The British Pacific Fleet: The Royal Navy's Most Powerful Strike Force

By David Hobbs

In August 1944 the British Pacific Fleet did not exist. Six months later it was strong enough to launch air attacks on Japanese territory, and by the end of the war it constituted the most powerful force in the history of the Royal Navy, fighting as professional equals alongside the U.S. Navy. How this was achieved by a nation nearing exhaustion after five years of conflict is a story of epic proportions in which ingenuity, diplomacy, and dogged persistence all played a part. This ground-breaking new work by David Hobbs describes the background, creation, and expansion of the British Pacific Fleet from its first tentative strikes, through operations off the coast of Japan, to its impact on the immediate post-war period. It includes the opinions of U.S. Navy liaison officers attached to the British flagships.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Naval Institute Press
• Release date: Aug 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9781612519173

David Hobbs

UK

Book preview

The British Pacific Fleet

The British Pacific Fleet’s operational area. (Author’s collection)

Copyright © David Hobbs 2011

This edition first published in Great Britain in 2011 by

Seaforth Publishing

An imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd

47 Church Street, Barnsley

S. Yorkshire S70 2AS

www.seaforthpublishing.com

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The right of David Hobbs to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Published and distributed in the United States of America and Canada by

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This edition is authorized for sale only in the United States of America, its territories and possessions and Canada.

First Naval Institute Press eBook edition published in 2015.

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Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Glossary

Chapter 1: Background, Theory and Experience

Chapter 2: Forward Planning

Chapter 3: Evolution and Expansion

Chapter 4: Strikes against the Sumatran Oil Refineries

Chapter 5: Australia and Logistic Support

Chapter 6: Operation ‘Iceberg I’

Chapter 7: Replenishment in Leyte Gulf

Chapter 8: Operation ‘Iceberg II’

Chapter 9: Operation ‘Inmate’

Chapter 10: Repairs in Australia and Improved Logistic Support

Chapter 11: Submarine and Mine Warfare

Chapter 12: Strikes against the Japanese Mainland

Chapter 13: Victory

Chapter 14: Repatriation, Trooping and War-Brides

Chapter 15: A Peacetime Fleet

Chapter 16: Retrospection

Appendices

A: Composition of the BPF in January 1945

B: Composition of the BPF in August 1945

C: Composition of the BPF in August 1948

D: BPF Air Stations and Air Yards

E: BPF Flag and Commanding Officers in August 1945

F: BPF Aircraft

G: Pennant Numbers allocated to Commonwealth Ships in the BPF by the USN 1944–6

H: The BPF Flying Programme for 9 August 1945

I: HMS Implacable’s Administrative Orders for the Repatriation of Allied Prisoners of War and Internees (RAPWI) dated 17 September 1945

J: Admiral Fraser’s Speech on leaving Australia

K: Admiral Halsey’s Speech on 15 August 1945

L: Admiral Rawlings’ Speech on 16 August 1945

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Dedication

As the achievements of the British Pacific Fleet pass beyond living experience, this book is dedicated to keeping alive the memory of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fraser GCB KBE and the men of the Fleet he created and led so effectively.

Preface

MY INTEREST IN THE British Pacific Fleet started when I joined HMS Victorious, in the Far East Fleet, as a Midshipman in 1966 and began to take a keen interest in the part the ship had played in the Second World War. Apart from the ship herself, there were many men still serving who had been in the BPF and I wish I had written down all the anecdotes I heard from them at the time. Two years later I joined HMS Hermes, also in the Far East Fleet. She was commanded by Captain D G Parker DSO DSC AFC RN who had commanded a Corsair squadron in HMS Formidable during Operation ‘Iceberg’ and operations over Japan. I flew Gannet AEW 3 aircraft in 849 Naval Air Squadron, a unit that had, in a previous ‘incarnation’, been one of the BPF’s strike squadrons winning battle honours from Palembang to Japan. These influences, and a fascination for the Pacific Ocean itself, led me to study the BPF in growing detail and, ultimately, to setting down the results of my research in this book.

The more I studied it, the more I came to realise that the post-war Royal Navy in which I served for thirty-three years owed much of its concept of operations to the outstanding achievements of the BPF in the year from November 1944 to November 1945. The ability to improvise and make replenishment at sea both possible and practical and to absorb new ideas, working within international coalitions when necessary, were also key elements in the modernised post-war Royal Navy that fought so effectively off Korea, in the South Atlantic and in the Gulf. Not least, the implementation of the true potential of carrier-borne aircraft to project power, rather than act merely as an auxiliary arm shackled by political limitations, provided the catalyst that allowed the Royal Navy to become one of the world’s leading proponents of air power in the immediate post-war period.

