When a powerful Japanese fleet approached on the night of June 18, 1944, Admiral Mitscher asked permission to take Task Force 58 west to intercept it. Wary of the risk (however remote) of an end-run attack on the beachhead, Spruance denied the request. On the morning of June 19, the Japanese carriers launched three large airstrikes against the Fifth Fleet. In a daylong aerial battle nicknamed the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot,” F6F Hellcats met and slaughtered the attackers, sending more than three hundred Japanese aircraft down in flames. But Task Force 58 was too far east to launch a
...more
