Early U.S. Logistics in the Pacific 1941-42: Replenishment, Repair, Reinforcements & Replacements

On this episode of What's Going On with Shipping, we look at early US logistics in the Pacific from 1941 to 1942. I'm your host, Sagaliano. Welcome to

today's episode. So, at what's going on with shipping, we tend to look at what's happening currently with shipping. But you know me, as a historian, I like to go back and look at the past. Back in October, I was invited to give a talk

for the Navy Marine Corps 250th anniversary up in Philadelphia. The talk I gave was actually across the river. the Delaware on the Camden's side over

on board the battleship New Jersey uh hosted by good friend of the show Ryan Samanssky and the crew on board there. I want to give you a longer version of that talk. That talk was about 15 20

minutes. This talk will be a little bit longer because this is a topic I am really excited about. I love talking about early US World War II logistics both uh naval and land. and we're going

to look at that in the Pacific for the first year of the war. If you're new to the channel, hey, take a moment, subscribe to the channel, and hit the bell so be alerted about new videos as they come out. So, the video you're

seeing here is a recording of USS Enterprise and USS Hornet on the way to Tokyo to launch uh Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle and his B25 raiders

against Japan on April 18th of 1942. What you're seeing here is USS Sabine coming alongside Enterprise to conduct what's referred to as an underway

replenishment. Underway replenishments, a refueling at sea, were key for allowing the US to keep its carrier and strike forces at sea for prolonged

periods of time. Without underway replenishment, the US uh task force would really be restricted to about a 2,000 mile range based on the fuel oil

carried on board their ships. And depending on speed, now you can see how dangerous this operation is. It involves very close steaming alongside. You have

to haul over fuel oil hoses for both fuel oil and aviation fuel for the aircraft carriers. The crews on board the Oilers are really exposed to the

weather. Uh this is the northern Pacific in April, so not a very uh nice environment to be in. Now, my paper talks about what I call the four Rs.

Replenishment, repair, reinforcements, and replacements. All four of those are absolutely essential for establishing American military dominance in the

Pacific in World War II. And I would argue that there is a similarity to what is happening today in 2025 going into 2026 with what was happening back in

1941, 1942. Here you're seeing replenishment. You're seeing the idea of doing underway replenishment, being able to sustain forces at sea. Repair, particularly

forward repair is going to be of particular interest. How do you keep naval forces in combat and more importantly prevent ships from being lost so that they can be later returned

back into service? Reinforcements. How do you reinforce this area? How are you able to surge forces into it? And then replacements.

How do you replace those combat forces that are lost? All of these are vital issues that come in for the execution of this operation. So this image is of the

attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. You're looking across Ford Island at Battleship Row and the upper part

there of Ford Island. And I highlighted a couple of key aspects because there are three elements that are in this image that are going to be important for US Navy logistics going forward in the

war. In red are the fuel farms on Fort Island. You have this smaller red circle here that shows you the uh aviation fuel

tanks here for Ford Island. But more importantly up here is the uh upper fuel farm. These big tanks of which 17 of them are visible here. Each of these

carry as much oil as a tanker, about 150,000 barrels of fuel each. In yellow, you see some of two of the 11 fleet

oilers for the US Pacific Fleet. Uh, in the center here is USS Neoso, one of the fast oilers. And then over in the Navyyard is USS Ramapo, which is one of

the smaller oilers that are in the fleet. And then in green, you get some of the repair ships. So, right alongside USS Arizona is USS Vestal. You'll see her right up alongside. There's a couple

of other repair and tender ships scattered throughout Pearl Harbor. Then, of course, you have the Navyyard itself. And the Navyyard's going to be one of those major elements in the Pacific

that's going to be a gamecher for the US Navy. Pearl Harbor and subsequently the other repair facilities on the west coast of the United States and even the east coast are all going to play a major

role. This map and diagram shows you the location of all 13 oilers located out in the Pacific. Two of them, Trinity and POS are out in the Philippines. One of

them, Pacos, will be lost early in the campaign. The remaining 11 are scattered across the Pacific. Two, as I noted before, are in Pearl Harbor, Ramo,

Neoso. One of them is in route to Hawaii, that is Nechez, and then the rest of them are located either along the West Coast with one other one Bravos

up around Alaska. Now, the 11 oilers for the Pacific Fleet were absolutely essential to keep the US Pacific Fleet fueled. Uh did a full video on this with

Woody over at World War II TV. I'll have the link above there so you can take a look at it. But the key thing is the 11 oilers were capable of carrying roughly around 750,000

barrels of fuel. There were 4.5 million barrels of fuel in the fuel farm at Pearl Harbor. However, Admiral Kimmel only had access to a half a million

barrels of fuel. The other 4 million were war reserves. He couldn't touch them. So, he had to keep the Pacific Fleet sustained. Now, initially, the Pacific Fleet was using more than half a

million barrels of fuel. But in 1941, a third of the Pacific Fleet was sent to the Atlantic battle division 3 with the three New Mexico classes plus the Yorktown plus a cruiser division that

diminished the size of his fleet. But those 11 oilers were necessary to keep the fuel sustained in the Pacific. Now, you could still draw upon the war reserve when war comes. And a lot of

discussion about whether or not the Japanese should have struck the oil reserves there at Pearl Harbor. I am always of the opinion that if the Japanese even planned on striking those

reserves, uh the third wave would have been a much smaller wave than the first two. They would not have had the results they wanted by any estimation. The best

case scenario would have been the Japanese destroying half of the oil located at Pearl Harbor. I don't think they come anywhere close to that. Maybe a quarter of the oil, but even then uh they would be able to sustain it. It may

have hindered some early Pacific raids, but it would not have forced the withdrawal of the US Pacific fleet, for example, from Pearl Harbor back to the West Coast. Now, the key thing for the

US Navy early in the war, especially when it came to replenishment, was the fitting out of fast oilers. A dozen T3 tankers had been taken over by the US Navy. Six of them are earmarked for use

in the Pacific. Simmeron, Neoso, Cascasia, Sabine, Guadalupe, and Plot. And the other six are out in the Atlantic, of which four of them are going to be taken in hand almost

immediately and converted into the Sagamon class escort carriers, which are very important to understand. Those escort carriers of the Sagamon class are not escort carriers. They are interim

light carriers for the US Navy in 1942. They're going to assume the role of a fleet carrier. Basically, you take three of them, put them together, it equals a fleet carrier. We see that done with the

three vessels off the coast of North Africa. The fourth one was used to ferry aircraft in. They sail alongside Ranger and they act as a fleet carrier. We will also see it at the end of the Guadal

Canal campaign in early 43 when two and later three of those carriers come in to support Saratoga while Enterprise is up in the shipyard in Pearl Harbor. But the

Simmeron class fast oilers are absolutely essential. Number one, they are much larger than the conventional oilers the US Navy has at almost 150,000 barrels. They're anywhere from twice to

three times the size of the late World War I uh era oilers. And most importantly, they're fast, 18 knots, much faster than the 10 to 14 knots we

see in the earlier classes. So, it's impossible to look at the entire Pacific War here. So instead, what I'm going to do is focus on a couple of key events

that take place and different styles. So we're going to look at two raids in particularly the very first attempt to raid Wake Island by USS Lexington. And then we're going to look at the Lelay

Salamaka raid in March of 1942. We're going to look at the Battle of Midway, but in a way you may have never looked at the Battle of Midway in June of 1942. And then we're going to look at the

invasion and campaign for the battle of Guadal Canal. Now, this map here is a composite drawn from the West Point atlas takes together two maps and kind

of configures them together. And I want to highlight just a couple of key points here. Number one, the Japanese fast carriers, the Kitupai, these are the six big fleet carriers, Akagi, Kaga here,

