The Conquering Tide (59 page)

Before she could be commissioned, the
Yorktown
was required to pass a stem to stern inspection by the Board of Inspection and Survey, whose members arrived the second week of April. They tested all of the ship's machinery, her major propulsion systems, auxiliary machinery, arresting gear, launching gear, catapult, magazines, and ammunition hoists. The ship's charts and other required documents and publications were turned out and cataloged. The board found that all was in order and released the ship for commissioning on April 15, as scheduled. At 0700 on the appointed morning, the ship inched out of her berth and got underway. It was a short voyage across Hampton Roads and into a new berth at the Norfolk Navy Yard, where the
Yorktown
was formally entered into the service of the U.S. Navy.

April and May comprised a period of strenuous training, fitting out, and shaking down. The ship performed sea trials, cruising up and down the Chesapeake Bay. Her gunners shot at target sleeves towed by planes. On May 5, the
Yorktown
landed her first plane, a new F6F flown by the legendary fighter pilot Jimmy Flatley, who reported aboard as commander of the new Air Group Five. Among the newcomers were thirty-six of the troublesome SB2C Helldivers, with freshly trained aircrews and a group of engineers and mechanics from the Curtiss plant in Columbus, Ohio. The
Yorktown
was the first carrier to take the unpopular “Beasts” aboard.

On May 21, the
Yorktown
put to sea with an escort of three destroyers and turned south. Her destination was the Gulf of Paria, a shallow inland sea enclosed by Trinidad and the coast of Venezuela. A major naval supply depot and air station had been established on Trinidad. The gulf was more than seventy miles long, offering ample space for high-speed exercises and air operations. A single deepwater entrance channel was blocked by antisubmarine nets. The gulf was thus protected against German U-boats, and for that reason it was prized by the navy as a shakedown cruising area.

Air Group Five landed at the air station on Trinidad and flew out to the carrier each day. Clark was particularly irascible during this stressful period, often bellowing at the crew through a handheld bullhorn. He was quick to place men “in hack” (confine them to quarters), but he did not hesitate to make spot promotions when a man showed exceptional ability or initiative. Clark was especially concerned with the speed and efficiency of plane-handling procedures during flight operations. He was relentless in timing the airedales, who brought the planes up from the hangars and spotted
them (positioned them for launch) on the flight deck. Clark demanded that planes be spotted as tightly as possible to leave a maximum amount of deck run available on the forward flight deck. Getting armed and fueled-up planes aloft quickly was the prime objective of any aircraft carrier. The interval between recovering (landing) planes and respotting the next group for launch was the period when the ship was most vulnerable to attack. Contacts with the enemy, he told the crew, were likely to be rare and ephemeral: “Not only must we seek them out but we must be ready to make the most of [contacts] when they do come and to hit, both night and day, on those occasions when suitable targets are found.”
⁹⁹

The arrival of larger and heavier planes taxed the strength and endurance of the deck crews, but Lieutenant Joe Tucker of the Air Department had a solution in hand. At the navy yard in Norfolk he had spotted two jeeps and two small tractors parked near the pier, and decided to commandeer them. He had them lifted onto the
Yorktown
by a crane and stowed in the hangar. (Marine guards had been bribed with bottles of spirits to look the other way.) Tucker's mechanics devised a makeshift towbar that hooked around the forward wheels of the aircraft. Constant repetition and practice using the vehicles to move the airplanes led to much more rapid cycling and respotting. The jeeps and tractors, which Tucker called “mules,” proved to be an effective innovation and were adopted on all carriers of the class.
¹⁰⁰

Clark had previously been billeted as a plane inspector at the Curtiss plant in Columbus, Ohio, so he was well acquainted with the new SB2C Helldiver and its tribulations. During operations in the Gulf of Paria, the Curtiss machines suffered chronic mechanical failures. One abruptly lost power after launch, and its pilot was forced to execute a water landing ahead of the ship. Another made a hard landing, and its tail wheel collapsed. Tail hooks were yanked out of more than a dozen planes.
Yorktown
's mechanics and the visiting Curtiss engineers attempted to repair the accumulating damage, but spare parts were not always available and there was only so much that could be done on the hangar deck of a ship at sea. By mid-June, more than half had to be grounded, and Lieutenant Tucker estimated that the Helldiver needed about 200 modifications before it would be ready for service. He recommended returning the entire squadron to Curtiss and asking to draw a squadron of SBDs for the
Yorktown
's first cruise to the Pacific. After lengthy discussion, Captain Clark agreed, and ordered the damaged SB2Cs put ashore at Trinidad. He wrote a seven-page memorandum detailing
their defects. When the
Yorktown
returned to Norfolk a week later, Clark drove up to Washington and explained the problem to Admiral King. King agreed to let the ship take aboard a squadron of thirty-six new SBD-5s.

