To the Shores of Cathay

U.S. naval air power had stretched its reach the full width of the Pacific. U.S. carrier-borne planes dominated the skies 6,000 miles west of the American mainland. For the first time, they roared up & down the China coast. If a landing in China was, as Fleet Admiral Nimitz said, "still an objective," then last week's forays by Vice Admiral John S. McCain's fast carrier task force showed that the aerial umbrella to cover it was already available.

But that was not the immediate purpose of "Jock" McCain's strikes. He was beating down enemy air power on a line from Japan through the Ryukyu Islands to the Formosa Strait -- bottleneck in enemy communications to points south, notably the Philippines. His planes harried air fields on either side of the 95-mile passage, on Formosa and in China, to prevent reinforcement of the battered Jap air fleets on Luzon, and to keep Formosa-based aircraft from attacking U.S. ships off Luzon.

For this purpose, the spry little 142-pound admiral had hundreds of aircraft flying from the big, fait carriers of Admiral Halsey's Third Fleet. He peered through red-rimmed eyes as the air groups were flown off and formed up at dawn, hundreds of miles east of their targets. His chief of staff, Rear Admiral Wilder Du Puy Baker, is a grandfather, but McCain addressed him as "Son." He addressed everybody on the flag bridge as "Son." One of them was Commander John S. ("Jimmy") Thach, inventor of the Navy fighter plane technique for Jap-killing, known as the "Thach weave."

Flying Leathernecks. From one of the Essex-class carriers flew two squadrons of new-type Chance-Vought Corsair fighters, piloted by Marine Corps aviators. The marines long ago had won their fight to fly from escort carriers (TIME, Oct. 23), but this was different; this was the big time. They went as escort for Avenger torpedo bombers. Grumman Hellcats with Navy pilots made up the rest of this carrier's complement. It had no dive-bombers--McCain and Thach never had believed in dive-bombers.

The weather closed in, soupy thick, as the southern attack group neared Formosa. (Western Pacific weather is far different from that of the sunny Gilberts and Marshalls.) But the 245-mile island was packed with targets; in the waters to the west were two enemy convoys; still farther west was Foochow, captured by the Japs only three months ago. At only one point was the enemy able to offer notable opposition: over Shinchiku airdrome, on Formosa, where 15 interceptors rose to give battle, and 12 were shot down.

At week's end, the U.S. fliers' score for two days was fat: in Jap planes destroyed, 220 damaged; 25 ships sunk, 58 damaged. By this time McCain had hauled off to the south. He was off Luzon, in the Philippines, looking for trouble. But Jap air power on Luzon was already thinned out; on the first day, only 41 enemy planes could be found and wrecked.

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