What America's Halsey Did the Night Japan Claimed It Sank 11 US Carriers

Japan claimed it sank 11 US carriers off Formosa in October 1944. Not one was sunk. Instead, five days of fighting cost the Imperial Japanese Navy the air power it needed to defend the Philippines, and it would never again put a trained carrier air force to sea. This documentary follows the Formosa Air Battle from the Philippine Sea defeat that created Japan's Sho-Go plan to the night of October 14, 1944, when two torpedoed cruisers, USS Canberra and USS Houston, became the bait in Halsey's Cripple Division One. It covers Task Force 38's seventeen carriers, Vice Admiral Fukudome's land-based air fleets, the T Attack Force, Admiral Shima's aborted sortie, the false victory announced in Tokyo, and the road to Leyte Gulf and the first organized kamikaze attacks. Every figure comes from after-action reports, loss tables, ship damage records and Japanese postwar testimony, not from legend. Where sources disagree on aircraft counts, we say so. Subscribe for the definitive history of the United States in the Second World War — new documentaries every few days. #WW2 #WorldWarII #PacificWar #USNavy #WWIIHistory #Halsey #FormosaAirBattle #TaskForce38 #MilitaryHistory #USAInWW2