- 117 - Pacific War - Operation Hailstone: the Smashing of Truk , February 13-20, 1944

Last time we spoke about Operation Flintlock, the invasion of Kwajalein. The Americans had unleashed an incredible amount of air, sea and land forces against the Marshall Islands. The amphibious invasion of most of the islands saw little resistance, but on Kwajalein they would meet a determined enemy. The Americans achieved strategic surprise; artillery preparation, naval gunfire, and aerial bombardment had successfully softened up the target in a fashion unexcelled at any other time in the Pacific War; the ship-to-shore movement had been conducted expeditiously and without too many hiccups; supplies flowed ashore and to the front lines relatively smoothly and without interruption; the infantry-engineer teams assisted by tanks moved steadily clearing the enemy from shelters and pillboxes; and American casualties had been fairly light. Altogether, the battle for Kwajalein represented the ideal for all military operations. Then we covered a bit of the Burma front where the allies unleashing an offensive, while the Japanese unleashed Operation HA-GO.

This episode is Operation Hailstone: the Smashing of Truk

Welcome to the Pacific War Podcast Week by Week, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about world war two? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on world war two and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel you can find a few videos all the way from the Opium Wars of the 1800’s until the end of the Pacific War in 1945. 

For those who came rushing over to see the scene at Kwajalein descriptions given were comically noted as “a hell of a Spruance Haircut, with some Mitscher shampoo”. Looking down at Roi and Namur a F6F pilot recalled “ it looked like “the moon,” or “plowed ground.” The beach and roads were strewn with the charred and misshapen remains of equipment, tanks, and armored vehicles. I don’t think there was a stick of anything standing. It looked just completely beaten up.” A sailor who visited one of the captured atolls had observed “palms were shredded where shells and bomb fragments had made direct hits, leaving stumps that looked like old-fashioned shaving brushes stuck, bristles up, in the sand”. Holland Smith was greatly annoyed by the number of sightseers who came to Kwajalein stating. a “regular tourist haunt. . . . The big army and navy brass from Pearl Harbor descended on us like flies. The photographers had a gala day snapping pictures against the background of shelled buildings, while visiting brass hunted for samurai swords and other souvenirs.” 

Meanwhile a single battalion was assigned to capture Majuro, and their battle would consist of walking up some beaches completely unopposed. The Japanese garrison had pulled out a week earlier. Admiral Hill declared the atoll secure only 2 hours after landings were made. Its huge anchorage would accommodate all the mobile floating logistical assets of Service Squadron 10 and for the time being became the principal advance base for the 5th fleet. Jaluit, Mille, Wotje and Maloelap, which had sizable Japanese garrisons, would not be invaded by the Allied forces. Since the Japanese were cut off from outside assistance, the garrisons were doing no harm to the Allied effort, so they would be left alone, thus saving many American and Japanese lives by not forcing the issue. 

But Eniwetok Atoll would not be bypassed, because she held the second largest lagoon in the Marshall Islands. As Admiral Nimitz and his commanders considered the repercussions of their surprising quick and low cost victory, they soon elected to accelerate the schedule of future operations in the region. Eniwetok had been originally slabbed for May, but it seemed obvious the Japanese power in the Marshalls was crumbling a lot faster than anticipated. Consequently, Admiral Nimitz knew it would be necessary to capture the atoll to give shelter to all the ships he intended to deploy westward in the drive against the Japanese inner empire. Since it now seemed Brigadier-General Thomas Watson’s 8000 reserve troops of the 22nd Marines and the 106th Regiment would no longer be required, Admirals Spruance and Hill began preparing them for the invasion of Eniwetok. However Eniwetok was within Truk’s air combat radius, thus to hit Eniwetok, they would first have to neutralize what was called the Gibraltar of the Pacific, Truk.

Prior to WW2, Truk was neither well developed nor well defended. Although the US feared the Japanese had been fortifying Truk for nearly two decades; in truth, the Japanese largely ignored Truk after capturing it during WW1. When the Pacific War started on December 7, 1941, only a few coastal batteries and naval minefields added since November 1939 covered the passes into Truk Lagoon. Few other defenses, including inadequate anti-aircraft artillery, protected it. To the US Navy, Truk appeared impregnable and sailors spoke the name in awe‑struck tones. This was because Truk needed few artificial defenses to make it virtually impregnable to surface invasion. Truk was a naturally sheltered and easily defended anchorage, large enough to accommodate the entire IJN and out of range of enemy naval guns. Their defense, however, depended on the air garrison, one of the strongest in Japan’s Southeast Pacific theater. Dangerous long‑range reconnaissance flights flown by B‑24s from bases in the Gilberts in December 1943 managed to bring back photos that allowed intelligence officers to map out the air bases and the various anchorages in the lagoon. Analysts thus began to realize there was not as much there as expected. And thus Operations Catchpole and Hailstone were born. Catchpole would be the invasion of Eniwetok while Hailstone would be the neutralization of Truk and as a secondary objective, to discern if Truk could be bypassed similarly as Rabaul or Maloelap  was.

