Led by U.S. naval icons such as Nimitz, Spruance, and Halsey, the innovative Rapid Carrier Mission Group proved decisive in the Pacific War
On August 17, 1945, two days after Emperor Hirohito announced Japan's surrender by radio, the ships of the U.S. Navy's Rapid Carrier Task Force (Task Force 38/58) conducted exercises near the Japanese mainland islands. In the lower right is the Carrier Wasp (CV-18). In addition to supporting battleships, cruisers, and destroyers, the formation included five other Essex-class aircraft carriers.
On December 7, 1941, the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, drew the United States relentlessly into the Pacific War and even World War II. Trained Japanese naval pilots from Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, Wyvern, Shōzuru and Mizutsuru attacked in two waves, sending four battleships to the bottom of the sea, sinking or damaging many other ships, destroying or damaging more than 300 aircraft, and killing about 2,400 U.S. servicemen. The attack demonstrated the combat range of modern aircraft carriers and the fragility of traditional surface ships. Within days, Britain's proud Royal Navy lost its latest warship, the Battlecruiser Prince of Wales and her spouse, repelling a Japanese airstrike off the coast of Malaya.
Rear Admiral Chester Nimitz has not forgotten the lessons of these operations, said Franklin Nimitz. President D. Roosevelt was quickly promoted to admiral and appointed him to command the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Nimitz reorganized the fleet into four task forces centered on the aircraft carriers LEXINGTON, Enterprise, Hornet and YORKTOWN. The admiral then planned a counter-attack aircraft carrier raid on Japan, most notably on April 18, 1942, when 16 B-25 bombers were fired one-way from Bumblebee's extremely long range to bomb the Japanese home islands.
Captain Mark, commander of the Hornets. A. "Pete" Mitscher, a pioneering naval pilot and radical warrior, later commanded Task Force 38/58, arguably the most powerful fleet in military history.
Despite such proof of the effectiveness of aircraft carriers, senior U.S. naval officers still generally believe that battleships are the main weapon at sea. Its followers are known as the "Gun Club." Naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan's theory of sea power dominated 20th-century military thought at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and the Naval War Academy in Newport, Rhode Island. The "Admiral of Aviation" continued to exist during the war.
On May 8, 1942, during the Battle of the Coral Sea, the USS Lexington (CV-2) escaped at Pearl Harbor. Here, the crew of a rescue ship is transporting the surviving Lexington crew. (Naval History and Heritage Command)
Facing the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in the Pacific, the U.S. Navy initially fought weakly. With only four repairable aircraft carriers and inferior aircraft deployed, the battleships unable to serve after months of damage in Hawaii left the Navy with little chance of launching an effective offensive while waiting for U.S. industry to produce ships, aircraft and weapons. Still, the Navy has important assets. One of them is its cryptography division at Pearl Harbor, known as "Station Hypo," which has been deciphering the IJN's primary communication code, JN-25, since 1940, despite understaffing and underfunding. Hypo's supervisor, Lt. Cmdr, drives the department's work. Joseph J. Rochefort, a codebreaker, was able to unlock enough Japanese transmissions to provide critical intelligence to the naval hierarchy in early 1942.
The importance of their work was demonstrated in the Battle of the Coral Sea in southeastern New Guinea. In April, Admiral Ernest King, commander-in-chief of the U.S. Fleet and chief of naval operations, asked for an assessment of Japan's strategic intentions. Rochefort responded that an enemy attack on Port Moresby in Papua, New Guinea, could be imminent. Nimitz responded by sending Yorktown and Lexington to the Coral Sea. The ensuing battle in early May was the first aircraft carrier engagement in history and was fraught with accidents. Both sides lost one of their carriers — Lexington and Shaw — and it was a bit of a draw.
The Japanese abandoned their attempt to capture Port Moresby and focused their attention on Little Midway, the westernmost tip of the Hawaiian Islands. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander of the Combined Fleet of the Japanese Navy, was determined to destroy the wreckage of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, especially the aircraft carriers, that had escaped at Pearl Harbor. To lure the aircraft carriers into a deadly trap, he devised a surprise attack on the U.S. military base on Midway, focusing on attacking the four aircraft carriers at Pearl Harbor— Akagi, Kaga, Wyvern, and Soryu.
