The U.S. Department of the Navy

Attached is a 1947 report by the U.S. Navy summing up the remarkable roll that naval aviation played during the last half of the war with Imperial Japan:

In the advance across the Central Pacific the carrier task force with it’s extreme flexibility and mobility had been the dominant factor. It established the conditions under which long-range amphibious advances were possible. It never failed to gain command of the air at the required time and place, successively overwhelming the air garrisons not only of the Japanese perimeter but of the major fortresses of Formosa and the Philippines, and maintained command of the air until shore-based air forces could be established.

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The following is an essay from the office of the Chief of Naval Operations concerning what the U.S. Navy learned about carrier warfare during the four year war against Japan.

Four graphs from a 1947 Naval study illustrate the amount of Japanese aircraft and assorted sea faring vessels that were destroyed during the course of World War Two.

With the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, United States and Japanese carrier strength became nearly equal. At the same time the news that the Japanese advance was creeping down the Solomons and commencing the construction of an airfield on Guadalcanal made it advisable to undertake a limited offensive in the South Pacific.

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