Operation Hailstone would be bigger than December’s raid against Kwajalein. Vice-Admiral Raymond Spruance’s 5th fleet would deploy Task Group 50.9 and three of Task Force 58’s four fast carrier task groups. Task Force 50 was under Spruance himself while Admiral Mitscher had command over the carrier task force. Spruance would also had overall command over the operation. Fleet carriers Enterprise, Yorktown, Essex, Intrepid, and Bunker Hill and light carriers, Belleau Wood, Cabot, and Monterey would be launched aircraft in the operation. Admiral Lea would control a fast striking force consisting of light carrier Cowpens, and battleships Iowa, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Alabama, South Dakota and North Carolina. 10 submarines would be lurking like sharks around Truk independently seeing if they could possibly intercept some IJN forces or rescue down US pilots during the attack. To prepare for the operation, on February 4th a lone PB4Y Liberator launched off Torokina’s airfield to carry out reconnaissance of Truk. The photos indicated that Truk Lagoon held a battleship, two aircraft carriers, six heavy cruisers and four light cruisers, 20 destroyers, and 12 submarines. The PB4Y was spotted and fired on by warships in the harbor and several fighters were launched to intercept, but only one, a floatplane fighter, came close enough to open fire. The pilot managed to high tail it out of there safely. 

The American reconnaissance flight alerted Admiral Koga that they could expect a heavy raid at any moment, so he ordered all his warships to depart the lagoon before February 21st, the date they predicted the Americans would hit. The departure was extremely hasty. 2 auxiliary aircraft carriers had just arrived at Truk the previous month. When the departure order came, they haphazardly unloaded their aircraft in order to leave quickly. The aircraft were left parked nose-to-tail on airport aprons and taxiways. Cargo ships equally hastily unloaded stores so they could leave. Fuel barges were drained to top off the tanks of the Combined Fleet’s major units. They had to be tediously refilled from tankers, a task made difficult by choppy seas kicked up by rough weather between February 13 and 15. On February 12, most of the Combined Fleet’s major units left Truk for Palau. The light cruiser Agano, previously damaged and under repair, could not depart until February 16. Its departure was so late that it would be caught and sunk by the newly arrived US submarine screen. Other ships were still preparing to leave, their departure delayed by bad weather and slow refueling.

Of those ships trapped still at Truk were the 4th fleet of Vice-Admiral Kobayashi Masami, consisting of light cruiser Naka; destroyers Maikaze and Oite, alongside some units of the 8th Fleet and several transports. There were also various auxiliary, destroyer, repair ships, transports and the 6th Fleet of Vice-Admiral Takagi Takeo headquarters. On February 5th, Admiral Hill learnt he would be commanding the Eniwetok expeditionary forces and have less than two weeks to prepare them. Moving up the invasion of Eniwetok required stripping the new garrisons of Kwajalein and Roi-Namur of manpower and supplies. The landing boat crews were green and had no real training with the troops. As recalled by General Watson “the infantry, amphibian tractors, amphibian tanks, tanks, aircraft, supporting naval ships, and most of the staffs concerned had never worked together before.” Yet we will be talking about Eniwetok in the next episode so we will be diving straight into Hailstone.

Operation Hailstone had been long on American drawing board. On December 26, 1943, Admiral Nimitz had informed King that he thought the operation would become feasible by the following April, but he pledged to do it earlier if circumstances allowed: “Much depends on extent of damage inflicted on enemy in all areas in next 2 months.” Located 669 miles southwest of Eniwetok, Truk was a colossal atoll, it held a cluster of around a dozen islands near the center of its lagoon. Around 2000 Micronesian natives lived on the islands, mostly in thatch huts on grassy plains and beaches. There was a sense of dread amongst the aviators and crewmen of the task forces assigned to the operation. They were to attack the “mystery base”, Truk had acquired a reputation as an unassailable fortress. It was thought to be a major hub of Japanese airpower, defended by hundreds of crack pilots in Zeros. The task forces sortied westward on February 12th and no Japanese would bother their approach. The carriers got to their assembly point 90 miles northeast of Dublon before sunrise on February 17th. AT 4:43am the operation kicked off when 5 fleet carriers launched 72 Hellcats to go knock out the enemy air power prior to sending in the bombers. This was a new technique Admiral Mitscher had concocted himself. The Japanese were caught completely unprepared, no Japanese aircraft were in the air when radar picked up the incoming aircraft. The IJN's 22nd and 26th Air Flotilla's were on shore leave and their radar had difficulty detecting low flying aircraft, a weakness allied intelligence exploited. Despite this, the Japanese tossed 90 aircraft, half of which attempted to intercept the US fighters without coordination. 

