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In late 1944 and early 1945 the Royal Navy finally returned to Far Eastern waters as an offensive force, carrying out a series of carrier raids against the Japanese controlled oil industry on Sumatra.
This is the campaign in which the Royal Navy learnt to carry out US style fast carrier operations, with multiple aircraft carriers acting together, resulting in larger air groups than had been normal for the Fleet Air Arm, and at longer range from bases, requiring the Navy to master the air of refuelling underway.
We start with a look at the British fleets involved in this campaign and in particular its four fleet carriers and the types of aircraft they carried. Earlier in the war the Fleet Air Arm had been crippled by poor quality aircraft, but by 1944 it was operating a mix of good US naval aircraft (Avenger, Corsair and Hellcat) and a limited number of British types (Seafire mainly). On the Japanese side there was always the theoretical chance of an intervention by powerful units of the IJN, but this didn’t occur. Instead the main opponents were the powerful anti-aircraft batteries located around the oil facilities and a decent amount of modern aircraft. However these aircraft were scattered across a vast area, limited the number that could be used against any British raid.
The combat section starts with Operation Cockpit. Although this only involved a single British fleet carrier, the fleet also included the USS Saratoga, sent from the US Pacific Fleet to reinforce the British until more of her own fleet carriers reached the area. The operation was an attack on the island of Sabang, north-east of Sumatra, requested by the American Admiral King to help draw attention from the landings at Hollandia on New Guinea. From the British point of view its main purpose was to learn from the US carrier aviators, and the air attack itself was led by an American commander from the Saratoga. This was quickly followed by followed Operation Transom, an attack on Java using the same two carriers. This operation was carried out nearly 2,000 miles from the fleet bases in Ceylon, so required refuelling at sea. The route chosen doubled this distance – the fleet crossed the Indian Ocean to Exmouth Gulf in Australia, a trip of 2,700 miles, along a route designed to stay 600 miles away from Japanese airfields in Sumatra and Java, then steamed north for nearly 1,000 miles to get into position for the attack, before the Royal Naval elements returned along the same route.
We then look at a series of warm up operations, before the first major raid on the oil industry came in mid-December 1944. The first of these raids shows just how much the balance of power in the Pacific had changed by this point – the first of these raids took the British Pacific Fleet into the Malacca Strait, an area that would have been far too dangerous a year earlier. However by the end of 1944 the battles of the Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf had turned the Japanese Navy into a hollow shell of its earlier self, with its carriers and naval aviators largely gone. Some of the surviving battleships were at Singapore late in 1944, but too far away to intervene.
We get a brief diversion to politics at this point – even at this point there was still no firm agreement on where the British Pacific Fleet would be used. Churchill and Nimitz both wanted it to be used to support the main attack towards Japan. Admiral King was less keen (not entirely because of his famous Anglophobia, but also because of genuine concerns about the quality of the British Fleet Train, which might mean that American supplies had to be diverted to British ships. However Nimitz won out, at least in part because the Fleet Air Arm used a high number of American aircraft types, so wouldn’t complicate the supply chain.
Once this has been agreed, we look at the last major strike on Sumatra, against the oil industry at Palembang, which provided some 75% of Japanese aviation fuel. The fleet assembled for this operation demonstrates how naval warfare had changed during the course of the war – it was built around four fleet carriers and only one battleship, demonstrating just how dominant air power had become. As a result of the improvements made over the previous few months the British Pacific Fleet was able to attack a very heavily defended target, knock it out of commission for several months and greatly lower its output for the rest of the war. This book gives us a good idea of just how this was achieved.
Chapters
Introduction
Chronology
Attacker’s Capabilities
Defender’s Capabilities
Campaign Objectives
The Campaign
Analysis and Conclusion
Author: Angus Konstam
Edition: Paperback
Pages: 96
Publisher: Osprey
Year: 2024