The effective abandonment of Truk as a forward operating base accelerated during the first week of February 1944, following Japanese sightings of U.S. Marine Corps PB4Y-1 Liberator reconnaissance planes sent to reconnoiter the area.

[8][4] Due to the lack of air cover or warning, many merchant ships were caught at anchor with only the islands' anti-aircraft guns for defense against the U.S. carrier planes.

Still others, attempting to flee via the atoll's North Pass, were bottled up by aerial attack and by Admiral Spruance's surface force, Task Group 50.9, which circumnavigated Truk, bombarding shore positions and engaging enemy ships.

[13] Lieutenant James E. Bridges and his crew in one of Intrepid's Torpedo Squadron 6 (VT-6) Avengers scored a direct hit on the ammunition ship Aikoku Maru.

Spruance was so adamant on engaging in ship-to-ship combat that his carrier commander, Admiral Mitscher, ordered his CAGs to stop attacking Katori and her companions.

Spruance put himself in tactical command of Task Group 50.9, made up of four destroyers, heavy cruisers Minneapolis and New Orleans, and the new battleships Iowa and New Jersey, which he personally led in a surface engagement against the previously damaged Japanese ships.

[19] The battered Japanese ships did not stand much of a chance against Task Group 50.9, though members of his staff saw Spruance's decision to engage in surface action when aircraft likely could have achieved similar results as needlessly reckless.

The U.S. Navy surface combatants incurred virtually no damage, and it was the only time in their careers that Iowa and New Jersey had fired their main armament at enemy ships.

Meanwhile, New Jersey's 5-inch (127 mm) guns combined fire with U.S. cruisers to sink Maikaze and Shonan Maru, while Iowa targeted and sank Katori with numerous hits from her main battery.

Nowaki was the only Japanese ship from this group to escape, only suffering very minor damage at the hand of a straddle from a High Capacity 16-inch (406 mm) round from New Jersey.

[31] Moreover, the isolation of this whole area of operations by submarine and air attack began the effective severance of Japanese shipping lanes between empire waters and critical fuel supplies to the south.

The ultimate effect of such a disconnect was later seen during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, when IJN forces had to sortie separately from Japan and Lingga Roads because of fuel constraints.

[32] The neutralization of Truk and the seizure of Eniwetok paved the way for the upcoming invasion of Saipan, which for the first time put U.S. land-based heavy bombers within range of the Japanese home islands.

[citation needed] Truk is renowned today as a tourist destination for divers interested in seeing the many shipwrecks left in the lagoon, many of which were sunk in Operation Hailstone.