The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942–1944

by Ian W. Toll

Throughout the day, as the air groups made their reports to Mitscher, the number of claimed kills climbed to extravagant proportions. Even accounting for the usual exaggerations and double counting, it was evident that Task Force 58 had scored a victory on a magnitude that no one had expected or foreseen. Of the 373 aircraft launched by Ozawa’s carrier force, only 130 had returned intact. Approximately 50 more had been destroyed after taking off from Guam or Rota. The Americans had lost just twenty-five Hellcats, four by operational accidents.52 The ratio of kills had been about eleven to one. In the Task Force 58 ready rooms, the pilots were celebrating as if they had won the war. “Medicinal” brandy was served and glasses were raised in toasts. On the Lexington, a euphoric fighter pilot remarked, “Hell, this is like an old time turkey-shoot.”53 The remark was often repeated, and the name stuck. Historians would call it the first day of the Battle of the Philippine Sea, but to the aviators it was always the “Marianas Turkey Shoot.”