The great Marianas turkey shoot.

The Battle of the Philippine Sea
19-20 Jun 1944

By mid-1944, the Mitsubishi Type 00 fighters, better known as "Zeros", were no longer on the cutting edge among fighter designs. Ignoring the fact that by this time the United States was out-producing the Axis in war machinery, the new F6F Hellcat was better armored and better suited for dogfights than their Japanese counterparts. Meanwhile, the Japanese Navy's pilot talent was running dangerously short, and it was becoming more common to see combat pilots with less than 50 hours of flight training.

On 18 Jun, as the American Marines secured the beachhead at Saipan for an Army landing, search planes from Admiral Ozawa's fleet discovered the American fleet. Ozawa decided to forgo the opportunity for a surprise attack, and wait until the beginning of the next day before launching an attack, despite the fact that he had numerical advantage (he had more planes available to him than the Americans) and range advantage (his Zeros had longer range than the American counterparts). He was concerned that his fighter pilots were not capable of making safe night landings on carrier flight decks. This decision proved to be fatal in hindsight: by the time he launched his fighter attacks, the Americans were already alerted to Ozawa's presence, and prepared for such an assault. Spruance, knowing very well of Ozawa's timetable at this time, launched a strike against Guam to pin down the Japanese aircraft there, as well as damaging the airfields there so that the eventual Ozawa attack would not be able to utilize Guam to augment his attack. Mitscher, at the same time, launched his aircraft against the island of Rota while sending a few to reinforce Spruance.

Ozawa had his ships in two groups one hundred miles apart from each other. The fore group had three carriers, and the rear six, each group escorted by battleships, cruisers, and destroyers. The American fleet's 11 carriers were broken up to four groups.

The battle started shortly after 1000 on 19 Jun with the first wave of 60 Japanese planes attacking the American fleet. 42 of them were shot down, scoring only one bomb hit on USS South Dakota. The second wave consisted of 128 planes, and 97 of them were lost without even making any significant damage to the American ships, although Warrant Officer Sakio Komatsu's name must be mentioned for his bravery: immediately after taking off from the Taiho, he saw a torpedo swimming straight for his home carrier. He dropped his plane and plunged into the ocean, intercepting the torpedo with his fighter. He sacrificed himself, and his carrier would be saved, for now. The third attack's 47 planes had a better casualty rate, losing only 7, but they did not make it through the American escort ships, let alone seeing the American carriers. By the time the fourth attack wave of 82 planes were sent, it was already almost 1400 in the afternoon, and 54 of them were shot down.

During the day of 19 June 1944, between Ozawa's attacks on the American fleet and the attacks on Guam and Rota, 429 Japanese planes were shot down. The Americans lost 29. This battle was commonly referred to among the US Navy men as the "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot". Many historians agree that this event marked the end of Japanese naval air power. Coming events would force Japan to rely on the guns of its battleships and cruisers, driving the Japanese to believe even more deeply in seeking Mahan's decisive battle with the US fleets.

Recall that Warrant Officer Komatsu sacrificed himself to save Taiho from the American torpedo. That torpedo came from USS Albacore, a submarine among others in a wolfpack, which found their way to the Japanese carriers during the confusion of battle. Moments after Komatsu's noble self-sacrifice, the Albacore launched another torpedo, and this time struck squarely on the Taiho's starboard side; the Taiho would be filled with leaked fuel vapor and a spark somewhere triggered an explosion that sunk the ship. Another submarine, USS Cavalla, fired six torpedoes into the group, sinking the Shokaku after three of them hit the Pearl Harbor veteran and caused a tremendous explosion. Ozawa escaped his burning flagship, the Taiho, after 1530, and ordered the ships to withdraw from the heavy cruiser Haguro. After losing over 400 pilots and then two precious carriers, Ozawa would finally get his small bit of luck that day as what was left of his fleet escaped American detection for two days, allow him to regroup his ships.

That luck would end, however, as Lieutenant Nelson's scout plane from the USS Enterprise found the Japanese fleet on 21 Jun, leading to Mitscher's order to launch 216 planes against what remained of Ozawa's fleet. The Japanese fleet carrier Hiyo was struck by torpedoes and sunk, and carriers Zuikaku and Chiyoda and battleship Haruna would be damaged. Although these 216 planes would return later than scheduled and lost 80 in risky night time landings, this attack would be marked as one of the most effective attacks against enemy ships in the entire war yet. By the time Ozawa made his way to Okinawa, he counted only 35 carrier aircraft in his fleet.
http://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=10
http://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/wwii/battle-of-the-philippine-sea-the-great-marianas-turkey-shoot/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Philippine_Sea

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