Battle of Philippines Sea

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Philippine Sea, battle of. This, the war's biggest carrier battle, took place in June 1944. It was fought during the Pacific war between Admiral Spruance's Fifth US Fleet—whose Task Force 58, under Vice-Admiral Marc Mitscher, was protecting American landings on Saipan—and the First Japanese Mobile Fleet commanded by Vice-Admiral Ozawa.

Admiral Toyoda, the Japanese fleet's C-in-C, had formulated a plan (see A-GŌ) for the destruction of the US fleet if the Americans invaded Saipan, and on 13 June he ordered it to begin. ‘The fate of the Empire rests on this one battle,’ he said, echoing Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō's order before the famous Japanese naval victory of Tsushima against the Russian fleet in 1905. ‘Everyone must give all he has.’

But A-GŌ had fallen into American hands and when the two groups of Japanese warships were detected by US submarines and Spruance refused to be drawn towards Ozawa, as the Japanese had intended. Instead he waited for the fleet to come to him. In preliminary skirmishes 17 out of the 25 Japanese submarines committed were sunk and Japanese airfields in the area were heavily attacked. All this disposed of A-GŌ's assumption that submarines and land-based aircraft, shuttle bombing between the fleet and Japanese airfields on Tinian and Guam, would destroy at least a third of the Fifth US Fleet before it was brought to battle.

The disparity between the two forces was marked.

	American	Japanese
Carrier aircraft	956	473
Carriers	7	5
Light carriers	8	4
Battleships	7	5
Heavy cruisers	8	11
Light cruisers	13	2
Destroyers	69	28

Despite his inferior strength, Ozawa was confident of victory, for his air reconnaissance spotted the US carrier groups before they spotted him. This enabled him to keep out of range of US aircraft, but still launch his own because the trade winds were blowing to his advantage, and his aircraft had greater endurance and could use airfields to rearm and refuel. But Ozawa had broken radio silence to contact his land-based aircraft and huff-duff pinpointed his position for Spruance. Although a search failed to find the Japanese fleet US radar detected the first of Ozawa's four strikes at 250 km. (150 mi.) when it was launched at 0830 on 19 June 1944. As American fighter strength had not been dissipated by attacking the Japanese fleet, and dawn raids had destroyed the last of Ozawa's land-based air power, the better-trained US pilots—aided by radar and radio intelligence which monitored the voice of the Japanese pilot co-ordinating the attacks—were easily able to break up the Japanese attacks. Out of the 373 aircraft Ozawa dispatched only 130 returned. The fighting then switched to the skies over Guam where the Japanese lost about 50 more. While this air battle (which later became known to the Americans as ‘The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot’) was raging US submarines made a notable contribution of their own, torpedoing Ozawa's new flagship, the carrier Taiho, and another fleet carrier, Shōkaku.

That night Task Force 58, which had so far only lost 29 aircraft, set out in pursuit of the retreating Japanese fleet, and the next afternoon American air reconnaissance caught its first proper sight of Ozawa's force since the start of the battle. Although it was late—which meant recovering his planes at night—and the Japanese ships were at the limit of his range, Mitscher immediately launched a strike of 216 aircraft. This sank the carrier Hiyu and damaged two others, and Ozawa, now aboard another carrier, was left with just 35 planes. Only 20 US aircraft failed to return, but 80 more were lost when they ran out of fuel and ditched, or crash-landed on their carriers' decks in the dark. Nearly all the crews were recovered but rescue work delayed any further pursuit which Spruance then abandoned, though he later said he felt he had missed a prime opportunity to destroy what remained of the Japanese fleet. But historians have not judged him harshly, for his overriding responsibility was to protect the amphibious landings on Saipan, and this he successfully accomplished. See also sea power.

Bibliography

Y'Blood, W. , Red Sun Setting (Annapolis, Md., 1980).