Lieutenant Commander Edward Henry O'Hare was an American naval aviator of the United States Navy, who on February 20, 1942, became the Navy's first fighter ace of the war when he single-handedly attacked a formation of nine medium bombers approaching his aircraft carrier. Even though he had a limited amount of ammunition, he was credited with shooting down five enemy bombers and became the first naval aviator recipient of the Medal of Honor in World War II.
USS Saratoga (CV-3) was a Lexington-class aircraft carrier built for the United States Navy during the 1920s. Originally designed as a battlecruiser, she was converted into one of the Navy's first aircraft carriers during construction to comply with the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. The ship entered service in 1928 and was assigned to the Pacific Fleet for her entire career. Saratoga and her sister ship, Lexington, were used to develop and refine carrier tactics in a series of annual exercises before World War II. On more than one occasion these exercises included successful surprise attacks on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. She was one of three prewar US fleet aircraft carriers, along with Enterprise and Ranger, to serve throughout World War II.
USS Wasp (CV-7) was a United States Navy aircraft carrier commissioned in 1940 and lost in action in 1942. She was the eighth ship named USS Wasp, and the sole ship of a class built to use up the remaining tonnage allowed to the U.S. for aircraft carriers under the treaties of the time. As a reduced-size version of the Yorktown-class aircraft carrier hull, Wasp was more vulnerable than other United States aircraft carriers available at the opening of hostilities. Wasp was initially employed in the Atlantic campaign, where Axis naval forces were perceived as less capable of inflicting decisive damage. After supporting the occupation of Iceland in 1941, Wasp joined the British Home Fleet in April 1942 and twice ferried British fighter aircraft to Malta.
USS Kasaan Bay (CVE-69) was the fifteenth of fifty Casablanca-class escort carriers built for the United States Navy during World War II. She was named after Kasaan Bay, a name assigned to the bay by the local Haida Indians. The bay is located within Prince of Wales Island, which at the time was a part of the Territory of Alaska. The ship was launched in October 1943, commissioned in December, and served as a transport carrier in both the Atlantic and the Pacific, as well as taking part in Operation Dragoon, the Allied invasion of occupied Southern France. Her aircraft provided air support and strategic bombing capabilities, disrupting German supply lines, and earning Kasaan Bay a battle star. Postwar, she participated in Operation Magic Carpet. Ultimately, she was broken up in March 1960.
This is the order of battle for the Battle of Midway, a major engagement of the Pacific Theatre of World War II, fought 4–7 June 1942 by naval and air forces of Imperial Japan and the United States in the waters around Midway Atoll in the far northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
The Battle of the Coral Sea, a major engagement of the Pacific Theatre of World War II, was fought 4–8 May 1942 in the waters east of New Guinea and south of the Bismarck Islands between elements of the Imperial Japanese Navy and Allied naval and air forces from the United States (U.S.) and Australia.
Kinu (鬼怒) was the fifth of the six ships completed Nagara-class light cruiser in the Imperial Japanese Navy, named after the Kinu River in Tochigi prefecture Japan. She was active in World War II in various campaigns in Malaya, the Dutch East Indies and New Guinea before being sunk by United States Navy carrier-based aircraft in the Philippines in 1944.
This is the complete order of battle of Allied and Japanese forces during the Borneo campaign of 1945. As the campaign was fought in three geographically separate areas and the same air and naval units supported more than one of these battles the order of battle is split into the three areas.
As it turned out these operations were different from those that had gone before. The minefields were heavier and, for the first time in any Pacific campaign, man-made obstacles had been laid off the beaches.
This is the order of battle of the Japanese and Russian fleets at the Battle of Tsushima on 27–28 May 1905.
On 15 August 1944, Allied forces carried out Operation Dragoon, a set of simultaneous amphibious landings by three US infantry divisions followed by four Free French divisions along the Mediterranean coast of France. The main landings were preceded by nighttime paratroop drops and commando beach landings. This was a phase of the European Theatre of World War II.
Operation Tungsten was a Second World War air raid conducted by the Royal Navy that targeted the German battleship Tirpitz at her base in Kaafjord in the far north of Norway on 3 April 1944.
On 20 November 1943, simultaneous landings were made by United States Marine Corps forces on Tarawa and United States Army forces on Makin, two coral atolls located in the Gilbert Islands chain in the South-Central Pacific.
The Battle of Leyte Gulf, generally considered to be the largest naval combat in history, was fought 24–25 October 1944 in the waters of the Philippine Islands by elements of the Imperial Japanese Navy's Combined Fleet and the United States Navy's Pacific Fleet. Of the five separate engagements that made up the battle as a whole, the forces involved in the three principal ones are listed here.
The Battle of the Philippine Sea was fought 19–20 June 1944 in the waters west of the Mariana Islands by elements of the Imperial Japanese Navy's Combined Fleet and of the United States Navy's Pacific Fleet. The battle resulted from the Japanese reaction to the American invasion of the island of Saipan. Instead of attacking the troop transports off Saipan, Admiral Toyoda chose to engage the American carrier forces in what he intended to be the long-awaited “decisive battle” that would crush U.S. naval power.
For the April 1945 invasion of Okinawa, the Allies assembled the most powerful naval force in history. Since the few remaining capital ships of the Imperial Japanese Combined Fleet had been sunk or otherwise put out of action at the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the Allies were effectively unopposed in terms of major surface vessels; a single mission consisting of the superbattleship Yamato and a few escorts was undertaken, but the task force did not get within 200 nautical miles of the invasion area. The main Japanese naval opposition within the invasion area came from hundreds of Imperial Japanese Navy Shin'yō-class suicide motorboats and Maru-Ni Imperial Japanese Army attack boats.
On 7 August 1942, US and Australian naval forces undertook the invasion of the Japanese-held islands of Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the lower Solomon Islands chain, the first Allied offensive in the Pacific Theatre. The landing of the US 1st Marine Division on the beaches of Savo Sound began the unexpectedly long and extremely arduous Guadalcanal Campaign, lasting officially until 9 February 1943.
The Battle of the Eastern Solomons was fought August 23–25, 1942 in the waters east and northeast of the Solomon Islands by forces of the Imperial Japanese Navy's Combined Fleet and the US Navy's Pacific Fleet. The battle resulted from a major effort by the Japanese to reinforce their troop strength on the island of Guadalcanal. The Japanese high command had realized this reinforcement was necessary following the annihilation of the Ichiki Detachment by the 1st Marines a few days earlier.
Operation Avalanche was the codename for the combined US and British landings on the southwest coast of Italy on 9 September 1943 as part of the Allied effort in the Mediterranean Theater during World War II. The forces landed consisted of the US Fifth Army under Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark. The Fifth Army was made up of the British X Corps, which landed south of the town of Salerno, and the US VI Corps, which landed at the town of Paestum.
The Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands was fought 25–27 October 1942 in the waters northwest of the Santa Cruz Islands by forces of the Imperial Japanese Navy's (IJN) Combined Fleet and the United States Navy's (USN) Pacific Fleet. The battle resulted from a major Japanese offensive with the goal to drive the US forces from Guadalcanal.
On 15 June 1944, United States Marine and Army forces landed on the southwest coast of the island of Saipan in the central Marianas chain. US forces declared Saipan secure on 9 July.
Seventh Fleet
