This Day in History: Battle of the Philippine Sea

On this day in 1944, Americans win a decisive victory at the two-day Battle of the Philippine Sea. The Japanese had been trying to defend the Mariana Islands, but now its navy would be crippled, leaving the United States Navy in command of the Pacific for the remainder of World War II.

“[T]he Battle of the Philippine Sea remains the greatest carrier duel of all time,” historian Barrett Tillman concludes. “In terms of flattops directly engaged, it exceeded all that preceded it.”

Twenty-four aircraft carriers, total, were involved in the battle (15 American versus 9 Japanese). But Americans had more than just a numerical advantage: The Japanese had already lost many of their more experienced pilots in earlier Pacific battles, and they were now relying on newer pilots with less training.  By contrast, American pilots were generally well-trained, with much more combat experience.

A Grumman F6F-3 Hellcat lands on USS Lexington.

It surely showed on the first day of the battle!

The Japanese pilots were no match for the Americans. Would you believe that roughly 300 Japanese planes were shot down on that first day? Indeed, so many planes were falling from the skies that one American pilot remarked: “Why, hell, it was just like an old-time turkey shoot down home!”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, that aerial battle is often referred to as the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.”

But it wasn’t just American fighters who were finding success. American submarines also sunk two Japanese aircraft carriers on June 19.

Americans were winning, handily, but Japanese Admiral Ozawa Jisaburo apparently didn’t immediately realize how many planes he lost the first day. Thus, he delayed retreating, and Americans found his fleet again at the end of the day on June 20.

A long-range airstrike would be needed to take out the remaining Japanese aircraft carriers, but American officers knew that an attack so late in the day was risky. Our pilots wouldn’t have enough daylight to complete the mission and would return in the dark. Worse, they might not have enough fuel, either.

Naturally, those brave pilots went anyway.

“I saluted to the bridge as I took off,” then-Lt. Alex Vraciu later said, “because I didn’t think I was coming back. A lot of us didn’t.”

Ultimately, Americans won an important victory that night, but our pilots would struggle to return to safety. Many weren’t as experienced at nighttime navigation, and fuel levels were a real problem. Some pilots decided to ditch their aircraft in the water, side-by-side, so they could at least lash their lifeboats together.

Others made it back but crashed just short of the carrier runway.

In the meantime, Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher was trying to make things easier on our pilots: He ordered the American fleet to point their searchlights vertically into the sky.

It was a risky, but necessary, move if our men were to make it home.

The decision saved lives. One returning pilot later said that the fleet looked like “a big city at night.” (Many ships had turned on all their exterior lights, not just the searchlight.) Another pilot thought the American fleet looked like “Coney Island on the Fourth of July.”

When all was said and done, only 116 of 216 planes safely returned home. The pilots of 80 planes had ditched at sea or crashed into the deck of their carrier. Twenty planes were missing and presumed destroyed in combat. Fortunately, of the 209 men originally missing, most (160) were later recovered from the water.

Vraciu was among those who landed his plane safely. Yet, to him, as for many pilots that day, it was simple: “I had a job to do: Clear the sky.”

How blessed we were to have such a generation.

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Primary Sources:

• Barrett Tillman, Clash of The Carriers: The True Story of the Marianas Turkey Shoot of World War II (2005)

• Barrett Tillman, Marianas Turkey Shoot—Plus Seventy-Five (U.S. Naval Institute; Dec. 2022)

• Battle of the Philippine Sea (American Memorial Park: Northern Mariana Islands; National Park Service)

• Battle of the Philippine Sea (Naval History and Heritage Command)

• Ian Toll, The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942–1944 (2015) (The Pacific War Trilogy, Vol. 2)

• Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II (Vol. 8: New Guinea and the Marianas, March 1944–August 1944) (2002 paperback version)