“The war was won largely by Grumman and Douglas,” Clark wrote; “that was the Navy's war, Grumman and Douglas.” By 1943, the SBDs were too slow to fly in a coordinated strike with the TBFs and F6Fs, so they “were actually a handicap in wartime. But we had to live with them, because they were the only dive bombers that we could rely on in the navy, the only ones that were in stock with enough of them on hand to do the job. So for a long time, before the bugs were worked out of this SB2C, that was the navy's dive bomber.”
¹⁰¹

On July 6,
Yorktown
sailed for the Pacific with a destroyer screen in company. After a quick run to Panama, zigzagging at 30 knots through the Windward Passage to thwart U-boats, she dropped anchor in Colón on the morning of the tenth. On the following morning, with the captain and much of the crew recovering from a riotous liberty, the
Yorktown
inched into Gatun Locks with less than a foot of clearance on either side. There was not even space enough for bumpers. The concrete sides of the lock scraped sickeningly against the hull. Clark screamed constantly at the helmsman. The executive officer, Raoul Waller, dashed starboard and port across the flight deck “like a fussy old maid about her cat.”
¹⁰²

The
Yorktown
raised Oahu at dawn on July 24 and eased down the entrance channel at midday. A welcome message from Admiral Nimitz was sent by blinker light: “The
Yorktown
carries a name already famous in the Pacific, and in welcoming you we anticipate that you will maintain the high reputation of your predecessor.” Clark replied: “Many thanks for your message. That's what we came here to do.”
¹⁰³

A
S THE
P
ACIFIC
W
AR MOVED WEST
, and drew closer to the enemy's main bases of support, the Americans would inherit the same disadvantages of distance that had undone the Japanese in the lower Solomons. Forces assigned to
GALVANIC
included 116 combatant ships and 75 auxiliary vessels. They would sortie directly from ports throughout the Pacific, including New Zealand, Samoa, Efate, the Solomons, Fiji, Hawaii, and the American West Coast. A supreme logistics effort was required to push such a fleet across the Pacific. A supply train of auxiliaries (including fifteen fleet oilers)
would provide underway refueling and replenishment from bases at Funafuti, Espiritu Santo, the Fijis, and Pearl Harbor. Looking beyond the Gilberts, into the Marshalls and Marianas, the service and supply forces would be obliged to move quickly into newly conquered territories and convert them into advanced rear bases to support the next westward leap. Timing must be meticulous and exact. Admiral Spruance, when interviewed by historians after the war, often remarked that strategy and tactics never approached the importance of logistics in the transpacific campaign.

Logistics was the realm of the Service Forces, Pacific Fleet (SERVPAC), commanded by Vice Admiral William L. Calhoun. In September 1943, SERVPAC listed 324 vessels, but the central Pacific offensive required a tripling of that figure in six months, to 990 vessels in March 1944. Since early 1942, Calhoun's command had been run out of CINCPAC headquarters on Makalapa Hill, but inexorable expansion soon forced the commander of SERVPAC (COMSERVPAC) into a new, dedicated headquarters next door. In October 1943, Calhoun commissioned a new Service Squadron Four to provide logistical support for
GALVANIC
. The squadron operated from Funafuti atoll in the Ellice Islands, south of the Gilberts—the nearest Allied-held territory to the atolls that were to be conquered. Funafuti was well matched to its role as a forward mobile supply and repair base. Its large lagoon could comfortably accommodate several hundred ships, but its single narrow entrance could easily be shielded against incursion by enemy submarines. Funafuti was also the headquarters of land-based air forces assigned to
GALVANIC
, under the command of Rear Admiral John H. Hoover (commander of Aircraft Central Pacific), whose flagship was the seaplane tender
Curtiss
.

