Book Description

The gripping account of the U.S. Navy’s fast carrier force—and how its Central Pacific campaign in 1944 marked the achievement of American naval supremacy Task Force 58 was World War II’s most powerful battle fleet. Made up in mid-1944 of sixteen aircraft carriers, over a thousand combat aircraft, and an armada of escorts, it was vital to victory over Japan. In this compelling account, Evan Mawdsley charts the 3,500-mile dash of the “Big Blue Fleet” across the Central Pacific in the first six months of 1944, overwhelming enemy opposition and transforming the nature of naval warfare. The Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944 crushed the enemy’s naval air force and secured war-winning air bases in the Mariana Islands. Mawdsley examines the elements of the rapidly assembled force—ships, planes, and 100,000 officers and men—as well as the advanced bases and fleet train that provided such astounding mobility. Task Force 58’s campaign marked the achievement of naval supremacy by the United States, a status it maintains to this day.