Sommervilles Chance

Taranto was carried out by using flares to back light the Italian ships. Several Swordfish dropped a string of parachute flares while the rest of the force attacked the ships using the flare light to illuminate them from behind.

I found it interesting in reading the article Carl posted that apparently Summerville's intention was to close with the Japanese and detect them on radar at relatively short range then launch his aerial torpedo attack. In the Mediterrainian the British used such carrier tactics against the Italians more than once.
That is, having the carrier along with surface units close on the enemy and then launch an air strike nearly simultaneously with engaging in a surface action. Is it possible that Summerville intended a similar course of action hoping to defeat the Japanese in detail?
If so, this is likely the worst course of action he could take.
While I will agree it is possible that the British could launch a night torpedo attack I have more reservations about its effectiveness than Devil's has. It is obvious that the British even with radar had severe limitations on the effectiveness of their search aircraft both the Catalinas and Albacore.
Both sides appear to have had difficulty locating the other. Had one or the other actually managed this feat things might have been a bit different. It is clear that the worst case is the Japanese locate Summerfield's fleet.
His ships are pathetically armed for air defense. The destroyers he has are near worthless as fleet AA platforms. None has more than one HA gun aboard, a few have a quadruple pom pom, while the rest are basically defenseless. The two heavy cruisers have some AA capacity while the light cruisers are all older ones equipped with just a few manually aimed 4".
The Battleships have 8 4" and an equal number of pom pom guns (8 barrel) and the carriers are fairly well equipped almost singularly.
We can see from the article that even if the FAA got their fighters up the battle would have been one sided. The Japanese would have easily had 150+ aircraft attacking and simply overwhelmed the British ships.

It seems Summerville's only hope of success is a night torpedo attack with aircraft. But, the success of that is likely to be low. It is probably best that he realized that the Japanese forces were simply too powerful for his own and kept his fleet intact for a later rematch.

 

It is not clear at all if this was the plan. It appears he had his fleet divided into fast 'A' and slow 'B' groups. It also appears the map and other references to the Brit fleet position are refering to the A group with the carriers. what I have not seen yet is a definite indication of where the B group was from the 1st thru 10 April. Was it manuvering near or with the A group, or a considerable distance away to the west? If it is only the a group within striking distance of the suspected Japanese position then it is unlikely a significant surface action was planned for just one battleship.

The past week I have been studyng the night actions of 1942 @ Sunda Strait & the Solomons for some insight into Japanese operations. Now it occurs to me the night actions the British fought in the Med need a close look to understand what Sommerville was up to.

 

It's not clear to me what you are talking about when you mention the 150+ Japanese aircraft. They are only going to be effective if they manage to find Summerville during daylight hours; they don't have radar (many don't even have radios) so they aren't going to be able to find Summerville at night. The British, on the other hand, do have radar in their planes, enough at least to find and attack the Japanese at night. It seems to me the British have a better chance of finding and attacking the Japanese at night than the Japanese do of finding and attacking the British during the day.

I'm not convinced that Summerville intended to close with the Japanese and use his planes to illuminate their ships to facilitate a surface gun attack. I think Summerville expected to launch his torpedo planes to attack the Japanese carriers with torpedoes at night. If he can eliminate two or three Japanese carriers in that way, Nagumo almost has to withdraw his forces from the Indian Ocean because he would realize his ships are vulnerable to British night carrier attack. I think Summerville wanted to keep the Japanese carriers away from his force until he could neutralize them. Only then would he consider closing Nagumo's fleet for a surface gun action.

 

Good evening,

I am the Rob Stuart whose article is quoted in this thread, which I discovered last night for the first time. The thread contains many interesting and well-informed postings. I'd like to respond to many of them but I don't want this posting to be 10 pages long, so I'll address just one question that seems to run through the thread, namely what Somerville's plan was.

