Battle of Marshall/Gilbert Islands
June 13-14, 1943
Prelude
Recently captured Tarawa kept getting reinforcements. Nearby islands of Maiana, Abemama and Tabiteuea were receiving amphibious ships, loaded with base forces, engineers and other support units. Everything north of Tarawa is controlled by Japanese forces.
In the early days of June, enemy carriers were spotted in the Marshall Islands, moving east. One of the USN amphibious groups recently departed Tarawa and was probably spotted by enemy patrol planes. It was relatively safe under the local F4U umbrella, but I concluded that Kido Butai intended on striking it.
One USN carrier task force was just retiring from the area, heading to Pearl after a month of escort duty and occasional air combat. Another CTF was going to meet it and then relieve it at Johnston Island. Newly arrived CV Essex formed a third task force and sailed west to join them.
All that was in range of enemy carriers were 24 PBYs from Tarawa, while SBDs and F4Us weren’t able to handle such distance. Kido Butai was unlikely to reach my amphibious ships before they escaped the Japanese patrol aircraft bubble, but it kept going east anyway.
IJN had no idea about my 6 carriers regrouping at Johnston. KB was eager to move east towards a target it wasn’t going to reach. I had 3 groups of fully equipped and ready carrier task forces. The plan was simple - move in to intercept, and then retire the next day.
Day 1
Carrier Task Force 386, with Spruance in command of CV Enterprise and CV Yorktown, was leading the pack. CTF 52 had Hornet and Wasp under Sherman. CTF 5 had Essex and Victorious, under Royal Navy’s RADM Boyd. Three groups were all travelling together, and their respective air groups were separated from each other by altitudes. All were set to range 8, 40% CAP/escort. All aircraft from TF5 and TF 52 were set to attack, from 10K and 11K feet respectively. Spruance’s TBFs were tasked with air search at 50%, range 8, the rest were to attack, altitude 12K feet. Floatplanes were more or less evenly divided to search for targets day and night, although the main source of intel were to be Avengers from 386 and Catalinas from Tarawa.
Several USN cruisers and destroyers were detached from the retiring amphib convoy and sent to locate IJN carriers with floatplanes. It was a dangerous task, and unlikely to succeed, but I wanted to improve my chances of finding enemy ships as much as possible.
Until now, USN carriers were not spotted, and I was tracking the KB for several days in a row with PBYs. There were no other land based air assets I could use now, but it was still a pretty decent setup for an ambush. Well. If it wasn’t for RADM Boyd, who managed to summon foul weather, again, as he did back in the Coral Sea in 1942. Oh well..
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IJN had no problems finding our carriers. The first strike in the morning against our carriers came with 130+ aircraft, and it was very effective. 66 Hellcats and 18 Martlets came to meet them, destroying 10 Zeroes and driving away 20 more. 11 Kates, 6 Vals and 8 Judys never reached the fleet, but the rest got through.
Weather in hex: Heavy cloud
CV Enterprise, Bomb hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
BB Washington, Bomb hits 2, Torpedo hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
CV Yorktown, Bomb hits 1
BB South Dakota, Torpedo hits 1
DD Abbot
DD Radford, Torpedo hits 1, on fire
Heavy smoke from fires obscuring CV Enterprise
Massive explosion on DD Radford
Luckily, Enterprise managed to launch nearly all its aircraft before it was hit. Not that we’ve hit much of anything… 66 Hellcats, 98 SBDs and 42 Avengers found the enemy, but the weather was so nasty that the results were underwhelming, for such a large and coordinated strike. 77 Zeroes were defending.
Weather in hex: Heavy rain
CV Shokaku
BB Kongo, Bomb hits 1
CV Zuikaku
CV Akagi, Bomb hits 1, on fire
CV Kaga
CL Agano
DD Numakaze
CL Oyodo, Bomb hits 2, heavy fires, heavy damage
Heavy smoke from fires obscuring CV Akagi
Heavy smoke from fires obscuring CL Oyodo
Another Allied morning strike came with 44 Hellcats, 18 Helldivers, 36 SBDs and 18 TBFs. Facing a bit less opposition (45 Zeroes), we did not do much better:
BB Kongo, Bomb hits 1
CL Oyodo, heavy fires, heavy damage
CV Zuikaku, Torpedo hits 1
CV Akagi, heavy fires
DD Matsukaze
DD Yukaze
CL Agano, Bomb hits 1, on fire
CA Chikuma
CV Kaga
Heavy smoke from fires obscuring CV Akagi
Two more small air raids reached Hornet and Wasp in the morning, but all were repelled. The weather turned for the worst in the afternoon. There was only one enemy strike, and severe storms saved Hornet from Judys and Vals.
