This is a sample section from the book The Flying, Fighting Weathermen of Patrol Wing Four by Paul E. Carrigan.

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The Battle of the Komandorski Islands

By March 1943, planes from Adak and Amchitka and our North Pacific Task Force ships were hammering the Japanese on Kiska and Attu. Japan’s High Command faced a dilemma. Abandoning the two strongholds would expose Japan’s vulnerable northern flank. Yet, it could not adequately supply them. Japan chose to hold Attu and Kiska at all costs.

Single Japanese supply ships occasionally slipped through the U.S. air and naval blockade, but many others were sunk or turned back. On March 9, 1943, a large convoy arrived at Attu in dense fog. Several days of thick weather enabled the Japanese to transship some of these supplies to Kiska. A lone enemy ship ran the blockade and made it to Attu on March 10, 1943. During the next two weeks, under better weather conditions, other ships that attempted the Aleutian supply run were either sunk, damaged, or fled back to Paramushiro.

Japan was desperate to beef up the northern garrisons and bring in additional supplies. Admiral Hosagaya assembled his Northern Force of heavy cruisers Nachi and Maya, light cruisers Tama and Abukuma, and destroyers Wakaba, Inazuma, Hatsushima, and Ikazuchi. This force would escort heavily-laden transports Asaka Maru, Sakito Maru, and Sanko Maru. Under the personal command of Admiral Hosagaya in his flagship, Nachi, the convoy sortied from Paramushiro on March 22, 1943.

Admiral McMorris, in his flagship light cruiser USS Richmond, accompanied by heavy cruiser USS Salt Lake City and four destroyers, Bailey, Coghlan, Dale, and Monaghan, was on another foray to the west in search of Japanese supply vessels. PBYs reported a number of Japanese ships heading east from Paramushiro. On March 26, McMorris had his task force two hundred miles west of Attu and one hundred miles southeast of the Russian Komandorski Islands. His ships were spread out to cover as much ocean as possible in the hope that one or more could make contact with the enemy vessels.

As dawn broke, radar detected several unidentified ships ten miles north. McMorris radioed a contact report, gathered his force, turned northeastward to intercept, and prepared to attack the ships, which he expected to be unescorted cargo ships.

In the overcast dim light, the Japanese discerned the approaching American warships. Admiral Hosagaya ordered the three cargo ships to reverse course to the west. He formed his warships into two columns, the four cruisers to port to cut off the U.S. ships from escaping east toward safety, and the five destroyers to starboard as a buffer between the U.S. fleet and the three cargo ships.

McMorris quickly learned that he was not speeding to attack unprotected cargo ships when lookouts began reporting one Japanese cruiser after another approaching at 30 knots. Hosagaya’s ships were newer, larger, faster, and had more firepower. McMorris could not outrun or outgun the enemy, so he chose to try to destroy the three fleeing cargo vessels while he still could. The U.S. force turned west, but Hosagaya’s flanking ships cut off the attempt to come within range of the cargo vessels.

Nachi opened fire with her eight-inch forward turret guns at 0838 hours at a range of twelve miles. Her second salvo straddled the Richmond, whose smaller six-inch guns could not reach the Japanese heavy cruiser. USS Salt Lake City opened fire with her eight-inch guns at 0842. The Japanese identified Salt Lake City as a heavy cruiser. Since the other U.S. cruiser had not opened fire, Hosagaya concentrated his attack against Salt Lake City.

Captain Bertram Rodgers, USN, Salt Lake City’s skipper, fired salvos and dodged the concentrated fire of the four Japanese cruisers that were slowly closing the distance. Rodgers had the helmsman steer toward the splashes of the last enemy salvo because he anticipated that enemy gunnery control would correct the miss. Salt Lake City’s fourth salvo blasted into the base of Nachi’s bridge. Flames and smoke enveloped the superstructure of Hosagaya’s flagship. Fires were extinguished, but a generator had failed that cut off all electrical power forward. Nachi’s main batteries were out of action.

Generator repairs took half an hour. Nachi zigzagged for her other guns to bear, costing her the speed advantage. Nachi fired eight torpedoes at Salt Lake City from long range, but all were dodged. The American ships had turned to port. With the Japanese ships in pursuit, the long-range gun duel had progressed southwesterly.

When Nachi was hit, the Japanese warships had closed the gap to eight and one-half miles. When Nachi zigzagged, the U.S. ships widened this distance to fifteen miles. Three eight-inch shells from Salt Lake City’s sixteenth salvo scored direct hits on Nachi’s bridge, mainmast, and torpedo tubes. The bridge shell killed three officers standing close to Admiral Hosagaya, but he was not hurt.

Explosions wrecked electrical wiring to the forward main batteries, which had just been returned to action. Nachi zigzagged again. At 0910, an enemy shell struck Salt Lake City amidships, killing two sailors but did not cause heavy damage. The U.S. ships had been lucky so far, thanks mainly to accurate gunnery from Salt Lake City. Nachi was smoking, appeared to have slowed, and fired at extreme long range.

