Biggest Carrier Battle in History: Marianas Turkey Shoot

The Battle of the Philippine Sea. Known in the West as the "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot" due to the significant losses faced by the Japanese forces, was seen by both sides as a lost opportunity. By June 1944, much of Japan's pre-war naval air power had been destroyed in the Battle of Midway and the Guadalcanal campaign. Since then, the Imperial Japanese Navy had gradually rebuilt its air groups and carrier fleet with the goal of engaging the Americans in a decisive battle that would end the American advance across the Pacific Ocean. When the United States Fifth Fleet advanced on the Marianas Islands, Japanese naval leaders saw an opportunity to spring their trap.

On June 12th 1944 Japan launched Operation A-Go. It relied on land-based planes to chip away at the US fleet and destroy up to one-third of its strength before the First Mobile Fleet, led by Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa, delivered the knockout blow to the depleted fleet.

Ozawa was given nearly every available surface craft to meet the Americans. There were three fleet carriers, two medium carriers, and four light carriers available. Ozawa had five battleships, 12 cruisers, and 22 escorting destroyers as a protective shield for the carriers. Ozawa had assembled 430 carrier aircraft and could rely on an additional 540 fighters and bombers from nearby land bases.

The main parts of Ozawa's fleet met on June 16 in the western part of the Philippines and headed for the Marianas. However, during the previous four days of heavy air raids on Japanese bases on the Mariana Islands, American carrier aircraft ripped into Japanese airfields. In a foreshadowing of what was to come, Japanese Mitsubishi Zero fighters rose to meet their foes, but their inexperienced pilots were no match for their better-trained American counterparts and their advanced Hellcat fighters. When the final wisps of smoke cleared away from the ensuing slaughter, American pilots had stripped Ozawa of his desperately needed land-based air power. If Ozawa had known about this, he might have acted differently in the upcoming battle, but the commander of the decimated squadrons, unbelievably, failed to relay this critical information to his superior.

[kdp]

Wow, what a great delivery, a pleasure to listen to you. Nice job, very informative.

[JRRodriguez-nupo]

One of the reasons tyranny fails: underlings afraid to report failure.

[willisswenson]

The US Marines are a Department of the Navy. The number one job of the US Navy is to protect the Marines. Thank you Admiral Spruance for protecting countless Marines lives.

[mrjipper]

I think Spruance did right by being careful, he had an invasion force to protect. The aim was to take the islands and not get into a slug fest with the IJN. That was for another day and time. Agree or disagree? Remembered what happened in the Philippines when Halsey took off.

[jamesfrost]

Thank God for many things. The F6F Hellcat is at the top of that list.

[frankward]

Use of the proximity fuse was a great advance in anti-aircraft shells

[natetedrow]

My man has the voice and delivery of a nightly news caster

[GH-oijf]

Ozawa’s air power had been more than “decimated, ” which means only “reduced by a tenth.” The Japanese lost nearly 600 aircraft, two fleet carriers, and a light carrier, with associated personnel. It was a devastating loss.

[leodouskyron]

Spruance did two things perfectly 1)protected the invasion fleet as his highest priority as ordered 2)by focusing on defense the last effective units of the Japanese were lured into powerful defense with interlocking layers, expert pilots, more effective fighters and the attackers were also outnumbered and defenders could use fleet resources (including leaning the Japanese plans for attack) to obliterate the attackers.

As plans go, hard to do better.

[politicsuncensored]

Great video and narration of what happened. It took Japan 2 years to rebuild from the Midway disaster only to see their rebuilt navy destroyed in 2 days. Shalom

[herbsuperb]

2 years of intense work wiped out in 2 days of fighting. Unreal.

[colinstafford]

The Americans had broken the code used by the Japanese navy before Midway. I don’t know if the Japanese knew this by this time. But it goes to show, it doesn’t matter what the odds are against you if you know what your enemy is going to do it gives you a hell of an advantage.

[coniccinoc]

Highly rewatchable.
It is a curse of command that no matter what the outcome, people safely behind a desk away from combat will be the loudest critics.

[lychan]

For an Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) that believed in the concept of decisive battles, Pearl Harbor, Midway and the Battle of the Philippine Sea were a matter of time.
String these decisive battles out, they became a war of attrition for Japan.

Ironically, many IJN officers, most notably its C-in-C of IJN Combined Fleet, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, foreknew from their pre-war naval gaming exercises that Japan couldn't hope to win a war against the USA. Yet, their reservations were overridden by pro-war voices and factions within IJA (e.g. PM Hideki Tojo, Chief of Staff Sugiyama and other hot-headed IJA officers) and IJN (e.g. Chief of Naval General Staff Nagano).

As the Imperial Conference (presided by Emperor Hirohito), had decided on war against USA by September 1941, Yamamoto planned for (what he thought) the second-best sub-optimal outcome for Japan; a surprise raid on Pearl Harbor. Yet, his predictions that his IJN could run riot for the first 6 months of war but no guarantee of victory if war stretched out to 2 years and beyond, proved prophetically true. He was to pay the ultimate price with his life.

What tragedy for him and millions of others!

When will mankind ever learn from history?

[MadMaximum-lj]

My father learned RADAR at Cambridge from one of the developers Huxley. He had been attached to the RAF before Pearl to learn RADAR. While there he ran one of the RADAR sites in London during the Battle of Britton. He told me the deciding factor for defeating the Luftwaffe was RADAR. They enemy could not seem to understand that we knew they were coming and got our planes in the air. It sounds like RADAR was the factor the Japanese could not understand.

[alanmacification]

Spruance had his primary orders: protect the landings. And the Japanese had a potent force if they could have got surprise or caught Spruance out of position. Later at Leyte Gulf in October, Admiral Halsey would do exactly that, got suckered out of position, and almost lost his invasion fleet. Damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

[byronlemay]

It took me several weeks of watching videos about these battles and here it is all contained in one. Nice job, nice summary with all the important details. The IJN...after they threw that first punch they really started loosing their teeth, one by one. Yamamoto knew it was going to happen...and then we tore him to pieces as well. The Japanese talked themselves into this and it should have been the absolute last resort...surely they could have found a diplomatic way to deal with the oil embargo. Instead they threw a fit.

[RickTheClipper]

The proximity fuzes had a huge part of success

[brentcollins]

That was an amazing presentation. You have a new subscriber. Happy New Year!!

[FairwayJack]

Mitscher shouldn't of criticized Spruance ... imho, Spruance was key to the earlier Midway victory ... and without planes the Japanese carriers were as good as sunk at that stage of the war (late June 1944)