Why Japan Lost The South Pacific Air War

hello everybody and welcome back to military aviation history i'm your host chris and today i'm joined by justin pike who needs no introduction on the channel he's been uh on bernhardt's military history visualize channel as well and whenever we have questions about pacific theater of operations he's of course the man we turn to hello justin hello right so today i thought that we talked a little bit about the south pacific specifically why the japanese air forces yes plural we have got the army air service we've got the navy air service why they sort of failed in the south pacific specifically looking of course at rebel in new britain new guinea and of course the solomon islands generally speaking between february 1942 and round about july 1944 so this is more a period of more than two years really uh there is a lot of fighting going on in that region but it doesn't really get as much attention uh it's a very interesting campaign and what really prompted our interest for this little video here is a article written by hiro yuki shindo a japanese air operations over new guinea during the second world war and this was of course published in the journal of the australian war memorial issue 34. so we thought we'd give you guys an introduction to this campaign today from an aviation perspective mainly of course there's a lot of naval stuff going on in the region a lot of ground combat as well but i'm an aviation historian justin also likes his aircraft so we thought we will stick with the air perspective here and i'm just going to hand it over to you now justin because i think shindo he sort of identifies four phases within this campaign right he kind of breaks it into four phases shindo his first phase is kind of that japan's initial offensives um so the conquest of a ball um a lot of early operations a lot of them actually centered around like flying boats and things like that very small scale generally speaking um and then he takes this first phase through to kind of the initial japanese uh navy air service offensives against uh uh port moresby um things like seven mile jerome and then as time goes on more and more airfields um his second phase is from uh either kind of early 1943 or late 1942 uh to roughly june 1943 and it saw the commitment of the japanese army air service to new guinea because the japanese navy air service of course uh after the invasion of guadalcanal was increasingly sucked off into the solomon islands uh his third phase uh is uh the [ __ ] basically the japanese army air service starts to get serious about new guinea for details we'll get into a a little later um so they increased their strength through the summer or spring and summer of 1943 and then they're crippled by pretty much a single air attack uh in august and that ends his sec uh third phase and then his fourth phase is what he describes as an unglamorous defensive campaign yeah for approximately a year from the summer of 1943 to the summer of 1944. right and before we sort of go into those phases it might be worth talking about why rabul is actually important for the japanese right and the navy quite early on marks it as a sort of target that they want and the reason for this is because rebel well it's a natural harbor in a way and more importantly it is within what is in naval terms perhaps considered striking distance of truck harbor or truck at all now i believe it's called chuck lagoon and this is the main japanese base sort of in the south pacific right and i think some some historians have called it sort of the gibraltar of the pacific that tells you why the japanese are interested in this location because they're they fear its position but they they can also use it as a staging ground for their own operations they only have two problems so the ign is of course very much focused on the pto the pacific theodore of operations whereas the army is going more into southeast asia of course still stuck in china as well and this is sort of the southern region that doesn't really work in the strategy of either army branch i mean the navy i think you'll also go into this a little bit more has identified it already as a target but it's sort of an inconvenient location anyway but what's also problematic is with rubble is because rubble is on new britain right next to new guinea right next to the solomon islands taking rebel on new britain means that essentially you also have to take new guinea and the solomon islands in order to secure that location and this is where australia of course comes into play because poor morsby is that direct vital link from new guinea towards australia and that's going to be increasingly important throughout throughout this campaign that being said however even though the japanese had all these problems um you know how many resources they can put into the fear to how much they can really focus on this offensive they have a lot of success early on don't they for the attack on rabal rabal was kind of the unfortunate recipient of i guess i call it almost a drive-by from akagi kaga shokaku so for those that don't have a good picture of the earliest of these very early japanese offensive operations they are focused on the southern resources area the dutch east indies uh malaya singapore this is like that's the main thrust um so fourth fleet advancing kind of through the central south pacific is something of a backwater but at very key points some big fleet units would come and help out and this is one of them fuchita mitsuo