Within minutes of combat, 30 Japanese fighters were shot down, by the end of the engagement a total of 55 would fall. The Americans lost 4 Hellcats, and at least one according to VF-6 pilot Alex Vraciu was a victim of friendly fire. “There were dog fights all over the place. I even saw one of our Hellcats shoot another Hellcat down. It was a great deflection shot but . . . one of our guys just shot first before being sure and this other poor pilot was forced to parachute out. In the course of the action, I saw a number of Japanese parachutes in the air.” The American pilots had expected to be facing 200 Japanese aircraft. According to estimates given in postwar interrogations, the Japanese had 68 operational airplanes on the Moen field; 27 on the Dublon field; 20 on Eten and 46 on Param, for a total of 161. Parked on the big field at Eten were some 180 aircraft that were damaged, most grounded for lack of spare parts, or immobilized for lack of aircrews. Most of these would be destroyed on the ground. Although Admiral Koga anticipated the American move against Truk, air and naval forces were not on the alert when the American planes suddenly appeared overhead. According to Masataka Chihaya, a staff officer with the 4 Fleet, the pilots, ground personnel, and ships’ crews had been kept in 24hr readiness since the overflight of the 2 marine PB4Ys two weeks earlier, and had reached a state of collective exhaustion.

Another factor to the catastrophe was that of morale and even discipline had eroded since the withdrawal of the heavy warships. Pilots had refused to climb into their cockpits when ordered, many had gone absent without leave. The atoll’s commander, Vice Admiral Masami Kobayashi, had apparently concluded that the American fleet was still engaged in the Marshalls, and authorized a downgrade in the alert level. On February 16, many pilots and other personnel had left their barracks for R&R. The morning of the American raid found a large proportion of Truk’s aviators asleep in the atoll’s largest town, on the island of Dublon, having partied pretty hard into the night at local drinking establishments. Their only means of returning to their airfield on the island of Eten was by ferry, and the ferry could not accommodate all of them at once. Many aircraft, both on Eten and on the airfields of Moen and Param islands, had also been disarmed and drained of fuel. Kobayashi’s ignominious failure to keep his forces on alert put an end to his naval career; he was relieved of command and then forced to retire from active service.

Having swept the skies of opposition by 6:00am, the Hellcats began strafing the seaplane base at Dublon and the airfields on Moen, Eten, and Param, successfully destroying another 40 aircraft on the ground. As the fighter sweep was ending, 18 Avengers emerged dropping their payloads onto the airfields,  neutralizing Truks air power. As such, the living hell created by strafing and bombs saw a total of 125 operational aircraft and 110 air arsenal aircraft get destroyed or seriously damaged on the ground. With Truk’s air power neutralized, the next American objective was to hit the shipping in the lagoon, so the carriers then began launching full deckload strikes, staggering the launches so that there were aircraft over Truk virtually continuously for the rest of the day. James D. Ramage, flying a VB-10 Dauntless, noted that several Zeros flew by him without offering combat. He assumed that they were dispirited by the one-sided results of the air fight and were determined to survive it. It was a syndrome that had become increasingly common during the later stages of the South Pacific air campaign. 

Due to the lack of air cover or warning, many merchant ships were caught at anchor with only the islands' anti-aircraft guns for defense. At 07:30, the first shipping began to be attacked. Yorktown’s bombers rapidly sinking the cargo ship Fujikawa Maru and then bombing the submarine tender Rio de Janeiro Maru was hit by 1,000lb bombs dropped by Yorktown SBD Dauntlesses east of Uman. It stayed afloat, but sank the next day. Another submarine tender, the Heian Maru, headquarters of Vice-Admiral Takagi Takeo was hit twice , but the ship would successfully survive the relentless American attacks, then offloading Takagi on Dublon after sunset. By 9:23am, Lee’s battleships, heavy cruisers and destroyers came in to try and catch escaping ships. Some Japanese vessels attempted to flee via the atoll's North Pass; but were bottled up by the aerial attack and by Lee’s warships, most of them would be successfully sunk by 13:00. 

