The battle was the last of five major "carrier-versus-carrier" engagements between American and Japanese naval forces, [ 3 ] [ N 1 ] and pitted elements of the United States Navy 's Fifth Fleet against ships and aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy's Mobile Fleet and nearby island garrisons.
This was the largest carrier-to-carrier battle in history, involving 24 aircraft carriers , deploying roughly 1, carrier-based aircraft. The aerial part of the battle was nicknamed the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot by American aviators for the severely disproportional loss ratio inflicted upon Japanese aircraft by American pilots and anti-aircraft gunners.
Furthermore the Japanese defensive plans had been directly obtained by the Allies from the plane wreckage of the commander-in-chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy's Combined Fleet , Admiral Mineichi Koga , in March During the course of the battle, American submarines torpedoed and sank two of the largest Japanese fleet carriers taking part in the battle.
Eighty American planes were lost. Although at the time the battle appeared to be a missed opportunity to destroy the Japanese fleet, the Imperial Japanese Navy had lost the bulk of its carrier air strength and would never recover.
The few surviving carriers remained mostly in port thereafter. From the very start of the conflict in December , the Japanese war plan had been to inflict such severe and painful losses on the US military that its public would become war weary and the American government would be convinced to sue for peace and allow Japan to keep its conquests. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto had grown wary of this strategy, but he was killed in Operation Vengeance on 18 April The following day, Admiral Mineichi Koga succeeded Yamamoto as commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet , and Koga wanted the Imperial Japanese Navy to engage the American fleet in the "single decisive battle" in early Fukudome survived, but the Z Plan briefcase did not sink with the destroyed aircraft and was recovered by Filipino guerillas who over the next few weeks transported the documents to General Douglas MacArthur's Military Intelligence Service MIS in Brisbane , Australia.
