Bombing of Rabaul (November 1943)
|Air attacks on Rabaul|
|Part of the Pacific Theater of World War II|
Japanese cruiser Chikuma under attack on 5 November 1943.
| United States
|Empire of Japan|
|Commanders and leaders|
|George Kenney (land air forces),
William Halsey, Jr.,
Frederick Sherman (naval forces)
|3 fleet carriers,
2 light carriers,
2 light cruisers,
282 carrier aircraft,
349 land-based aircraft
|Casualties and losses|
|10 carrier aircraft,
17 land-based aircraft destroyed
|6 cruisers heavily damaged,
52 aircraft destroyed
The Allies of World War II conducted an air attack upon a cruiser force at the major Japanese base of Rabaul in November 1943. In response to the Allied invasion of Bougainville, the Japanese had brought a strong cruiser force down from Japan to Rabaul in preparation for a night engagement against the Allied supply and support shipping. Allied carrier- and land-based planes attacked the Japanese ships, airfields, and port facilities on the island of New Britain to protect the Allied amphibious invasion of Bougainville. As a result of the Rabaul raids, the Japanese naval forces could no longer threaten the landings. The success of the raid began to change the strongly held belief that carrier-based air forces could not challenge land-based air forces.
In early 1943, Rabaul had been distant from the fighting. However, the Allied grand strategy in the South West Pacific Area—Operation Cartwheel—aimed to isolate Rabaul and reduce it by air raids. Japanese ground forces were already retreating in New Guinea and in the Solomon Islands, abandoning Guadalcanal, Kolombangara, New Georgia and Vella Lavella.
Rabaul—on the island of New Britain—was one of two major ports in the Australian Territory of New Guinea. It was the main Japanese naval base for the Solomon Islands campaign and New Guinea campaign. Simpson Harbor—captured from Australian forces in February 1942—was known as "the Pearl Harbor of the South Pacific" and was well defended by 367 anti-aircraft guns and five airfields.
Lakunai and Vunakanau airfields were prewar Australian strips. Lakunai had an all-weather runway of sand and volcanic ash, and Vunakanau was surfaced with concrete. Rapopo—14 mi (12 nmi; 23 km) to the southeast—became operational in December 1942 with concrete runways and extensive support and maintenance facilities. Tobera—completed in August 1943 halfway between Vunakanau and Rapopo—also had concrete strips. The four dromes had 166 protected revetments for bombers and 265 for fighters, with additional unprotected dispersal parking areas. The fifth airfield protecting Rabaul was Borpop airfield, completed in December 1942 across the St. Georges Channel on New Ireland.
The anti-aircraft defenses were well coordinated by army and naval units. The army operated 192 of the 367 antiaircraft guns and the navy 175. The naval guns guarded Simpson Harbor and its shipping and the three airfields of Tobera, Lakunai, and Vunakanau. The army units defended Rapopo airfield, supply dumps and army installations; and assisted the navy in defending Simpson Harbor. An effective early warning radar system provided 90 mi (78 nmi; 140 km) coverage from Rabaul, and extended coverage with additional radars on New Britain, New Ireland, and at Buka. These sets provided from 30–60 minutes early warning of an attack.
Land-based air attacks
From 12 October 1943, as part of Operation Cartwheel, the U.S. Fifth Air Force, the Royal Australian Air Force and the Royal New Zealand Air Force—directed by the Allied air commander in the South West Pacific Area, General George Kenney—launched a sustained campaign of bombing against the airfields and port of Rabaul. After the first raid of 349 aircraft, bad weather blunted the effect of bombing, which saw only a single raid by 50 B-25 Mitchell medium bombers on 18 October. However sustained attacks resumed on 23 October and continued for six days, before culminating in the large raid of 2 November.
Nine squadrons of B-25s—totalling 72 bombers—and six squadrons of P-38 Lightning fighter escorts attacked the anti-aircraft defenses and Simpson Harbor with minimum altitude strafing and bombing attacks. Eight B-25s were shot down by AAA or Japanese naval fighters, or crashed attempting to return to base. Among them was that of Major Raymond H. Wilkins of the 3rd Attack Group, posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his leadership. Nine of the 80 P-38s were also lost.
