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Turkey trots to water XX Where is repeat where is Task Force 34? XX The world wonders
We take time out from our photo tour of Battleship Massachusetts for a few glimpses of the Admiralty Follies.
The Navy of World War II, as the modern Navy, did difficult tasks well. I have considerable admiration for the US Navy old and new, both the men and the machinery. I hope this shows. Still, there has been folly, and there still is folly. Thus, this page gets off on some of the controversies of World War II, then asks if the mindset which allowed these errors is much changed. The fast battleships were involved in many of these escapades. USS Massachusetts was part of Task Force 34.
Let's look again at BB 59's armament.
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Part of the above was availability and difficulties in fetching ammunition. Early on, there were not enough 40-mm guns to go around. Later in the war, the quad 40 gun tubs were lined with ammunition brackets. Sufficient ready ammunition was in place to fight an attack. Thus, they started placing quad 40 mounts further away from the 40-mm magazines. Late in the war, the 20-mm mounts were considered ineffective against kamikaze attacks, and were removed.
Yet the lack of AA armament early reflects the contempt of battleship sailors towards carrier aviation. Yes, an aircraft can sink an obsolete battleship under ideal conditions. When a battleship is underway and shooting back, does anyone really think fragile little aircraft could seriously hurt a modern battleship? The original AA armament of 3 quad 1.1s and 12 .50 cal machine guns reflects the prewar version of battleship v carrier politics. The battleship people clearly had the political and moral superiority, at least until December 7, 1941.
The Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal was fought primarily between USS Washington and the Japanese battleship Kiroshima. The Third Naval Battle of Guadalcanal was fought between USS Washington and USS South Dakota. A brief description of the Second Battle is required to describe the Third.
South Dakota had tied down her circuit breakers on entering battle. This is not an unheard of practice, but it was against procedures and regulations at the time. Why it was against regulations was demonstrated in battle. As soon as South Dakota fired her 16 inch guns, her entire electrical system went off line. This reduced South Dakota's status from belligerent to target.
The Washington had her own problem, the South Dakota. In the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, US ships had fired on each other. Admiral Lee was determined this would not happen again. Washington's early SG surface search radar was limited. The waveguide between the radar and the radar's operator had to be kept very short. Thus, the antenna was not mounted high on a mast, as was the practice later in the war when improved SGs became available. It was mounted on the front of the tower, where it could not observe ships behind Washington. South Dakota was behind Washington. With South Dakota's radios out due to the battle short, and Washington's radar unable to locate South Dakota, Washington - the last operational ship in the task force - held her fire.
The Japanese resolved this problem by pinning South Dakota with searchlights, then riddling her topsides. South Dakota, between her self inflicted electrical problems and numerous hits to her citadel, left the battle. Washington then won a brief gun dual with Kiroshima.
The Third Battle started when Admiral Lee denied excessive battle claims by the South Dakota. Admiral Lee believed combat reports should be accurate. South Dakota's captain believed the more damage reported, the more glory and promotions. From the South Dakota's perspective, Lee's reports - accurate, according to post war examinations of Japanese records - reserved all the glory and promotions to the Washington. From Washington's perspective, South Dakota rendered herself ineffective, failed to follow the flagship, left the battle early, and had the audacity to claim unwarranted kills. This was complicated by South Dakota's damage and casualties, while Washington escaped the battle unscathed. This proved to be a perfect recipe for mutual contempt.
The conflict was eventually resolved with an edict that Washington's and South Dakota's crews would not be allowed shore leave on the same day.
Admiral Lee should have looked harder at South Dakota's claims at the Battle of Santa Cruz. South Dakota had been escorting Enterprise. Hornet had no battleship escort. South Dakota made no attempt to filter out multiple claims of air kills. If five guns were shooting an attacking aircraft, and the aircraft went down, that was obviously five kills? As Enterprise survived the battle, and Hornet did not, this was obviously due to South Dakota's supreme ability as an antiaircraft platform.
Or so the Pentagon decided. For the rest of the war, the fast battleships were used almost entirely as antiaircraft platforms. The debate over whether this was truly wise was may go on forever. Still, the battleship advocates should curse the memory of the South Dakota's glory hogs for prematurely ending the days of battleships as offensive weapons.
Both Washington and South Dakota - the belligerents in the Second and Third Naval Battles of Guadalcanal - were scrapped. Indiana was also scrapped. While the rest of the fast battleships seem destined to be preserved as museums, these three are gone. Let me here express my regrets for Washington and Indiana.
It wasn't until Leyte Gulf and the Battle of Bull's Run that the fast battleships again had a chance to engage their opposite numbers. The Japanese came in three forces. The old battleships met South group. North force was a decoy. It was centered on carriers with no effective air wings. At this point in the war, the Japanese didn't have sufficient fuel to train fliers for effective carrier operation, and they knew it. Center force was built around five battleships, including Yamoto and Musashi, the two largest battleships ever built.
