Operation Hailstone
Part of the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign
Japanese ships burning off Dublon Island
Date 17–18 February 1944 (1944-02-17 – 1944-02-18) Location Truk Lagoon, Caroline Islands 7°20′21″N 151°53′05″E / 7.3393°N 151.8846°E / 7.3393; 151.8846 Result American victory
Belligerents
United States	Japan
Commanders and leaders
Marc Mitscher	Masami Kobayashi
Strength
5 fleet carriers 4 light carriers 6 battleships 10 cruisers 28 destroyers 10 submarines 560 aircraft	5 cruisers 8 destroyers 5 other warships 50 merchant ships 350 planes
Casualties and losses
40 killed[nb 1] 1 fleet carrier damaged 1 battleship slightly damaged 25 aircraft destroyed	4,500+ killed 2 light cruisers sunk 4 destroyers sunk 3 auxiliary cruisers sunk 6 auxiliary ships sunk 32 merchant ships sunk 9 vessels damaged 250+ aircraft destroyed

Operation Hailstone was a massive United States Navy air and surface attack on Truk Lagoon on 17–18 February 1944, conducted as part of the American offensive drive against the Imperial Japanese Navy in the Pacific Ocean theatre.

Background

The Caroline Islands

The Japanese occupied Micronesia, including the Caroline Islands, in 1914 and established Truk as a base as early as 1939. The lagoon was first built up to house the Imperial Japanese Navy's 4th Fleet, its "South Seas Force". After the outbreak of war with the United States, the 4th Fleet was put under the command of the Combined Fleet, which continued to use Truk as a forward operating base into 1944. In addition to anchorages for warships and port facilities for shipping between the home islands and the Southern Resources Area, five airfields and a seaplane base were constructed at Truk, making it the only major Japanese airfield within flying range of the Marshall Islands.^[2]

Despite the impressions of U.S. Navy leaders and the American public concerning Truk's projected fortifications, the base was never significantly reinforced or protected against land attack. However, the development of Truk began in earnest in late 1943, with defensive measures being taken against a potential U.S. invasion. Airfields were extended and shore batteries were erected.^[3]

Because aircraft stationed at Truk could potentially interfere with the upcoming invasion of Eniwetok, and because Truk had recently served as a ferry point for the resupply of aircraft to Rabaul, Admiral Raymond Spruance ordered Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher's Fast Carrier Task Force, designated TF 58, to carry out air raids against Truk. Three of TF 58's four carrier task groups were committed to the operation. Their total strength consisted of five fleet carriers (Enterprise, Yorktown, Essex, Intrepid, and Bunker Hill) and four light carriers (Belleau Wood, Cabot, Monterey, and Cowpens), carrying more than 500 warplanes. Supporting these aircraft carriers was a task force of seven battleships and numerous heavy cruisers, light cruisers, destroyers, and submarines.^[4]

The Japanese, meanwhile, understood the weakness of their position at Truk. The IJN had begun withdrawing fleet units from its anchorages as early as October 1943. The effective abandonment of Truk as a forward operating base accelerated during the first week of February 1944, following Japanese sightings of U.S. Marine Corps PB4Y-1 Liberator reconnaissance planes sent to reconnoiter the area.^[5]

Attack

The three carrier task groups committed to Hailstone moved into position and began launching their first fighter sweep 90 minutes before daybreak on 17 February 1944. No Japanese air patrol was active at the time, as the IJN's 22nd and 26th Air Flotillas were enjoying shore leave after weeks on high alert following the Liberator sightings.^[6] Similarly problematic for the Japanese, radar on Truk was not capable of detecting low-flying planes—a weakness probably known and exploited by Allied intelligence organizations. Because of these factors, U.S. carrier aircraft achieved total surprise.^[7]

