V Truk Japan's "Pearl Harbor"

Bombs rain on Japan's "Pearl Harbor"
February 16, 1944

TRUK IN FLAMES

Hard on the heels of the smashing U.S. victory at Kwajalein and twenty-six months after Pearl Harbor, the United States paid the Japanese back in kind, although without the peacetime sneak element. At dawn on Wednesday, February 16, several hundred American planes, flying from carriers, swooped down on Truk—which is to Japan what Hawaii is to the United States—and rained bombs down on the enemy fleet sitting in the placid lagoon. On December 7, 1941, a few more than a hundred Tokio planes took part in the attack on Pearl Harbor; our armada that blasted Truk on this February morning must have been as much as three times as large. Escorting the carriers on the raid was a powerful naval force, including battleships, cruisers and destroyers. The attack on Truk was more than a raid; it was a challenge to the enemy fleet to come out and fight. The challenge was not accepted, and the task force assault of February 16, 17, ended the legend that the Carolinas' base was invulnerable. Some idea of the terrain of the Japanese base and the extent of its formidable installations can be gathered from this official United States Navy photograph taken during the great raid. Forty ships were sunk or damaged and 201 planes were destroyed. But still remaining were the extensive airfields, troop concentrations and installations portrayed in this picture. In the harbor a flotilla of Japanese vessels of varying sizes huddles under the rain of U.S. Navy bombs, while the largest of the ships smokes from a hit forward.

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