In 1935 the USAAC wanted to build a potential intercontinental bomber, a 'Guardian of the Hemisphere,' and granted Donald Douglas a contract to build the world's largest bomber. The groundwork for the intercontinental bomber had been laid in the previous two decades by the courageous military and civilian pilots who risked their lives to set new distance and endurance records. After World War I the future Axis and Allied nations built larger aircraft and finally during World War II Germany and Japan became intent on developing intercontinental bomber to retaliate against America. While the XB-19 never flew as an intercontinental bomber or even as a combat bomber; its contributions as a 'Flying Laboratory' significantly influenced the development of the Consolidated B-36 Peacemaker, the world's first true intercontinental bomber. Since the XB-19 project was top secret and there was only one example built there is little information remaining for researchers. Over the years Bill Wolf has collected the largest quantity of XB-19 material and a number of photographs, including a copy of the original Army Air Force acceptance of the aircraft, first-hand narratives of its first flight, and other USAAC and Douglas Company documents. This book provides a superbly illustrated history of the XB-19 intercontinental bomber and the text is supported by previously unpublished photographs.

On D-Day, Dick Winters took off with 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment and prepared to parachute into German-held north France. Ground troops landing on Utah beach were relying on Easy Company to secure one of the causeways that were vital if the troops were to get off the beaches and reach the solid ground of Normandy. The plane carrying many of the commanding officers was shot down, leaving Dick Winters suddenly in command of his company. But during the drop he, and many of his men, had been separated from his equipment and was unarmed except for a trench knife. In this remarkable World War 2 memoir, Dick Winters tells the tales left untold by Stephen Ambrose in his 1992 epic Band of Brothers. Starting with an account of the gruelling training designed to make the 506th the most elite unit in the US Army, Beyond Band of Brothers is fascinating account of one man's experience of commanding Easy Company from D-Day, to the Battle of the Bulge and into Germany. Dick Winters gives real insight into leadership under the most difficult conditions - every man in the company had been injured by the time they reached Germany - and tells the real story of the Allies' final defeat of Hitler, from the point of view of someone who was really there.

The Dornier Do 335 was conceived as a high-speed, all-weather fighter, and represented the pinnacle of piston-engined aircraft design. The Do 335 was a big aircraft, weighing just over 10,000kg when laden with fuel, equipment, and pilot, yet powered by two Daimler-Benz DB 603 engines, it was capable of reaching a maximum speed of 750km/h at 6400 meters, making it the fastest piston engine aircraft produced in Germany during World War II.

Some forty aircraft were built between late 1943 and the end of the war, and it was intended to deploy the type as a day fighter, bomber, night fighter, bad weather interceptor, and reconnaissance aircraft, all of which were intended to incorporate the latest armament, bomb sights, communications, and radar equipment, as well as an ejector seat. Featuring archive photography and specially commissioned artwork, this is the full story of the aircraft that the Luftwaffe hoped would turn the tide of the war.

Often described as the US Army's aerial jeep the UH-1 Iroquois ('Huey') was the general-purpose vehicle that provided mobility in a hostile jungle environment which made rapid troop movement extremely challenging by any other means. Hueys airlifted troops, evacuated casualties, rescued downed pilots, transported cargo externally and enabled rapid transit of commanders in the field. Although 'vertical aviation' had only become a practical reality during the Korean War helicopters evolved rapidly in the decade before Vietnam and by 1965 the US Army and US Marines relied on them as primary combat tools. This was principally because North Vietnam's armed forces had long experience of jungle operations, camouflage and evasion. Generally avoiding set-piece pitched battles they relied on rapid, frequent strikes and withdrew using routes that were generally inaccessible to US vehicles. They commonly relied on darkness and bad weather to make their moves, often rendering them immune to conventional air attack. Gunship helicopters, sometimes equipped with Firefly searchlights and early night vision light intensifiers, were more able to track and attack the enemy. Innovative tactics were required for this unfamiliar combat scenario and for a US Army that was more prepared for conventional operations in a European-type setting. One of the most valuable new initiatives was the UH-1C 'Huey Hog' or 'Frog' gunship, conceived in 1960 and offering more power and agility than the UH-1B that pioneered gunship use in combat. Heavily armed with guns and rockets and easily transportable by air these helicopters became available in large numbers and they became a major problem for the insurgent forces throughout the war. Covering fascinating details of the innovations in tactics and combat introduced by gunship helicopters, this book offers an analysis of their adaptability and usefulness in a variety of operations, while exploring the insurgent forces' responses to the advent of 'vertical aviation'.

