Carrier battle group at the Battle of Midway. In contrast, the United States Navy deployed its large carriers in separate formations, with each carrier assigned its own cruiser and destroyer escorts. These single-carrier formations would often be paired or grouped together for certain assignments, most notably the Battle of the Coral Sea and Midway. By 1943, however, large numbers of fleet and light carriers became available, which required larger formations of three or four carriers. These groups eventually formed the Fast Carrier Task Force, which became the primary battle unit of the U.S. Fifth and Third Fleets. With the construction of the large
Battle of the Philippine Sea late 1943, the U.S. Navy brought these improvements together in the form of the Fast Carrier Task Force, under Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher (known as Task Force 58 when part of Admiral Raymond Spruance's Fifth Fleet and Task Force 38 when part of Admiral William F. Halsey's Third Fleet). Led by this main strike force, in early 1944 the U.S. fleet continued its advance in a steady progression across the islands of the central Pacific. After achieving their goals in the Gilbert Islands campaign, the Americans began a series of softening-up missions aimed at weakening Japanese land-based airpower to limit