World Battlefronts: BATTLE OF THE PACIFIC: Ruin in Two Phases

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An hour later, more enemy bombers broke through. One bomb missed the stern of the great battleship which wore Spruance's four-star flag. Batteries of 40-mm. guns mounted on the ship's stern caught the Jap bomber fairly: it hesitated for a moment like a tired bird, then fell slowly into the sea. A torpedo bomber was dismembered by a destroyer's gunfire; a wing fell off; its engine fell out before the fuselage dived in flames. The attack died.

In those furious few hours, 369 Jap aircraft fell to the Hellcats—the war's biggest bag for a single day. Eighteen were knocked down by flak; 15 more were destroyed on the ground.

Shimada's thrust had become a ghastly failure. Only 27 U.S. planes were lost in the first phase, and a third of their pilots were saved. Two U.S. carriers, one battleship, had "superficial damage" but their battle efficiency was unimpaired.

The Second Phase. The last U.S. planes were not taken aboard the carriers until after dark. Then Spruance turned much of his force west, steamed under forced draft all night and much of the next day. He was trying to close the range and engage the enemy fleet, now stripped of air cover.

Long before Task Force 58 could come within reach, the Japs were being attacked by other Pacific Fleet units. A sub put three torpedoes into a Zuikaku-class flattop (variously estimated at 17,000 to 28,000 tons). Cautious Pacific Fleet officers listed the vessel as probably sunk.

The westering sun was full in the eyes of lookouts aboard U.S. ships before scout planes gave a fix on the Jap force. It was not the "Imperial Grand Fleet" (which may exist only in the imaginations of U.S. analysts), but most likely the Southern Expeditionary Fleet under Vice Admiral Denshichi Okochi. It had four or more second-string battleships, at least six assorted carriers, with the appropriate screen of cruisers and destroyers and a badly misplaced train of tankers.

Long Strike. Hundreds of Helldivers, Avengers and Hellcats swarmed off U.S. carriers' decks. There were only two hours of daylight remaining. This, too, was to be a strike at maximum range. But better planning, better aircraft and better men made it a victory. For agonized hours the waiting fleet steamed and listened for word from their aircraft. Long after dark, an American voice broke the radio silence : "Two carriers smoking." That was all. More hours passed. Then the planes came thundering back.

Star-Spangled Sea. Task Force 58 was blacked out. As the first returning plane was spotted, the fleet below sprouted lights: red at the mastheads of battleships, cruisers and destroyers; faint glows on the runways of the carrier decks. A searchlight beacon thrust its beckoning finger straight up into the sky to guide homing planes.

All of them were desperately low on gas. Some ran dry as they waited their turn to land; their pilots set them down on the Philippine Sea. Pilots and crewmen clambered out aboard rafts, blinked flashlights at rescuing destroyers. Star shells burst above the riot of light, a seagoing Coney Island in enemy waters where normally a carelessly handled match would bring a man "before the mast."