WW2, Pacific War, the Early Years
Admiral FRANK JACK FLETCHER - Page 3

In mid-Sept Fletcher returned to the States for leave and the fleet organization was shuffled from defensive to offense. In the Battle of the Coral Sea, he had saved Australia and damaged two of the six enemy carriers that had attacked Pearl Harbor so that they could not join in at the Battle of Midway, where he destroyed the other four.  He stopped the major enemy thrust to retake Guadalcanal in the Eastern Solomons before returning home.  He was assigned as Commander Northwestern Sea Frontier, Nov 1942, to lend his prestige to defense of the U.S. from a northern attack.

Fletcher's great battles took place in the early months of World War II, during a period when great victories were not yet possible, where success was measured in stopping the enemy, rather than pushing him back.  The popular naval heroes came later in the war:  Nimitz, Halsey, Spruance, Mitscher, Kinkaid - are remembered more clearly for their victories than are the early heroes. They had a hundred carriers available for the invasion of Japan, Fletcher never had more than three.

Two books have defined Fletcher.  Morison's "History of US Naval Operations, Rising Sun" tends to dismiss Fletcher's accomplishments:  what a travesty.  Regan's "In Bitter Tempest: The Biography Of Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher" feels compelled to defend Fletcher from various critics.  There is no need to apologize for battle losses in stopping the runaway advances of the enemy.   A new book, "Black Shoe Carrier Admiral" goes into the facts of Fletcher's battles. And one waiting publication praises Fletcher, "The Days of Fletcher.

Why Has Fletcher Not Received The Recognition He Deserves?

Adm Kimmel was Naval Commander at Pearl Harbor.  He immediately laid plans for attack against the Japanese including setting a trap at Wake Island for the aircraft carriers that had destroyed his battleships. The Marines on Wake Island had successfully fought off an invasion force on Dec 11, sinking two destroyers.  Kimmel expected the Japanese to try again, this time with aircraft carrier support.  He selected, over more senior admirals, RAdm Fletcher to head the Wake Island relief portion on Dec 15.  The plan consisted of all three aircraft carrier task forces. Lexington (VAdm Brown, TF 11 ) to make a raid in the Marshall Islands, south of Wake, from where the invasion troops would come ; Saratoga (RAdm Fletcher, TF 14, aboard Astoria (CA-34) to escort Tangier (AG-4)  with relief supplies ; and Enterprise (VAdm Halsey, TF 8) to stand guard west of Johnston Island.
    Washington decided Kimmel was to be replaced by Adm Nimitz, but was relieved prematurely (and later made a scapegoat), with an interim commander, VAdm Pye, the Pearl Harbor battleship force commander, who botched the plan.   Pye, having already lost his battleships, was mainly concerned with conserving the carriers to turn over to Nimitz. In addition, messages from Washington said Hawaii was more important to defend than Wake Island. Pye recalled Brown to join Fletcher and had Fletcher wait for Brown over 400 miles from Wake Island, out of air support range. When the Japanese detached two aircraft carriers from the Pearl Harbor raid to support the invasion of Wake Island on Dec 23, none of the three US carriers were able to assist. Pye sent contradictory orders in rapid succession. In a day he told Fletcher to attack, then to send in Tangier alone, half hour later told Fletcher to evacuate Wake, and in another half hour told him to withdraw.   Later, Adm King, Chief of Naval Operations, is reported to have blamed Fletcher for the loss of Wake Island.

Nimitz had been ChBurNav in Washington.  He took over the Pacific Fleet on Dec 31, retained Kimmel's staff, including Layton and Fletcher, and set to work to most effectively block Japanese expansion, establish a secure supply line to Australia, and to defend the Midway-Pearl Harbor line.   It was a time of confusion, of impossible demands from Washington, and of prioritizing.   With insufficient strength to reach the Philippines, those reinforcements were diverted to Australia, established a goal to extend the Hawaii-Samoa line to Fiji, and planned raids to keep the Japanese away from Midway-Pearl Harbor.

Marcus, Wake, the Marshalls (Kwajalein) and Gilberts (Makin) form a line of advanced holdings that allow the enemy an early warning of approaching US fleets. The later two lie near the shipping lanes to Australia.  This eastern line countered the major Japanese defensive line of the central Pacific bases in the Marianas (Saipan), Caroline Islands (Turk) and Bismarcks (Rabaul).

Fleet in Being.  This is a technical term that means, just by its existence, a fleet imposes defensive measures and extra support for offensive operations on the opposing force.
Example: As long as Germany had a fleet, the British had to maintain a battle force in readiness, to provide escort to every maritime activity, to plan attacks and defense, and in general tie up large forces just because they never knew when the enemy ships might sail.