Soryu, Shokaku, and Zukaku are used on the attack on Pearl Harbor. But one of the things that you'll see is almost immediately those carriers will begin to

sail westward and and and they're they're sailing westward is very important because it's going toward their ultimate goal which is the possession of Southeast Asia, the oil

and resourcerich area of the British and Dutch East Indies. So the attack on Pearl Harbor in many ways is meant to send the US fleet off balance. They then

sail westward uh carry division 2 which is the hereu and soru assist in the suppression of Wake Island. But then the fleet is going to be used and it's usually between four carriers with some

of the carriers rotating off are going to be used for a variety of different missions. In January they're going to attack Rabal. In February they're going to be used down here at Darwin. In March

they're going to be used in the Dutch East Indies. And in April, the raid out into the Indian Ocean, Operation Ca, to attack the British East India fleet and

seize the Adaman Islands. And one of the things that the Kid Betai, the first airfleet does is it's aimed to suppress US and British forces. By the time it's

done, by the time you get to this operation in April of 1942, the US Pacific Fleet is at Pearl Harbor. or the British eastern fleet has been run out of son out of Adu atoll and is

actually based on the east coast of Africa and Mimbasa that puts the two US and the British fleet 10,000 miles apart there are 10,000 miles between those two

forces and what is left is the Americans have to prioritize their defense because the Japanese attack has basically severed

the ability of Australia to be connected back to the British Empire across the Indian Ocean. Now, there is still movement across the Indian Ocean, but it's going to require an effort by the British eastern fleet along with

American Australian forces to convoy across that region. So that for example when the Australians will send back their divisions from the Middle East the sixth and seventh Australian when fuel

oil will come out of the Persian Gulf it's going to require escorts from either the Royal Navy the Royal Australian Navy or the US Navy USS Phoenix like cruiser for example is going to be based on the west coast of

Australia for this period of time. In the meantime the United States draws up really two priorities and these two priorities are going to be absolutely essential. One is the defense of the

area in and around Hawaii, the Hawaii Midway Johnston Island triangle. So guarding this area in the central Pacific is essential. Hawaii is the main base. It has to be defended because it

is the only place you can sustain the Pacific fleet out. Midway and Johnston Island are really out outward outposts for that area. And then it's the supply

line between Australia and the United States. this has got to be protected because the fear is that Australia could be cut off, Australia may pull out of

the war. There was a lot of concerns about this. Nobody knew for sure exactly what was going to happen. And when you look at Japanese plans uh after the attack into the Indian Ocean, Japan

wanted to reset and then turn from westward to eastward. And so they had a series of plans lined up. First plan was their attack against Port Moresby in

southern New Guinea along with the attack on Tilagi at the very end of the Solomon Islands. That puts them a thart that main supply line heading into eastern Australia. That was planned for

May of 1942. In June of 1942, we know that the Japanese are launching their attack into the central North Pacific. This is their attack on Midway and the subsequent

landings on ATU ADAC and Kiska that are going to be launched. And the goal here is to shut the North Pacific that that access route so that the Americans can

strike across the northern Pacific to hit Japan. Remember Japan used that same route to hit Pearl Harbor. They are aware of the vulnerability they have. By seizing these bases, they hope to close

off that sea space. also to put the American base at Pearl Harbor within reach of their own. And then in July of 42, they wanted to strike into that supply

chain uh route between Australia and the United States by hitting uh Numia and New Calonia, Fiji and Samoa. Now, that does not sever the supply line between

Australia and the United States. What it does is it pushes it further south. So that Bora Bora here in the Tahiti and the Sidi Islands will become a major

port here and then the route will have to actually go further south down into New Zealand and then eventually over to Australia. It just makes it more difficult for the United States to be

able to sustain the Australians and keep the Australians in the fight. This issue about defending Australia and that supply line is absolutely key. The

Australians get into a nasty fight with the British over the return of their second uh Australian Imperial Force. This is the force that's sent over into North Africa, the sixth, 7th, and 9th

Australian Infantry Divisions. They've sent the ETH up into Singapore where it's going to be lost. And at the same time, the United States has to look at that supply line and sit there and say,

"We have to commit forces here." That's at the same time it's dealing with a pull of forces over into Europe. All right. The very first raid launched by

the United States was actually going to be three raids. A raid against the Gilbert and the Marshall Islands by the Enterprise and the Yorktown carrier

strike forces. But at the same time, USS Lexington was going to undertake a raid against Wake Island. Now, Wake Island had fallen in December of 1941. A lot of

ink has been spent about whether or not Wake Island could have been saved. I will tell you that in reading the upper level communicates from the United States. It was not justified to risk the

forces to save Wake Island when the priority was to defend the Midway, Johnson Island, Hawaii triangle. And so Wake unfortunately was expendable.

But one of the things these three early raids, the Wake Gilbert, Marshall Islands raid wants to do is sit there and say, "Listen, we want to get the Japanese intentions." If you look at the Japanese strike forces, all of them are

moving eastward except for one number five right here. And this is a sorty by Rear Admiral Yamaguchi in February of 1941 with four of the carriers countering this raid against the

Japanese. One of the things the Americans are hoping to do is distract the Japanese, get them off their game, have them withdraw forces away from Southeast Asia, and at the same time,

the US wants to slow down the Japanese invasion of these islands to their east. They want to slow down the invasion of Port Moresby and Talagi. They want to

slow down potential landings in islands that are a thwart those supply chains. And so when the Americans launch these carrier raids, it's not just against the bases. It's against the logistics hubs

that are there. Now, the raid on Wake Island does not happen. At least not the first one done by Lexington realizes a vulnerability that they really hadn't

appreciated. To get out to Wake Island would require a carrier strike group to have an oiler. And in the case of the USS Enterprise returning back to Pearl

Harbor on the eve of the attack on Pearl Harbor, it had just delivered VMF 211 to Wake Island. 12 uh Marine Corps Wildcats, F4 F3s. That ra that that

operation had basically exhausted the Enterprise and its task force's fuel. Enterprise reported when it arrived back into Pearl Harbor on December 8th, it was at 50% fuel. The heavy cruisers,

three of them were down to 30% fuel and the six destroyers were down to 20% fuel. So what that meant was if you're going to raid Wake Island and have the

potential to run in at high speed and out at high speed, you needed an oiler. So when Lexington sails for Wake, she is going to be accompanied by this oiler, USS Neez. This is one of the older

oilers. uh not as capable as the fast oilers of the Neoso class, but Nchez had proven to be really a a solid oiler.

She'd done a lot of work. She was probably one of the best experienced oilers there were. Unfortunately, NEZ never joins up with the Lexington Task Force. She is sunk by a Japanese

submarine just west of Pearl Harbor. And what that tells the new commander of the Pacific Fleet, uh, Admiral Chester Nimttz, is he cannot send out logistics forces without convoys, without escort.

And the Pacific Fleet is going to have to bleed off forces to protect its logistics. I know we hear all the time how unsuccessful Japanese submarines were in World War II, but in 1941 and

1942, they are successful in that they're diverting forces and requiring the US to establish convoys. Task Force 15, which is a supply chain task force

that's set up between the West Coast of the United States and Forward Pacific bases, is created. And most importantly, every oiler that will sail for now on will have the escort of at least a

destroyer with them. Now, the other raid I want to talk about is the raid on Lei. This is a raid by the USS Yorktown and Lexington on the forces gathered off of

Lei uh in northern New Guinea. Now, the task force that goes down there, Lexington and Yorktown is a really interesting one. Yorktown is led by Jack

Fletcher. The Lexington task force is led by Vice Admiral Brown. Wilson Brown is the senior commander here, but Brown is going to be relieved right after this

operation. He's going to be sent back and take over command of amphibious training forces for the Pacific Fleet. But the raid into Lei and uh the

northern coast of New Guinea demonstrates really the the significance of having a wellcoordinated logistics force in place. This chart shows you the

fuel consumption for Task Force 11 in March of 1942. And this covers every day from March 1st all the way to March 25th. There is a

duplicate day there because they go across the date line. The 18th happens twice. But what you see here is the amount of fuel by percentage that that the carriers, the cruisers, and the destroyers have. So if you look here on