Japanese pilots scrambled into their cockpits just minutes before TF 58 planes arrived over Eten, Param, Moen, and Dublon Islands. Though more than 300 Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service (IJNAS) and Imperial Japanese Army Air Service (IJAAS) planes were present at Truk on the first day of attacks, only about half of them were operational compared with over 500 operational aircraft among the carriers of TF 58. U.S. Navy fighter pilots in their Grumman F6F Hellcats, with the advantages of speed, altitude, armor, and surprise, achieved a one-sided victory against IJNAS pilots flying the outdated Mitsubishi A6M Zero. As many as 30 of the 80 Zeros sent up in response to the fighter sweep were shot down, compared with four Hellcats reported lost. Only token aerial resistance was encountered for the rest of the morning; almost no Japanese aircraft were present by the afternoon.^[8][4]

Due to the lack of air cover or warning, many merchant ships were caught at anchor with only the islands' anti-aircraft guns for defense against the U.S. carrier planes. Some vessels outside the lagoon already steaming towards Japan were attacked by U.S. submarines and sunk before they could make their escape. Still others, attempting to flee via the atoll's North Pass, were bottled up by aerial attack and by Admiral Spruance's surface force, Task Group 50.9, which circumnavigated Truk, bombarding shore positions and engaging enemy ships.^[9]

Torpedo bomber and dive bomber squadrons from the carrier air groups (CAGs) were responsible for the bulk of the damage inflicted on Japanese ground facilities. Early on the first day of Hailstone, Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bomber squadrons from Enterprise's Carrier Air Group 10 (CAG-10) and Intrepid's CAG-6 dropped fragmentation and incendiary bombs on runways at Eten Island and the seaplane base on Moen Island. Dozens of aircraft were damaged or destroyed, further blunting any possible response by the Japanese to the strikes. Subsequent joint attacks by dive bombers^{[nb 2]} and Avenger torpedo bombers cratered runways and destroyed hangar facilities.^[11][12]

Morning strikes were also launched against shipping targets in the lagoon. Lieutenant Commander James D. Ramage, commanding officer of Dive Bombing Squadron 10 (VB-10), is credited with sinking the previously damaged merchant tanker Hoyo Maru.^[13] Lieutenant James E. Bridges and his crew in one of Intrepid's Torpedo Squadron 6 (VT-6) Avengers scored a direct hit on the ammunition ship Aikoku Maru. The bomb blast set off a tremendous explosion which immediately sank the ship and apparently engulfed the plane as well, killing all three men inside.^[14]

Japanese ammunition ship Aikoku Maru exploding after a torpedo hit, 17 February 1944.

By the second and third shipping strikes of the day, CAG action reports listed the apparent enemy mission as "escape".^[15] Those ships able to make for open sea steamed for the North Pass exit from the lagoon while weathering repeated aerial attacks. One particular group of warships – cruiser Katori, auxiliary cruiser Akagi Maru, destroyers Maikaze and Nowaki, and minesweeper Shonan Maru – was given special attention by carrier bombers. Multiple air groups attacked these ships, inflicting serious damage. Yorktown's dive- and torpedo-bombing squadrons claimed two hits on Katori and hits on another cruiser and multiple destroyers; Essex bombers claimed five hits on a Katori-class cruiser, stating that the ship was stopped dead in the water after the attack.^[16][17] Akagi Maru was sunk by air attacks.^[18]

Katori sinking by the stern following fatal damage from Iowa's main guns.

At this point, reports reached Admiral Spruance concerning the group of warships fleeing through North Pass. Spruance was so adamant on engaging in ship-to-ship combat that his carrier commander, Admiral Mitscher, ordered his CAGs to stop attacking Katori and her companions. Spruance put himself in tactical command of Task Group 50.9, made up of four destroyers, heavy cruisers Minneapolis and New Orleans, and the new battleships Iowa and New Jersey, which he personally led in a surface engagement against the previously damaged Japanese ships.^[19] The battered Japanese ships did not stand much of a chance against Task Group 50.9, though members of his staff saw Spruance's decision to engage in surface action when aircraft likely could have achieved similar results as needlessly reckless. Indeed, the Japanese destroyer Maikaze managed to fire torpedoes at the battleship New Jersey during the engagement. Fortunately for Spruance, the torpedoes missed, and the "battle" ended with predictably one-sided results. The U.S. Navy surface combatants incurred virtually no damage, and it was the only time in their careers that Iowa and New Jersey had fired their main armament at enemy ships.

