Nagumo was a carrier man, and thought it best to leave the big guns to the battleships. If he ever found himself needing to use those two 15-inch gun turrets against an enemy ship, he simply wasn’t doing his job as a carrier commander. They would not fire quick enough, or have the necessary accuracy to engage enemy destroyers, and any battleship he might encounter should be dealt with by his planes before it ever came anywhere near this ship.
The navy simply can’t make up its mind, he thought. But behind that was the realization that this conversion must have been ordered just after Pearl Harbor. The Hiryu had been hit on the way home by that rocket weapon, just one single rocket, yet it was immolated in a matter of minutes, striking the ship with so many of its aircraft armed and fueled.
Mizuchi, he thought. That monster took down Hiryu, and then it beat both Mutsu and Chikuma to piles of floating scrap metal. Not even the new missile destroyer we have was able to stop it. How could the Siberians have such advanced weaponry? And yet we have them as well. I spoke with Kurita in Japan, and he told me he saw our rockets firing at those of the enemy, and we were finally able to destroy them. If we also have these weapons, why doesn’t this Takami simply replenish and get after this beast again? And why aren’t they installed on any of these new ships? I have 25mm AA guns in abundance, but no rockets. Those five fast destroyers could use them like aerial torpedoes, yet not one rocket graces the deck of any of these ships. Something is very strange about all of this.
Nagumo knew of Takami, and he had seen the rocket weapon that hit Hiryu with his own eyes. Yet he knew nothing of the real origin of either ship. That was a secret known only to Yamamoto and Ugaki.
Chapter 20
On the 18th of January, the Americans filled the vacuum left by the withdrawal of Yamamoto’s carriers when the 1st USMC Parachute Battalion arrived off shore on three fast transports. The French garrison was caught by surprise, and was therefore unable to effectively oppose the landing at Mele Bay, which was bounded on two sides by peninsulas.
While it made a decent anchorage, the Americans knew that they could not simply sail into Mele Bay for these landings, which would expose the transports to shore battery fire from any guns that might be set up on the two peninsulas that framed the bay.
To the northwest, the thicker peninsula was about 4.5 miles wide at the base, and extended about 5.5 miles to the southwest. It rose from shallow coal studded beaches to a flat grassy plain with scattered stands of trees, which were thicker near the shore. At its farthest end was Devil’s Point, where there were two small bays no more than a mile wide. The southeast frame of the bay was a much smaller extension of land, no more than a mile and a half wide and a little over three miles long, ending at Pango Point.
The battalion did not want to land at Devil’s Point, for it would mean they would have to fight their way along that peninsula before they could reach the main body of the island. Instead they landed on the irregular coastline of the southern Peninsula, between Pango Point and the main settlement of Port Vila. They were able to seize that small peninsula by storm, and the town began right at its base, where they were fighting house to house when the French Garrison was finally turned out to meet them.
This force would have been outnumbered two to one by the two battalions of the French Tonkin Division, so it was never intended to try and seize the island on its own. The main blow would be delivered by the 8th USMC Regiment the following day. With the French defense mustering near Port Vila, it would land at the base of the larger peninsula at the small village of Mangalilu. There was a narrow road that led from that hamlet across the base of the peninsula to Port Vila. There, the main town hugged the southeast portion of the bay, and right behind it was the airstrip.
The only Japanese forces on the island were a small aviation support detachment, which had been sent to improve that airfield. They had been working to break up coral to strengthen the bed of Vila Field, and had been able to support the arrival of a small squadron of nine Zeroes. Once the landings occurred, they were so close to that field that it could be taken under mortar fire. So the planes all took off, got tangled up with the American CAP from the scout carriers Shiloh and Antietam that had escorted in the Para Battalion, and then turned away north to Luganville on Espiritu Santo.
There was one other good anchorage in the north called Havana Harbor. The 8th USMC Regiment landing at Mangalilu was going to send one battalion north to seize the harbor, then cut off that thicker peninsula, isolating any gun positions there before attacking Port Vila from the northwest. Yet the French put up a dogged defense, still steaming from the loss of the Bearn at the hands of these same to American scout carriers. In fact, Admiral Jean Decoux was there at Efate, and saw the arrival of the fast American landing force as if the Americans were adding insult to injury, and making an attempt to capture him personally. There were no French ships in the bay at that time, and he had been planning to fly to Noumea the following day on a small plane, but those travel plans were now impossible. Flustered and on edge, the Admiral got into a car and fled inland to a plantation site near Pang Pang on the other side of the island.
That afternoon, a squadron of 17 twin engine Nells were sent from Noumea to attempt to strike the American landing ships. But Both Antietam and Shiloh had twelve fighters each, and they were enough to wreak havoc when the raid was detected on radar. Seven Nells were shot down, with two others damaged, and only four got through to actually make attack runs. They had been using bombs instead of torpedoes, and made an ineffective pass over the anchorage, hitting nothing.
Yet farther north, Admiral Hara’s force was approaching the area, intent on trying to frustrate the American landings. With Halsey over 500 miles to the southeast, and heading for Pago Pago, it would be Spruance on the watch, with two groups. The escort carriers Vicksburg and Gettysburg were farthest north, near the small Vanikoro islands, and Spruance had the Wasp and Enterprise about a hundred miles to the southeast. They were actually heading for Luganville, the other enemy base in the New Hebrides which was beginning to build up its airfield and post small groups of planes. Spruance had permission to hit that base, but the Japanese found those escort carriers before he could close up on the situation.
Hara had sent a probing attack at the Americans, just 60 planes, with most of them fighters. There were only 10 Vals and 15 Kates in the strike element, but those fighters were enough to sweep the skies over the escort carriers, which had only six or seven planes up each on CAP. The result wasn’t pretty, for the pilots had come off the Tosa, all experienced aviators out for blood. The Kates were carrying bombs for this strike, which was at fairly long range, and the Japanese were skilled enough to get three hits on the Gettysburg, wrecking the small flight deck and starting a bad fire. Vicksburg took one hit from a Val, the bomb falling very near the island.
That attack sent a shock wave through the US command structure, and Spruance signaled Captain Sherman on the Wasp to turn northwest, put on speed, and prepare to engage enemy carriers. He did not yet know exactly where the enemy was, but had a good guess that they were probably north or west of the Santa Cruz Islands, most likely intending to sneak in and pound Ndeni again when they spotted his picket carriers and landed that sucker punch.