In the early part of 1944, in the aftermath of the assault on Rabaul, the ships of the Japanese fleet were pulled back, many to the fleet base at Truk atoll in the Caroline islands. This major base hosted the heavy ships of the combined fleet, and posed a threat to the southwest and central pacific. This became the next target of the carrier air wings of Task Force 58, most of which was composed of the fast new Essex-class fleet carriers. The 150 SBDs aboard carried out a large part of the reduction of this so-called Gibraltar of the Pacific in a pair of two-day operations that rendered the base useless to the Imperial war effort.
SBD Dauntless Units of World War 2, Barrett Tillman
Douglas SBD Dauntless, Peter C Smith
"1944 - Truk Atoll" James D Ramage. www.cv6.org/1944/truk/default.htm
"Task Force 58" pacific.valka.cz/forces/tf58.com
"H-gram H-026-3: Operation Hailstone - Carrier Raid on Truk Island, 17-18 February 1944" history.navy.mil/about-us/leadership/director/directors-corner/h-grams/h-gram-026/H-026-3.html
Wikipedia and globalsecurity.org
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2 окт 2024