The famed marine fighter ace Major Gregory “Pappy” Boyington, of the Black Sheep squadron VMF-214, had been shot down and captured off Rabaul a week before Hailstone. Alongside other POW’s he was flown into Truk while the raid was developing. As the Betty bomber carrying them rolled to a stop, Pappy and his fellow prisoners were thrown out onto the airstrip. They looked up and were shocked to see an F6F Hellcat flying low over the airfield, walking .50-caliber fire across  parked planes. The bomber from which they had just been ejected went up in a sheet of flame. The Americans were shoved into a pit by the side of the airfield, and watched the action overhead and cheered for the attackers. Pappy recalled this “There was so much excitement I couldn’t do any differently. I just had to see those Nip planes, some of the light planes like the Zeros, jump off the ground from the explosion of our bombs and come down “cl-l-l-lang,” just like a sack of bolts and nuts. The planes caught on fire and the ammunition in them began going off. There were 20-mm cannon shells and 7.7’s bouncing and ricocheting all around this pit. Some of these hot pieces we tossed back out of the pit with our hands”.

Enterprise dive-bombers dropped 1,000-pound armor-piercing bombs on targets chosen from the aerial photos taken earlier. The planes hurtled down through flak bursts and smashed the stationary ships. A bomb hit the stern of the 13,000-ton Hoyo Maru. The 7,000-ton aviation stores ship Kiyozumi Maru and lit her up. A VT-6 Avenger flew low over the ammunition ship, the Aikoku Maru, and landed a bomb dead-center amidships. The target went up in a huge, rolling ball of flame that engulfed the plane and destroyed it. The shockwave was powerful enough to rock Lieutenant Ramage’s aircraft, more than 2,000 feet overhead. “It was, I think, the biggest explosion I’ve ever seen, other than the atomic bombs. It was just an enormous blast.” 5 ships managed to escape the carnage within the lagoon. The light cruiser Katori, auxiliary cruiser Akagi Maru, destroyers Maikaze and Nowaki, and the small trawler, Shonan Maru. Unfortunately for them they ran directly into Lee’s force at 1:30pm. Only the destroyer Nowaki managed to outrun the Americans as she fired a spread of torpedoes trying to keep the Americans at a distance.

Spruance was ultimately the one who ordered the surface ships to come into the combat area and this resulted in close calls for friendly fire. Mitscher would continuously order pilots to hold back their payloads against fleeing ships and wait for identification first. Many of the aviators would accuse Spruance of seeking to have “the big guns” get their taste of the blood. But the big guns would basically only finish off some crippled ships. Minneapolis and New Orleans sank two immobilized ships with 3-4 salvos. Meanwhile the USS New Jersey nearly took two torpedo hits from a sinking IJN destroyer. American ships came to the ailing IJN vessel trying to pick up survivors, but almost all the Japanese sailors took their own lives. The Iowa would take a bomb hit from a Japanese aircraft, but suffered little damage. If one or more of the American surface ships were hit by torpedoes, it may have very well cost Spruance his command. The ordinarily conservative fleet commander had behaved with impulsive bravado, and it seems for no better reason than a blackshoe’s inborn desire to claim a piece of the action for the big guns. Admiral Sherman’s tactful conclusion was that “this expedition accomplished little and only complicated the attacks by the carrier planes.” Lieutenant Ramage was less gentle: “So the big battleships finally drew blood against a cruiser that was almost dead in the water. It must have been a great victory.”

The death toll for the first day of Hailstone was more than 20 Japanese ships sunk, but the fun was not over. 6-7 Radar-equipped B5Ns capable of tracking ships at night launched perhaps from Rabaul or Saipan, hunting for the US carriers. They were spotted on radar as they approached the US ships. Night fighters attempted to intercept them, but were unable to find them in the darkness. The task force maneuvered to avoid the incoming bombers, which would have worked if the Japanese were using aircraft blindly flying a standard search pattern. However, the radar-equipped Nakajimas detected the course change and continued to home in on the carriers. Between 7:00 and 10:00, the aircraft made several approaches to the US ships, but were kept at a distance by heavy radar-directed anti-aircraft fire. The Yorktown launched a night fighter F4U Corsair at 9:20 to intercept a particularly persistent Nakajima, vectoring the fighter towards the torpedo bomber. But for once, the Japanese used radar to better advantage than the US, so the Corsair never made contact with the Nakajima. The Nakajima was then able to press its attack, launching a torpedo at the USS Intrepid. It struck near the starboard quarter, jamming the rudder, killing 11 aboard, and wounding 17. The B5N that dropped the torpedo apparently escaped unharmed. Intrepid was in no danger of sinking, but made her way to Majuro to be safe.

