1941-1945 From Pearl Harbour to Iwo Jima USS Saratoga during the Pacific War.
USS Saratoga took part in almost all the naval battles of the Second World War in the Pacific; she was hit a number of times, sometimes seriously, but managed to fight through to the end, and was finally expended as a target for nuclear bombs during the Bikini Atoll tests of 1946.
THE TASK FORCE CONCEPT
Alongside her sister-ship the Lexington, USS Saratoga was launched in 1925 as a battlecruiser, and both were modified under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty to become the US Navys first true aircraft carriers, being completed late in 1927. The two ships were to play a formative role in the development of the fast Task Force concept, following manoeuvres with the Pacific Fleet in 1928.
At the time of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbour, Saratoga was in the process of finishing a refit at San Diego. She was sent to sea immediately, and in company with her sister-ship, sailed for Wake, in a forlorn attempt to repel the Japanese who were even then threatening the island. Over the course of the next six months she acted as a transport carrier, ferrying air craft to other threatened outposts in the Pacific; she missed the Battle of Midway, but was sent into the front line as a reinforcement, after the loss of the Yorktown, in June 1942.
INTO ACTION AT GUADALCANAL
On August 7, 1942, the Saratogas fighters and dive bombers were assigned to soften up Japanese defences at Guadalcanal prior to the landing of US Marines. The Japanese retaliated strongly, and on August 26, a powerful enemy task force closed in on the eastern Solomon Islands, where they were confronted by the Saratoga, the Enterprise, and the Wasp. At dawn on August 31, the Saratoga was torpedoed by the submarine 1-68. She was not seriously damaged, despite the total flooding of one of her boiler rooms and the partial flooding of another, but a power failure soon put her out of commission. After two hours of hard work, the Saratogas crew restored limited power and were able to reach Pearl Harbour six days later. There, the ship was repaired in a record six weeks.
In 1943-44, the Saratoga participated in the major island-to-island offensive by the Americans in the Pacific. On tour in the East Indies in 1944, she cooperated with the British Far East Fleet in attacking the Japanese on Java and Sumatra. On February 21, 1945, the Saratoga was struck while supporting the Marine amphibious landing on Iwo Jima, but was repaired and refitted.