It is interesting to note, however, that even at the height of its wartime strength the Royal Navy could not operate alone in the Pacific and needed significant contributions from Canada, Australia and New Zealand to achieve the aim of creating a fleet from scratch in a few short months that could fight alongside the United States Navy as a professional equal. It is at least arguable that the United States Navy needed the BPF in August 1945 if it was to sustain a fleet capable of launching Operation ‘Olympic’, the invasion of Kyushu, in November and of remaining in action against the scale of casualties that would have been likely. The fact that it was able to achieve such a difficult aim was, arguably, the Royal Navy’s greatest achievement of the war. That achievement was made possible by the ingenuity and perseverance of thousands of un-named men and women from throughout the Commonwealth who served in the fighting ships, auxiliaries and in shore establishments.

In this book I have tried to strike a balance between recounting what happened, why it happened, and individual experiences in a way that will make it both readable and informative. I am conscious that for every name mentioned, many more have been omitted but hope that by telling the story in more detail than hitherto the memory of the whole British Pacific Fleet will be kept alive for another generation to study and admire.

David Hobbs MBE

Commander Royal Navy (Retired)

Crail

2011

Acknowledgements

I AM, AS ALWAYS, grateful to my wife Jandy and my son Andrew for their unfailing support and help in everything I do.

Before I even thought of writing about the BPF I collected anecdotes and data from many of its former members, notably Rear Admiral D G Parker CB DSO DSC AFC who was my captain in HMS Hermes. He and many others, too numerous to list, are sadly no longer with us but I thank them all for their contributions which have been fitted into the overall picture. Dickie Richardson and Roy Gibbs of the Telegraphist Air Gunners’ Association have been particularly helpful.

I am also grateful to Captain Christopher Page RN, Head of the Naval Historical Branch (NHB) until 2010, Admiralty Librarian Jenny Wraight and Mike MacAloon at NHB for their ability to answer questions and find documents at very short notice. Doctor David Stevens, Director of Strategic and Historical Studies at the Sea Power Centre – Australia and his Senior Historian John Perryman have both given me unstinting help and encouragement. John Jeremy gave me valuable insight into the work of the Sydney Dockyards in 1945 and Peter Nash generously made the results of his own research into RN and USN logistic support arrangements available to me, particularly with regard to USN reports; Vince Fazio thought of me when cataloguing his photographic collection and provided some interesting pictures. Captain Paul Martin RAN of the Naval Historical Society of Australia gave valuable help with details of the BPF Memorial in Sydney.

I wish, especially, to acknowledge the late J David Brown, formerly Head of the Naval Historical Branch, who encouraged me to become a naval historian. On his untimely death in 2001 he left me his photographic library and written research material, compiled from RN and USN Reports of Proceedings and interviews with individuals. These proved to be a great help when I began to write this book; the material has no pagination but remains a treasured part of my archive.

The majority of the images come from my own collection which has grown since 1966 but all are annotated with their source. Maps were re-drawn from official sources by Peter Wilkinson.

I am extremely grateful to Rob Gardiner and Seaforth Publishing for giving me the chance to set down the story of the BPF in print and keep its memory alive.

Glossary

Allied Codenames for Japanese Aircraft

— 1 —

Background, Theory and Experience

BRITISH INVESTMENT IN TRADE across the Pacific was of such importance throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that the Committee of Imperial Defence considered its defence second only to that of the United Kingdom itself. The cost of maintaining a long-term Pacific fleet was considerable, however, and with the effective removal of Russian power after the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, Britain chose alliances and treaties rather than the maintenance of a permanent and expensive ‘blue-water’ fleet in the Pacific. Japan had become the most significant regional power and had rapidly established the largest industrial base in the Western Pacific but lacked the necessary raw materials and had shown herself to be prepared to use force to obtain them. Despite this, an Anglo-Japanese Alliance was signed in 1902 and renewed in 1905 after the Russo-Japanese War. It was re-affirmed in 1911 but a special clause was introduced into the Treaty to safeguard Britain against any possibility of being involved, as an ally of Japan, in a war against the United States. In 1919 Japan absorbed into its Empire the Marianas, Marshall and Caroline Islands, which had been seized from Germany, and claimed special interests in China. The Anglo-Japanese Treaty, despite the provisions in the 1911 version, had become a source of friction with the USA and Britain decided to terminate it.