March 1st, for example, the Lexington is sitting at about 70% fuel. The cruisers are at 60% and the destroyers are just over 72%. One of the techniques the US

had developed during the inner war years was not just the ability to refuel from oilers, but to use their major surface combatants, carriers, battleships, and cruisers to refuel destroyers because

destroyers are the fuel hogs. They're the ones that will consume fuel faster than anybody else. So what you see here is going into the raid on Lei, the task

force will refuel over three days from Kisaskia, one of those fast oilers. They get themselves up to their almost 90% fuel and then they do their fast runin

into Lei and then their fast extrication out of the area. So much so that the destroyers, for example, which are nearly topped up to 100% on March 7th,

uh by the time they come out are down below 50%. Now, they're going to be refueled from the cruisers and carriers. But in the meantime, the carriers and the cruisers are losing fuel. So much so

that by the time you get to March 15th, the cruisers and carrier are just over 30%. A really low shortfall there of fuel. They meet Neosho on 1516, refuel

back up and do it again on the 22nd. And one of the things I think it's really important to note here is that Admiral Fletcher, who gets a lot of criticism for refueling, and we're going to see

this play out in the Midway and Guadal Canal campaigns, really understands fueling better than probably any commander out there because he experiences it time and time again. And

we're going to come back to that. So the raids kind of set the establishment for underway replenishment. The other thing they demonstrate too is that you're going to attrit part of your air

groupoups. And what happens is after the strikes, they lose part of their air groupoups. They're going to come back into Pearl Harbor and other bases and replenish their air groupoups. The

exception of that is Lexington and Yorktown down in the southern Pacific. When Lexington leaves the area, it leaves Yorktown behind before Lexington

departs, it flies off part of its air groupoup to replenish the Yorktown air group. So Lexington will will sail short of aircraft back to Pearl Harbor because it's going to replenish back there. John

Lstrom and his great books on naval aviation early in the Pacific War talk about this. But most of the other raids are the carriers will launch their strikes. They're going to attract part

of their air groups. They're going to come back to Pearl Harbor. They're going to replenish their air groupoups and then head back out. The next element I want to talk about here is the Battle of Midway. And the Battle of Midway we're going to discuss in a way that you

probably have never heard about before. If you have, probably not a lot of great detail. So, I'm going to talk about four ships and their role in doing the

replenishment, repair, reinforcements, and replacements. Three of them are featured here in this video. So, first part here, replenishment. So down below

you see the USS Kaoli. Now that is not Kaoli in its naval guys. It's actually post World War II when it was outfitted for commercial service. She is an AOG.

That means a small gasoline tanker. Koli is going to be important because Kai is going to come into Midway to replenish the Midway fuel stores. And we're going to talk about why that is so crucial

here in a few moments. When it comes to repair, everybody knows the story about USS Yorktown being damaged at the Battle of Coral Sea and coming up and sitting

in dry dock number one before heading out for the Battle of Midway. What many people don't know is USS Vero that was a mind sweeper was redesated just short of the battle into a tug at 144 and Vero is

going to be out there to help in the salvage and repair of any damaged vessel. is going to play a very important role, a matter of fact, in the uh attempted repair for USS Yorktown.

And then when we talk about reinforcements, there are two really vessels that play a big role in reinforcements. One of them is a cruiser, the USS Nashville. Nashville is going to sail into Midway

just before it heads up to Alaska as part of Task Force 8, and it's going to drop off two companies of marine RA raiders. Those raiders are going to

reinforce the islands to provide a striking force on both Eastern and Sand Island, the two islands that make up Midway Atoll. So that if the Japanese are able to land on the island, they

will be able to resist that. But probably the ship that's probably the most significant is USS Kittyhawk, a ship we're going to talk about later. Kittyhawk is a modified sea train cargo

vessel. It was designed to carry fully loaded trains. Kittyhawk arrives at Midway and offloads aircraft reinfor reinforcements, specifically F4F Wildcats and SBD Dauntless dive bombers

to reinforce the air group that is located at Midway. The other reinforcement will come from the US Army Air Forces. Uh B26s are going to be set

up, but most significantly B17 flying fortresses. Again, we're going to come back to that. Uh the other vessel we're going to talk about is uh subsequently coming up here and that's going to be USS Saratoga, a carrier not usually

identified with the Battle of Midway. So Battle of Midway, I'm not going to go through the full Battle of Midway because there are plenty of books on that. I cannot do any justice to the Battle of Midway that John Parall and

Tony Tully did in Shattered Sword or any of the latest iterations that have come out since then. However, I will note that I'm going to cover a aspect of the battle that almost never gets discussed.

And again, it goes back to our four Rs. Uh, depicted there is Yorktown under attack. And then on the right there is Admiral Fletcher and Admiral Spruent, the commanders of the two task forces.

Uh, Admiral Fletcher commanded Task Force 17 with the Yorktown. Admiral Spruent commanded Task Force 16, which was the Enterprise and Hornet. A lot of questions about Spruent taking command.

I gotta say Fletcher was a cruiser division commander. In fact, Spruent relieved him as cruiser division commander. So, not really a big surprise that Spruent takes over in this battle.

So, a couple of things to note. So, on May 28th, Task Force 16 departs Pearl Harbor. This is the Enterprise and Hornet. On May 30th, Task Force 17, this is uh Yorktown, will depart Pearl

Harbor. On May 31st, the Enterprise refuel from two oilers that are off the coast of Midway. Now, there going to be three fast oilers in and around the

region of Midway. There's going to be a a fourth at Pearl Harbor. The fifth is up in Alaska. The sixth one, the Osho had been sunk. So, on May 31st, Task

Force 16 will refuel. Notice the date, May 31st. Over June 1st and 2nd, Yorktown will refuel. Uh Fletcher does not refuel

until the last moment. He knows that he can expect to see the Japanese arrive either on June 3rd or June 4th. He waits until the last moment to refuel. I again

think this is Fletcher learning from his issues with refueling over the course of many months. He during the battle of Coral Sea will be very hard on Admiral

Fitch who commands the Lexington task force. Uh Fitch had relieved Brown of on the Lexington. Uh Fitch actually takes too long to refuel. doesn't refuel soon

enough and more importantly during the battle of Coral Sea, Fletcher will lose his fast oiler, the Neos, really crippling his force. So, you have the Battle of Midway on June 4th and 6th.

We're going to skip over that because that's not the point we're looking at here. On June 6th, uh, Task Force 16, commander of Deson 1 reports fuel on

board his destroyers for 12 hours at 25 knots and 40 hours at 15 knots. One of the orders sent to Spruent was to cut his destroyers loose and execute a

torpedo attack against the fleeing elements of the Japanese fleet. But he refueled May 31st. It is now 7 days later and his carriers have been running

around at 25 knots. And while the carriers and cruisers had fuel, the destroyers did not. So much so that he realizes he can't order his destroyers

out. He's at a critical fuel shortage. Matter of fact, that is the bulk of his destroyers. There's actually a destroyer that's in a worse position than this. But at the same time, Task Force 17 will

refuel from plot. Now, at this point, Yorktown has been damaged. It is under salvage at this moment. Fletcher is concerned that he has to keep his task force fueled in case there is a

subsequent engagement. Remember, not everybody knows the battle is over at this point. On June 7th, Guadalupe, this is the third oiler that is sent up to the region around Midway, is going to

transfer fuel to Caoli. This is because Midway is critically short on fuel. Midway is operating an entire carrier air group basically out of Midway and

Midway is consuming fuel at an alarming rate. And one of the reasons it's conf consuming fuel at an alarming rate is half of its fuel supply, 375,000

gallons in 16 out of the 31 tanks was destroyed on 22 May because of an inadvert detonation of explosives. They

were hooking up uh explosives to the tanks so that if the Japanese invaded they could destroy them. Well, while hooking them up, they inadvertently exploded half the tanks. So, they had

rushed fuel to Midway to replace portions of that, but not all of it. But because of the the number of air strikes being launched, particularly with B7s and the PBys that are in the area,

they've got to get fuel up there. So, Guadaloop, they don't want to bring Guadaloop into into Midway because it's too high value. So, they transfer fuel over to Caoli and Cayoli is going to run into Midway to replenish Midway.

