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
Battle for Henderson Field to the Kokumbona area, with a battalion-sized Marine patrol attacking and harassing them almost the entire way. Only about 700 of Shoji's original 3,000 men ultimately returned to Kokumbona. At the same time that Hyakutake's troops were attacking the Lunga perimeter, Japanese warships under the overall direction of Isoroku Yamamoto moved into a position near the southern Solomon Islands. From this location, the Japanese naval forces hoped to engage and decisively defeat any Allied (primarily U.S.) naval forces, especially carrier forces, that responded to Hyakutake's ground offensive. Allied naval carrier forces in the area, now under the command of William