On board Lexington Lieutenant Joseph Eggert, Mitscher’s fighter-director officer, commenced the day’s slaughter by barking out the timeworn circus cry for help, “Hey Rube!” Within 15 minutes of the 10:23 a.m. launch, over 220 Hellcats raced toward the incoming enemy. Lieutenant Commander Charles W. Brewer, commander of Essex’s VF- 15, met the Japanese 55 miles out from his ship and quickly set a pattern that would be repeated throughout the intense day. Brewer lined up the enemy leader, locked on his tail from 800 feet, and with a quick burst of machine-gun fire sent him careening toward the water. Before Brewer even emerged from the debris of this first kill he spotted a second target and fired a rapid volley which downed that plane. A third followed in quick succession when Brewer pounced on his tail and dispatched him smoking toward the water. A fourth quarry proved more elusive and executed a string of expert maneuvers to escape, but he, too, fell victim to Brewer’s accurate fire.

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Twenty-seven enemy planes eluded that initial fighter screen only to encounter a second, which splashed another 16 planes. The 11 surviving craft flew on and unsuccessfully attacked the picket destroyers Yarnell and Stockham. A handful of Japanese bombers finally managed to get through to Lee’s battle line and landed a direct hit on the battleship South Dakota, killing 27 men and wounding another 23, but not a single enemy plane reached the American carriers, their main target.

To deflect Japanese aircraft, an American pilot had to get close enough to his quarry to register a kill, but in doing so he flew perilously near a target that American surface anti-aircraft guns were simultaneously trying to destroy. An errant move by the pilot or a poorly aimed shell could bring down the wrong plane. Commander of one of the four task groups, Rear Adm. John W. Reeves, Jr., was so concerned for his pilots that he signaled all his ships during this first raid: “Try to avoid shooting down our own planes. They are our best protection.”

By 10:57–a scant 34 minutes after Mitscher launched his initial fighter–the first raid had ended. While suffering minimal damage, Mitscher’s force shot down 41 of Ozawa’s 69 planes in a display of aerial superiority rarely witnessed, in the Pacific. Lieutenant Commander Paul D. Buie, commander of Lexington’s VF- 16, heard one of his pilots exclaim: “Why, hell it was just like an old-time turkey shoot down home!”The phrase speedily bounced from ship to ship until most officers and men were speaking of the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.

At 8:56 a.m., before the first raid had even located Mitscher’s force, Ozawa had launched a second wave of 128 fighters, bombers and torpedo planes. Pilot Sakio Komatsu had barely lifted off from his carrier when he spotted a torpedo churning directly toward the carrier Taiho. Without hesitation, Komatsu reversed his course and crashed into the explosive. Komatsu’s courageous self-sacrifice bought only a brief respite for Ozawa’s flagship, which later fell victim to a second torpedo from the same American submarine, Albacore. Eight other Japanese planes experienced engine difficulties shortly after liftoff and had to return to their carriers. As the remaining 119 planes flew over Kurita’s van, 100 miles out, Kurita’s ships erupted in a mistaken but furious anti-aircraft barrage that downed two of their own planes and so damaged eight others that they had to turn back. Before the raid had flown out of sight of its own ships 19 planes were lost.

The rest flew on to calamity. After American radar picked up the group at 11:07 a.m., a scant 10 minutes after the first raid had retreated, Hellcats from several carriers pounced on the outclassed enemy and registered almost 70 kills in less than 30 minutes.

Commander David McCampbell of Essex started the slaughter at 11:39 by exploding the first Aichi D4Y2 “Judy” dive bomber he spotted. As he darted across to the other side of the enemy formation, evading a gantlet of return fire, McCampbell quickly splashed a second Judy, sped toward the front of the enemy formation to record a “probable” on a third, dispatched the formation leader’s left wingman with a staccato burst, downed the leader with a steady stream of machine-gun bullets, then scored a final kill on a diving enemy craft. In minutes McCampbell, who would become the Navy’s leading ace in the war, logged five kills and one probable.

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