described youth or fleet carriers to hit rabalas using a hammer to crack an egg um the raid smashed what what little defenses rabbal had to begin with um and the landings occurred without any major opposition on the 22nd of january 1942. this was kind of followed on by uh offensive operations they would pick up a gazmata and develop that into an airfield on new britain just a little further south so it's kind of an intermediary airfield they would also land at lay and salamoa yeah um so lay in particular would become the japanese navy air service's most important forward airfield on new guinea this is the one that would also get attacked the most at least in the kind of the early phases before things start to completely fall apart by the allies the japanese generally got the better end of the air war in this period particularly over places like rabal during the initial attack like when you're talking about four carrier uh strike against a handful of weirways and i read a very detailed account on it and i mean it's it was a great grim fight for the australians and to their credit they got in their ways and they tried to intercept you know a hundred plane carrier strike um there's not much you can do no what one event that kind of falls outside of the new guinea operation so shindo doesn't talk about it at all but it has a major impact on new guinea operations was the disastrous attack against lexington on the february 20th 1942 that you can probably expand on a little bit here um the losses incurred in that um we're so devastating that it's it's part of the reason why the intensity of the initial bombing attacks against port moresby were pretty low and it's because number four coca-tied basically had no bombers left really as outside of individual tactical successes this very early phase is actually kind of marked by stalemate in the air war with the japanese are slowing down the offensive tide is slowing and the allies are starting to prick back it's very small scale in this initial phase but it builds up in intensity through 1942 overall aircraft losses and this isn't just air-to-air it's aircraft losses are almost close to dead even almost uh yearly with japan coming out slightly ahead but like almost academic yeah there are quite a few notable actions that happen here you've already touched upon them right uh so the attack on lexithing was at the 20th of february 1942 um number four kokotai with betty bombers g4 m1s attacks lexington uh 17 bombers are being sent uh to return so uh 13 are shot down i think two just [ __ ] on the way uh and that just means that as you said you know number four coquita has absolutely no planes left and um that is not good for the japanese especially early on as they're trying to maintain that offensive which slows down as you say interestingly also with that fight they didn't have any fighter escorts and they used bombs instead of torpedoes i believe the torpedoes hadn't arrived yet if that's correct um and uh the uh fighter escorts i think they didn't have enough drop tanks or something to actually uh to get out there um and yeah the betty bombers were mainly intercepted by uh by the cap of lexington and just there's very little few things you could do at that point um the la e salamawa landings um of course those gave sort of a staging ground in new guinea and uh la ian salamar will be important the allies fly multiple strikes against them one of the first ones one is march 10 1942 where it is being attacked by a surprise u.s navy raid flying over the only stan stanley range which is the mountain range in new guinea quite an interesting story i made a video about this if you want to watch it just follow the link as well after this one and you'll know everything about that raid and the consequences of it that also means that uh you know the japanese are suddenly looking at first they had this sort of drive-by shooting of rebel with their own carriers right and now they realize oh the americans are here with the carriers as well in the future whenever we launch a major operation we also need carrier support i'll just hand it over to you now for i guess what is the second phase now that the japanese have established themselves in rebel have conquered new uh new britain half the solomon islands and of course are entrenched and fighting in new guinea yes sashindo's second phase kind of starts with the american landings of guadalcanal because this this is changes everything so before this the japanese had basically been trading blows with uh the australians over the owen stanley mountain range against targets in guinea or at uh targets around port moresby and then the australians or americans whoever would strike back over the owen stanley's that primarily lay yeah but now with the landings of guadalcanal which are complete came as a complete surprise to the the japanese um the japanese navy air service was suddenly thrust into two front operations um and then of course on top of that the missions to guadalcanal were absolutely terrible uh the range was extreme mission times of course were really long americans had plenty of early warning it's not a recipe for success and spoiler alert it's not a success so this brings up the the specter of burden sharing between the japanese army air service and the japanese navy air service so the two front operations are obviously not sustainable for the japanese navy or service so they ask the army for support um the army initially says no um part of that is because the pacific was considered