On June 8th and 9th, finally, Spruent is going to refuel from Simmeron and Guadaloop. Uh, Plot had plot and Simmeron had basically dumped more than half their fuel. Plot consolidated its

fuel into Simmeron and Plot ran back to Pearl Harbor. So, uh, finally, Task Force 16 will refuel. Notice it had not refueled since May 31st. Uh, it had been

out for almost 10 days before refueling. On June 10th, uh, Task Force 16 was going to rendevous with Saratoga and Cascasia. Now, Task Force 16 at this

point does not have Yorktown. Yorktown was sunk on on June 7th by an attack from I 168 that sinks both Yorktown and the destroyer Hammond. But in the meantime, Fletcher on board Atoria raced

out to meet Saratoga coming from the west coast. He was going to take command. Remember, uh, Fletcher is in overall command of the strike group. And one of the things that he was doing was

heading east to go meet Saratoga, get on board Saratoga, bring Saratoga up. And what he wants to do is replenish Enterprise in Yorktown as we're going to talk about here.

And then on June 11th, Saratoga is going to transfer aircraft from Enterprise to Hornet. Image here, which is a uh a drawing actually, uh shows that moment when Yorktown and Hammond are hit by

I68. It's actually after the torpedo strike. This is Hammond blowing up when she sinks and her depth charge is going off. You'll see off the bow of Yorktown here. Vero has cut her tow line. She's

actually circling back here heading over to Yorktown. One of the big lessons comes out of the Battle of Midway was how crucial it was to have salvage efforts and salvage equipment close by.

Vero was there to provide the tow. It freed up the cruisers. Initially, they were using a heavy cruiser to do it, but they'd much rather use a fleet tug with with its horsepower and more importantly

its expendability than to tie up a heavy cruiser. The Saratoga in the meantime, Task Force 11 arrives into the area. Now, Saratoga had rushed from the West Coast. It had

undergone extensive repair. It had been torpedoed in January of 1942. It also lost its 8-in uh deck guns, replaced by 5-in 38s, kind of really the template

that you'll see on the Essex class carriers later. But the other thing on Saratoga was her her flight deck was beefed up, particularly her arresting gear. If you look at her air group she

comes out with, she has 107 planes in one of the most strangest air groupoups ever created. is a composite air group made up of three fighter squadrons, uh

two scouting squadrons, two torpedo squadrons along with some uh SBDs being fed out. Uh if you look at her torpedo planes, they're a mix of Devastators and

Avengers. Uh she will rendevous with Task Force 16 and transfer over parts of her air group. So to Hornet goes nine uh Dauntlesses and 10 TBF Avengers. Hornet

since it was the newest aircraft carrier in the fleet had already been upgraded. It had the new arresting gear so it could handle the Avengers. Enterprise gets 10 Dauntlesses. It gets the five

devastators because it cannot handle Avengers yet uh during the period after Pearl Harbor up to the battle of Guadal Canal. Enterprise is going to be taken in hand and she is going to be updated.

Then Saratoga heads back to Pearl Harbor and picks up her air group. She was actually coming out fing aircraft. So the the group on board Saratoga was not

designed to go into battle. Instead, what she was doing was fing the Saratoga air group had been left in Pearl Harbor. Matter of fact, part of it was on board your town. She reloads her air group

plus takes on board two squadrons to ferry out to Midway. Uh the Midway Air Group, especially the single engine planes of the Marine Air Group, had been decimated. So she brings out a scouting

uh bombing squadron VM VMSB 231 and a fighter squadron, an army fighter squadron, the 73rd fighter squadron made up of 25 P40s. Now there was a plan to

bring Army B uh fighters out to Midway before that. But the reason it wasn't done was because once you fly off those P40s on the Midway, they're stuck. You can't get them off. Uh they can't fly

back. Now, subsequently, the US is going to develop a series of landing strips between Midway and Hawaii so that you can ferry the aircraft. But right now, because there's not a marine air group

or a marine fighter group that can go out to Midway, they decide to send the P40s out there. So, when we talk about the four Rs, Midway has got all of them.

We got but replenishment, and we've got issues with replenishment during the battles. Spruuins is actually the one who seems to have the biggest issue regarding that repair. We've got Vero

out there. We had Yorktown going into dry dock number one for repairs. So that repair plays an absolutely essential role. We got reinforcements. We had the reinforcement with aircraft out to

Midway with the Marine Raider Group to make Midway as uh kind of impenetrable as possible or at least as as fortified as possible should the Japanese land. a lot of discussion about even if the

Japanese had landed on Midway, would they have been able to take it? I don't think so. I I I don't think the the army group they had on there was going to take Midway. And then finally, the replacements. The role of Saratoga, I

think, is really important because one of the things it does is it rebuilds the air groups on Enterprise and Hornet so that Enterprise and Hornet can head north to help counter the invasion of the Illutions. Now, that is turned

around very quickly. Enterprise and Hornet under Spruuence are ordered back to Pearl Harbor because what's happening here now is that the decision is going to be made that listen, we can afford to lose the the Illusian Islands, the the

the the very western part of the Illutians, but what we need to do is consolidate our striking groups back and plan for an offensive that's going to happen down at Guadal Canal. And that's

going to require another element here. And that's going to be troop ships. And troop ships play a very important role early in the Pacific and the Atlantic War. So this chart right here shows you

all the troop ships, the APs that the US has largely before 1943. And so they run all the way from USS Henderson AP1, which was a a troop ship

that had been existed all the way back to World War I, all the way down there to USS Thirsten AP77. Now, there are a couple of missing ships in here. uh there some not all ships come over and

are taking over some are not commissioned but this shows you all the ships uh that are there. Now I want to highlight some some particular uh ships here. So USS Wakefield AP21 through USS

Hunter Liot AP27. Those ships are particularly of notice because they were transporting at the beginning of the war in the Pacific. The British 18th division from uh Great

Britain over to Singapore. So the US was using its troop ships to help redeploy a British infantry division. It was initially going to the Middle East, but it was diverted to Singapore. These

represent some of the best troop ships in the US uh military. Wakefield, Mount Vernon, West Point. And so the US is going to be using these troop ships to basically readjust and deploy forces

overseas. Notice they're all designated as AP, but some of them later on are going to be designated APAs. And APAs are attack transports. So you see an image of an AP above. This is a troop

ship. Basically, it's a modified passenger liner turned over into a troop ship. an APA, an attack transport. What makes it an attack transport is it has on board the landing craft to be able to

take the troops off the ship and put them over the beach. A troop ship does not. Troop ships typically either have to go pierside or they rely on landing craft from other vessels. And what you

see here is the allocation of troop ships for the two big amphibious invasions the US will execute in 1942. In yellow, Guadal Canal and in green,

Operation Torch. the invasion of North Africa. Notice the US does not have a lot to spare here. Troop ships that are not committed to this endeavor are executing subsequently follow-up

missions. They also will take a heavy toll. You will see loss of troop ships. You lose the George Elliot, for example, off Guadal Canal. German hubot get in

among the landing crap off North Africa and you lose a series of ships off there. And then you have the the most famous, the February 1942 fire on board USS Lafayette, better known as SS

Normandy. Uh but you'll see that these troop ships are really important in terms of the reinforcement. So next series of charts come from the

US Army's green books. This is a series of books written by the US Army post World War II. That's kind of the official history of the US Army in World War II. The US Army has it. Uh the Army

Air Forces have it. The Marine Corps has it. You know who doesn't have it? The US Navy. The US Navy does not have an official history. Yes, Samuel Elliot Morrison wrote 15 volumes, but they're not the official histories. However, the

US Army uh along with the Marine Corps are going to have to in the period of 1941 to the beginning of 1943 deploy forces between the Pacific and the

Atlantic. It's one of the big fights among the two armies, Europe first or Pacific first. And what's really interesting is when you look at see where units are deployed, you begin to understand US military strategy in a

much different way. So in December of 1941, there are three US divisions that are deployed overseas. There's the Philippine Division over in the Philippines along with the Philippine Army, which is there uh the Philippine

