The Carrier Raid on Rabaul

The American landing at Empress Augusta Bay on Bougainville had begun on 1 November. The island offered airfield sites for operations against the Japanese base at Rabaul, and a Japanese naval force had already tried to disrupt the landing. In the night fighting off Empress Augusta Bay, US Task Force 39 sank a light cruiser and a destroyer; two heavy cruisers and another destroyer were damaged. Rabaul was no longer just a name on the map behind the landing. It was a base from which Japanese forces could contest the foothold.

On 5 November, US Rear Admiral Frederick C. Sherman’s Task Force 38 attacked Rabaul. Its force included the heavy carrier Saratoga and the light carrier Princeton. The strike was a surprise: 97 American aircraft hit ships commanded by Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita, damaging eight cruisers and destroyers. The number was substantial, but the raid’s immediate result was damage, not a claim that the Japanese fleet had been destroyed. The distinction mattered. Rabaul remained the target of further air attack, and the ships damaged in the first strike were part of a larger Japanese naval presence in the area.

On 11 November, a second attack followed. The heavy carriers Bunker Hill and Essex and the light carrier Independence launched 183 aircraft against Rabaul. This time, a light cruiser and a destroyer were sunk, while five other destroyers and light cruisers were damaged. Japanese losses also included more than 55 aircraft during the raid and the counterattack. The two strikes together showed how quickly carrier air power could reach a major base and hit ships gathered there; they did not, by themselves, end the fighting around Bougainville.

The dates made the sequence plain: a landing at Empress Augusta Bay, a Japanese effort to interfere, then repeated American air strikes on Rabaul. Task Force 38 had not been a single carrier acting alone. Sherman’s force included Saratoga and Princeton on 5 November, and the later strike brought in Bunker Hill, Essex and Independence. For Kurita’s ships, the first raid delivered damage without warning; the second turned some of that damage into losses. The Japanese base had been struck twice in six days, while the campaign that made it a target continued on Bougainville.