The carriers of Task Force 38 spent an afternoon attacking center force. Musashi sperated from the rest of Center Force, and was selected as the first target. So many carrier deck load strikes were aloft, wings of aircraft had to circle and wait their chance to attack. The carriers sunk Musashi. Center force turned, at least until nightfall. Halsey decided to go for the carriers.
The main point of this lesson is that TF 38 with a dozen carriers managed to sink one battleship in one afternoon. This was a formidable ship, but it had zero air cover. If TF 38's carriers had stayed at home, had defended the beachheads, they would not have been able to stop Center force. They might have taken out one more ship, but carriers against battleships was only a one sided operation if the battleships are tied to a dock.
Halsey had a choice. He could protect the beachheads with battleships, or chase the carriers. He sent a message forming a new task force, Task Force 34, which was basically the fast battleships plus escorts. Such messages come in two parts. First, one sends a message specifying what should be done. Later, one sends an 'execute' message. The two message sequence gives captains time to think through and plan the maneuver. The 'execute' message forming Task Force 34 was never sent. Neither Admiral Nimitz, nor anyone else at Pearl Harbor, noticed the lack of an execute.
Thus, the fast battleships chased carriers while the Center Force broke through to the Leyte beachhead. The beaches were supported by four "Taffy" task groups. The Taffies were built around escort carriers, converted merchant ships, with light escorts. Center Force against the Taffies is generally described as David v. Goliath. The mightiest battleship ever built fought against converted merchant ships and unarmored antisubmarine platforms. The problem with this perspective is the sheer number of converted merchant carriers. The Taffies could put 500 aircraft up. Again, the Japanese Center Force had no air cover. While the Americans perceived themselves to be playing the role of David, so did the Japanese. They thought they were fighting TF 38. They knew it was only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed by superior force. Meanwhile, the Taffies had broken their encryption procedures. The Taffies were screaming for help, plain text, no encryption.
Admiral Nimitz, at Pearl Harbor, asked a question. "Where is Task Force 34?" This message arrived in the radio room as "Where repeat where is Task Force 34?" The messenger didn't appreciate the subtle politics of admiralty. It was then the radio operator's job to attach padding before and after the message proper. As the words used in the text of the message might be guessed by opposing code breakers, it was proper procedure to place nonsense words before and after the real message. This made code breaking significantly more difficult. The real message was separated from the nonsense by a double letter separator. Thus, "Turkey trots to water XX Where is repeat where is Task Force 34 XX The world wonders."
It has been oft noted that the line "The world wonders" is from "The Charge of the Light Brigade." It has also been noted that Bull's Run took place on the anniversary of the Light Brigade. What is less appreciated is the games played by the radio operators. One of the major enemies in war is boredom. A chief weapon against boredom is humor, especially sarcastic humor, and most especially sarcastic humor at the expense of admirals.
While I have never been in the navy, I've heard tales from a former neighbor, a fully qualified member of the Iron Bottom Sound Swimming Team. He reports seeing many copies of messages with stuffing. The sarcastic humor evident in the infamous TF 34 message is not unusual. It is in fact typical. It makes one suspect that the night before the battle, some coding room sailor looked up what battles had anniversaries on the morrow. He went to work with a copy of the Light Brigade poem, the better to wage a war of wit against the rest of the radio operators in the Pacific Fleet. Instead, he managed to score a critical hit on Bull Halsey.
Halsey had made a difficult choice, with the lives of many on the line. With the clear traffic transmissions coming in from the Taffies, he was no doubt second-guessing his choice. The radio room decrypting sailors removed the preliminary stuffing, but not the trailer. What Halsey read was "Where repeat where is Task Force 34. XX The world wonders." The result was tears, a temper tantrum, and a delay in turning around just sufficient that the fast battleships could not catch Center Force. Halsey's decision to turn back towards Leyte has been questioned. The Japanese commander's choice to turn away from Leyte, to run from the Taffies, has also been questioned. What is not often enough appreciated is that the results of each admiral's decision depended highly on the other.
While the fast battleships were not involved, there was another questionable strategic and political decision of note, one that could have lost the Battle of the North Atlantic. The US Army Air Corps wanted badly to become the US Air Force. Their goals in World War II were to gain autonomy, prove the concept of strategic bombing, and gain as much control as possible over air assets. To defeat their enemies in the established branches of the US armed forces, they fought against Germany, Italy and Japan.
During the critical peak of the North Atlantic campaign, German strategy involved a picket line of subs spreading in line to detect a convoy. The submarine that detected a convoy would trail it, transmitting position data to the rest of the wolf pack. At night, the pack would attack on the surface, diving only to escape pursuit.
