Take-Ichi convoy

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Take-Ichi convoy
Part of: Pacific War
The route of the Take Ichi convoy from Shanghai to Halmahera [1]
The route of the Take Ichi convoy from Shanghai to Halmahera
date April 17 to May 9, 1944
place East China Sea , Philippine Sea , Luzon Strait , South China Sea, and Celebes Sea
Casus Belli Troop transfers from mainland China to the Philippines and New Guinea
output strategic victory of the United States
consequences heavy convoy losses, troop transfer canceled
Parties to the conflict

Flag of the Japanese Empire Japanese Empire

United States 48United States United States

Commander

Flag of the Japanese Empire Kajioka Sadamichi

United States 48United States Ralph Waldo Christie

Troop strength
1 minelayer
3 destroyers
2 kaibokan escort ships
1 anti-mine vehicle
2 submarines
3 gunboats
15 transport ships 		2 submarines
losses

four transport ships
4,290 dead

no

The Take-Ichi-Konvoi ( Japanese 一 一 船 団 , Take ichi sendan , Eng . "Ship Association Bamboo One") was a convoy of the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Pacific War . He left Shanghai on April 17, 1944 with two infantry divisions embarked to strengthen the Japanese positions in the Philippines and western New Guinea . Attacks by submarines of the US Navy on 26 April and 6 May led to the sinking of four of the ride-transport vessels and the deaths of more than 4,000 soldiers. As a result, the convoy broke off its journey and headed for the island of Halmahera , where the remaining material and the surviving soldiers were landed.

The losses and failure of the convoy had important strategic implications. Since troop reinforcements could obviously no longer be brought to the front without losses, the Japanese headquarters withdrew the front line of defense by almost 1000 km. The combat strength of the divisions suffered considerably from the losses, which was clearly shown in later ground battles against Allied troops.

background

In September 1943, the Imperial Japanese Navy and Imperial Japanese Army agreed to set up positions for them along an “absolute zone of national defense”. The foothills of this zone reached from the Marianas and Carolines over western New Guinea through the Banda Sea and the Flores Sea . At that time there were only insufficient army units in the region for the task and it was decided to relocate combat units from China and the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo in order to protect the airfields, which are regarded as essential for the defense strategy. The relocation was delayed due to capacity bottlenecks on the part of the Navy. The reinforcement of the Marianas and Carolines received the highest priority, whereby the units destined for New Guinea remained in China until April 1944, until sufficient ship space was available.

From the beginning of 1944, allied submarines increasingly sank Japanese ships. By deciphering the Japanese naval codes, they were able to eavesdrop on enemy radio communications and thus lead their submarines to the Japanese ships. In addition, the Navy regularly reported the position and the planned route of the convoys protected by their combat units to the headquarters. The submarine commanders received these routes from the decryption departments and were then free to decide where and when they saw the best conditions for an attack.

The poor anti- submarine doctrine of the Japanese Navy also contributed to the high casualties. Before and during the first years of the war, the submarine hunt and the protection of merchant ships were only of minor importance, and protected convoys did not become the rule until 1943. It was not until the end of 1943 that the Grand Escort Headquarters was set up to coordinate convoy trains and develop a standard doctrine for forming convoys. In April 1944, an escort of convoy headquarters was also set up . It represented a pool of experienced commanders who were to serve as convoy commanders. None of them had any real experience in convoy warfare or anti-submarine defense.

Attacks on merchant shipping in February 1944 resulted in a new composition of the Japanese convoys. That month, over ten percent of the merchant fleet was lost to submarines and air strikes. Among the losses were several transport ships with reinforcements for the Marianas and Carolines. In response, Grand Escort Headquarters increased the standard size of the convoys from five to "large" convoys of ten to twenty ships. This change enabled the Navy to provide more escort ships per convoy and hoped by reducing the number of convoy to make it more difficult for enemy submarines to find targets. The Japanese leadership attributed the declining sinking numbers in March of that year to their new strategy. They came about because the American submarines operating in the Pacific were assigned to support the Fast Carrier Task Force that month .

The Take Ichi convoy was assembled in Shanghai in April 1944. The aim was to move the 32nd Division to Mindanao and the core of the 35th Division to western New Guinea. The two divisions established in 1939 consisted of units that had been tried and tested in the war in China . One of the three infantry regiments of the 35th Division had been separated from the division at the beginning of April and sent to Palau , which it reached without losses.

The two divisions embarked on large transport ships that were protected by unusually strong forces. The experienced Rear Admiral Kajioka Sadamichi was given command of the convoy. The escort forces belonged to the newly formed 6th convoy command . Among them Kajiokas Flagship, the carbon driven were Minelayer Shirataka and the destroyer Asakaze , Shiratsuyu , Fujinami , which escorts Kurahashi , CD-20 and CD-22 , the minesweeper W-2 , the U-Hunter CH-37 and CH-38 , and the gunboats Ataka , Tama Maru dai-nana and Uji .

journey

Shanghai to Manila

Rear Admiral Kajioka Sadamichi, 1944.

