Battle of the Komandorskis
26 MARCH 1943
BATTLE OF THE KOMANDORSKIS
One Japanese success at the battle of Midway was an effort intended only to be a diversion. As Yamamoto’s Combined Fleet closed on Midway Island, a smaller force of two carriers and supporting ships attacked Dutch Harbor, the main settlement in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. Here the attackers overpowered the paltry American forces and captured two islands at the far end of the Aleutian chain, Attu and Kiska. These bleak and desolate islands held little value to either side, but after the embarrassing defeat at Midway, Japanese propagandists recognized the value of holding US territory. To our embarrassment, they dug in. Initially a minor annoyance, Japan’s garrisons on Attu and Kiska grew increasingly troubling as the US began ferrying planes to Russia via Siberia. A Japanese presence in the Aleutians could no longer be tolerated by 1943.
Preliminary US efforts isolated the enemy garrisons from resupply. RADM Charles H. McMorris was sent to patrol the approaches to Kiska with Task Group 16.6 composed of the aging light cruisers SALT LAKE CITY (CL-25) and RICHMOND (CL-9) and four destroyers. Just after breakfast on this day, on glassy seas in unusually clear weather, the lead destroyer, COGHLAN (DD-606), made radar contact with five enemy ships on the same northerly course. What followed was anachronistic, the last naval battle in history that did not involve aircraft, missiles, or submarines–a classic surface action in keeping with turn of the 20th century navalism.
The ships COGHLAN had spotted were the trailing end of VADM Boshiro Hosogaya’s Northern Force escorting two armed marus to Attu. Smarting from earlier losses to US submarines, Hosogaya was employing the full strength of his four cruisers and four destroyers in escort. Against this enemy force that outnumbered him two to one, McMorris prepared to do battle. Lookouts were sent aloft, gunners took up station, prisoners were released from the brig, messmen sliced bread for sandwiches, and coffee was put to boil. An American line-ahead formed on COGHLAN, McMorris hoping to make a quick strike at the freighters then retire.
But Hosogaya, aware he was being followed, sent the freighters ahead and reversed course. The enemy opened at 0840 from nearly five miles distant, straddling RICHMOND with salvos. Two minutes later SALT LAKE CITY brought her long-range forward turret to the action. Her third and fourth salvos struck the heavy cruiser NACHI, starting a fire worse in appearance than in fact. From a range of 20,000 yards SALT LAKE CITY was accounting herself well, scoring hits to NACHI’s bridge and torpedo room–and getting drenched by near misses in the process. But with the full weight of the stronger enemy force now approaching head-on, McMorris abandoned the freighters, rang up a flank bell, and turned away in a fighting withdrawal to the west.
Continued tomorrow….
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