Battle
of the Philippine Sea
The Battle of the Philippine Sea
was a World War II contest between the US Navy and
Imperial Japanese Navy that took place on June 19th and
20th, 1944, off the Marianas Islandss. The action was a
disaster for the Japanese forces, who lost almost all of
their carrier-borne aircraft and half the carriers
involved in the battle. It was so one-sided that it has
been nicknamed The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot, and after
the battle the IJN was no longer a militarily effective
force.
In September 1943
IJN Headquarters decided that the time was right to go
back on the offensive in the Pacific. Losses from the Battle of Midway had been largely replaced
in terms of numbers of carriers, and since the US
attacking Japanese held islands on their "island
hopping campaign", the lack of planes themselves
could be addressed with the addition of strong land based
forces. The result was plan A-Go, which would take place
some time in early 1944, attacking the US Pacific fleet
while it launched its next major offensive. On May 3rd
orders for A-Go were sent out, and the waiting began.
On June 11th US carrierborne forces
started a series of small strikes on the Marianas,
convincing Admiral Toyoda, Commander-in-Chief of the
Combined Fleet, that the US was preparing to invade. This
came as something of a surprise, as they had expected the
next US target to be further to the south, at either the
Carolines or the Palaus, and therefore the Marianas were
protected with a weak force of only 50 aircraft.
On June 15th the US started their
initial landings on Saipan, and Toyoda gave the order for
the attack. The main portions of the fleet, consisting of
six carriers and several battleships, rendezvoused on
16th in the western part of the Philippine Sea, and
completed refuelling on 17th.
The Japanese
forces had been sighted on June 15th by American
submarines, and by the next day Admiral Spruance, commander of the US Fifth
Fleet, was convinced a major battle was about to start.
By the afternoon of June 18 Admiral Mitscher's Task Force
58 (the Fast Carrier Task Force) was formed up near
Saipan to meet the Japanese attack.
TF58 consisted of five major
groups. In front was Lee's Task Group 58.7, the Battle
Line, consisting of a large circle of battleships and
associated destroyers on picket duty. Just north of them
was the weakest of the carrier groups, Harrill's Task
Group 58.4. To the east came the three major carrier
groups in a line running north-south.
Shortly before midnight on the 18th
Admiral Nimitz sent Spruance a message from Pacific Fleet
Headquarters indicating that the Japanese flagship was
approximately 350 miles to the west-south-west of Task
Force 58. Shortly afterwards 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 US
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 criticised by
many officers after the battle, and continues to be to
this day.
At
5:30AM TF58 turned north-east into the wind and started
to launch their air patrols. At about the same time a
number of the 50 aircraft on Guam started up on search
missions. At 5:50AM one of these, a Mitsubishi Zero, found TF58. After radioing
in its position, he attacked one of the destroyers on
picket duty and was shot down.
Over an hour the rest of the Guam
forces were being formed up for an attack. They were
spotted on radar and a group of Grumman Hellcats from the
Belleau Wood were sent to investigate. They arrived while
the attack was still only 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 the carriers.
The recall
had been ordered after a number of ships in TF58 saw a
number of radar contacts 150 miles to the west at about
10:00AM. This was the first of the raids from the
Japanese carrier forces, with 68 aircraft. TF58 started
launching every fighter they could, and by the time they
were up the Japanese had closed to 70 miles. However they
then made a fatal mistake, and started circling in order
to re-group 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, and within
minutes 25 Japanese planes had been shot down for the
loss of only one US aircraft.
The
Japanese planes which survived were met by other fighters
and 16 more were shot down. Of the remainder some made
attacks on the picket destroyers Yarnall and Stockham,
but caused no damage. Three or four bombers broke through
to the battleship group,
and one made a direct hit on 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 and
much larger attack. This second wave consisted of 109
aircraft. They were met while still 60 miles out, and no
less than 70 of these aircraft were shot down before
raching 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 the 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 1:00PM, while 50 miles 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 raid was launched
between 11:00AM and 11:30AM, but were given incorrect
directions and couldn't find the fleet. They then broke
into two groups and turned to Guam and Rota to refuel.
