Carrier Warfare in the Pacific: An Oral History Collection

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor marked the end of the battleship as the centerpiece weapon of the U.S. Navy--in the future, the aircraft carrier would be the star of the fleet. In this oral history edited by Wooldridge, Ramsey Fellow at the National Air and Space Museum, we see how Colonel Jimmy Doolittle's flyers learned to launch their B-25s off the Hornet . Admiral John S. Thach details his ``Thach Weave,'' a fighting tactic which allowed slower American planes to fight the fast Japanese Zero on equal terms. The outspoken Thach also charges that the Yorktown would not have been sunk at the Battle of Midway if Admirals Fetcher and Spruance had been carrier admirals. A major part of the story lies in the shear might of American industry. During the course of the war the U.S. would build 17 Essex- class carriers; many Independence -class carriers; and an extraordinary 109 escort, or jeep, carriers. As the war winds down we are a part of the excitement of the ``Turkey Shoot'' in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, in which Navy pilots could choose their targets, and we share the terror of trying to find a carrier to land on at night. We witness the destructiveness of the kamikazes as the Franklin loses 800 of its crew and we see equal destructiveness when two typhoons wreck the fleet. This is a story of guts, sacrifice, terror and exhilaration to be savored by anyone interested in the carrier as the ultimate war machine. Photos. (Oct.)