Word: mitscher
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Their chief objectives were Miyako and Okinawa Islands, and the area was thick with bombers' targets. The planes sank an escort-type destroyer, four small submarines, 14 cargo ships, 25 smaller ships, 43 other vessels. Apparently the Mitscher-men had surprised the enemy: they destroyed 59 planes on the ground, shot 23 more...
Counterattack. By this time the Japs were finally goaded to counterattack. So far, not a U.S. ship had been damaged. But as the sun set behind Formosa's jagged peaks, the Jap air force found Mitscher's task groups. The next U.S. communiqué reported the Jap attack beaten off but (perhaps significantly) omitted the familiar reassurance-"no damage to our surface ships...
That night and the next day Halsey and Mitscher stayed at it. More air groups hammered at the Pescadores on the China side of Formosa. The next day, and the next, the Third Fleet was still fighting off bombers, still raining explosives on Formosa's fat targets...
Meanwhile, the Halsey-Mitscher forces bored south. From the Philippine Sea, Mitscher sent air groups out for yet other strikes at Aparri and airfields around Manila Bay. The week's total of Jap aircraft destroyed rose...
...classic achievement lay behind Halsey and Mitscher. The Philippines had been largely isolated from aerial reinforcement; Jap supply-line establishments lay in ruins. Among the lost islands to the south, greater history-making lay ahead...