Chapter 6 the Cleveland in the Pacific end of 1942 and begin of 1943

Cleveland in the Pacific

5 December 1942 USS Cleveland Pacific

Cleveland sailed for the Pacific on 5 December 1942, and arrived at Efate Island on 16 January 1943.

From Shipmate

Cleveland next left Norfolk in early December 1942 and headed for Noumea, New Caledonia – Halsey’s headquarters for the South Pacific Command. We arrived two cruisers and a division of DD. We moored alongside an AA cruiser and asked, “where is the fleet?” They said WE were the fleet – again poor odds.

End of Article

3 January 1943 New Caledonia

After passing through the Panama Canal, the group set a great circle course for New Caledonia, and January 3, 1943, anchored at Noumea. Ten days later, the CLEVELAND proceeded to Havannah Harbor, Efate, New Hebrides, her first base in the South Pacific.

Shipmate March 2002

31 October 1942 Purvis Bay, Florida Island

Shipmate

TF 39 sortied from its base Purvis Bay, Florida Island at 2:30 a.m. on 31 October to bombard the Japanese air base at Buka-Bonis at the north end of Bougainville some 400 miles away. Just before midnight, after running through perilous reefs and shoal water, depending on sonar to back up unreliable charts, the TF opened fire. A Black Cat spotter reported “on target.” TF 39 then proceeded southward to the Shortland Islands to conduct a daylight bombardment of the Japanese seaplane base. The Japanese returned our fire straddling TF 39 but inflicting only insignificant damage. Then TF proceeded southward to Rendova for a quick replenishment stop.

Shipmate November 2002

Tales of the Solomon Islands.

During the first six months of Japan’s aggression, The Combined Fleet swept aside all opposition as it ravaged the Pacific as Far East as the Indian Ocean.  The Philippines, Malaya and Indonesia were seized to realize their aim of “The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”.  The only threat to this ambitious plan was the U.S. Pacific Fleet based in Pearl Harbor. From that vantage point PacFlt was on the flank of Japan’s line of communication to its Southeast Asia operations. The Japanese knew that the United States would use Australia as a staging base in preparation for ‘The return to the Philippines”.  Their strategy was to destroy the Pacific Fleet and Pearl Harbor and to block the sea-lanes from America to Australia.

The opening gambit was the attack on Pearl Harbor.  While the Fleet suffered considerable damage, but our carriers were at sea and not damaged.  The Japanese Navy, who had demonstrated that the major striking force of a fleet was no longer battleships but carriers, was alarmed.  Nevertheless the plan to capture Port Morsely, New Guinea, Tulagi and Guadalcanal in the Eastern Solomon, Islands to block communications with Australia went ahead. A month later Japan planned to capture Midway to entice PacFlt westward into the waiting arms of the Combined Fleet to complete the destruction started at Pearl Harbor.  These operations reflected classical Japanese propensity for complex plans involving multi-objectives separated beyond mutual support distances) Japan was turned back at Coral Sea and suffered a terrible defeat at Midway with the lost its powerful, battle tested fast carrier strike force.

After a short respite following Midway, PacFlt was ready to take the offensive.   Japan still posed a threat to sea-lanes to Australia for it still held Tulagi and Rabaul and was building an airfield on Guadalcanal.   On 7 August 1942 SoPac forces seized Tulagi and the unfinished airfield on Guadalcanal thus opening the six months long battle for the Solomon Islands.  It was a hard fought and furious. The Japanese were superior in numbers of ships and aircraft and were superb night fighters.  They had a very lethal torpedo with twice the power of those in the U.S. arsenal; these long lance guppies had the habit of blowing the bows off our ships.  Also they had superior optics and the advantage of operational experience.   U.S. Forces were still making the transition from peace to war.  ADML Spruance said that the hardest thing in times of peace is to tell whether an officer will fight in time of war as well as fight intelligently.  Some did not make the transition.

