Short History of World War II - James L. Stokesbury [183]
The Japanese first strike was supposed to be a massive attack by land-based planes from Guam. Unfortunately for them, there were only about fifty planes left on Guam, and even more unfortunate, the Americans showed up over the island just as they were taking off. The Japanese lost thirty planes and never got out of sight of Guam.
Back in Task Force 58, the air group commanders were champing at the bit, but Mitscher, uncertain exactly where the enemy was, held them in check. About mid-morning, radar picked up a wave of incoming enemy planes, sixty-nine of them, 150 miles out. American dive-bombers and torpedo-bombers took off and orbited to the eastward, out of the way of trouble, and able to attack Guam and deny it to the enemy as a landing strip for planes in difficulty. And there were soon plenty of them. Four hundred fifty Hellcat fighters met the Japanese; the Americans had the advantage of height; the heavy Hellcats could blast the lighter Zeros out of the sky with one good burst, and by this stage of the war, American pilots were far more experienced than their opponents. The Americans lost one plane, the Japanese lost forty-two; they scored one hit on the battleship South Dakota.
Ozawa’s second wave of carrier planes was 128 strong. The Hellcats met them sixty miles out and killed half before they reached the fleet. They scored a hit on the small carrier Bunker Hill. Ninety-eight Japanese were shot down. A third wave failed to find Task Force 58 and therefore lost only seven planes. The last raid, eighty-two strong, got scattered. Those who reached the fleet were all but wiped out. Some fled for Guam, where Hellcats caught them as they tried to land. Only eleven of the whole raid survived. By the time the sun set on the 19th, Japanese carrier air strength was a thing of the past.
It was not only the American fliers who had a field day. The submarine Albacore sneaked past the Japanese screen and put a single torpedo into the brand-new carrier Taiho, Ozawa’s flagship. Down she went, and Ozawa had to move to another carrier. Three hours later the submarine Cavalla hit Shokaku with a three-torpedo spread, and she blew up and sank a couple of hours later, after valiant but unsuccessful efforts by her crew to fight the spreading gas and oil fires.
In the darkness Ozawa headed off to the northwest. He had but a hundred planes left; he believed, mistakenly, that he had inflicted heavy damage on the enemy and he planned to reopen his attack as soon as he could refuel and rearm. The American reconnaissance planes did not spot the still-retiring Mobile Fleet until late the next afternoon, at the extreme end of their search patterns. Mitscher consulted with his air group commanders and asked if they could reach the enemy. It would be chancy, and the pilots would have to fly back in the dark, almost out of fuel; it would be a very close affair, but they decided it was worth it.
Just as the sun set, the American dive-bombers, torpedo planes, and fighters appeared over the Mobile Fleet. They set two carriers on fire and sank a third, the Hiyo. Between the sinking, the damage, and dogfights in the air, they destroyed another sixty-five aircraft. Then they headed for home.
Home was a long way off, and one by one the planes went down. The fuel gauges flickered toward empty, then settled