Yes, all 3 TGs hit Truk on the first day, then TG 38.3 peeled off to strike Ponape on days 2 and 3.ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake
By TF 38 I presume you mean all three USN carrier groups operating in concert?
Seems to me the US needed to shut down the Truk airfields or at least dent the planes. It's only 400 miles to Ponape which means the Japs could counterattack the landing vessels with Bettys and Zero escorts or maybe even Kates. I do wonder if they might have better timed it closer to their planned landing.
It also seems to me Truk would be the spot for the Japs to engage the US carriers. If they go back again, the Jap carriers should show up on day 2 or 3 while half the US carrier planes are on airfield attack. Planes from sunk Jap carriers can retire to Truk. The situation is unlikely to be more favorable at Ponape for a carrier engagement.
I asked Jenny about her thinking on this and it was much like yours. She recognized Truk was close enough, and developed enough, to be a staging point for either counter air or counter nav ops. Her thinking was to do a program of strikes in the Carolines that would serve as a substantial drain on J-air assets and thoroughly chew up the airfields.
Another thing was a bit of misdirection. She wanted David and Jeremy thinking in terms of an assault on Truk or perhaps even the near Marianas. She wanted to push the envelope a bit and get them to back off from Babelthuap. That would put Japanese counter ops starting another 500 nm away. She says she knew what was coming (but not the scale) and wanted to clear a 'zone'. If she could reduce Truk's potential, and threaten West and North, she could open the bubble and get some intel/maneuver room.
Japs didn't have all the assets in place to confront TF 38. Jeremy was pretty much in "What do we do now, Batman?" mode. Running hand-to-mouth, but with some cool stuff in the pipeline. He did a rope-a-dope on Jenny and pulled his remaining effective air back to Babelthuap for rrr&r. For the longest time, Jeremy thought it would be a direct attack on Truk. He saw his reinforce scedule and knew, simply knew, that a real big one was coming. He thought the Allies scraped up every cook and baker on the West Coast, gave them a BAR and went for broke.
If the assets would have been there, that would have been a nice shot. Take Truk and there's 3 potential attack vectors that limited Japanese forces would have to orient towards; South to NG and Menado as a jump off for the PI, West to Babelthuap as a jump off for the PI, and North to the Marianas. But the assets just weren't there.
All in all, both sides were playing poker real well, at this point. So far, advantage Jenny.
