Carrier War

First published in 1945, “Carrier War” is the first-hand account of officers and soldiers who fought during the naval war in the Pacific through the battles of the Philippine Sea.

It is the complete story of America’s aircraft carrier Task Force 58, told in stirring narrative form and illustrated with 200 pictures and maps, and features frank discussions of strategy, accounts of personal heroism, and lays bare many new facts of sea war in the Pacific.

Primarily an action story, told in terms of people, dialogue and split-second accounts of air and sea battles, “Carrier War” is nevertheless a comprehensive history of the Central Pacific campaign. It begins with the arrival of the first new carriers at Pearl Harbour and describes the growing power and fury of the Navy’s campaign—through Marcus, Wake, Rabaul, the landings at Tarawa and Kwajalein, the great raids on Truk, Saipan and Palau, the landings at Hollandia, the panoramic battles of the Philippine Sea.

Throughout, Admiral Mar Mitscher’s Task Force 58 is the protagonist, although large parts of the story are built around the adventures of the redoubtable Yorktown and Essex and their two air groups, Five and Nine, whose full war records were released for the first time.

“Carrier War” reveals a great deal about the nature of U.S. naval fliers and their lives. It is a shrewd appraisal of the enemy. It explains in simple, non-technical terms how carriers work and how sea battles are fought. It contains excerpts from ships’ logs, official action reports. Besides the good, it describes the bad, telling how mistakes were made, and corrected. It tells how U.S. ships, as well as the enemy’s, were hit, and contains many exciting stories of how the men were rescued from the sea.