In the Pacific theater of the Second World War, much of the main action of the Imperial Japanese Navy was planned around and led by her fleet aircraft carriers. With the Battle of the Philippine Sea, Japan’s capability for launching and conducting effective large-scale carrier actions was virtually eliminated. It was the fifth battle between the principal carriers of the IJN and the U.S. Navy and, in addition to carrier-based aircraft, it involved other warships of both nations as well as land-based Japanese aircraft. In it, the Japanese Navy would ultimately lose the great majority of its carrier air strength.
The Japanese military had intended from the beginning of U.S. involvement in the Pacific war to do all they could to cause the Americans to suffer such extreme losses in manpower, equipment, aircraft and warships as to destroy the resolve of the American people and make them weary of the war, to weaken the U.S. militarily and in so doing open the door for Japan to continue her aggressive conquests in eastern and southeast Asia.
In spite of the growing disadvantages experienced by the Japanese as the war progressed, the High Command continued to believe that the Imperial Japanese Navy could fight the U.S. Navy in a single great decisive engagement in which they would defeat the Americans. But with the continuing excessive losses they were experiencing in the carrier battles of the Coral Sea, Midway, and in the Solomon Islands campaign, their capability to fight and win such an action was diminishing. The IJN simply could no longer project the level of force they had previously shown with their carriers. They were unable to replace the losses they were incurring among their skilled carrier pilots.
Still, the Japanese military planners aimed to conduct that decisive engagement with the U.S. Pacific Fleet sometime in early 1944. It would be delayed, however, as the IJN worked to reconstitute its carrier air groups in preparation for the big battle to come. By mid-1943, the navies of the United States and Britain had essentially neutralized the Japanese numerical and technological superiority of the early war years and had overtaken her in the quality and capability of many types of warships and aircraft. The quality of training in virtually all areas of the Allied navies was also superior by this time to that of the IJN.
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, among the best and brightest of Japan’s military minds and the mastermind and main planner of the Pearl Harbor strike on the American battleship fleet, which brought the U.S. into the war, was killed on 18 April 1943. During an inspection tour of Japanese forward positions in the Solomon Islands, the Mitsubishi Betty bomber in which the admiral was traveling was located and shot down by U.S. Army Air Force P-38 Lightning fighters of the 339th Fighter Squadron. Yamamoto was succeeded by Admiral Mineichi Koga as Commander in Chief of the Japanese Mobile Fleet.
The U.S. Navy Fast Carrier Task Force at that time had taken on a series of missions designed to weaken the Japanese land-based airpower capability and with it, Japan’s ability to cope with the coming Allied amphibious invasions of the island-hopping campaign. The missions were so effective, they substantially changed Allied campaign tactics in the remainder of the war.
In their defensive planning, Japanese military commanders considered the Marianas Islands in the Saipan, Guam, and Tinian, all of which would be vitally important in the American prosecution of the Pacific war. Tinian, in fact, would provide the massive air base from which most of the B-29 fire-bombing raids were flown near the end of the war, as well as the missions of Enola Gay and Bock’s Car, the bombers that delivered the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. But in 1943, the airfields of these islands based Japanese fighters and bombers whose role was the protection of the Japanese home islands and the sea lanes to them.
By early 1944 the powerful U.S. Pacific fleet had breeched Japan’s outer defensive circle, through the Marshall Islands and across the central Pacific towards the Marianas. The Japanese Imperial Staff now anticipated that the attentions of the U.S. fleet would next be directed at the Marianas, and that should the U.S. achieve control of the those islands, the big air bases there would put their B-29s within effective range of Japan’s home islands. It was that threat to the Marianas that triggered the Japanese decision to go ahead with their long-delayed decisive battle with the American navy.
The U.S. fleet’s Fast Carrier Task Force in 1944 was known as Task Force 58 and was commanded by Admiral Marc Mitscher. It was the primary fighting unit of the Navy and as such was the prime target of the Japanese in their battle plan. Though they were outnumbered in warships and aircraft, they would augment their carrier-based air power with substantial land-based aircraft. The greater range of these land-based aircraft enabled them to engage the U.S. carriers. And they intended to launch land-based aircraft from their island bases in the area, send them to attack the U.S. carriers and then land on other Japanese-occupied island airfields. They would then shuttle back to the original island bases, attacking the U.S. fleet again on the return flight. The Japanese planners knew too, that carrier-based aircraft (of any navy) required a head wind blowing down the flight deck to enable the aircraft to launch, and that the Central Pacific was dominated by easterly trade winds. Thus, the carriers of the U.S. fleet would have to be steaming eastward to launch and recover their aircraft. Positioning the Japanese fleet to the west of the Marianas then would ideally place it to both initiate and break off the battle, giving themselves the key initiative in the situation.
