⚜ | The Forgotten Revenge for Pearl Harbor - Lae-Salamaua 1942

they had a couple of ships blown out of the sea in front of them and that usually results in some kind of violent response this video is sponsored by patreon men's 1066 who chose this topic as part of his reward perk thanks very much for the support for more information on patreon awards check out the link in the description hello everybody and welcome back to military aviation history I'm your host Bismark and today we're going back to 1942 it's early March of that year and the Japanese have just successfully landed in New Guinea in the South Pacific next to the towns of Leia and Salim our the landings proceeded without a hitch but soon the Japanese will experience firsthand what it means to be caught flat-footed by an enemy carrier fleet yes indeed is only four months after Pearl Harbor but America is back with a vengeance securing their first major victory in the theater in an attack that most people haven't even heard about while the Japanese were conducting the landings there was in fact a US carrier fleet in the area this was under the command of Admiral Wilson Brown and included the carrier Lexington and Yorktown they were proceeding in radio silence towards verbo however this had to be broken twice once in order to avoid collision between ships during a storm and once in a doomed attempt to guide back a recon aircraft so the game was up essentially and the element of surprise was lost Admiral Brown and Captain Sherman of the Lexington conferred and realized that once they got reports from an Australian recon aircraft showing the location of the Japanese landing that they might have a shot here and a sneaky little plan developed between their ears so instead of continuing north towards virbull that has forced turned north west towards the gulf of papua passing Port Moresby in a process just put the ships out of harm's way since Japanese were really only conducting recon missions on the other side of the island but while the sailors were happy the pilots really weren't the problem for them was that between the carriers and the landing sites there was a treacherous own Stanly range this was a ragged and unrelenting mountain pass going all the way up to 10,000 13,000 feet that's roughly free from 4,000 meters and to make matters worse this area was also known for sudden and unforgiving changes in weather conditions and you really didn't want to get lost in that mountain pass with your aircraft so in the attempt to find a suitable route to recon missions was blown out and they did find a suitable approach however there were still some risks involved in order to beat for example the unfavorable weather conditions the launch was set for the early morning hours of the 10th of March but instead of having me explain the process let's turn to aviator Jimmy fetch well now an awful lot of work has to be done before an attack information has to be obtained and checked geographical facts weather forecasts what enemy forces are where now all this information went to captain Sherman and he had their ok the final plan but before he published the operational order he would consult with all squadron commanders now if we didn't like a tentative plan we said so he would consider everything and always came out with the best possible answer somewhat reminiscent of the attack that America experienced at Pearl Harbor only a couple of months before this attack was staggered into two waves first up was Lexington followed by Yorktown now on Lexington fighting free was commanded by fetch flying eight F 4 F Wildcats they were followed by Dickson's 18 SBD Dauntless from scouting two additional daughters were flying inhabitants bombing - 12 of them and the strike force was completed with brett's torpedo - flying 13 TBD devastators there was also one additional SBD Dauntless flown by commander alt he will become important later on now these elements were supposed to take off in 10-minute intervals and 20 minutes later Yorktown was supposed to follow with a very similar strike force however as soon as this plan looked on paper they were quite a lot of problems let's talk about the Wildcats first now these were supposed to escort the strike and make sure that if the Japanese got any plans up they wouldn't bother these strike aircraft of SBD Dauntless and devastators however for this attack they were pretty much operating at the maximum limit of their range the carriers were only parked roughly 45 miles offshore but considering distance to and fro that was enough to make matters worse for the pilot on Lexington for the Wildcat pants on Lexington they also had to weigh down the aircraft with two additional bombs one on each wing now these were only 30 pound bombs pretty much nothing more than a glorified hand grenade but with the pylons and the bomb steps would add weight and drag and this does negatively affect the aircraft's range which means that fetch essentially only had roughly 10 minutes of staying time over the target and considering that his strike aircraft would come out in for a duration of 30 minutes this wasn't exactly ideal now luckily for the Americans the Cowboys over on Yorktown had actually removed the pylons a couple of weeks prior so they didn't have to weigh down the aircraft