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Normally one loses track of military careers between wars. Nothing much happens to most military men in those periods. We train and we exercise, we go to work and go home, waiting for the time when we’ll be needed again. We wait, and watch, and when the chance arrives, we use what we have learned and practice.
In the mid-1930s, Naval Aviation was still in its infancy. Although dedicated carriers had been invented and around for some years, with the rapidly expanding force buildup and the experimental nature of that mode of warfare, there weren’t enough (or maybe any) pilots with the rank and experience needed to command all of the Navy’s squadrons and carriers. In 1935 he became the oldest man in Naval History to be awarded his Naval Aviator’s wings. He immediately took command of the USS Saratoga and led her until 1937. Like many senior admirals at the beginning of World War II, Halsey had experience both with combatant vessels, in his case, destroyers, and with carriers. This preparation stood him well when the chance came to show his brilliance. Halsey’s strengths were also his weaknesses. He was stubborn and self-righteous, a Naval Patton, if you will, but his persistence and drive were invaluable in the dark days of early 1942 as American forces started Mac Arthur’s island-hopping campaign. Unfortunately, he is not primarily remembered for his leadership during the Solomon or Marshall Islands campaigns. Rather he is remembered for an error during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Japan had split her remaining Naval forces into three sections, which would approach Leyte from opposite directions. The Southern Force was taken care of handily by the American ships there, and the Northern Force was a decoy, and Halsey bit on the bait, getting reeled in by Japanese Admiral Ozawa like a trout on 20-pound test. Halsey turned his task force, TF34, northward, leaving the Surigao Strait open for whomever wished to come out of it. In this case, it was the Japanese Central Force, which had transited the strait mostly intact after attack by American air and destroyer forces. The Japanese force found a ripe target right out of the strait, and the portion of the greater Battle of Leyte Gulf called the Battle off Samar commenced (see my article on the book, “The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors” for more details). Halsey’s error lay in not covering his rear and allowing the smaller, nearly defenseless jeep carriers to be ambushed by the Japanese battleships. This was the only time that an American carrier was sunk by gunfire from an enemy capital ship. The reaction to Halsey’s error was amplified by this one fact more than any other single event of the action. Go To Page: 1 2 |
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