Yamamoto is an avid poker player who believes he holds all the A's, but things don't go the way he wants. The cryptographers in Rochefort learned about the targets and approximate dates of the attacks, the complete order of japanese battles, and the possible locations of the attack fleet. On June 3, pilots of a joint PBY Catalina reconnaissance aircraft spotted an approaching enemy invasion fleet.
The news sparked Nimitz, who sent three of his aircraft carriers—Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown—to a staging point northeast of Midway. William S. Lt. Gen. Bull" Halsey was hospitalized for an infection, Nimitz put Major General Raymond Spruance in charge of the Enterprise and Hornet, and Maj. Gen. Frank Fletcher in charge of Yorktown and took full command.
The approaching Japanese fleet, unaware of the approaching U.S. carrier, sent more than 100 aircraft to attack Midway earlier on June 4, unaware of the approaching U.S. carrier. At the same time, there were combat aircraft available at the Midway Military Police Station to attack the Japanese. In the ensuing air melee, most of the attackers were shot down. While Nanyun's pilots caused moderate damage to the island's facilities, they lost 11 aircraft and wreaked havoc on dozens of other aircraft in intense anti-aircraft fire. In order to launch a more destructive raid, Nanyun ordered his carrier commander to rearm and replace the weapons on the Japanese aircraft — a time-consuming task.
At the same time, Fletcher had enterprise and hornet head in the direction of the Japanese fleet in order to shorten the distance to the target. After consulting with Halsey's chief of staff, Captain Miles Browning, Spruance ordered a full launch on the long-range launch of South Cloud's carrier, which Fletcher soon followed suit from Yorktown. Browning was right to think there was a good chance of catching up with the Japanese rearmament and refueling. Before the task force's Douglas SBD dreadnought dive bombers could save the situation, three squadrons of outdated Douglas TBD Destroyer torpedo bombers were shot down or repulsed without a single hit. When the Japanese deck was jammed by aircraft, bombs, torpedoes, and fuel lines, the SBD hit and severely damaged Akagi, Soryu, and Kaga.
A few hours later, two more dive bombers converged and attacked the Wyvern, which eventually sank. In one afternoon, the U.S. Navy's three carrier strike forces changed the course of the Pacific War. The Japanese lost four fleet carriers, one heavy cruiser, about 250 attack aircraft, and many of its finest crew at the cost of Yorktown. Yamamoto ordered a retreat that night. The withdrawal marked the effective end of his operation to strike a thorough blow at the U.S. Navy, leaving the Japanese Navy facing a naval battle against U.S. industrial power.
The U.S. victory at Midway had other consequences. The first was an urgent upgrade of all carrier-based aircraft, including the introduction of fighters capable of defeating the Japanese A6M Zero. Grumman responded within a few months, introducing the first production model, the F6F Hellcat. It can overtake, overtake and beyond the Zero, reach higher operating limits, and better protect pilots with armored and self-sealing fuel tanks. In February 1943, the first ready F6F arrived in the Pacific Fleet. It proved to be the best carrier-based fighter in the war. Grumman also produced the typical carrier-based torpedo bomber TBF-1 Avenger.
While the reliable Dauntless remained the main dive bomber, Curtiss-Wright introduced the more powerful carrier-based bomber, the SB2C Helldiver, despite its early problems, and did not reach operational status until late 1943.
At the start of the war, Congress allocated funds to build more aircraft carriers, leading to the construction and launch of 13 Essex-class flat-top aircraft, a 27,100-ton force that would soon overwhelm the Pacific Task Force. These will be accompanied by dozens of escort (or "jeep") aircraft carriers that carry smaller aircraft.
The fighting on Midway in the Pacific evolved into a series of skirmishes, with both sides building surface fleets and air power. In early August 1942, the 1st Marine Division made an unexpected landing on Guadalcanal, Tulagyi, and neighboring islands in the Solomon Islands, triggering weeks of arduous fighting on land and sea, with heavy losses. Naval battles — involving the carrier Wasp (hit by three Japanese torpedoes, abandoned and scuttled), Saratoga and Enterprise (both badly damaged and sent to Pearl Island for repairs) — were costly on both sides. For a time, before it sank, the new Hornet was the only carrier operating the U.S. fleet in the Pacific, and the soon-restored Enterprise became the only operating U.S. fleet carrier. The Japanese nearly recaptured Guadalcanal, but it was eventually in American hands.
