Page 629 - Visitor Guides
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. OPERATION HAILSTONE
The Japanese had for many years prepared Truk Lagoon as a forward naval base. A huge
natural harbour and deep anchorage, strategically placed in the heart of the trade routes. They
had established air fields and anti aircraft defences, but it was their belief in the impenetrable
air umbrella of the Zero fighter which was to be the inevitable downfall of the base.
The Americans had hoped to catch the capital ships including the Battleships Yamato and
Musashi-, but their high level reconnaissance planes were spotted tipping the Japanese off
and the major capital ships had left before the first airstrikes arrived.
Task Force 58 comprised mainly of the carriers Yorktown, Enterprise, Cabot, Essex,
Lexington and Bunker Hill, plus the battleships Iowa and New Jersey.
17/18 feb 1944; The first waves of the attack were to take out the air cover and the new
American fighters, Grumman Hellcats, were more than a match for the Zero’s. Given that
some of the Japanese pilots were on different islands to their planes, the merchant fleet was at
the mercy of the torpedo and dive bombers which followed.
The results of these and subsequent attacks has left the diving world an amazing legacy-the
greatest collection of shipwrecks in the world.
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