On the afternoon of 28 March 1942, Somerville was warned by the Far Eastern Combined Bureau (FECB), the Sigint unit at Colombo, that a Japanese carrier force was to attack Colombo on 1 or 2 April. The Eastern Fleet was disposed as follows at the time:

At Colombo: Formidable, Dorsetshire, Cornwall, Enterprise, Dragon, Caledon, five destroyers

At Trincomalee: Warspite, Hermes, Emerald, Jacob Van Heemskerk, one destroyer

At Addu Atoll: Resolution, Ramillies, Revenge, Royal Sovereign, Indomitable, eight destroyers

He decided to assemble the fleet south of Ceylon and ambush the Japanese. At 1159Z (1759 local) the next day Somerville sent the following signal to London: ​

“My appreciation is:​

(a) Enemy approach will probably be from south (? East) to deliver simultaneous attack Colombo and Trincomalee, but Colombo may be selected in view of docked shipping present.
(b) Attack may take place night 31st/1st but delay of one or two days not improbable.
(c) Enemy force may be supported by capital ship
2. My intentions are:-
(d) All available forces to rendezvous with me south of Ceylon, P.M. 31st.
(e) Available Catalina search as directed, 3 Catalinas per day to cover south-east sector.
(f) If (e) fails locate and carry out A.S.V., Albacore search during night.
(g) Force "A" - H.M.S. Warspite, H.M.S. Indomitable, H.M.S. Formidable, H.M.S. Cornwall, H.M.S. Emerald, H.M.S. Enterprise and half destroyers.
Force "B" - R Class H.M.S. Dragon, H.M.S. Caledon, Dutch light cruiser Heemskerck, H.M.S. Hermes and remainder of destroyers. Force B within 40 miles of Force A. [Force B either trailed behind Force A or sailed with it thoughout these operations.]
(h) If no luck retire westward during day and repeat. H.M.S. Dorsetshire joining P.M. 1st April.
Comments: Not possible to cover all approaches, so must concentrate on most likely sector. Landing base [land-based] striking force unlikely to be effective, as enemy can launch attack outside range of Swordfish. Blenheims quite inexperienced over sea operation. If surface contact made at night intend attacking with cruisers and destroyers supported by H.M.S. Warspite.”

(I presume that "(? East)" was inserted by the cipher office in London which decoded the signal. One code group may have been garbled.)

The book "The Hermes Adventure" includes a copy of the first and last pages of an operation order dated 31 March. Exactly who issued the order is not stated but from the context it seems to have been Somerville. His plans were of course based on FECB's estimate of the composition of the Japanese force, concerning which the Op O says:

"2. Whilst there is no definite information regarding the composition of the enemy force, it is probable that they will include two or more Aircraft Carriers, two or more first class [ie, heavy] cruisers, two or more Second Class Cruisers and a Destroyer force. It is probable that the Carriers will have on board fighters as well as striking force aircraft, which may include torpedo bombers."

In his Report of Proceedings, issued on 18 April (available online at Home Fleet War Diary 1945), Somerville says that:

"5. The enemy could approach Ceylon from the north-east, from the east, or from the south-east, to a position equidistant 200 miles from Colombo and Trincomalee. I considered an approach from the south-east most probable. This would enable to enemy to fly off aircraft between 0200 and 0400 and, after carrying out bombing attacks on Colombo and Trincomalee, allow the aircraft to return and fly on after the first light (about 0530); forces could then withdraw at high speed to the eastward. I was assuming that the Japanese carrier borne bombers could have approximately the performance of our Albacores.

"6. My plan was therefore to concentrate the Battlefleet, carriers, and all available cruisers and destroyers and to rendezvous on the evening of the 31st March in a position from which the fast division (Force A, consisting of WARSPITE, INDOMITABLE, FORMIDABLE, CORNWALL, EMERALD, ENTERPRISE, and 6 destroyers) could intercept the enemy during the night of 31st March/1st April and deliver a night air attack. The remainder (Force B, consisting of RESOLUTION, REVENGE, RAMILLIES, ROYAL SOVEREIGN, HERMES, DRAGON, CALEDON, and destroyers) to form a separate force and to manoeuvre so as to be approximately 20 miles to the westward of Force A. If Force A intercepted a superior force, I intended to withdraw towards Force B."

It seems clear that Somerville's intention was a night attack with his torpedo bombers (he had no dive bombers). The reference to attacking the Japanese with his light forces was probably his contingency plan in the event that his ships encountered the Japanese ships in the dark, ie, if his search aircraft missed them.