Japan’s imperial defence policy for the twentieth century was outlined in a staff appraisal of 1907 which identified Russia, Germany, the United States and France as potential enemies but warned against the difficulty of fighting more than one opponent at the same time.¹ The Imperial Japanese Navy was given primary responsibility for planning a potential war against the United States and developed a defensive strategy intended to harass and weaken the main fleet that the United States Navy was expected to deploy from the USA to the Western Pacific. By the time it arrived it was expected to have been reduced to parity with the Japanese battle fleet which would engage it in a ‘decisive battle’ to gain the ‘sea dominance’ that would underpin subsequent peace negotiations. This strategy of attrition followed by decisive battle remained constant until the test of actual conflict, as did the concept of a short war and a single opponent, but the detailed tactics underwent a series of changes. The part played by long-range naval aircraft in the attrition phase and Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto’s 1940 decision to attack the American fleet in its base at Pearl Harbor rather than wait for it to advance were the most significant changes. France and Germany were removed from the list of potential enemies and China added to it in 1917. Britain and the Netherlands were added to the list in 1936, demonstrating clearly that, by then, the Japanese were focused on a policy of ‘resource expansion’ when the time was ripe. After the trade embargo placed on her in 1941, however, Japan ignored one of the basic tenets of its earlier concepts when it planned to launch simultaneous attacks on US, British and Netherlands possessions on the Pacific Rim.

After the conclusion of the First World War the best way of defending Britain’s Imperial interests in the Pacific was far from clear to the government and in 1919 the Admiralty sent Admiral Jellicoe to the Far East in HMS New Zealand, tasked with making recommendations for naval defence in the region. His report² was a thorough appreciation of the naval situation in Far Eastern waters and included the recommendation that a battle fleet should be stationed permanently in the Pacific, the strategy and tactics that should underpin its operations and details of the bases, docking facilities, administration, training, discipline, stores, fuel and ammunition supplies needed to support it effectively. The cost was to be split between the British, Australian and New Zealand governments in the ratio 75, 20 and 5 per cent. Jellicoe stated bluntly that:

It is obvious that nothing less than equality in modern capital ships can be relied upon to give security in the future against war with Japan and that the ships required to give this security should be close at hand. Even so the various squadrons would be scattered if war broke out suddenly, and, as Japan would gain an immense advantage if war found her fleet concentrated and the British Empire Fleet dispersed, it is only natural to suppose that, if Japan were determined on war, but little warning would be given. It is not likely that the Japanese will ever forget the valuable start which their sudden naval action at Port Arthur and Chemulpho gave them in the Russo-Japanese War. To be in a position to meet the complete Japanese Fleet, therefore, it would seem that the fleet of capital ships of the British Empire stationed in the Pacific should be composed of not less than eight battleships and eight battlecruisers as powerful individually as the Japanese ships of these classes.

His report made accurate predictions, including an observation that ‘placing oneself in the position of a Japanese strategist, the first objective on the outbreak of hostilities with the British Empire would seem undoubtedly to be an attack on her naval bases if weakly held, since, if captured or even rendered useless, the power of the British Navy would be very largely strangled and Japan could pursue any desired policy of invasion or of trade destruction’.

Jellicoe argued that Australia was the best location for the British Imperial Pacific Fleet’s main bases and recommended two sites for them; the first was Sydney with its existing dockyards and large, sheltered anchorage and the second Cockburn Sound, south of Fremantle in Western Australia. Significantly, in 2010 these form the Royal Australian Navy’s two main bases, known as Fleet Bases East and West respectively. He chose Australia because it had the industrial base to cope with the task and centres of population near the dockyards with which the ship’s companies would be familiar. He recommended that Singapore and Hong Kong be developed as forward operating bases with fuel, ammunition and battle damage repair facilities but advised against their use as main bases because they would be more difficult to defend and would lack the social amenities that would be necessary for the long-term administration of a large fleet permanently deployed in the region.

Jellicoe’s recommendations were capable of fulfilment but the British government focused on international disarmament after the Great War and chose, instead, to participate in the Washington Naval Conference and its subsequent Treaty which drastically reduced the size of the fleet, bringing it down to parity with the United States. A ratio of 5:5:3 was adopted for the British, American and Japanese capital ship strengths³ with the French allowed a mere 1.75. The Treaty made the maintenance of a British fleet in the Pacific materially impossible and made her more susceptible to United States’ interests, antagonising Japan. The latter saw the ratios as insulting and only signed the Treaty when a limit on the construction of defences of naval bases was added⁴ which allowed the fortification of the former German islands by Japan but prevented similar work in Hong Kong. Fortification work was allowed to continue, however, in Singapore and Australia. Britain retained battle fleets at home and in the Mediterranean but maintained only a light force of cruisers, destroyers and an aircraft carrier on the China Station, based on Hong Kong, as the minimum necessary to protect British peacetime economic interests against piracy and other low-intensity threats. The Royal Navy’s weakness was made worse when successive British governments adopted and continued the ‘Ten Year Rule’ that no major war was likely for at least that period. The Rule was extended annually into the early 1930s. The Dutch fleet was inadequate to defend the thousands of islands that made up their resource-rich colonial possessions and their security rested, ultimately, on the regional power of the Royal Navy for their defence⁵ to the extent that the integrity of the Netherlands East Indies was considered by the British Chiefs of Staff to be a major factor in their plans for the region.⁶