After the huge advances made in the early months of the Pacific war, it was in remote New Guinea where the advance of Imperial Japanese Naval Air Force (IJNAF) A6M Zero-sen fighters was first halted due to a series of offensive and defensive aerial battles ranging from treetop height up to 30,000 ft.

Initially, the IJNAF fought Australian Kittyhawks, but by May 1942 they had fought themselves into oblivion, and were relieved by USAAF P-39 and P-400 Airacobras. The battles unfolded over mountainous terrain with treacherous tropical weather. Neither IJNAF or USAAF pilots had been trained for such extreme conditions, incurring many additional losses aside from those that fell in combat. Using specially commissioned artwork and contemporary photographs and testimony, this fascinating study explains how, despite their initial deficit in experience and equipment, the Airacobras managed to square the ledger and defend New Guinea.

Introduced in 1941, the Short Stirling was the Royal Air Force's first four-engine heavy bomber of the Second World War. However, early on, the Stirling's performance was compromised by several issues: a reduced wingspan, which resulted in serious limitations on maximum altitude capability; the two-stage landing gear proved to be dangerously frail; and the bomb-bay design proved incapable of carrying large-scale blockbuster bombs. Its altitude ceiling limitations left the aircraft particularly vulnerable to isolation and dispatch by enemy night fighters within the bomber stream, and it was these factors that ultimately led to its withdrawal from Britain's strategic bombing campaign over occupied Europe. By November 1943, it was replaced by the more effective Handley Page Halifax and Avro Lancaster. However, it did see important second-line duty in the glider-towing, paratroop drop, minelaying, and supply roles. The Stirling also saw post-WWII duties as a passenger transport up to the late 1940s. This book is a concise, visual history of this lesser-known RAF WWII bomber.

Although the F-4 Phantom II was the most important fighter-bomber to see action with all three American services during the Vietnam War, it was essentially a U.S. Navy design, and the carrier-borne squadron crews were its main operators in combat.

The aircraft pioneered the use of long-range, radar-guided missiles in combat, although the majority of its Vietnam missions involved ground-attack with a variety of innovative ordnance. From 1968 to 1973 the Phantom II was the standard U.S. Navy fighter in Southeast Asia, having replaced several other types. Its performance and versatility enabled it to perform a variety of different missions, and switch roles as necessary, in the assault on some of the world's most heavily defended territory. Including detailed colour profiles and first-person commentary from active participants in the F-4's naval combat history, this is a detailed study of the U.S. armed services' most famous post-war fighter.

Of the RAF's trio of four-engined heavy bombers in World War 2, the mighty Short Stirling was the first to enter service in August 1940. From its first raid in February 1941, the Stirling was at the forefront of the British night bombing offensive against Germany before unacceptably high losses forced its relegation to second-line duties later in the war.

In its modified form as the Mark IV the Stirling fulfilled vital roles with the RAF as a paratroop transport and glider tug on D-Day, at Arnhem and on the Rhine crossing as well as flying countless Special Duties operations over Occupied Europe and Norway. Its last gasp was in 1948-49 when a handful of Mk Vs were acquired by the Royal Egyptian Air Force to bomb Israel in the First Arab-Israeli War.

Containing numerous first-hand combat accounts from the crews that flew the bomber and detailed profile artwork, Short Stirling Units of World War 2 uncovers the history of one of the RAF's greatest World War 2 bombers.

In 1942, the massive Japanese naval base and airfield at Rabaul was a fortress standing in the Allies' path to Tokyo. It was impossible to seize Rabaul, or starve the 100,000-strong garrison out. Instead the US began an innovative, hard-fought two-year air campaign to draw its teeth, and allow them to bypass the island completely.

The struggle decided more than the fate of Rabaul. If successful, the Allies would demonstrate a new form of warfare, where air power, with a judicious use of naval and land forces, would eliminate the need to occupy a ground objective in order to control it. As it turned out, the Siege of Rabaul proved to be more just than a successful demonstration of air power - it provided the roadmap for the rest of World War II in the Pacific.

