Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Foreword
PREFACE
 
PART ONE - A Precarious Honor
USS Lexington, 1005 hours, June 19, 1944
Sitrep: June 1944
Bunker C
Power Base
Murderer’s Row
The Gargoyle
Two Years from Midway
A Full-contact Sport
House of the Setting Sun
Warm-ups
Antisubmarine Actions
Fleet Boats
June 6
In a Rainstorm
 
PART TWO - “Cut Their Damned Throats”
June 10
June 11
The Big E
June 12
June 13
June 14
Unreps
The Reluctant Admiral
Fleet Opposed Landing (June 15)
June 16
“Blue Jacket”
June 17
June 18
Balance of Forces
 
PART THREE - “Your Signal: Buster”
June 19
Floatplanes
Sea Eagles
Reinforcements
Fighter Pilots
Steel in the Sky
Turkey Shoot
First Kill
Carrier War
The Wind
Ozawa’s Shuttle Service
The Flight Deck
Deckloads
Shoe Clerks
The Hellcat
Raid I
The Periscope View
Raid II
Swedes and Swiss
Leakers
Raid III
Raid IV
Forty to One
The Searchers
In the Groove
Options
“An Old-time Turkey Shoot”
Stern Chase
The Score
 
PART FOUR - “Launch ’Em”
June 20
Patterns
Rendezvous
“Many Ships . . .”
Torpeckers
Deckload Strike
Course Two-niner-zero
Carrier Division One
Carrier Division Two
Carrier Division Three
Hits and Misses
 
PART FIVE - “Turn on the Lights”
Course Zero-niner-zero
Task Group 58.1: Hornet, Yorktown, Bataan, Belleau Wood
Task Group 58.2: Bunker Hill, Wasp, Cabot, Monterey
Task Group 58.3: Lexington, Enterprise, Princeton, San Jacinto
Search and Rescue
Falcon Flies Away
Searchers in the Dark (June 21)
Adrift
June 22
June 23
June 24
Eniwetok
 
PART SIX - Final Cut
Reckoning
Postscript
Surviving Ships
What Became of the Americans?
What Became of the Japanese?
The Marianas Today
APPENDIX A
APPENDIX B
APPENDIX C
APPENDIX D
APPENDIX E
APPENDIX F
APPENDIX G
Acknowledgements
BIBLIOGRAPHY
NOTES
INDEX
About the Author