#头条创作挑战赛 #
The Battle of the Mariana Sea in June 1944 was an important battle in the Pacific War of World War II.
The Mariana Islands, where the battle broke out, are located in the western Pacific Ocean and include 16 volcanic islands including Guam, Saipan, Tinian and Rota, as well as a number of nearby coral reefs.
The Battle of Mariana was one of the largest naval battles of the Pacific War. This showdown between the United States and Japan is often considered the largest aircraft carrier showdown.
Image from the Internet: US President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill
The U.S. sent as many as 15 aircraft carriers in the battle with the goal of breaking through the Japanese defenses in the Mariana Islands.
Naturally, Japan was not to be outdone, and sent 9 aircraft carriers to fight. At that time, the Japanese army had troops stationed on Guam and Saipan, so it seemed that the United States and Japan were equal, and a vicious battle would occur.
Image from the Internet: Chester William Nimitz, five-star admiral of the US Navy and commander-in-chief of the US Pacific Fleet
But the subsequent war was one-sided. The US military beat the Japanese troops to the north, and some US soldiers even ridiculed that this was a "Mariana turkey hunting competition."
Why did the U.S. military call the battle that? This brings us to the "Zero" fighter that the Japanese army used a lot in this battle.
The Americans called the Zero a "turkey." In the early days of the Pacific War, this "turkey" of the Japanese brought great damage to the US military, and the Americans had a headache for this fighter.
So at a deeper level, why did the Battle of Mariana show the overwhelming victory of the US military? Leaving aside this question, let's talk about the reasons for the outbreak of the Battle of Mariana.
Image from the Internet: World War II US B-29 long-range bomber
After Pearl Harbor, the United States declared war on Japan and the Pacific War broke out. Later, after the Battle of Midway and the Battle of Guadalcanal, the US army gradually reversed the unfavorable situation in the early days of the war and advanced westward step by step.
Passive, Japan had to build a defensive line in the western Pacific, one of the keys to which was the Mariana Islands.
Located southeast of Japan and east of the Philippines, the Mariana Islands are an arc-shaped island that guards the throat of the Central Pacific shipping lanes and a maritime communication hub between Asia and the Americas. During World War II, the U.S. military launched a strategic counteroffensive against the Japanese mainland, and the Mariana Islands were the only way to go.
Image from the Internet: Japanese Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa
Beginning in 1944, U.S. Army Five-Star General MacArthur led allied forces toward the Philippines in an attempt to land in the Philippines from Manila.
At the same time, Nimitz, commander-in-chief of the US Pacific Fleet, ordered the capture of the Palau Islands, the gateway to Southeast Asia
Under the attack of the US military on both sides, the strategic space of the Japanese army was gradually compressed. At this time, the Mariana Islands became an important stronghold for the Japanese army to lose.
In the view of the US military, the capture of the Mariana Islands is equivalent to finding a breakthrough in the defense circle of the Japanese army, and the US military will undoubtedly hold more initiative for the future strategic counteroffensive against the Japanese mainland.
For the Japanese military, once the US military takes the Mariana Islands and builds an airfield on the island, then the US military will use this as a springboard to directly fly B-29 long-range bombers over Tokyo, Japan.
Image from the Internet: US Army five-star general Douglas MacArthur
At this time, the power of the US Navy was much stronger than it was at the beginning of the Pacific War.
In the early days of the Pacific War, more military forces were deployed in Europe as the United States pursued a strategy of prioritizing the European battlefield. The U.S. Pacific Fleet has only three aircraft carriers and about 150 other types of ships.
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, although it initially attacked the US naval power in the Pacific, it also unleashed the industrial potential of the United States, and various large surface ships were manufactured like dumplings.
By 1944, the US Pacific Fleet was already a formidable naval force with more than a dozen aircraft carriers, while Japan, whose resource endowment was obviously not a grade, gradually revealed its equipment disadvantages and resource decline as the war deepened.
Image from the Internet: World War II Japanese aircraft carrier "Daho"
In June 1944, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt decided to launch the Battle of Mariana, which was commanded by U.S. Admiral Spruance, commander of the Fifth Fleet.
Under Spruance, the Fifth Fleet, with 15 aircraft carriers, 7 battleships, 85 cruisers, 28 submarines, and more than 900 aircraft, marched towards the Mariana Islands.
The Japanese also attached great importance to the defense of the Mariana Islands, sending a combined fleet of 9 aircraft carriers, 5 battleships, 45 cruisers and more than 700 aircraft to reinforce.
This combined fleet of Japanese forces was led by Japanese Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa.