with well little little dinky bombs another issue involved Lexington on the carrier herself now because of her internal arrangement and the amount of planes that were on this mission and the fact that it only had one elevator there was somewhat of an issue you see if you do the calculation take into account the different cruising speeds of the Dauntless that devastators and the Wildcats you realize that the Wildcats have to be the last one to take off because then they were just on the way to the target bypass the devastators dome doesn't still be there in time to be essentially the first element to arrive clear the sky of any Japanese opposition and make sure that the strike aircraft go in safely there is just one issue because of Lexington's design the Wildcats had to take off first to clear the deck space there was simply no way of rearranging everything in time so what did Lexington and fighting free do well they did take off first but if they now would go towards the target zone they would arrive him way too early and would really not be an help to anybody and if they lingered around a Lexington and then went towards Leonce Alomar they would probably not have the putative back so instead of doing either well they just circled around the carrier and kept on circling while the Dauntless took off all the devastators took off and then when the deck space was clear they landed popped up the aircraft took off again and raised after the devastators the Dauntless and yes they did arrive in time and everything worked out fine there was one more significant issue with this plan and this actually endangered the life of some of the pilots involved in a strike and it had to do if the TBD Devastator I actually have the planets flight operation instructions right here the manual has address you'll remember that in order to get to the Japanese the Americans would have to cross the own Stanly range and even though the path they chose to get there was not as high as some of the other places in this mountain pass they would have to essentially get up to roughly 7,500 feet that's 2500 meters give or take there was serious doubt whether the devastators loaded with her torpedo would be able to make that altitude in time however there was an alternative loadout and actually it's also included in the manual and that is instead of taking a torpedo you take bombs and the loader chosen was to 500-pound bombs that's 12 to 20 50 kilograms there we go I got it in the end and make the strike that way however at this point you essentially transforming your torpedo bomber into a horizontal bomber it can't lead I form like the dawn forces for example and the accuracy involved in this hitting ships from our rosante platform especially when they're moving well that's just saying world war ii the accuracy at that point wasn't very high there were some specialized squadrons for example Japanese had them that trained highly in in the art of neo hitting a ship from a horizontal strike but overall the accuracy wasn't very high also the bombs were generally not inflict as much damage as for example or torpedo so the trade-off was I will retake the torpedoes and in if we do score a hit it's gonna be probably able to sink the ship but we are running the risk that the hour obtains might not even be able to make it to the landing zone or we give the bombs and they will certainly be able to make it but once they're there they might not hit anything the compromise that was reached was that Yorktown would arm its demonstrators with bombs whereas Lexington would go ahead with the torpedoes and breaths torpedo - as they approached the mountain range they realized they were in for a doozy because as closer as they got they saw the you know the earth coming towards them their horizon got higher and higher and higher and it really looked like they wouldn't be able to make it and Brett the commanding officer essentially had two choices either he heads back which is and he Rob's a very valuable weapon from the Americans that could bring some damage through the Japanese or he runs the risk of not being able to make it over the mountain pass and that some of his pilots or if not all of them would essentially be hanging in the trees however as he got close and as he realized at the moment of to make a decision is approaching rapidly suddenly he felt a stroke of genius and as Jimmy fat she was in the area at the time remembers well Brett saw green flat area in the sunshine and remembered his bladder training he got his ships over this area and then found an updraft about 1,200 feet a minute and then this just washed him up over the top and got him started down the other side as he went over Jimmy radioed to me halfway house hooray for basic training and glider practice and in case you were wondering nope the Wildcats and the Dauntless did not have this issue they made that jump without any hitch now at this point as everybody was passing the North the mountain pass commander old Muir Goff I hope you do remember him I did tell you he was important and he essentially went on a personal mission what is this mission you might ask well it essentially involved him just flying in circles he was everybody stick to get home and he would continuously transmit weather conditions visibility conditions