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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| ‘A Deadly Proving Ground’ |
| 2025-01-05 |
| The Formosa Air Battle was the largest air-sea battle of the Pacific war, marked by both strokes of luck and loss. By Mike Fink [USNI] The Battle of Leyte Gulf (23–26 October 1944) casts a long shadow. Considered the largest naval battle in modern history, it marked the end of the Imperial Japanese Navy as an effective fighting force and the beginning of the kamikaze campaign. However, this battle’s notoriety has overshadowed a key event that occurred less than two weeks earlier: the Formosa (present-day Taiwan) Air Battle, fought between 12 and 16 October. Though still relatively unknown to general audiences of World War II history, the Formosa Air Battle was the single largest air-sea battle of the Pacific war. Japan committed a greater mass of airpower to this battle—1,425 aircraft over the course of one week—than anything the U.S. Navy had faced prior. In fact, the Japanese air force participating in the Formosa Air Battle was multiple times bigger than the carrier air formations encountered during the more well-known Battle of the Philippine Sea.1 For Fighting Squadron (VF) 18, a new squadron operating as part of the U.S. Navy’s Fast Carrier Task Force, Formosa was a deadly proving ground.2 Of its 47 original aviators, fewer than half had seen Japanese planes in the air prior to Formosa. An even smaller number had engaged in air-to-air combat. They did have one thing working in their favor, though: They had undergone extensive training under an instructor whose plane-handling skills were second to none. His name was Cecil E. Harris. He was a quiet man, a South Dakota farm boy who left the family plot to become a schoolteacher during the prewar years. Though interested in flying from an early age, his mother had disallowed it “because it’s too dangerous.”3 He had to wait until college to enroll in civilian pilot training courses and subsequently undergo naval aviation cadet training. Once in the Naval Reserve, his fitness reports beamed that Harris was “an outstanding young pilot,” had “an exemplary manner,” showed “excellent judgment and initiative,” and was “well liked both by officers and men in the squadron.” He was leadership material through and through.4 The Navy’s second-ranking ace of World War II, Harris used the Hellcat’s ability to outperform Japanese fighters on the vertical plane to maximum effect. Lieutenant Harris also was the only member of VF-18 who had been in a serious air battle before the squadron’s deployment on board the USS Intrepid (CV-11) in August 1944. He had been credited with destroying two Japanese A6M Zero fighters while stationed on Guadalcanal in the spring of 1943.5 Fortunately for “Fighting 18,” the squadron’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Edward “Murf” Murphy, valued experience and talent over considerations of rank. Harris was made flight officer and put in charge of training the squadron despite being outranked by several of his peers. According to Lieutenant (junior grade) Bryant “Wally” Walworth, Harris “worked his very fingers off” getting them up to speed.6 After more than six months of training in Hawaii and a month of combat operations on board the Intrepid, the greenhorns of Fighting 18 were as ready as they could be to undergo their trial by fire. There was a sense of foreboding about the Formosa operation. Lieutenant (junior grade) Charles “Punchy” Mallory wrote in his diary: “We received our briefing on Formosa and we may run into something big there.”7 Lieutenant Harris knew what was coming. It weighed on him. One of his responsibilities as flight officer was to draw up schedules for these operations, assigning men to what could be their last mission. Always leading from the front, Harris made sure to assign his division to the morning fighter sweep that would kick off the Formosa operation. The Pacific sky was still “as black as the inside of your hat” when flight operations began at 0606 on 12 October.8 That did not seem to impede the Intrepid’s deck crews, who had the 16 F6F Hellcats assigned to the sweep airborne within 10 minutes. After grouping up with 20 additional fighters from nearby carriers in the Intrepid’s Task Group 38.2, the sweep proceeded beyond the destroyer screen out over the empty sea. Bomb-laden Hellcats quickly made landfall, roaring over Formosa’s heavily forested coastline and mountainous interior. Skipper Murphy led the sweep into the Strait of Formosa before turning around to approach the target, Shinchiku (present-day Hsinchu), from the west. Dawn light twinkled off his Hellcats as they wheeled and turned together in tight formation like a flock of starlings. Read the rest at the link |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #1 How I would have loved to have flown a Hellcat. |
| Posted by: Canuckistan sniper 2025-01-05 20:45 |