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. Symbolizing the American-British unity demonstrated in the joint raid on the Jap base of Sabang, a U.S. Navy signalman and two British seamen study the horizon during an exchange of messages between ships of the task force.