Somerville carried out this plan between 31 March and 2 April, but the Japanese did not show up and the R class were getting low on fuel and water. He went to Addu Atoll to take care of this, with Force A arriving there on 4 April at 1200, Force B at 1500. At 1605 Birchall found Nagumo. Somerville could no longer ambush Nagumo in the middle of the night. As he says in para 27 of his ROP, "The only hope of dealing the enemy an effective blow was by means of a carrier borne air striking force preferably at night.", so he headed toward Nagumo hoping to be able to launch an Albacore attack during the night of 5-6 March.

Somerville may have underestimated the Japanese but he did not overestimate his own capabilities, hence his aim was a night torpedo bomber attack, between 31 March and 2 April as well as on 5 April, and he almost pulled if off on 5 April.


This is all I can write for now. I'd love to continue the discussion if anyone is interested.



Thanks,


Rob

 

I found some additional info in Marder's Old friends new enemies since the original posts.
Sommerville wrote to his wife on 1st March, "I'm told the Japs are afraid of the dark so I must try and specialize in night attacks" but he was not that confident on his ships capabilities "I hear a lot of blah about everything now depends on our mantaining control in the Indian Ocean! That's poor bloody me and I wonder how it's to be accomplished. My old battle-boats are in various states of disrepar and there's not a ship at present that approaches what I should call a proper standard of fighting efficiency" (to Lady Sommerville, 14th March).

The split between Colombo and Addu Atoll was suggested by an Admiralty signal on the 21st and look to be part of long standing plans.

The level of training and maintenance of the British force was not the best Vice Adm. Willis wrote "My battleships were not in good state: Revenge had been at Durban having her boilers retubed, which operation was only half done when the emergency arose. Royal Sovereign had condensatoritis. Ramilles steering gear was constantly breaking down. Resolution was best from the machinery point of view but she be due for docking". Also the 15" main guns of the R had not been relined recently and had much lower elevation, and thus range, than modern or rebuilt ships, more importantly their fresh water distillers could not make up fully for the steam consumption severely limiting their effective range.
Aircraft training was also not good, Sommerville compared it unfavourably with Ark Royal's standards, one Albacore was writen-off off on February 23, another on March 3 and half a dozen other assorted assorted planes had non fatal landing accidents, this attrition rate looks high but may be not be that unusual in carrier ops.

Marder explicitly states Sommerville's plan was to hit the Japanese while they were retreating after they had attacked Colombo with a night torpedo attack by the Albacores, the book does not provide any explicit quotes from Sommerville himself but there's one from Vice Adm. Willis's War Memoirs "But apparently Sommerville's idea was, having located the enemy, to try and keep clear by day and to close in after dark to deliver aircraft torpedo attacks from our carriers" (BTW he was not at all happy with this plan that he considered excessively risky).

 

Tired Old Soldier:

I agree with just about everything you say. It is true, for example, that the British badly underrated Japanese ability to fight at night. On 13 February Vice Admiral Layton, C-in-C Eastern Fleet at the time, reported that “Evidence is accumulating which seems to confirm pre-war impressions that Japanese ships do not take kindly to night fighting”, and that “our policy should be to seek night actions by every means.” (C-in-C EF cable 1227Z/13)

Somerville sailed to Ceylon on Formidable and worked her hard during the passage. The comments you cite are mostly about her but Indomitable was green too. Somerville noted that most of his ships were either new and not yet well trained (eg, Indomitable and several of the destroyers), or old and in poor shape. And few of them had been employed in company with other ships, so they did not know their "fleet stuff".

Yes, Willis was unhappy with the risks Somerville took on 5 April, but I suspect he was more comfortable with the 31 March to 2 April ambush Somerville laid.

Do you have the title of Willis' memoirs? Have they been published?


Thanks,

Rob

 

The Bibliography at the end of Old friends new enemies quotes
in the Private papers section:

Willis, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Algernon, 'War Memoirs' Imperial War Museum. Additional papers, Churchill College, Cambridge.

So I think they are unpublished but Marder, Jacobsen and Horsfield had access to them.

 

Thanks for the response & valuable information. The key item for me is the absence of any evidence for a night surface attack by the British. A second item is the object of making the attack near the end of the Japanese operation. That would accrues the small advantage of the Japanese air component being a bit more worn.