Allied fighter pilots began encountering German jets - principally the outstanding Me 262 fighter - from the autumn of 1944. Stunned by the aircraft's speed and rate of climb, it took USAAF and RAF units time to work out how to combat this deadly threat as the Luftwaffe targeted the medium and heavy bombers attacking targets across the Reich. A number of high-scoring aces from the Eighth Air Force (Drew, Glover, Meyer, Norley and Yeager, to name but a few) succeeded in claiming Me 262s, Me 163 and Ar 234s during the final months of the campaign, as did RAF aces like Tony Gaze and `Foob' Fairbanks. The exploits of both famous and little-known pilots will be chronicled in this volume, detailing how they pushed their P-47s, P-51s, Spitfires and Tempests to the limits of their performance in order to down the Luftwaffe's `wonder weapons'.

Flying Camelot brings us back to the post-Vietnam era, when the US Air Force launched two new, state-of-the art fighter aircraft: the F-15 Eagle and the F-16 Fighting Falcon. It was an era when debates about aircraft superiority went public—and these were not uncontested discussions. Michael W. Hankins delves deep into the fighter pilot culture that gave rise to both designs, showing how a small but vocal group of pilots, engineers, and analysts in the Department of Defense weaponized their own culture to affect technological development and larger political change. The design and advancement of the F-15 and F-16 reflected this group's nostalgic desire to recapture the best of World War I air combat. Known as the "Fighter Mafia," and later growing into the media savvy political powerhouse "Reform Movement," it believed that American weapons systems were too complicated and expensive, and thus vulnerable. The group's leader was Colonel John Boyd, a contentious former fighter pilot heralded as a messianic figure by many in its ranks. He and his group advocated for a shift in focus from the multi-role interceptors the Air Force had designed in the early Cold War towards specialized air-to-air combat dogfighters. Their influence stretched beyond design and into larger politicized debates about US national security, debates that still resonate today. A biography of fighter pilot culture and the nostalgia that drove decision-making, Flying Camelot deftly engages both popular culture and archives to animate the movement that shook the foundations of the Pentagon and Congress.

It follows the earliest struggle for liberty from slavery,when some 200,000 African American slaves and freemen fought on both sides in return for the promise of freedom. Some, but pitifully few, did achieve their freedom, though most returned to the lot that had been dealt to them by their owners and the abolition of slavery did not give them equality. The Spanish American War was followed twenty years later by the "GreatWar" - the war to endall wars, where over three hundred African American soldiers were awarded the Croix deGuerre, France's highest award for valor, yet only one was awarded the Medal of Honor by the United States - seventy-three years after his death on the battlefield. World War II brought the first-ever all-black-crewed fighter squadron, the 99th, followed by the 332nd Fighter Group, the most highly decorated group of men in their theaters of war. These men were also the catalyst of political action to bring desegregation to the Armed Forces, by means of President Harry Truman's Executive Order 9981, which preceded the Civil Rights Act by twenty years. Since President Lyndon Johnson's signing of the Civil Rights Act into law, we have seen sometimes great, but faltering, steps forward. African Americans have finally risen to the top in their chosen careers - four-star generals, astronauts and ultimatelyan African American President. This book is that story.

In 1918, the Royal Air Force became the first major independent air force in the world. Formed to serve a strategic need in the most intensive war that Britain had then fought, the RAF continued in the inter-war era to play a key role in the political and diplomatic world, and in defending the Empire. During the Second World War, the RAF was pivotal in defending Britain from invasion in the Battle of Britain, and then in leading the assault on the Axis powers, most notably through the contentious bomber offensive against Germany. In the post-war world, the RAF adapted and developed into a force to meet the needs of the United Kingdom during the Cold War, the retreat from Empire, and most recently in the move to coalition warfare against low intensity threats, all against a backdrop of diminishing resources and shifting priorities. This is the story of the RAF over the first century of its existence: how it has confronted the many challenges and threats it has faced - from the Luftwaffe in 1940, through the spectre of nuclear holocaust in the Cold War, to the fight against terrorism in the 21st century - and how it has contributed to the defence of the United Kingdom throughout that period.

