Marines landed on Saipan on the 15th, and that event goaded the Japanese Mobile Fleet to make a desperate attempt to turn back this Allied threat to the Emperor's inner defense line, in which the Marianas acted as a major link, if not the keystone. "Bang" reached her station that same day but spent an uneventful week while Admiral Raymond Spruance's 5th Fleet was trouncing the Japanese task force in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, virtually wiping out the enemy's naval air capability for the remainder of the war.