page_title: Operation Inmate
section_title: Opposing forces
hierarchical_section_title: Operation Inmate / Opposing forces
caption_attribution_description: HMS Implacable arriving at Sydney at the end of her voyage from the United Kingdom on 8 May 1945
context_page_description: Operation Inmate was an attack by the British Pacific Fleet against Japanese positions on Truk Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean during the Second World War. The attacks against the isolated islands on 14 and 15 June 1945 were conducted to provide combat experience for the aircraft carrier HMS Implacable and several of the fleet's cruisers and destroyers ahead of their involvement in more demanding operations off the Japanese home islands.
  On 14 June 1945 British aircraft conducted a series of raids against Japanese positions at Truk. The next morning, several islands were bombarded by British and Canadian cruisers, though only one of the four warships involved achieved any success. Further air strikes took place in the afternoon and night of 15 June before the Allied force returned to its base.
  The attack on Truk was considered successful for the Allied force, with the ships and air units gaining useful experience while suffering two fatalities and the loss of seven aircraft to combat and accidents. The damage to the Japanese facilities in the atoll, which had been repeatedly attacked during 1944 and 1945, was modest.
context_section_description: In mid-1945 the Japanese garrison at Truk remained large, but had no offensive capacity. As of May that year, the garrison comprised around 13,600 Imperial Japanese Army personnel commanded by Lieutenant General Shunzaburo Mugikura and 10,600 IJN personnel under Vice Admiral Chuichi Hara. A large number of coastal artillery batteries and anti-aircraft guns protected the islands, but no warships and only a small number of aircraft were stationed there. Radar stations on the islands provided warning of most incoming raids. The Japanese forces regarded Truk's air defences as inadequate even before the start of the Allied bombardment of the atoll.
  The Truk garrison received few shipments of reinforcements or supplies following the capture of the Palau islands by US forces in September 1944. Historian David Hobbs has stated that it had been "reduced to starving impotence" by the time of Operation Inmate. The garrison's main activity from mid-1944 onwards was growing food to sustain itself. The tropical conditions and damage caused by air attacks complicated this effort, and most of the Japanese personnel were malnourished. Nevertheless, the garrison also took extensive measures to protect the atoll from invasion and placed large stores of food and other supplies in reserve for such an eventuality. Following the end of the war in August 1945, United States forces found that the garrison still held enough ammunition to supply its gun batteries for at least 30 days of combat.
  The BPF's Truk attack force was designated Task Group 111.2, and comprised the 4th Cruiser Squadron and 24th Destroyer Flotilla. The ships assigned to the 4th Cruiser Squadron were Implacable, the escort carrier HMS Ruler, the British cruisers HMS Swiftsure and Newfoundland, the Canadian cruiser HMCS Uganda and the New Zealand cruiser HMNZS Achilles. The 24th Destroyer Flotilla was made up of Troubridge,  Teazer, Tenacious, Termagant and Terpsichore. The Task Group was commanded from Implacable by Rear Admiral E.J.P. Brind. While Implacable, Newfoundland and the destroyers had only recently arrived in the Pacific, all the other ships assigned to Task Group 111.2 had seen combat off Okinawa. Implacable's most recent combat experience was a series of air strikes conducted against German forces in Norway during late 1944.
  Implacable embarked 80 aircraft, which was the largest number to be operated by any of the BPF's aircraft carriers. The air group included 38 Naval Air Wing, whose 801 and 880 Naval Air Squadrons were equipped with 48 Supermarine Seafire fighter aircraft. The other units assigned to the carrier were 828 Naval Air Squadron with 21 Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bombers and 1771 Naval Air Squadron, which operated 11 Fairey Firefly fighters. Ruler was to be used as a  "spare deck" for Implacable's air group to operate from, and embarked only a single Supermarine Walrus search and rescue aircraft from 1701 Naval Air Squadron.
caption: HMS Implacable arriving at Sydney on 8 May 1945
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