cruiser San Francisco burning in his wake.
That ship was supposed to be in Puget Sound for an overhaul, he thought. Well, she’s damn well going to need it now. Look at those fires—my fires. This all happened because I got on that Squawk Box and made it so. Was Murray right? Was I a fool to send Fletcher off with Wasp and Shiloh like that, and then slip off myself to thump my chest with the Japanese?
Only time would tell….
Chapter 27
Hornet was already skewered by a torpedo hit, though all accounts had her still ‘Haze Grey and Underway.’ San Francisco was having a harder time suppressing those fires but TF-16 was already out for some payback, though they were having difficulty finding the Japanese 5th Carrier division to the north. The thunderheads that had fringed the action against Halsey’s group had been moving north during the long hour it took to spot and launch the strike, another hour would pass as the squadrons formed up and moved north, their blue wings dark against the glowering sky.
Lieutenant Grey Davis of VF-6 had the first flight in the vanguard, with Firebaugh, Runyon, and Packard off his wingtips. There were three other flights in the escort, making 16 F4F Wildcats in all. Behind them came Lieutenant Ray Davis with VB-6 and there were 29 SBDs in that formation, and another 26 from VB-8 off the Hornet. No torpedo bombers were included in the strike. Halsey had seen their performance in drills, and was not happy with either the pilots or the torpedoes they were carrying, which had a tendency to misfire, run high and wide all too often, or to even fail to detonate for those lucky enough to score a hit. He would lead with his dive bombers, and hold the torpedo planes for a possible second wave.
While the Americans searched north through the gloom, Hara’s recovery operation had gone remarkably well. The real front of the storm had not yet reached his carriers, though winds were rising from the south. The relatively calm waters there enabled smooth flight deck operations. The Japanese had the advantage of knowing the exact heading to take back to their carriers, and they got there before most of Halsey’s planes could determine where the enemy was. Then came the break-neck effort to get fresh planes ready for action, a job the crews on the hanger deck had been doing even while the recovery was still underway.
Hayashi leapt from his plane and immediately headed below to check on progress, delighted to find there was already another squadron of D3As ready to be lifted up to the flight deck. He wanted one of those planes, unwilling to wait for his own plane to be turned around and prepped again for action. It was his enthusiasm for the action that saw both he and Ema back on the flight deck half an hour later, each having pulled rank to commandeer planes to get airborne again as soon as possible. They would get at least twelve D3As off Zuikaku, each man taking two Shotai of three planes. Unwilling to wait for the rest of the groups to be spotted and rise again for action, Ema got permission to look for the strike groups coming south from Carrier Division 2.
Word had been flashed to Nagumo that the American carriers had been found, and already attacked. He had 33 D3As up, and the 12 planes off Zuikaku would make that 45. They would be joined by only 4 B5Ns in that second strike, all that was ready on the Shoho. The remainder would still be some time arming and fueling. Four Shotai of A6M2 Zeroes would escort this strike in, and hoping to surprise the Americans again by coming from a different direction, Ema suggested they make a wide loop to the east around some thunderheads before turning south.
It was that spur of the moment decision by a single man that gave Halsey’s carriers just those few minutes more that they needed to get the last of his strike airborne and on its way. They would eventually find Carrier Division 5, and King Kong Hara was in for a very harrowing day.
The SDB was a sturdy, reliable plane, with decent range, and capable of lifting over 2000 pounds of ordnance. The planes were now carrying 1000 pound bombs, twice as heavy as the 500 pound bombs delivered by the Japanese dive bombers. Of the 55 SBDs up that day, only three would be taken down by the relatively light Zero escort, which had enough to do in trying to fend off the 16 American Wildcats. 11 more of the Dauntless dive bombers would take damage from both fighters and enemy flak, but of the 52 that were still flying, most all would get those 1000 pounders in the air, and today they were going to be very good.
The American flyers knew their back was now against the wall. They had lost Lexington at Pearl, Saratoga and Yorktown went down in the Coral Sea, and they knew the enemy had already put a torpedo into the Hornet. They had to turn the tide soon or the war would simply slip from their grasp. They simply had to hurt the Japanese now, and they did.
The Lucky Crane saw her luck run out that day, with three successive flight deck hits and a whole lot of whooping and shouting when the US pilots saw the tall columns of dark smoke broil up from the carrier. Halsey’s wait was finally over when the radio was suddenly alive with the heated calls of his pilots. One voice cut through it all, and finally put a smile on his heavy face.“Hot damn! Look at that Jap carrier burn!”
The SBDs were going to get 10 hits that day, an astounding 20% of what they carried to the fight. Two more would hit Zuikaku, wrecking elevators, igniting ready ammo, blasting away three planes on the fiery deck, and putting that carrier completely out of business, with a ten degree list to starboard. Zuiho took two hits, the second setting off her Aviation fuel storage bunker with a resulting explosion that literally wrecked the ship. The last three got Shoho, putting heavy damage on that carrier and shutting down the small flight deck. The ship would not survive, her list too heavy to stop by counter flooding, her fires simply uncontrollable.
In one fell swoop, Hara’s 5th Carrier division was literally destroyed as a viable fighting force. King Kong himself was wounded in action from bomb splinters that flayed the bridge on Zuikaku. It had been his unlucky fate to see his carrier division savaged again, and this time the Lucky Crane would be fortunate if it could even safely reach the nearest friendly port at Noumea. With shock and shame consuming him as he watched Shoho roll over and die, he sent a signal to Nagumo informing him of the damage.“Shoho lost, remainder of division carriers have suffered heavy damage and must withdraw.”