Meanwhile, New Jersey's 5-inch (127 mm) guns combined fire with U.S. cruisers to sink Maikaze and Shonan Maru, while Iowa targeted and sank Katori with numerous hits from her main battery. Nowaki was the only Japanese ship from this group to escape, only suffering very minor damage at the hand of a straddle from a High Capacity 16-inch (406 mm) round from Iowa.^[18][20]

Retaliation for the day's strikes arrived late at night in the form of small groups of Japanese bombers probing the task groups' defenses. From roughly 21:00 on 17 February to just minutes past midnight on 18 February, at least five groups of between one and three enemy planes attempted to sneak past screening ships to strike at the fleet carriers. One such plane, a Nakajima B5N2 "Kate" bomber, managed to evade night fighter planes protecting the U.S. task force and dropped its torpedo on Task Group 58.2. The torpedo struck Intrepid on the starboard quarter of the ship, damaging steering control and killing 11 sailors. Intrepid was forced to retire to the U.S. for repairs and did not return to combat until August 1944.^[21][22]

Aftermath

Truk, like so many other Japanese bases, was left to itself without hope of resupply or reinforcement. Army forces which had arrived at the atoll before the U.S. attacks put increasing strain on available foodstuffs and medical supplies. Dwindling ammunition even limited the ability of shore batteries to fend off intermittent attacks by Allied forces, including experimental raids by Boeing B-29 Superfortresses and attacks by Allied carrier aircraft.^[23]

Losses at Truk were severe. Some 17,000 tons of stored fuel were destroyed by the strikes.^[24] Shipping losses totaled almost 200,000 tons, including precious resources in fleet oilers.^[25] This represented almost one-tenth of total Japanese shipping losses between 1 November 1943 and 30 June 1944.^[26] Moreover, the isolation of this whole area of operations by submarine and air attack began the effective severance of Japanese shipping lanes between empire waters and critical fuel supplies to the south. The ultimate effect of such a disconnect was later seen during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, when IJN forces had to sortie separately from Japan and Lingga Roads because of fuel constraints.^[27] The neutralization of Truk and the seizure of Eniwetok paved the way for the upcoming invasion of Saipan, which for the first time put U.S. land-based heavy bombers within range of the Japanese home islands.^[28]

Japan started to rebuild Truk as a bomber air base and increased its anti-aircraft defenses. Spruance sent in carrier planes again on 29 April and destroyed the defenses and bombers parked at airports. British forces attacked again in June 1945. No significant naval buildup occurred at Truk after Operation Hailstone.

Truk is renowned today as a tourist destination for divers interested in seeing the many shipwrecks left in the lagoon, many of which were sunk in Operation Hailstone.^[29]

List of ships in Truk at the time of attack

See also

• Operation Inmate
• US Naval Base Carolines
• Naval Base Eniwetok
• Naval Base Gilbert Islands
• Naval Base Marshall Islands

Footnotes

Notes

References

• Astor, Gerald (2007). Wings of Gold: The U.S. Naval Air Campaign in World War II. Random House Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-307-41777-0.
• Hornfischer, James (2016). The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944–1945. Random House Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-345-54870-2.
• Jeffery, William (2007). "War Graves, Munition Dumps and Pleasure Grounds" (PDF). Research Online @JCU. James Cook University. Retrieved 3 November 2017.
• Jeffery, William (2003). "War in Paradise: World War II in Chuuk". National Park Service. Chuuk Historical Preservation Office. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
• Morison, Samuel Eliot (1961). Aleutians, Gilberts and Marshalls, June 1942 – April 1944, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. ASIN B0007FBB8I.
• Ofstie, Ralph (1946). "The Campaigns of the Pacific War, Chapter 9: Central Pacific Operations". HyperWar. Naval Analysis Division, Government Printing Office. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
• Prados, John (1995). Combined Fleet Decoded: The Secret History of American Intelligence and the Japanese Navy in World War II. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-55750-431-9.
• Prados, John (2016). Storm Over Leyte: The Philippine Invasion and the Destruction of the Japanese Navy. Penguin Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-451-47361-5.
• Rems, Alan (February 2014). "Two Birds with One Hailstone". Naval History Magazine. Vol. 28. U.S. Naval Institute. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
• Tillman, Barrett (1997). Helldiver Units of World War 2. Bloomsbury USA. ISBN 978-1-85532-689-7.
• Toll, Ian (2015). The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942–1944: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942–1944. W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-24820-3.
• Trumbull, Robert (30 April 1972). "The Graveyard Lure of Truk Lagoon". New York Times. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
• Williams, Jessica (21 June 2000). "Torpedo Damage Report". Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum. Retrieved 29 October 2017.
• Wilmott, H.P. (2005). The Battle of Leyte Gulf: The Last Fleet Action. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-00351-2.

