Battle of the Komandorski Islands, 1943: the cruiser duel in the Bering Sea

Most naval battles of the Pacific War were fought by aircraft or at night. The Battle of the Komandorski Islands was neither. For hours in daylight, far out in the cold sea west of the Aleutians, cruisers traded fire at long range without aircraft, submarines or land in sight. Samuel Eliot Morison called it a miniature fleet action of the kind the US Navy had expected to fight after the First World War.²

Blockade in the north

Japanese garrisons held the US islands of Attu and Kiska in the Aleutians, and Japan had to supply them by sea. Rear Admiral Charles H. McMorris, flying his flag in the old light cruiser USS Richmond, had been cruising west of Attu for several days to intercept reinforcements. With him were four destroyers of Destroyer Squadron 14 under Captain Ralph S. Riggs and the heavy cruiser USS Salt Lake City under Captain Bertram J. Rodgers, only recently repaired after damage at Cape Esperance off Guadalcanal and manned by a crew almost half of them fresh from boot camp.³ › The Aleutian Islands campaign

McMorris's force had been sized to match the Japanese Fifth Fleet in the Kuril Islands, so he expected at worst an even fight. Intelligence had missed the arrival of a second heavy cruiser, Maya. Vice Admiral Boshiro Hosogaya was escorting his transports with every warship he had: the heavy cruisers Nachi and Maya, two light cruisers and destroyers.⁴

A Roman holiday that was not

At 7:30 a.m. on 26 March, an hour before sunrise, radar picked up ships to the north, about 180 miles west of Attu and 100 miles south of the Komandorski Islands. They looked like transports with a light escort, and McMorris, in Morison's account, anticipated a "Roman holiday". Soon after 8 a.m. the picture changed: first one heavy cruiser, then another, then two light cruisers came into view. Because the battle was fought across the International Date Line, Japanese records date it 27 March.⁵

McMorris decided to try for the transports under long-range fire and then retire at speed. At 8:40 Nachi opened fire at about 20,000 yards. Salt Lake City answered and hit Nachi with her third and fourth salvos. The Naval History and Heritage Command notes that one shell struck just aft of Nachi's bridge, killing several signalmen and narrowly missing Hosogaya and his staff, and suggests the near miss may have shaken his nerve. Nachi also suffered an electrical failure that briefly jammed her main guns.⁶

A running fight to the west

The Japanese closed fast enough to block the way to the transports, and McMorris turned away into a long retreat to the south-west, with the enemy cruisers on his quarter. Hosogaya used his speed to keep his distance rather than close in, where his ships' heavier armor would have counted. Salt Lake City carried the fight, firing mostly from her two after turrets while sailors carried shells through the ship from the forward magazines. The Japanese fired 42 Long Lance torpedoes during the battle without a hit.⁷

Hits slowly told. Salt Lake City lost her steering hydraulics to the shock of her own guns, took a shell through her hull below the waterline and began to flood. Destroyers laid smoke, which hid her for much of the action. Around 11:50, sea water in the fuel snuffed out her burners and she drifted to a stop, 105 miles south of the Komandorskis. The signal "speed zero" went up, and a Japanese shell passed through the "zero" flag. NHHC counts five hits on the cruiser in all; Morison describes the hit at 11:03 as her fourth and last.⁸

The charge of the destroyers

Captain Rodgers asked for a torpedo attack, and McMorris ordered it. USS Bailey, with Coghlan and Monaghan behind her, burst out of the smoke toward the Japanese cruisers 17,000 yards away. Bailey was hit, launched her five torpedoes at about 10,000 yards and lost power. By then the Japanese column was already turning west. NHHC notes that Japanese records show Hosogaya decided to disengage just before the destroyers charged.⁹

He was low on fuel and ammunition, frustrated with his torpedoes and his destroyers, and feared American bombers. Salt Lake City, out of armor-piercing shells, was firing high-capacity rounds whose white bursts looked like falling bombs, and the Japanese fired their anti-aircraft guns into the overcast at aircraft that were not there. In fact US bombers did not arrive in time. Salt Lake City's engineers had her moving again within minutes, and by 12:15 the Japanese ships were hull down.¹⁰

Results

No ship was sunk on either side. The Americans lost seven killed, two on Salt Lake City and five on Bailey. NHHC says Japanese losses are unknown but believed to be about 27 killed, all on Nachi. The transports turned back, so McMorris had done what he was sent to do, and Pacific Wrecks calls the battle a strategic defeat for Japan, which could not resupply Attu or Kiska. Hosogaya was relieved within a month and sent to the reserve. For the wider war, see the greatest battles of the Pacific War.¹¹