The Americans had studied possible strategies for conflict with Japan since 1914 when War Plan ‘Orange’ was produced.⁷ With the creation of what were thought to be fortified Japanese islands across the Central Pacific that had the potential to disrupt shipping between the USA and the Philippine Islands, the US Navy studied methods of deploying a fleet across the ocean to fight a decisive battle in Philippine waters after which Japan was to be blockaded into submission. Planners admitted that, in view of the distances involved there was ‘a wide gap between objectives and means’.⁸ After 1939 American war plans were up-dated into a series of individual colour-coded schemes, each based on a different international scenario and known collectively as the ‘Rainbow Plans’, numbered 1 to 5. By November 1941 these had metamorphosed into Plans for the Employment of Naval and Air Forces of the Associated Powers in the Eastern Theatre in the event of war with Japan, known for short as PLENAPS. After the outbreak of hostilities the over-arching plan for the defeat of Japan evolved in a series of conferences between Allied leaders.

The British government’s decision to reduce the size of the Royal Navy after 1922 meant that in the event of a threat to British interests in the Far East a powerful fleet would have to be deployed from the west to counter it; the Mediterranean Fleet being seen as an operational ‘swing-fleet’ capable of reinforcing the Home or Far East Stations decisively should either become necessary. The fleet would need a base in the Far East if it was to be effective and the Admiralty decided to develop a completely new dockyard and base port on the north shore of Singapore Island which had, literally, to be created from scratch out of an area of uninhabited jungle. Although not possessing the advantages of the Australian base ports identified by Jellicoe, Singapore had, at least, the merit of being closer to the resources to be defended and the potential Japanese threat but that very proximity meant that significant land, sea and, later, air defences had to be created to defend the base against asymmetric attack even when it had no fleet in it. Construction of the Singapore Naval Base was announced in 1923 and proved to be a massive engineering undertaking. Work proceeded slowly with stoppages every time politicians argued over the need for such a base and its cost until the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 gave evidence of a worsening situation that threatened trade. Work was then accelerated and it was completed in 1939 at a total cost to the British taxpayer of £60 million. It contained the largest dry-dock in the world and the third-largest floating dock. The base covered an area of twenty-one square miles and contained enough fuel supplies to support the entire Royal Navy in operations for six months at average usage rates.

Plan of Singapore Naval...

Plan of Singapore Naval Base showing its layout in 1941.

Singapore Naval Base and...

Singapore Naval Base and Dockyard photographed by the observer of a naval aircraft early in 1940. The photograph is, unfortunately, of poor quality but clearly shows the general layout with the floating dock off the north wall, W/T masts at Suara, and accommodation areas and oil fuel storage tanks at Senoko. (Author’s collection)

The base by itself, however impressive, was no deterrent to any threat but gave essential logistic support for the fleet that might have to be deployed to it. Admiralty plans were based on the assumption that there would be no simultaneous threat in Europe and, until the rise of Fascism in the 1930s, this was a not unreasonable outlook since the French Navy was concentrated in the Mediterranean where it could support mutual interests in a war in the central sea. The movement of the main fleet to Singapore became one of the standard exercises at the RN Staff College in the 1930s and the need to do so was one of the fundamental tenets of government defence policy. If a Japanese attack on Australia or New Zealand ever appeared likely ‘the British government stated categorically that in the defence of these Dominions we should sacrifice every interest except only the defence and feeding of Great Britain, on which everything depended . . . if vital to the safety of the two Dominions we should at once cut our losses in the Mediterranean and despatch this fleet to their aid’.⁹