The Americans then launched their own night attack on Japanese shipping in Truk Atoll. At 2:00 am, the USS Enterprise launched a flight of 12 radar-equipped Avengers to attack the surviving Japanese ships in Truk Lagoon. Each aircraft was armed with 4 500-pound bombs. The concept of performing a low-altitude night attack, with the planes guided to the targets by radar alone, had been studied and discussed but never attempted before. It required the pilots to navigate to Truk on instruments alone. Once over the lagoon, they circled over the anchorages until radar echoes provided an image of the targets. The mission would be a tactical breakthrough, unprecedented in the annals of aviation or naval history. Lieutenant Commander William I. Martin, who trained the airmen, recalled “Radar displays at that time required an operator to do a great deal of interpreting. It was like learning a new language. Instead of it being a polar plot, looking down on it like a map, the cathode ray tube just gave indications that there was an object out there. After considerable practice, a radar operator could determine that there was a ship there and its approximate size. You related the blip on the radar scope to the image of the ship”. In about 30 minutes, the Avengers made 25 passes over Dublon and Eten, scoring 13 direct hits on ships, two on rocky islets mistaken for ships and seven near misses. As a result, around 12 vessels were sunk during the attack, including the Heian Maru. It was a remarkable performance by a dozen aircraft in the US Navy’s first carrier-launched night attack. 

The following dawn, Mitscher sent another fighter sweep, though it would not be very effective as the Japanese had basically no surviving aircraft in the area. 200 aircraft \ met negligible air opposition over the atoll as they worked over the remaining targets at their leisure. Hundreds of incendiaries were dropped on smoking airfields, parking areas, and hangars. The bombers paid special attention to the fuel tank farms, which had been spared on the first day in order to prevent smoke from obscuring visibility. By noon, Japanese resistance was almost non-existent and there were no more worthwhile targets, so Spruance and Mitscher decided to call a halt to the attacks, as it was considered that Truk no longer posed a threat to the Eniwetok invasion. 

Hailstone cost the Americans 12 fighters, 7 torpedo bombers, 6 dive bombers and 2 floatplanes. 29 aircrew died; and 28 sailors died aboard the Intrepid. The operation had been one of the most smashing carrier raids of the Pacific war. Though most of Japan’s heavy naval units had fled the lagoon, the Americans had sunk three light cruisers, four destroyers, three auxiliary or training cruisers, and six other naval auxiliaries. In addition, around 30 merchant ships were sent to the bottom of the lagoon, including 5 precious oil tankers. The total shipping losses approached 200,000 tons and many of those vessels had been laden with munitions and other supplies that could not be recovered. 17,000 tons of fuel went up in the attack, at a time when fuel was running very short for the Japanese. The Japanese lost 249 aircraft, most on the ground. As Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison would later write, “Courage and determination the Navy had shown from the first, but in the Marshalls it demonstrated mastery of the art of amphibious warfare; of combining air, surface, submarine and ground forces to project fighting power irresistibly across the seas. The strike on Truk demonstrated a virtual revolution in naval warfare; the aircraft carrier emerged as the capital ship of the future, with unlimited potentialities.”

The IJN Combined Fleet would never return to Truk; the 4th Fleet headquarters remained at Truk, but its warships left; and the transports carrying the 52nd Division to Truk, some of which had arrived on February 19, hastily unloaded and quickly departed. Vice-Admiral Kobayashi Masami was held responsible for the defeat and would consequently be relieved of his command, never to return to active duty. But that's it for the Marshall Islands campaign for now as we are shifting over to the south pacific. 

In preparation for the invasion of the Admiralty Islands, the allies first would need to seize the Green islands, situated 117 miles southeast of Rabaul. Admiral Halsey had been tasked with landing General Barrowclough’s 3rd New Zealand Division consisting of the 14th Brigade; Special Army Tank Squadron; 17th Field Regiment; 29th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment; 144th Independent Battery; 53rd Anti-Tank Battery; 967th Coast Artillery Battalion; Naval Base Unit No. 11 and other supporting units. Halsey assigned Admiral Wilkinson to command the operations. He would transport the men in 3 echelons using a plethora of Destroyers, Destroyer Transports and countless landing crafts. AirSols would be providing coverage alongside Admiral Merrill’s Task force 39 consisting of light cruisers Cleveland, Columbia and Montpelier; and destroyers Charles Ausburne, Dyson, Stanly, Spence and Converse. There would also be Admiral Ainsworths Task force 38.