Army was just coming up into full fruition. The plan was hopefully by April of 1942 have a Philippine army of about 10 divisions stationed there and make the Philippines largely self-

sustaining, self-sufficient and be able to hold out against any Japanese attack. Uh it's not there yet. And then you had what was the Hawaiian division in Hawaii that was split into two under strength

divisions, the 24th and 25th Infantry Division. So in January of 1942, as US enters the war, there's an immediate need to dispatch forces to shore up our

allies. In the case of England, the 34th Infantry Division, uh, National Guard unit is going to be sent out to Northern Ireland. One of the reasons for the dispatch of the 34th is to free up

British units so that they can go and reinforce the Far East, but also reinforce the Middle East. British have got to get forces out there to shore up what's happening against the Japanese

and also what's happening in North Africa against Raml and the Africa Corps. At the same time, the US has got to do something about that long extended supply line to Australia. So, it sends

out a marine brigade uh the first of two marine brigades that are going to be sent out to Samoa to guard Samoa. Initially, the eighth Marines go out there, eighth marine regiment. Later on,

the Seventh Marine Regiment is going to go out there and they're going to be planted right there in Samoa about halfway between Hawaii and Australia. In March of 1942, you see more

reinforcements being sent out. And in this time, they're not going to the Atlantic. They're both going to the Pacific. 27th Infantry Division, again, another National Guard Division goes out

to Hawaii. In the meantime, the 24th and 25th Infantry uh divisions are plused up to full division. So now you have three divisions sitting in Hawaii. And then a

task force is going to be sent out what eventually will become the Maral Division or the 23rd Infantry Division. That's later on after World War II. But the American Caledonian Division, this

is going to go guard Numa again about halfway between Samoa and Australia. It is seen as a vital point to go grab the free French, hold the island. The United

States wants to send a force there to ensure that Numa is there so that the supply line can be maintained between the US and Australia. Plus, it's a key

area for flying air forces through the region. April of 1942, we see the deployment of the 41st Infantry Division over to Australia. This is the first of

two National Guard divisions that going to go into Australia. This is to offset the sixth and seventh Australian divisions that are going to take time to come back from the Middle East. This is

part of our guarantee to Australia that we will help defend them. Remember, April of 42, we've just seen the fall of the Philippines, the fall of the Dutch East Indies, the fall of Singapore from

February until April of 42. So, uh, Australia is really feeling besieged at this moment. Plus, supply line between Western Australia over to the Middle

East is very precarious. After the Japanese raid into the region, May 42, you start seeing more reinforcements. The 32nd Infantry Division will head out to Australia. The Fifth Infantry

Division goes into Iceland. That's going to relieve the six marines that are out there. And then the First Armored Division also into North uh Northern Ireland there to buttress up forces. So

again, this comes right on the heels of what's going to be a big British defeat out in North Africa with the fall of Tbrook and the British retreating back to the Lala main line. June 42, the 37th

Infantry is going to go out to Fiji. This is going to free up New Zealand forces. One of the things we're trying to do is get to New Zealand. New Zealand has their second division over in the Middle East. The second division is

going to stay over there, eventually fight in Italy, but New Zealand is trying to put together a third division. Division had fought in World War I. The second division was in World War II. Now, this third division, which going to

be basically two New Zealand brigades, is going to be freed up. So, the 37th goes into Fiji. August of 1942, we see the Big Red One head over to England. The first US troops arrive in England.

Very appropriate. It's the first infantry division. But we also see the first Marines. We're going to talk more about the first Marines when we talk about the Guadal Canal campaign are going to be cobbled together from regiments down in New Zealand and also

some coming from the west coast of the US and executes the first amphibious raid. This is the attack on Guadal Canal. Saw those list of yellow highlighted ships. Those are the ones

that are going to transport in the first marine division along with attached units. In September, the 40th Infantry Division is going to head over to Hawaii. Again,

building up Hawaii into a much stronger impregnable fortress, a base from which Central Pacific forces were will later be able to execute the Central Pacific drive. In the meantime, Australian and

American forces now are heading over into New Guinea. The 32nd Infantry Division will deploy up into New Guinea, Port Moresby, and then subsequently over

into Buna. Then in October, the 43rd Infantry Division is going to head over to New Zealand, again, freeing up New Zealand forces. And then the 29th Division, the

Blue and the Gray from Virginia and Maryland are going to head over to England. And so by, you know, October of 1942, you've got this buildup of forces in the British Isles. You have a buildup

of American forces in the central Pacific and Hawaii. You got American forces strung out on that supply line from Australia to Hawaii in the Western Pacific. And then you have American

forces engaged uh in Guadal Canal with the first Marines and the 32nd infantry in New Guinea. November you get operation torch. So you see the third infantry division and the first infantry

division head out and hit North Africa. At the same time, the second marines come together at Guadal Canal. This uh reinforcements are going to be sent over

there along with units from the Americal Division are going to be sent into Guadal Canal. And so that by the end of 1942, we're seeing a a big redeployment here with the 41st, 32nd into New

Guinea, the 25th Infantry, the American First and Second Marines on Guadal Canal. You add the first and second armored division along with the 34th infantry into North Africa and then the

last division that moves out in in January 43. Then you have a bit of a lull here until more units move out will be the 9th infantry division coming into North Africa and the first Marines are

pulled out and head to Australia. Initially the 25th infantry is supposed to go down to General MacArthur but they divert the 25th infantry into Guadal Canal and instead he gets the first

Marines and you'll see the first marines coming in later into Cape Gloucester. So that was meant to show you how the reinforcements move on with just Army

and Marine Corps units. And again it paints a very interesting picture. We tend to talk about Europe first and this massive amount of troops going in. But when you look at this chart, look how

many divisions are in Europe versus how many are in the central and south Pacific. You've got the two marine divisions down in Guadal Canal. You've got nine army divisions across the

Pacific. Meanwhile, you have eight army divisions in Europe. So again, you know, the the idea of Europe first isn't quite right. It's one of the reasons that Eisenhower when he was at the war plans

was talking about not diverting forces over to MacArthur that they really needed to shore up the supply lines. And it really becomes really crucial. You're putting units like the 37th infantry,

the American, the the sixth and seventh marine regiments onto those supply lines to ensure it. Then you're building up Australia. So that takes us to the final piece

here, which is the invasion of Guadal Canal. that we're going to run through the whole Gu Canal campaign. Instead, I'm going to focus on August of 42, the invasion portion. So, we've already

talked about the deployment of of land forces. But the other element here is the deployment of the Army Air Force and Marine Air Forces across the area on

Palmyra, Christmas Island, Canton, Fiji, and down in New Calonia. You have fighter squadrons from the Army Air Forces. Then you have marine elements here on also Afati over in Tang Tonga

and over in Samoa. And then anchoring at both ends of this are B17s. B17 flying fortresses. Now the B7 gets a bad rap in the Pacific

in World War II for a variety of reasons. But in early 1942, the B7 was the wonder weapon. It was the weapon that the army air forces believe could

really neutralize Japanese naval forces. It must be remembered that the flying fortress name doesn't come from all the machine guns it carried. I know that's the common image, but Martin Kaden's

book flying forts talks about the idea that the reason the flying forts got their name was they were flying out from Fortress America out to really interdict naval vessels coming in. That was the

initial mission for the B7s. And because of the B7's long range, over 700 miles, it was seen that B17s could reach out and they had been used at Midway. And

yes, the B17s had many false claims at the Battle of Midway. They did not strike the Japanese aircraft carriers. However, one of the key things the B7s did is they did

attack the transport fleet. And more importantly, after locations were found of Japanese naval units, it was B7s that took over the monitoring of those ships.

Because of the armorament of the B7s more so than PBY Catalinas, the B7s could maintain the presence. And after the attack on Midway, the US Army along

with uh Nimttz and the Pacific Fleet put together this idea for mobile B7 strike forces, one in Hawaii and one down in Australia. And the idea being you can

move them along those lines and you could rapidly move B7s into any of these airfields between Hawaii and Australia and be able to strike at potential

invasion forces and support subsequent attacks. And so the B7s play a big role here in the development of this airferry route between Hawaii and Australia. Now,

Guadal Canal is always identified as the first offensive objective of the United States in the Pacific War. However, I think you really need to put it into context. It's not just Guadal Canal.

