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Macclan5 -> RE: June 6 (6/7/2019 6:04:04 PM)
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..and respect and cherish Democracy to such a degree that you protect it World Wide in multiple hemispheres
**Full credit to Author Philip A Crowl
United States Army In WW2
Softening the Target:
Pre-D-Day Bombardment
On 6 June, while the convoys carrying
the attack troops headed westward for
their staging bases in the Marshalls, Marc
Mitscher's Task Force 58 weighed anchor
and slipped out of Majuro for waters east
of the Marianas. For this operation Admiral
Mitscher had gathered together a total of
seven carriers, eight light carriers, seven
fast battleships, three heavy cruisers, ten
light cruisers, and fifty-two destroyers.1
Their missions were to prevent Japanese
aircraft from interfering with the capture
of Saipan, Tinian, and Guam; to protect
the expeditionary force and the troops
ashore from attack by enemy surface vessels; and, commencing on D minus 3 (12
June), to destroy aircraft and air facilities
in the Marianas. Finally, on 13 June when
it was presumed that Japanese aircraft operating from fields in the Marianas would
be eliminated, Task Force 58 was directed
to destroy all other types of Japanese defenses both by aerial bombardment and by
ships' fire from its supporting vesse
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