Ozawa Jisaburo is a well-known Japanese naval and air force expert in aviation warfare, and once defeated the British expeditionary fleet at a small cost of losing three aircraft in the Battle of Malaya, sinking the British capital battleship "Prince of Wales".
Image from the Internet: World War II US Navy submarine "Spiny Fin"
On June 19, 1944, the Japanese were the first to discover the U.S. aircraft carrier group. Due to the longer range of the Japanese bombers, Jisaburo Ozawa stopped the aircraft carrier at a distance of 400 nautical miles from the US aircraft carrier formation and then sent bombers to attack.
The plan of the Japanese army was to send bombers from the aircraft carrier, first bomb the first round of the US aircraft carrier, then land at Mariana Airport to refuel, then continue to bomb the second round of the US aircraft carrier, and finally return to the aircraft carrier.
The Japanese 320 "Zero" fighters attacked the US army in four echelons. The U.S. military sent F6F Hellcat fighters to fight.
The maximum power of the Japanese Zero fighter is 875 horsepower, but the body is light, the speed is more than 530 kilometers per hour, and the range has reached 2200 kilometers, which exceeds the main fighters of the US military in speed and range.
Image from the Internet: World War II Japanese "Zero" fighter
The speed of the US F6F Hellcat fighter was affected due to full body armor and bulletproof settings, but everything else restrained the Japanese Zero fighter.
Although the Zero fighter is highly mobile, its combat effectiveness is greatly limited due to the cross-interception by the Hellcat fighter.
Under the anti-aircraft fire of US warships and the "Hellcat fighters", in the first round of the Japanese offensive, none of the 42 Japanese "Zero" fighters could fly over the US aircraft carrier, and the first round of the Japanese offensive was disintegrated.
In the second round of offensive that soon came, due to the insufficient armor of the "Zero" fighters and the lack of combat experience of the Japanese pilots, the battle soon turned into a unilateral slaughter of the "Zero" fighters by the "Hellcat fighters".
Image from the Internet: World War II Japanese Navy "Flying Eagle" aircraft carrier
At least 70 Japanese Zeros were shot down in the second offensive, which is the origin of the term "turkey hunting competition".
Few Japanese Zeros were able to break through the Hellcat's defenses, and even if a few Zeros did, they were awaited by shotgun-like anti-aircraft fire from U.S. warships.
To add insult to injury, Japan's aircraft carriers are also facing U.S. attacks at the moment. The Japanese aircraft carrier "Shozuru" was sunk by the US submarine "Spiny Fin". Another Japanese aircraft carrier, the aircraft carrier "Daho", was damaged and exploded and sank.
On June 20, 1944, the Americans locked the position of the Japanese aircraft carrier group, and Spruance ordered 85 fighters, 77 bombers, and 54 torpedo planes to take off to attack the Japanese fleet.
Image from the Internet: World War II US Navy F6F Hellcat fighter
The Japanese aircraft carrier "Flying Eagle" was sunk. Three Japanese aircraft carriers, the Mizuru, Hayabusa, and Chiyoda, were damaged. 65 Japanese fighters were shot down.
Ozawa Jisaburo had to order a retreat. Spruance risked nightfall and ordered the fighters to continue the pursuit, but at night American aircraft could not detect the location of the Japanese aircraft carrier.
The fall of night caused great difficulties for the return of the US carrier-based aircraft, and Spruance risked being discovered by Japanese submarines, and ordered the aircraft carrier formation to turn on the lights to show the way for the carrier-based aircraft, and the US planes scrambling to return were crowded, causing tragic collisions and explosions. Some U.S. military planes ran out of fuel and planted into the sea.
Image from the Internet: World War II Japanese Navy aircraft carrier "Shozuru"
In this catastrophic return voyage, the U.S. lost more than 80 aircraft and nearly 50 pilots, far more than the losses against Japan in the Battle of the Marianas.
Fortunately, the Japanese army, which suffered a crushing defeat at this time, had no fighting spirit and did not have the heart to send submarines to track the American troops, and the American troops did not suffer greater losses.
Image from the Internet: US Admiral, Commander of the Fifth Fleet, Spruance
The Battle of Mariana was one-sided, with the Japanese losing 3 aircraft carriers and shooting down more than 600 aircraft.
The Japanese army completely lost sea and air supremacy in the central and western Pacific Ocean. It can be said that after the naval battle, the Japanese army on the Mariana Islands became a lone army, and they were greeted with the fate of annihilation.
In a word, the Battle of Mariana ended in the victory of the US army, and the result of the Battle of Mariana was decisive for the US army's final victory in the Pacific War. This naval battle not only destroyed the main fleet of the Japanese Navy, but also dealt a great blow to Japan's politics and economy, which made the Japanese army have to turn to the defensive even more helplessly in the war.