The Bismarck Sea sank with the loss of over 300 sailors after multiple kamikaze hits ignited catastrophic fires and explosions, one of the costliest single-ship losses to Japan's suicide air tactics. Saratoga survived several hits but was put out of action for months, an early demonstration of how effective kamikaze attacks could be against the U.S. Navy even as the ground battle for Iwo Jima raged ashore.
Two days after the first Marines had waded ashore on Iwo Jima's black volcanic sand, Japan struck back at sea. A wave of kamikaze aircraft targeted the American support fleet stationed offshore, and the escort carrier USS Bismarck Sea took the worst of it, absorbing at least two direct hits that set off secondary explosions among its stored aircraft bombs and fuel.
Within minutes the ship became an inferno, and Captain John Pratt ordered abandon ship as flames made the flight deck untenable. Rescue efforts in the cold night waters were chaotic and slow, and by morning 318 of the roughly 943-man crew were dead or missing, making it the last U.S. aircraft carrier ever sunk in the war.
The veteran carrier USS Saratoga, a survivor of Pearl Harbor and countless Pacific battles, absorbed several kamikaze hits and near misses in the same attack, killing dozens of crew and forcing the ship to withdraw to the United States for extensive repairs, never to return to frontline combat. The attacks were a grim preview of the kamikaze intensity American forces would face weeks later at Okinawa.
Key people: John Pratt