Unfortunatly I'm on the road this week. Hope to discuss this more in September

 

I have enjoyed reading this "old" thread, but I think a few things have been overlooked, and most especially, undervalued.

There is nothing in the annals of war quite like a COMPLETELY UNEXPECTED enemy action to stun, confuse, and intimidate an opponent. I think Sommerville had an opportunity to do JUST THAT to the Kido Butai in the Indian Ocean. Though my study of the events surrounding the Indian Ocean foray of the Japanese leads me to believe that PROBABLY it was a good thing that the British and Japanese carrier fleets did not clash, the POTENTIAL for a night-time "Midway" in which SEVERAL Japanese carriers go down is just too good to let go by without discussion.

First of all, to the Japanese carrier-borne air component, night was a time of peace, breathing easy, and flight-deck inaction. No Japanese carrier EVER, IMHO, made nighttime sorties during the war (launching just before dawn not really counting), and at least in the early part of the war, such were not expected of the enemy, either. Japan made occasional night sorties from large, twin-engined bombers on moonlit nights, but not from carriers. Japanese carriers had no radars in early 1942, and relied on eyesight for discovering approaching enemy aircraft. Off Ceylon, Japanese lookouts aboard the Kido Butai failed, in daytime, to see the attacking Blenheim level bombers until bomb splashes erupted around the Akagi.

Britain, on the other hand, had developed night attack tactics for its fleet airborne strike craft. Anti-Surface-Vessel radar (ASV) had been adopted fairly early for aircraft use, and most of the Swordfish and Albacore torpedo-bombers of Sommervilles’ carriers off Ceylon were so equipped. British aerial torpedoes were top-notch, and we only have to look at the Bismarck and Taranto affairs to extrapolate possible British success in their usage.

I don’t quite know where the “one attack group, one ship sunk” idea came from in this thread that might disparage a nighttime British attack against the Kido Butai. It presumes that the British were only capable of taking out two of the five large carriers of the Japanese under the best of circumstances, and also presumes that the remaining three Japanese carriers would demolish the two British carriers come morning.

Let’s look at the Taranto raid. Of the 21 (YES--ONLY TWENTY-ONE!!) aircraft launched for Operation Judgement against the Italian fleet in Taranto harbor, only TWELVE(!!) aircraft were equipped with torpedoes! The others had flares or bombs. This force, attacking in two waves, managed to put THREE BATTLESHIPS on the harbor bottom. Cruiser Trento was hit by a bomb (didn’t explode), and Vittorio Veneto had a torpedo veer off and was NOT hit. If these three battleships had been in deep water, such as the waters off Ceylon, they would be SUNK and out of the war forever.

Switch the scene to the waters off Ceylon. I fully understand that ships freely moving at sea are a different animal than moored in harbor. However, the presumed nighttime peace of the Japanese fleet would probably have had them COMPLETELY unaware of the danger that awaited them, and serenely cruising along until all h*ell broke loose. The Italians at Taranto were alert (most especially for the second wave) and the Swordfish had to weave in through intense AA fire. Such would PROBABLY not be the case in a night engagement off Ceylon. I might predict that the flares launched by the British would be the first indication of any enemy action, and the slamming of torpedoes into the carriers would come as a COMPLETE AND UTTER SHOCK to the Japanese!!

My sources said 57 strike aircraft available to Sommerville. Assume the same ratio of torpedo planes as at Taranto, and we now have 32 torpedoes heading for the Japanese fleet (as opposed to twelve against the Italians). Given that the Japanese ships are moving, “we” can’t meaningfully assign the same hit ratio to this battle as at Taranto, but still, given the number of torpedoes in the water, can’t we ASSUME that maybe three or four Japanese ships get badly hit?? I think so!

If you are Nagumo, and you have lost, say, Hiryu, Soryu, and Shokaku, with a torpedo in your own Akagi as well, what do you do come next morning?? Certainly you MUST discover the whereabouts of your attackers (did they even come from carriers, you must ask??), and be dam*n fearful that your remaining fleet might be attacked again the next night!! Ya GOTTA have CAP to fend off further attacks (and without radar, these would be “wasteful” standing patrols), and ya GOTTA send out scouts from more than just the regular cruiser planes. In the real campaign, the British discovered the Japanese carrier fleet, but the Japanese did NOT find the British. With now only HALF of his carrier force intact, does Nagumo hang around for revenge, or HIGH-TAIL it eastward out of danger?? Now how does that affect Coral Sea or Midway?? HOO-HA!