and the like in order to inform the pilots that went on the strike that came back of the conditions around this mountain pass essentially the plan called for him to stay in the area until the last element had passed him on the way home and then he too would be freed up to go towards the carrier once again and it actually does emphasize you're certain amount of practicality flexibility but also care that was put into this strike because there is nothing more or let's say tragic than losing pilots especially if their loss could have been avoided now if a pilot gets hit by a a or Japanese fighter that's one thing but if you lose a bunch of them because of deteriorating weather conditions in the mountains and that is a loss you could have avoided by for example using somebody like commander old which the Americans did at this point at 9:20 a.m. the Americans started to trickle in with Jimmy fan of course of fighting free leading the charge now he found the ships in the bay but for the rest the area seemed strangely deserted there were no Japanese fighters going up to greet them and neither was a a responding to the intrusion and this left him and his boys somewhat bored and without a job after all they've been sent ahead to clear path and now they found no obstruction so they started scouting out the area in the sound effects to sell a mower they actually discovered that the Japanese had built a preliminary airstrip but I was strangely deserted now Jimmy fad didn't notice at the time but the Japanese haven't finished the construction of that airstrip until the day before the attack and they were still waiting for their complement to come in which was due to come by in a couple of days time so they were completely lacking air cover in that regard how is it for the ships of the naval presence that the Japanese had in the area well due to a combination of factors there were actually sixteen ships in the bay at that point in time and they being caught completely unawares were pretty much sitting ducks off lele des transports Kongo Maru 10 yo Maru and Koki Maru covered by the destroyer mutsuki and Yayoi a slightly to the south the minor Tsugaru and two transports tomorrow number two Jaco Romo Maru with you Nagi as cover next to Salim our lady light cruiser you buried the flagship of the Japanese fleet the transports Yokohama Maru and China Maru were anchored here if to destroy it and ascend oggi to their East shuffling northeast will find the destroyer Mochizuki and the seaplane tender kevo Carver Maru this one will be important in due course shortly after fact the first dauntless has start to arrive in the area at this point the Japanese are scrambling to a number for eight centimeter heavy AAA guns at layout the Dantas is of course see the mother lode of transports at Anchorage of Leia and they go in with a vengeance they drop their 500-pound bombs and they claim to song and one the kokino rule on fire additionally to SBD Dauntless a start attacking the light cruiser Yubari claiming one hit and once all the bombs are expended they start working over the smaller ships in the area the mine sweepers in the mine layers with 50 cal fire it's at this point that disaster strikes for one of these pilots and one of these Don fences you see the heavy a a gun said the Japanese have in the area they're not really suited to track and shoot down fast-moving targets at low altitudes they're really just meant to deter for example medium or heavy bombers flying in at altitude however one of them gets what is essentially a shortened scores a bull's-eye right into a dauntless flying at 200 feet the pilot and the gunner stand no chance and they the aircraft goes down into the into the sea however the Wildcats of fatch have spotted this and now find me they have a job and they swoop in drop their dinghy bombs and this spends a liberal amount of 50 Cal fire and successfully suppressed yeah before it can do more damage and this seems to have put them in a really good mood because after their attack on this AAA battery they start working over the ships in the bay as aiming specifically for the bridges and the deck guns in order to confuse and also to weaken the Japanese defense it is at this point that Hamilton is bombing two and retrofitted to arrive Hamlin's formation is of course flying SBD Dauntless and with a thousand-pound bomb whereas Brett's torpedo - as you will remember was the formation that had to make the jump over the own standing range using his glider training they are armed with right or peed on they are ment together to coordinate strikes and attack the same targets and this was meant essentially to guarantee the most amount of hits on one target while also splitting a fire however seeing this target rich environment laid before them the formation starts with splinter and fracture and different divisions and elements start going for different targets for example two of the Dauntless attack the mine Laird Tsugaru somewhat optimistically identifying it as a Mogami class heavy cruiser in any case to close misses yield what they say light damage free of the devastators on the other hand attack the transport ship Yokohama maroon one of them scores a hit and he sings in the shallows whereas all the other devastators shuffle up north to attack the