In 1943, with the arrival of the Essex-class aircraft carriers and their improved aircraft in the Central Pacific under nimitz command, the balance of naval power shifted to the Americans. Major U.S. shipyards worked around the clock, launching a number of Essex-class flat-top boats in just 16 months. Six entered service in 1943 and seven in 1944. The new carrier is characterized by improved radar and communications. Each had 36 fighters, 36 dive bombers and 18 torpedo bombers. The carrier was also equipped with anti-aircraft guns: 12 turret-mounted 5-inch guns with a range of 10 miles, up to 18 quadruple 40 mm Bofors guns and more than 55 20 mm Erecon guns. In this industrial/arms race, japan was unable to keep up with the U.S. shipbuilding industry as early as 1943. In addition, given the nature of its extensive pilot training,
In 1943, a new U.S. doctrine of shipboard warfare divided naval assets in the Pacific into two large fleets: the Third Fleet (in the South Pacific under Halsey's command) and the Seventh Fleet (in the Southwest Pacific under the command of General Douglas MacArthur). In 1944, the Third Fleet formed the basis of the Fifth Fleet (under the command of Spruance in the Central Pacific), with fleet names and commands switching back and forth between Spruance and Halsey. Most of the new fleet carriers and Independence-class light carriers were assigned to the Central Pacific. That summer, the USS Essex, USS New York City and USS Lexington arrived at Pearl Harbor along with the light carriers USS Independence, USS Princeton and USS Bellowwood. As naval historian Clark G. Reynolds explained in his 1968 canonical book Fast Carrier, multi-carrier contingents began to form "major offensive detachments" against the Japanese-controlled Gilbert and Marshall Islands.
Deployed in September 1943, the Grumman F6F Wildcat proved to be more than just an adversary to the Japanese Zero and quickly became the dominant carrier-based fighter in the Pacific. (Naval History and Heritage Command)
Recognizing the fragility of task forces built around one or two aircraft carriers, the new doctrine assumes the deployment of three to six fleet carriers in the center of a circular formation, surrounded by cruisers and destroyers equipped with anti-aircraft guns, and escort carriers, each carrying 30 attack aircraft aircraft, accompanied by the latest fast battleships with speeds matching the carriers. The main offensive weapons of these contingents were their 500-1,100 attack aircraft with ranges of up to 1,500 miles.
The innovative offensive doctrine on which the new Rapid Carrier Task Force was based was largely created by then-Vice Admiral Mark Mitchell. In late January 1944, Mitchell prepared for Operation Flintlock, a battle to capture the Japanese stronghold of Kwajalein in the Marshal's Quarter. By then, his fleet was operating as Task Force 58 (TF 58), consisting of 12 carriers, divided into 4 mission groups of 3 carriers each, for a total of 650 attack aircraft.
The Battle of Kwajalein began with an airstrike on January 31, with battleships and destroyers bombing its fortifications. By noon, carrier fighters had cleared the skies of Japanese aircraft. Marine Corps units landed on February 1. After three days of fighting and relentless air raids, the island has fallen into American hands. The same is true of the huge anchorage adjacent to Majuro Atoll, which became a new forward base for the Central Pacific Fleet.
In mid-February, Task Force 58 began its attack on Truk from Majuro, the capital of the "Pacific of Gibraltar" and the Caroline Islands.