In short, I think there was a tremendous potential for a STUNNING nighttime “Midway” of the Kido Butai by the British, but despite my enthusiasm for this scenario, I think it would have been im-PROBABLE. More likely the Japanese would have found Sommerville and crucified his fleet. So it remains “idle” speculation. And I’m good at that!!

 

One teeny, tiny little detail to remember about the RN strike at Taranto. The Italian ships that were hit, weren't moving.

 

re: "not moving". Yes, of course! I already addressed that. But given that the British had almost THREE TIMES the torpedoes to unleash, might that be ample compensation for SIMILAR results as Taranto? And that unlike Taranto, the Japanese would be caught COMPLETELY flatfooted?? Truthfully, I don't know---it's all speculation.

 

... was ultimately to evade battle, preserve his Fleet as what amounts to a fleet-in-being, a tactic usually employed by the RN's enemies, to protect the sea lanes to the Middle-East. With that in mind, Operation Ironclad with his former command Force H in the lead was scheduled to begin in a month's time. Despite some losses, in large part due to incomplete Intelligence info, and having to leave Ceylon undefended (although it was land based aviation that he recommended was required) for a time, ultimately that's what he, and the RN was able to accomplish.

Somerville, the RN's foremost ranking expert on radar and seaborne air attack, had no illusions about his Fleet, a mishmash jokingly referred to in London as the Russian Squadron sailing to Tsu-shima, it was nothing like the weapon he had forged with "H" and Ark Royal. He worked Formidable's aircrews hard, often accompanying them and flying largely at night, several crashed - then he ensured that Boyd worked Indomitable just as hard, in the short time that they had. Intelligence said that a Japanese force was headed their way.

As Donald Macintyre, former FAA and Somerville's biographer notes, "Thence, should the expected Japanese attack develop, he intended to launch air torpedo attacks by the light of the full moon, the one form of attack he felt he could undertake against a Force which, though its exact composition was not known, was almost certainly greatly superior to his own."

As tactics goes, Somerville separated his faster, and slower ships into 2 divisions, so that the slower R's and Hermes could support, but wouldn't encumber his carriers which would close to launch at night, retreating out of range by morning. That’s sound tactically, but when Nagumo arrived late, most of his preparations were thrown out the window. Unlike Fletcher over the next few weeks, he was caught flat footed, and had lost the initiative. Tasked with preserving his fleet, caught well within range of air attack in daylight, he ran away, so close that his bridge crew began scanning the horizon for IJN BB top hamper. Except for those ships detached, Somerville's Fleet got away.

In comparison, Nagumo’s raid was a tactical success, but strategically it was for naught. The Japanese never did return to the area, it can be judged that any of the precious resources spent there; fuel, pilots, aircraft etc., would have been better spent elsewhere, perhaps off Guadalcanal, but again they didn’t know that. The British losses meant little in the long run, the USN was the aggressor, the RN had enough elsewhere on its plate. As far as Somerville goes strategically, securing Madagascar made great sense, ultimately dooming the Japanese Imphal offensive, by safeguarding seaborne supply lines to India, something Nagumo's short raid did nothing but hinder for a matter of a couple of weeks.

 

Not only that, the closeness to the sea bed increased the damage from the rather small (176kg) warheads of the Type XII torpedoes (Littorio and Veneto survived hits by Type XII on other occasions with a lot less problems), it's far from given that 3 or 4 hits, and I wouldn't expect more on moving ships given the "green" status of his aircrews, would result in more than one carrier out of action. The Japanese knew about Taranto and attempred themseves a late evening/night attack at Coral Sea so I don't think they would be totally suprised by a British one.
And to launch his strike and recover his planes he would need to close with the Japanese force and a strike would give confirmation to Nagumo he was in the area, his ships are unlikely to survive a strike by even a couple of Japanese carriers.