The most important advantages of the U.S. were the shipbuilding program started in 1940, radar and preeminent intelligence.  Further the indomitable American fighting spirit awakened by superb leadership brought victory at Midway.

Both sides lost so many ships in the seven vicious night battles that the waters around Guadalcanal became known as Iron Bottom Bay. The U.S. Navy was hard pressed to scrape up any cruiser, battleship they could find to replace losses.  Cruisers were transferred from Alaska (What a trip those ships must have had).  Because of the anti-submarine Battle in the Atlantic few destroyers could be spared.  Even the old battleships were sent to SoPac. (The OBB’s were sort of a country cousin in the high tech, high speed Solomon Island campaign.  Later they came into their own in shore bombardment and returned to their glory at Surigao Strait in 1944.)

The arrival of four new Cleveland class CL was most encouraging for it meant that the Two Ocean Naval Act of 1940 had begun to kick in.  Of these ships only Cleveland had a bit of battle experience off Casa Blanca, hardly equivalent to operations in the Solomons. All these ships needed a shake down period to prepare for the unique fighting environment of the Solomon Islands and to study the lessons of the unprecedented naval battles of October and November ’42.

1 November 1942 Purvis Bay, Florida Island

On 1 November a PBY reconnaissance plane reported a Japanese force of three CA, two CL and eight DD sailed from Rabaul headed for Empress Augusta Bay. RADM Merrill placed TF 39 in position between the Japanese force and the Bay. Our Friendly Black Cat kept the Admiral informed of the Japanese composition and movement through the night and estimated we should make contact about 2:30 a.m. on 2 November. With our superior radar we made contact at 2:33 a.m. before the Japanese Army knew we were there. They were deployed in a line of three columns. RADM Merrill deployed in a line ahead. DesDiv-CruDiv-DesDiv, crossing the Tee. (Although Tee crossing is an ancient tactic, it is a principle of naval warfare that resists time.)

The fog of battle sets in sooner at night. With DD charging about making torpedo runs, and the Japanese maneuvering madly trying to avoid the fish crisscrossing the area, the battle soon became a melee – except for the CruDiv 12 that maintained its position across the front of the Japanese formation by a series of 180° turns at 30 Kts. Although nothing is certain in night engagements, the Japanese lost three cruisers and two destroyers and other ships damaged. US had one cruiser and two destroyers damaged. The Japanese Admiral finally decided he had enough and retreated toward Rabaul. TF 39 followed and by daylight was dangerously close to Rabaul.

Expecting an air attack at daylight, the Admiral deployed the ships in a tight diamond formation, cruisers on the cardinal points at 1,500 yards distance with a destroyer in between each cruiser. There were only four DD to screen the CLs for two were escorting the two damaged DD. The attack lasted about 30 minutes. Seventeen Vals were shot down, remnants fled to Rabaul. A small bomb hit Montpelier CL 57 demolishing a catapult and one bomb hit near Cleveland, close enough to trip circuit breakers but no other damage. Thanks to our victory at Midway, Japanese aviators that fought at Empress Augusta Bay were not of the quality of those who died at Midway. All ships returned to Purvis Bay under their own power 100 hours after sortie.

Her first mission in the consolidation of the Solomon Islands was with Task Force 18 (TF 18) to guard a troop convoy to Guadalcanal from 27 to 31 January,on 16 January 1943.

Shipmate October 2002

In 1943 BuOrd “experts” discovered that the 6-inch fragmentation projectile produced a much larger burst than the 5-inch AA shell.  There upon they concocted a scheme to use the new 6-inch gunned cruiser’s main battery for AA fire. The fact that ballistics characteristics of the two batteries were quite different did not deter them.  Each is controlled by its separate plotting room, director, computer and stable element.   Further the elevation of the 6-inch gun was about half of the 5-inch.  BuOrd’s simple solution was to devise a formula based on range to compute a ballistic correction to make the two systems compatible.      

