WW2 PACIFIC
    Bits and Pieces of Information
    that does not fit anywhere else

  • The public was not told the true destruction at Pearl Harbor until the one year anniversary with details of losses and photographs released Dec 6, 1942. Until then the public knew one battleship and a destroyer had been destroyed,other ships and planes damaged and hundreds of lives lost.
    By the time the information was released, three of the eight battleships were back in service in better shape for war then they had been at Pearl Harbor. And eight other battleships had arrived in the Pacific : one that had been undergoing overhaul stateside, three Pacific battleships that had been transferred to the Atlantic, and four newly commissioned battleships. Carrier losses were heavy on both side --Japan had lost 6 of 10, US had lost 4 of 6 (with a 7th in the Atlantic too old for combat.) The war had progressed with losses of the Asiatic fleets of America, Britain, and the Dutch, the Philippines, East Indies, SE Asia, much of China, and many Pacific islands. Then came Fletcher to stop the advance at the Coral Sea, to even the odds at Midway and save Guadalcanal. Rommel was stopped at El Alamein, North Africa had been invaded, Hitler was stopped at Stalingrad. The period of rapid enemy conquests was over, but a hard, uncertain fight still lay ahead.
  • Other secrets partially kept were the Niihau Incident, that, combined with massacre of white people in Borneo and Java, and the spying in league with unions and civil rights groups were kept under cover to prevent mass executions by vigilantes. Instead, the enemy aliens were ordered out of the coastal combat zone and bused inland for mutual protection. After the enemy retreat at Guadalcanal, they were allowed to relocate anywhere outside the 40 mile war zone, but most preferred the security of the relocation centers.
  • There are fewer USN ships now than in 1939 at the start of the war in Europe. Roosevelt promised the US would never be unprepared again. But that was over sixty years ago.
  • President Truman in announcing the dropping of an atomic bomb said that it had the explosive power that could be carried by 2,000 bombers. That is the key point about the atomic bomb : each one replaced four night-time raids of 500 B-29's. The destruction was the same, but 20-30 planes were lost on each mission - 100 crews were saved with each bomb.
  • The USN had removed scout seaplanes from its battleships and cruisers during part of the war because of the fire hazard in combat. This logic required depending upon radar, submarine reports and long range air force reconnaissance. The Japanese had these sources plus active scouting and therefore had superior information in monitoring the location and configuration of their enemy in the Mariannas campaign. Though it was of little help, the Japanese fleet was defeated and the islands taken.
  • In mid-1943 the US was again down to one serviceable carrier, Saratoga. Enterprise was in much needed overhaul. HMS Victorious took up duties under Task Force 14 in the Southwest Pacific on 17 May 1943. Renamed the USS Robin, she operated 60 British and American Wildcat fighters for air cover. The two carriers sailed on 27th June in support of the invasion of Munda, New Georgia. The carriers took up position and in the next few days put up 600 sorties against little opposition. The aircraft were reassigned to their parent units on 24 July. With the arrival of four new carriers in the Pacific, -- the first three Princeton class light carriers and Essex (CV-9) -- Victorious resumed her former name and returned to the Home Fleet.
        The designation of "Robin" for HMS Victorious may have been a code name because bird names are reserved for minesweepers and there were two other USS Robins at the time. Robin I was a 1918 minesweeper, AM-3, (1000 ton, 188 feet) which was converted to an Ocean Tug in 1 June 1942 serving at Pearl Harbor as AT-140 and then to Samoa and designated ATO-140, 13 April 1944. Contemperaneously, Robin II was commissioned on 6 November 1943 as minesweeper, YMS-311, (380 ton, 136 feet) and earned five battle stars for her World War II service.   Alternately, the 1918 minespeeper may have lost her name when she left mine warfare service and the new minesweeper pickeup up that name after the carrier returned to her British name.   Either way, there are few naval references of the loaned carrier and in diaries she is called Victorious.
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