American pilots shoot down a 430-plane Japanese carrier strike in what crews called a turkey shoot
What happened
The Battle of the Philippine Sea began on 19 June 1944, four days after American forces landed on Saipan, and became the largest carrier-to-carrier battle in history. The US Navy fielded 7 fleet carriers and 8 light carriers under Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher's Task Force 58; Japan committed 5 fleet and 4 light carriers under Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa. On 19 June, Task Force 58 met four separate waves of Japanese carrier air strikes and shot down the overwhelming majority of the attacking planes, a one-sided outcome American aircrews nicknamed the Marianas Turkey Shoot. American submarines added to the damage, with USS Albacore sinking the carrier Taiho and USS Cavalla sinking Shokaku that same day. On 20 June, American carrier aircraft found and sank the carrier Hiyo. Japan lost 480 aircraft in total, three-quarters of the force it had committed, along with most of its trained aircrews.
Why it matters
The battle permanently crippled the Imperial Japanese Navy's ability to launch large-scale carrier operations for the rest of the war, not primarily because of the ships lost but because of the trained pilots lost with them, a resource Japan could not replace as quickly as the aircraft themselves. That loss of naval air power secured American control of the Marianas and cleared the way for the invasions of Guam and Tinian, islands that would shortly become the launch sites for the B-29 raids on Japan's home islands.
How we know
The battle is documented through official US Navy after-action and task force reports, submarine patrol reports from Albacore and Cavalla confirming their torpedo attacks, and Japanese naval records recovered after the war detailing aircraft and aircrew losses.
Sources
- National Park Service, American Memorial Park. Battle of Philippine Sea · Reputable sourcenps.gov · The domain "nps.gov" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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