Cleveland Cl 55 was selected to conduct the first live test at anchor in the harbor of Efate, New Hebrides.  BuOrd sent the formula.  The table of ballistic corrections, ship’s company had to compute the table of corrections.   Fortunately our Fire Control gang had some very sharp officers and petty officers that were up to the job.  Now all we had to do was to see if the system would work.  The day of the test arrived.  Gunnery officers from cruisers present came aboard to witness the demonstration.   The tow plane with target approached for the first run.  It was an absolute disaster.   Tommy Rudden 39 manned the Main Battery director and Gervias Morrison, USNR the AA director.  I was in Plot.  WE could not get our act together.  There was confusion as to whether directors were tracking the tow plane or target so the first run was aborted.  Phones connected the gunnery officer, Commander Russell Smith ’25, in gun control and me in plot.  Our failure to open fire embarrassed him in front of our guests.  He became enraged and proceeded to verbally work me over using the most colorful language.   The starting of the second run interrupted the gunnery officer’s tirade saving me.   This time both directors were on the target, not the plane, and plot entered the ballistic correction.  Morrison was tracking the plane but Rudden controlled the trigger.   The plotting rooms relied on the computers for information—plus of course the more or less excitable communications from the directors.   The AA director tracked the target, the AA computer solved the fire control problem, the ballistic correction applied and transmitted to main plot.  There the MB computer sent the corrected solution to the Main Battery director and turret, with instructions for training and elevating the 6-inch gun onto the target.  The order, Open fire! emerged from this strange chain of command and the single burst destroyed the target.  I reported to the gunnery officer in the wardroom where he conducted a `hot wash up’ of the demonstration.  He was in a much better mood.   I apologized for disastrous first run, and he said, “That was just within the family”. 

Editor’s Note:

The ideal solution was a proximity fuze inside an artillery shell, but there were numerous technical difficulties with this. The radar set had to be made small enough to fit inside a shell, and its glass vacuum tubes had to first withstand the 20,000 g forceof being fired from a gun, and then 500 rotations per second in flight. A special Section T of NDRC was created, chaired by Tuve, with Parsons as special assistant to Bush and liaison between NDRC and BuOrd.^[22]

On 29 January 1942, Parsons reported to Blandy that a batch of fifty proximity fuzes from the pilot production plant had been test fired, and 26 of them had exploded correctly. Blandy therefore ordered that full-scale production begin. In April 1942, Bush, now the Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), placed the project directly under OSRD. The research effort remained under Tuve but moved to the Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), where Parsons was BuOrd's representative.^[23] In August 1942, a live firing test was conducted with the newly commissioned cruiserUSS Cleveland. Three pilotless drones were shot down in succession.^[24]

Parsons had the new proximity fuzes, now known as VT (variable time) fuze, Mark 32, flown to the Mare Island Navy Yard, where they were mated with 5"/38 caliber gun rounds. Some 5,000 of them were then shipped to the South Pacific. Parsons flew there himself, where he met with Admiral William F. Halsey at his headquarters in Noumea. He arranged for Parsons to take VT fuzes out with him on the USS Helena.^[25][26] On 6 January 1943, Helena was part of a cruiser force that bombarded Munda in the Solomon Islands. On the return trip, the cruisers were attacked by four Aichi D3A (Val) dive bombers. Helena fired at one with a VT fuze. It exploded close to the aircraft, which crashed into the sea.^[27]

