NOTES TO TABLE 33

Shown above is the Naval and Marine offensive air effort against enemy land targets along the Central Pacific line of advance, and against islands fringing the route.

Wake and Marcus are of the least importance. They were used mainly as targets for training raids by new carriers and air groups reporting to the Fleet, although most of these missions were also timed for diversionary effect, and in addition succeeded in making the islands militarily ineffective as air bases. All months of heavy activity against these islands involved carrier raids; Wake was otherwise attacked only by PB2Ys from Midway, and PB4Ys and PVs from Eniwetok, and Marcus by a few PB4Ys from the Marianas. Some 600 Japanese were killed by air attack on Wake during the war, and 1,300 more died of disease or starvation as a result of the enemy's unwillingness to expose ships to attack by sending in supplies to the garrison.

Against the Gilberts the bombing campaign was short and heavy, and confined largely to the actual invasion period in November 1943, following a small but effective one-day raid on Tarawa in September. All subsequent activity in the Gilberts column represents attacks on Nauru (and Ocean Island): a carrier raid in December 1943, and strikes by PVs from Tarawa thereafter, for the purpose of neutralizing the air base to prevent its use to reconnoiter our activity in the Marshalls.

The Marshalls air campaign was an extended one. It began with carrier attacks in November 1943 to neutralize the Marshalls air bases during the Gilberts campaign; it continues with a carrier strike on Kwajalein in December; and was followed by heavy poundings from the entire carrier force supporting the landings on Kwajalein and Eniwetok in January and February 1944. Thereafter Marine and Navy fighters, dive bombers and patrol bombers took over the job of completely destroying the airfields in the four remaining Jap-held islands, and destroying all remaining enemy installations and supplies. To this task a substantial force, operating from Majuro and Kwajalein, was devoted during the remainder of the war. The offensive reached its peak during August of 1944 and declined thereafter. About 2,300 of the 13,000 Japanese personnel on these four islands were killed by air attack; another 4,500 died of disease or starvation as a result of the air blockade maintained.

Against the Eastern Carolines the bulk of the Navy's offensive consisted of two 2-day carrier strikes on Truk in February and April 1944, followed by a small carrier attack on Ponape. Marine F4Us from Eniwetok thereafter made occasional attacks on Ponape, and Navy searchplanes from time to time bombed Kusaie, Ponape, the Nomoi Islands and Truk.

The Western Carolines were the victims of a carrier raid on Palau, Yap and Woleai during the period 30 March - 1 April 1944, a further heavy raid on Palau and Yap in July 1944, and intensive carrier operations supporting the Marine and Army landings on Peleliu and Angaur in September 1944. In the latter part of that month Marine fighters and torpedo bombers based at Peleliu took over the direct support duty from the carriers, and after Peleliu was secured they maintained a steady volume of neutralizing attacks on the extensive enemy forces on the remaining islands of the Palau and Yap groups until the end of the war. Woleai also received occasional attacks from Navy search planes based at Manus and Guam.

The Naval pre-invasion and amphibious support campaign in the Marianas was the Pacific's heaviest, except for Okinawa, in terms of close support missions flown and bomb tonnage and strafing delivered with low altitude accuracy. It extended over a period of 8 weeks, from the initial strikes preceding the landing on Saipan, to the conclusion of organized resistance on Tinian and Guam. Subsequent activity by land-based Marine fighters in the Marianas was confined to neutralization missions against the two remaining Japanese airfields on Rota and Pagan.

The carrier campaign against the Bonins was one of the longest of the Pacific war, and was unusual in that the first strikes preceded the landings on Iwo Jima by 10 months. The five strikes of June-September 1944 were primarily directed toward nullifying the value of Iwo as an air base, as well as driving major shipping from the area and destroying naval base facilities at Chichi Jima. These operations succeeded in all these purposes; 418 enemy planes were destroyed during their course, and relatively few planes or major vessels were found in the area thereafter.

In the following five months Naval aviation left the Bonins strictly alone, except for occasional search plane attacks. In February of 1945 the Marine invasion of Iwo was supported for several days by the entire fast carrier force, and for three weeks by a substantial CVE force. Its success completed the chain of bases across the Central Pacific.