Introduction
Remarkable colour film footage exists of the Japanese naval base at Kure, taken shortly after the country’s surrender. The footage shows the wrecks of several large warships, sunk in shallow waters after the US Third Fleet had attacked the port towards the end of July 1945. At the time, they were almost all that remained of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN); once the world’s third largest. The footage indicates that film crews generally conducted a 360 degree survey of the ships by boat, before boarding them for more close-up examinations of the battle damage. A clapper board held up during the filming gives a clue to the film’s provenance. The board is titled USSBS, and the name D.A. McGovern is written in chalk. The USSBS was the United States Strategic Bombing Survey carried out during the autumn and winter of 1945-6. Its purpose was to ‘evaluate air power as an instrument of military strategy’ [1]. Lieutenant Colonel Daniel McGovern was an Army Air Force photographer most famous for his involvement in capturing film of the aftermath of the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In addition to the USSBS film, many other photographs were taken of the Kure bombings, some by aircraft during the raids, others by investigators from the US Naval Technical Mission sent in to ‘appraise the technological status of the Japanese Navy’ after the country’s surrender. The warships captured on film provide an unusual insight into evolving Japanese naval design and strategy leading up to and during the Pacific War.
The city of Kure lies in the Hiroshima Prefect of south-western Honshu, Japan’s main island. It faces the country’s famed Inland Sea; a large strategic waterway naturally protected by islands and hills. Kure naval yard, which is encircled by two large islands; Etajima and Kurahashi, had been established in 1903 under the supervision of French navy architect Emile Bertin. The naval arsenal contained facilities for producing steel and armaments as well as constructing warships, including two of the IJN’s most powerful battleships; Nagato and Yamato. Like most of Japan, Kure escaped bombing by US Forces during the early part of the war. The city first come under direct assault on 19th March 1945 when more than 240 aircraft from Admiral Mitscher’s Task Force 58, which comprised up to sixteen aircraft carriers, targeted air fields and several warships.[1] Two weeks later, B-29 Super-Fortresses dropped about 50 naval mines in surrounding sea lanes, evidently causing serious disruption to shipping in the area.
The bombing of naval units began in earnest on 24th July with more than 1,700 carrier-based aircraft sorties launched against floating targets by SB2C Helldivers, F4U “Corsairs” and F6F Hellcats. A second large carrier raid was executed on 28th July, supplemented by 79 land-based B-24 Liberator bombers from Okinawa. The attacks were highly successful in terms of ships sunk or heavily damaged. These included three battleships, two aircraft carriers and three light cruisers; an impressive figure when one considers that torpedoes could not be used owing to the shallowness of anchorages, and the fact that warships were spread out over a wide area and well-camouflaged. However, US casualties were also significant, with 133 aircraft lost mainly to the heavy anti-aircraft fire protecting the port, and over one hundred aircrew killed. Several airmen unlucky enough to be shot down and captured during these raids would fall victims to the atomic blast at Hiroshima, where they had been conveyed as prisoners.
It may be wondered why these ships were targeted at all at a stage when the Japanese navy had already been nullified as a fighting force. After the futile Operation Ten-Go in early April 1945, which saw the destruction of the giant battleship Yamato whilst on a suicide mission to save Okinawa, the IJN lacked sufficient fuel supplies to mount any further challenge to the US Pacific Fleet at sea. Admiral John McCain, one of TF58’s carrier-group commanders, had been reasonably opposed to the attack on such grounds. However, his superior officer, Admiral William Halsey, insisted on the attack for several spurious reasons; that it would boost American morale; that it would represent fitting payback for the IJN’s attack on Pearl Harbour four years earlier; that it would destroy ships that could potentially be used as bargaining chips by the Japanese government at future peace negotiations; that it would protect Soviet naval operations in the Sea of Japan.
None of these arguments really stand up to scrutiny. Kure and the country’s other chief ports had already been targeted on a grand scale by US bombers. Several of the larger ships known to be in port were obsolete, several others already damaged and of little fighting value. US naval forces morale was already high on the back of a succession of hard-fought but overwhelming victories at sea and on land. The US government was ambivalent at best about assisting the Soviets in Northeast Asia.
The truth was that the US Pacific Fleet was running out of targets for its burgeoning Pacific war machine. The apparent vehemence of the attacks can perhaps be partly explained by the fact that many ships remained above water even after losing buoyancy, with their heavily armoured turrets seemingly undamaged. Thus, aircrews may have been misled into thinking the ships remained operational. Arguably, the attacks proved counter-productive, destroying vessels that could have been put to use after the surrender for the repatriation of the large numbers of Japanese troops left stranded overseas, an endeavour that took until January 1947.
Bow Creek to Anatahan 