Tuesday, June 20, 1944. End of the Battle of the Philippine Sea.

The Imperial Japanese aircraft carrier Hiyō sunk after fuel vapors ignited from previous damage caused by USS Belleau Wood's aircraft. 

Japanese losses stood at three aircraft carriers, two oilers and about 600 aircraft.

1st Lt. Donald E. Mittelstaedt of Missoula, Montana, is officer in charge of a combat assignment photo unit, of the 161st Signal Photo Co., on New Britain.

British Minister of Production Oliver Lyttelton created a controversy in his address to the American Chamber of Commerce in London when he went off script and stated:

Japan was provoked into attacking the Americans at Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty on history to ever say that America was forced into the war. Everyone knows where American sympathies were. It is incorrect to say that America was ever truly neutral even before America came into the war on an all-out fighting basis.

Secretary of State Cordell Hull immediately condemned the speech.

The weather remained bad in the English

Pvt. William L. Hatcher, of Scranton, SC, amuses a little French orphan by letting him wear his garrison cap. 20 June, 1944.

Channel, creating havoc for Allied shipping.

American lines slowly advanced, with the Germans seemingly withdrawing to join the Cherbourg defensive lines.  The 7th American Corps entered the city.  US forces found a partially constructed V-2 launching site near Sottevast.

A V-2 rocket, in a test flight, entered outer space and then returned, being the first man made object to enter space.

The Pope addressed the British 8th Army.

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS PIUS XII

TO MEMBERS OF THE EIGHTH BRITISH ARMY

Tuesday, 20 June 1944

It is a real joy for Us to welcome you all here within the very home of the common Father of Christendom. God has willed that We should be the Vicar of Christ on earth at a period of human history, when the world is filled as never before with weeping and suffering and distress unmeasured; and you know very well how Our paternal heart has at times been almost overwhelmed by the sorrows of Our children. You are of those children, and We have prayed for you. Your presence naturally recalls to Our mind the very pleasant days We once had the privilege of passing in the great capital of the British Empire; but it also summons up other memories, memories of those heroes of the Faith, St. Edward and St. Thomas a Becket, St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More, who shed a supreme and unfading glory on your country. To their protection We commend you all. You know only too well the dangers and uncertainties of life in war. One thing make certain: keep always and everywhere close to God. This grace We beg for you through the intercession of those loyal, saintly sons of Mother Church and of your loved England, while with Our heart's affection We bless you and all your dear ones at home.

The Red Army captured Vilpuri.

The Lithuanian Security Police murdered 37 mostly Polish residents of Glitiškės.

TWA Flight 277 en route from Newfoundland to Washington, D.C. crashed in Maine, killing all seven on board.

Last prior edition:

June 19, 1944. The Battle of the Philippine Sea, day one. The Marianas Turkey Shoot.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Aircraft, Battle of the Philippine Sea, boats and ships, Imperial Japanese Navy, Operation Bagration, Operation Forager, Operation Overlord, Philippines, Saipan, Soviet Partisans, U.S. Navy

June 19, 1944. The Battle of the Philippine Sea, day one. The Marianas Turkey Shoot.

Japan, suffering piecemeal losses due to island hopping, used the American invasion of Saipan as an opportunity to attempt to strike a knock-out blow against the U.S. Navy.

It achieved the opposite result.

Lt. Alexander Vraciu on the number of Japanese aircraft he had just shot down.

It was the largest aircraft carrier engagement in human history and would be the end of offensive carrier operations for Japan.

Signs that this were coming had been coming for a few days, and the Navy had reacted, drawing off of support for Saipan to go out and meet the Japanese, who were approaching from the Philippines.  On this day, the Japanese launched carrier born attacks against the Navy at long range.  The U.S., picking the oncoming aircraft on radar, more than met their opponents, devastating the oncoming Japanese at an enormous rate.  Japanese planes that flew on to Guam were attack en route.  The use of VT fuses by ships caused huge Japanese losses on the plans that managed to evade US fighters.

Japanese aircraft losses are extreme. The event became known as The Marianas Turkey Shoot.

While the Navy's surface fleet was not able to spot the Japanese on the first day, U.S. submarines did and made two successful strikes on aircraft carriers, damaging them both.  One, the Japanese Navy's newest carrier, exploded into flames later that day due to errors in damage control efforts, killing over 1,000 sailors and sinking the ship.  Both carriers, the Shokaku and Taiho, ultimately sank, with the USS Cavalla and USS Albacore taking the kills.