Further reading

• Bailey, Dan E. (1992). World War II: Wrecks of the Kwajalein and Truk Lagoons. North Valley Diver Publications. ISBN 0-911615-05-9.
• Brown, David (1990). Warship Losses of World War Two. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-914-X.
• Brown, Herbert C. (2000). Hell at Tassafaronga. Ancient Mariners Pr. ISBN 0-9700721-4-7.-Firsthand account of Operation Hailstone by a crewmember of USS New Orleans.
• Cressman, Robert J. (2000). The Official Chronology of the U.S. Navy in World War II. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-149-1.
• Ito, Masanori (1986). The End of the Imperial Japanese Navy (reissue ed.). Jove. ISBN 0-515-08682-7.
• Lacroix, Eric; Linton Wells (1997). Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-311-3.
• Lindemann, Klaus (2005). Hailstorm Over Truk Lagoon: Operations Against Truk by Carrier Task Force 58, 17 and 18 February 1944, and the Shipwrecks of World War II. Oregon, USA: Resource Publications. ISBN 1-59752-347-X.
• Peattie, Mark (1992). Nan'Yo: The Rise and Fall of the Japanese in Micronesia, 1885–1945 (Pacific Islands Monograph Series). University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-1480-0.
• Stafford, Edward P. (2002). The Big E: The Story of the USS Enterprise (reissue ed.). Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-998-0.
• Stewart, William Herman (1986). Ghost Fleet of the Truk Lagoon: An Account of "Operation Hailstone", February, 1944. Pictorial Histories. ISBN 0-933126-66-2.
• Wright III, Burton. Eastern Mandates. The U.S. Army Campaigns in World War II. United States Army Center of Military History. Archived from the original on 22 September 2013. Retrieved 20 August 2010.
• United States Strategic Bombing Survey (1947). The Reduction of Truk. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. OCLC 44738732.
• Young, Edward M. (2015). "A Hard Rain: Operation Hailstone: The US Navy Raid on Truk Lagoon, February 17–18, 1944". The Aviation Historian (13): 76–89. ISSN 2051-1930.
• Zolandez, Thomas (2006). "Question 12/03: Japanese Facilities at Truk Lagoon". Warship International. XLIII (2): 152–153. ISSN 0043-0374.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Operation Hailstone.

• Crowl, Philip A.; Edmund G. Love (1955). Seizure of the Gilberts and Marshalls. United States Army in World War II – The War in the Pacific. Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army. CMH Pub 5-6. Retrieved 23 January 2007.
• Jeffery, William (November 2006). "A CRM Approach in Investigating the Submerged World War II Sites in Chuuk Lagoon" (PDF). Micronesian Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Volume 5. James Cook University, Townsville, Australia. Retrieved 23 January 2007.
• Muir, Dan. "Order of Battle, Raid On Truk 17–18 February 1944". NavWeaps. Retrieved 29 September 2017.
• Ramage, James. "James Ramage, Executive Officer of USS Enterprise's Bombing Squadron 10 (VB-10), Recalls Strikes On Truk". Retrieved 29 September 2017.
• "TRUK LAGOON AREA STUDY". National Park Service. Archived from the original on 6 November 2012.