the navy's problem um and the army had its own responsibilities stretching from manchuria to the home islands to china to burma sumatra so their air powers stretched out across a huge area and it's not purely inter-service rivalry the army had reasons to be reluctant um on top of their commitments the japanese army air service had never envisioned operating in the south pacific their air crews were poorly prepared to to operate over large expanses of ocean they were completely unfamiliar with the operational environment eventually the army relented and decided to commit some of its air power to new guinea in late october 1942 which is when shindo kind of starts his second phase proper the japanese army air service would start uh combat operations in new guinea in december 1942. they treated this as okay we're going to do this one thing for the navy we're going to help them out briefly they'll solve their guadalcanal problem and then we can pull our air power back to where it's supposed to be the continent however of course this was not going to be the case and and throughout this period uh just as a note allied air strength continued to build up yeah um so throughout this period they're just trickling in more and more units perhaps all at least as importantly they're building more and more airfields to disperse and operate from and the japanese as we've kind of as i've been hinting at were relatively slow to reinforce up to this point through to the spring of 1943 uh the japanese army air service just didn't want to wholeheartedly commit uh to the region and then there's definitely also reasons for this because the problems for the japanese start building up so on the one hand side of course like justin like you just said the army isn't really prepared for operations in this region like they still hold most the majority of that territory but they are sort of i believe starting to realize that especially after the battle of the bismarck c um that in 24th of march 1943 that they're starting to really see that this region might be problematic and what happens in that specific engagement is that allied aircrafts attack a convoy of japanese ships and they sink four destroyers which is already pretty bad but crucially they sink a transport ships and it loads a lot of their men and they start seeing now this this is a problem and they don't really have a desire to send even more troops towards new guinea since it seems like the americans are able to intercept those convoys the only problem with this area in general and i've mentioned this previously already is once you have one island you sort of need to build a coordinate of defenses around it so that one island isn't vulnerable and rebel is really the key area that they want to defend so if they even pull back out of new guinea just like that and give it to the allies and out of the solomons where bull is next to four and then that staging ground is going to be increasingly problematic for the japanese so pulling out and just trying to give up a couple of islands isn't really a recipe that speaks to or for much success it might just create more problems down the line and the only alternative is if you pull out the region completely but then you still have that problem where the navy's feels you know revolving that natural staging ground against some of their bases in the pacific and we should also not forget that the japanese navy specifically has invested i think quite heavily into rabo and building up the the area for their operations so instead the japanese and specifically actually the army now starts to double down in the aftermath of the bismarck c there is that initial oh man maybe we should just write off new guinea then they're like well we have nowhere to fall back to um so they decide instead to it shocks the army into action they're like okay we need to send meaningful air reinforcements to new guinea to try and regain the initiative now at this and around this time as well the japanese navy air service is largely pushed out of the picture in new guinea but it's state rebels almonds that's its job um there's some operational overlap and i'm talking generalities here about a quarter of the japanese army air service um had shifted into the south pacific kind of by this or started shift in the south pacific uh spring summer 1943. uh shindo states they were suffering about 50 attrition a month uh which of course is not sustainable but this is just like uh uh that number is just staggering but this is not a fun environment operator power um so the scope of operations were the defensive are offensive on paper the japanese wanted to maintain the offensive um that's why they were committing more of their air power however increasingly the japanese army air service was forced to just defend its own airfields or provide air cover for supply convoys coming to new guinea then disaster strikes so we walk uh we whack we walk we walk yeah august 17th 1943 this is their this is the japanese army air service's largest most important air base on new guinea uh it gets hit by the outskirts um so over a hundred japanese aircraft at least were destroyed on the ground uh which amounted to almost complete annihilation of the japanese army air service present on new guinea um fourth air army which was the the japanese unit was left with an operational strength of approximately 30 aircraft uh in the aftermath it isn't too much of an overstatement to say the japanese army air service lost the air war on new guinea in a day [Music] after this point that the allied air power began to range into formally controlled japanese airspace and now the japanese you know they'd spent they made a decision to build up to regain the offensive and it was almost entirely destroyed on the ground in a day it's bad i mean this this attack on a weak actually highlights a couple of issues that the japanese have in the area and that is that their airfields in a way are poorly constructed uh and poorly laid out and there's very few dispersal fields so generally when we talk about the attack on we rack we actually talk about the attack on four different airfields but they're so close to each other that you might as well just say that's a single airfield there's one rerock proper which i don't believe exists anymore there's one that's called boram airfield which is nowadays we rock airfield there is dagua which is to the northwest and but as well to the northwest but they're so close that essentially within a couple of minutes of flight time you're there and um these attacks by the americans or by the allies really completely annihilate all these fields and i think only one of them when they were being attacked and i think that's dagua actually had any sort of meaningful aaa fire um you know going up to to the attacking force uh before the bombers had already released their ordinance and that's only because dagua is a little bit further out and they probably started hearing some some fire and some ackak from the other fields and then just jumped into their positions and they just in that moment the americans or the b-25s specifically they were attacking uh were coming over you know the horizon those are front line airfields and there's a lot of aircraft there as well as that there's little uh anti-aircraft um you know the protection around the airfields for the japanese there's little protection for the actual airfield aircraft so the revetments and there's little space to disperse on the actual airfield so you see rope on rows of aircraft and you can just strafe and bomb them into oblivion and crucially and remember we rack by the way because we're about to hit another one catastrophic event for the japanese that unfolds very very similarly but before we do that let's go into that final phase now so the allies have taken lae and salamawa in september 1943 and now they're starting also to close in from rebel from all sides coming up from the solomons coming up from new guinea yeah so this fourth place uh what chino calls the unglamorous defensive campaign which is a pretty apt description um so in the aftermath of this disaster um the japanese in mid-september 1943 they formally established a new defensive line uh running from amer marianas carolines and philippines um so now the south pacific operations were officially a delaying action um though it must be noted the japanese perhaps over committed to this delaying action argued quite sensibly by eric bergeron what happens with the japanese navy air service well their air war in the solomons ain't going so hot they're able to at least somewhat defend reball um they never uh in this in the opinion of um two historians on it they never seed air superiority in their immediate vicinity of reball until they pull their air power out offensively they're pretty much toast and then what happens is operation hailstone um this is a massive raid on truck february 17 1944 yeah so truck is devastated the japanese navy air service part of the reason for hit clinging to reball was to defend truck but now truck has been attacked directly and decimated so the japanese navy air service finally makes the decision we're pulling our air power out of a ball why are we here we need to go back to truck to defend what's left of truck meanwhile the japanese army air service they've kind of rebuilt their air strength to 300 aircraft half operational which is alluding to logistics mechanics yeah they've moved to they moved to holland hall india yeah uh they've rebuilt this modest strength and then on march 30th 31st 1944 allied air power hit holland dia in force and they destroyed over 150 aircraft on the ground and that was it outside of some aircraft operating out of the dutch east indies major japanese air operations in the south pacific came to an end um and once again the japanese army air service handed control of the air to the allies on a silver platter or more actually a poorly constructed airfield you've already probably seen as the viewer here that sort of the pictures that we have put into the video and here's a picture of hollandia um you know taking out of one of the uh american aircraft uh and you you just see how poorly dispersed the aircraft are and this is this is just an invitation to to have your air power reduced to nothing and you know the south pacific in a way when it comes to the air war it's it's it's a perfect case study for example of how important early warning is um and how important some of the less discussed sides of a air warfare is so how do you construct an airfield how do you protect an airfield how do you protect your assets how do you disperse your aircraft how do you concentrate your forces you know we see that with you know the allied successes even in 1942 and then of course the japanese failures in 1943 and 1944 uh with at wirak and hollandia i think you could say that the allies had numerical superiority in the air at the end but i don't think it's fair to say that the japanese were out of the fight before iraq maybe between weevak and hollandia