Saratoga CV-3 Ops Post Midway

[Carl Schwamberger]

Seeking info on the actions of the Saratoga from 7 through 11 June. The history blurbs have the following:

1. Sara left Oahu 7 June

2. Fletcher transfered his flag to Sara 8 June

3. 34 extra aircraft aboard the Sara were transfered to the Hornet & Enterprise 11 June to replace battle losses.

My questions revolve around the following items:

1. What time the the Sara clear Pearl Harbor or depart Oahu 7 June?

2. When & where did Fletchers ride rendevous with the Sara?

3. Locations of the Sara relative to Midway 8th - 11th June.

Basically I'm trying to evaluate the extra striking power the Sara added to the Enterprise & Hornet from 8 June, which revolves around when it came into operational range or the Midway area.

Any expert information or sources are welcome, & thanks

[OpanaPointer]

The ship's logs for the period of WWII are now located at the College Park National Archives branch.

[mescal]

Hello Carl,

I would suggest to look at Lundstrom's First Team and Black Shoe Carrier Admiral.

I can't find where I stored the former, but in the latter you can get some more info on pp293-297.

Notably :

That afternoon [June 6th] Nimitz had to delay the departure of the Saratoga Group until the next morning[...] and postponed the rendezvous until 8 June 200 miles closer to Pearl

Sadly, neither the reason of the postponement or the initial location of the rendezvous are provided.

On the afternoon of 8 June Fletcher transferred his flag and incorporated the Saratoga group into TF17

Note that both King and Nimitz by that time (7 June at the latest) were looking northward to the Aleutians - be it to transfer forces there or to ambush the Japanese carrier group of AL if they were coming south.
Nimitz had provided (on the 7th) a rendezvous point for TF16 & TF17 650 nmiles northeast of Midway (same source, p294)

Hope it helps.

[Carl Schwamberger]

The ship's logs for the period of WWII are now located at the College Park National Archives branch.

Thanks I'll head over there right now. Oh, wait... Well maybe they will send copies of the relevant dates??

[OpanaPointer]

The ship's logs for the period of WWII are now located at the College Park National Archives branch.

Thanks I'll head over there right now. Oh, wait... Well maybe they will send copies of the relevant dates??

The copy service should be able to do that for you, yes.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Thanks. I'm trying to imagine how many pages that will be. Not fished in ships logs before. Wrote several hundred pages in ground unit logs, but those are a horse of a different choler.

(..and no I did not misspell the last.)

[OpanaPointer]

Thanks. I'm trying to imagine how many pages that will be. Not fished in ships logs before. Wrote several hundred pages in ground unit logs, but those are a horse of a different choler.

(..and no I did not misspell the last.)

Unless there's unusual activity you shouldn't have more than two pages of logs for any day. The deck logs for Enterprise and Lexington are in the Hearings for their forays prior to the raid on Pearl, and neither had more than two pages per day, IIRC.

[Carl Schwamberger]

That should be managable. Would there be a seperate log for the air ops, or would it be consolidated with the deck or bridge log?

[OpanaPointer]

That should be managable. Would there be a seperate log for the air ops, or would it be consolidated with the deck or bridge log?

The deck log was kept by the ship's company, so you'd get notations as to when they went to flight quarters but not descriptions of what happened with the air elements themselves unless very notable.

[OpanaPointer]

BTW, if you don't get what you need from the deck logs you can inquire about the War Diaries for the ship and the squadrons. You can ask about the number of pages involved in any request before committing to ordering copies as well.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Mostly the locations, & when the Sara cleared PH on the 7th. I expect all that would be in the log.

Info on the extra aircraft flying off to the Hornet & Enterprise would be nice but not essential.

[OpanaPointer]

Mostly the locations, & when the Sara cleared PH on the 7th. I expect all that would be in the log.

Info on the extra aircraft flying off to the Hornet & Enterprise would be nice but not essential.

The logs have a noon sighting giving lat/long, and any landmass they stop at. Given the speed they're traveling at you can work backwards to find the time for a location given.

If the planes left Sara permanently it may have noted in the deck log.

[R Leonard]

Carl -

You might want to look at the CinCPac Gray books. Best quality on the net is at the NWC site, here: https://usnwcarchive.org/items/show/849

Volume 1 covers the period, a rather large PDF (you know, download, go get a cup of coffee, have another), but searchable. You should get about 20+ document hits for Saratoga in the period in question.

Volume 8 has about 10 items related to same, but you'll have to page through some 350 page to find them. OTOH, it doesn't take long if you don't get side-tracked reading the other traffic.

Rich

[OpanaPointer]

Sweet. I'm asking NHHC if they want to HTML that.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Rich
Thanks