On Bougainville, the Japanese had two airfields in the southern tip of the island, one at the northernmost peninsula, and a fourth on Buki just across the northern passage. Instead of attempting a costly assault on these defended areas Admiral William Halsey landed his invasion force of 14,000 Marines at Empress Augusta Bay, about halfway up the west coast of Bouganville. There he had his Seabees clear and build their own airfield. On the first night the screening naval unit succeeded in defending the landing (the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay), but Admiral Mineichi Koga responded quickly. Within a few days the local cruiser force had been augmented with reinforcements from Truk. The Japanese had been conserving their naval forces over the past year, but in the face of the imminent threat to Rabaul now demonstrated a willingness to commit substantial resources to another, larger engagement in hopes of crushing the newly landed force and its naval support. At Rabaul, the force refueled in preparation for the coming battle.
Halsey lacked comparable surface forces to oppose this fresh challenge. Two battleships and assorted cruisers had been transferred to the Central Pacific to support the upcoming invasion of Tarawa. The only reinforcements at hand were the carrier airgroups of Saratoga and Princeton. This would have been considered a potent force for a battle at sea, but Rabaul was a heavily fortified port with five airfields and extensive anti-aircraft batteries. With the exception of the surprise raid at Pearl Harbor no attack by carrier aircraft against such a formidable land target ("a hornet's nest") had been attempted. As such it was considered a highly dangerous mission for the aircrews and involved a risk to the carriers themselves. Halsey later said the threat that the Japanese cruiser force at Rabaul posed to his landings at Bougainville was "the most desperate emergency that confronted me in my entire term as ComSoPac."
With the fate of the landing in the balance, Halsey ordered his carriers (under Rear-Admiral Frederick Sherman) northward through the night of November 4-5 to get within range of Rabaul, to launch a daybreak raid on the base. Approaching behind the cover of a weather front, Sherman launched all 97 of his available aircraft against the target. Additional land-based aircraft from Barakoma Airfield on recently captured Vella Lavella were sent out to rendezvous with the raiders and provide some measure of air cover. With the raiders under orders to damage the maximum number of warships in preference to sinking a few, the strike was a stunning success, effectively neutralizing Koga's cruisers as a threat to the Bougainville mission. The daybreak bombing of Rabaul was followed up an hour later with a raid by 27 B-24 Liberator heavy bombers of the Fifth Air Force, escorted by 58 P-38s. Losses of attacking aircraft were light.
Six (of 7) of the Japanese cruisers at Rabaul were damaged, four of them heavily. Atago suffered near misses by three 500 lb (230 kg) bombs that caused severe damage and killed 22 crewmen, including her captain. Maya was hit by one bomb above one of her engine rooms, causing heavy damage and killing 70 crewmen. Mogami was hit by one 500 lb bomb and set afire, causing heavy damage and killing 19 crewmen. Takao was hit by two 500 lb bombs, causing heavy damage and killing 23 crewmen. Chikuma, was slightly damaged by several near-misses. One bomb struck near Agano, which damaged an anti-aircraft gun and killed one crewman. Three destroyers were also lightly damaged. Under the threat of additional airstrikes most of the Japanese warships departed for Truk the next day, practically ending Japanese naval presence in the area.
The first wave of newly built U.S. Navy warships had started becoming operational a few months earlier, and an additional carrier unit—Task Group 50.3 (TG 50.3) of the U.S. 5th Fleet—reached Halsey on 7 November. Commanded by Rear Adm. Alfred L. Montgomery, it consisted of the carriers Bunker Hill, Essex and Independence. Halsey used Montgomery's ships as well as TF 38 in a combined strike against Rabaul on 11 November. Sherman launched his strike from near Green Island, northwest of Bougainville, which attacked in bad weather at about 08:30. After its return, TF 38 retired to the south without being detected. Montgomery launched from the Solomon Sea 160 mi (140 nmi; 260 km) southeast of Rabaul.
Agano—which had remained at Rabaul after the 5 November strike—was torpedoed and heavily damaged in these attacks. In the wake of the raids the Japanese launched a series of counterattacks involving 120 aircraft against the U.S. carriers, but the force was intercepted and lost 35 planes without inflicting damage on Montgomery's ships. Not only had these raids succeeded in protecting the allies' recent gains, but they left Rabaul itself as an increasingly isolated outpost, difficult to supply and posing little danger to accelerating allied operations in the region.
- Gailey, Bougainville, p. 86-92.
- Gailey, Bougainville, p. 88-89.
