| Battle of the Philippine Sea |
| Part of World War II, Pacific War |
The carrier Zuikaku (center) and two destroyers under attack by
U.S. Navy carrier aircraft, June 20 1944 |
|
|
| Combatants |
United States Navy
|
Imperial Japanese Navy
|
| Commanders |
| Ray Spruance |
Jisaburo Ozawa
Kakuji Kakuta |
| Strength |
7 fleet carriers,
8 light carriers,
7 battleships,
79 other ships,
28 submarines,
956 planes |
5 fleet carriers,
4 light carriers,
5 battleships,
43 other ships,
450 carrier-based planes,
300 land-based planes |
| Casualties |
| 123 planes destroyed (about 80 of whose crews survived) |
3 carriers sunk,
2 oilers sunk,
about 600 planes destroyed,
6 other ships heavily damaged |
The Battle of the Philippine Sea was a significant naval battle of World War II,
fought by the navies of the United States and the Empire
of Japan. Part of the wider Pacific War, this action occurred on June 19-20, 1944 off the Mariana Islands and also involved Japanese land-based aircraft. The engagement proved disastrous for the
Imperial Japanese Navy which lost three aircraft carriers and some 600 aircraft. These losses are largely attributed to Japanese reliance on
obsolete aircraft types and inexperienced air crews, in contrast to the US Navy's new
model aircraft, better-trained pilots and radar-coordinated combat air patrols.
Background
Operation A
In September 1943, IJN Headquarters decided that the time was right to go back on the offensive in the Pacific. Since the U.S.
was attacking Japanese-held islands in the course of its “island hopping campaign”, the
lack of aircraft could be addressed with the addition of strong land-based air forces. The result was Operation A (あ号作戦),
which would take place some time in early 1944, attacking the U.S. Pacific
Fleet while it launched its next minor offensive. On May 3, orders for Operation A were
sent out, and the waiting began.
The Japanese fleet, commanded by Vice-Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa, consisted of five fleet
carriers (Taihō, Shōkaku, Zuikaku, Junyō,
and Hiyō), four light carriers (Ryuho, Chitose,
Chiyoda, and Zuihō), five battleships (Yamato, Musashi,
Kongō, Haruna, and Nagato) and
supporting cruisers, destroyers, and oilers.
On June 11, U.S. carrier-borne forces started a series of small strikes on the Marianas,
convincing Admiral Toyoda Soemu, Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet, that the U.S. was
preparing to invade. This came as something of a surprise because the Japanese had expected the next U.S. target to be further to
the south, either the Carolines or the Palaus, and
therefore the Marianas were protected with a weak force of only 50 aircraft.
On June 15 1944, the U.S. started its invasion of Saipan, and Toyoda gave the order for the attack. The main portions of the fleet,
consisting of six carriers and several battleships, rendezvoused on June 16 in the western part
of the Philippine Sea, and completed refueling on June
17.
U.S. response
The Japanese forces had been sighted on June 15 by American submarines, and by the next day
Admiral Ray Spruance, commander of the U.S. 5th Fleet, was positive a major battle was about to start. By the afternoon of
June 18, Admiral Marc Mitscher, aboard his flagship (the
carrier USS Lexington) had his Task Force 58 (the Fast Carrier Task Force) formed up near Saipan to meet the
Japanese attack.
TF-58 consisted of five major groups. In front (to the west) was Admiral Willis Lee’s
Task Group 58.7 (TG-58.7), the “Battle Line”, consisting of seven fast battleships
(Washington, North
Carolina, Indiana, Iowa, New Jersey, South Dakota, and Alabama). Just
north of them was the weakest of the carrier groups, Rear Admiral William K. Harrill’s TG-58.4 of
three carriers (Essex, Langley, and Cowpens). To the east were
three groups of four carriers, each in a line running north to south: Rear Admiral Joseph
Clark’s TG-58.1 (Hornet, Yorktown, Belleau Wood, and
Bataan); Rear Admiral Alfred Montgomery’s
TG-58.2 (Bunker Hill, Wasp, Cabot, and Monterey); and Rear Admiral John W. Reeves’s TG-58.3
(Enterprise, Lexington, San Jacinto, and
Princeton). The capital ships were
supported by eight heavy cruisers, 13 light
cruisers, 58 destroyers, and 28 submarines.
