The Marshalls-Gilberts raids occurred in February 1942 when the US Navy launched a series of tactical airstrikes and naval artillery attacks against Imperial Japanese Navy garrisons in the Marshall and Gilbert Islands on 1 February 1942 in the early months of the Pacific War.
Following the attack on Pearl Harbor and Japan's Asia-Pacific blitzkrieg, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz ordered a series of carrier raids against Japanese-held territories to show that America was capable of striking back. Two US carrier task forces, commanded by Frank Jack Fletcher and William Halsey Jr., struck Jaluit Atoll, Mili Atoll, and Makin Atoll and Kwajalein, Wotje, and Taroa, respectively. The USS Yorktown inflicted moderate damage to the Japanese naval installations in the Gilbert Islands, while, in the Marshalls, the heavy cruiser USS Chester was slightly damaged by a Japanese aerial bomb and the USS Enterprise caught fire after a near-miss by a bomb. The raids had little long-term strategic impact, with the IJN briefly pursuing the American task forces before calling off the chase and continuing their support for the conquests of the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies. The American carrier raids of 1942 ultimately convinced Japanese naval commander Isoroku Yamamoto of the need to confront and destroy the US Navy, resulting in Japan's decisive defeat at the Battle of Midway in June.