Wilkinsons echelons departed Vella Lavella and the Treasury islands On February 12th and 13th. They met near Bougainville and together advanced towards the departure line off Barahun Island. The Americans expected Rabaul’s airforce to be greatly depleted by this point, but the convoy was still harassed by 15 Vals and 17 Zeros during the night of February 14th. 10 vals managed to score a hit and 3 near misses against cruiser St Louis, killing 23 men and causing moderate damage. The bombers also tried attacking the landing craft, but apart from a near miss on LST-446, the landing would proceed quickly and smoothly. The landing craft began taking off on the morning of February 15th as AirSols fighters gained air supremacy over the skies of Nissan Island. 32 fighters form Squadron 14, RNZAF, commanded by Squadron Leader S. G. Quill, and Squadrons 1 and 18, commanded by Squadron Leader J. A. Oldfield, both kept 18 aircraft continuously over the island until dusk, flying sorties from the airfields at Empress Augusta Bay.  12 Japanese bombers would be reported shot down. This was the last air opposition encountered during Operation Squarepeg. With such a numerous  fleet sending thousands of troops ashore with impunity only 115 miles from Rabaul proved AirSols was a force to be reckoned with. Ferried ashore in LCIs and LCVPs, into the lagoon in southern Barahun Island, the troops would disembark at several landing beaches around the Pokonian and Tangalan Plantations. 

Within just 2 hours, about 5800 New Zealanders were ashore. Patrols were then sent out, and carrying parties began moving stores off the beaches further inland. As the beachhead was established, there was only a brief resistance from several Japanese barges around Sirot Island, before a perimeter was established. By nightfall, in addition to the aforementioned troops, Wilkinson had also landed 58 jeeps, 67 trucks, 44 guns, 8 Valentine tanks, 426 tons of petrol in drums, 2000 gallons of fresh water in tins, and 267 tons of rations. The following day, as the Kiwis fanned out along Nissan Island, about 21 Japanese were encountered on Sirot. Late that afternoon, natives reported that an unspecified number of Japanese had taken refuge on the densely wooded island of Sirot, and the task of clearing the island was assigned to B Company, led by Captain D. Dalton. The Japanese were swiftly dealt with, but the Kiwi’s would suffer 5 deaths and 3 wounded in the firefight.

On February 18, patrols from the 37th Battalion reached the northern tip of Nissan Island and reported it clear while the 30th and 35th Battalions dealt with a large group of Japanese at the south point of the island. The Kiwis accidentally came upon the remaining Japanese garrison on 20 February, in an area previously declared clear by patrols. It was along the coast near a few deserted native huts passing as the village of Tanaheran on the map. On February 19, the remaining 100-man Japanese garrison signed off on their radio ‘We are charging the enemy and beginning radio silence’.The Kiwi’s suffered 3 deaths and 11 wounded. The Japanese had been overwhelmed and annihilated. The next day the second echelon of Admiral Fort arrived. Organized resistance had ceased. In total, 120 Japanese had been killed against the 13 killed and 24 wounded of the Allied forces. 

With the Green Islands under their control, the Allied forces now needed to do something about the 1200 friendly native Melanesians whose taro gardens and coconut groves were about to be turned into airfields. The answer was a temporary evacuation to Guadalcanal. This was explained to the natives' head men, and, as the Melanesians are born rovers, the prospect of a boat ride to the Solomons and free food there was highly pleasing. Accordingly, "Grandpa" Roger Cutler's LSTs of the Second Echelon took on the function, new even for Love-Sugar-Tares, of evacuating natives; and so well was this done that by the time the flotilla of Melanesian Mayflowers reached Guadalcanal the 1147 embarked had increased to 1148. The Green Islands would prove to be a very useful link in the strangling of Rabaul, with a PT base immediately opening on February 17 and with a new fighter strip being completed by March 4, which for the first time put Kavieng within range of AirSols fighters and bombers. But now we have to shift over to the boys in New Guinea.