In recent years the public has become aware of the Filthy Thirteen, the most notorious squad of fighting men in the 101st Airborne Division, and the true-life inspiration for the movie "The Dirty Dozen". They became singular within the Screaming Eagles for their hard drinking, and savage fighting skill - and that was only in training. Just prior to the invasion of Normandy, a "Stars and Stripes" photographer caught U.S. paratroopers with heads shaved into Mohawks, applying war paint to their faces. Unknown to the public at the time, these men were the Filthy 13. In this long awaited work one of the squad's integral members-and probably its best soldier-reveals his own inside account of fighting as a spearhead of the Screaming Eagles in Normandy, Market Garden, and the Battle of the Bulge. Jack Womer was originally a member of the 29th Infantry Division and was selected to be part of its elite Ranger battalion. But after a year of grueling training under the eyes of British Commando instructors, the 29th Rangers were suddenly dissolved. Bitterly disappointed, Womer asked for transfer to another elite unit, the Screaming Eagles, where room was found for him among the division's most miscreant squad of brawlers, drunkards, and misfits. Beginning on June 6, 1944, however, the Filthy Thirteen began proving themselves more a menace to the German Army than they had been to their own officers and the good people of England, embarking on a year-of ferocious combat at the very tip of the Allied advance in Europe. From parachuting behind German lines on D-Day to the gritty defense of Bastogne, Womer fought beyond the breaking point of the soldiers around him. In this work, with the help of Stephen DeVito, Jack provides an amazingly frank look at close-quarters combat in Europe, as well as the almost surreal experience of dust-bowl-era GI's entering country after country in their grapple with the Wehrmacht, finally ending up in Hitler's mountaintop lair in Germany itself. Throughout his fights, Jack Womer credited his Ranger/Commando training for helping him to survive, even though most of the rest of the Filthy Thirteen did not.

'James Holland is a master' BBC History It was to be the battle to end the air war once and for all. During the third week of February 1944, the combined Allied air forces launched their first-ever round-the-clock bomber offensive against Germany. The aim was to smash the main factories and production centres of the Luftwaffe and at the same time draw the German fighter force up into the air and into battle. Big Week is the knife-edge story of bomber against flak gun and fighter, but also, crucially, fighter against fighter. Following the fortunes of pilots and aircrew from both sides, this is a blistering narrative of one of the most critical periods of the entire war. Big Week was the largest air battle ever witnessed, but it has been largely forgotten - until now.

The bombing of Guernica has become a symbol of Nazi involvement in the Spanish Civil War, but the extent of the German commitment is often underestimated. The Luftwaffe sent 20,000 officers and men to Spain from 1936 to 1939, and the Condor Legion carried out many missions in support of the Spanish Nationalist forces and played a lead role in many key campaigns of the war. Aircraft that would play a significant role in the combat operations of World War II (the Heinkel 11 bomber, the Me 109 fighter, and others) saw their first action in Spain, fighting against the modern Soviet fighters and bombers that equipped the Republican Air Force. Condor Legion bombers attacked Republican logistics and transport behind the lines as well as bombing strategic targets, German bombers and fighters provided highly effective close air support for the front-line troops, and German fighters and anti-aircraft units ensured Nationalist control of the air. The experience garnered in Spain was very important to the development of the Luftwaffe. The war allowed them to hone and develop their tactics, train their officers, and to become the most practised air force in the world at conducting close support of ground troops. In effect, the Spanish Civil War proved to be the training ground for the Blitzkrieg which would be unleashed across Europe in the years that followed. In this rigorous new analysis, Legion Condor expert James Corum explores both the history and impact of the Luftwaffe's engagement during the Spanish Civil War and the role that engagement played in the development of the Luftwaffe strategy which would be used to such devastating effect in the years that followed.

Hanna Reitsch and Melitta von Stauffenberg were talented, courageous and strikingly attractive women who fought convention to make their names in the male-dominated field of flight in 1930s Germany. With the war, both became pioneering test pilots and both were awarded the Iron Cross for service to the Third Reich. But they could not have been more different and neither woman had a good word to say for the other.

Hanna was middle-class, vivacious and distinctly Aryan, while the darker, more self-effacing Melitta, came from an aristocratic Prussian family. Both were driven by deeply held convictions about honour and patriotism but ultimately while Hanna tried to save Hitler's life, begging him to let her fly him to safety in April 1945, Melitta covertly supported the most famous attempt to assassinate the Führer. Their interwoven lives provide a vivid insight into Nazi Germany and its attitudes to women, class and race.

Acclaimed biographer Clare Mulley gets under the skin of these two distinctive and unconventional women, giving a full - and as yet largely unknown - account of their contrasting yet strangely parallel lives, against a changing backdrop of the 1936 Olympics, the Eastern Front, the Berlin Air Club, and Hitler's bunker. Told with brio and great narrative flair, The Women Who Flew for Hitler is an extraordinary true story, with all the excitement and colour of the best fiction.

