Mission Beyond Darkness

THE concluding phase of the First Battle of the Philippines occurred on June 19, 1944. Late that afternoon, United States Navy planes from Task Force 58 attacked a Japanese fleet. They sank one carrier and four tankers, probably sank another carrier, another tanker and a destroyer, and damaged several other ships. Our losses were ninety-six planes and forty-nine men.

Vice-Admiral Marc A. Mitscher, Commander of Task Force 58, gave the order that launched the attack. The planes that delivered it were drawn from air groups based on the carriers that constituted part of his command. Air Group 16, based on his flagship, the USS Lexington, was typical of the groups participating from the larger carriers. It consisted of three squadrons: Fighting 16, equipped with F6F-3s, or Hellcats; Torpedo 16, equipped with TBM-1Cs, or Avengers; and Bombing 16, equipped with SBD-3s, or Dauntlesses.

Thirty-four of Air Group 16’s planes took off that afternoon; eleven single-seater Hellcats, seven Avengers with crews of three, sixteen Dauntlesses with crews of two. The account that follows is the account of those sixty-four men. It is derived wholly from narratives by the survivors, from statements by officers and men of the Lexington’s company, and from the authors’ witness. No incident has been fabricated. No word or thought or action has been ascribed to anyone without his own authority.