Inexplicable Strategy Of Japanese Navy

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 303, 22 December 1944, Page 5

Inexplicable Strategy Of Japanese Navy

POWER AND EFFICIENCY OF AMERICAN FLEETS

(Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Dec. 21

Frank inability to understand the tactics of the attempted naval interference by the Japanese with the American landings on Leyte was expressed by Lord Keyes in an interview to-day. The use of three separate forces on three separate lines of attack when six old-type battleships among the vessels of the United States Fleet in action could alone have dealt with any one of the forces was inexplicable. Lord Keyes was speaking with firsthand experience for he disclosed that he was present for the first three days of the operation on the flagship of Admiral Connelly who commanded one of the American naval task forces.

“I was immensely impressed with the work of the United States Navy in the operation, especially when one realises that nine-tenths of the personnel are shore wallahs. They have a way of teaching each man one job and he knows absolutely how to carry out that job properly. Personnel for landing craft can be taught in 10 days by using the methods I saw in operation on the Pacific Coast before I left the United States.

”1 was specially impressed with their ‘naval air. ’ It held off the Japanese shore-based planes. It should be emphasised that the American warships off the Philippines were subjected to exactly the same kind of attack by landbased aircraft with 12-inch torpedoes as those which resulted in tfi'e loss of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse. The difference was that the American warships had adequate air cover and their antiaircraft armament was complete. The blast of fire with which warships are now able to meet aircraft attack is terrific and aircraft are just wiped from the sky.

“As far as I can ascertain not one of the American battleships in action suffered the slightest damage by air attack and they shot down scores of Japanese planes. Vast numbers of air-craft-carriers could not operate without battleships. The battleships must be there to protect the aircraft-carrier and as long us the Japanese have a battle squadron so must we have a battle fleet with which to oppose it. 1 ‘ It seems impossible to justify the present strategy of the Japanese. They are obviously keeping their main fleet out of the battle. I don’t think they meant to meet Admiral Halsey. Their fleet was covering the transfer of shorebased planes from the Japanese mainland southward, and I don’t think they knew Admiral % Halsey Vith his big fleet of carriers was there. Their reconnaissance probably only saw the ‘tabletop’ auxiliaries which were used for air cover for the landings.

“The Americans have told me that the Japanese lie to each other and mislead each other, and reconnaissance pilots must undoubtedly have reported that the American force as much weaker than it really was. The Japan-

ese airman invariably overcalls and they probably saw only the six old battleships and the ‘tabletops.’ ” Speaking of the strategy “which lay behind the creation of the naval base at Singapore, Lord Keyes said both he and Lord Beayy had favoured it as an advanced base for operations against tho Japanese in the Pacific. “Both of us -in the years he and I were associated, he as First Sea Lord and I a* Coinmandcr-in-Chief in the Mediterranean and later when I was First £ca Lord, felt that the only enemy we had to consider in those years were the Japanese. It was to be an advanced base for my fleet, the Mediterranean Fleet. It was not intended just to protect the Indian Ocean. But neither of us ever considered it would be ‘subject to an attack from the land, nor did the War Office. The conditions which made that possible were never dreamt of. “We built it up to be fully defensive from sea attack with 15-inch guns. But to think it fell to an attack by an enemy crossing the water behind the island in sampans! If we had had perhaps 40 torpedboats it could have withstood & long siege.”