Marshall Islands

The Marshall Islands comprise two parallel chains of atolls extending some 800 miles (1300 km) from southeast to northwest.  They lie 2200 miles (3500 km) southwest of Hawaii and contained the easternmost Japanese bases in 1941.  As a result, Kimmel’s attention was riveted on this island group as war approached, rather than to the north, from which the Pearl Harbor attack would come.

The Marshalls include numerous excellent anchorages, but an astonishingly small land area totaling just 70 square miles (180 km²). The average elevation is is just 7' (2.1 meters) with a maximum elevation of 34' (10 meters). However, this was enough for a handful of airfields.  The population was about 10,000 natives and 490 Japanese in 1935.

Japan had seized the Marshalls from Germany during the First World War, and retained control after the war under a League of Nations Class C mandate that forbade any military fortification.  When Japan withdrew from the League, she retained control of the islands and refused to allow foreigners to visit the area.  This led to rumors that the islands had been heavily fortified, but in fact nothing but airfields and seaplane ramps had been constructed prior to December 1941. The Japanese could not come to a decision whether to make the Marshalls their outer line of defense or to abandon the Marshalls and concentrate on fortifying the Marianas. As a result, neither was adequately fortified when the American Central Pacific offensive swept west.

The administrative center of the Marshalls was at Kwajalein, but there were also significant facilities at Maloelap, Wotje, and Jaluit.

February 1942 Raids

American carrier forces struck at the Marshalls on 1 February 1942. The operation was the brainchild of King, who put strong pressure on Nimitz starting on 2 January 1942 to take the initiative rather than use his carrier task forces defensively to cover his main base at Hawaii and the sea lanes to Australia. McMorris developed plans for a strike against the Marshalls by Brown with Task Force 11 (Lexington) on 14 January and the Gilberts by Halsey with Task Force 8 (Enterprise) on 17 January while Leary's Task Force 14 (Saratoga) covered Oahu and Fletcher's Task Force 17 (Yorktown) covered a reinforcement convoy to Pago Pago. Still wary of running such risks, Nimitz ran the plan past Pye, who recommended that the raids take place after Fletcher was finished escorting his convoy. The plans had to be further reshuffled when Saratoga was torpedoed and heavily damaged on 11 January 1942.

The plan that was finally adopted called for Halsey to make a daring penetration of the Marshalls and launch his aircraft from a point practically within visual range of the north part of Wotje. The bulk of Halsey's aircraft would strike Kwajalein while Spruance led a cruiser bombardment of Wotje and a third cruiser struck at Maloelap. Further south, Fletcher would simultaneously launch strikes against Jaluit, Mili, and Makin in the northern Gilberts. Because intelligence showed the Japanese carriers were moving south of Truk, Brown was assigned to make a preliminary raid on Wake while the door was ajar. King was anxious for the raids to take place as soon as possible, to be driven home, and the carriers to then rapidly withdraw so that they could prepare to counter the Japanese move south.

Brown's raid had to be cancelled when his oiler, Neches, was sunk by a submarine on 23 January 1942 and no other oiler could be made available on time. However, the other raids went forward. Enterprise and Yorktown both refueled at midnight on 29 January 1942 and then made their final approaches the next day and night, crossing the international date line to reach their launch points early in the morning of 1 February. Halsey's force came within a very narrow margin of detection on 31 January when a Japanese snooper came within thirty miles on radar but failed to detect the force. Thus complete surprise was achieved by both task forces.

Fletcher's force ran into very poor weather, with overcast and squalls, but he was able to launch 17 SBDs and 11 TBDs against Jaluit and 14 SBDs against Makin and Mili. The Makin strike damaged gunboat Nagata Maru (2900 tons) and destroyed two seaplanes, while the Mili strike found no worthwhile targets. The Jaluit strike encountered horrible weather and several planes never found a target, and the remainder inflicted only light damage on transport Kanto Maru (8900 tons). Eight aircraft were lost, but Fletcher's destroyer screen was able to rescue four aircrew. Japanese search aircraft soon located Fletcher's force (though one was shot down within sight of Yorktown) in spite of the terrible weather, but there was no counterstrike. Fletcher was considering lingering another day in hopes that the weather would improve enough for another strike against Jaluit when he received a recall order from Halsey.

Halsey had encountered better weather and had accordingly had greater success. Fifteen ships were claimed sunk at Kwajalein and there was extensive damage to shore facilities at Wojte and Maloelap. Actual damage was three small auxiliaries sunk, two old warships and four transports damaged, and fifteen planes destroyed, at the cost of six of Halsey's fighters, light damage from a bomb hit on cruiser Chester, and very slight damage to Enterprise from a bomber that barely missed crashing into her flight deck. Impressed with the ferocity of the Japanese counterstrikes, Halsey decided a speedy withdrawal was in order.

The raids inflicted only moderate damage.  However, the raid provided valuable combat experience to the American air groups, bolstered Allied morale, and badly shocked the Japanese. Yamamoto quietly pulled Shokaku and Zuikaku back to Japan, but the remaining four Japanese carriers continued operations to the south. Nimitz decided that the raids had given him sufficient breathing space to send Saratoga to the West Coast for repairs and to recall Yorktown and Enterprise to Pearl Harbor for much-needed refit and reprovisioning.

Operation FLINTLOCK

When the time came for the U.S. Navy’s central Pacific offensive, Nimitz disregarded the almost unanimous recommendation of his staff and struck directly at Kwajalein in the heart of the Marshalls.  This turned out to be a brilliant move, one of the finest examples of "hitting ‘em where they ain’t" in the war.  The Japanese were expecting an attack on one of the outer atolls first and were caught by surprise.  U.S. air power from Kwajalein was able to isolate the Japanese garrisons on the other atolls, leaving them to wither on the vine.  However, these garrisons did not surrender until ordered to by the Emperor in August of 1945.

Allied order of battle, Operation FLINTLOCK

References

Evans and Peattie (1997)

Lundstrom (2006)

Miller (1991)

Morison (1948, 1951)

Rottman (2002)

The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia © 2006, 2008-2010, 2013 by Kent G. Budge.  Index

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