War in Europe from 1939 made the possibility of sending a powerful fleet to Singapore even more unlikely but the Chiefs of Staff made contingency plans for having to fight a two-ocean war if Japan entered the conflict on the side of Germany.¹⁰ These were inevitably coloured by the plans that had evolved since 1919, but had, continually, to be revised as events in the west progressively made them incapable of fulfilment. The harsh reality was that the focus on a policy of disarmament for most of the period between the wars had left the British government with few viable options when it failed. At first the Admiralty had taken the view that if Japan attacked British interests in the Far East, the security of the Mediterranean would be left to the French Navy in order to move the largest possible fleet to Singapore. The collapse of France in July 1940, however, meant that that not only had the British Empire lost its only ally but the elements of the Vichy French fleet that refused to join the Allied cause had to be counted among the hostile forces to be held in check in the Mediterranean.¹¹ The fall of France gave Japan the chance of achieving its ambition to seize resources from South East Asia sooner than it had hoped and the weakness of the Vichy regime enabled Japan to force on it a treaty for the ‘joint defence’ of French Indo-China. Japanese troops marched into the region on 23 September 1941, becoming ideally placed to attack China from the south or to launch amphibious assaults on Thailand, Malaya and the Dutch East Indies.

The deteriorating situation in the Far East in 1941 was discussed by Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt at their Placentia Bay conference in August, from which the Atlantic Charter came. They agreed to impose an embargo on raw materials, including oil, against Japan if her offensive operations against China were not terminated. The militarist clique that effectively ruled Japan had, thus, to accept a humiliating reversal of the policy it had pursued for ten years or go to war to seize the resources it needed from the rich but inadequately defended colonial lands to the south. The German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 meant that Japan no longer had to guard against a Soviet attack in the north and allowed it to concentrate on offensive operations in China and the ‘Southern Resource Area’. Throughout much of 1941, the Admiralty still hoped to send a fleet comprising battleships and at least one aircraft carrier to Singapore but heavy losses in the Mediterranean late in the year made even this hope difficult to realise. These included the battleship Barham and the aircraft carrier Ark Royal, sunk within days of each other, and the battleships Queen Elizabeth and Valiant, both badly damaged in an attack by Italian frogmen in Alexandria. That left only the elderly aircraft carrier Eagle and the equally elderly battleships Ramillies and Revenge available in the short term,¹² a force which had no rational chance of either deterring or fighting the Japanese fleet.¹³

Churchill, both Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, believed that the Admiralty over-estimated the power of the Japanese and wanted to send a fast, modern battleship of the King George V class to Singapore where he believed it would have a powerful deterrent effect. The need for action was discussed in Cabinet in October 1941 where the Foreign Office drew attention to ominous signs of Japanese warlike intentions. It was decided, against the advice of the First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, to send the new battleship Prince of Wales to Singapore, flying the flag of Admiral Sir Tom Phillips, until recently the Deputy Chief of Naval Staff and thus fully aware of strategic developments. She was to be accompanied by the battlecruiser Repulse with four ‘E’ class destroyers as anti-submarine escort. The new aircraft carrier Indomitable was intended to join this embryo Pacific Fleet but she would not have completed her work-up in the West Indies in time to arrive in Singapore with the other ships and could not arrive on station before late December at the earliest. In the event, her arrival was further delayed by the need for repairs carried out in the US Navy Yard at Norfolk, Virginia, after she grounded accidentally while entering Kingston Harbour in Jamaica on 3 November 1941. The small British force was considerably weaker than the Combined Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy and its deployment was a political measure that could only be justified by the hope that Japan might hold back from an attack on British interests if it saw that a robust attempt would be made to defend them.

There was a possible second dimension to the force’s deployment which could be interpreted as an attempt to rally disparate naval forces in the area into a coalition that might stand a greater chance of deterring the Japanese or defending against their aggression. Potential coalition partners included modern Dutch cruisers, destroyers and submarines, the British cruisers and destroyers on the China Station and the American ships of the Asiatic Fleet.¹⁴ Attempts to persuade the Americans to station warships in Singapore were never realistic since right up the attack on Pearl Harbor the American public would not have stood for their neutral ships to be allocated to the defence of a belligerent nation’s fleet base, especially one sited to defend colonial possessions. However, time had almost run out and it was by no means certain that the United States would enter the war if British interests alone were attacked.¹⁵

