Clash of the Carriers: The True Story of the Marianas Turkey Shoot of World War II

Even the Preface of this book is interesting, with geographical details about the Marianas area and the depth of the ocean.

The prologue talks about Operation Forager with its objective of Saipan, which apparently is about the same size as San Francisco. That's the type of additional little tidbit of detail that I like and that I think makes a book more interesting.

Northeast India was attacked by the Japanese at Imphal. Casualties on both sides ran about 30%, which included 50,000 Japanese, and the battle ended Japan's attempt to take over India.

The book then talks about comparisons between the U.S. industrial capacity and that of Japan's at the time. In 1944, for example, the U.S. launched more than 9 million tons of cargo vessels. Japan launched less than 800,000 tons. In that year the U.S. commissioned 762 warships (not counting escorts), and the Japanese around 200 ships. The U.S. built 93,000 aircraft, and Japan made about 28,000.

My own comments at this point:

In a war of attrition, Japan was basically doomed. Yamamoto himself warned the Japanese military about the U.S. abilities, but they didn't bother to listen to him. I think there were only two ways Japan could have won the war.

First, if it had launched an all-out attack on the U.S. itself right at the start of the war. This would have included attacking most of the cities on the West Coast and also taking over Hawaii. If they succeeded in driving significantly inland from the West Coast, then there is a possibility that public pressure would have built enough that the U.S. would have negotiated a peace. It's very doubtful the Japanese could have done this, however, since it probably would have taken a vast majority of their military to accomplish this, and they were already trying take over China, Malaya, the Philippines and a bunch of other countries at the same time.)

Second, and somewhat more possible. If the Japanese had succeeded in inflicting enough casualties on U.S. troops and prolonging the war long enough that public pressure would have built to make the U.S. government end the war. I think this might have been a possibility if the U.S. had done a ground invasion of Japan itself, since the casualties in such an invasion would probably have been worse than in any other battle in the Pacific theater. Even then, I don't think there's a really good chance that this would have happened. I think that, pretty much any way one looks at it, Japan was going to lose the war. Single countries just cannot take over the entire world, at least at that time in history. Not even a combination of three countries could.)

The book also has something about unit 731, the Japanese biological warfare unit in China that worked on making biological weapons and torturing people. According to this book, there was a sub that was sailing for the Marianas that contained some material from Unit 731, fleas that carried bubonic plague that were to be dropped on U.S. troops on Saipan. The ship was sunk before it could complete its mission. If the fleas had been used, then there is little doubt the U.S. would have developed its own biological warfare capability and retaliated, severely.

The book notes the forces facing each other at the battle. The Japanese had 9 carriers, the U.S. 15. The Japanese had 5 battleships, the U.S. 7. The Japanese had 13 cruisers, the U.S. 21. The Japanese had 23 destroyers, the U.S. 68. The Japanese had 19 subs, the U.S. 27. Then there is the matter of airplanes. the U.S. 900 planes, the Japanese about half that number, with 630 more land-based planes within range, but this does not take into consideration the decrease in quality of Japanese planes and pilots that had occurred so far during the war.

The book also discusses the difference in technological quality between the Japanese planes and ships and those of the U.S.

The first kill of the battle was at 0547 when a Japanese “Judy” was shot down. This began a fourteen-hour battle.

The book also goes into detail about the Hellcat and its characteristics. The planes ended up being used to shot down some 5,200 Japanese planes, with a loss of 270, making it a 19:1 win/loss ratio over Japanese aircraft.

The book goes into great detail on the events of the battle, and it does so in a manner which is very readable and not boring at all, which is a major positive point for the book.

Another thing the book talks about, which is quite interesting, is the relationship between claimed kills and sinkings (on both sides), and actual kills and sinkings. The number claimed was almost always more than the number actually shot down or sink; maybe as much as twice the number. One good example of this is Japanese claims of four to five carriers and a battleship or large cruiser sunk or damaged, and 160 U.S. planes shot down. Actual losses were during this particular phase of the battle were zero U.S. ships sunk, and 42 planes shot down.

It also discusses Tokyo's wildly exaggerated claims of damage done to U.S. forces and how it had little to do with reality. Later it talks about the terrible problem U.S. naval forces had over the torpedoes they had to use early in the war.

The book also includes a number of appendices with even more information on the battle. Altogether, a very, very good book.

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Japanese-American Internment Camps index page
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