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Operation Hailstone

Operation Hailstone was a massive United States Navy air and surface attack on Truk Lagoon on 17–18 February 1944, conducted as part of the American offensive drive against the Imperial Japanese Navy in the Pacific Ocean theatre.

Aftermath[edit]

Truk, like so many other Japanese bases, was left to itself without hope of resupply or reinforcement. Army forces which had arrived at the atoll before the U.S. attacks put increasing strain on available foodstuffs and medical supplies. Dwindling ammunition even limited the ability of shore batteries to fend off intermittent attacks by Allied forces, including experimental raids by Boeing B-29 Superfortresses and attacks by Allied carrier aircraft.[23]


Losses at Truk were severe. Some 17,000 tons of stored fuel were destroyed by the strikes.[24] Shipping losses totaled almost 200,000 tons, including precious resources in fleet oilers.[25] This represented almost one-tenth of total Japanese shipping losses between 1 November 1943 and 30 June 1944.[26] Moreover, the isolation of this whole area of operations by submarine and air attack began the effective severance of Japanese shipping lanes between empire waters and critical fuel supplies to the south. The ultimate effect of such a disconnect was later seen during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, when IJN forces had to sortie separately from Japan and Lingga Roads because of fuel constraints.[27] The neutralization of Truk and the seizure of Eniwetok paved the way for the upcoming invasion of Saipan, which for the first time put U.S. land-based heavy bombers within range of the Japanese home islands.[28]


Japan started to rebuild Truk as a bomber air base and increased its anti-aircraft defenses. Spruance sent in carrier planes again on 29 April and destroyed the defenses and bombers parked at airports. British forces attacked again in June 1945. No significant naval buildup occurred at Truk after Operation Hailstone.


Truk is renowned today as a tourist destination for divers interested in seeing the many shipwrecks left in the lagoon, many of which were sunk in Operation Hailstone.[29]

List of ships in Truk at the time of attack[edit]

Warships[edit]

List derived from Jeffery's War Graves, Munition Dumps and Pleasure Grounds (2007)[30]

Operation Inmate

US Naval Base Carolines

Naval Base Eniwetok

Naval Base Gilbert Islands

Naval Base Marshall Islands

Astor, Gerald (2007). . Random House Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-307-41777-0.

Wings of Gold: The U.S. Naval Air Campaign in World War II

Hornfischer, James (2016). . Random House Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-345-54870-2.

The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944–1945

Jeffery, William (2007). (PDF). Research Online @JCU. James Cook University. Retrieved 3 November 2017.

"War Graves, Munition Dumps and Pleasure Grounds"

Jeffery, William (2003). . National Park Service. Chuuk Historical Preservation Office. Retrieved 5 October 2017.

"War in Paradise: World War II in Chuuk"

(1961). Aleutians, Gilberts and Marshalls, June 1942 – April 1944, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. ASIN B0007FBB8I.

Morison, Samuel Eliot

(1946). "The Campaigns of the Pacific War, Chapter 9: Central Pacific Operations". HyperWar. Naval Analysis Division, Government Printing Office. Retrieved 5 October 2017.

Ofstie, Ralph

Prados, John (1995). . Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-55750-431-9.

Combined Fleet Decoded: The Secret History of American Intelligence and the Japanese Navy in World War II

Prados, John (2016). . Penguin Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-451-47361-5.

Storm Over Leyte: The Philippine Invasion and the Destruction of the Japanese Navy

Rems, Alan (February 2014). . Naval History Magazine. Vol. 28. U.S. Naval Institute. Retrieved 5 October 2017.

"Two Birds with One Hailstone"

Tillman, Barrett (1997). . Bloomsbury USA. ISBN 978-1-85532-689-7.

Helldiver Units of World War 2

(2015). The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942–1944: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942–1944. W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-24820-3.

Toll, Ian

Trumbull, Robert (30 April 1972). . New York Times. Retrieved 5 October 2017.

"The Graveyard Lure of Truk Lagoon"

Williams, Jessica (21 June 2000). . Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum. Retrieved 29 October 2017.

"Torpedo Damage Report"

Wilmott, H.P. (2005). . Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-00351-2.

The Battle of Leyte Gulf: The Last Fleet Action

Bailey, Dan E. (1992). World War II: Wrecks of the Kwajalein and Truk Lagoons. North Valley Diver Publications.  0-911615-05-9.

ISBN

Brown, David (1990). Warship Losses of World War Two. Naval Institute Press.  1-55750-914-X.

ISBN

Brown, Herbert C. (2000). . Ancient Mariners Pr. ISBN 0-9700721-4-7.-Firsthand account of Operation Hailstone by a crewmember of USS New Orleans.

Hell at Tassafaronga

Cressman, Robert J. (2000). . Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-149-1.

The Official Chronology of the U.S. Navy in World War II

Ito, Masanori (1986). The End of the Imperial Japanese Navy (reissue ed.). Jove.  0-515-08682-7.

ISBN

Lacroix, Eric; Linton Wells (1997). Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War. Naval Institute Press.  0-87021-311-3.

ISBN

Lindemann, Klaus (2005). : Operations Against Truk by Carrier Task Force 58, 17 and 18 February 1944, and the Shipwrecks of World War II. Oregon: Resource Publications. ISBN 1-59752-347-X.

Hailstorm Over Truk Lagoon

(1992). Nan'Yo: The Rise and Fall of the Japanese in Micronesia, 1885–1945 (Pacific Islands Monograph Series). University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-1480-0.

Peattie, Mark

Stafford, Edward P. (2002). The Big E: The Story of the USS Enterprise (reissue ed.). Naval Institute Press.  1-55750-998-0.

ISBN

Stewart, William Herman (1986). Ghost Fleet of the Truk Lagoon: An Account of "Operation Hailstone", February, 1944. Pictorial Histories.  0-933126-66-2.

ISBN

Wright III, Burton. . The U.S. Army Campaigns in World War II. United States Army Center of Military History. Archived from the original on 22 September 2013. Retrieved 20 August 2010.

Eastern Mandates

United States Strategic Bombing Survey (1947). . Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. OCLC 44738732.

The Reduction of Truk

Young, Edward M. (2015). "A Hard Rain: Operation Hailstone: The US Navy Raid on Truk Lagoon, February 17–18, 1944". The Aviation Historian (13): 76–89.  2051-1930.

ISSN

Zolandez, Thomas (2006). "Question 12/03: Japanese Facilities at Truk Lagoon". Warship International. XLIII (2): 152–153.  0043-0374.

ISSN

Crowl, Philip A.; (1955). Seizure of the Gilberts and Marshalls. United States Army in World War II – The War in the Pacific. Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army. CMH Pub 5-6. Retrieved 23 January 2007.

Edmund G. Love

Jeffery, William (November 2006). (PDF). Micronesian Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Volume 5. James Cook University, Townsville, Australia. Retrieved 23 January 2007.

"A CRM Approach in Investigating the Submerged World War II Sites in Chuuk Lagoon"

Muir, Dan. . NavWeaps. Retrieved 29 September 2017.

"Order of Battle, Raid On Truk 17–18 February 1944"

. "James Ramage, Executive Officer of USS Enterprise's Bombing Squadron 10 (VB-10), Recalls Strikes On Truk". Retrieved 29 September 2017.

Ramage, James

. National Park Service. Archived from the original on 6 November 2012.

"Truk Lagoon Area Study"