The Japanese had only 14 Zeroes on the island, along with 12 Vals, 12 more Nells, six Kates and a number of float planes. This time, Halsey cancelled the planned airfield strike by Enterprise, realizing that they would want to take it with as little damage as possible.
What Halsey did not know was that an undetected force was approaching from the northeast of the long island—the Shadow Fleet. That was territory that had been scouted earlier by the light escort carriers, but Hara had dispatched them days ago, and the blind spot that created was now covered with shadow. To make matters worse, Admiral Hara had raced home towards Rabaul, until he received a message indicating something was afoot at Noumea. Only his destroyers were low on fuel, and Yamamoto had wisely moved an oiler along Hara’s planned return route. So now King Kong turned about, taking his 3rd Carrier Division south with plans to approach Noumea from the northwest side of the island.
The US carriers had search planes out, but most were looking northeast in the region between New Caledonia and Efate. That was where Halsey had been operating, and where he expected the Japanese would advance if they had any intentions of challenging him after he made his first raid on Noumea. But Ltc Lindsay off the Enterprise could smell more in the wind than the light rain blowing up from the southeast. He was still flying an older Douglas Devastator, but was the first to spot trouble northeast of the island. The signal he sent jangled the nerves of the command staff aboard Essex, and Halsey scratched his head.
“Mother of God,” he said. “This can’t be right—six carriers, two battleships, and two large cruisers accompanied by five destroyers? That would be damn near everything they have out here.”
“If it is right,” said Captain Douglas, “then there’s the reason Wasp didn’t make it home. They may have combined all their groups into one big formation again.”
“The goddamned Kido Butai,” said Halsey. “Well, here we sit with four big fleet carrier decks. Our planes are thinning out a bit, but we still have enough for one good flight. That sighting is too far off to hit at the moment. We should move east. In a few hours, we can come about and get turned into the wind.”
Lindsay had it chapter and verse, there were six carriers on that group sighting, though not a single Japanese fleet carrier was among them. Halsey was also correct in saying the Japanese were coming at him with everything they had—they were. For off to the northwest, emerging from the Coral Sea, the elusive Admiral Hara was creeping up with the real muscle when it came to Japanese carrier power. He had Akagi, Taiho, Tosa, and two light carriers Junyo and Hiyo. Hara had a lot to consider here, for behind him, in the Coral Sea, a transport group was carrying the 79th Regiment of the 20th Division to reinforce the French on Efate.
Thinking he was long gone to Rabaul, Halsey had no idea he was there. This unexpected turnabout was going to figure heavily in what happened, and it was lack of good intelligence that would decide the day. He had no idea the Shadow Fleet even existed—six carriers, all hybrids, all the ships that Lindsay had spotted and called out in that latest sighting report. So he naturally assumed that Hara had turned, getting the matter half right, but convinced his enemy was east of New Caledonia.
The Admiral was squinting at his nautical charts and deciding what to do. His calipers marched across the chart, their steel legs pacing out the distance in hundreds of miles. He smiled. That sighting report would put the Kido Butai too far off to intervene in the upcoming landings. Damn if MacArthur was right with his assessment that they could steal a march on the Japanese and get into Noumea before they could react.
If I move east now, he thought, I can get into position to block their advance and cover the transports. The prevailing winds were from the south east, and his ships were already turning on the new heading he wanted. It was taking him to a position where he could easily lock horns with the Shadow Fleet, but while he bravely guarded the front door, Hara was already over the back fence and into the yard behind him.
The clever Japanese Admiral had a good idea where Halsey was, for the new addition to the Shadow Fleet, the Saiun long range recon planes, had been able to find him as he moved east. The Japanese pilots were elated with this plane, for it could fly higher and faster than anything the American had, and even outrun their fast fighters if threatened. They had spotted four fleet carriers, and so Hara decided to throw out a light attack, probing to make certain of the enemy location. He could see what he thought the Americans were doing, moving to confront Nagumo and the Shadō Butai, so he would tap them on the shoulder before they could throw a punch.
As he had done so successfully before, he threw out his longer-range torpedo planes, 32 B5N Kates and 10 of the newer B6N Tenzan “Heavenly Mountain” torpedo bombers, the plane the Allies would call “Jill.” Unfortunately, only 9 Zeroes had drop tanks fueled and ready to accompany them, and they would run into a hailstorm of enemy fighters over the American fleet.
Halsey had split his fighters 30/70, with most assigned to CAP duty to protect his ships, and the others running with his strike wave. He had over 80 planes available for CAP, and they would tear into Hara’s planned sucker punch, getting two Zeroes, 19 Kates and seven of the ten Jills. Only 16 planes survived to get low enough to make their attack runs, and not one scored a hit.
“Hot damn, we broke up that attack and then some,” said Halsey. “But those planes came out of the northwest.” His bristling brows were lost beneath the broad white helmet he wore whenever he was on the weather deck.
“Maybe they were off target and had to correct their approach,” suggested Duncan. “After all, we’ve been moving east for the last few hours, they probably thought we were west of our present position.”
That made perfect sense, and Halsey still had every reason to think these were all planes off the main body Lindsay had sighted, which was really but a shadow of the Kido Butai that morning. Then the radio came alive with the chatter of pilots in the heat of combat. Halsey’s strike had found the Shadow Fleet, and his boys were giving them hell.
Nagumo had already sent his own strike southwest to look for the Americans, but he still had 38 Zeros up on defense when Halsey’s pilots found him. Thinking he was up against steep odds again, Halsey had thrown everything he had at the enemy, 75 dive bombers and another 32 torpedo bombers escorted by 23 fighters. Then the report he had hoped he would never hear again came in the breathy shouts over that squawk box.
“Rockets! Rockets! What they hell are they throwing at us?”
Halsey looked at Duncan, who had his eyes riveted on the Squawk Box speaker as if he was trying to see through the grill to the battle crackling on the airwaves. “More Rockets.” He gave Halsey a sullen look.
“The rumors were dead on,” said Halsey. Nimitz had told him that Allied intel had coast watchers at Davao months ago who reported what they believed was a demonstration of a new anti-aircraft rocket being tested by the Japanese. It had also been used against B-17s shortly thereafter, and scuttlebutt had it that the Japanese had used it again up north. Thus far the only other use had been against the planes off Vicksburg and Gettysburg in that first encounter some weeks ago. Nothing had been seen of the new weapon since January 11th—until now.