During the Second World War, the Soviet Union's Petlyakov Pe-2 Peshka dive-bomber was unique in that it was as fast as most fighter aircraft. This was in a period when it was considered by the RAF that it was impossible for monoplane aircraft to conduct vertical bombing with any degree of success. During the war the Pe-2 was the principal dive- and light-bomber of Russia's air power across the vast Eastern Front and it continued in service until the early 1950s with the air forces of the Warsaw Pact countries and Yugoslavia. Conceived by a team of top aircraft designers whom Stalin had incarcerated in a prison camp on trumped-up political charges, the Pe-2 had originally been designed as a high-altitude twin-engine fighter plane, but, due to the outstanding success of the German Stukas in the Blitzkrieg, its role was quickly changed to that of a fast dive-bomber. The Pe-2 arrived in service around the time of the German attack on its hitherto ally. Although only a handful had reached front line units by the start of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, the Pe-2 soon became the main dive-bomber in both the Soviet VVS and Naval service. Mass production, by factories hastily moved back beyond the front, meant that numbers increased rapidly, and more than 11,000 of the type, including many variants, were built up to 1945. The Peshka became the mainstay of the Soviet counter-offensive that ultimately resulted in the fall of Berlin. Pe-2s also led the way in the brief but annihilating Manchurian campaign against Japan in the closing days of the war in 1945. Using official sources, including the official Pe-2 handbook, and numerous colour and black-and-white photographs made available to the author from both official and private sources and collections, this book is the definitive record of the Pe-2 - the dive-bomber supreme!

South African Mirages and Cuban MiG-21s dogfighting over Cuito Cuanavale, the largest tank battle on African soil since El Alamein; Puma troopships shot out of the skies by Strela missiles and RPG-7 rockets; Alouette III gunships hovering menacingly above Koevoet tracker-combat teams as they close in for the kill; Hercules and Transall transports disgorging their loads of Parabats over Cassinga; suicidal helicopter hot-extractions of Recce operators deep in enemy territory; and a lone Alouette pilot who disobeyed orders and under intense ground fire evacuated a critically wounded soldier ... such is the story of the South African Air Force, the SAAF, over the 23-year period 1966-1989, the period of conflict that became known as the 'Border War'. Set against the backdrop of the Cold War, the SAAF was effectively South Africa's first line of defence against Soviet expansionism in southern Africa. That the Soviets, through their surrogates - the Cuban military, Angola's FAPLA and Namibia's SWAPO - sought a communist regime in South Africa is indisputable, as too was the SAAF's skill, quality, determination and capability to defeat the best Soviet air defences of the time. This account covers all the major operations that the SAAF was involved in, from Operation Blouwildebees, the opening salvo of the conflict at Omgulumbashe, South West Africa in 1966 to the final curtain, Operation Merlyn, the so-called April Fool's Day 'war' of 1989 when the SAAF and Koevoet, almost alone, frustrated SWAPO's last throw of the dice with its illegal invasion of South West Africa. In this account, highlighting such operations as Reindeer, Bootlace/Uric, Sceptic, Protea, Daisy, Askari, Moduler, Hooper and Packer, among many, as well as the ongoing methodological operations like Lunar, Maanskyn, Donkermaan and Butterfly, Baxter examines and brings to life the squadrons and aviators that fought in both counter-insurgency and conventional warfare roles. Besides an extensive selection of rare photographs, the book features a comprehensive section on camouflage and markings and 11 pages of colour aircraft profiles and insignia by noted SAAF authority William Marshall, making this title especially useful for modelers.

Drawing on a wide range of Vietnamese-language sources, the author presents a detailed account of the continuing efforts of North Vietnam to invade the South, enlivened by a large number of previously unpublished photographs, and colour profiles for modellers. A year after the Paris peace accord had been signed, on 17 January 1973, peace had not been settled in Vietnam. During that period, the North Vietnamese continued their attacks now that the United States had pulled out completely their forces, with the definitive conquest of South Vietnam as the goal. The South Vietnamese forces' erosion on the field increased in face of a series of concerted North Vietnamese offensives at Corps level. The drastic American aid reduction began to impact heavily on the South Vietnamese ability to wage war. Equally, Saigon could not respond to a Chinese invasion of the Paracel Islands after a brief naval battle, and if Hanoi had been bolstered by massive deliveries of equipment from Peking and Moscow, both the Chinese and the Soviet had withheld the delivery of sufficient ammunitions for the artillery and the tanks, to deter the North Vietnamese from attempting a new widescale offensive against the South. It was with these constraints that the North Vietnamese leadership planned their new campaign, initially expecting it to take 2 to 3 years. A last test had to be done in order to assess the American intentions in case of an all-out North Vietnamese offensive against the South - if a South Vietnamese provincial capital was taken without American reaction, then Hanoi would begin the last campaign of the war. After the fall of Phuoc Long, the North Vietnamese decided to attack the strategic Central Highlands area where they hoped to destroy the greater part of an ARVN Corps. The battle of Ban Me Thuout would be the pivotal event leading to the rapid collapse of South Vietnam. While the battle was going on, without taking advices from his generals, President Nguyen Van Thieu of South Vietnam decided to take radical measures by redeploying his forces. That meant abandoning no less than half of the country, in order to shorter his logistic communication lines and to concentrate his remaining depleted forces around Saigon and the Mekong Delta area. He probably also hoped that by aggravating the military situation he would force Washington to fulfil its promise that "in case of massive violation of the cease-fire", the Americans would resume their military aid and would send back the B-52s.

