19 FEB 44
An hour before sunrise men on Princeton's flight deck were preparing for the day's first launch, while those on watch on her bridge monitored the multiple vessels of the Task Group. "At 0625 USS SARATOGA reported one VT aircraft in the water after takeoff, and dropped a float light. USS SAN JUAN maneuvered to position and pick up pilot and two crew members at 0644."
At 0710, the heavy cruisers USS Portland and USS Indianapolis and several destroyers and multiple LCI(G) — Landing Craft Infantry Gunboats, armed with 40mm guns, 20mm guns, 50 cal. machine guns and some with MK rocket launchers — opened fire on Japanese positions on Eniwetok Island, preparatory to the landings of the Army's 106th Regimental Combat Team.
At 0714 Princeton completed the launch of 5 Avengers, each armed with a single 2000-pound general purpose bomb. The War Diary notes that the five Avengers "dropped 5 2000-pound bombs on the center and ocean side of Eniwetok Island opposite assigned beaches when landing boats were 500 yards off the beaches. Considerable small caliber fire at the landing boats from the beaches was observed."
The P had also launched 1 VT and 2 VF to act as Air Coordinators for the landings, along with 12 VF for Combat Air Patrol.
Planners had underestimated the strength of Japanese defenses on Eniwetok and the landings quickly bogged down. As the day wore on, the 106th defeated a counter-attack by 400 Japanese troops and isolated the remaining enemy on the western tip of the island. Two of VF-23's Hellcat Air Coordinators "made 6 strafing runs on the west tip of Eniwetok Island, supporting a tank advance against cornered Japanese in that sector, and also made runs on the center of Parry Island."
Operation Catchpole, February 1944. Three U.S. Marines crawl toward a Japanese dugout to knock out snipers during battles on Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands, while an American plane flies overhead. Photograph received February 18-22, 1944. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.
Being focused primarily on Princeton's role in 1944's naval campaign it is easy to forget that while important, she was playing but a small part in what was the largest naval battle in history. The Graybook summary provided to Admiral Nimitz on February 19th provides perspective:
The American Navy was attacking the Japanese Empire from the air, land and sea at dozens of locations scattered across hundreds of thousands of square miles of featureless ocean.
Simultaneously.
In the summer of 1940, the U.S. Navy totaled 478 ships. The day Japan surrendered the American fleet numbered 6,768. America had 7 aircraft carriers on December 7th, 1941. On VJ day that number was 99.
Unfortunately, despite the inevitability of defeat, the Japanese were not going to quit.
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