Marc Mitscher - World War II

World War II

Between June 1939 and July 1941, he served as assistant chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics.

Mitscher's next assignment was as captain of the Yorktown class aircraft carrier USS Hornet, being fitted out in Newport News, Virginia. Upon her commissioning in October 1941 he assumed command, taking Hornet to the Naval Station Norfolk for her training out period. She was there in Virginia when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Newest of the Navy's fleet carriers, Mitscher worked hard to get ship and crew ready for combat. Following her shake down cruise in the caribbean, Mitscher was consulted on the possibility of launching long range bombers off the deck of a carrier. After affirming it could be done, the sixteen B-25 bombers of the Doolittle Raid were loaded on deck aboard the Hornet for a transpacific voyage while Hornets own flight group was stored below deck in her hanger. Hornet then was the real life "Shranga-la" that president Roosevelt alluded to in his announcement of the bombing.

During the Battle of Midway Hornet and Enterprise carried the air groups that made up the main striking force of Task Force 16, while Yorktown was the center piece of Task Force 17. Mitscher had command of the newest carrier in the battle and the least experienced air groups. As the battle unfolded the Japanese carrier force was sighted early on June 4th at 234 degrees and about 140 miles away from Task Force 16, sailing a heading of northwest. In plotting their attack there was strong disagreement among the air group commanders aboard Hornet as to the best intercept course. Lieutenant Commander Stanhope C. Ring, in overall command of Hornets air groups, chose a course of 263 degrees, nearly true west, as the most likely solution to bring them to the Japanese carrier group. He had not anticipated the Japanese turning east into the wind while they recovered their aircraft. Lieutenant Commander John C. Waldron, in command of Torpedo Eight, strongly disagreed with Ring's flight plan. An aggressive aviator, he assured Mitscher he would get his group into combat and deliver their ordinance, no matter the cost. Thirty minutes after the Hornet airgroups set out, Waldron broke away from the higher flying fighters and divebombers, coming to a course of 240 degrees. This proved to be an excellent heading, as his Torpedo Eight squadron flew directly to the enemy carrier group's location "as though on a plumb line". They did so with no supporting fighter aircraft. On their way Waldron's Torpedo Eight happened to get picked up by Enterprises VF-6 fighter squadron flying several thousand feet above them. This group had launched last off Enterprise and had not been able to catch up with or locate the Enterprise dive bombers, but when Waldron dropped his group down to the deck to prepare for their attack the Enterprise fighters lost sight of them. Torpedo Eight was on its own.

The first of the carrier squadrons to locate the Japanese carriers, Waldron bore down upon the enemy. He brought his group in low, slowing for their torpedo drops. With no fighter escort and no other attackers on hand to split the defenders, his group was decimated by defending Japanese Zeros flying combat air patrol. All fifteen TBD Devastators of VT-8 were shot down. Though not known at the time, the valiant efforts of Torpedo Eight failed to deliver a hit on the Japanese carriers. Of the Torpedo Eight aircrews, only Ensign George H. Gay, Jr. survived. About twenty minutes later Enterprises Torpedo Six made their own attack, and was met with a similar hot reception. Again, no torpedo hits were made, but five of the aircraft managed to survive the engagement. Though failing to inflict any damage, the torpedo attacks did pull the Japanese CAP down and northeast of the carrier force, leaving the approach from other angles unhindered. SBD dive bombers from Yorktown arriving from the south flew over the Japanese carrier force to reach their tipping points almost unopposed. They delivered a devastating blow to Kaga and managed to put a bomb into Akagi as well, while SBDs coming from the east from Enterprise dove down upon the Soryu and shattered her flight deck. All three ships were set ablaze, knocked out of the battle to sink later that day. While all this raged Ring continued his search on a course of 260 degrees, flying to the north of the battle. Unable to find the enemy and running low on fuel, Hornets strike groups eventually turned back, either toward Hornet or to Midway Island itself. All ten fighters in the formation ran out of fuel and had to ditch at sea. Several of her SDBs heading to Midway also ran out of fuel and had to ditch on their approach to the Midway base. Other SBDs attempting to return to the Hornet were unable to locate her, and disappeared into the vast Pacific. All these aircraft were lost, though a number of the pilots were later rescued. Of Hornets air groups, only Torpedo Eight ended up making it to the enemy that morning. Hornets airgroups suffered a 50 percent loss rate without achieving any combat results.

The battle was a great victory and Mitscher congratulated his crew for their efforts, but the Hornets performance had not lived up to his expectations and he felt he had failed to deliver. In addition, he had great regret for the loss of John Waldron and Torpedo Eight. For the next three years he would try to get the entire unit awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, but without success. The pilots of Torpedo Eight were eventually awarded the Navy Cross. The loss of Torpedo Eight caused Mitscher great personal grief.

Prior to the Midway operation Mitscher had been promoted to Admiral in preparation for his next assignment, command of Patrol Wing 2. Though Mitscher preferred to be at sea, he held this command until December when he was sent to the South Pacific as Commander Fleet Air, Nouméa. Halsey moved Mitscher up to Guadalcanal in April 1943, assigning him to the thick of the fight as Commander Air, Solomon Islands (ComAirSols). In this post Mitscher directed an assortment of Army, Navy, Marine and New Zealand aircraft in the airwar over Guadalcanal and up the Solomon chain. Mitscher later said this assignment managing the air war over Guadalcanel was his toughest duty of the war. Said Halsey: "I knew we'd probably catch hell from the Japs in the air. That's why I sent Pete Mitscher up there. Pete was a fighting fool and I knew it."

Returning to the central Pacific as Commander, Carrier Division 3, he would take operational control of the newly formed Fast Carrier Task Force, at that time operating as Task Force 58 as part of Admiral Raymond Spruance's Fifth Fleet. To that point in the conflict carriers had been able to bring enough airpower to bear to inflict significant damage on opposing naval forces, but even in the Japanese Pearl Harbor attack they acted as a raiding group. They would approach their objective, inflict damage and then escape away into the vast reaches of the Pacific. Naval airpower capability was not thought to have the capacity to challenge land based airpower over any length of time. Mitscher was about change that, leading US naval airpower into a new realm of operations.

With the Lexington as his flagship for this task force, which operated alternately as 3rd Fleet's TF 38, he inflicted severe damage on Japanese ground installations and against enemy naval and merchant shipping. His hard-hitting, wide-ranging carriers pounded the enemy from Truk to the Palaus, along the New Guinea coast, and throughout the Marianas. His aviators devastated Japanese carrier forces in the Battle of the Philippine Sea—also known as the "Marianas Turkey Shoot"—during June 1944. Notably, when a follow-up strike was forced to return to his carriers in darkness, Mitscher earned the gratitude of his pilots by turning on the flight decks' running lights, defying standard naval procedure and ensuring that most of them were recovered.

During the next year, his carriers spearheaded the thrust against the heart of the Japanese Empire, covering successively the invasion of the Palaus, the liberation of the Philippines, and the conquest of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. During these operations, he repeatedly led the fast carriers northward to pound the Japanese home islands. Commenting upon Admiral Mitscher upon his return from the Okinawa campaign, said Admiral Nimitz "He is the most experienced and most able officer in the handling of fast carrier task forces who has yet been developed. It is doubtful if any officer has made more important contributions than he toward extinction of the enemy fleet."