TASK FORCE 58 / TASK FORCE 38
In mid-January, 1944, the US Navy unleashed a powerful new offensive weapon against the Empire of Japan. The Pacific Theater of Operation shifted from defensive battles in the South Pacific to an organized, aggressive Plan of Attack against Japanese perimeter defenses all across the Central Pacific*. This new concept centered around utilizing fighter and bomber planes, unleashed from the decks of Fast Aircraft Carriers, to attack enemy strongholds and soften enemy defenses prior to landing assault forces.

To shift the role of the carrier planes from defense to aggressive offense, the aircraft carrier groups required significant protection from Capital Ships (battleships and cruisers) and perimeter (picket) screening from destroyers to ward off counter strikes by Japanese planes and/or submarines. A typical “Task Group” was formed in a large circle consisting of four aircraft carriers, circled by several battleships and as many as six cruisers. At least a dozen, but often many more destroyers formed the “outer ring.” The disposition of the group, as it traveled through Pacific waters, was several miles in circumference, and the Task Groups tended to travel ten or twelve miles apart from each other.

Typically, Task Force 58 was a collection of four self-sufficient Task Groups that prosecuted the war island-group by island-group, always advancing toward Japan. (Certain Operations and “Battle Line” groups morphed into either three or five Task Groups, but four was typical.) On any given day, the Task Force constituted just about one hundred warships.

(*Except the April 21, 1944 Hollandia Invasion [New Guinea])

TASK FORCE 58 OR TASK FORCE 38?

All the key characters were active Navy Commanders who were aboard the ships! Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz and his planners (in Pearl Harbor) devised the TF58 or TF38 strategy – changing the designation of the Task Force (roughly) every six months. This accomplished many things, including confusing the enemy as to the strength of their opponents. This was a very tangible result of the designation change. Most important was that the commanders were relieved from battle, and brought back to headquarters to assist in planning the next six-months of Operations.

Timeline:

January 6, 1944: Task Force 58 formed (depart Pearl Harbor, HI). Starting in the early December 1943, new warships began arriving at Pearl Harbor from shipyards all over the US. They began practicing fleet maneuvers until January 19th, when the ships gathered en masse and headed for the Marshall Islands.

August 26, 1944: Task Force 58 > Task Force 38 (depart Eniwetok Anchorage, Marshall Islands). After Operations Flintlock and Catchpole (Marshall Islands Capture; Raids on Truk, Palau, and Marcus-Wake Islands), and Forager (Marianas), the ships anchored in Eniwetok, awaiting the next Operations.

January 26, 1945: Task Force 38 > Task Force 58 (depart Ulithi Anchorage). After the grueling Operation King II, Love III, Mike I (Philippine Campaigns), Operation Gratitude (SE French Indochina), the ships gathered in the anchorage at Ulithi, awaiting the next Operations.

May 28, 1945: Task Force 58 > Task Force 38 (depart Ulithi). After the ships withstood the Iwo Jima invasion, and were hammered by kamikazes throughout Okinawa Operation Iceberg (Okinawa), they anchored in Ulithi, awaiting the next Operations.

May 28, 1945 to September 2, 1945 (Surrender Day) The ships of Task Force 38 pound the Japanese Home Islands in a series of Raids that culminate in their Surrender (August 15, 1945) and the Signing of the Peace Treaty aboard the USS Missouri.

Note: many ships were assigned to Occupation Duty, staying in Japanese waters confiscating arms and destroying suicide vessels until early 1946.

Task force 38 & 58

USS ESSEX

Task force  58

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USS ESSEX CV-9

USS ESSEX

Nov. 25th, 1944

US NAVY

The Battle of Leyte Gulf

Overview 
On 15 October 1944, following indications of impending Allied landings in the Philippines, the Japanese Imperial Navy’s First Mobile Fleet launched Operation Shō. Shō pulled together the majority of Japan’s remaining battleship, cruiser, and carrier forces in a desperate, multi-pronged attempt to interdict and destroy Allied landing forces off of Leyte in the central Philippines and inflict crippling damage on U.S. naval forces. The limited strike capabilities of severely depleted Japanese carrier air groups were to be augmented by land-based naval and army aviation units based in Formosa (Taiwan) and the Philippines. The stage was set for the multiple, widely separated engagements that made up the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

The First Mobile Fleet’s Main Body (“Northern Force”), which included the carrier force based in Kure, Japan, approached the Philippines from the northeast. It successfully drew Admiral William F. Halsey’s Third Fleet (including TF 34, its powerful fast battleships) away from the Leyte Gulf area, exposing the northern flank of Vice Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid’s Seventh Fleet invasion force. The Northern Group would be largely destroyed by Halsey’s carrier air wings in the Battle of Cape Engaño on 24 October. Meanwhile, the First Mobile Fleet’s Third Section, based in Brunei and approaching the Philippines from the southwest, and the Kure-based Second Diversion Attack Force approaching from northeast to northwest, were combined in a “Southern Force.” This force would be soundly defeated by the U.S. Seventh Fleet’s Bombardment and Fire-Support Group (battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and PT boats) in a tumultuous surface engagement on 24/25 October in the Battle of Surigao Strait as it attempted to force its way into Leyte Gulf from the south. It was one of the unique instances in naval warfare where a U.S. force successfully crossed the "T” of a Japanese force. 

The Brunei-based Japanese First Diversion Attack Force (“Center Force”), also approaching from the southwest, was hit by U.S. submarines in the Palawan Strait on 23 October and by U.S. naval air attacks as it transited the Sibuyan Sea in the center of the Philippine archipelago on 24 October. After being sighted by American carrier pilots in apparent retirement to the west, the force resumed its eastward passage and broke out of the San Bernardino Strait north of Samar, focused on destroying U.S. amphibious shipping to the south in Leyte Gulf. Due to the Northern Force’s successful decoy of U.S. Third Fleet, the Center Force was faced only by three U.S. Seventh Fleet escort carrier task units when it emerged from the strait in the early morning hours of 25 October. These task units had been providing close air support and an ASW screen for the Leyte landings. The resulting clash of the utterly mismatched forces and ultimate Japanese withdrawal—the Battle off Samar—would prove to be the most dramatic naval engagement of the Leyte campaign.

By 26 October, Operation Shō had been repulsed successfully. Despite hard battles ahead, the American offensive in the Philippines and beyond was to continue unabated. Most important, Leyte completely destroyed the strategic threat posed by the Imperial Japanese Navy.  

Gilbert Islands naval order of battle

Adm. Chester W. Nimitz

Rear Adm. Richmond Kelly Turner

Vice Adm. Raymond A. Spruance

Rear Adm. Charles A. Pownall

Maj. Gen. Julian C. Smith, USMC

Maj. Gen. Ralph C. Smith, USA

Rear Adm. Arthur W. Radford

Rear Adm. Alfred E. Montgomery

Rear Adm. Frederick C. Sherman

Rear Adm. Richmond Kelly Turner

Rear Adm. Harry W. Hill

 Memorial Pages

for my father.

Floyd A Heidelberger Sr.

A Celebration of Life
Will be held on October 23rd, 2022.

North St Paul, MN
at the American Legion Post 39
2678 7th Ave East, North St Paul, Mn 55109

12:30 through 3:30 pm

Lunch will be served at 1:00 pm
More details coming soon.

Floyd Arthur Heidelberger Sr.

September 18th, 1927 - April 20th, 2022

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