The convoy left Shanghai for Manila on April 17th. In addition to the 6th convoy command, it consisted of 15 transport ships. Seven of the transporters only had material on board intended for Manila, while the two divisions were divided into four ships each. The Allies were able to intercept the news about the departure of the convoy and also decipher messages about its course south.

The submarine USS Jack was brought up to the convoy by means of the intercepted radio messages and sighted it northwest of the coast of Luzon on the morning of April 26th . When trying to get into a good firing position for a torpedo attack, contact was lost again. A Japanese aircraft sighted the USS Jack a little later and attacked it unsuccessfully. Despite this warning, the convoy did not change course. Around noon the Jack was able to see the smoke plume of the Shirataka and tried to unlock it again when sailing over water, but was forced to submerge by another air attack.

After nightfall she was able to unlock but not penetrate the convoy itself. She therefore fired three torpedo compartments with a total of 19 torpedoes in the center of the convoy, with the cargo ship Yoshida Maru being hit and sank. A complete regiment of the 32nd Division was on the ship. All approximately 3,000 people on the ship perished in the rapid sinking. The remaining Japanese ships continued their voyage and reached Manila on April 29 without further incident.

Manila to Halmahera

USS Gurnard off Mare Island, California, March 14, 1944.

The goal of the 32nd Division changed while driving from Shanghai to Manila. The GHQ feared that the increasing difficulty of transporting troops to the front could prevent the planned reinforcements from reaching the "absolute zone of national defense" in full strength before the Allied forces. Therefore, the division should strengthen the 2nd Army in western New Guinea and the eastern part of the Dutch East Indies . This was in the opinion of the GHQ under a more immediate threat of attack than the troops on Mindanao, where the division was originally supposed to land.

The convoy continued its journey towards New Guinea on May 1st. It now consisted of eight transport ships - one of the ships transporting material to Manila replaced the Yoshida Maru - under the escort of the Shirataka , Asakaze , Shiratsuyu , CH-37 , CH38 and W-22 . He took a route specially planned by the 3rd Southern Fleet , with which one hoped to minimize the risk of submarine attacks.

The Allies were able to rediscover the departure by radio decryption. On May 2, they came to the conclusion that the convoy consisted of nine transport ships and seven escort ships with 12,784 soldiers from the 32nd division and an unknown number of troops from the 35th division. Further decoding revealed the route, speed, midday position and the destination of the Japanese ships. On the same day, the information obtained was passed on and, on the basis of this, the positioning of several submarines in order to intercept the convoy.

On May 6, the USS Gurnard discovered the convoy in the Celebes Sea near the northeastern tip of Sulawesi . The submarine approached while underwater to avoid early detection by aircraft. After a four-hour approach, the boat attacked the Japanese transporters and hit three of them with three torpedo compartments before it was spotted and attacked by one of the destroyers and had to abandon the attack. The destroyer drove at too high a speed to be able to precisely locate the enemy boat, which enabled it to escape undamaged despite the dropping of an estimated 100 depth charges.

Two hours later, the Gurnard went to periscope depth some distance away, watching Japanese efforts to rescue men and material from the ships that were hit. After dark, she torpedoed one of the transport ships that had been hit and was still floating. The Gurnard attacks sank the transport ships Aden Maru and Tajima Maru and the cargo ship Tenshinzan Maru . Despite the rescue measures initiated, 1,290 people were killed in the attacks and large amounts of material were lost.

Due to its heavy losses, the Take Ichi convoy was ordered to call at Halmahera instead of continuing towards New Guinea. He reached the island without incident on May 9th. Both divisions disembarked there before the ships began their march back to Manila on May 13, where they arrived on May 20 without losses.

consequences

The attacks on the Take Ichi convoy severely restricted the combat strength of the 32nd and 35th Divisions. The 32nd Division lost four out of five infantry battalions and two and a half out of four artillery battalions. Of the original six, only four infantry battalions of the 35th Division reached Halmahera and much of the divisional artillery had also been lost.

The losses suffered led the Japanese leadership to realize that a large part of the New Guinea that was still held could no longer be reinforced or effectively defended. She therefore rejected the request of the commander of the 2nd Regional Army , Lieutenant General Anami Korechika , to try with the remaining ships to transport the remains of the 35th Division to New Guinea. In addition, the losses led to the decision to take the front of the "absolute zone of national defense", which encompassed the coast of New Guinea to the west from the area around Wakde and Sarmi , to a line from Sorong to Halmahera and to the east of it, at most, delaying resistance afford to. This represented a retreat of almost 1,000 kilometers from the line planned in March 1944.