- Gailey, Bougainville, p. 88-91 and Parshall & Hackett, Combinedfleet.com.
- Mortensen, Bernhardt L. (1953). "Chapter 10: Rabaul and Cape Gloucester". Hyper-War Foundation. Retrieved 19 February 2010. The Army Air Forces in World War II: Vol. IV The Pacific: Guadalcanal to Saipan August 1942 to July 1944, p. 333.
- Potter, Admiral Arliegh Burke pp 98-99
- Hackett, HIJMS ATAGO: Tabular Record of Movement, Combinedfleet.com. Atago went to Yokosuka, Japan, for further repairs which were completed on 30 December 1943.
- Hackett, HIJMS MAYA: Tabular Record of Movement, Combinedfleet.com. Maya went to Yokosuka for further repairs which, along with the addition of additional anti-aircraft guns, were completed on 9 April 1944.
- Hackett, HIJMS MOGAMI: Tabular Record of Movement, Combinedfleet.com. Mogami went to Kure, Japan for further repairs which were completed on 17 February 1944.
- Hackett, HIJMS CHIKUMA: Tabular Record of Movement, Combinedfleet.com. Takao went to Yokosuka for further repairs which were completed on 18 January 1944.
- Hackett, HIJMS CHIKUMA: Tabular Record of Movement, Combinedfleet.com.
- Hackett, HIJMS AGANO: Tabular Record of Movement, Combinedfleet.com.
- Hackett, HIJMS FUJINAMI: Tabular Record of Movement, HIJMS AMAGIRI: Tabular Record of Movement, HIJMS WAKATSUKI: Tabular Record of Movement, Combinedfleet.com., Fujinami suffered minor damage with one crewman killed. Amagiri and Wakatsuki suffered minor damage and no casualties.
- Hackett, HIJMS AGANO: Tabular Record of Movement, Combinedfleet.com. On 16 February 1944, as Agano traveled from Truk to Japan for further repairs, she was hit by two torpedoes from the American submarine Skate and sunk. Her 523 survivors were picked up the destroyer Oite and returned to Truk. In Operation Hailstone, Oite was sunk by U.S. carrier aircraft, killing all of Agano's survivors.
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- McGee, William L. (2002). "Bougainville Campaign". The Solomons Campaigns, 1942–1943: From Guadalcanal to Bougainville—Pacific War Turning Point, Volume 2 (Amphibious Operations in the South Pacific in WWII). BMC Publications. ISBN 0-9701678-7-3.
- Morison, Samuel Eliot (1958). Breaking the Bismarcks Barrier, vol. 6 of History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. Castle Books. ISBN 0785813071.
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- Sakaida, Henry (1996). The Siege of Rabaul. St. Paul, MN, USA: Phalanx. ISBN 1-883809-09-6.
- Sherrod, Robert (1952). History of Marine Corps Aviation in World War II. Washington, D.C.: Combat Forces Press.
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bombing on Rabaul, 1943.|
- Mersky, Peter B. (1993). "Time of the Aces: Marine Pilots in the Solomons, 1942–1944". Marines in World War II Commemorative Series. History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps. Retrieved 20 October 2006. Account of U.S. Marine involvement in air war over Solomon Islands and Rabaul.
- "Title: THE ASSAULT ON RABAUL. Operations by the Royal New Zealand Air Force December 1943 — May 1944". Retrieved 2006-05-30.
- Chen, C. Peter (2004–2006). "Solomons Campaign, August 23, 1942 – November 26, 1943". World War II Database. Retrieved 2 June 2006.
- Shaw, Henry I.; Douglas T. Kane (1963). "Volume II: Isolation of Rabaul". History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II. Retrieved 2006-10-18.
- Miller, John, Jr. (1959). "CARTWHEEL: The Reduction of Rabaul". United States Army in World War II: The War in the Pacific. Office of the Chief of Military History, U.S. Department of the Army. p. 418. Retrieved 20 October 2006.
- Parshall, Jon; Bob Hackett, Sander Kingsepp, & Allyn Nevitt. "Imperial Japanese Navy Page (Combinedfleet.com)". Retrieved 2006-06-14. - Tabular records of movement for the Japanese warships involved in this battle.
- Parshall, Jon; Bob Hackett, Sander Kingsepp, & Allyn Nevitt. "Carrier Raid on Rabaul". Retrieved 2006-12-14.