TASK FORCE 58

TASK FORCE 58 was the long-range naval striking arm of the U.S. Pacific Fleet during the offensive against Japan in World War II. It became the major weapon system in the wartime and postwar U.S. Navy, replacing the battleship. During World War II the Navy created numbered fleets with subordinate numbered task organizations. In August 1943 the Navy divided the Pacific Fleet into the Third and Fifth Fleets, of which the fast carriers became Task Force 58 (TF 58). The Navy later subdivided TF 58 into task groups and they into smaller task units. This system, which allowed the Pacific Fleet to transfer ships between commands with a minimum of administrative detail, became the basis for postwar naval organization.

The tasks of TF 58, which the Navy renamed Task Force 38 in 1944, increased as the war progressed. In 1944, TF 58 sought out and destroyed the Japanese fleet and naval air forces at the Battles of the Philippine Sea and of Leyte Gulf. In 1943 and 1944 it provided defensive cover and air support for the amphibious forces that captured the Gilbert, Marshall, New Guinea, Mariana, Palau, and Philippine Islands and protected the forces that neutralized Truk. In 1945 it supported the amphibious landings at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, fought off Japanese kamikaze air attacks, and struck airfields and strategic targets in Formosa and Japan. The latter-type missions also dominated fast-carrier operations in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, during which the carriers (in far fewer numbers) composed TF 77 as part of the Seventh Fleet.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Belote, James H. Titans of the Sea. New York: Harper and Row, 1975.

Bradley, James. Flags of Our Fathers. New York: Bantam, 2000.

Cutler, Thomas J. The Battle of Leyte Gulf, 23–26 October, 1944. New York: Harper Collins, 1994.

Wildenberg, Thomas. Destined for Glory. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1998.

Clark G. Reynolds / e. m.

See also Aircraft Carriers and Naval Aircraft ; Philippine Sea, Battle of the .

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.