In June, naval staff officers met in Manila to analyze the course of the Take Ichi convoy . They continued to assume that the Japanese radio codes had not been cracked, and looked for other explanations for the multiple discoveries of the convoy. Among the options discussed were the location of the convoy's radio signals, the inadvertent leakage of information by a Japanese officer in Manila, and the activity of spies in Manila reporting the composition and departure of the convoy to the Allies. The officers concluded that spies were responsible for the discovery, which is why the radio codes were not changed.

Some of the remaining parts of the two divisions later fought against Allied ground forces. The 35th Division moved in smaller ships from Halmahera to Sorong during May. The regiment, which was transferred to Palau in April, was also able to successfully cross over to New Guinea. Small parts of the division later took part in the battles for Biak and Sansapor , but the largest part was trapped by Allied forces in September 1944 on the Vogelkop peninsula on which it was stationed. The 32nd Division initially remained on Halmahera as a garrison. Most of it was later brought to the neighboring island of Morotai , where it suffered heavy losses in the Battle of Morotai when it tried to push an Allied bridgehead built in September and October 1944 into the sea.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Mark P. Parillo: The Japanese Merchant Marine in World War II. 1993, p.140.
  2. ↑ a b c d Clay Blair: Silent Victory. The US Submarine War Against Japan. 2001, p. 622.
  3. ^ Charles A. Willoughby (Ed.): Japanese Operations in the Southwest Pacific Area. Volume II - Part I. 1966, p. 250.
  4. ^ Charles A. Willoughby (Ed.): Japanese Operations in the Southwest Pacific Area. Volume II - Part I. 1966, pp. 251-252.
  5. ^ Charles A. Willoughby (Ed.): Japanese Operations in the Southwest Pacific Area. Volume II - Part I. 1966, pp. 257-258 and 272.
  6. ↑ Mark P. Parillo: The Japanese Merchant Marine in World War II. 1993, pp 89-90.
  7. ↑ Mark P. Parillo: The Japanese Merchant Marine in World War II. 1993, pp 133-134.
  8. ↑ Mark P. Parillo: The Japanese Merchant Marine in World War II. 1993, pp 135-136.
  9. ↑ Mark P. Parillo: The Japanese Merchant Marine in World War II. 1993, p.137.
  10. ^ Samuel Eliot Morison: New Guinea and the Marianas March 1944 - August 1944. 2001, p. 20.
  11. ↑ James E. Wise and Scott Baron: Soldiers Lost at Sea. A Chronicle of Troopship Disasters. 2003, p. 46.
  12. ↑ Mark P. Parillo: The Japanese Merchant Marine in World War II. 1993, pp 137-139.
  13. ^ Charles A. Willoughby (Ed.): Japanese Operations in the Southwest Pacific Area. Volume II - Part I. 1966, p. 272.
  14. ^ W. Victor Madej: Japanese Armed Forces Order of Battle 1939-1945, Volume I. 1981, pp. 60 and 62-63.
  15. ^ Robert Ross Smith: The Approach to the Philippines. 1953, p. 459.
  16. ^ Charles A. Willoughby (Ed.): Japanese Operations in the Southwest Pacific Area. Volume II - Part I. 1966, pp. 272-273.
  17. ↑ a b c d CombinedFleet.com: IJN Minelayer Shirataka: Tabular Record of Movement. Retrieved August 17, 2012.
  18. ↑ Mark P. Parillo: The Japanese Merchant Marine in World War II. 1993, page 139.
  19. ↑ a b Edward J. Drea: MacArthur's ULTRA. Codebreaking and the war against Japan, 1942-1945. 1992, p. 129.
  20. ↑ a b c d Clay Blair: Silent Victory. The US Submarine War Against Japan. 2001, p. 623.
  21. ^ A b c d e f g Charles A. Willoughby (Ed.): Japanese Operations in the Southwest Pacific Area. Volume II - Part I. 1966, p. 273.
  22. ↑ a b Edward J. Drea: MacArthur's ULTRA. Codebreaking and the war against Japan, 1942-1945. 1992, p. 130.
  23. ↑ Mark P. Parillo: The Japanese Merchant Marine in World War II. 1993, p. 141
  24. ↑ W. Victor Madej: Japanese Armed Forces Order of Battle 1939-1945, Volume I. 1981, p. 60.
  25. ^ Charles A. Willoughby (Ed.): Japanese Operations in the Southwest Pacific Area. Volume II - Part I. 1966, p. 274.
  26. ^ A b Robert Ross Smith: The Approach to the Philippines. 1953, p. 233.
  27. ↑ Edward J. Drea: MacArthur's ULTRA. Codebreaking and the war against Japan, 1942-1945. 1992, pp. 130-131.
  28. ^ Robert Ross Smith: The Approach to the Philippines. 1953, p. 460.
  29. ^ Robert Ross Smith: The Approach to the Philippines. 1953, pp. 263, 443-444 and 449.
  30. ^ Charles A. Willoughby (Ed.): Japanese Operations in the Southwest Pacific Area. Volume II - Part I. 1966, pp. 348-352.

literature

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus, Kajioka is the family name, Sadamichi the first name.