The Admiralty remained anxious that Admiral Phillips’ weak force was a ‘hostage to fortune’, a view shared by Field Marshal Smuts, Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, after he met Admiral Phillips when Prince of Wales visited Cape Town to refuel in November 1941. He subsequently telegraphed Mr Churchill to express apprehension at the division of British and American naval strength in the Pacific, ‘two fleets . . . each separately inferior to the Japanese Navy’ which he described as ‘an opening for a first class disaster’. The two British capital ships arrived in Singapore on 2 December 1941. Their arrival was widely publicised but had no impact on Japanese plans that were already under way. The Admiralty suggested to Admiral Phillips that his force would be less vulnerable if taken away from Singapore and Repulse actually sailed for Darwin in Northern Australia on 5 December 1941.¹⁶ Prince of Wales remained in the dockyard for defects to be rectified and Admiral Phillips flew to Manila on 4 December for talks with Admiral Thomas Hart USN, Commander of the US Asiatic Fleet, which he described on his return as ‘very friendly’. He signalled the Admiralty that Britain could expect ‘full co-operation from the USN’ in the event of a Japanese attack but it was already too late. At noon on 6 December, large Japanese convoys totalling some thirty-eight ships with a strong escort were sighted by aircraft off the south-western tip of Indo-China heading west. Rear Admiral Palliser, Phillips’ Chief of Staff, recalled Repulse on his own initiative and she returned to Singapore on 7 December. At 08.00 local time on 7 December 1941 Japanese carrier-borne aircraft attacked the US Pacific Fleet at its moorings in Pearl Harbor inflicting serious damage although, fortunately, the fleet’s three aircraft carriers were at sea. Simultaneously, sea-borne invasions of Thailand and Malaya were commenced followed by an attack on Hong Kong from across the border with China and air attacks on the Philippines and Singapore.¹⁷ On 8 December Admiral Phillips officially took over from Vice Admiral Layton as Commander-in Chief, Eastern Fleet.

Phillips discussed the situation with Palliser, Captain L H Bell RN, the Captain of the Fleet, Captain J C Leach MVO DSO RN, the commanding officer of Prince of Wales, and Captain W B Tennant CB MVO RN, the commanding officer of Repulse, at 12.30 on 8 December. Their appreciation was that in the Gulf of Siam, the enemy might have a battleship, seven cruisers and twenty destroyers covering a large number of transports which were off-loading stores onto beaches at Singora in Thailand and Kota Bharu in Malaya. They were unanimous in feeling that it was impossible for the Royal Navy to remain idle in Singapore while the Army and RAF were being driven back in Northern Malaya; a raid into the South China Sea, though hazardous, represented an acceptable risk that must be undertaken. Phillips felt that, ‘given fighter support and surprise, the two British ships would have a good chance of smashing the Japanese forces at Singora and Kota Bharu’ and he decided to attack them shortly after dawn on 10 December.¹⁸ By the evening of 9 December, Churchill and the War Cabinet were painfully aware that deterrence had failed and the British capital ships, far from acting as a deterrent or forming the focal point of a coalition fleet, were in fact alone and desperately vulnerable. Churchill subsequently told the House of Commons¹⁹ that he hoped the Japanese would regard the ships as a powerful raiding force and later wrote that on 9 December ‘there was general agreement in London that the ships must go to sea and vanish among the innumerable islands’.²⁰ Whatever the feeling in London, it was too late and the ships were already acting as a raiding force and were at sea, seeking action with the enemy.

HMS Prince of Wales

HMS Prince of Wales arriving at Singapore Naval Base on 2 December 1941. The flag in the right foreground marks the intended position for the battleship’s bow when she is secured alongside. (Author’s collection)

Admiral Sir Tom Phillips...

Admiral Sir Tom Phillips on the right with his chief-of-staff Rear Admiral A F E Palliser in Singapore. (Author’s collection)

The British warships were designated as Force Z and sailed at 17.35 local time on 8 December, passing east of the Anamba Islands to avoid an enemy minefield reported off Pulo Tioman Island. The Force comprised Prince of Wales, Repulse, the RN destroyers Electra, Express, Tenedos and the RAN Vampire. The Chief of Staff had remained at Singapore as a rear link and early on 9 December he signalled that fighter protection on 10 December off Singora would no longer be possible as RAF Kota Bharu had been over-run by the enemy and that British forces were ‘losing their grip’ on the north of Malaya. Thus one of Admiral Phillips’ pre-conditions for success could not be met but he decided to continue, provided that he was not located by enemy aircraft. Captain Bell subsequently recounted that Phillips’ intention was to detach the destroyers, which he considered too vulnerable to air attack, at midnight 9/10 December and make a high speed dash to Singora with the heavy ships, relying on surprise and speed to achieve his aim. Enemy aircraft were regarded as the major threat but two years’ experience of war in the Atlantic and Mediterranean led Phillips to suppose that he was outside the radius of action of enemy dive and torpedo-bombers and that the main opposition would come from hastily organised high-level bombers operating from Indo-China at extreme range. This method of bombing had not proved effective against warships in the Atlantic and Mediterranean and was precisely the sort of threat that Prince of Wales’ modern gunnery systems were designed to break up. A single enemy aircraft was sighted at 06.20 on 9 December by a look-out in Vampire but low cloud and rain squalls favoured evasion and Phillips stood on towards Singora. After 17.00, however, the weather cleared and three enemy reconnaissance aircraft were seen from the flagship.²¹ All hope of surprise, Phillips’ second pre-condition, was lost and the planned raid was abandoned. Force Z headed west until sunset and then altered course to the south to return to Singapore. Phillips was bitterly disappointed but heartened by a spontaneous signal from Captain Tennant appreciating the difficulty of the decision and agreeing with it.

