Welcome to the Task Force 58 / 38 website.
TASK FORCE 58:
The Pacific War can be divided into two parts. “The South Pacific,” and “The Central Pacific.” During the first half of the War (South Pacific) the US Pacific Fleet, operating on a shoestring and a prayer, fought a series of ship-to-ship and plane-to-ship battles against the better-equipped and (initially) better-trained Imperial Japanese Navy. For the US Navy, these were defensive battles against an aggressive foe, still in attack mode after Pearl Harbor.
After Pearl Harbor, shipyards up and down American coastlines sprung into overdrive and the hulls of hundreds of warships – everything from submarines, destroyer escorts, destroyers, cruisers, battleships and aircraft carriers were laid down and the ships built and commissioned throughout 1942 and 1943. By the fall of 1943, those new ships began streaming toward Pearl Harbor. In January 1944, a new approach to Naval warfare was put into play: a series of task groups, built around fast aircraft carriers loaded with fighter planes, dive bombers and torpedo bombers, would be the aggressors rather than the defenders, and systematically attack enemy positions and strongholds until Japan surrendered. Thus was born Task Force 58, and the theater of operations shifted to the “Central Pacific.”
SITE CREATORS:
This website is another Kelly collaboration: Bill, Lisa and Steve combining their skills and energy. Many years ago we launched a web/blogsite devoted to the memory of the Heavy Cruiser USS Boston CA-69 (www.ca-69boston.org), aboard which Bill and Steve’s dad, William L. Kelly, served as a signalman striker.
This site is a labor of love and a work in progress (probably will be ‘under construction’ for the foreseeable future) We hope this site inspires you to dig deeper into the stories of Task Force 58. We ask that you respect the years of work we Kellys have put into this task by not copying and reusing images, maps, anecdotes, diary accounts, etc. without our permission. All of that stuff has been provided to this site courtesy of the four books written by Steve and is protected by copyright laws. Please ask! (I have been diligent about crediting my sources throughout this site. SK)
We encourage readers to contact us about submitting anecdotes, photos, etc of your loved ones’ ships. We would love to add pictures and stories of general interest to this site wherever possible. More than 100,000 sailors made up Task Force 58/38: we cannot accept pictures of individual sailors. We don’t have the bandwidth or the capacity to manage all those handsome young sailors!
THE KELLYS:
This website is another Kelly collaboration: Bill, Lisa and Steve combining their skills and energy. Many years ago we launched a web/blogsite devoted to the memory of the Heavy Cruiser USS Boston CA-69 (www.ca-69boston.org)
Bill has provided invaluable support through all these years: the idea of the Boston website was his and he promptly recruited his wife Lisa to help with the website. In addition to his endless database work on the Boston site, Bill has taken two separate trips to the National Archives (his time, his dime), spending long days and nights recovering and scanning photos, action reports, personnel records, ship logs, etc etc – all in support of the website and the Baked Beans books I was working on. Without their help, there would be not much to talk about.
So, welcome to the Task Force 58 / 38 website. This is a labor of love and a work in progress (probably will be ‘under construction’ for the foreseeable future) We hope this site inspires you to dig deeper into the stories of Task Force 58. We ask that you respect the years of work we Kellys have put into this task by not copying and reusing images, maps, anecdotes, diary accounts, etc. without our permission. All of that stuff has been provided to this site courtesy of the four books written by Steve and is protected by copyright laws. Please ask! (I have been diligent about crediting my sources throughout this site. SK)
We encourage readers to contact us about submitting anecdotes, photos, etc of your loved ones’ ships. We would love to add pictures and stories of general interest to this site wherever possible. More than 100,000 sailors made up Task Force 58/38: we cannot accept pictures of individual sailors. We don’t have the bandwidth or the capacity to manage all those handsome young sailors!