Alex Vraciu was the fourth highest-scoring U.S. Navy fighter ace of the Second World War.
It began on 12 June when aircraft from the American carriers flew a series of air attacks against the Marianas, which persuaded the Japanese commanders that the U.S. was about to invade the islands. It also surprised many of them who had been convinced that the next major move by the enemy forces would be more to the south, probably on the Palaus or the Carolines. In that belief, they had stationed a minimal force of just fifty aircraft to protect the Marianas. On 13 June, warships of the U.S. fleet began bombarding Saipan in preparation for invading it. The action caused the Japanese fleet commander to order a counterattack which was to be mounted by six Japanese carriers, and a number of battleships, all of them set to rendezvous on 16 June in the western Philippine Sea, where they would be refueled.
On 15 June seamen aboard U.S. Navy submarines sighted warships of the Japanese fleet. This enemy force consisted of the carriers Hiyo, Junyo, Shokaku, Taiho, and Zuikaku, the four light carriers Chitose, Chiyoda, Ryuho, and Zuiho, the five battleships Haruna, Kongo, Musashi, Nagato, and Yamato, together with their support cruisers, destroyers, and oilers. By the afternoon of the 18th, Admiral Mitscher had Task Force 58 formed up near Saipan ready to engage the Japanese fleet. The element of the task force nearest the enemy fleet was made up of the seven fast battleships Alabama, Indiana, Iowa, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Dakota, and Washington. Additionally, in support of the entire task force were eight heavy cruisers, thirteen light cruisers, fifty-eight destroyers and twenty-eight submarines. The various aircraft carriers present were organized into three groups of four. The first carrier group contained the Bataan, Belleau Wood, Hornet, and Yorktown. The second group contained the Bunker Hill, Cabot, Monterey, and Wasp, and the last group was composed of the Enterprise, Lexington, Princeton, and San Jacinto. In addition to these, there was a further group of three carriers including the Cowpens, Essex, and Langley.
By 05.50 in the morning of 19 June, one of the Japanese Zero aircraft stationed on Guam had flown a search patrol and the pilot had sighted the American Task Force 58. He radioed his report of the sighting and then dove to attack one of the U.S. destroyers on the fringe of the task force. He was quickly shot down.
Moments later, radar contacts by U.S. warships in the area began establishing the locations of various Japanese naval forces and a squadron of F6F Hellcat fighters was launched from the carrier Belleau Wood to patrol the area around Orote airfield, Guam, where many Japanese aircraft were taking off. In the ensuing air battle, thirty-five Japanese aircraft were downed. Most of the Hellcats returned safely to the carrier.
The powerful Grumman Hellcat fighter proved its worth hundreds of times in the Pacific theatre of World War Two. The 19 June 1944 air battle known as the ‘Great Marianas Turkey Shoot’ showcased the Hellcat’s performance. The Japanese Navy was no longer a significant threat to Allied forces in the western Pacific after the battle.
Radars of several TF58 vessels had picked up enemy warship contacts 150 miles to the west by 10 a.m., as well as a force of sixty-eight enemy aircraft in the first Japanese carrier-based raid of the battle. All available TF58 aircraft were launched and, in the resulting clash, twenty-five Japanese planes were shot down, for the loss of one Hellcat. Other groups of U.S. fighters soon arrived and took part in the action, downing a further sixteen enemy aircraft. Only three Japanese bombers managed to get through the U.S. fighters and attack the battleships of TF58, one of them getting a direct hit on the South Dakota causing several casualties, but the battleship was able to carry on in the action. None of the Japanese aircraft was able to get through to hit the American carriers. In five hours of attacks by Japanese aircraft, 143 of their own aircraft were shot down.
