There are six full size carriers, six like carriers, battleships, destroyers and support craft, 116 ships and all the most powerful naval strike force the world has ever seen.

Task Force makes its way to the South China Sea.

It is the first time that allied forces have entered the Japanese controlled see since the war began.

Night attack on the Japanese convoy is only the first strike over the next three days.

Bill Martin's night group bombs Japanese held Saigon, Hong Kong and Canton, the first strike's on these vital mainland ports in less than two weeks.

The pilots of the Big E Flight 4000 miles sink 200,000 tons of shipping and strike at the mainland outpost of Japan's Empire.

Night fighters are already proving they're worth two weeks later.

Enterprise gets its biggest challenge.

Target Cure Run Harbor for Mosa Objective Destroy Enemy shipping in Supply Bases, Strategy Night Attack with bombers, January 22nd 2 a.m. seven TBM Avengers launch into the night.

Each carries 2 £500 bombs, 65 inch rockets one pilot, one electron ICS officer and one radar operator, Bill Martin personally leads three planes in the Formosa Strike.

The other section is lead once again by Lieutenant Russ Kipping.

They fly due West for 212 miles, then northwest for another 100 miles until they reach the island of Formosa.

The radar man picks up the pattern of cure on harbor on the radar scopes.

At 4:30 a.m. The attack begins.

TB EMS targets are the outer and inner harbors fat with supply ships.

Land based targets are vital oil tanks and a small arms factory, but those who fly by radar can die by radar.

Japanese radar picks up the incoming Attackers, and anti aircraft fills the sky.

Bill Martin has a simple plan based on his intimate knowledge of radar operations.

He climbs to 8000 feet and flies toward the inner harbor.

Guided by radar.

Japanese anti aircraft point toward it.

What the enemy doesn't know is that Russ Kipping is flying 8000 feet directly below him so that both planes show up as a single blip on the Japanese radar.

As the anti aircraft targets the high plains kingpins Avengers soar in undetected.

The flight group makes three runs using the same technique, dropping their bombs on tankers and warehouses.

One Avenger unleashes its rockets on a small arms factory.

It makes a satisfying fireworks display.

Night bombers of enterprise keep up the pressure on the enemy, with midnight attacks on the Japanese home islands on even on Tokyo itself.

And now that the Japanese know they could be hit, they become more ferocious in their defenses and more desperate in their attacks.

So for the Japanese, they're turning up the intensity there, fighting more savagely.

They're resisting with Maur and Maur.

Stubbornness.

No, Where is Japan's desperate, newfound ferocity more evident than at the tiny strip of Pacific land called Iwo Jima?