As Reynolds writes in Fast Carrier:
A sweep of 72 fighter jets launched before dawn on February 17 opened an airstrike against the "indestructible" Truk... About 80 Japanese aircraft and heavy, inaccurate anti-aircraft guns challenged Mitchell's sweep, but only half of the Zero fighters attempted to engage. For most of the morning, the air battle was in full swing, losing 50 zero and 4 Hellcats... The carrier-based aircraft then strafed the parked aircraft on three strips, destroying or damaging a total of about 150 and another 100 undamaged ... The bombers went straight to work and had a field day. Before Task Force 58 left Truk, about 140,000 tons of enemy ships sank or piled up on the beach... One pilot who observed the work noted: "That's how we win battles in the future." Teamwork is the answer. ”
In fact, the Truk attack was the prototype for the TF 58's victory over the Japanese Air Force and its numerous island bases in 1944 and 45. America's major advantage contributed to these victories. Surprises are often a factor, thanks to the unprecedented maneuverability of the task force — and the Fact that the Japanese never realized their naval code had been cracked. The proficiency of Japanese pilots declined because many of their original elite pilots were lost in 1944, and their replacements could not match the old American pilots.
As more and more U.S. aircraft carriers and battleships arrived in the Pacific, the Navy succeeded in destroying Japanese positions in the Marshall Islands and carolina, opening the way for a full-scale attack on the Mariana Islands — Tinian, Saipan, Guam, and Rota. The strategic importance of the island group is becoming increasingly prominent: U.S. air bases on those islands will allow Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers — with a range of 3,250 miles and the ability to carry up to 10 tons of bombs — to deal a devastating blow to the Japanese home islands.
The 1944 attack on the Mariana Islands, code-named Operation Foragers, proved decisive, with the main weapon being the TF 58. It was then that King divided the fleet into two commands—one for strikes and one for planning. The equally powerful Rapid Carrier Task Force, known as the Fifth Fleet under Spruance and Mitchell, was called the TF 58, and the Third Fleet under The Halsey and Vice Admiral John McCain was called the TF 38. Understandably, the names of flip-flops confuse the Japanese. In June, the TF 58 sailed to the Mariana Islands with 15 flat-roof aircraft, carrying more than 900 aircraft, seven battleships, more than 20 cruisers and dozens of destroyers. The Americans would use that mighty fleet to prepare for the landings in the Mariana Islands. The total does not include the dozens of ships transported to the beach by nearly 130,000 Marine and Army units.
In 1944, under the light carrier HMS Langley, the ships of Task Force 38.3, one of four TF 38 groups, entered the Ulrich anchorage in the Caroline Islands. (National Archives)
Mitscher launched forager on June 11, sending about 200 F6F Hellcats to attack a Japanese air base on Saipan. That strike began a week-long carrier-based attack, followed by two days of bombing. The first landings took place on June 15, when about 20,000 Marines landed.
Desperate to seize the Mariana Islands, Japanese Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa rallied his entire First Maneuver Fleet — five battleships and nine aircraft carriers, including the newly launched Ozawa flagship, the Osawa flagship, the Daiho — to fight back in what one remembers as the Battle of the Philippine Sea, the largest carrier in the war. Both Mitchell and Ozawa saw this as an opportunity to destroy the enemy's main Pacific fleet.
As the Japanese fleet approached Saipan from the west, American submarines tracked and reported its progress. Ozawa began fighting at around 10 a.m. on June 19, launching the first of four waves of 373 carrier-based aircraft. American radar operators spotted them 100 miles away, and Mitchell sent every hellcat he owned — nearly 300 — to scream into the air.
The Japanese pilots were defeated, and the greatest naval and air battle of the war was a massacre, which a cheerful American pilot called "the ancient turkey shooting."
By 3 p.m., Ozawa had lost two-thirds of his planes. Mitchell lost 20 Hellcats.
On the same day, American submarines torpedoed the two carriers of the Japanese fleet, Shozuru and Daiho, making the victory even more uneven. This is a harbinger of the coming Pacific Ocean. U.S. submarines equipped with improved torpedoes played an increasing role in destroying Japanese naval assets and merchant ships carrying oil and other strategic supplies.
The summer of 1944 was marked by a series of raids and invasions on small islands in the Mariana Islands and elsewhere. The next major battle in Leyte Gulf in late October marked the beginning of MacArthur's push to liberate the Philippines. The Wright attests to the last battleship-to-battleship battle in history, and the largest naval battle in modern history, with more than 280 warships, including the ships of Halsey's Third Fleet. It also marks the end of IJN's offensive combat power.