transporters there and this actually makes me think that either it was obvious that these ships were sinking or in fact they weren't asked ask the American dentist pilots that attack the previously thought they wear otherwise this attack didn't have been executed anyway these ships are sitting at Anchorage they're not moving they're still and they're the perfect target the Dauntless is excuse me to the left service starts whipping in dropping their fish in the water and at this point the Bombardier is and the crews realize well our torpedoes once they hit the water I have a drone malfunction or fear of course completely in fact no hits is scored by these devastators and this is of course once again the silent story tale of the mark 13 torpedo in the early war period on the other hand while the devastators aren't that successful well they sink one transport ship so that's something fetch is still on standby he's flying around this zone just looking for something to do but for him and the pilots that he's commanding you're fighting free and sometimes I swoop down they suppressing a gun they go back up again and then they go down maybe attack a ship suppress that AAA but really there's nothing to do and he actually notes that the Japanese have rather weak anti-aircraft defenses he's not impressed by them at all saying that the heavier guns that were well targeting him them once they were just circling at high altitude seeing what was up were routinely missing and not really making their shots count in any case this is a lexingtons attack taking care of let's shuffle over to Yorktown and see how those boys did as Yorktown strike force was approaching there was one notable example of Japanese resistance that day as mentioned earlier Japanese AAA was firing someone wildly and inaccurately all around them but what really was hampering the Japanese that day was a lack of air cover now this changed somewhat with the Kiva carbonara which is of course the seaplane tender station due east of laya it managed to launch a Nakajima e8n - type 95 recon float plane or as the others called them Dave this was not a fighter this was not an interceptor it was armed with only one forward-facing 7.7 millimeter machine gun and one gun of the same caliber facing a rewards operated by the defensive gunner that the pilot and gunner care about our lack of armament no no they did not after launching a couple of attacks on the attacking devastators which failed to make an impression they became embroiled in a wild dog fight with four different dauntless successfully evading all the attack by the American devastators they actually managed to tag and strike a couple of the dauntless is in the process although they did not inflict any lasting damage swift death was met by the Japanese at the business end of an intervening Wildcat however when the Americans returned to Lexington they actually noted the determination and valor of the intervening Japanese pilot and his gunner sadly although I tried I was unable to ascertain the name of either the pilot and the gunner of that engagement when Yorktown's fighters arrived they realized just like the fascist flight that are pretty much out of a job there is no Japanese air cover after all so they follow fighting please example by going after some of the boats and strafing them in gun runs they also start targeting some of the smaller boats in the day fishing people out of the water SBD Dauntless has start attacking the Yubari and transport whereas Yorktown's devastators go for Kiba kabamaru the seaplane tender in the area now usually at the altitude that they were flying at and executing this attack 14,000 feet just on the 4000 meters it wouldn't really expect them to long land a hit against the manoeuvring a seaplane tender but they do they score one hit and even though the ship doesn't sink it does require extensive repairs the seaplane tender gets a revenge somewhat by launching just before this attack a second date which promptly attacks the devastators now it does manage to score a couple of hits but it itself is not able to take it down the east torpedo bombers or however one of the Gunners from the devastators actually claims to kill on this Dave he shoots at the incoming aircraft and notices that after a short gun run it starts diving away violently and he says well I must have ducked something out because otherwise this guy wouldn't leave he's not wrong but he's not exactly right I ever now while he claims a kill he hasn't in fact knocked out the nakajima aircraft however he has punctured its main float so that means when it landed it actually started sinking and it's not completely after the pilot and the gunner when managed to get out so while he claimed that kill he actually did also receive it in the end even though I don't know whether they actually realized that at that time however all-in-all Yorktown's attack seems to be somewhat less impressive than that of Lexington but there are a couple of reasons for this I know the Japanese had obviously realized that something was up they had a couple of ships blown out of the sea in front of them and that usually results in some kind of violent response so they weren't really caught flat-footed at this point anymore and we're fully aware that well something was