A Prelude to Service: Islands & Aircraft Carriers - May 1942-Aug 1943

Elwood Edward Bradish (1921-2018)

father

This is the third of three posts that will set the stage for my father’s 20-month tour of duty that began in September 1943 at Naval Air Station Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. My goal with this series is to create an impression of the war by focusing on some of the notable events leading up to Dad’s enlistment in the Navy:

• the attack on Pearl Harbor,
• the invasion and occupation of the Philippine Islands,
• the loss of aircraft carriers USS Lexington and USS Yorktown (CV-5),
• the Battle of Midway, and
• the invasion of the Aleutian Islands.

The first post, A Prelude to Service: Hawaii 7-8 Dec 1941, can be found here . The second, A Prelude to Service: The Philippine Islands ‒ 8 Dec 1941-6 May 1942, is here.

 *               *               *

4-8 May 1942 

Battle of the Coral Sea

 

– THE USS LEXINGTON –

 

Toward the end of the Japanese takeover of the Philippines, U.S. naval and air forces joined those of Australia off its northeastern coast to face off against the Japanese in the Battle of the Coral Sea. This historically significant battle was the first time aircraft carriers had engaged each other in battle. It was also the first time the Allies were able to inflict damage severe enough to keep enemy carriers from participating in another conflict. In this case, that damage prevented a Japanese advance at the Battle of Midway three weeks later.

 

These two events helped the Allies gain a long-term advantage that ultimately turned the tide of the war in their favor. But it came at a high price. Along with the loss of almost 700 sailors, was the loss of the aircraft carrier USS Lexington when it had to be abandoned after suffering irreparable damage in a Japanese air attack during the battle. (Wikipedia)

 

Crewmen are seen sliding down lines on USS Lexington’s starboard quarter as they abandon ship on the afternoon of 8 May 1942. Several cruisers, destroyers, a whaleboat, and a motor launch were standing by to assist in removing the carrier’s crew. (National Archives)

– THE USS YORKTOWN (CV-5) – 

 

The fleet carrier USS Yorktown (CV-5) was also badly damaged in the Battle of the Coral Sea but was able to slowly make its way back to Pearl Harbor for repairs. Due to hull damage, it took eighteen days to complete the 3,500-mile voyage. A trailing 10-mile-long oil slick bore witness to the severity of the damage. (Defense Media Network)

Right: A view of the damage on the third and fourth decks of Yorktown, amidships, caused by a 250-kilogram bomb hit received during the Battle of the Coral Sea, 8 May 1942. 

 

The large hole in the deck was made by the bomb's explosion. Many men were killed or badly injured in a space that was the crew’s assembly area for the ship's engineering repair party. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

 

The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Yorktown (CV-5) entering Pearl Harbor on 27 May 1942, after being badly damaged in the Battle of the Coral Sea. Her crew paraded in whites on the flight deck. (Wikimedia Commons)

 

  

On the morning of May 28, Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet, joined the Superintendent of the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard and a team of specialists that were flown in for the initial inspection of the damage. The news was not good. The team estimated it would take ninety days to repair Yorktown. Admiral Nimitz turned to the men and said, "We must have this ship back in three days." (Defense Media Network)

 

The men were stunned but set to doing the job with a crew of 1,400 repairmen working around the clock for two days. Even though the Admiral's command sounded unreasonable, he had good reason for his insistence on the short turnaround time. Naval cryptographers had broken the Imperial Japanese Navy's code and discovered a planned attack on Midway Atoll on June 4. Admiral Nimitz wanted to ensure there would be three aircraft carriers at Midway for a surprise attack on the Japanese who would have four carriers. It was imperative that the USS Yorktown (CV-5) was patched up, repaired, and ready for battle. (NAVSEA)

29 May 1942: USS Yorktown (CV-5) in Dry Dock #1 at the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard on 29 May 1942, receiving urgent repairs for damage received in the Battle of the Coral Sea. (National Archives)

Although not in perfect condition, USS Yorktown (CV-5) departed Pearl Harbor on May 30 for a rendezvous with carriers USS Hornet and USS Enterprise as they made their way toward Midway some 1,300 miles away.

 *               *               *

 

4-7 June 1942

The Battle of Midway

 

Midway Atoll consists of just two small islands. But in 1942 it was home to a strategically located U.S. naval and air base. Retaining control of Midway was critical to the Allies ability to combat the Japanese in the Pacific. Japan had a different goal – to defeat the U.S. Pacific Fleet and use Midway as a base which would force the U.S. into a negotiated peace and secure Japan’s dominance in the Pacific.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Left: Midway Atoll with the U.S. airfield in the foreground. (NHHC) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Right: USS Yorktown (CV-5) after being hit by a second torpedo from the Japanese carrier Hiryu during the Battle of Midway on 4 June 1942. Note the heavy anti-aircraft fire. (Wikimedia Commons)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

       

  Left: USS Yorktown (CV-5) after being hit by 

  three Japanese bombs on 4 June 1942

  during the battle at Midway. (NHHC)

 

 

 

 

Right: A 250-kg bomb that exploded on contact with the flight deck left a hole about twelve feet in diameter, killing and injuring many men and setting fires on the hangar deck. The hole was repaired quickly using timber and a steel plate cover, allowing activity to resume on the flight deck. (NHHC)

 

 

 

 

USS Yorktown (CV-5) sank on 7 Jun 1942 after being torpedoed again while being towed back to Pearl Harbor for repairs. Ultimately, the Japanese lost about 3,057 men, four carriers, one cruiser, and hundreds of aircraft, while the U.S. lost approximately 362 men, one carrier, one destroyer, and 144 aircraft. (National WWII Museum)

It wasn’t until this battle at Midway, seven months into the war, that Americans could claim a decisive victory. Finally, the U.S. was in a position to begin utilizing Admiral Nimitz’s strategy of island-hopping to begin to take back the Pacific islands one by one. 