Of the many futuristic military aircraft concepts created in the 1950s the North American XB-70 still stands out as the most awe-inspiring. With its huge, white partially-folding delta wing, its fuselage resembling a striking cobra and its extraordinary performance, it was one of the foremost technological achievements of the 20th Century. A strategic bomber built to outrun any Soviet fighter jet, it could reach Mach 3 with a full nuclear payload - as fast as the legendary SR-71 Blackbird but more than three times the size. However, its role as a nuclear bomber was limited after the introduction of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, and defence cuts eventually led to the project being scrapped in the mid-1960s. The Valkyrie had a brief, costly decade of life but it proved the continuing value of developing manned bombers. However, almost half a century after the XB-70 its predecessor, the B-52, continues in service. Using full colour artwork and rigorous analysis, this is the complete story of the ultimate US Cold War military X-plane.

In Heroes of Coastal Command, Andrew Bird examines the maritime war between 1939 and 1945, interweaving accounts of events of the period with personal stories of individuals caught up in them. Through interviews, letters, diaries and reports, all combined with his own research, the author looks afresh at the maritime conflict, reassessing long-held views of the Cinderella Service's defensive and offensive capabilities through the eyes of ordinary individuals battling for survival above the oceans against flak gun, enemy aircraft and weather as the stakes rose higher and the number of casualties become catastrophic. Heroes of Coastal Command makes the reader think again about the RAF's maritime arm, Coastal Command, which was established in 1936. Throughout the war, its crews worked tirelessly alongside the Royal Navy to keep Britain's vital sea lanes open. Together, they fought and won the Battle of the Atlantic, with RAF aircraft destroying 212 German U-Boats and sinking a significant tonnage of enemy warships and merchant vessels. Often working alone and unsupported, undertaking long patrols out over opens seas, Coastal Command bred a special kind of airman. This includes individuals such Lloyd Trigg, who was awarded the Victoria Cross; Roger Moorwood, a Blenheim pilot who flew in the Battle of France; Jack Davenport, who flew his Hampden; John Watson, the sole survivor of a Short Sunderland which was lost during a rescue mission; Maurice Guedj, a Frenchman who escaped from Morocco to join the Free French Air Force; Sam McHardy, who for a short while became a Coastal Command ground coordinator posted aboard a Royal Navy destroyer for a raid on Norway; and Ken Gatward, who flew a unique daylight mission over Paris to drop a Tricolore on the Arc de Triomphe. These are just some of the fabulous stories, full of daring and breath-taking courage, and individuals explored in this book.

General Douglas MacArthur is one of the towering figures of World War II, and indeed of the twentieth century, but his leadership of the second largest air force in the USAAF is often overlooked. When World War II ended, the three numbered air forces (the Fifth, Thirteenth and Seventh) under his command possessed 4004 combat aircraft, 433 reconnaissance aircraft and 922 transports. After being humbled by the Japanese in the Philippines in 1942, MacArthur and his air chief General George Kenney rebuilt the US aerial presence in the Pacific, helping Allied naval and ground forces to push back the Japanese Air Force, re-take the Philippines, and carry the war north towards the Home Islands. Following the end of World War II, MacArthur was the highest military and political authority in Japan and at the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 he was named as Commander-in-Chief, United Nations Command. In the ten months of his command, his Far East Air Forces increased dramatically and saw the first aerial combat between jet fighters. Written by award-winning aviation historian Bill Yenne, this engrossing and widely acclaimed book traces the journey of American air forces in the Pacific under General MacArthur's command, from their lowly beginnings to their eventual triumph over Imperial Japan, followed by their entry into the jet age in the skies over Korea.