Task Force 58

Task Force 58. In March 1943 Admiral King, C-in-C US Navy, numbered all the units of the US fleets, and the Fast Carrier Force of Vice-Admiral Spruance's Fifth US Fleet was designated Task Force 58. Under the command of Rear-Admiral Marc Mitschner, TF58—or TF38 when Fifth US Fleet became Third US Fleet under Vice-Admiral Halsey—was the US Navy's primary strike force in the Pacific war. By January 1944, when it established air supremacy over the Marshall Islands prior to the landings there, it comprised four task groups. Together these totalled 12 carriers with 650 aircraft—later increased to 15 carriers—8 new fast battleships, and a powerful escort of cruisers and destroyers. Thereafter, it was involved in nearly all the major sea actions and amphibious landing operations in the Pacific, including the Philippine Sea and East China Sea battles, and the landings on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. In December 1944, while under Halsey's command, the Task Force was caught in a typhoon as it was refuelling near the Philippines, and lost 3 destroyers, 146 aircraft, and 790 men.