page_title: USS Wasp (CV-18)
section_title: 1943–1944
hierarchical_section_title: USS Wasp (CV-18) / Service history / World War II / 1943–1944
caption_attribution_description: English: U.S. Third Fleet aircraft carriers at anchor in Ulithi Atoll, 8 December 1944, during a break from operations in the Philippines area. The carriers are (from front to back): USS Wasp (CV-18), USS Yorktown (CV-10), USS Hornet (CV-12), USS Hancock (CV-19) and USS Ticonderoga (CV-14). Wasp, Yorktown and Ticonderoga are all painted in camouflage Measure 33, Design 10a. The other Essex-class carrier painted in sea blue Measure 21 is USS Lexington (CV-16).
context_page_description: USS Wasp was one of 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers built during World War II for the United States Navy. The ship, the ninth US Navy ship to bear the name, was originally named Oriskany, but was renamed while under construction in honor of the previous Wasp, which was sunk 15 September 1942. Wasp was commissioned in November 1943, and served in several campaigns in the Pacific Theater of Operations, earning eight battle stars. Like many of her sister ships, she was decommissioned shortly after the end of the war, but was modernized and recommissioned in the early 1950s as an attack carrier, and then eventually became an antisubmarine carrier. In her second career, she operated mainly in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Caribbean. She played a prominent role in the manned space program, serving as the recovery ship for five missions: Gemini IV, Gemini VI, Gemini VII, Gemini IX, and Gemini XII. She was retired in 1972, and sold for scrap in 1973.
context_section_description: Following a shakedown cruise which lasted through the end of 1943, Wasp returned to Boston for a brief yard period to correct minor flaws which had been discovered during her time at sea. On 10 January 1944, the new aircraft carrier departed Boston, steamed to Hampton Roads, Virginia, and remained there until the last day of the month, when she sailed for Trinidad, her base of operations through 22 February. She returned to Boston five days later and prepared for service in the Pacific. Early in March, the ship sailed south, transited the Panama Canal, arrived at San Diego on 21 March, and reached Pearl Harbor on 4 April.
  Following training exercises in Hawaiian waters, Wasp steamed to the Marshall Islands and at Majuro, Rear Admiral Alfred E. Montgomery's newly formed Task Group 58.6 (TG 58.6) of Vice Admiral Marc A. Mitscher's Fast Carrier Task Force (TF 58). On 14 May, she and her sister carriers of TG 58.6, Essex and San Jacinto, sortied for raids on Marcus and Wake Islands to give the new task group combat experience, to test a recently devised system of assigning—before takeoff—each pilot a specific target, and to neutralize those islands for the forthcoming Marianas Campaign. As the force neared Marcus, it split, sending San Jacinto north to search for Japanese picket boats while Wasp and Essex launched strikes on 19 and 20 May, aimed at installations on the island. American planes encountered heavy antiaircraft fire but still managed to do enough damage to prevent Japanese forces on the island from interfering with the impending assault on Saipan.
  When weather cancelled launches planned for 21 May, the two carriers rejoined San Jacinto and steamed to Wake. Planes from all three carriers pounded that island on 24 May and were sufficiently effective to neutralize that base. However, the system of selecting targets for each plane fell short of the Navy's expectations, and thereafter, tactical air commanders resumed responsibility for directing the attacks of their planes.
  After the strike on Wake, TG 58.6 returned to Majuro to prepare for the Marianas campaign. On 6 June, Wasp—reassigned to TG 58.2 which was also commanded by Rear Admiral Montgomery—sortied for the invasion of Saipan. During the afternoon of 11 June, she and her sister carriers launched fighters for strikes against Japanese air bases on Saipan and Tinian. They were challenged by some 30 land-based fighters, which they promptly shot down. Antiaircraft fire was heavy, but the American planes braved it as they went on to destroy many of the Japanese aircraft still on the ground.
  During the next three days, the American fighters—now joined by bombers—pounded installations on Saipan to soften up Japanese defenses for American assault troops who would go ashore on 15 June. That day and thereafter until the morning of June, planes from TGs 58.2 and TG 58.3 provided close air support for Marines fighting on the Saipan beachhead.
  The fast carriers of those task groups then turned over to escort carriers responsibility for providing air support for the American ground forces, refueled, and steamed to meet with TGs 58.1 and 58.4, which were returning from strikes against Chichi and Iwo Jima to prevent Japanese air bases on those islands from being used to launch attacks against American forces on or near Saipan.
  Meanwhile, Japan—determined to defend Saipan, no matter how high the cost—was sending Admiral Jisaburō Ozawa's powerful First Mobile Fleet from the Sulu Islands to the Marianas to sink the warships of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance's 5th Fleet and to annihilate the American troops who had fought their way ashore on Saipan. Soon after the Japanese task force sortied from Tawi Tawi on the morning of 13 June, American submarine Redfin spotted and reported it. Other submarines—which from time to time made contact with Ozawa's warships—kept Spruance posted on their progress as they wended their way through the islands of the Philippines, transited San Bernardino Strait, and took part in the Battle of the Philippine Sea.
  All day on 18 June 1944, each force sent
caption: USS Wasp at Ulithi atoll on 8 December 1944
exif: {}