U.S. and British carriers combining forces to smash Jap East Indies Base. A combined task force of U.S.

U.S. and British carriers combining forces to smash Jap East Indies Base. A combined task force of U.S. and Britsh aircraft carries, along with other Allied warships, struck a heavy blow at the Japanese base of Sabang in nothern Sumatra on April 19, 1944. First major blow struck by the Britsh Eastern Naval forces in the Indian Ocean since the fall of Singapore, the raid left the enemy stronghold in the Netherlands Indies burning, with drydocks, power stations, wharves, barracks, hangars, and the radio station afaame from direct bomb hits. Four enemy ships were sunk or damaged and more than 25 Jap planes were destroyed at a cost of one plane shot down of which the pilot was saved in a daring rescue by an Allied submarine. Though the preponderance of shipping was British, 80 percent of the air armada of the task force was American. These official U.S. Navy photographs narrate in pictures some of the sidelights of the historic raid. Disposing of the rigid formality ... on such occanions, Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, Commander of Allies forges in Southeast Asia, asked that the officers and crew of a U.S. aircraft carrier2 break tanks and close in around him when he came aboard to express his commandation of their performances on the Sabang raid. Darker uniforms indicate airmen among the personnel.