Shortly before midnight on June 18, Admiral Chester W.
Nimitz sent Spruance a message from Pacific Fleet Headquarters indicating that the Japanese flagship was approximately 350
miles (650 km) to the west-southwest of Task Force 58. Shortly thereafter, Mitscher asked for permission to head west during
the night to an ideal launch position for an all-out attack on the enemy force at dawn.
However, Spruance refused. Throughout the run-up to the battle he had been concerned that the Japanese would try to draw his
main fleet away from the landing area using a diversionary force, and would then make an attack around the flank of the U.S.
carrier force — an “end run” — hitting the invasion shipping off Saipan. Instead, he placed TF-58 on a purely defensive footing,
leaving it to the Japanese to set the pace of the battle.
Spruance was heavily criticized by many officers after the battle, and continues to be to this day, because he missed the
chance to destroy all of the Japanese strike force when given the chance, but it is instructive to compare Spruance’s caution
with Admiral “Bull” Halsey’s later impetuous pursuit of a diversionary force of
Japanese carriers at the Battle of Leyte Gulf that left inferior U.S. forces open
to attack off Samar by a Japanese surface action group composed of cruisers, destroyers and
battleships.
Battle
Early actions
At 05:30 on June 19, TF-58 turned northeast into the wind and started to launch their air
patrols. The Japanese had already launched their morning search patrols using some of the 50 aircraft stationed on
Guam, and at 05:50, one of these, a Mitsubishi Zero, found TF-58.
After radioing his sighting of U.S. ships, he attacked one of the destroyers on picket duty
and was shot down.
Thus alerted, the rest of the Guam forces began forming up for an attack, but were spotted on radar by U.S. ships, and a group
of F6F Hellcats from the Belleau Wood were sent to investigate. The Hellcats arrived
while aircraft were still launching from Orote Field. Minutes later, additional radar contacts were seen, which were later
discovered to be the additional forces being sent north from the other islands. A huge battle broke out; 35 of the Japanese
planes were shot down, and the battle was still going an hour later when the Hellcats were recalled to their carriers.
Japanese raids
Fighter plane contrails mark the sky over Task Force 58,
June 19 1944
The recall had been ordered after several ships in TF-58 picked up radar contacts 150 miles (280 km) to the west at about
10:00. This was the first of the raids from the Japanese carrier forces, with 68 aircraft. TF-58 started launching every fighter
it could, and by the time, they were in the air the Japanese had closed to 70 miles (130 km). However, the Japanese began
circling in order to regroup their formations for the attack. This ten-minute delay proved critical, and the first group of
Hellcats met the raid, still at 70 miles, at 10:36. They were quickly joined by additional groups. Within minutes 25 Japanese
planes had been shot down, against the loss of only one U.S. aircraft.
The Japanese planes that survived were met by other fighters, and 16 more were shot down. Of the remainder, some made attacks
on the picket destroyers USS Yarnall and USS Stockham but caused no damage. Three or four bombers broke through to the battleship
group, and one made a direct hit on the USS South Dakota, which caused
many casualties, but failed to disable her. Not one aircraft of Ozawa’s first wave got through to the American carriers.
At 11:07, radar detected another, much larger attack. This second wave consisted of 109 aircraft. They were met while still 60
miles (110 km) out, and at least 70 of these aircraft were shot down before reaching the ships. Six attacked Rear Admiral
Montgomery’s group, making near-misses which caused casualties on two of the carriers. Four of the six were shot down. A small
group of torpedo aircraft attacked Enterprise, launching a torpedo which exploded in the
wake of the ship. Three other torpedo-planes attacked the light carrier Princeton but were shot down. In all, 97 of the
107 attacking aircraft were shot down.
