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  • Dawn.

  • June 13th.

  • 1944 In the waters off SaiPan in the Mariana Islands, aircraft carrier USS Enterprise clears for action.

  • Her massive flight deck is alive revving engines as the T B F Avengers of Torpedo Squadron 10 prepared to hit enemy positions on site man.

  • Their target is a Japanese flag battery on the southern tip of the island, where in just a few days U.

  • S.

  • Ground troops will be slogging ashore.

  • The enemy stronghold is covered with anti aircraft artillery and it's enterprises Job toe wiped them out.

  • If the U.

  • S can capture SaiPan, the island will offer an ideal base for U S Army B 29 Superfortress bombers.

  • From here, massive warplanes could begin strategic bombing of the whole time.

  • We would be able to contribute to the battle, a major strategic air campaign against the Japanese home islands.

  • And it was thought that by subjecting the Japanese home islands to attracted strategic air campaign, the likes of which we were doing to the Germans in Europe would accelerate the end of the war targets.

  • SaiPan objective sees the heavily defended enemy island crush the Japanese garrison.

  • Strategy carriers like enterprise will hammer the island with warplanes.

  • Battleships will pummel it from the C.

  • U S.

  • Marines and soldiers will battle the enemy on land as Allied forces push in on the empire from all sides, Japanese army and navy will be divided face with fighting a multi front war by 1944.

  • Axis powers are on the defensive as the allies prepare for massive invasions in the Pacific, in France and in Italy, you consider that American forces are heavily engaged in combat in Italy that American forces are also about to conduct the opposed amphibious landing in Normandy on June 6th, the United States military.

  • It's demonstrating that it is capable of engaging in broad offensive operations on opposite sides of the world.

  • Simultaneously, SaiPan will be one of the most important invasions of the war.

  • Enormity of the Pacific and D Day is set for June 15th June 15th.

  • 1944 D day.

  • In the invasion of SaiPan, Enterprise launches a major air strike of SBD dive bombers, hellcat fighters and Avenger torpedo planes.

  • It's part of a massive support mission as the American airman batter the Japanese positions with round after round of bombs and bullets 20,000 U.

  • S Marines WADE ashore and face the Japanese defenders in hellish COMBAT In one single day of battle 2000 Americans are killed or wounded.

  • 2000 men for less than 1/2 a mile of Japanese realist, a gruesome start to one of the biggest battles in the Pacific war.

  • 7 p.m. Carriers Enterprise, Lexington and Bunker Hill cruise the waters off SaiPan As the sun begins to set on D Day.

  • Ships prepare for another night in the hostel.

  • Central Pacific.

  • Suddenly main search radar on the enterprise.

  • Pick something up is an incoming air assault 22 miles away.

  • Seven land based Fran Torpedo bombers had right for enterprise and carrier Lexington.

  • Within minutes, the enemy planes will be within striking distance 10 miles ahead of the friends.

  • Spotters on enterprise can now clearly see the incoming assault.

  • Seconds later, the guns of the task force roar into action five inch, 38 caliber rifles from enterprise and elected to jump out a volley of explosive projectiles.

  • 40 millimeter in 20 millimeter anti aircraft guns spray red hot streams of fire into the air wave after wave of enemy planes were wiped out by the fighter planes of Enterprise.

  • In the other carriage, the killing goes on for hours.

  • Japanese air attack is a complete failure.

  • Nearly 400 enemy aircraft are blown out of the sky by American Hellcats on the guns of U.

  • S s enterprise in the US fleet.

  • It's one of the greatest victories for the American Navy and a horrific defeat for the Japanese.

  • 40 trained enemy fliers are no match for the biggie.

  • A young American pilot will later compare it to an old fashioned turkey shoot.

  • The name sticks after I get how many we damn nearly all of them.

  • And the pilots came back laughing.

  • It was a turkey.

  • Shoot it if I'm not mistaken.

  • Enterprise was credited with downing around 70 all those planes that day.

  • The Great Marianas Turkey shoot completely devastates Japan's naval air forces.

  • Our fighters just completely violated the biggest riel air battle of war.

  • There we go, Tremendous stay for terrier aircraft.

Dawn.

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