On the morning of 19 June 1944, Lieutenant J.G. Alex Vraciu (rhymes with cashew) and his squadron of twelve aircraft were launched to supplement the Lexington combat air patrol which was already airborne. Radar had picked up a force of bogies approaching the U.S. fleet in several large groups. Vraciu was leading the second of three four-plane divisions. As the Hellcats climbed at full military power, he heard the Lex fighter director (FDO) radio: “Vector 250. Climb to 25,000 pronto!” The protracted climb at full power was proving too much for some of the Hellcats. Vraciu’s engine began to throw a film of oil over his windshield, forcing him to ease back slightly on the throttle. However, his division stayed together and two additional Hellcats joined up with them. All were struggling in the climb and soon accepted that the maximum height they would attain that day was 20,000 feet, a fact they duly reported to the FDO. On the way up to their ceiling altitude, Vraciu noticed his wingman, Brock-meyer, repeatedly pointing towards Alex’s wing. He didn’t know what Brockmeyer was trying to communicate until much later when he learned that his wings (which folded to take up less space on board the carrier) were not fully locked. The red safety barrel locks were showing.
The aerial engagement that Vraciu’s group was heading for was over before they reached the enemy planes. His group was ordered to come back and orbit at 20,000 feet over the task force. When they arrived over the American ships, the FDO directed the Hellcats to a new heading of 265°. There were bogies about seventy-five miles out. On the way to the intercept, Vraciu’s group saw seven more Hellcats converging from the starboard side.
After flying about twenty-five miles Alex spotted three bogies and began to close on them. He guessed that there were probably more enemy aircraft in the area and soon saw what he estimated to be at least fifty planes 2,000 feet below the Hellcats and on their port side. He was excited and was thinking that the situation could easily develop into a fighter pilot’s dream. There did not seem to be any top cover escort with the bogies which, by this time, were identifiable as Japanese aircraft. He picked out the nearest inboard straggler, a Judy dive-bomber, and started a run on it.
Alex peripherally sensed the presence of another Hellcat which seemed to be intent upon the same enemy aircraft that he was after. Concerned about the possibility of being blind-sided by the other American, he chose to abort his run, roaring under the Japanese formation and taking the opportunity to quickly look them over. He noted that there were Judys, Jills, and Zeros, pulled up and over the enemy assemblage and selected another Judy out on the edge of the formation. The enemy plane was doing a bit of manoeuvring as Vraciu approached it from behind. The Japanese rear gunner was firing at him as he closed in. He returned fire and the Judy erupted in flame and began to trail a long smoke plume down to the sea.
Pulling back up to the enemy formation, Alex found two more Judys on the loose, came in from their rear and fired, sending one down in flames. Still on the same pass, he slipped the Hellcat into position behind the other Judy and just as quickly sent it down, its rear gunner continuing to fire at him as the enemy plane fell. Three down.
top: Carrier pilots await a briefing in their ready room; centre: WW2 fighter ace Stanley Vejtasa who later was captain of the carrier USS Constellation; above: Second World War naval aviators Edward O’Hare and James Thach; below: Grumman F6F Hellcats on the flight deck of the carrier USS Yorktown in 1943; bottom: A Curtiss SB2C Helldiver dive-bomber being spotted for take-off from an Essex class carrier in WW2.
A Grumman F6F Hellcat beginning its take-off roll.
The great mass of turning, twisting U.S. and Japanese aircraft was moving ever closer to the American fleet. By this time the Japanese formation was badly broken up, but many of its aircraft remained on course towards the U.S. ships. Vraciu reported this fact to his carrier. Then another enemy plane broke formation in his view and he slid over into position after it. He had to be quite careful now and get in very close as his windshield had become increasingly oil-smeared and difficult to see through. A single short burst proved sufficient to set the enemy plane alight and cause it to enter a wildly out-of-control spin.
The air battle was now much closer to the U.S. ships, and the Jills started descending into their torpedo runs. The remaining Judys were just about to peel off on their bombing runs. Alex saw a group of three Judys in trail and headed for the tail-ender. At this point he and they were almost over the outer destroyer screen, but still fairly high. Alex noticed a black puff of flak in the sky near him and realized that the American five-inch guns were firing at the enemy aircraft in defence of the U.S. fleet. He overtook the nearest Judy, fired the briefest of bursts and saw the plane’s engine come apart in pieces. It alternately smoked and burned as it disappeared below.
Now Alex spotted another enemy aircraft, this one just into its diving attack on an American destroyer. He caught up with the plane and was amazed when yet another very short burst from his Hellcat’s guns caused the Japanese to explode, seemingly right in his face. He guessed that his bullets must have hit the enemy’s bomb. He had seen planes blow up before, but never like that. He was forced to manoeuver wildly to avoid the hot, scattering debris of the kill.