The planning of
GALVANIC
was not quite so truncated as that of
WATCHTOWER
the previous year, but the schedule seemed oppressive to leading participants and commanders, many of whom were not assigned to their roles until August or September. Admiral Harry W. Hill would command the Southern Amphibious Group, the force assigned to take Tarawa. Admiral Turner, who stood above him as commander of the Fifth Amphibious Force, would sail with the Northern Amphibious Group against Makin. Hill was not briefed on his duties until September 18, when he met with Turner in Efate. With the target date five weeks away, Turner could not yet say which transports would be assigned to Tarawa, or even what Hill's flagship would be.
¹⁰⁴
The circumstances, Hill recalled, were “hectic, if not confused.”
¹⁰⁵
He
never had the opportunity to meet his air support commander, and did not meet most of his primary commanders until the live rehearsals on the eve of sailing for the operation. The communications plan was late arriving in Efate. He moved aboard his flagship, the battleship
Maryland
, less than a week before the fleet sortied.

General Julian C. Smith intended to land three battalions on Betio's northern beaches—one each on the beaches designated Red 1, Red 2, and Red 3. He held no illusions about the strength of the enemy's defensive fortifications. The log seawall revealed by reconnaissance photos stood about 20 feet above the high-tide mark, and varied from about 3 to 6 feet tall. Directly behind it was a complex of rifle pits and covered pillboxes, connected by trenches and positioned to provide interlocking fields of fire on the beach and lagoon. Coral sand and rocks were piled between the seawall and the pillboxes to obscure visibility from the beach. Concrete obstacles and iron spikes were positioned to stop armored vehicles, and tank traps had been dug to a depth of about 6 feet.
¹⁰⁶

Admiral Turner chose to hold one regiment (the 6th) of the 2nd Marines in reserve, a decision hotly opposed by Julian Smith. Turner alone would decide whether to commit the reserve force, though he was expected to consult with Holland Smith, who would be present on his flagship. As in the Guadalcanal campaign the previous year, Turner's decision to hold ground forces in reserve forced the marine commanders to alter their plan of attack. After being curtly overruled, General Julian Smith insisted that the orders be spelled out in writing, “as I did not feel that the plan should be my responsibility.”
¹⁰⁷

The most worrisome aspect of the assault on Tarawa atoll remained the coral reef in the lagoon. Thanks to a titanic construction ramp-up spurred by Admiral King, new landing craft and amphibious vehicles were available in much greater numbers. There was a confounding array of different types, all designated by acronyms beginning with “L” (landing): LCVPs, LCVs, LCMs, LCIs, LSTs, LVTs, LCTs, and so on. Not all were equally suited to the task at hand. Training exercises often resulted in significant damage and mechanical failures, and a chronic dearth of spare parts kept damaged craft on the beach.
¹⁰⁸
Well-trained crews were needed to operate the landing craft, but training programs on the mainland were strained to the breaking point. Prior to
GALVANIC
, one amphibious officer recalled, “Several
LCTs and LCIs had no officers or men who had ever been to sea prior to their trans-Pacific voyage.”
¹⁰⁹

The answer to Tarawa's reefs was the LVT (landing vehicle, tracked), an amphibious tractor often called the “amtrac” or “alligator.” These clever little vehicles could clamber up and over shallow coral heads and drive up a beach. In tests overseen by General Holland Smith, an amtrac charged up a Hawaiian beach, crushed a log barricade under its treads, and “walked clean through seven lines of barbed wire.”
¹¹⁰
They could be transported in LSTs and launched directly into the sea about two to three miles offshore.

The 2nd Marine Division, in September 1943, could muster a hundred amtracs, but many had been hard run in the Guadalcanal operation and were in a sad state of disrepair. General Julian Smith estimated that he could make seventy-five of the craft seaworthy by cannibalizing parts from the remaining twenty-five, which would then be junked. Fifty new LVTs were found in Samoa, and they were fetched by LSTs after the division had already sailed from Wellington. Each amtrac could carry about one platoon, and would be required to make several return trips back to the transport group. Some would inevitably be disabled or destroyed. The trouble would arise with the second and third waves, as the supply of available amtracs diminished. Most of the marines in those later waves would likely be obliged to land in ordinary Higgins boats (LCVPs), which might not manage to cross the reefs. If they could not, the men would have to wade in to the island under heavy enemy fire.