Download or read book South Pacific Air War Volume 1 written by Peter Ingman and published by . This book was released on 2017-11 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume chronicles aerial warfare in the South Pacific from December 1941 until March 1942, during which air operations by both sides became a daily occurrence. As Imperial Japanese Navy flying boats and landbased bombers penetrated over vast distances, a few under-strength squadrons of the Royal Australian Air Force put up a spirited fight. However it was the supreme power of aircraft carriers that had the biggest impact. Four Japanese fleet carriers facilitated the capture of Rabaul over a devastating four-day period in January 1942. The following month, the USS Lexington's fighter squadron VF-3 scored one of the most one-sided victories of the entire Pacific War. By March 1942 the Japanese had landed on mainland New Guinea, and the scene was set for a race to control Port Moresby. This is the full story of both sides of an air war that could have been won by either incumbent, but for timing, crucial decisions and luck. The two authors are uniquely qualified to tell this story. Raised in Port Moresby, Michael Claringbould is a globally-acknowledged expert on the New Guinea air war and Japanese aviation in particular. Peter Ingman is an acclaimed military history author specialising in the early Pacific War period.
Download or read book South Pacific Air War written by Michael Claringbould and published by . This book was released on 2018-09 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This second volume chronicles aerial warfare in the South Pacific for the two crucial months of March and April 1942 when a deadly struggle for Port Moresby played out. It can be read alone or as part of a trilogy which culminates in the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942.The period begins with the stunning 10 March US Navy carrier strike against Lae and Salamaua which caused the Japanese to pause their advance until their own carriers were available. Instead they tried to grind the Allied forces at Port Moresby into submission through an unrelenting air assault by their Betty bombers and superlative Zero fighters. After a long wait, Allied land-based fighters finally arrived in the form of Royal Australian Air Force No. 75 Squadron Kittyhawks. These were backed up by a growing collection of United States Army Air Force bombers including A-24 Banshees, B-17 Flying Fortresses, B-25 Mitchells and B-26 Marauders (the latter two types making their worldwide combat debut over the skies of New Guinea). Together this motley force took the fight to the Japanese, resulting in a complex aerial campaign which saw units from both sides reach exhaustion. Never before has such a detailed chronicle of this air war been published, and for the first time the authors match Allied accounts with Japanese records. The result is both thrilling and surprising, with the resulting dispositions of the air forces of both sides setting the scene for the Battle of the Coral Sea in May.Both authors are uniquely qualified to tell this story. Raised in Port Moresby, Michael Claringbould is an acknowledged expert on the Pacific air war and Japanese aviation in particular. Peter Ingman is an acclaimed military history author specialising in the early Pacific War period.
Download or read book Pacific Air written by David Sears and published by Da Capo Press, Incorporated. This book was released on 2011-05-31 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers an account of the U.S. airmen's roles in the air battles that took place over the Pacific Ocean during World War II.
Download or read book Pacific Crucible War at Sea in the Pacific 1941 1942 Vol 1 The Pacific War Trilogy written by Ian W. Toll and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2011-11-14 with total page 732 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Northern California Book Award for Nonfiction "Both a serious work of history…and a marvelously readable dramatic narrative." —San Francisco Chronicle On the first Sunday in December 1941, an armada of Japanese warplanes appeared suddenly over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and devastated the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Six months later, in a sea fight north of the tiny atoll of Midway, four Japanese aircraft carriers were sent into the abyss, a blow that destroyed the offensive power of their fleet. Pacific Crucible—through a dramatic narrative relying predominantly on primary sources and eyewitness accounts of heroism and sacrifice from both navies—tells the epic tale of these first searing months of the Pacific war, when the U.S. Navy shook off the worst defeat in American military history to seize the strategic initiative.