Our own afternoon strike was modest, with 19 Hellcats, 13 Helldivers, 29 SBDs and 31 Avengers, facing 39 Zeroes and heavy rain.
CV Akagi, Torpedo hits 2, heavy fires
CV Shokaku, Bomb hits 1, on fire
BB Kongo, Torpedo hits 1
CV Kaga
DD Numakaze
CA Tone
DD Oite
Fuel storage explosion on CV Shokaku
Heavy smoke from fires obscuring CV Akagi
Heavy smoke from fires obscuring CV Shokaku
Day 2
Lucky for us, there were still 5 Allied operational carriers. CV Enterprise and BB Washington were detached and sent to the nearest naval base, while the rest of the forces regrouped for another day of fighting. Task Force 5 under RADM Boyd gave up its carriers and went north west to meet the detachment of cruisers and destroyers, to form up a Surface Action Group 5. They were sent forward to make a surface attack against any Japanese ships they found.
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And then there was a rampage.
Day Time Surface Combat, near Maloelap at 141,118, Range 21,000 Yards
Japanese aircraft
no flights
Japanese aircraft losses
A6M3a Zero: 3 destroyed
D4Y1 Judy: 9 destroyed
F1M2 Pete: 2 destroyed
B5N2 Kate: 3 destroyed
A6M2 Zero: 8 destroyed
D3A1 Val: 7 destroyed
Japanese Ships
CV Shokaku, Shell hits 39, and is sunk
CV Akagi, Shell hits 20, and is sunk
BB Kongo, Shell hits 16, and is sunk
DD Matsukaze, Shell hits 12, heavy fires, heavy damage
DD Nokaze, Shell hits 3, and is sunk
DD Numakaze, Shell hits 7, heavy fires
Allied Ships
BB Indiana, Shell hits 1
BB Massachusetts, Shell hits 1
CA Northampton
CA Minneapolis
CLAA Oakland
CL Denver
CL Santa Fe
DD Ammen
DD Bache
DD Conway
DD Cony
DD DeHaven
DD Stanly
DD Strong
DD Taylor
DD Laffey
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Then there were the morning air attacks. The weather was better, and there was little opposition. 37 Hellcats, 12 Martlets, 10 Helldivers, 48 SBDs attacked the retreating Japanese forces, scoring 5 1000lb SAP bomb hits on Kaga, as well as 10 more hits on enemy cruisers and destroyers.
Weather in hex: Heavy cloud
CV Kaga, Bomb hits 5, heavy fires, heavy damage
DD Tachikaze, Bomb hits 2, heavy fires, heavy damage
DD Yunagi
DD Yukaze
CA Tone, Bomb hits 4, heavy fires, heavy damage
DD Oite, Bomb hits 2, heavy fires, heavy damage
CA Chikuma, Bomb hits 2, on fire
Ammo storage explosion on CV Kaga
Heavy smoke from fires obscuring a Junyo class CV
Heavy smoke from fires obscuring CA Tone
Heavy smoke from fires obscuring DD Tachikaze
Another wave of 38 allied bombers made additional hits:
CA Chikuma, Bomb hits 3, heavy fires
CV Kaga, Bomb hits 1, heavy fires, heavy damage
DD Yukaze, Bomb hits 1, and is sunk
DD Oite, heavy fires, heavy damage
DD Yunagi
Heavy smoke from fires obscuring CA Chikuma
Heavy smoke from fires obscuring a Kaga class CV
Heavy smoke from fires obscuring DD Oite
Boyd’s Surface Action Group, having dealt with two enemy carriers and BB Kongo, took 1 bomb and 1 torpedo hits, but with almost no damaging effects. There were no attacks worthy of note after that.
The next day Spruance ordered all ships to stop following the enemy and return to base. Our ships were damaged, airgroups understrength. Pursuing the enemy deep into their LBA umbrella in such conditions was risky. Whatever enemy carriers survived, we’ll get them next time.
Results
Enterprise and Washington made it out alive. They'll need to spend ~100 days in repairs, but other than that, I have not lost a single ship in this battle! The enemy lost 2 fleet carriers and 1 fast battleship, along with a couple destroyers. The fate of other two enemy carriers remains unknown. I suspect I might have sunk one of them, and the other got away heavily damaged. There was some damage done to enemy cruisers, but I do not think I sunk any of them, or at least not more than one or two.
