1943-03-02
Battle of the Bismarck Sea
Bismarck Sea, on the way from Rabaul to Lae
Eight transports and eight destroyers left Rabaul for Lae. Allied aircraft, American and Australian, sank every transport and four destroyers: Shirayuki, Arashio, Asashio, and Tokitsukaze. Yukikaze, Asagumo, Shikinami, and Uranami got away with survivors. No Allied warship was in the daylight fight. Eight motor torpedo boats attacked the wrecks after dark. The sinking is credited to the aircraft, not to one plane or one boat.
Sunk in this fight
12 ships.
Battle of the Bismarck Sea, 2-4 March 1943. Reports of General MacArthur, Japanese Operations in the Southwest Pacific Area, Volume II, Plate 51. United States government. Public domain. The sheet is a Japanese diagram, with English notes on it. The sheet does not print a north arrow. New Ireland is at the top and the New Guinea coast is along the lower left. Rabaul is at the upper right. The sheet prints eight destroyers and eight transports leaving Rabaul on the night of 28 February. It prints one transport damaged at 1430 on 2 March, one transport sunk, four destroyers heading back to Rabaul, and seven transports and four destroyers sunk by 0800 on 3 March. It prints about 100 planes. This page's account is that all eight transports were sunk, and four destroyers. The sheet does not name the ships, and it does not credit a sinking to one plane.