It's also Port Moresby and Buna. And those twin offensives in many ways are going to be microcosms for what becomes later the big twin drives. It's going to

be the Pacific Forces led by the Navy in this case under Vice Admiral Gormley who we're going to talk about in a minute and Admiral Nimttz versus General MacArthur and the Southwest Pacific

forces. Uh in this case they're both aiming toward Rabal. Later on is going to be aiming toward Japan. And this is how that offensive gears up. Now the

initial part of the Guadal Canal offensive comes under a lot of attack for a variety of reasons. One of the big assertions is the US Navy will abandon the Marines at Guadal Canal in the

initial part following the invasion. Now, I will say that the US Navy suffers losses much heavier than the Marine Corps during the Guadal Canal campaign, and I disagree with this vehemently that

that the US Navy does not abandon the Marine Corps. What I think doesn't happen and probably should is a critical look at the command structure that is in

place. Most of the command structure criticism is focused on Vice Admiral Robert El Gormley and the creation of the Southern Pacific Command initially

based in Auckland, New Zealand, later on moved up to Tumia. However, I do think that Admiral Nimttz and the Central Pacific uh the Sinkpack staff does

deserve a portion of the blame here and let's talk about why. So on July 5th, Syncpac Admiral Nimtt sends a note out that the carriers, the CVs, will close

in and provide fighter coverage for the APs, the transports. Admiral Fletcher, who's going to command Task Force 61, which is a composite force made up of three carrier strike groups built around

Saratoga Enterprise and the newly arrived Wasp, along with the Southwest Pacific Naval Forces, Task Force 44. These are Australian and American

cruisers. And then an amphibious force under Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner carrying the first marine division are going to land at Gual Canal. But Fletcher understands with his three

carriers, he has a finite amount of time that you can deploy your forces before you have to pull out. Admiral Fletcher has learned this lesson the hard way. the initial attempt to reinforce Wake,

the raid on Lei, the battle at Coral Sea, the battle at Midway. He knows that carriers have a finite a period of time in which they can wage combat before

they need to withdraw, replenish, and reinforce and replace losses. July 7th, uh Nimtt sends word that the arrangements for logistics for the

fourthcoming campaign in the South Pacific are underway. There will be no difficulty in keeping four carrier task forces supplied with fuel. That's going

to bite Nimtts in the ass. Back in April of 42 into May of 42, there was a plan to send not just the Yorktown and Lexington in the Coral Sea, but to reinforce them with Hollyy's Enterprise

and Hornet coming back from the Dittle raid. And they did a very extensive uh study on the logistics. and they believe that they could have maintained those forces in the Coral Sea for up to a

month. What they didn't factor in is an amphibious force. And more importantly, they also didn't deal with the issue of a split command arrangement, which is

what's going to happen with the creation of South Pacific. Admiral Gormley arrives out in the region in May, but he doesn't stand up South Pacific Command until June. And even then, he doesn't

have a lot of time to get his feet familiar with the land and the plan that's being thrust upon him by Admiral King, the head of the US Navy, and Admiral Nimttz.

July 8th, Admiral Gormley sends task one requires the presence of troop ships and supply ships and supporting ships in the Tagi area from 36 hours to 4 days. One

of the crucial elements not talked about enough here is the fact that these troop ships, these uh APs and AKs, these are the troop ships and and and the cargo

ships. Later on there'll be APAs and AKAs, but they're not redesated yet as such, do not have the ability to offload very quickly. Literally every piece of

cargo that's loaded on these ships is individual boxes, either cardboard boxes or wooden boxes. Cardboard boxes are great because they're light, but they fall apart in the humidity and the rain.

Wooden boxes are great, but they're heavy. Most importantly, there's no efficient method to get that equipment off the ships onto the shore and more importantly off the beach and inland.

That is going to be your stopping gap. And then on July 9th, Nimtt sends it's expected about 225,000 barrels per fuel oil per CV task force per month will be

available. So he's going to get roughly four times that amount if all four task forces are down there. But what we're going to find out is that is not going to be sufficient.

So this chart puts together kind of very roughly the deployment of forces. So coming down from Pearl Harbor is task force 11 built around the Saratoga. Uh

it is bringing down the third marine defense battalion and a few small units including the marine raiders coming down. Coming out of Australia will be the first and fifth marines. Regiments

are the core of General Vandergri's first marine division. Saratoga is going to be followed by Task Force 16, the Enterprise, which in turn will be followed by another oiler. Platt and

Simmeron are coming down with Saratoga. And then coming from the West Coast is going to be Task Force 18. This is the Wasp bringing out the Second Marine Regiment.

Now, by July 26, the ships arrive off Fiji, and Fiji is where they're going to do the test of the landing. It's going to be a staged landing at Cororo. Uh

Saratoga is going to be there. Saratoga is the flagship for Admiral Fletcher. They are going to rendevous with the troop ships coming out of New Zealand

and they're going to practice the landing. In the meantime, Plot, which is empty of fuel, it's actually going to transfer what fuel it has left over to Simron. They will rendevous with one of

the smaller oilers. Plot and Simon are two fast oilers. They're going to rendevous with Kawa and they will provide the refueling for task force 11, the Saratoga, for the Enterprise and for

the amphibious vessels along with the strike group. Platt runs to Numia to meet up with two commercial tankers to refuel. In the meantime, Cascasia sails

late from Pearl Harbor in a convoy of replenishment vessels and cargo ships that are heading for the South Pacific. Now, at Cororo, they do the amphibious

invasion, but the biggest problem to me is they don't test what's called throughput. Seeing how long it takes to lo offload one uh LCVP or one micboat

full of equipment full of not troops. Troops are easy to move. Troops move themselves. They you have their own two legs. They get on, they get off. What doesn't move very fast is boxes. And the

question is, how long is it going to take to load up ducks and LCVPs and all these landing craft and then land them on the beach? And how long is it going to take you to offload them through a

surf and more importantly get that goods off the beach inland? That is not tested. What we don't have are steadors and pioneers that can be used to

facilitate this offloading because what's going to take the longest part to offload isn't the troops, it's the cargo. So July 29th uh you have this going on. Now a lot of criticism here

for Vice Admiral Gormley not being at Cororo to watch this. He sends his chief of staff Dan Callahan to do it. Gormley in the meantime has just moved up

literally during this period of time just moved up from Auckland to Nomia on board USS Argon. Argon is his flagship. He has not had the time to set up a shore base in which to command. So he's

got to use a mobile base and he uses Argon for that and he is trying to set up all the processes in place coordinating not just with South Pacific but also with General MacArthur's

Southwest Pacific on this operation. So I I I have some sympathy for Gormley in this. I think he has thrown in the deep end quite a bit here and he's not

allowed the times to set up in particularly his logistics and his staff. In the meantime, after the exercise, Simmeron and Platt are drained. Canawa has some residual fuel

left and the task force that's going to head to Guadal Canal has not had the time to replenish fully. That's going to be a problem because Fletcher with his

three carrier strike groups and his amphibious group and support ships are going to arrive at Guadal Canal not fully fueled on July 28th. Fletcher sends this out to Gormley irrespective

of value exercise of phase one referring to what happened around Cororo. This force will be short estimated more than 50,000 barrels of fuel. That is about a third of the size of plot or simmeron

the entire capability of Canawa after emptying plot and simmeron on 31 July. So Fletcher is sending out notice like hey I'm going to be short on fuel.