I don’t know if any cruiser ever fired their main battery at a Jap plane, in my time aboard, Cleveland never did.   It was a Robe Goldberg scheme for it ignored that the two batteries had entirely different characteristics and missions.  The AA battery was designed for rapid, flexible movement.  The director could train through 720 degrees before hitting the stops. The guns could moved rapidly in azimuth and elevation and elevate almost to the vertical.  The main battery was heavy and relative slow in movement.  Its guns had about half the elevation of the 5-inch.   Cleveland engaged in one distinct surface-air battle while I was aboard.   That was after the surface Battle of Empress in November’44 when 70 Jap dive-bombers hit Task Force 39—4 Cruisers and 4 destroyers, in a tight diamond formation turning in 360 circles at thirty knots.   AA fire shot down 17 planes the rest fled back to Rabaul.  A small bomb hit one of Montpelier’s catapults and Cleveland took a near miss.   Main batteries remained trained in fore and aft.   I dread to think what would have happened if the 6-inch batteries had open up during this fast moving melee.  (We received a dividend from the battle of Midway for those 1944 Japanese aviators were not of the quality of those wiped out on that miracle day in June 1942.)

Somehow this description of a 6-inch gun firing at an aircraft reminds me of Gertrude Stein’s description of her opera, “Four Saints in Three Acts”, about saints that do nothing and their vision of the Holy Ghost described as “Pigeons in the grass and magpie in the sky”.  To which she referred to as a “perfectly simple description of the Spanish landscape”.

Shipmate November 2002

Cleveland seemed to be festered be assignments to develop foolhardy Rube Goldberg ideas.  The first was using the main battery to shoot down aircraft that was covered in an earlier Shipmate.  Captain Andy Shepard was given the job of finding a way to fire a torpedo from a cruiser catapult.  As gunnery officer I got the dirty work.   Commodore Arlie Burke lent us a chief torpedoman and some strikers.  I was aghast.  The resulting contraption well could damage the catapult.  Work started and the more I saw of the paraphernalia the more I became concerned.  The Captain asked for the progress each day. I mumbled something like fine.  Then I went to the Chief and told him to slow down. I prayed that Task Force 39 would be ordered to sea.  My prayers were answered when orders arrived for another trip up the Slot.  The Chief was thanked for his cooperation and told to get his `baby’ off the ship for it was a missile hazard an we were going back to sea.  To me the chief seemed as glad to end this fandango, as was I.

Shipmate July 2001

.  CruDiv 12 consisting of Montpelier, Cleveland, Columbus and Denver commanded by Rear Admiral Tip Merrill; and Commodore Arleigh Burke `23 and his Little Beavers were based in Pervis Bay, Tulagi, Solomon Islands.  The bay was surrounded by jungle.  To make a recreation area CBs were called in to bulldoze a proper area for R&R.   Beaches were cleared one for officers and one for enlisted men.  Tents were erected and tables and benches scattered about.  Photos 1 and 2 are of the first Officers Club.   Except for groups not identified the rest of us sustained our selves on 3.2 beer.   The effect was like swallowing compressed air.  As enlisted men left Cleveland (CL-55), the chaplain passed out 2 ration tickets for beer.  (The purpose was to assure that guzzlers could not deny the less serious imbibers their recreation perk.)  One of the young sailors wrote his parents about the tickets.   They were shocked that a Navy chaplain was leading their son to drink.  Their pastor wrote Admiral King who soon vented his spleen on Cleveland.  The chaplain no longer saw the sailors off for R&R.  The house of the British Bishop of Polynesia was located on a hill at the far end of the Bay.  It was abandoned when the Japanese moved in.  Eventually it was taken over and converted into a more high tone officers club.

By this time the battle of Guadalcanal was close to its end, but fighting was still going on, and the Cleveland's first mission was to escort a troop convoy sailing to the island, as part of Task Force 18. On 29-30 January 1943 this convoy came under fierce Japanese attack (battle of Rennell Island). The Cleveland survived a heavy Japanese air attack, although the heavy cruiser USS Chicago was sunk.

The Cleveland then joined Task Force 68, under the command of Rear-Admiral A. S. Merrill (the other 'Merrill's Marauders'). On 6 March TF 68, with three cruisers and six destroyers, steamed up 'the slot' and bombarded the Japanese bases at Vila and Munda. A weaker Japanese naval force, attempting to get supplies to Vila, was found, and two Japanese destroyers were sunk (action of Kula Gulf).