While most of the world's attention was focused at the time on the Battle of Britain, the eyes of naval leaders were turned on Operation Judgment. Even before the Italians began salvage operations, naval observers from around the world began to pour into Taranto to view the wreckage, and write reports back to their home countries. Most of these reports were quietly read and filed away, or else were read and discounted (such was still the potency of the battleship myth). In Tokyo, however, the report of the Japanese naval attache was read with interest. This report eventually became the blueprint for an even more devastating carrier raid the following year, when over 360 aircraft launched from six big carriers would make the strike. The target would be entire U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. Out of the tiny strike on Taranto emerged the decisive naval weapon of the Second World War.
Less than six months after the Taranto raid, battleship enthusiasts got a shocking dose of reality with the sea chase and sinking of the German battleship Bismarck, one of the most powerful warships in the world. After the Bismarck broke out of the Baltic Sea into the North Atlantic, she sank the British battle cruiser HMS Hood. Outraged at this defeat (and humiliation), Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered the Bismarck to be sunk at all costs. Though she was damaged enough during her fight with the Hood to need repairs in port, and her British enemies were in hot pursuit, Bismarck was still a dangerous foe, and was able to slip away from her pursuers and make for a French port.
She might well have escaped, but for the efforts of two British aircraft carriers. A strike by Swordfish torpedo bombers from the carrier Victorious slowed down the German monster, while another strike from the carrier Ark Royal crippled her. The following day, Bismarck was finally sunk by shellfire from the British battleships King George V and Rodney. In the celebration that followed, the contributions of the Swordfish crews from Victorious and Ark Royal generally went unnoticed-again. However, naval observers took note and wrote their reports home; and naval professionals around the world began to wonder if aircraft from carriers might do more than just hit ships in harbor. One of the most modern and powerful ships in the world had been crippled by a single torpedo dropped by a nearly obsolete, fabric-covered biplane in the open ocean.
Before the end of 1941, further proof that the age of battleships had passed came with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the sinking a few days later of the British battleship Prince of Wales and the battle cruiser Repulse by land-based aircraft. While battleships would continue to play an important part in World War II, it was naval aircraft flying from carriers that would win the coming naval war. The strike on Taranto and the crippling of the Bismarck had seen to that.
Task Force 34/58: The Ultimate Naval Force
Now that the new weapon was proven, the next stage in its evolution was to work out its most effective use. This came during 1943. That year saw a period of rebuilding for both the United States and Japan. After the vast carrier-verses-carrier battles (Coral Sea, Midway, Eastern Solomons, and Santa Cruz) that had dominated the previous year's fighting, the two navies had reached something like stalemate and exhausted their fleets of prewar carriers. Meanwhile, in the Solomons, on New Guinea, and in the Marshall Islands in the Central Pacific, Allied ground forces were conducting their first amphibious invasions on the road to Tokyo.
On January 1st, 1943, the first of a new generation of American fleet carriers, the Essex-class (CV-9), was commissioned. Over the next two years, almost two dozen of these incomparable vessels came off the builder's ways. Utilizing all the lessons learned from earlier U.S. carriers, the Essex-class vessels were big, fast, and built to take the kinds of punishment that modern naval combat sometimes dishes out. Their designs also gave them huge margins for modifications and systems growth. So adaptable were Essex-class ships that a few were still in service in the 1970's, flying supersonic jets armed with nuclear weapons!
The ships of the Essex-class were just the tip of the America carrier production iceberg in 1943, for the U.S. Navy also approved the conversion of nine cruiser hulls into light carriers (with a complement of thirty-five aircraft). Though small and cramped, they were fast enough (thirty-three knots) to keep up with their Essex-class siblings. Known as the Independence class (CVL-22), they served well throughout the remainder of the war.
Along with the fast fleet carriers, the United States also produced almost a hundred smaller escort, or "jeep," carriers. Built on hulls designed for merchant vessels, they could make about twenty knots and carry around two dozen aircraft. While their crews joked wryly that their ships were "combustible, vulnerable, and expendable" (from their designator: CVE), the escort carriers fulfilled a variety of necessary tasks. These included antisubmarine warfare (ASW), aircraft transportation, amphibious support, close air support (CAS), etc. This had the effect of freeing the big fleet carriers for their coming duels with the Imperial Japanese Navy.
As the new fleet carriers headed west into the Pacific, they would stop at Pearl Harbor for training and integration into carrier forces. Together with a steady flow of fast, new battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and other support ships, they would be formed into what were called "task groups." Experience gained during raids on various Japanese island outposts in 1943 showed that the optimum size for such groups was three or four carriers (additional carriers tended to make the groups unwieldy), a pair of fast battleships, four cruisers, and between twelve and sixteen destroyers.
On those occasions when larger forces were called for, two or more task groups were joined into a "task force." These were commanded by senior Naval aviators, and were assigned joint strike missions, refueling assignments, and even independent raids. Though it took time to pull this huge organization together and find the men capable of leading it, by the winter of 1943/1944, what became known as Task Force 34/58 was ready for action.[11] Task Force 34/58, the most powerful naval force in history, put the lid on the Japanese Navy's coffin, and nailed it shut.
In February of 1944, now composed of four task groups with twelve fast carriers, Task Force 58, under Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher, raided the Japanese fleet anchorage at Truk, wrecking the base and driving the Imperial Fleet out of the Central Pacific. Mitscher, a crusty pioneer naval aviator, aided by his legendary chief of staff Captain Arleigh Burke, ran Task Force 58 like a well-oiled machine. By the end of May, preparations had been completed for an invasion of the Marianas Island group, just 1,500 nm/2,800 km from Tokyo (thus within range of the new B-29 heavy bombers). Since these islands were essential to the defense of the home islands, the Japanese had to fight for them. The largest carrier-versus-carrier fight of the war resulted.
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Unlike the Japanese, who tended to keep their warriers in combat until they died, the United States developed a rotation system to rest and replenish its combat personnel at all levels-even admirals. Thus, the fast carrier fleet had two sets of commanders and staffs: the 3rd Fleet under Admiral Halsey, and the 5th commanded by Admiral Raymond Spruance. After each operation, the two fleet staffs would switch, allowing the outgoing group to rest and plan the next mission. Thus, when Halsey was in command, the fleet was known as Task Force 34; and when Admiral Spruance took over, the carrier force was known as Task Force 58.