Download or read book Whirlwind written by Barrett Tillman and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-03-02 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WHIRLWIND is the first book to tell the complete, awe-inspiring story of the Allied air war against Japan—the most important strategic bombing campaign inhistory. From the audacious Doolittle raid in 1942 to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, award-winning historian Barrett Tillman recounts the saga from the perspectives of American and British aircrews who flew unprecedented missions overthousands of miles of ocean, as well as of the generalsand admirals who commanded them. Whether describing the experiences of bomber crews based in China or the Marianas, fighter pilotson Iwo Jima, or carrier aviators at sea, Tillman provides vivid details of the lives of the fliers and their support personnel. Whirlwind takes readers into the cockpits and gun turrets of the mighty B-29 Superfortress, the largest bomber built up to that time. Tillman dramatically re-creates the sweep of wartime emotions that crews endured on fifteen-hour missions, grappling with the extreme tedium of cramped spaces and with adrenaline spikes in flak-studded skies, knowing that a bailout would put them at the mercy of a merciless enemy or an unforgiving sea. A major character is the controversial and brilliant General Curtis LeMay, who rewrote strategic bombing tactics. His command’s fire-bombing missions incinerated fully half of Tokyo and many other cities, crippling Japan’s industry while still failing to force surrender. Whirlwind examines the immense logistics and construction efforts necessary to support Superfortresses in Asia and the Mariana Islands, as well as the tireless efforts of engineers to build huge air bases from scratch.It also describes the unheralded missions that American bomber crews flew from the Aleutian Islands to Japan’s northernmost Kuril Islands. Never has the Japanese side of the story been so thoroughly examined. If Washington, D.C., represented a “second front” in Army-Navy rivalry, the situation in Tokyo approached a full-contact sport. Tillman’s description of Japan’s willfully inadequate approach to civil defense is eye-opening. Similarly, he examines the mind-set in Tokyo’s war cabinet, which ignored the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, requiring the emperor’s personal intervention to avert a ghastly Allied invasion. Tillman shows how, despite the Allies’ ultimate success, mistakes and shortsighted policies made victory more costly in lives and effort. He faults the lack of a unified command for allowing the Army Air Forces and the Navy to pursue parochial goals at the expense of the larger mission, and he questions the premature commitment of the enormously sophisticated B-29 to the most primitive theater in India and China. Whirlwind is one of the last histories of World War II written with the contribution of men who fought in it.With unexcelled macro- and microperspectives, Whirlwind is destined to become a standard reference on the war, on multiservice operations, and on the human capacity for individual heroism and national folly.
Download or read book 1942 the Pacific Air War written by John Possidente and published by Prima Games. This book was released on 1995 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1942: Pacific Air War is the exciting new WWII air combat simulation that gives gamers a real sense of what naval campaigns were like for Japanese and American pilots. This official guide is a must for readers interested in this period. Included are all the hints, tips, adn tactics needed to become an ace for either side.
Download or read book Fortress Rabaul written by Bruce Gamble and published by Zenith Press. This book was released on 2013-09-09 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For most of World War II, the mention of Japan's island stronghold sent shudders through thousands of Allied airmen. Some called it “Fortress Rabaul,” an apt name for the headquarters of the Imperial Japanese forces in the Southwest Pacific. Author Bruce Gamble chronicles Rabaul’s crucial role in Japanese operations in the Southwest Pacific. Millions of square feet of housing and storage facilities supported a hundred thousand soldiers and naval personnel. Simpson Harbor and the airfields were the focus of hundreds of missions by American air forces. Winner of the "Gold Medal" (Military Writers Society of America) and "Editor's Choice Award" (Stone & Stone Second World War Books), Fortress Rabaul details a critical and, until now, little understood chapter in the history of World War II.
Download or read book The Early Air War in the Pacific written by Ralph F. Wetterhahn and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2019-11-29 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the first 10 months of the war in the Pacific, Japan achieved air supremacy with its carrier and land-based forces. But after major setbacks at Midway and Guadalcanal, the empire's expansion stalled, in part due to flaws in aircraft design, strategy and command. This book offers a fresh analysis of the air war in the Pacific during the early phases of World War II. Details are included from two expeditions conducted by the author that reveal the location of an American pilot missing in the Philippines since 1942 and clear up a controversial account involving famed Japanese ace Saburo Sakai and U.S. Navy pilot James "Pug" Southerland.
Download or read book Lost in the Pacific 1942 Not a Drop to Drink Lost 1 written by Tod Olson and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2016-10-25 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: LOST IN THE PACIFIC is the first book in a new narrative nonfiction series that tells the true story of a band of World War II soldiers who became stranded at sea and had to fight for survival. World War II, October 21, 1942. A B-17 bomber drones high over the Pacific Ocean, sending a desperate SOS into the air. The crew is carrying America's greatest living war hero on a secret mission deep into the battle zone. But the plane is lost, burning through its final gallons of fuel.At 1:30 p.m., there is only one choice left: an emergency landing at sea. If the crew survives the impact, they will be left stranded without food or water hundreds of miles from civilization. Eight men. Three inflatable rafts. Sixty-eight million square miles of ocean. What will it take to make it back alive?
Download or read book Air Force Combat Units of World War II written by Maurer Maurer and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1961 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book General Kenney Reports A Personal History of the Pacific War written by and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1997 with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: General Kenney Reports is a classic account of a combat commander in action. General George Churchill Kenney arrived in the South- west Pacific theater in August 1942 to find that his command, if not in a shambles, was in dire straits. The theater commander, General Douglas MacArthur, had no confidence in his air element. Kenney quickly changed this situation. He organized and energized the Fifth Air Force, bringing in operational commanders like Whitehead and Wurtsmith who knew how to run combat air forces. He fixed the logistical swamp, making supply and maintenance supportive of air operations, and encouraging mavericks such as Pappy Gunn to make new and innovative weapons and to explore new tactics in airpower application. The result was a disaster for the Japanese. Kenney's airmen used air power-particularly heavily armed B-25 Mitchell bombers used as commerce destroyers-to savage Japanese supply lines, destroying numerous ships and effectively isolating Japanese garrisons. The classic example of Kenney in action was the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, which marked the attainment of complete Allied air dominance and supremacy over Japanese naval forces operating around New Guinea. In short, Kenney was a brilliant, innovative airman, who drew on his own extensive flying experiences to inform his decision-making. General Kenney Reports is a book that has withstood the test of time, and which should be on the shelf of every airman.