Below are the headlines on the fourth and what would be the final day of the Battle of Midway.

 

The front page of the June 7, 1942, edition of Washington, D.C. newspaper, The Sunday Star. (LOC)

 

 *               *               *

3 June 1942 – 24 August 1943 

The Aleutian Islands Campaign - Alaska

Just prior to the attack on Midway the Japanese focused on an additional objective – the Aleutian Islands, a chain of sparsely inhabited islands extending westward across the Bering Sea from the southwestern coast of Alaska, then a U.S. territory.  The location of these barren, mountainous volcanic islands makes for a harsh environment. 

The islands are known for their low temperatures, ranging from about 30°-52° year-round, high winds where gusts of 100 mph are not uncommon, sudden dense fogs, and frequent rain or snow. Most of the islands experience more annual rainfall than tropical rainforests. (National Archives)

It was in this hostile environment that the Aleutian Islands Campaign began on June 3 with a two-day Japanese assault on Dutch Harbor, home to the largest U.S. naval and army bases in the Aleutians. Japan’s goal was to ensure that the United States would be out of range for land-based bombers to launch attacks against the homeland. U.S. intelligence learned of the plan and surprised the Japanese with heavy anti-aircraft fire at Dutch Harbor. 

A few days later the Japanese made landings on two islands about 200 miles to the west – Attu, which had a small population, and Kiska, which was unoccupied. On 7 June 1942, Japan became the first foreign nation to occupy United States soil in 130 years. 

Naval Operating Base Dutch Harbor & Fort Mears, Unalaska, Aleutian Islands, Alaska. (Library of Congress)

 

– TAKING BACK THE ALEUTIANS & THE INTERNMENT OF THE UNANGAN PEOPLE –

It wasn’t until June 1943, an entire year later, that the U.S. military launched a campaign against the Japanese in the Aleutians. In that time, occasional bomb attacks were the only reminders that the U.S. had not forgotten its distant territory. Prior to the campaign and on short notice, U.S. forces used a highly discriminatory policy to justify the removal of nearly 900 Aleuts. Any individual determined to be one-eighth or more Unangan – in other words, a native Aleutian Islander – would be relocated.

L: St. Paul’s residents were evacuated on the U.S. Army Transport Delarof, June 15-16, 1942. (National Archives)  R: An Aleutian American woman and her children prepare to leave Dutch Harbor, Alaska for internment camps in 1942. (National WWII Museum)

 

Each person was allowed to take only one suitcase and one blanket roll, leaving furnishings, family mementos, and everything else they owned behind. Once gone, homes and villages were ransacked, looted, or burned to prevent the Japanese from utilizing items that were left behind.

The Unangan people were taken by ship to makeshift internment camps in southeastern Alaska, one of them a dilapidated, abandoned fish cannery in Funter’s Bay on Admiralty Island. The cannery had unheated, unsanitary buildings with only one toilet to accommodate 40 or more people. Frozen pipes prevented access to water in winter.

The Aleuts lived in these substandard conditions, making what improvements they could, until the end of the war three years later. Even then they weren’t allowed to return to their original home islands; most of them were relocated to areas closer to the Alaskan mainland. (National Park Service)

The residents of Attu Island, which consisted of forty Unangan, had a particularly heartbreaking experience. A few months after the Japanese invaded their island in early June 1942, they were taken captive and transported to the port city of Otaru on the Japanese island of Hokkaido for the remainder of the war. Many of them died from starvation because they were unable to adjust to the local food, which differed considerably from their usual diet of salmon, whale, and seal. Others succumbed to tuberculosis, which was a common affliction among the Unangan, but was somehow subdued in their native surroundings. Once in Japan, the disease took its toll. The people that survived never returned to Attu. (National Park Service)

*               *               *

The map below shows the major battles in the Pacific Theater and a boundary indicating the increase in the extent of Japanese control from May to August 1942.

Map of the Pacific and Adjacent Theaters in 1942. (Wikimedia Commons)

 

From June 1942 to the time my father arrived in Hawaii in early September 1943, the U.S. was engaged in over twenty-one naval battles, air attacks, and extended land campaigns, many of them running concurrently. Chronological lists of these engagements, with links to details of each, can be found on the Naval History and Heritage Command website. Among them were the Guadalcanal campaign (7 Aug 1942–9 Feb 1943), on and around the island of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, and the Battle of the Bismarck Sea in March 1943. 

 

Dad undoubtedly followed the news on the radio and in newspapers. During this time, he must have had serious misgivings about going to war, particularly if he went to the movies at downtown Jamestown's Roosevelt Theater in Brooklyn Square. Officials in both the White House and the War Department thought it was important to educate the public about the extreme sacrifices their servicemen were making as the war escalated. To that end, movies were preceded by increasingly graphic newsreels that highlighted the level of violence soldiers and sailors in combat were experiencing. (National Endowment for the Humanities) It's even possible my father saw footage of the USS Shaw exploding Pearl Harbor after being bombed by the Japanese or the damage that was done to the USS Yorktown (CV-5).

With those images in his head, Dad waited for his number to be called.

NEXT: You’re in the Navy Now

 

*               *               *

 

– DIG A LITTLE DEEPER –

• The Opening Round of the War in the Aleutians is brief but contains some interesting details.

• It's a little-known fact that Japan invaded part of the U.S. Territory of Alaska during WWII. World War II Aleut Relocation Camps in Southeast Alaska - Chapter 2, Funter Bay Cannery recounts part of this disturbing chapter in our nation's history.

*               *               *

 

Bradish-Scott Family History - July 2021