US Marine Corps - The Black Vault

516 Amphibians Came To Conquer
Rear Admiral Marc A. Mitscher who under Vice Admiral Aubrey W. Fitch,
Commander TF 33 and Air Force south Pacific, commanded the Solomon
Islands Air Force, reported that 455 planes in his Force were ready to fly.
These were 213 fighters, 170 light bombers and 72 heavy bombers. In con-
trast, the Japanese at Rabaul had but 66 bombers, and 83 fighter aircraft
on this day, with an undetermined small number at Buka, Kahili, and Ballale,
their three main operational airfields in the Northern Solomons.40
The main submarine unit of Task Force 72, commanded by Captain James
Fife (1918), was Submarine Squadron Eight, commanded by Captain Wil-
liam N. Dowries (1920). Captain Dowries acted as Liaison Officer to Com-
mandsr Third Fleet and was positioned in Noumea from the latter part of
June ~ntil mid-July 1943. Six to eight submarines of this squadron were on
station in the Solomons from mid-June to mid-July.
For Dog Day, the carrier task force was told to operate in an area nearly
500 miles south of Rendova—well out of range for any close air support
and well clear of enemy shore based air.
One cruiser-destroyer force was assigned an operating area 300 miles
south-southwest of Rendova, while another cruiser-destroyer-minelayer force
was given the chore of laying a minefield 120 miles north of Rendova
and bombarding various airfields north of New Georgia.
The planes from the escort aircraft carriers called “jeep” carriers;’ were
to be flown off to augment the shore-based aircraft of CTF 33, COMAIR-
SOPAC. One division of battleships was kept in a 2-hour ready status in
far away Ef ate,750 miles from the New Georgia objective.
AIRSOPAC would provide the aircraft umbrella, and the submarines
would provide any unwelcome news of the approach of major units of the
Japanese Fleet towards or past the Bismarck Barrier.
It should be noted that COMSOPAC’S Plan:
1. provided that a shore-based commander, Vice Admiral Halsey,
retained immediate personal control of the operation.
2. did not provide for the coordination of the various SOPAC task
forces under one commander in the operating or objective area,
should a Japanese surface or carrier task force show up to threaten
* James C. Shaw, ‘“The Japanese Guessed Wrong at New Georgia,” Tbe Marine Corpf Guzette,
xxxiii (Dec. 1949), pp. 36-42.
4’The escort aircraft carrier was a smalI carrier fashioned out of a merchant ship hull. It had
low speed, modest plane carrying capacity and inadequate water-tight subdivision for a man-of-war.
Like the Army jeep, it was called upon to do practically every type of task, hence its nickname
,!. Jeep.”