I've done this operation before. I have done battles at Coral Sea. I've done Midway. I am very familiar with what we need should the Japanese come out and encounter us. And remember, he doesn't

think the Japanese are going to come out immediately after the invasion of of Guadal Canal. What he's worried about is that the Imperial fleet is going to put together a force at Truck and eventually

come down, which it does later in August, which is the Battle of Eastern Solomon. So on August 1st, as they complete the operation at Cororo, the situation is he's got Cascia fully

fueled. Plot and Simron are empty. Simmeron has run over to New Calonia to go refuel from commercial tankers. And one of the big issues here is there's supposed to be about two commercial

tankers down every week sending arrival. But one of the problems is the coordination between Gormley and Nimttz's staff in where to send these

commercial tankers. August 1st, Gormley sends out urgently need additional fuel at New Calonia. He has Simmer on there. It is empty. There's not enough fuel to

reload it. Platt's going to be there very shortly. Nimtt sends out he's dispatching two big fast chartered tankers now available in San Pedro. That's Los Angeles to Nomia. That is two

weeks away. It's going to be mid August before those ships can arrive. Following day, there is evidence of fuel trouble in the South Pacific. The trouble seems in distribution rather than lack of

fuel. Remember Nimits had said that they were going to handle the fuel, but now the problem is the distribution, the coordination down in the southern Pacific area. And then Fletcher sends

out on three August recommend tankers now in Sua that is Fiji be sent to Aate or Numia immediately. If no tankers a fatate for task force 62 62 is the is

the transport force along with the guarding cruisers and destroyers. top off situation may be serious. And what we see here is by four August, the

tankers are eventually refueled. Uh two commercial tankers come into Fiji. And so they're going to be able to top off Cascasia and Plot and Kawa. Simmeron

does top off, but one of the tankers waiting in Numia, the RFA Bishop Dale, will strike a mine on the way out of Numia. Simmeron will rendevous with task

force 61 and they will provide fuel but nowhere near enough fuel. CTF-16, this is the Enterprise task force led by Fletcher, will send this destroyers of

this task force completed fueling from Simmeron. Fueling summary for this force as of this date indicates heavy ships have fuel for 3 days at 15 knots plus 4

days at 25 knots. 25 knots is the speed you'll be doing flight operations in. Destroyers have fuel for 3 days at 15 knots plus 2 days at 25 knots. This is

for August. So you've got basically about 5 days worth of fuel on the destroyers if you slow steam for three of those. This is August 4th. That takes you to August 9th. This is a substantial

problem. And Fletcher is going into battle at Guadal Canal without being topped off. Remember when he did the strike against Lei, they topped off on

the runin and then they came out and met the Oilers to top off on the way out. August 6th, the day before the invasion, the amphibious force is going to go into Guadal Canal. The strike group, the

carriers, Task Force 61, will operate south of Guadal Canal. Simmeron at this point has been drained. Cascia and Platt have sailed from Fiji, but they're way behind the task force. The best Fletcher

can hope for is to meet the three oilers, Simron, Cascasi, and Platt. After the landing is taking place, you have the Japanese will launch a

counterattack against the landing. Initially, air strikes, which are geared to go against the Americans in New Guinea, are diverted. They are sent against the strike group that is located

off Guala Canal. Admiral Macawa is going to put together a cruiser task force, sail down and attack the Americans at uh

Tulagi and Guadal Canal. Ironically, when Admiral Fletcher attacked Tulagi on the ramp up to the uh battle of Coral Sea, one of his plans was to send his

cruisers in behind his air strike on this region, but he didn't do it for fear that the cruisers may have fallen under enemy air attack. The Japanese are

going to take advantage of this. So, on August 8th, which had been emptied, is heading back to Fiji again. Those commercial tankers aren't being sent forward to Numia. They're being sent to

Fiji. This is the mistake that Gormley staff makes. Meanwhile, Cascasi and Platt are sitting there at Numia waiting for the strike group to come out. Task Force 16 sends out word continuing

support air operations this afternoon. Fuel situation this force is becoming critical. It is estimated the destroyers have fuel for about 3 days at 15 knots and the heavy ships have little more.

August 8th, Fletcher sends word. request you send tankers immediately to rendevous decided by you as fuel running low. Now this puts the onus on Gormley to determine where to send his oilers.

He can send Cascasian Platt up to the carrier strike group, keep them off Guadal Canal, but it puts those oilers under potential air attack from the Japanese. Plus, there are submarines in

the area that that Fletcher is worried about. Does he want to risk this? Instead, what Gormley decides to do is send Casaski and Platt just north of New Calonia south of a Spirit Tusantu and

tell Fletcher head south and rendevu. Then you get the battle of Sabo Island on the night of August 8th and 9th. The Japanese are able to inflict a grievous

defeat on the Americans and the Australians. Three American heavy cruisers, one Australian heavy cruiser are lost. Multiple ships are damaged. The saving grace for the Americans is that Admiral

Macawa doesn't follow up his attack with an attack on the troop ships off Guadal Canal and off Talagi. However, at the end of the battle, while two of the cruisers sink almost immediately, the

Quincy and the Vincens, Canberra and Atoria are still afloat come the morning and there is hope to potentially save those two vessels. But because the

forces are withdrawing and there is no repair or salvage equipment sent up forward with his fleet, there's really no recourse but to scuttle these two

ships. And Atoria and CRA are going to go down in Iron Bottom Sound. And when you look at the American and Australian forces that were dispatched in the

Pacific in in August of 1942, you can get a real quick idea of how successful the Americans become at repair. Task Force 8 is sent up into the Illusions,

but some of those ships are eventually going to come down off Guadal Canal. The composition of the three carrier strike groups, later reinforced by the Wasp Group, Task Force 18, and then other reinforcements that come in. Huggy is

set up as an interim repair base. It'll be used for USS Portland after the brawl on November 13th. It'll also be used for USS Minneapolis and New Orleans

following the Battle of Taseranga. The idea of having repair capabilities up front and forward become very key. So that when you look at the task force,

all the ships in blue there are damaged during the campaign and they're all going to head off for repair facilities. The key is having some repair facilities

forward located so that you can do the patchup. So for example, Minneapolis and New Orleans, Minneapolis is going to go to Mayor Island. New Orleans goes to Sydney where the closest dry dock is,

but eventually will also go over to Mayor Island. Saratoga and Enterprise, the two carriers are both going to go up to Pearl Harbor for repairs. The North Carolina goes up to Pearl Harbor. South

Dakota will go to Pearl Harbor after it grounds, but then eventually over to New York. And then other ships will go and even the ships that are sunk, those identified in red, will be replaced by new vessels coming off the slipways. At

the end of the Battle of Sabo Island, the troop ships are going to withdraw. This is that abandonment that the Marines always talk about. But the key thing is most of the supplies are not

offloaded because again what we saw was congestion on the beaches and inadequate planning on how to throughput the cargo. In the meantime, Saratoga Enterprise and

Wasp sail south. They rendevous with Cascasy and Plaque. They are going to refuel and be able to then come back into position south of Guadal Canal

and that will provide the elements necessary to bring carriers back south of Guadal Canal. The realization is that it's probably not the best idea to empty

all three carrier task force at the same time. Instead, what's going to happen is that Admiral Fletcher will keep two of the three carrier strike groups forward

and one will head south, replenishing until he can get clear intelligence that the Japanese are going to make a move. He does not get that clear intelligence.

It's the reason why Wasp is south refueling when the battle of Eastern Solomon's is fought. The other element here is the buildup on Guadal Canal

itself. Uh the US Navy will take into service the fast destroyer transports to run food and fuel up to Guadal Canal until they can organize convoys that can

make the run to Guadal Canal, the larger troop ships and cargo ships going up. But the other element is with the seizure of the airfield in Guadal Canal, subsequently Henderson Field, there

needs to be the arrival of reinforcements and this is done by USS Long Island. the first escort carrier in the US. Long Island, which had been off the west

coast of the United States conducting flight training for new carrier tra uh new carrier pilots, also had been doing escort duty for task force one, the seven older battleships uh the three

survivors from Pearl Harbor, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Tennessee with the three New Mexico plus Colorado, which had been in the West Coast undergoing refit. Long Island is loaded

up with two Marine squadrons, uh, Fighter Squadron VMF223 and bombing squadron VMSB 232, and will fly off those two squadrons to Henderson Field.