Some odds and ends on the Indian Ocean raid
On 5/4/1942 one of a two Albacore recon flight of 827 Sq FAA was shot down by the Hiryu CAP, later a third Albacore barely escaped the same fate and made it back to HMS Indomitable so the recon flights must have come pretty close.
Riujo' fighter group was still operating A5M not Zeros at the time of the raid
Somerville expected Nagumo earlier, by the end of the 4th of April the "R" were short of fresh waters and had to pull back to replenish or use salt water and damage the engines.

 

TOS, you have a point, but you're comparing torpedoing unarmoured carriers with storage spaces for aviation petrol, bombs etc., with armoured battleships with underwater anti-torpedo protection. What's more, the Japanese did not see damage control in the same light as the west, and these carriers were far from home - Akagi was sunk by 1 bomb hit, and serious underwater damage by near misses.

The Japanese never did find Somerville, air recon. wasn't as important either, they weren't expecting him, for all they would know, a long range night attack could have come from Ceylon. Radar equipped Swordfish/Albacore & Wellington torpedo bombers from Malta and or Cyrenaica had attacked Italian/German convoys with success, but not in the numbers Somerville could've unleashed.

The R's had been refuelled and watered at Addu Atoll by tankers, after the fast "A Force" division had filled up, they were delayed but sortied on the 5th, about 100 miles behind.

 

Carriers are more vulnerable than battleships but this is much more true for bomb hits, that are more likely to start fires, than for torpedoes, armour is mostly irrelelevant for torpedo hits.
How much did Nagumo know about Somerville? he behaved like he didn't know he was in the area.

 

... had no idea Somerville was in the area, nor did he know about Addu Atoll. Somerville had just arrived to take command, around the time Nagumo sortied, the latter had been assigned to raid into the heart of the British controlled sealanes, to chase off the RN Eastern Fleet, such as it was, while another force attacked shipping off the east coast of India. The idea in part for both was to prevent British resupplying the defensive effort in Burma. Beyond Colombo & Trincomalee, whatever RN resources Nagumo's search planes found, he attacked - they never found Somerville's main force.

Battleship armour may not be irrelevant - when torpedoes with contact fuses are set to run shallow or near the surface, such as in a port like Taranto & Pearl Harbor, deep belted battleship armour may well come into play, and there's still bulges in older types, and anti-torpedo compressive spaces/material below to consider - all that's superior to what a carrier has.

 

I knew Somerville's command had just been created and that the Addu base was unknown to the Japanese. What I was wondering is how much Nagumo would know of British strenght? the allocation of major British warships to the various fleets was likely known to the axis but how much detail would he have ?
Not knowing his opponent was in the area probably influenced his recon tactics, IMO usage of the floatplanes, most of which would probably be short ranged Pete and Dave models, rather than the longer ranged Jake that had just entered service, had to be limited to avoid excessive attrition. The CAP interception of Albacores, not usually a land based type and unlikely to be used for recon if land based, should raise the suspicion of at least a British fleet carrier in the area.

 

The RN maintained RNAS i.e. air stations, at both Colombo and Trincomalee, the Japanese would've known this. RN FAA Fulmars from same, were part of the interception forces, 6 torpedo armed Swordfish, flying between the 2 bases, had been shot down in the attack on Colombo. Seeing these types over Ceylon, or over land, was not unusual. Swordfish had been used for pinpoint attacks on DAK targets deep in the North African desert, where the FAA pilots superior navigational skills could be maximised.

Somerville had arrived from the UK aboard Formidable, after Nagumo had sailed. Some of his "Fleet" were there in Colombo, others in Trincomalee, but the R's and Indomitable had gone direct to Addu Atoll. The sqaudrons aboard Indomitable had fully worked up, only Formidable's were green, but some of the aircrew had been assigned to squadrons aboard Ark Royal & Somerville in the past.

Nagumo, arriving in the vicinity of Midway, hoping to do battle with the US carriers in a few days, didn't send up any carrier search planes. For recon., Japanese doctrine relied upon the cruiser borne floatplanes, and rather sparse search patterns - all carrier based aircraft were to be used for maximum strength attack, it was no different on the Ceylon Raid. Not finding Somerville, not knowing the strength of his force is not unusual. Craig's points, aiming towards an RN Midway-ish attack south of Ceylon are valid, there are pre-battle similarities - the stars just weren't alligned properly.