How Carriers Fought
How Carriers Fought

Author: Lars Celander

Publisher: Casemate Publishers

Published: 2018-07-19

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 1612006221

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An in-depth analysis of aircraft carrier battles in WWII and the evolution of carrier operations—from technology and strategy to life among the crew. First built in 1921, the aircraft carrier brought a new dimension to military strategy as the United States entered World War II. How Carriers Fought examines the evolution of carrier operations with a special focus on the conflict in the Pacific between the US Navy and the imperial Japanese fleet. Starting with a discussion of the tools and building blocks of carrier operations, historian Lars Celander then provides an analysis of various carrier battles to demonstrate how strategy and operations developed during the war. Every aspect of carrier warfare is covered, from navigation and communication technology to life inside the cockpit. A world of tactical dehydration and amphetamine pills is explored, as well as the measures pilots used to reduce their risk of death in the event of being hit. The major carrier battles of the war are considered, from Coral Sea and Leyte Gulf to the Battle of Midway, where the Japanese decided to divide their forces while the Americans concentrated theirs. How Carriers Fought analyzes these tactics, exploring which worked best in theory and in practice.

Titans of the Seas
Titans of the Seas

Author: James H. Belote

Publisher:

Published: 1975

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13:

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Two naval historians follow carrier warfare in the Pacific through Coral Sea, Midway, Easter Solomons, Santa Cruz and the climatic Battle of the Philippine Sea, June 1944.

World War II US Fast Carrier Task Force Tactics 1943–45
World War II US Fast Carrier Task Force Tactics 1943–45

Author: Brian Lane Herder

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-02-20

Total Pages: 65

ISBN-13: 147283657X

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Drawing on difficult-to-access wartime documents and other contemporary sources, this is the first compact, illustrated study of the tactics and techniques of the US fast carriers of Task Forces 50, 58 and 38 during the naval war against Japan in 1943–45. This title concentrates on exactly how these highly successful forces actually operated: their composition in ships, aircraft and men; the essential technology at their disposal; the evolving doctrine for their employment; the opposition and dangers they faced; and how they overcame them at the tactical level. It explains in straightforward terms the intricate details of topics such as how ships manoeuvred, how aircraft were deployed and recovered, the formations and approaches used by fighters, dive-bombers and torpedo-bombers against naval and land targets, and how Task Forces defended themselves. The text is supported by a wide range of wartime photos and full-colour illustrations, showing, for example, the formations employed by ships and aircraft, with altitudes and ranges throughout the course of attacks.

Carrier Operations in World War II
Carrier Operations in World War II

Author: J. D. Brown

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2009-05-21

Total Pages: 463

ISBN-13: 1783469307

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Between 1939 and 1945 the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm grew from a small force into a powerful strategic weapon. British carrier-based aircraft fought throughout the world and David Brown here describes their activities in the Home, Mediterranean, Eastern and British Pacific Fleets, together with Forces created for specific operations, listing aircraft and units embarked during the various phases.He goes on to describe carrier operations in the Pacific between 1941 and 1945, the greatest maritime war in history. Both the United States and Imperial Japanese Navies watched the Royal Navy's early carrier operations in the European Theatre and benefited from the lessons. American aircrews and sailors learnt quickly in action until, by March 1945, the United States Fifth Fleet with its associated Marine Corps formations was probably the most efficient and effective instrument of war deployed in the pre-nuclear age.This new work contains material from two volumes, first published in 1968 and 1974, merged with notes for a third which David Brown prepared but never published before his death. They appear for the first time together, providing the most detailed single-volume account currently available of the operation of British, American and Japanese aircraft carriers in World War II.

Operation Storm
Operation Storm

Author: John Geoghegan

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2014-03-18

Total Pages: 514

ISBN-13: 0770435734

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The riveting true story of Japan's top secret plan to change the course of World War II using a squadron of mammoth submarines a generation ahead of their time In 1941, the architects of Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor planned a bold follow-up: a potentially devastating air raid—this time against New York City and Washington, DC. The classified Japanese program required developing a squadron of top secret submarines—the Sen-toku or I-400 class—designed as underwater aircraft carriers, each equipped with three Aichi M6A1 attack bombers painted to look like U.S. aircraft. The bombers, called Seiran (which translates as “storm from a clear sky”), were tucked in a huge, water-tight hanger on the sub’s deck. The subs' mission was to travel more than halfway around the world, surface on the U.S. coast, and launch their deadly air attack. This entire operation was unknown to U.S. intelligence. And the amazing thing is how close the Japanese came to pulling it off. John Geoghegan’s meticulous research, including first-person accounts from the I-401 crew and the U.S. capturing party, creates a fascinating portrait of the Sen-toku's desperate push into Allied waters and the U.S. Navy's dramatic pursuit, masterfully illuminating a previously forgotten story of the Pacific war.