The last time we were in New Guinea, the Australians were in hot pursuit of General Nakano’s men. On February 3rd, the 30th battalion of Lieutenant-Colonel William Parry-Okeden had set off from Singor to take over for the 4th battalion at Crossington. The next day, the Australians reached Nemau and the day after that established a new supply beach at Butubutu. On that same day orders came in stating all commanders must make every endeavor to capture prisoners. This prompted Cameron to call off the Papuans from leading the advance and sent the leading Papuan platoon to reconnoiter the inland trails while the infantry led the advance on the right. The men advanced sluggishly as a result of the mixture of muddy tracks and enemy corpses. They reached Roinji 1 on the 6th then Roinji 2 on the 7th. During the afternoon the Papuans reached Gali 1 where they managed to kill 24 Japanese stragglers and captured 3 prisoners. Each day the Papuans killed on average 10-15 Japanese, but it was not until the 8th when they encountered a real Japanese rearguard at Weber Point. The Papuans performed a frontal assault killing 53 Japanese and captured another 4 prisoners. By the night on February 9, the leading company was 2000 yards west of Malalamai and 3500 yards from the American’s most forward outpost at Yagomai when they fought another larger group of Japanese. 61 Japanese were killed and 9 prisoners taken in the day; and on February 10, the 30th Battalion at last reached Yagomai. Here they finally linked with the American force at Saidor. It was decided that the 5th Division would not operate west of the Yaut, so Brigadier Cameron was instructed to mop up the Tapen and Nokopo areas. Meanwhile, the 35th Battalion advanced towards Bwana, where they killed 31 Japanese.

On the 18th, the Australians killed 40 Japanese at Gabutamon and another 142 in the Tapen area; 3 days later, they attacked Wandiluk, where they killed 57 Japanese. After the 22nd, the pursuit was largely carried on by the Papuans towards Nokopo. During this time until March 1st, the 8th Brigade reported killing 734 Japanese, found 1793 dead and took 48 prisoners. The Australians and Papuan had suffered 3 deaths and 5 wounded. Despite his losses, General Nakano and his men had yet again cheated death. In a letter on 21st March Lt General Frank Berryman wrote: "About 8,000 semi-starved, ill equipped and dispirited Japanese bypassed Saidor. It was disappointing that the fruits of victory were not fully reaped, and that once again the remnants of 51st Division escaped our clutches." Meanwhile General Morshead had been planning to relieve the 7th division with the fresh 11th division Major-General Allan Boase. But General Vasey convinced him instead to let him take over the drive on Madang by the end of January. Now the 58th/59th Battalion relieved the 2/10th in the right-hand sector from 4100 through Crater Hill and Kankirei Saddle to Cam's Hill, with the task of patrolling the area east of Cam's Hill, the headwaters of the Mosa River, and forward along the upper Mindjim River Valley to Paipa 2. The 57th/60th relieved the 2/9th on the left with positions on the 4100 Feature, the Protheros and Shaggy Ridge, and the task of patrolling forward from Canning's Saddle along the high ground west of the Mindjim. The 24th Battalion relieved the 2/12th in reserve. 

Now Brigadier Hammer had the task of patrolling forward from the Kankirei Saddle. As typical for New Guinea, the terrain facing them would be formidable. Hammer had this to say in a report "The country in the Finisterre Ranges is rugged, steep, precipitous and covered with dense rain forest. It rains heavily almost every day thus making living conditions uncomfortable. By day it is hot, by night three blankets are necessary. There is, therefore, a constant battle with mud, slush, rain and cold. To allow freedom of movement over this mud it was necessary to corduroy every track in the area." By late February Hammer dispatched a number of small patrols towards Amuson and Saipa 2. On the right flank Lt Brewster with a patrol from the 58th/59th investigated the valley of the Mosa River as far as Amuson, and returned after 4 days reporting the area was clear. In the central area a patrol from the 57th/60th brushed with an enemy patrol near Saipa 2, with some support from the guns of the 4th Field Regiment. On the 28th a patrol from the 57th/60th, led by Lt Besier, attacked Saipa 2 three times with supporting artillery fire, but all attempts to enter the village were repulsed. On February 26, the 58th/59th Battalion was instructed to establish a company patrol base on Amuson and send out a platoon reconnaissance patrol to the coast in the Mindjim-Melamu area, which managed to establish some observation posts overlooking Astrolabe Bay in early March. Hammer also sent the 57th/60th Battalion to the Paipa area in preparation for an attack on Saipa 2. 