The Japanese, having destroyed the US Pacific battle fleet, the ABDA fleet, the British defeated and expelled; required the US to play a defensive role to retain a "fleet in being".  The Japanese had to retain a large fleet in home waters, to send fleets to investigate every reported sighting, to provide escorts, and to always remain wary of an attack.   The US raids on Kwajalein, Makin, Wake, Lea, and Tulagi, although doing little direct material damage, and Doolittle's raid on Tokyo, all involved moving the few available ships around the Pacific showing that the US Fleet still had teeth.   This forced the Japanese to insist on one big battle to eliminate the remaining US fleet (Battle for Midway).  The US had to conserve her ships to maintain the threat of the American fleet ; they could only engage in battle when the odds of damage to the enemy exceeded the risk to our ships.   Fletcher was the admiral at sea that had to execute this policy and to make the decisions to interpret this policy on the spot.

While Lexington patrolled the Australian sea lanes, an Allied reconnaissance plane reported Fletcher off Rabaul. This was taken by King as an offensive by Fletcher. In fact, the sighting was of a Japanese force sailing to join their Port Moresby attack fleet. When Fletcher reported he was approaching Tongatabu for replenishment, Washington's excitement turned to disappointment. Fletcher had been following orders to patrol and attack when conditions were favorable. He rushed to intercept the Japanese probe, but it was not found. Once again, Fletcher was innocently considered a disappointment by those in Washington who expected a quick victory over the slanty-eyed toymakers by the weakened, depression era American fleet.

 Fletcher has been criticized for:

Foul-up at Wake Island.
Less aggressive than Halsey
Losing the Lexington at Coral Sea, Adm King's former flagship.
Losing a second carrier, Yorktown, at Midway, seemed unlucky.
Surprise at Savo Island, losing an entire supporting fleet without retaliation.
Leaving troops undefended at Guadalcanal ; Marine Corp incensed.
Having Wasp out of the action at East Solomons.

Observations in Response.

• We have seen in Wake Island Relief that RAdm Fletcher was following orders ; the problem was VAdm Pye's conflicted indecision caused by the premature removal of Kimmel. Pye had been told by Washington that Wake was secondary to the defense of Hawaii.  However, after the fact, Roosevelt is said to have considered the fall of Wake a worse blow than the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
• Fletcher had been appointed by Kimmel, making him suspect by Adm King, the new CNO.
• VAdm Halsey was senior to Fletcher and made pithy remarks.  RAdm Fletcher was not a public speaker and attracted less press coverage.
• Halsey raided Kwajalein, Marcus and Wake, escorted Hornet on the Doolittle raid of Tokyo - all made for popular press.
• Fletcher's sinking of Shoho was the first loss of a major Japanese ship in the war. And the invasion force turned back. The secondary explosion on Lexington was a fact of battle, witness how few bombs sank four Jap carriers at Midway.
• Yorktown was the only carrier attacked at Midway and was finally sunk by a submarine two days later.
• Fletcher's attacks sank all four Jap carriers and was withdrawing for the night when he released RAdm Spruance to independent operations. When information was released to the press, Spruance was then commanding the remaining carriers and was reported errorously with credit for the navy victory.  Later, Spruance became a great admiral, his biographers came back to his first engagement and further credited him with victory in Fletcher's battle.
• The plan at Guadalcanal called for the carriers to be released from the confines of the island when the landing was secured and to defend at sea from expected counter-attack.  Fletcher's primary responsibility was to fight enemy carriers. The landing at Guadalcanal was unopposed and the Marine goal to capture the airfield was completed the first day. Marines had finished fighting at Tulagi on the 2nd day. With the landing secure, Fletcher went to prepare to fight carriers.
• Savo Island was a disaster. The USN was unprepared to fight a night action ; the IJN were expert. However, the enemy withdrew without attacking the transports -- the defence was accomplished.
• Fletcher's carriers were out of range to punish the enemy cruisers which embarrassed desk-bound officers already shamed for being unprepared for night fighting.
• The Japanese could not land reinforcements until ten days later, and then with only 1,000 men, who were wiped out by the 11,000 marines.
• RAdm Turner was delayed in unloading and made the decision to save his transports from air attack and withdrew from Guadalcanal.
• All Marine accounts mention Fletcher's withdrawal ; none mention that it was that same Fletcher who protected them when the Japanese Combined Fleet came calling two weeks later.
• Several historians repeat a point of Fletcher's "leisurely" refueling.  Others recognize this as preparation to engage the enemy whenever opportunity for combat comes. Fletcher had enough fuel to stay near Guadalcanal, but not enough to fight a battle. Refueling at sea was a new technique, not perfected until mid-war.
• Fletcher refueled his carriers in rotation ; otherwise all might have been out of action at once and the US would have lost the Battle of Eastern Solomons and the entire Guadalcanal, Solomon Island, beachhead and again threaten Australia. Instead, Fletcher sank his sixth carrier, Ryujo, and the Japanese invasion fleet was repulsed.
• Fletcher was at sea carrying out impossible orders ; not in port "communicating".
• Fletcher's later orders were to escort and patrol the shipping route to Guadalcanal.  This kept his carriers in a limited area south of that island and an invitation to submarine attack, an area later called Torpedo Junction, where his flagship Saratoga was damaged and he returned to Pearl Harbor. His successors lost Wasp with North Carolina damaged ; then Hornet was sunk, all within two months, with no enemy carriers damaged or destroyed. Fletcher had also lost two carriers -- but he had sunk six enemy ones. Pretty good odds.

