NOTES TO TABLE 4

This table measures the contributions of the Naval carrier and land-based air forces to the campaigns in the various theaters of war. Land-based operations are allocated to theaters on the basis of the command under which the individual squadron operated, regardless of the location of the target attacked. Thus operations by South Pacific aircraft against the Bismarck Archipelago (in the SoWesPac area) are classified under SoPac (and in fact they were normally in support of SoPac objectives); in few other cases were attacks made over theater boundaries.

In the case of carrier operations, the fact that the fast carriers remained under CinCPQA command in all operations, though actually directly supporting campaigns in other areas, has necessitated adopting a geographical basis of classification. Thus all carrier operations are allocated to areas in accordance with (a) the theater in which the target area was located, or (b) the theater whose current campaign the carriers were primarily supporting.

Under these definitions all carrier operations against New Guinea, Halmahera, Morotai and the Philippines, the Coral Sea Battle, and the Formosa-Ryukyus-China Sea operations of October 1944 and January 1945 have been classified as Southwest Pacific. The Palau and Truk operations of March and April, though partly subsidiary to the Hollandia strikes, have been classified as Central Pacific; the carrier strikes on Rabaul and Kavieng as South Pacific. It is believed that all other carrier operations fell clearly within one theater.

The overall picture presented by this table shows that slightly over half of Naval air combat operations, in terms of sorties and enemy planes destroyed, were conducted in the Central Pacific theater, about one-third in the Southwest Pacific, slightly less than one-sixth in the South Pacific, and less than one percent in other theaters. (Addition of ASW activity would of course substantially alter the balance in favor of the Atlantic).

These figures should dispel any impression that naval aviation's primary war contribution was in the South Pacific theater. Less than 2% of the total carrier action was in this theater, though most of this minor total consisted of critical actions involving all our carriers available at the time. Of the total land-based action, only slightly over one quarter was carried on by aircraft under SoPac command (an additional 15% was action by Marine aircraft in the Solomons-Bismarcks area after command passed to SoWesPac).

The carrier force was primarily a Central Pacific force, the spearhead of the main advance against Japan. Nearly three-fourths of its action was in this theater. Yet its contribution to the Southwest Pacific theater, accounting for nearly a quarter of total action sorties, was vital, and was the action which in fact culminated the military defeat of Japan as an air-sea power.

The bulk of the carrier contribution to the Southwest Pacific campaign occurred in the five months from September 1944 to January 1945. In these five months practically all of the fast carrier offensive, and the majority of the CVE effort, was employed against Southwest Pacific targets. In these five months over 4500 enemy aircraft were destroyed by the carrier forces in the campaigns supporting SoWesPac operations; this represents nearly three-eighths of the total enemy planes destroyed by carrier forces during the war in all theaters. This contribution (involving also a wholesale destruction of shipping in the Philippines-Formosa-China Sea area, and the destruction of the bulk of the remaining Jap battle fleet) assured the capture of the Philippines by Southwest Pacific Forces.

The contribution of Naval and Marine land-based aircraft to the Southwest Pacific campaign has not been fully recognized. Leaving aside the 22,000 attack sorties flown against targets in the Bismarcks and Solomons after control of the Solomons air force passed to SoWesPac, Naval and Marine planes flew some 30,000 sorties in the Southwest Pacific area. The bulk of these 26,000 were attacks by Marine aircraft on targets in the Philippines. Marine fighters were based at Leyte from late November 1944, and took part in assuring the conquest of that island and defending it from Jap suicide attackers and reinforcing sea convoys. These fighters later assisted in the recapture of the Central and Southern Philippines. Marine dive bombers went ashore at Lingayen in January 1945 and provided air support to Army ground forces in Luzon until their later diversion to assist the reconquest of the Central Philippines and Mindanao. Navy patrol bombers extended their searches to the Philippines and began their single-plane attacks on shipping as early as August 1944, and continued them until capture of Philippines bases and the end of Jap shipping movements in the area enabled them to extend their searches and attacks to Formosa, the China Coast, Indo-China and Malaya, protecting all enemy paths of approach to the Philippines. For the year 1945 well over half the offensive operations of Naval land-based air were carried on in the forward sectors of the Southwest Pacific theater.