Grumman Hellcats en Avengers U.S. AIRCRAFT CARRIERS HUNT JAPANESE FLEET IN PACIFIC. U.S.

Grumman Hellcats en Avengers U.S. AIRCRAFT CARRIERS HUNT JAPANESE FLEET IN PACIFIC. U.S. Navy Hellcat fighter planes aboard an aircraft carrier in the Pacific are warmed up preparatory to taking off in search of the Japanese fleet. With the greatest carrier fleet over asssembled, U.S. Navy task forces in the Pacific, between attacks on enemy bases, have been searching for the Japanese fleet. In an attack on the Japanese base at Rabaul, New Britain Island, 88 Japanese planes were shot down while U.S. planes sank an enemy cruiser and a destroyer and damaged 12 other enemy warships. The carrier force in the Pacific exceeds the entire U.S. Navy's pre-war carrier strength, and U.S. shipyards are engaged in a 500,000-ton carrier construction program (1943).