Download or read book Flyboys written by James Bradley and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2003-09-30 with total page 523 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the remote Pacific island of Chichi Jima, nine American flyers-Navy and Marine pilots sent to bomb Japanese communications towers there-were shot down. Flyboys, a story of war and horror but also of friendship and honor, tells the story of those men. Over the remote Pacific island of Chichi Jima, nine American flyers-Navy and Marine pilots sent to bomb Japanese communications towers there-were shot down. One of those nine was miraculously rescued by a U.S. Navy submarine. The others were captured by Japanese soldiers on Chichi Jima and held prisoner. Then they disappeared. When the war was over, the American government, along with the Japanese, covered up everything that had happened on Chichi Jima. The records of a top-secret military tribunal were sealed, the lives of the eight Flyboys were erased, and the parents, brothers, sisters, and sweethearts they left behind were left to wonder. Flyboys reveals for the first time ever the extraordinary story of those men. Bradley's quest for the truth took him from dusty attics in American small towns, to untapped government archives containing classified documents, to the heart of Japan, and finally to Chichi Jima itself. What he discovered was a mystery that dated back far before World War II-back 150 years, to America's westward expansion and Japan's first confrontation with the western world. Bradley brings into vivid focus these brave young men who went to war for their country, and through their lives he also tells the larger story of two nations in a hellish war. With no easy moralizing, Bradley presents history in all its savage complexity, including the Japanese warrior mentality that fostered inhuman brutality and the U.S. military strategy that justified attacks on millions of civilians. And, after almost sixty years of mystery, Bradley finally reveals the fate of the eight American Flyboys, all of whom would ultimately face a moment and a decision that few of us can even imagine. Flyboys is a story of war and horror but also of friendship and honor. It is about how we die, and how we live-including the tale of the Flyboy who escaped capture, a young Navy pilot named George H. W. Bush who would one day become president of the United States. A masterpiece of historical narrative, Flyboys will change forever our understanding of the Pacific war and the very things we fight for.
Download or read book Midway 1942 written by Mark Stille and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-06-20 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most important and dramatic carrier battle of World War II, which completely changed the fortunes of both Japan and America. In less than one day, the might of the Imperial Japanese Navy was destroyed and four of her great aircraft carriers sank burning into the dark depths of the Pacific. Utilizing the latest research and detailed combat maps, this book tells the dramatic story of the Japanese assault on Midway Island and the American ambush that changed the face of the Pacific war. With sections on commanders, opposing forces, and a blow-by-blow account of the action, this volume gives a complete understanding of the strategy, the tactics, and the human drama that made up the Midway campaign, and its place as the turning point in the Pacific war.
Download or read book South Pacific Air War written by Richard Dunn and published by Schiffer + ORM. This book was released on 2024-04-28 with total page 979 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new history of the South Pacific campaigns based primarily upon primary source material
Download or read book Minecraft Blockopedia written by Alex Wiltshire and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guide to the very stuff of Minecraft: the blocks.
Download or read book South Pacific Air War Volume 4 written by Peter Ingman and published by . This book was released on 2020-12 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume Four chronicles aerial warfare in the South Pacific in the critical period between 19 June and 8 September 1942. It can be read alone or as a continuation of the first three volumes that spanned the first six months of the Pacific War, culminating in the Battle of the Coral Sea.Unlike the previous three volumes, no aircraft carriers appeared in New Guinea waters. Instead, the air war was fought solely by land-based air units. This was in the face of an increasingly complex strategic situation that saw the Japanese land at both Buna and Milne Bay. For the first time, airpower in the theater was tasked to support the land forces of both sides which became engaged in a bloody struggle in the mountains of Papua and then the narrow muddy quagmire of Milne Bay.Two veteran Japanese air groups, the Tainan and No. 4 Kokutai, continued their Herculean struggle against mounting Allied opposition. In the face of continued attrition, Japanese pilots had many notable successes including several coveted aerial victories against B-17s. Then, from August a plethora of fresh Japanese units arrived in theatre including the No. 2, No. 6, Chitose, Misawa and Kisarazu Kokutai.USAAF P-39s and RAAF P-40Es responded with low level close support missions and B-25s, B-26s and B-17s ramped up an unrelenting bombing campaign. Towards the end of the period A-20A strafers made their combat debut, portending a radical blueprint for future attack tactics in the theater.Never before has this campaign been chronicled in such detail, with Allied accounts matched against Japanese records for a truly factual account of the conflict.
Download or read book Guadalcanal written by John Miller and published by BDD Promotional Books Company. This book was released on 1993 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A detailed account of the Americans' first ground offensive against the Japanese in World War II, which occurred in August 1942 on the island of Guadalcanal.