The third raid, consisting of 47 aircraft, came in from the north. It was intercepted by 40 fighters at 13:00, while 50 miles
(90 km) out from the task force. Seven Japanese planes were shot down. A few broke through and made an ineffective attack on the
Enterprise group. Many others did not press home their attacks. This raid therefore suffered less than the others, and 40
of its aircraft managed to return to their carriers.
The fourth Japanese raid was launched between 11:00 and 11:30, but pilots had been given an incorrect location for the
Americans and could not find the fleet. They then broke into two loose groups and turned to Guam and Rota to refuel. One group of aircraft flying towards Rota stumbled upon Montgomery’s task group. Eighteen
aircraft joined battle with American fighters and lost half their number. A smaller group of nine Japanese dive bombers of this
force evaded U.S. planes and made attacks on the USS Wasp and the USS Bunker Hill, but failed to make any hits.
Eight of these aircraft were shot down in the process. The larger group of Japanese planes had flown to Guam and were intercepted
over Orote Field by 27 Hellcats while landing. Thirty of the 49 Japanese planes were shot down, and the rest were damaged beyond
repair. A pilot on the Lexington was overheard saying, "Hell, this is like an old-time turkey shoot!" Since then the
lopsided result of these air battles has been known as the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot”.
Submarine attacks
At 08:16 the submarine USS Albacore had sighted Ozawa’s own carrier
group and began an attack on the closest carrier, which was Taihō, the largest and newest carrier in the Japanese fleet
and Vice Admiral Jisburo Ozawa’s flagship. As Albacore was about to fire, however, her
fire-control computer failed, and the torpedoes had to be fired “by eye”.
Taihō had just launched 42 aircraft as a part of the second raid. Four of Albacore’s torpedoes were off-target.
Sakio Komatsu, the pilot of one of the recently-launched aircraft, sighted one of the two which were heading for Taihō and
crashed his aircraft on it, but the last torpedo struck the carrier on her starboard side, rupturing two aviation-fuel tanks. At
first, the damage did not appear to be very serious.
Another submarine, USS Cavalla, was able to maneuver to an attack
position on the 25,675-ton carrier Shōkaku by about noon. The sub fired a spread of six torpedoes, three of which struck
the Shōkaku. Badly damaged, the carrier came to a halt. One torpedo had hit the forward aviation fuel tanks near the main
hangar, and planes that had just landed and were being refueled exploded into flames. Ammunition and exploding bombs added to the
conflagration, as did burning fuel spewing from shattered fuel pipes. With her bows subsiding into the sea and fires out of
control, the captain gave orders to abandon ship. Within minutes, total catastrophe struck the vessel. Volatile gas fumes had
accumulated throughout the vessel, and when an aerial bomb exploded on the hangar deck, a series of terrific explosions simply
blew the ship apart about 140 miles (260 km) north of the island of Yap. The carrier rolled over and slid beneath the waves
taking 887 navy officers and men plus 376 men of Air Group 601, a total of 1,263 men in all, to the seabed. There were 570
survivors, including the carrier's commander, Captain Matsubara Hiroshi.
Meanwhile, Taihō was falling victim to poor damage control. On the orders of an inexperienced damage-control officer,
her ventilation system had been operated full-blast in an attempt to clear explosive fumes from the ship. This instead had the
effect of spreading throughout Taihō the vapors, which were liable to ignition by spark or flame. At 17:32, she suffered a
series of catastrophic explosions caused by the accumulated fumes igniting near an electric generator on the hangar deck. Of her
complement of 1,751, a total of 1,650 crewmen were lost. (The USS Albacore was later lost with her entire crew of 86
during her 11th patrol off the coast of Japan, on November 7, 1944, after hitting a mine.)
U.S. counterattack
TF-58 sailed west during the night in order to attack the Japanese at dawn. Search patrols were put up at first light.
