When 400 Japanese Planes Were Erased in a Single Afternoon

On 19 June 1944, four hundred Japanese aircraft were destroyed over the Philippine Sea in a single afternoon, and the Imperial Japanese Navy never put a trained carrier air arm into the sky again. This documentary reconstructs the Battle of the Philippine Sea from the records: Admiral Ozawa's Plan A-Go and the outranging doctrine built on the Zero's fuel load, the destruction of Kakuta's First Air Fleet on the Marianas airfields between 11 and 13 June, and the American decision — made in 1943 and written up as a reorganisation of screening procedure — to concentrate fifteen carriers into four task groups sharing one radar picture and one fighter-direction net. It covers Raids I through IV minute by minute, the Hellcat interceptions forty-five miles out, the loss of Taiho and Shokaku to the submarines Albacore and Cavalla, the destruction of Raid IV in the landing pattern over Orote Field, and the night recovery of 20 June when Mitscher turned the fleet's lights on. Built from after-action reports, loss tables and squadron records — not from the legends that grew around the nickname. Subscribe for the definitive history of the United States in the Second World War — new documentaries every few days. #ww2 #worldwarii #pacificwar #usnavy #wwiihistory #hellcat #philippinesea #TaskForce58 #MarianasTurkeyShoot #militaryhistory #USAInWW2