NOTES TO TABLE 3

This table presents condensed monthly data for carrier and land-based operations. In parallel columns it illustrates:

(a) the slow growth of air activity from 1942 to the peak in April 1945;

(b) the great preponderance of land-based operations during the rebuilding of the carrier force in 1943;

(c) the rapid rise of the carrier force during 1944 to the point where its major operations far exceeded the more regular monthly volume of effort of the land-based air forces.

Revealed in the table are the peak performances of Naval aviation:

(a) the 41,248 flights made from carriers in combat in April 1945, the 16,052 action sorties flown that month, and the 5,033 tons of bombs dropped on target (40,870 rockets and about 6,500.000 rounds of ammunition were expended by carrier planes during the same month);

(b) the tremendous destruction of enemy planes by the carrier forces in June 1944 (1,012), October 1944 (1,851), and April 1945 (1,353);

(c) the seven other months in which carrier aircraft destroyed more than 500 planes per month (9,250 enemy planes were destroyed by carrier aircraft in their 10 peak months, and 10,319 in the last 15 months of the war alone);

(d) the exceptional feat of increased performance by the small South Pacific air force for the New Georgia operation of July 1943;

(e) the relatively high destruction of enemy planes by the small forces engaged in the brief carrier operations of 1942, and the land-based Solomons operations of late August to November 1942;

(f) the air-combat peaks by land-based aircraft over Rabaul in January-February 1944, and at Okinawa in April-June 1945.

The table also shows the superior record of carrier-based planes over land-based planes in destroying enemy aircraft: over twice as many in air combat, 18 times as many on the ground and 4 times as many in total. The ruling factor here was the mobility of the carrier forces, their ability to penetrate deep into enemy territory, concentrating-overwhelming force in surprise strokes against large sectors of the enemy's secondary air defenses. Land-based aircraft, on the other hand, were seldom within reach of main concentrations of enemy air strength, except for a time at Rabaul, where the heavy defenses precluded successful attack on grounded aircraft. Thus the land-based Marine and Naval air forces, while effective against enemy airborne aircraft both in a defensive capacity and as bomber escorts, could not be the main agent of their wholesale destruction. It is doubted that any other airforce has been as effective in destroying grounded enemy aircraft (or grounded and airborne enemy aircraft combined) as the Naval carrier force; in the last year of the war our carrier aircraft destroyed 4,622 grounded enemy aircraft, and 4,944 airborne aircraft, for a total of 9,566.