because this really to to achieve that air superiority over the region it's really something that took two years to build up and it yes it is these two decisive strikes that that really reduce the air presence of the japanese have in region to absolutely nothing but that you had to work to achieve that success and you had to work and build up your uh your preparation capacities in the region in order to get to that point there is no really any sort of decisive air action in the area that altered the balance of power in the air except for these i think that's fair to say except for these two attacks we work in hollandia we can always have sort of the discussion on the relative quality of the pilots and the planes involved but i think in the area here this is actually less relevant as really japan loses its air power in two days spaced apart by a couple of months and sort of the qualitative inferiority that some people talk about with japanese planes later down the line during the war um doesn't really matter that much the quality of the airfield construction is way more important protection for the aircraft is important also if you look at the losses and we just ignore now we work in hollandia the overall voices in the region for the japanese operational losses that just happen over time are higher than combat losses in which they lose aircraft in dogfights or against flak and operationally the area was just extremely difficult to uh to work with um but yeah i think that that sort of rounds me up there justin sort of what's your take on the significance of this uh of this campaign yeah so the significance is i mean it's absolutely crucial um these protracted air campaigns in the south pacific i mean this is all this spans over two years this wasn't you know this wasn't like a quick dirty easy thing no um even if there were decisive moments where it may seem in isolation oh well they wiped them out on the ground in one day well yeah but that one day was in 1943 yeah and then they do it again in 1944 and it finally ends yeah there was a lot of stuff going on outside of that but um pretty much what it did is it in particular for the japanese navy or service it bled it bled it white um and it did a number on the japanese army air service as well you know the japanese could consistently replace numerical losses which is something that might surprise some people but i mean um the japanese navy air service grew in strength in 1944 but they couldn't maintain quality anyway this qualitative decline uh combined with increasingly ruinous operational strategic circumstances and then that leads to increasingly lopsided air campaigns of mid to late 1944 i mean most famously the marianas turkey shoot uh the air war as it develops in the philippines also doesn't go japan's way um and they start getting increasingly desperate of course kamikaze things like that so as for reading recommendations i guess for this for people that want to know more i mean hiroyuki shindo's article i think is open access in fact so people can just find it online well worth uh it's quick nice read um eric burger it's fire in the sky which i have here um it's huge yeah it's big it's well written it's affordable um as far as i know it's still in print um provides a great overview of the campaign um it's at its best talking about like high level issues and trends uh conditions in the theater uh and the allied experience uh for those with a more tactical bent like blow-by-blow kind of stuff um there's nothing that covers the entire two-plus year here but i mean the south pacific air war trilogy um finishing up the third volume now i it's a trilogy because a fourth volume is coming out next year um it goes up to june 1942 and it is literally blow by blow uh they compare cross-reference japanese and allied records um they have very very detailed appendices and all of that it's i can't uh rave about it enough um and they've got like a whole bunch of other stuff so i just pulled out one other example but like this is the an english language uh japanese unit history of the tainan kokutai a lot of our authors but michael clearing bold is one of the principal ones yeah otherwise i also have a couple of reading recommendations of course um this should be a no-brainer for for many people as well um john londstrom's the first team at the guadalcanal command absolutely great um you know history on off in the u.s and the japanese naval air war during that phase of the war and then there's also again a trilogy that just shows you how how big this theater actually is by bruce gamble uh i have book three here now of his uh trilogy uh which is also invasion rebel uh fortress rebel and then of course target rebel this is the sort of the the final phase between march 1943 and and the end of the war um and that is also uh quite a nice little uh you know well i wouldn't call it a nice little study it's a nice good study uh because little is probably not the word you use for a trilogy so yeah if people want to have a look at those books i'm also going to post them down in the description as always with all my sources and hopefully people can pick something up there and enjoy the reading so yeah justin thanks very much for joining us today and uh yeah as always guys have a great day and see you in the sky you can say bye if you want bye excellent okay

Channel: Military Aviation History

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Length: 28min 29sec (1709 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 07 2021