It has been suggested that if Halsey had been at Midway, rather than the cautious Fletcher and his second, equally cautious Spruance, we would have lost our carriers in a rush to follow-up the first day's action and have run into Yamamoto's battleships in the night, as was the Japanese plan.  Fletcher was not a "dashing warrior", but a task force commander who had to husband the few American resources. He "dashed" to the attack at Tulagi and again to successfully cut off the Jap invasion of Port Moresby at the Coral Sea.  He raced to Midway and victory and he was the first to attack in the Eastern Solomons against an enemy double his size.  Fletcher commented after the success of forcing the enemy to retreat at the Battle of East Solomons that "he would receive a message of congratulations on a great victory from Adm Nimitz and a complaint from Adm King that he should have followed up the air battle with a destroyer attack -- and that both would be right." [The Japanese force had three battleships : Mutsu, Hiel and Kirishima ; 13 heavy cruisers ; 3 light cruisers; and 31 destroyers; plus submarines and the two remaining fleet carriers.]

If Fletcher had stayed in the South Pacific instead of being moved to the North Pacific, he may have sunk another six enemy carriers and ended the war in another eight months.   Nobody had ever fought a carrier war before and everybody could see other ways "they" would have fought -- after the battles had concluded. But Fletcher was there and he won all of his battles which no other Navy had done to that time. What more can we ask?

Lastly, Fletcher had retired, most of his papers of the early years of WW2 went down with Yorktown and he chose not to reconstruct his papers and sit for Samuel Eliot Morison's "definitive" History of US Naval Operations in World War II.  Therefore, wartime activities were presented without Fletcher's point of view and favored other admirals who personally told their stories.  He was presented as a hesitant, if proper officer.  In point of fact, Fletcher was our combat commander who saved the Pacific in the first months of the Pacific War while other navies - US Battle Fleet, British, Dutch, and US Asiatic fleets - collapsed and while America had time to built up to a superior fighting force. He sank six enemy carriers with a loss of two. He performed a nearly perfect balance of caution and aggression. In the two months after Fletcher left, his successors lost two carriers, yet sank no more enemy carriers for almost two years.

The Northwest Sea Frontier

The Japanese had taken two Aleutian Islands while Fletcher was fighting at Midway. These islands are on the most direct route from Tokyo to Seattle. The public perceived an invasion from the North and the Northwestern Command was in disarray.  Fletcher had the prestige and diplomacy to straighten things out between the various US services, civilians and Canada and to calm the fears on our West Coast.  By the time this was accomplished, Fletcher's war skills were no longer needed and he had to content himself with command of what became an inactive theater devoted to transporting aid by the western route to Russia:  6,400 planes, 149 frigates and other small ships, and trained 8,700 Russian sailors.  He was able to raid the Kurile Islands in 1944 and again in 1945.  He accepted the surrender of the Imperial Japanese Northern Fleet in Mutsu Bay, September, 1945.

Legacy

Fletcher's sinking of six enemy carriers make him the most successful admiral of the war.  He was appointed to the Navy's General Board in 1946 and retired as Chairman of that governing board in 1947 with the rank of full Admiral. He enjoyed life on his county estate, Araby, in Maryland.

Frank Jack Fletcher died on 25 April 1973 at the Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

USS Fletcher (DD-992) is named in honor of Admiral Fletcher.

References :

• "Black Shoe Carrier Admiral: Frank Jack Fletcher and the Pacific Fleet" by John Lundstrom, ISBN: 1591144752, June 2006
• "LOS DÍAS DE FLETCHER" by Andrés Lazarús del Castillo, Instituto De Publicatciones Navales, ISBN 9508990546, Marca 2004
• "Stormy Seas" - story by Marshalltimes, his hometown paper.
• Wikipedia Entry -- Sept. 11, 2007