Coming behind Long Island is USS Kittyhawk, the same ship that had brought uh, Wildcats and Dauntlesses to Midway. She is loaded with two more squadrons, VMF224 and VMSB 231. The

problem is she can't go into Guadal Canal and offload those planes directly. So, the US comes up with an innovative way, I got to say, uh just an amazing

process for how to get those two follow-up squadrons to Henderson Field. Normally, what you would have is the ship would come into port and offload.

So, uh, Kittyhawk comes into Afate in the New Hedes and the plan was to offload the fighters and dive bombers onto barges. They were going to barge

them ashore. Then they would have to drag them through the streets to the airfield. Now, that's going to take days for that to be accomplished. And unfortunately, the Marines don't have

days. So, instead, Kittyhawk and Long Island come up with a novel idea. The image on the left here is Kittyhawk alongside Long Island. There's a barge that's put between them to create some

distance between the two. And what Kittyhawk is doing is craning off wildcats, in this case fighters, onto the deck of Long Island. There's a small

mind sweeper that is there. It's not pictured in the image here. That mind sweeper is turning Long Island into the wind and then using Long Island's catapult. They are launching the planes

as they come on board. The Wildcats are fitted with drop tanks. There's a small little uh round uh object underneath the Wildcat. That is the drop tank. Within a

day, they're going to get all the Wildcats, actually two days, Wildcats and Dauntlesses on Long Island, catapulted off. They fly them up to a Spirit Tucant, and then with the with

the drop tanks, they can fly directly to Guadal Canal. that allows the rapid reinforcement of Guadal Canal by the end of the month with an additional fighter

squadron and dive bombing squadron. Later on in September, USS Capahe uh one of the other new light escort carriers comes out. She does the same exact

thing. She will fly off a fighter and diebombing squadron and USS Hammondsport sister ship to Kittyhawk will do the same thing with Copahe and fly off its

two squadrons. Now the battle of Eastern Solomon's in late August of of 1942 results in damage to USS Enterprise. Uh three bomb hits

will happen on board Enterprise and one of the things that we see is how quickly repairs can be affected. uh the ship is brought over to Tonga for quick repairs,

but what becomes very clear is that it's going to have to go up to Pearl Harbor. But the other element of the Battle of Eastern Solomons that's really important, and again, it's a criticism

of Admiral Fletcher is Fletcher reports early after the Guadal Canal invasion that his fighter strength is down from 99 fighters down to 78 fighters. And if

you look at the air groupoups on board the American carriers at the time of battle eastern Solomons, those loss of fighters are represented in those air groupoups. In other words, for the first

weeks in August of 1942, there are no replacement aircraft coming out to Fletcher. Remember when Fletcher had Yorktown out in the southern Pacific in

March and April of 1942, he was able to replenish his aircraft by stealing them off Lexington. At Midway, he replenishes Enterprise and Hornet from Saratoga. He

does not have that capability in the South Pacific. In other words, the air groups that are on the three carriers is all he has. There are no replacements coming out. the

reinforcement of the marine squadrons onto Henderson Field is taking up any capability that Long Island and Copy have to deliver replacement aircraft. So

when Enterprise is damaged as a result of the Battle Eastern Solomons, one of the things it does is it sheds part of its air group to get the air groupoups on board Saratoga and Wasp up to speed.

Now Hornet's coming down, but Hornet won't arrive until after this. And then subsequently, Wasp is going to be lost from a submarine attack. Half of its air group goes down with it. Saratoga is

going to be damaged by a submarine. It's going to be able to fly off part of its air group. But the Americans do not have an efficient system in place to keep their carrier air groups alive. Fletcher

had learned this the hard way from the operations in the South Pacific and at the Battle of Midway. But Nimttz does not seem to have put into place a mechanism whereby the carrier strike

groups can be replenished and that's going to be a big issue throughout the Guadal Canal campaign. All right. So what are the big takeaways from early US Navy logistics in the

Pacific 1941 to 42? Well, we looked at four things. Number one, replenishment. One of the key things was to take the Navy oilers and devote them to supporting the carrier strike groups and

surface groups, which meant you needed tankers. You needed commercial tankers. And starting in January through March of 1942, Admiral King as uh the commander-in-chief of the US uh fleet

along with his dual role, subsequently as chief of naval operations, will get commercial tankers to come in and expand that footprint so that commercial tankers can replace that. That's one of

the reasons I would argue that even if the Japanese had knocked out part of the fuel farm at Pearl Harbor, the allocation of 21 tankers in January with more coming in February and March, the

US could basically afflat the oil necessary to replace those damaged tanks. Plus, it was building the new Red Hill facility. It expands the fleet

oiler role. Again, the the the six fleet oilers become really crucial in the loss of Neoso in May of 42 at Coral Sea highlights this. And probably the most important is there needs to be improved

planning and coordination. It's one thing to have the fuel there. It's a whole other thing to be able to ensure that that fuel is being properly delivered and most importantly that

ships are arriving into potential combat as fueled as possible. In the area of repair, I mean, there's only a few repair facilities located in the Pacific

for the US and the Australians. Pearl Harbor is the major repair base. Sydney has a dry dock. It can't handle an aircraft carrier, but and then of course there's the West Coast with Mare Island,

Long Beach, and most importantly, Puget Sound, which is the significant one there. But you also need salvage and towing. Uh again, the role of Vero down at Midway is essential. We'll see at

Battle of Santa Cruz, for example, Hornet is going to require Northampton, a heavy cruiser to tow her out. Later on, we'll see salvage tugs and firefighting capability integrated into

carrier task force. And then having forward repair as far forward as possible in Tilagi, over at Aspiritu Santos, at Tonga. That's really

important because what you don't want to do is lose ships that can be at least pulled out of combat and subsequently repaired and brought back into the fight. In terms of reinforcements, that

big fight between Europe and Pacific is best characterized by the deployment of the divisions. We see the emphasis on reinforcing both Hawaii and the Australia supply line and then that

offensive buildup that goes into not just Guadal Canal but also New Guinea by both the US and Australian forces being based in Australia. And then finally replacements. How do you maintain those

forces? uh the crucial role that the escort auxiliary carriers are going to play to be able to keep the frontline carriers up and running and a ability to

rotate forces in and out of the area becomes really important because you're going to wear through and burn through your forces. If you look at those carrier uh air groups, they get really

churned up quite a bit. You need replacements for them. Uh the US gets by with really kind of sandwiching together some of those air groups, but in the long run, it doesn't work. And we really see it probably the best with the Marine

Corps and Army squadrons based in Guadal Canal and New Guinea, how they cannot maintain themselves. And I think what you learn from early US logistics in the Pacific in 1941-42 is this is the

training ground so that by 43 and 44 you can project forces over longer distances sustain them over longer distances and then when those two drives come together

in the Philippines you can do that final drive to cut Japan off and be prepared should it be necessary which it isn't uh for the invasion of Japan. I think this

also has huge lessons learned for today. Tyranny of distance is the same. Technology has changed. The opponents have potentially changed going into 2026. But what hasn't changed is the

tyranny of distance. Pacific is as big as it was as it was 80some years ago. And a lot of the issues with refueling, replenishment, uh reinforcements, repair, and replacement still echoes

across. I hope you enjoyed this historic episode of what went on with shipping. If you're new to the channel, hey, take a moment, subscribe to the channel and hit the bell so you be alerted about new videos as they come out. Leave a

comment, share it across social media. And if you can support the page, how do you do that? You hit the super thanks button down below or head on over to Patreon and become a monthly yearly uh

subscriber. Want to thank everybody, wish everybody a happy new year as we're running into the happy new year. This is my very, very uh uh lame attempt to emulate what is my favorite uh podcast

for the year. I got my little thing from YouTube saying, "What did you watch S over the year?" The YouTube channel I watched the most over the year. It's not what's going on with shipping. It's not. It was the unauthorized history of the

Pacific War. Seth and John and Bill Toad over there. Just I love those guys. They do such a great job. Uh I I am convinced now. They've been doing it for five

years. What does it take to make that not the unauthorized history of the Pacific War, but the authorized history of the Pacific War? I mean, what's it going to take? I mean those guys are authorized in my opinion.