The navy wished to defeat this with air assets. If the trailing sub could be forced to dive by an aircraft attack, the wolf pack couldn't form. The Navy desperately needed long range bombers, B24 liberators in particular. These, however, were percieved by the Air Corps as strategic bombers. Any attempt to dilute the strategic bombing campaign was resisted to the utmost. The Air Corps insisted that strategic bombing of sub pens was the proper tactic, regardless that the sub pens were armored more heavily even than a battleship, and could essentially ignore air attack.
At the crisis point, Churchill stopped convoys to Russia so additional escorts could be provided the US-UK convoys. With the Battle of the Atlantic seemingly lost, did the Air Corps provide antisubmarine escorts? Nope. They turned over Liberators to the navy rather than reassign their own people from strategic bombing. To this day, land based antisubmarine is controlled by the Navy. The Liberators closed the air gap in the Mid-Atlantic, and broke up wolf pack tactics. Other factors were in play. The allies regained the advantage in the code wars. New destroyers were coming available. The first escort carriers went into operation at about the same time. Still, within a few months of the Navy gaining control of the Liberators, a decision was made to deliberately steer a convoy directly into a wolf pack. With air cover, the convoys had the advantage. The Navy wanted to kill submarines more than they wanted to protect merchant ships.
Moving forward to the mordern era, the Pentagon wished to issue an experimental drug to US soldiers in Desert Shield / Desert Storm. It was supposed to help protect against nerve gas. It has since been learned this drug would have been harmful if those who had taken it had been exposed to the gas. The Food and Drug Administration allowed use of the drug, but only with the informed consent of those taking it. The Pentagon ignored the FDA requirements. Soldiers were required to take the drug. The required documentation on side effects was never provided. The ability to refuse the drug based on an informed decision was denied.
The Nuremberg conventions forbid medical experimentation upon soldiers without the informed consent of the soldiers. Thus, those responsible for implementing the policy were in violation not only of US law, but should face international war crimes commissions as well.
While it is not clear the anti nerve gas medication is the sole cause of Gulf War Syndrome, the symptoms match the known side effects of the drug. These side effects were known before the drug was administered. Thus, the Pentagon in denying treatment and denying guilt was involved in a full-scale cover up of known war crimes. This cover up is still in progress, though it is rapidly deteriorating.
During the late Cold War era, a soviet pilot flew a Foxbat fighter to Japan. The US was given an opportunity to examine the fighter. We discovered that the Soviets were far ahead of us in vacuum tube technology. Yes, the Foxbat avionics were based on tubes. This resulted in much laughter by many among those evaluating the plane.
It was not amusing to those aware of Electro Magnetic Pulse. If a large atomic bomb is exploded high in the atmosphere, the energy released does not propagate as heat or shock. It propagates as electromagnetic radiation, as radio waves. One of the final above ground tests over the Pacific was intended to test this effect. Half way across the Pacific from the test site, Hawaii's telephone communications was knocked out. Modern semi conductor avionics necessary to fly and fight US aircraft would also be knocked out.
If during the height of Desert Storm, a big H-Bomb had been detonated high in the atmosphere above the war zone, Iraq could have won the air war. Every US plane in the air would have crashed. Most on the ground would have become unflyable. No, Sadaam didn't have the capability. However, the Pentagon is betting everything on an assumption that no one will use EMP tactics against the United States.
Yes, our strategic assets are nuke hardened. We could retaliate. Would we? Should this be our only option?
The Iowas have served long and well. They are wearing out. They deserve an honorable retirement. They have become somewhat a risk to those operating them. Still, the Navy persistently refuses to build ships with similar capabilities.
When Turret Two exploded, the Navy went into Cover Your Ass mode. They blamed the incident on sabotage, with absolutely no evidence. Perhaps the rammer man loading the gun was inexperienced, and made a mistake. Perhaps the ram itself was worn out over the years, had become difficult to operate. Perhaps an attempt to dry out improperly stored propellant made it overly sensitive to impact. We shall never know.
What is obvious is that the Navy would rather use improperly stored World War II era propellant than spend the money for safe new propellant. The Navy's lack of concern for crew members echoes the Army's Gulf War Syndrome callousness towards the soldier's health. The Navy's unwillingness to provide modern shore bombardment capability echoes the Air Corps unwillingness to close the North Atlantic air gap, and the modern decision to ignore the EMP threat.
The early days of the United States Navy produced some memorable lines. "We have not yet begun to fight!" "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" Someday, American fighting men ashore are going to need fire support from the sea, and it will not be available. Again, the question might be asked, "Where is Task Force 34?"
If the world wonders, Task Force 34 is scattered to Fall River, Pearl Harbor, Mobile Bay, Newport, Wilmington, Philadelphia, and Norfolk.
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