HMS Repulse in December

HMS Repulse in December 1941. (Syd Goodman collection via Steve Bush)

Although they did not know it as they turned west, the British force passed within fifteen miles of the Japanese 7th Cruiser Division.²² These were retiring onto the battleships Kongo and Haruna to the north-east. Force Z had thus passed within minutes of sighting enemy warships but the main threat was still posed by enemy naval aircraft. Further signals from the Chief of Staff warned of enemy bombers ‘in force and undisturbed’ in southern Indo-China and gave more depressing details of the Army’s retreat from northern Malaya. However, at 23.35 on 9 December, Admiral Phillips received a report of an enemy landing at Kuantan, 150 miles south of Kota Bharu. He appreciated that the enemy would be unlikely to expect Force Z, last seen on a northerly course in the latitude of Singora, to appear off Kuantan which was a significant military position for the defence of Malaya. It was close to the return track to Singapore and over 400 miles from Indo-China so Admiral Phillips decided that surprise was possible and the risk justified. At 00.52 local time on 10 December he ordered Force Z to close Kuantan but as subsequent events unfolded it became clear that he had under-estimated both the size and the capability of the Japanese forces that opposed him. Unfortunately, he decided not to break radio silence to inform his Chief of Staff of his changed plans, assuming instead that Admiral Palliser would deduce his new movements and arrange fighter cover at dawn off Kuantan. The decision demanded too much insight, however,²³ and no fighters were launched from Singapore until Repulse signalled that she was under attack. The first news that Force Z was off Kuantan was not received in Singapore until 11.30 and came from one of Prince of Wales’ Walrus aircraft which had been catapulted off to search for the enemy and land at Kuantan earlier in the morning.

From the perspective of the Imperial Japanese Navy,²⁴ operations against Force Z provided the perfect opportunity to demonstrate the effectiveness of its shore-based long-range naval air striking force, created with the specific aim of gradually weakening an enemy fleet as it advanced. Known as the ‘taibei yogeki zengen sakusen’, literally translated as the ‘strategy for weakening the enemy [US] fleet’ as it was expected to advance toward the decisive battle for the Philippines,²⁵ it worked equally well against the weak British force. Admiral Phillips and his staff clearly had insufficient knowledge of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s fighting capabilities and had sailed into a ‘killing area’ from which it would be difficult for Force Z to extricate itself. The weather had, indeed, precluded a Japanese air search for much of 9 December but the submarine I-65 had reported the British force heading north in a position about 200 miles south of Point Camau, the southernmost tip of Indo-China, at 13.43. In consequence the forces covering the landings, including the battleships Kongo and Haruna, six cruisers and thirteen destroyers, which had been heading back to Kamranh Bay, were ordered to be prepared to intercept the British ships. They cruised to the north-east of Force Z and, as we have seen, the 7th Cruiser Division came within minutes of sighting them.

I-65’s report reached the IJN’s 22nd Air Flotilla at their bases around Saigon at about 16.00 local time and formations of aircraft were launched to locate and attack Force Z. The Flotilla comprised the Gensan and Mihoro Groups, each with thirty-six G3M1 ‘Nell’ medium bombers and the Kanoya Group with twenty-six of the new G4M1 ‘Betty’ medium bombers.²⁶ The former had a radius of action of over 1,000 nautical miles with a 1,764lb torpedo or an equivalent weight of bombs. The latter had only just entered service and had a radius of action of over 1,600 nautical miles with a similar weapon load. The Flotilla’s air groups achieved something no other air arm had proved capable of in two years of war,²⁷ locating and overwhelming capital ships at sea at long range. Even the high-level bombers scored significant hits, something British, German and Italian air forces had proved unable to do. Both Prince of Wales and Repulse were lost to multiple torpedo and bomb hits and Captain Tennant said subsequently that ‘the enemy attacks were, without doubt, magnificently carried out’. Many British survivors spoke of the determination and efficiency with which they were pressed home. Bombs were dropped from 10,000 feet by groups of nine aircraft flying along the centreline of the target ship which released their weapons together on a signal from the leader. Torpedoes were dropped at ranges between 1,000 and 2,000 yards, at heights of up to 500 feet and at high speed, much higher and faster than their British equivalents.