Carrier Battles
Carrier Battles

Author: Douglas V Smith

Publisher: Naval Institute Press

Published: 2013-09-02

Total Pages: 396

ISBN-13: 1612514421

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A longtime professor at the Naval War College who once directed strategic and long-range planning for the Navy and Marine Corps in Europe considers the transformation of the U.S. Navy from a defensive-minded coastal defense force into an offensive risk-taking navy in the very early stages of World War II. Noting that none of the navy’s most significant World War II leaders were commissioned before the Spanish-American War and none participated in any important offensive operations in World War I, Douglas Smith examines the premise that education, rather than experience in battle, accounts for that transformation. In this book, Smith evaluates his premise by focusing on the five carrier battles of the second world war to determine the extent to which the inter-war education of the major operational commanders translated into their decision processes, and the extent to which their interaction during their educational experiences transformed them from risk-adverse to risk-accepting in their operational concepts. His book will interest students of the Pacific War, naval aviation, education, and leadership.

Imperial Japanese Navy Aircraft Carriers 1921–45
Imperial Japanese Navy Aircraft Carriers 1921–45

Author: Mark Stille

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2012-05-20

Total Pages: 102

ISBN-13: 1780967772

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The Imperial Japanese Navy was a pioneer in naval aviation, having commissioned the world's first built-from-the-keel-up carrier, the Hosho. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, it experimented with its carriers, perfecting their design and construction. As a result, by the time Japan entered World War II and attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor in 1941, it possessed a fantastically effective naval aviation force. This book covers the design, development and operation of IJN aircraft carriers built prior to and during World War II. Pearl Harbor, Midway and the first carrier vs carrier battle, the battle of the Coral Sea, are all discussed.

Task Force 58
Task Force 58

Author: Rod Macdonald

Publisher: Frontline Books

Published: 2021-11-30

Total Pages: 653

ISBN-13: 1399007580

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The new breed of American fast aircraft carriers could make thirty-three knots, and each carried almost 100 strike aircraft. Brought together as Task Force 58, also known as the Fast Carrier Task Force, this awesome armada at times comprised more than 100 ships carrying more than 100,000 men afloat. By 1945, more than 1,000-combat aircraft, fighters, dive- and torpedo-bombers could be launched in under an hour. The fast carriers were a revolution in naval warfare – it was a time when naval power moved away from the big guns of the battleship to air power projected at sea. Battleships were eventually subordinated to supporting and protecting the fast carriers, of which, at its peak, Task Force 58 had a total of seventeen. This book covers the birth of naval aviation, the appearance of the first modern carriers in the 1920s, through to the famous surprise six-carrier _Kido Butai_ Japanese raid against Pearl Harbor on 8 December 1941 and then the early US successes of 1942 at the Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway. The fast carriers allowed America, in late 1942 and early 1943, to finally move from bitter defence against the Japanese expansionist onslaught, to mounting her own offensive to retake the Pacific. Task Force 58 swept west and north from the Solomon Islands to the Gilbert and Marshall Islands, neutralising Truk in Micronesia, and Palau in the Caroline islands, before the vital Mariana Islands operations, the Battle of Saipan, the first battle of the Philippine Sea and the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot. The strikes by Task Force 58 took Allied forces across the Pacific, to the controversial Battle of Leyte Gulf and to Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Task Force 58 had opened the door to the Japanese home islands themselves – allowing US bombers to finally get close enough to launch the devastating nuclear bombing raids on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Task Force 58 participated in virtually all the US Navy’s major battles in the Pacific theatre during the last two years of the war. Having spent many years investigating naval shipwrecks across the Pacific, many the result of the devastating effectiveness of Task Force 58, diver and shipwreck author Rod Macdonald has created the most detailed account to date of the fast carrier strike force, the force that brought Japan to its knees and brought the Second World War to its crashing conclusion.

The United States Navy in World War II
The United States Navy in World War II

Author: Mark Stille

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-11-11

Total Pages: 396

ISBN-13: 1472848039

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A comprehensive overview of the strategy, operations and vessels of the United States Navy from 1941 to 1945. Although slowly building its navy while neutral during the early years of World War II, the US was struck a serious blow when its battleships, the lynchpin of US naval doctrine, were the target of the dramatic attack at Pearl Harbor. In the Pacific Theatre, the US was thereafter locked into a head to head struggle with the impressive Imperial Japanese Navy, fighting a series of major battles in the Coral Sea, at Midway, the Philippine Sea, Leyte Gulf and Okinawa in the struggle for supremacy over Japan. Having avoided the decisive defeat sought by the IJN, the US increased industrial production and by the end of the war, the US Navy was larger than any other in the world. Meanwhile in the west, the US Navy operated on a second front, supporting landings in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy, and in 1944 played a significant part in the D-Day landings, the largest and most complex amphibious operation of all time. Written by an acknowledged expert and incorporating extensive illustrations including photographs, maps and colour artwork, this book offers a detailed look at the strategy, operations and vessels of the US Navy in World War II.