80 years on from the Pacific war’s great carrier Battles that re-shaped naval warefare
These 80th anniversaries punctuate 2022:
7th/8th May 1942, Battle of the Coral Sea,
the first true carrier to carrier battle in history.
First day IJN Shoho light carrier sunk, second day US Lexington lost and Yorktown
damaged in return for Shokaku badly damaged. Tactical IJN win, but strategic loss.
4th June 1942, Battle of Midway main action.
Sides have approximate parity in the air. IJN four fleet carriers, USN three such but also land based force on Midway. Enterprise takes out Kaga and Akagi while Yorktown dive bombers torch Soryu. Sister Hiryu strikes back and nails Yorktown. Her planes transfer to Enterprise which launches a joint raid that catches Hiryu. All four IJN carriers sink as does crippled Yorktown after a follow-up submarine attack.
Out of seven carriers engaged just two survive!
24th August, Battle of the Eastern Solomons
became the third true carrier to carrier battle but was not decisive, often seen as of a piece with other actions such as IJN submarine successes later putting Saratoga out of the war for several months and sinking Wasp for no further IJN carrier losses except for pocket carrier Ryujo sunk at Eastern Solomons.
26th October, sees the Battle of Santa Cruz.
There Hornet is sunk and Enterprise damaged for the second time in the Guadalcanal campaign. On the IJN side no losses, but Shokaku and light carrier Zuiho damaged. Carrier and air crew losses by this stage so severe on each side that there is not be another carrier to carrier battle until June 1944.
It was decisive for being indecisive although an IJN tactical victory, like Coral Sea.
13th-15th November 1942 comes the decisive battle for Guadalcanal
but with carriers now playing only a marginal role. Due to the drastic cruisers losses in night battles the US throws in its two latest battleships at very high risk but successfully. Enterprise fought in a handicapped condition as in a way did Junyo on the Japanese side but never against each other. No other carriers were left to fight until 1943.
Enterprise was finally returned to Pearl Harbour when relieved by British Victorious joining a repaired Saratoga,
total onboard air strength 120 max. Japan had damaged big fast Shokaku similarly rejoin sister Zuikaku.
Shadow fleet conversions gave them an edge over the Allies with Junyo, Hiyo, Zuiho and Ryuho.
The six carriers combined a total air strength of 294. The war was slowed for the Allies as a result.
How carriers came to dominate the world’s oceans is the theme of newly out book,
Japanese Carriers and Victory in the Pacific: the Yamamoto Option by Martin Stansfeld as published by Pen & Sword. It tells how if Yamamoto had won his way enough carriers could have been built before the war broke out to enable the invasion of Hawaii and not just a raid on Pearl Harbour, thereby giving Japan a chance of winning the Pacific War and equally so the invasion of Ceylon rather than a mere raid thereby similarly securing the Indian Ocean.
In his Afterword to the book, The Ironies of Mars, Stansfeld has a topical message for
warmongers in the context of Putin’s War in Ukraine; Those tempted into playing with the
capricious god of war risk being played with by Mars.