Meanwhile, after the conclusion of Operation Dexterity on February 10th General Krueger handed command to Major-General William Gill over the Saidor area and he began to bring the remaining elements of his 32nd division.  Gill then began plans for a secondary landing at the Yalau Plantation, around 30 miles west of Saidor. He hoped to establish a new forward base there and possibly intercept enemy stragglers trying to bypass the Saidor area.The 2nd battalion, 126th regiment led by Lt Colonel Oliver O. Dixon successfully landed on March 5th. 54 landing crafts unloaded 1348 within 9 waves, seeing little to no opposition. As men patrolled east and west from Yalau, they encountered and killed a few Japanese and found many already dead. They would reach Bau Plantation on March 9th, where they ran into a detachment of General Nakai’s 3rd battalion, 239th regiment. But yet again we must not shift our attention somewhere we have not been in quite some time, the Indian Ocean. 

The Commander in Chief, Southwest Area Fleet, Vice-Admiral Takasu Shiro had decided to dispatch heavy cruisers Aoba, Chikuma, and Tone, under the command of Rear-Admiral Sakonju Naomasa, to raid Allied shipping on the main route between Aden and Fremantle. Departing the Lingga Islands on February 27, the heavy cruisers were escorted by light cruisers Kinu and Ōi and 3 destroyers through the Sunda Strait. The raiders were also supported by 10 medium bombers and 3-4 seaplanes based in Sumatra and west Java which conducted patrols in the direction of Ceylon. 3-4 submarines from the 8th Flotilla also monitored Allied shipping movements near Ceylon, the Maldive Islands and Chagos Archipelago. On March 6th the allies detected the force near the Lombok Strait. Fearing a possible attack, Western Australia was reinforced and the British Eastern Fleet was diverted.

On the morning of March 9th, Sakonju’s cruiser came across the 6200 ton British steamer Behar between Fremantle and Colombo. Upon sighting the Japanese ships, Behar's Captain Maurice Symons, ordered that his radio operator transmit the "RRR" code in order to notify other ships and Allied bases that the merchant ship was being attacked by surface raiders. Tone's signals room picked up the message,. The Tone then began signaling repeatedly to the Behar to surrender, but the Behar continued to flee, prompting the cruiser to open fire. Behar was hit a few times to her prow and stern, killing 3 crewmembers. Within 5 minutes Behar’s crew and passengers began abandoning ship as she sank. 104-108 survivors were rescued by the Tone. Following the attack, Sakonju believed it was too dangerous to continue raiding as Behar had sent out a distress signal. So he turned back, reaching Tanjung Priok on March 15th. 

Shortly after the Behar survivors were rescued, Sakonju sent a radio message to Tone's commanding officer, Captain Mayuzumi Haruo, reprimanding him for taking non-essential personnel prisoner and not capturing the merchant ship. In this message Sakonju ordered that the survivors be killed. Mayuzumi was unwilling to do so, however, as he felt that this would violate his Christian religious beliefs. His executive officer, Commander Mii Junsuke, also opposed killing the prisoners deeming it dishonorable. Mayuzumi radioed a request to Sakonju that the prisoners be put ashore, but this was rejected. The captain then visited Aoba to argue his case, but Sakonju remained unmoved and told Mayuzumi to "obey my orders". Despite his misgivings, Mayuzumi ultimately decided to kill the prisoners. On the night of March 18, all the prisoners on board Tone were beheaded by several of the cruiser's officers. Mayuzumi watched the killings from the ship's bridge but Mii refused to take part. The number of the crew to be executed was between 65 and at least 100. Following the massacre 15-36 survivors were transferred to Aoba. The party sent to Aoba included Symonds, the Behar's chief officer and several of the senior officers as well as both of the ship's female passengers. All of this group were later landed at Tanjung Priok.

After the war, the Allies prosecuted the officers responsible for the murders on board the Tone. Vice Admiral Takasu died from disease in September 1944, but Sakonju was tried by the British in 1947 at Hong Kong and sentenced to death and executed 21 January 1948. Mayuzumi was convicted for his role in the killings and sentenced to 7 years imprisonment. Sakonju stated in his affidavit that he was 'retaliating against the execution and inhuman treatment of Japanese prisoners by the allies in Guadalcanal'. Mayuzumi stated in his defense that he was following Sakonju's orders. Mayuzumi received a light sentence due to his repeated requests for clemency for the prisoner's lives.

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Operation Hailstone saw what was once called the Gibraltar of the Pacific, Truk nearly annihilated. She could no longer be counted upon to thwart allied sea and air units in the region. The Australians on New Guinea were not letting up on the retreating Japanese and a terrible and needless massacre took place in the Indian Ocean.