Task Force (film) footage documenting the rise of naval aviation as well as Technicolor footage filmed during the war in the Pacific, including the Battle of Midway, the Japanese attack on and a kamikaze attack on USS "Franklin". Encouraged by the offer of support from the U.S. Navy, when the production received permission to proceed with a film, a decision was made to shoot the first segments in black-and-white to merge into the original footage of the , the first American aircraft carrier, and . Principal photography began in late 1948 on the escort carrier, to replicate USS "Langley", as well as Naval
Japanese aircraft carrier Hōshō striking force, "Hōshō" missed the major portion of the battle in which Nagumo's four fleet carriers were ambushed and fatally damaged by US carrier aircraft on 4 June. The next day, "Hōshō" aircraft helped guide the remnants of Nagumo's force to a rendezvous with the Main Body. Around the same time, one of "Hōshō's" aircraft, crewed by pilot Shigeo Nakamura and observer Kiyoshi Ōniwa, discovered the burning, sinking . Photographs of the abandoned carrier taken by Ōniwa have been described as "among the most dramatic of the war in the Pacific". With the battle lost, a significant strategic defeat for