Chuuk Lagoon

The aircraft that had been declared unfit went to sea.

It was over Truk and Rabaul.

It was in the air during the Philippine campaigns.

It was over Okinawa in the spring of 1945, where Marine Corsairs flew continuous combat air patrol against the Kamikaze threat in what was among the most intense air defense operations in the history of naval aviation to that point.

We went to Guam, and we went to...

We went there for probably a month, and we went to Guam, Saipan, Tinian, Palau, Truk, uh, Yap, Ponape.

We went to all the islands that the, that the Marines had stair-stepped through World War II to be able to get to Japan.

Is that area, like, called Micronesia?

At Leyte Gulf that October, SB-2C crews hit Japanese carriers and battleships.

They were at Truk, at Formosa, at Manila Bay at Okinawa, eventually at Kyushu and the Japanese home islands in the closing months of the war.

The accounting, when it was finally done, showed that the SB2C had delivered more ordnance against Japanese warships and shore targets than any other carrier-based dive bomber the United States put in the air.

The plane the Navy almost canceled had done more of the actual work than anyone would have predicted, when it was still an embarrassment on the test range.

And two years ago, I had no idea where Yap was.

I had heard of Palau, Pohnpei, Truk, Chuuk, and so where is Yap? And Amos said, well, you're in Japan.

It's only about a three hour flight to Guam.

And then there's a one hour hop down to Yap.

Enemy analysts concluded that Vice Admiral Richard L. Gormley, commanding the South Pacific area, ComSopac, was signaling a British or Australian force in preparation for an offensive in the Solomons or at New Guinea.

The warnings were passed to Japanese headquarters at Rabaul and Truk, but were ignored.

The invasion force was indeed on its way to its targets, Guadalcanal, Tulagi, and the tiny islets of Gavutu and Tanambogu close by Tulagi's shore.

The landing force was composed of Marines.