Naval aviation advocates in both the United States and Japan had long argued that aircraft carriers, possessing mobility and potent air groups, would in large measure determine the outcome of the Pacific War. That prediction held true for the war's first six months as Japanese carriers recorded a stunning triumph at Pearl Harbor and supported numerous advances throughout the Pacific. American carriers redeemed Allied pride in the gigantic carrier encounters in the Coral Sea and off Midway in May-June 1942. Little, though, in the way of carrier battles occurred for two years as Japan slowly replaced its 1942 losses and waited for the opportunity to destroy the American Navy in an enormous decisive encounter.
As Japan husbanded its naval resources, its American foe moved steadily westward. Japanese naval leaders patiently waited for an opportunity to deliver that decisive defeat, and by the middle of 1944, with their carrier strength rebuilt, they saw their chance in an expected American move against either the Caroline or Palau islands north of New Guinea, or against the Marianas. In early May 1944, the commander in chief of the Combined Fleet, admiral Soemu Toyoda, issued a plan called A-Go in which a major portion of the Japanese navy would move against the enemy in an attempt to crush its carrier power. Commander of the First Mobile Fleet, Vice Adm. Jisaburo Ozawa, was given practically every available surface craft to throw against the Americans.
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