afoot so the element of surprise that Lexington enjoyed was no longer ballot for Yorktown as well as that all the easy targets were already taken care of by a Lexington's flight and pretty much Yorktown came in and well had to make do of the remaining ships that were already on the way at alert and responsive in their actions however the attack itself was not finished yes Lexington had executed its attack and they were already on their way back and same thing for Yorktown they were pretty much done for the day however just as they left the Americans thought Japanese something in inter-service a cooperation as the Army did not want to be undone and they had sent eight b-17s to accompany to strike and hit the landing zones they inflicted some damage on the Japanese also when the Americans started to leave they noticed the presence of some very strange-looking aircraft which they didn't really recognize these were actually eight Royal Australian Air Force Hudsons that also managed to attack the land zone coming all the way from Port Moresby why the Americans weren't able to recognize the Hudson even though it's an American aircraft remained so much of a mystery but there you go maybe the camouflage in the markings confused them somewhat but all in all the Americans were pretty Hulan drew in their attack and once they went back towards Lexington and Yorktown they didn't have any trouble on the way they managed to get over the mountain pass but no issues they celebrated in turn there was good enough reason for the American to celebrate after all the Japanese had been caught completely off-guard and the Americans had inflicted on the Japanese is some sort of mini Pearl Harbor they claimed nine ships sunk five transports two heavy cruisers one light cruisers on one destroyer as well as heavy damage to two forever destroyers a gunboat and a seaplane tender and all of this for the loss of a single SBD Dauntless dive bomber that seemed pretty good in actual fact the damage inflicted on Japanese was a little bit more limited first of all they did not have any heavy cruisers in the area that were just ships misidentified but the Japanese only in approach to these lost three transports as well as receive damage to one of the transports and of course the seaplane tender and then the Americans as lillstrom in his book the first team puts it put a couple of holes in Yubari the mine Laird Segura and two forever destroyers Lewis Lewis book by the way the first team thorough by elimination from my part if you want to know more about this action and the Pacific War in general I get it it's a really remarkable and exemplary book on that theater of operations throw by of equation for my part affiliate link in the description below doing this actions the Japanese also lost a fervor 130 sailors dead and 245 Japanese were wounded you might now be wondering what did the Japanese do in response to this attack well the first thing they did is of course send out recon aircraft in order to ascertain the location and disposition of the American carrier fleet and even though the Americans fought they evaded the recon flights they didn't the Japanese knew were the Americans were after about a day however bad weather sent in and this really covered the retreat and postponed any kind of retaliatory strike that could have been launched and this meant of course that lady licks and Yorktown got away and the Japanese had to wait another day to get their revenge the Americans while there were of course jubilant did also realize that maybe they didn't inflict as much damage as they thought they did on the Japanese and they were with a calling for caution a lot of the internal memos say well we did launch a successful attack here we did something good but let's not overemphasize this attack just yet however what they didn't realize is actually that even though they had only sunk three transports these transports were extremely valuable for the Japanese in the area and the attack had so much shocked the Japanese they really haven't seen this coming they really hadn't expected this and they called it for more reinforcements they called in a carrier fleet into the area in order to counter the American carriers also some of the small land-based actions their delay their attack on more speed together with this strike and really for the Japanese this came as a complete surprise and their whole schedule for the attack on Port Moresby and for the conquering of New Guinea ax was sent into disarray because of this one strike I'm about to finish the video but I thought about expanding a little bit on that last point now even though the Japanese were seeing some really remarkable success in early 1942 they didn't really have everything going for them especially considering the long haul in the action of Bougainville on the 20th of February they successfully drove off Lexington but they lost quite a few number of planes and they didn't really have replacements that could come in in immediately as well as that they were currently engaged in Java and the Dutch East Indies where roughly 100 transport was dispersed on the Western and the eastern convoys that were sort of fueling and supplying that invasion and this took huge a drain on the Japanese and really everything was concentrated on