Viewed in hindsight it is clear that Force Z had no counter to the weapons and tactics deployed by their enemy. It had been located soon after sailing and would probably have been brought to battle by superior combinations of surface and submarine forces if the attack by the 22nd Air Flotilla had not been successful. It is interesting to speculate what difference Indomitable and her air group would have made. She would undoubtedly have given Admiral Phillips more flexibility and he could even have used her imaginatively to strike from a position off the north-west coast of Malaya, across the Kra Isthmus at Japanese invasion forces unloading their troops and stores in the Gulf of Siam. Her two Albacore units, 827 and 831 Naval Air Squadrons (NAS), were sufficiently worked up to strike at night and would have stood a reasonable chance of scoring hits against the stationary invasion shipping. The two capital ships could have supported her and there would have been far less chance of intervention by Japanese surface ships or submarines. Given the tactics used by the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean at the time, however, it is more likely that Admiral Phillips would have tied the carrier to the raid he actually carried out, keeping her close to the battleships and limiting her striking potential. The Sea Hurricane fighters of 880 NAS and the slower Fulmars of 800 NAS could have broken up many of the Japanese attack formations and had the advantage that the Japanese bombers were lightly built with no protection for fuel tanks or aircrew. They had a tendency to burn when hit by enemy fire and the G4M1 quickly earned the nickname ‘cigar lighter’ among its crews in the opening months of the war. Whether the fighters would have beaten off all the attacks is questionable but it is possible that they could have prevented one or both capital ships from being sunk.

An Imperial Japanese Navy...

An Imperial Japanese Navy Mitsubishi G3M1 medium bomber fitted with a torpedo. The type was given the Allied reporting codename ‘Nell’. (Author’s collection)

HMS Express taking survivors...

HMS Express taking survivors off the sinking Prince of Wales. (Author’s collection)

Captain Tennant and another...

Captain Tennant and another survivor on board a destroyer after being rescued. (Author’s collection)

With the loss of Prince of Wales and Repulse on 10 December 1941, followed by the capture of the naval bases in Hong Kong and Singapore, the Royal Navy was effectively driven out of the Pacific and concentrated on building up an Eastern Fleet to defend the Indian Ocean. This gathered under Admiral Sir James Somerville at Addu Atoll in March 1942 and included the new fleet carriers Indomitable and Formidable and the elderly Hermes together with five battleships and a number of cruisers and destroyers. Between them the carriers had only thirty-nine fighters and fifty-seven strike aircraft. In April the Japanese carrier task force sortied into the Indian Ocean with the aim of destroying the Eastern Fleet and its main base at Colombo; it was fresh from achievements at Pearl Harbor and Darwin and included the carriers Akagi, Hiryu, Soryu, Shokaku and Zuikaku with over 300 modern fighter, search and strike aircraft embarked. Somerville relied on the handful of RAF and RCAF Catalina aircraft in Ceylon to find the enemy and his only chance of inflicting damage on it was to launch a night-strike by Albacores from his carriers. A Catalina located the enemy fleet on 4 April and Somerville took his carriers to sea in attempt to intercept the enemy which failed, probably saving the outnumbered British ships and their aircraft from annihilation. The Japanese struck at Colombo on 5 April but found few ships and inflicted little damage by comparison with that inflicted on Darwin a few weeks earlier, although the cruisers Dorsetshire and Cornwall were sunk on their way to join the fleet. Somerville returned to Addu Atoll on 8 April but detached Hermes to Trincomalee for refit. Having failed to locate the Eastern Fleet, the Japanese carrier force struck at Trincomalee on 9 April, again finding it largely clear of shipping but they did locate and sink Hermes, making her the only British carrier to be sunk by air attack during the entire war. She had no aircraft on board and, like Prince of Wales and Repulse, had relied on shore-based RAF fighters for defence and these

Reviews for The British Pacific Fleet

[dinadansfriend · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Mr. Hobbs has created the best history of this force so far. It clearly lays out the differences between the USN and the RN, and shows the improvement for carrier-based warfare the RN was capable of versus the Japanese in the Pacific in 1945. There is a lot of photography, and the appendices are frequently useful. another area where it shows to advantage is the amount of material that covers the immediate post-war period, detailing the gradual run-down of the BPF. Some chapters also cover the social effects of the war on the navy and the difficulties of dealing with POWs and of course the inevitable war brides. A worthy book for any well-rounded naval library.