Ozawa vs Spruance 6/20/44

We all know the story of the Battle of the
Phillipine Sea from books, TV and movies.
And yet, a good writer is still able to
condense the event into a concise, eminently
readable story. Follow the link below for
that story which ended 73 years ago today.
Turkey Shoot

Great story!! joe

That almost reads like an after action report, short and to the point.

He mentions the lack of pilot skills that the Japanese were experiencing by then in the war. The Japanese flight training leading up to the war and that continued until the very limited training given the Kamikazes was a brutal 2 year program. They never shortened it for combat pilot training. Prior to WWII US aviation training was a year. When the US started preparations for war prior to Dec 7 41 one thing they did was to shorten training to 6 months for pilots. Once trained pilots were sent to squadrons where the older more experienced pilots made the fly then fly some more. After we were in the war pilots were rotated back to the US to form new squadrons. Again they made the new guys fly, then fly some more passing on their hard won knowledge of actual combat. By the time pilots actually deployed to war they had 6 months of flight school and another 6 months intensive training in an operation squadron. The training at squadron level not only covered bombing, torpedo and or dogfighting but navigation and night flying too. In short the US adapted flight training to meet needs while the Japanese did not. The Japanese like the Germans sent their pilots out where they flew missions from day one until the end of the war or until the were killed or shot down and captured. Very few were rotated back to train new pilots with the new guys graduating flight school and being sent directly into combat. Lack of training showed up both in the Pacific and in Europe.

Rick

Yep, Midway was devastating for the Japanese naval air corp. The Coral Sea action should provided the opportunity for experienced Japanese pilots to interact with new pilots but I don't that they ever did to any degree. Specifically, two Japanese fleet carriers were sidelined due ship damage and planes lost for an extended period.

Thanks for posting. Enjoyed reading it.

Ditto

(quoted from post at 07:02:59 06/20/17) Yep, Midway was devastating for the Japanese naval air corp. The Coral Sea action should provided the opportunity for experienced Japanese pilots to interact with new pilots but I don't that they ever did to any degree. Specifically, two Japanese fleet carriers were sidelined due ship damage and planes lost for an extended period.

Click to expand...

I read something not too long ago that stated that by the time of Coral Sea Japan was really starting to feel the fuel pinch because of various oil embargos. One thing pointed out what that prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor pilots would spend time each day flying. For example they claimed that dive bomber pilots made 4 bomb runs a day just for training before but that after the Pearl Harbor attack because of fuel issues training after flight school was severely curtailed.

I did a little refreshing on my memory yesterday too. Prior to Pearl Harbor Japanese naval aviation training graduated 100 students a year. According to what I read they did not step those numbers up to replace those lost in combat operations until very close to the end of the war.

Rick