page_title: Philippine Sea order of battle
section_title: Task Force 58
hierarchical_section_title: Philippine Sea order of battle / American order of battle / Task Force 58
caption_attribution_description: Two Curtiss SB2C-1C Helldiver dive bombers in flight, circa in 1944 (BuNo 18543 is nearer to the camera). The white bar on fin indicates the planes were from the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown (CV-10). Note the rake-like antenna beneath wing of the ASB search radar.
context_page_description: The Battle of the Philippine Sea was fought 19-20 June 1944 in the waters west of the Mariana Islands by elements of the Imperial Japanese Navy's Combined Fleet and of the United States Navy's Pacific Fleet. The battle exacted a terrible toll from the Japanese naval air arm, costing them most of their few remaining experienced pilots. The Combined Fleet was no longer capable of serious offensive operations after this engagement. Historian Samuel Eliot Morison characterized it this way:
  This was the greatest carrier battle of the war. The forces engaged were three to four times those in preceding actions like Midway, and victory was so complete that the Japanese could never again engage on such a scale. ... above all the skill, initiative, and intrepid courage of the young aviators made this day one of the high points in the history of the American spirit.
  Since the Japanese assumed the tactical offensive, their forces are listed first.
  Japanese forces
  Combat ships: 3 fleet carriers, 2 old fleet carriers, 4 light carriers, 2 new battleships, 3 old battleships, 7 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers, 34 destroyers, 6 oilers, 7 1st-class submarines, 17 2nd-class submarines
context_section_description: Task Force 58 – Fast Carrier Forces
  
  Vice Admiral Marc A. Mitscher in fleet carrier Lexington
caption: Curtiss SB2C Helldiver dive bombers
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