that area as much as possible so annoying when he was launching this kind of invasion here in New Guinea he was really you as the historian Robots calls it operating on a shoestring and any kind of loss incurred would be worse than the actual number that defines them and the Japanese even though they were going from essentia victory to victory we're having setbacks and moments where they had to reflect a little bit on their long-term strategy realizing that really they were operating with limited resources here and they couldn't just waste him and lose them and in this sense even though there's other engagements that for example like the Battle of pappan the strike on lay in salim our stand out in fact roosevelt actually taught to jerk short show that this was the best day's work that they had so far but the losses that the japanese sustained there really made him rethink the whole approach of what was going on in New Guinea and the losses even though it's just free transport you might say because he Noah was on such limited resources the value of that for the Allies was exponentially greater than the pure number and this strike also is really a symbol sort of for the end of a comparatively unopposed Japanese on store in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific yes Japan will continue to score victories even throughout the whole war but the Battle of the Coral Sea is coming up the Battle of Midway is coming up and while these tactical and operational victories that the Japanese are pulling off are impressive and while they will keep on happening in a strategic sense things are starting to change and the strike on lay and Salim our perfectly encapsulated us add to that of course the complete kick that the American aviators and the Navy got out of the fact that they have essentially gotten revenge for Pearl Harbor in some sort of way this is actually intact it is quite significant you've got to remember that the Doolittle Raid which was the official response to Pearl Harbor wasn't about to happen for a couple of weeks so the Navy and the Americans were really looking for some good news and here it was they were able to inflict some significant damage on the Japanese and even put their war plans into disarray however they also consider there were some problems with with the strike mainly in the way that it was executed and with the equipment first of all they concluded that you know that that pass over the mountain range in order to strike that landing craft with our overloaded planes let's not do that again let's only do that in really in cases where there is no other way of handling the situation we should really not do this again second of all technical problems forming of gun science is specifically on the SBD Dauntless when they were going from high altitude into the dive to the lower altitudes the gun side started to fog up and they really had to drop by the mark one eyeball rather than having that gun sight to help them torpedoes of course I already mentioned those those were an issue and then also radios there was a big problem in the area with planes actually being able to use radio communication in order to coordinate their strikes as well as that one of the most heavily criticized aspects was the short radius of the f4f wildcat an interim solution was proposed with drop tanks but you got to remember this is this is really an issue more so than you might think the short radius of the Wildcats does not just endanger the Wildcats on this mission because they had to keep to a tight schedule it also endangered the carrier fleet it had to go as close as possible to the shoreline of New Guinea a-- and there it was well it was a little bit vulnerable really for for japanese attacks if the Japanese knew that they were there they could have launched an attack quite easily but with the introduction later on of drop tanks this issue was somewhat mitigated what really should be said however is that fetch was pressing on one issue and that is that fighters are fighters the doctrine of using them with bombs really is not something that should be going ahead in the future fighter bombers with the Wildcat with the limited bomb load that it has it is absolutely ineffective and it should not be done and Thatcher said so really really well when he said really fighters should be fighters thank you very much for watching and if you enjoyed this video make sure to share it with your friends and aviation enthusiasts around the world if you want to check out our patreon you can earn some exclusive rewards thereby supporting the channel and allowing us to make videos such as this one I also wanted to thank side-street probably writing all voiced lines that we are not my own and as always have a great day good landing and see you in the sky like matters worse this area was also known for treacherous and sudden changes in weather conditions

Channel: Military Aviation History

Views: 490,888

Rating: 4.8422527 out of 5

Keywords: Pearl Harbour, United States Navy, WW2, Pacific, New Guinea, Carrier, Navy, Invasion, Lexington, Yorktown, Port Moresby, Japanese, Thach, F4F Wildcat, SBD Dauntless, TBD Devastator, military aviation history

Id: aEMk8RinguA

Length: 30min 30sec (1830 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 14 2019