McMorris still hoped to attack the cargo ships, but this possibility ended when Salt Lake City reported that the shock of her own salvos had damaged her hydraulic steering system. This meant that her rudder had to be manually operated, severely limiting the rudder angle and preventing high-speed turns. Chasing salvo splashes effectively would be almost impossible.

McMorris and Hosagaya had both requested air support. An hour into the battle, Hosagaya was notified by radio that bomber help from Paramushiro would not be available. McMorris learned that 11th USAAF bomber help from Adak was delayed because all available bombers were loaded with high explosive bombs for use against Kiska installations. It would be many hours before these bombs could be unloaded and the planes rearmed with armor-piercing shells and torpedoes. Adak’s ammunition dumps were scattered in the hills. Neither opposing fleet commander knew of the other’s air support problem; each expected enemy bombers to appear overhead at any moment.

None of the requested attack bombers ever arrived. Three patrolling PBYs converged on the scene and witnessed the battle while acting as scouts. An hour and a half after the battle started, a Japanese shell plunged through the main deck of Salt Lake City and exploded below the waterline. Water rushed through a large jagged hole and partially flooded an engine room. McMorris' largest, most powerful ship was taking water and slowing while her repair parties tried to patch the hole in her hull. She could no longer dodge salvos.

Captain Rodgers requested a protective smokescreen. Salt Lake City’s own smoke generators were cranked up, and destroyer USS Dale raced around her, laying thick black smoke. Unfortunately, an east wind was blowing. To stay within the smoke screen, the American ships, on the run, had to keep moving westward. Hosagaya’s fleet was between the U.S. task force and Attu and forced McMorris ever closer to Paramushiro.

A second damaging hit crashed home below Salt Lake City’s waterline at 1103. This explosion on the port side aft flooded her gyro room, burst oil tanks, and saltwater and oil poured into her port side compartments. She slowed and took on a five-degree list to port despite pumping.

Engineers, trying to restore trim and counteract the flooding, inadvertently pumped saltwater into the main engine fuel lines. At 1150, the saltwater was introduced into the boilers and extinguished the burners. Without steam, propulsion was lost. Salt Lake City went dead in the water. During this time, she kept firing at the closing Japanese cruisers.

In the concealing smoke, McMorris maneuvered USS Richmond close to Salt Lake City and asked Captain Rodgers if he wished to abandon ship. Rodgers declined and requested more time to try to get up steam. McMorris ordered destroyer Pale to continue to circle the crippled cruiser and lay smoke. He ordered the other three destroyers, under Captain R.S. Riggs, USN in USS Bailey, to carry out a virtual suicide torpedo attack against the two Japanese heavy cruisers.

Destroyers USS Bailey, USS Coghlan, and USS Monoghan, twisting and turning at flank speed to evade enemy salvos, raced toward almost certain disaster to launch their torpedo attacks. At 10,000 yards, Bailey received a hit that knocked out her electric power. She fired five torpedoes, lost headway, and turned away with enemy near-hits cascading water over her. Monaghan and Coghlan were 9,000 yards from the enemy cruisers without being hit. At 1203, the enemy fleet astonishingly turned tail and retired to the west at high speed.

An odd set of circumstances had saved Salt Lake City and quite possibly the entire U.S. North Pacific Fleet from destruction. First of all, Hosagaya did not know that Salt Lake City was crippled and dead in the water because she was hidden by smoke. During the time that Salt Lake City’s crew had been fighting the flooding and trying to get the boiler relit, she had kept firing. She had run so low on armor-piercing shells that some high explosive ammunition had been used. When these shells exploded close to Nachi, they made a white phosphorous splash similar to aerial bombs.

This, coupled with a large amount of radio traffic intercepted between the U.S. task force and Adak, led Hosagaya to believe U.S. planes were bombing him through the overcast. Hosagaya was so convinced that he ordered his anti-aircraft batteries to fire blindly up through the clouds.

Nachi had received considerable damage and was still in range of and being fired at by the smoke-shrouded American heavy cruiser. It was under torpedo attack by U.S. destroyers. Believing that enemy bombers were also attacking him, Hosagaya broke off the engagement.

Although casualties were light on both sides and no ships had been sunk, the little-known Battle of the Komandorski Islands was a resounding American victory and important for several reasons:

1. It wrested naval supremacy of the North Pacific from the Japanese. They had already lost air supremacy in Aleutian waters and attempted no further surface supply convoys, thus assuring the success of the U.S. blockade, which left Japan’s garrisons on Kiska and Attu in a desperate situation.
2. The battle lasted an incredible duration of three and one-half hours. It was the longest classic surface engagement in modern naval history.
3. Admiral Hosagaya’s retiring with a superior force was not viewed with favor. In disgrace, he was subsequently relieved of command and replaced by Vice Admiral Shiro Kawase, IJN.

In a final note, Goodwin, Turnbull, and Spence, who earlier had been my weather shipmates aboard Indianapolis, took part in this battle. This trio had been transferred to the COMCRUDIV (Commander Cruiser Division) Flag unit of Admiral McMorris and served under him in his flagship USS Richmond. During the battle, Goodwin was the bridge messenger of Admiral McMorris.