Admiral Ozawa had transferred to the destroyer Wakatsuki after
Taihō had been hit, but the radio gear onboard was not capable of sending the number of messages needed, so he transferred
again, to the carrier Zuikaku, at 13:00. It was then that he learned of the disastrous results of the day before and that
he had about 150 aircraft left. Nevertheless, he decided to continue the attacks, thinking that there were still hundreds of
planes on Guam and Rota, and started planning new raids to be launched on June 21.
American searches failed to locate the Japanese fleet until 15:40. However the report made was so garbled that Mitscher knew
neither what had been sighted nor where. At 16:05, another report was received which was clearer, and Mitscher decided to launch
an “Alpha strike” even though there were only 75 minutes until sunset and his aviators did
not normally recover at night thereby risking significant losses to landing mishaps. The attack went in at 18:30.
Ozawa had been able to put up very few fighters to intercept the incoming U.S. attack —- no more than 35 according to later
estimates, but these few were skilfully handled, and the Japanese antiaircraft fire was intense. The U.S. raid, however,
contained 216 planes, and the majority were able to press the attack.
The first ships sighted by the U.S strike were oilers, and two of these were damaged so severely that they were later
scuttled. The carrier Hiyō was attacked and hit by bombs and aerial torpedoes from four Grumman Avengers from Belleau Wood. Hiyo was set afire after
a tremendous blast from leaking aviation fuel. Dead in the water, she slipped stern first under the waves, taking the lives of
250 officers and men. The rest of her crew, about one thousand, survived to be rescued by Japanese destroyers. The carriers
Zuikaku, Junyō, and Chiyoda were damaged by bombs, as was the battleship Haruna. Twenty American
aircraft were lost in this strike.
At 20:45, the first U.S. planes began to return to TF-58. Knowing his aviators would have difficulty finding their carriers,
Mitscher decided to fully illuminate his carriers shining searchlights directly up into the night, despite the risk of attack
from submarines and night-flying aircraft, and the picket destroyers fired starshells to help the planes find the task groups.
Despite this, 80 of the returning aircraft were lost, some crashing on flight decks, the majority going into the sea. Many of the
crews were rescued over the next few days.
Aftermath
That night, Admiral Ozawa received orders from Toyoda to withdraw from the Philippine Sea. U.S. forces gave chase, but the
battle was over.
The four Japanese attacks involved 373 carrier aircraft, of which 130 returned to the carriers, and several more were lost
onboard the two carriers sunk on the first day by submarine attacks. After the second day the losses totaled three carriers and
over 400 carrier aircraft lost and around 200 land based planes. Losses on the U.S. side on the first day were only 23, and on
the second 100, most of them resulting from the night landings.
The losses to the Japanese were irreplaceable. At the Japanese naval air arm, only 35 out of Admiral Ozawa's 473 planes were
left in a condition fit to fly. In the Battle of Leyte Gulf a few months later,
their carriers were used solely as a decoy because of the lack of aircraft and aircrews to fly them.
Notes
References
- Thomas B. Buell. The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance (1987).
- D'Albas, Andrieu (1965). Death of a Navy:
Japanese Naval Action in World War II. Devin-Adair Pub. ISBN 0-8159-5302-X.
- Dull, Paul S. (1978). A Battle History of the
Imperial Japanese Navy, 1941-1945. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-097-1.
- Lacroix, Eric; Linton Wells (1997). Japanese
Cruisers of the Pacific War. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-311-3.
- Samuel Eliot Morison, New Guinea and the Marianas, March 1944–August
1944, vol. 8 of History of United States Naval
Operations in World War II (1950).
- Smith, Douglas V. (2006). Carrier Battles: Command
Decision in Harm's Way. US Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1591147948.
- Barrett Tillman, Clash of the Carriers: The True Story of the Marianas Turkey
Shoot of World War II.
- Lieutenant Commander J. Bryan III: Mission Beyond Darkness The story of USS Lexington's Air Group 16 June 20, 1944
attack on the Japanese carrier fleet as told by the men who flew that day (1945)
- William T. Y'Blood. Red Sun Setting: The Battle of the Philippine Sea (2003).
External links
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