Japan had better luck on the Chinese mainland, where Changsha fell to them.  Not that it would matter.

Historians frequently like to use the word "turning point" or try to examine when something became inevitable.  The Battle of the Philippine Sea really was such an event.  The Japanese effort made sense and was strategically sound.  The Imperial Japanese Navy had correctly assessed that the US island hopping effort was going to bring the U.S. within striking distance of the Philippines and Japan itself in short order, and that if allowed to continue, the Japanese were going to lose the war.  Knocking out the US fleet was necessary if Japan had any hope of a positive resolution to the conflict.  The invasion of Saipan gave rise to an opportunity to achieve that goal.

There were, of course, real risks, one being that the Japanese effort was obvious.  Having said that, however, the US failed to detect the Japanese fleet on the surface and did not do so even during the first day of the battle.  But the thing the Japanese could not have appreciated is how advanced US technology had become. VT fuses, using radar in an artillery fuse, meant that ships could defend themselves against aircraft by simply getting a shot near them.  Radar allowed the incoming Japanese aircraft to be intercepted before the flak barrages began.  U.S. aircraft had dramatically advanced in a short time.

Of course, the interception by US submarines was a lucky development for the US.  Had the submarines not taken out two carriers on the first day, the Japanese losses would have been severe, but perhaps not as devastating as they were.

The Japanese defeat on June 19, 1944, meant the Japanese Navy was done as a conventional fighting force.  The Japanese would develop, in short order, a new way to retain an offensive capability, but it would prove to be a self-defeating one.  From June 19 forward, Japan retained no real way to prevent, or even slow, the US advance.

A massive partisan operation on the Eastern Front, in preparation for Operation Bagration, saw 100,000 Soviet partisans disrupt rear area supplies and detonate 10,000 explosions.

A storm in the English Channel destroyed parts of the Mulberry harbors, disrupting shipping to the Normandy operations and causing Gen. Montgomery to call off an operation designed to penetrate German lines north east of Caen.

The U.S. 4th Infantry Division took Montebourg, but the Germans generally resisted heavily everywhere.

Last prior edition:

Sunday, June 18, 1944. Naval positioning.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Animals, Army, Battle of the Philippine Sea, British Army, Cattle, Imperial Japanese Navy, Italy, Operation Forager, Operation Overlord, Saipan, U.S. Navy, United States Marine Corps, World War Two

Sunday, June 18, 1944. Naval positioning.

Lt. Gen. H. M. Smith, Maj. Gen. Watson, Br. Gen., Erskins, Col. Riseley, Capt. D. V. Nahrgang (R-2) conference at 6th Marine Regiment CP. D plus 3, Saipan.

On Saipan, the 4th Marine Division reached the west side of the island and the 27th Infantry Division captured Aslito airfield.  Japanese air strikes sank one American destroyer, but most of the Navy has withdrawn to meet the approaching combined Japanese fleet.

Impressed transportation, Saipan.

US carriers rendezvoused west of the Mariana's and the Japanese spot them from the air late in the day. A Japanese airstrike, using Guam as the ending base, was planned.

The British captured Assisi.

This is a good time to recall that the British had more troops committed in the West, at this point, than any other Western combatant. That would change in the second half of 1944, but its notable.  It's particularly notable as they were drawing from a smaller pool of manpower than the second-largest committed power, the United States.

A V-1 hit the Guards Chapel of Wellington Barracks during Sunday service and killed 121 people.

The improbably named Ivanoe Bonomi replaced Pietro Badoglio as Prime Minister of Italy.

The U.S. 7th Corps cut the Contentin Peninsula in two, trapping the German forces defending Cherbourg.

Fighting was heavy near Caen, resulting in German forces being drawn off from that area opening up opportunities for U.S. forces, but also straining the Allied air forces which were depending upon more ground having been taken by this time in order to establish air bases on the continent.

The Red Army broke through Finnish defensive lines and advanced towards Viipuri.

Last prior edition:

Saturday, June 17, 1944. A stateside tragedy.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Caen France, Casper Air Base, Denmark, Disaster, Iceland, It was because of World War Two, Operation Overlord, Royal Marines, United States Air Force, World War Two, Wyoming (Natrona County)