I'm John Batcher. The book is Nimitz at War, command leadership from Pearl Harbor to

Tokyo Bay by Professor Craig Simons, U.S. Naval Academy Emeritus.

We're concentrating on the relationships of the commanders, the flag officers, the generals of the

Marine Corps, the generals of the Army. we now come to Spruance commanding the fleet during

the landings on the Marianas, and there is an opportunity to take on the Japanese fleet and to go up against what looked at this point a Japanese

attempt to launch all of its aircraft and sink American carriers.

There were a great number of carriers.

They're coming on all the time now.

The arsenal of democracy is delivering big carriers after big carriers.

And Task Force 58

then takes on the Japanese attack in what is known as the Battle of

Philippine Sea but is otherwise known as the Turkey shoot. What do we learn

about this moment and spruence his decision-making professor.

Well, keep in mind that the United States Navy in peacetime always plans for

contingencies. What might happen? How can we prepare for for that it's happening today as we speak and it

certainly happened throughout the 1930s and the planning that most Navy officers assumed

would would come forth is that at some point in a possible future war with Japan

there would be a major naval battle somewhere in the Western Pacific and that

naval battle would decide the outcome of the war.

So American naval officers and Japanese naval officers too have been looking forward to this big

confrontation.

But Spruance is assigned the job of capturing the island of Saipan, and he, who is an overall command of all the American forces, says that's job one, protecting that beachhead.

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