Whirlwind - Barrett Tillman [98]
Halsey and McCain raised their sights, planning strikes against northern Honshu and part of Hokkaido on July 13. But the weather turned sour, forcing a forty-eight-hour delay. While Japanese fighters remained grounded, carrier planes scoured the coastlines, sinking local shipping and a few minor naval vessels.
Silent Victory: Hokkaido’s Ferries
A far better use of carrier squadrons was a series of attacks against strategic targets on northern Honshu and nearby Hokkaido. American intelligence understood that coal powered most of Japan’s industry, especially on Honshu, which imported 83 percent of its requirement. Analysis further indicated that a significant reduction in Honshu coal would result in immobilizing the island’s rail lines.
On July 14, McCain’s air groups launched against northern airfields to establish air superiority before the planned strikes. But fog forced the pilots to divert from their briefed targets for better weather along the coast. Most of the 850 sorties struck several Hokkaido ports, many crowded with merchantmen sheltering from air-dropped mines. The naval aviators sank a destroyer escort, eleven naval auxiliary vessels, and twelve merchant or military cargo-transport ships.
One of Hancock’s youngsters recorded a spectacular success as Hellcats descended on shipping off the port city of Nemuro. Ensign C. M. Craig ripple-fired his load of rockets into a vessel estimated at 4,500 tons, “setting off an explosion which broke the ship apart.” She was Toyu Maru, actually rated at 1,256 tons, but still the effect was impressive.
Far more importantly, the Navy destroyed seven of the dozen train ferries in the Aomori-Hakodate area. Twenty years previously Japan had produced four 3,400-ton ferries capable of carrying twenty-five railroad cars bearing a total 375 tons of freight. The vessels were powered by steam turbines—rare for the period—yielding 17 knots speed. Other ferries were launched in the late 1920s, carrying forty-three cars at 14 knots. All were crucial to Japanese industry.
Dodging through the weather, flying low to keep visual reference, the pilots found their vital, unglamorous targets. Essex’s air group contributed heavily to the operation: her fighters and bombers sank four ferries and hit another hard enough to force it ashore.
The next day TF 38 squadrons returned to sink a merchantman, four auxiliaries, and another invaluable ferry.
The result was astonishing. Literally overnight the amount of Hokkaido coal delivered to Honshu factories dropped more than 80 percent. Since Hokkaido typically produced one-fourth of Japan’s indigenous coal, elimination of the ferries represented a crippling loss that was not replaced. Scores of much smaller vessels still carried loose cargos but those were sunk by the dozens in low-level bombing and strafing attacks.
For the admirals still obsessed with “the fighting navy,” the Hokkaido strikes represented extreme ambivalence. While proving carrier aviation’s contribution to the overall strategic effort, the operation also demonstrated that lowly ferries represented far greater strategic targets than Japan’s remaining first-line warships.
The Saga of Oliver Rasmussen
The two-day strike against Hokkaido cost forty-four aircraft to all causes and twenty-six fliers. One of the first day’s eight Helldiver losses was Shangri-La’s Lieutenant (jg) Howard Eagleston, who descended into the undercast and smashed into a mountain. He was killed on impact but his gunner, twenty-three-year-old radioman Oliver B. Rasmussen, survived, beginning an incredible ten-week odyssey.
With only the clothes he wore and an empty knapsack, Rasmussen had merely a general idea of his location. But he knew what the Japanese did to prisoners. Part Chippewa Indian (“second generation out of the teepee”), he preferred to take his chances in the Hokkaido wilderness.
As a sailor, Rasmussen instinctively sought the sea. He spent seventeen days reaching the coast, dodging anyone he encountered, living off the land. On July 31, his first genuine nourishment