Rybeck
Posts: 110
Joined: 1/17/2005 From: Menlo Park, CA Status: offline
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The war at sea (3) On Dec 23rd, after a report from a Jake searchplane that the Americans had split their forces into two groups, First Air Fleet also divided its ships, with the faster carriers heading southeast to try and catch the Lexington TF, while the remaining carriers headed east to finish off the badly mauled Enterprise task force. First, Kates finished off CA Salt Lake City with four torpedo hits. Next, a second strike hit DD Craven with two torpedoes, and also damaged DD Maury, Gridley and Fanning. A final series of air strikes sank DD Fanning, Maury, Benham and Gridley. Preliminary reports indicate that the fire-eating Admiral Halsey elected to go down with his shattered fleet. The crippled CA Northampton was also put out of her misery on Dec 24th. The next day, Dec 24th, our carriers caught up to Lexington trying to rebuild her airgroups at Fiji. Lady Lex’s last strike was token – a handful of SBD and TBDs – quickly decimated by our air patrol. Retaliation was swift in coming. Destroyers Balch and Ellet were sunk, and Lexington was plastered with over 30 bombs and 7 torpedoes. The Allied damage control crew performed countless small miracles, but Lady Lex was beyond saving, and sank shortly thereafter. Our Val bombers also hit heavy cruiser Portland with three bombs but no significant damage was reported. Two enemy transports were also sunk at Fiji. Our losses were 6 Vals and 6 Kates destroyed, and several other aircraft damaged. Abandon ship! The end of Lady Lex Further attempts to locate the remaining cruisers and destroyers off Fiji were not successful, and in any case, our ships were running low on fuel. The chase was reluctantly called off. Most of the aggressive initiative in the carrier battle was actually displayed by Rear-Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi (previously commanding Carrier Division 2 – Soryu and Hiryu), in contrast to the nervy Nagumo who showed bad strains of indecisiveness after the sighting reports of enemy carriers. Yamamoto took this opportunity to ease out Nagumo as commander of Kido Butai, and Yamaguchi was promoted to command the First Air Fleet. I was extremely relieved to hear of Yamaguchi’s new appointment. At this juncture, he had more practical experience and flair than any other carrier admiral in the Combined Fleet. First Air Fleet's 'bag' of confirmed and assumed kills, Dec 21st to 24th, 1941 2 fleet carriers (Enterprise and Lexington) 3 heavy cruisers (Salt Lake City, Chester, Northampton) 9 destroyers (Dunlap, McCall, Craven, Fanning, Maury, Benham, Gridley, Balch, Ellet) 2 AP Japanese losses about forty aircraft, carrier Zuikaku lightly damaged but able to launch/recover planes; carrier Hiryu light damage from bomb hit off Hawaii.
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< Message edited by Rybeck -- 7/24/2007 9:01:13 AM >
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