Ominously, the Battle of Leyte Gulf also witnessed the first organized attack by a Japanese kamikaze ("kamikaze") aircraft. With most of the experienced crew already killed, the Japanese Navy turned to training its young green pilots to crash into the Allied warships. During the fighting in the Philippines, kamikazes posed a serious threat, sinking the escort carrier St. Lo and damaging the fleet carriers Essex, Franklin, Hancock, Intrepid and Lexington, the light carrier Belleau Wood and Cabot, and more than six escort carriers, all of which were retired for repairs. The only real defense against such an attack is accurate and relentless anti-aircraft fire — but it will never be 100% effective against dozens or even hundreds of kamikazes.
At the end of the year, the Mariana Islands were in U.S. hands, the battle to liberate the Philippines was underway, and the next islands to be fought for were Iwo Jima in the Bonin Islands and Okinawa in the Ryukyu Islands. The Americans invaded the former in February 1945 and the latter in April. Iwo Jima is located about 760 miles south of Tokyo, enough to escort the B-29 Squadron with land-based fighter jets.
Both Iwo Jima and Okinawa originated in volcanoes, had rugged terrain, and were desperately defended by fanatical Japanese troops who were homeless. Task Force 58 was at its peak in strength and experience, dedicated to a lengthy air raid on both islands and was the first to be attacked by kamikazes. These attacks proved to be more lethal and destructive than encounters with IJN's aircraft carriers and battleships, which at the time was essentially toothless.
On his way to Iwo Jima on February 16-17, Spruance gained a long-standing desire to strike at the Japanese mainland and fired more than 1,000 aircraft from Task Force 58 to attack enemy air bases, factories, and other facilities, and engage any remaining fighter jets. The attack was a success, causing extensive damage, sinking several ships, shooting down about 500 Japanese aircraft and losing 88 American fighter jets, 60 of which were in combat.
On Iwo Jima, Task Force 58 provided pre-landing bombing support and airstrikes in late February while continuing its attacks on the home islands. On 21 February, kamikaze wreaked havoc on Saratoga and sank the escort carrier Bismarck Sea. The invasion claimed the lives of nearly 7,000 Marines and more than 500 sailors, and wounded another 20,000. On the Japanese side, the 21,000-strong garrison was almost completely annihilated.
Once in The hands of the Americans, Iwo Jima became a valuable emergency haven for the damaged B-29 and a fighter escort base assigned to its own islands for bomber attacks.
Following Iwo Jima, the April 1 invasion of Okinawa proved to be the bloodiest single battle in the Pacific. Like Iwo Jima, Task Force 58 provided pre-landing bombing support and airstrikes to Okinawa in the first week of combat alone, while fending off repeated kamikaze attacks by more than 300 aircraft. A series of protracted kamikaze attacks lasted until May, with the Japanese losing at least 1,500 aircraft (and pilots) and the Americans losing more than a dozen destroyers and hundreds of damaged ships. At the end of the war, kamikaze successfully destroyed the fleet carriers Bunker Hill, Enterprise, Hancock, Intrepid, and Wasp.
Among Japan's desperate efforts to control Okinawa was a task force centered on the new, super-large warship, the Yamato, which was sent to sabotage the U.S. invasion. Mitchell launched nearly 400 carrier-based aircraft interception formations. After being hit by at least 11 torpedoes and six bombs, the huge Yamato eventually capsized and sank.
In total, the Allied Navy lost more than 30 ships and more than 760 carrier-based aircraft in the Battle of Okinawa. Nearly 5,000 American sailors and about 7,600 soldiers and Marines were killed. By the end of the battle on June 21, Japan had lost about 110,000 soldiers and Okinawa recruits.
The task force's raid on Japan then complemented the ongoing B-29 incendiary damage of the U.S. Army Air Force Maes 21st Bomber Command' 21st Bomber Command. Throughout the summer of 1945, air and sea attacks on home-growing islands increased as Allied planners prepared for an invasion of Japan (Operation Downfall).
The final curtain of the Pacific War was about to fall, and the fall of the two atomic bombs came to an abrupt end. It was not until August 15, when Emperor Hirohito announced Japan's unconditional surrender, that Nimitz stopped all combat operations of the fabled Fast Carrier Formation.