As he recovered and climbed back up to rejoin some of the other Hellcats, Vraciu observed that the sky was now entirely free of enemy aircraft. He noticed too, that a thirty-five-mile-long pattern of flaming oil slicks lay on the water behind them. He later discovered that, owing to his oil-smeared windshield and the need to work in really close to the enemy planes, he had actually fired only 360 rounds of ammunition in shooting down six Judy’s, all in less than eight minutes.
The next day, 20 June, while flying escort for bomber and torpedo planes in the record 300-mile strike against the Japanese fleet on the second day of the First Battle of the Philippine Sea, Alex Vraciu shot down a Zero, his nineteenth and final victory. For his achievements between 12 and 20 June 1944, he was awarded the Navy Cross.
On 20 June the pilots and radiomen of VB-10 were hoping that the Japanese fleet would be found before the end of the day. At 4.30 p.m. their ready room was alerted that the enemy fleet had indeed been located roughly 250 miles away. Jack Glass, an SBD gunner, USS Enterprise: “We were very worried about such a long mission so late in the day. If we somehow made it back to our carriers, it would mean night landings. All of our pilots were qualified for night landings, but had made only a few. I knew this would probably be the last crack at the Jap fleet before the invasion of Japan.
“The flight to the Japanese fleet took about two hours. The time was spent checking out our guns, looking for enemy fighters, and operating our radar, hoping to pick up our target. My pilot, Lieutenant Oliver W. Hubbard, was leading the second section in skipper ‘Jig Dog’ Ramage’s division. Lt. Bangs was leading the other division. Hubbard had agreed that a hit was a must. The skipper sent Bangs and his division to one carrier, and our division took the Ryuho. The anti-aircraft fire was very strong but we managed to get into our dive with no problem, with the exception of a half-hearted attack by several Zeros which were promptly taken care of by our fighters. In our dive we became twisted around trying to get on target. We had to settle for a port-to-starboard run and only scored a near miss. On our pull-out, we were headed away from our return heading and had to do a 180 back through the entire fleet, skipping over ship after ship. The battleships were firing their main batteries as we went by. I was strafing everything in sight, mainly out of frustration.
“After leaving the fleet, our main thought was finding our way back to our task force. Again, it was about a two-hour flight. Our new radar worked fine and we picked up the Enterprise at about 100 miles. There were many frantic calls about fuel problems and going in the drink, but the old faithful SBDs just kept chugging along. As I recall, Jig Dog made only one transmission … ‘Land on any base.’ We did just that, finding theWasp right away. We had barely left the plane and entered the island hatch when a Hellcat crashed the barrier, putting the Wasp out of operation for about twenty-five minutes. The next morning I measured our fuel. We had less than three gallons remaining. Without the excellent landing by Lt. Hubbard, we would have taken a swim that night. A flight of over five and a half hours in a plane that wasn’t supposed to fly more than about four hours. That’s fuel management.”
centre: Once told by his Navy flying instructor, “You will never solo. You are the dumbest cadet I have ever laid eyes on,” U.S. Marine night-fighter ace Bruce Porter became one of the great fighter pilots of the Second World War; above: A Vought F4U Corsair out of Guadalcanal in 1944; top: Grumman Avenger ready for takeoff; below and bottom: views of the Grumman F6F Hellcat.
In nearly every respect, the American forces went into the action with a significant edge over the opposition. In tactics and technology, in pilot and crew training and anti-aircraft gunnery, in aircraft and warship design, construction and performance, by June 1944 the Japanese were outmatched. In sheer strength of numbers the Americans went into the battle with seven fleet aircraft carriers, eight light fleet carriers, seven battleships, seventy-nine additional warships, twenty-eight submarines, and more than 950 aircraft. The Japanese fielded five fleet carriers, four light carriers, five battleships, nineteen additional warships, twenty-four submarines, 450 carrier-based aircraft and 300 land-based aircraft. By the end of the action, U.S. losses amounted to one battleship damaged and 123 aircraft destroyed. The Japanese lost three fleet carriers, two oilers, and between 550 and 650 aircraft destroyed. So lopsided were the results of the aerial action that one American pilot from the carrier Lexington memorably remarked: “This is like an old-time turkey shoot!”