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N0KFQ > TODAY 19.06.07 06:12l 53 Lines 2489 Bytes #-6358 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Jun 19
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From: N0KFQ@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
To : TODAY@ALLUS
1944 : United States scores major victory against Japanese in
Battle of the Philippine Sea
On this day in 1944, in what would become known as the "Marianas
Turkey Shoot," U.S. carrier-based fighters decimate the Japanese
Fleet with only a minimum of losses in the Battle of the
Philippine Sea.
The security of the Marianas Islands, in the western Pacific,
were vital to Japan, which had air bases on Saipan, Tinian, and
Guam. U.S. troops were already battling the Japanese on Saipan,
having landed there on the 15th. Any further intrusion would
leave the Philippine Islands, and Japan itself, vulnerable to
U.S. attack. The U.S. Fifth Fleet, commanded by Admiral Raymond
Spruance, was on its way west from the Marshall Islands as backup
for the invasion of Saipan and the rest of the Marianas. But
Japanese Admiral Ozawa Jisaburo decided to challenge the American
fleet, ordering 430 of his planes, launched from aircraft
carriers, to attack. In what became the greatest carrier battle
of the war, the United States, having already picked up the
Japanese craft on radar, proceeded to shoot down more than 300
aircraft and sink two Japanese aircraft carriers, losing only 29
of their own planes in the process. It was a described in the
aftermath as a "turkey shoot."
Admiral Ozawa, believing his missing planes had landed at their
Guam air base, maintained his position in the Philippine Sea,
allowing for a second attack of U.S. carrier-based fighter
planes, this time commanded by Admiral Mitscher, to shoot down an
additional 65 Japanese planes and sink another carrier. In total,
the Japanese lost 480 aircraft, three-quarters of its total, not
to mention most of its crews. American domination of the Marianas
was now a foregone conclusion.
Not long after this battle at sea, U.S. Marine divisions
penetrated farther into the island of Saipan. Two Japanese
commanders on the island, Admiral Nagumo and General Saito, both
committed suicide in an attempt to rally the remaining Japanese
forces. It succeeded: Those forces also committed a virtual
suicide as they attacked the Americans' lines, losing 26,000 men
compared with 3,500 lost by the United States. Within another
month, the islands of Tinian and Guam were also captured by the
United States.
The Japanese government of Premier Hideki Tojo resigned in
disgrace at this stunning defeat, in what many have described as
the turning point of the war in the Pacific.
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