World Battlefronts: Carrier for Carrier?

Tokyo claimed last week that Japanese aircraft had bombed and seriously damaged “a specially converted aircraft carrier” in Java waters. If U.S. aircraft carriers or converted transports had entered the Japanese-dominated Indies waters, then the U.S. had taken substantial risks to succor Java.

The U.S. Navy repaid in kind. In a single week (ending March 6), U.S. submarines in the western Pacific sank one big Jap destroyer, one large naval tanker; hit and “definitely put out of action” one Jap aircraft carrier, three cruisers. U.S. guns, torpedoes and bombs had sunk 138 Jap vessels to date, sunk or damaged 20 Japanese cruisers-almost half of Japan’s known cruiser strength.