The larger group was intercepted over Guam by 27 Hellcats
while landing. 30 of the 49 there were shot down, and the
rest were damaged beyond repair. Meanwhile the other
group happened across another group of 9 planes had
turned for the island of Rota instead, and happened
across Montgomery's task group. 9 dive-bombers eluded the
fighters and made attacks on carriers Wasp and Bunker
Hill, but failed to make any hits. 8 of these aircraft
were shot down in the process. Another group of 18
aircraft lost half its number to the American fighters.
At
8:16AM the US submarine Albacore sighted Ozawa's own
carrier group, and began an attack on the easiest carrier
to reach. This just happened to be the Taiho, Ozawa's
flagship. As they were about to fire her fire-control
computer failed, and the torpedos had to be fired
"by eye".
Taiho
had just launched 42 aircraft as a part of the second
raid. Four of Albacore's torpedoes were off-target. The
pilot of one of the recently-launched aircraft - Sakio
Komatsu - sighted one of the two which were heading for
Taiho and crashed his aircraft on it. But the last
torpedo struck the carrier on her starboard side near her
aviation-fuel tanks. At first the damage appeared not to
be very serious.
Another
submarine, the Cavalla, was able to manuver to an attack
position on the Shokaku by about noon. Three torpedos hit
the Shokaku, setting her on fire. At 3:00PM the fire
reached the bomb magazine, blowing the ship apart.
Meanwhile
the Taiho 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 the vapours
throughout Taiho, and at 5:32 the Taiho exploded and
sank.
TF 58
sailed west during the night in order to attack the
Japanese at dawn. Search patrols were put up at first
light.
Ozawa
had transfered to the destroyer Wakatsuki after the Taiho
had been hit, but the radio gear onboard was not capable
of sending the number of messages needed, so he again
transferred to the carrier Zuikaku at 1:00PM. It was then
that he learned of the disastrous missions of the day
before, and that he had only 100 or so aircraft left.
Nevertheless he decided to continue the attacks, thinking
that there were hundreds of planes on Guam and Rota, and
started planning new raids to be launched on the 21st.
American
searches failed to locate the Japanese fleet until
3:40PM. However the report made was so garbled that
Mitscher did not know what had been sighted, or where. At
4:05PM another report was received that was clearer, and
Mitscher decided to launch a full-out strike even though
there was only 75 minutes to sunset. The attack went in
at 6:30.
Ozawa
had been able to put up very few fighters to intercept -
no more than 35 according to later estimates, but these
few were skilfully handled, and the Japanese ships'
anti-aircraft fire was intense. The US raid, however,
contained 216 planes, and the majority were able to press
the attack.
The
first ships sighted by the US strike were oilers, and two
of these were damaged so severely that they were later
scuttled. The carrier Hiyo was attacked by 4 Grumman
Avengers from the Belleau Wood, and hit by at least one
of their torpedoes, and later sank. The carriers Zuikaku,
Junyo and Chiyoda were damaged by bombs, as was the
battleship Haruna. 20 American aircraft were lost in this
strike.
At
8:45PM the first US planes began to return to TF58.
Mitscher took the decision to fully illuminate the
carriers, 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 were nevertheless rescued over the next few
days.
That
night Ozawa received orders from Admiral Toyoda to
withdraw from the Philippine Sea. US forces gave chase,
but the battle was over.
The
four Japanese attacks used 373 aircraft, of which 130
returned to the carriers, and several more were destroyed
onboard the two carriers destroyed on the first day.
After the second day the totals were three carriers and
395 aircraft. Losses on the US side on the first day were
only 23, and on the second 100, most due to night
landings.
The
losses to the Japanese were irreplacable. In the Battle of Leyte Gulf a few months later,
their carriers were used solely as a decoy due to the
lack of aircraft and aircrew to fly them.
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