World Battlefronts: BATTLE OF THE PACIFIC: Halsey in the Empire

At the southern doorstep of Japan’s homeland, and down through the westernmost reaches of the Pacific, Admiral William F. Halsey’s U.S. Third Fleet bombed and maneuvered with unprecedented power and dash. The Japanese had no difficulty reading the signs.

Said Admiral Sankichi Takahashi: the air attacks of the U.S. fleet on the Ryukyu Islands and the great bastion of Formosa “were carried out as a prelude to operations for the recapture of the Philippines.”

Whipped to desperation, the Japs sprang into action. Pearl Harbor announced that a great sea-air battle was raging off Formosa. If the Jap surface forces should come out, this might develop into the decisive naval battle.

Adding Up. Meanwhile, the great foray of the Third Fleet became the thundering climax of an air campaign that by all signs added up to a preparation for Douglas MacArthur’s return to the Philippines. It had begun weeks ago with a series of far-flung operations, seemingly unrelated.

Lieut. General George C. Kenney’s Far Eastern Air Force had stepped up its bombing of air bases and oil supplies in Celebes and Borneo; Major General Willis H. Hale’s Seventh Air Force had smashed at the Bonin and Volcano Islands; Chennault had raided Formosa; the southern Palau Islands had been seized by U.S. troops.

To top off the preliminaries, Halsey and the Third Fleet had whipped hard carrier strikes at Mindanao and the central Philippines, had twice struck at shipping and shore establishments in Manila Bay itself. Last week the Third Fleet swung north and the pattern became clear.

To Inner Waters. If the U.S. target for the next invasion was the Philippines, there was still one major area in which the Japs first had to be beaten groggy. That was the island chain stretching south from the homeland through the Ryukyus and Formosa to Luzon, and the sheltered waterway lying behind the islands through the East and South China Seas (see map).

Here Halsey and his carrier forces, under Vice Admiral Marc A. Mitscher, struck with a fury and a complexity of maneuver partially explained by the Navy’s announcement that under wizened “Pete” Mitscher were five subordinate admirals, each with his own task group.

While Kenney’s air force in the south pounded the Celebes and Halmahera, oil-rich Balikpapan in Borneo and the supply center of Zamboanga in the southern Philippines, a detached force of Pacific Fleet battleships steamed north to tiny (740 acres) Marcus Island, little more than 1,100 miles southeast of Tokyo. After a full day of bombardment, Marcus’ two air strips were out of commission.

The Big Haul. Hidden under the edge of a typhoon, the fleet bored in. Halsey sent only part of his forces on the deepest mission—to the Ryukyus, 270 miles south of Japan. Hellcats, Avengers and Hell-divers from Mitscher’s carriers thundered across the islands in four heavy strikes—1,500 sorties.

Their chief objectives were Miyako and Okinawa Islands, and the area was thick with bombers’ targets. The planes sank an escort-type destroyer, four small submarines, 14 cargo ships, 25 smaller ships, 43 other vessels. Apparently the Mitscher-men had surprised the enemy: they destroyed 59 planes on the ground, shot 23 more out of the air.

Running Battle. After the first Manila raids (Sept. 9-10), Bull Halsey, with his hair slicked back and his khaki shirt newly starched, had entertained his staff aboard his flagship at a predated Thanksgiving dinner. For an hour or so, life had seemed calm and leisurely. But there was no leisure or slow movement now. Bull Halsey whipped his forces through the enemy’s inner waters with the speed and precision he had first shown long ago as a pint-sized fullback at Annapolis.

The next day one of his task groups sent its planes against Aparri in northern Luzon, a Jap landing point in the days of defeat in December 1941. It was a feint as well as a destructive foray. The following day, his main body struck Formosa, stoutest of the Japanese bases outside the homeland.

Again the Japs were caught flatfooted. Carrier aircraft trapped 97 planes on the ground, destroyed them, shot down 124 more in the air by midafternoon. While the fighters tallied this score, the bombers slashed at airfields, hangars, oil dumps, warehouses, docks and shipping, sank 16 cargo vessels.

Counterattack. By this time the Japs were finally goaded to counterattack. So far, not a U.S. ship had been damaged. But as the sun set behind Formosa’s jagged peaks, the Jap air force found Mitscher’s task groups. The next U.S. communiqué reported the Jap attack beaten off but (perhaps significantly) omitted the familiar reassurance—”no damage to our surface ships.”

That night and the next day Halsey and Mitscher stayed at it. More air groups hammered at the Pescadores on the China side of Formosa. The next day, and the next, the Third Fleet was still fighting off bombers, still raining explosives on Formosa’s fat targets.

At week’s end, in a skillfully integrated attack, the largest force of B-29 Superfortresses yet sent on an attack (well over 100) swept out from their bases around Chengtu in western China. They followed two flights of navy planes over Formosa’s greatest arsenal at Okayama. Two days later, they returned to strike again. In all, only two B-29s were lost.

Meanwhile, the Halsey-Mitscher forces bored south. From the Philippine Sea, Mitscher sent air groups out for yet other strikes at Aparri and airfields around Manila Bay. The week’s total of Jap aircraft destroyed rose to 670.

A classic achievement lay behind Halsey and Mitscher. The Philippines had been largely isolated from aerial reinforcement; Jap supply-line establishments lay in ruins. Among the lost islands to the south, greater history-making lay ahead.