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The full history of how the United States targeted and destroyed
the Japanese capital from the air, in a ten-month long campaign by
the US Army Air Force and the US Navy. In November 1944, the US
Army Air Force launched a 111-plane B-29 strike against Tokyo, the
first raid since the morale-boosting Doolittle Raid of 1942. From
then until August 13, 1945, the United States would attack Tokyo 25
times, 20 from B-29s based in the Marianas and five from US Navy
carrier task forces. The campaign included the single deadliest air
raid in human history, when around 100,000 people were killed by
the firestorm created by the Operation Meetinghouse raid of March
10, 1945. This book, the first to examine the full history of the
United Statesâ air campaign against the greatest target in Japan,
looks at the USAAFâs and US Navyâs efforts to use air power to
eliminate Tokyoâs strategic value to the Empire. It considers how
the campaign developed from daylight bombing to firebombing and
anti-ship mining, and finally how the target was handed over to the
US Navy, whose carrier-based bombers and fighter-bombers continued
to strike Tokyo during July and August 1945. Using specially
commissioned battlescenes, strategic maps and diagrams, this volume
presents a detailed picture of how Tokyo was vanquished from the
air.
A detailed and fascinating exploration of the 1945 US combined
land, naval and air operation to retake Corregidor and the other
Japanese-held islands in Manila Bay from a determined and
well-entrenched enemy. The islands guarding the entrance to Manila
Bay, Luzon, had been seized by the Japanese in May 1942. In
February 1945, US forces were back, and closed in on Manila from
the north and south against heavy Japanese resistance. A joint US
parachute and amphibious assault was planned to capture the largest
island Corregidor, using the much-reinforced 503rd PRCT and
elements of the 24th Infantry Division and 2nd Engineer Special
Brigade. Facing them were over 6,000 Japanese troops recently
evacuated from Bataan, where they had been cut off by advancing US
forces. General MacArthur desired the island, once a symbol of
American defiance, to be liberated with a flourish. This superbly
illustrated work examines the ambitious US assault on Corregidor,
which witnessed the most dangerous and risky parachute drop in
airborne history, and vicious, desperate fighting by the defenders
as they sought to prevent American troops from taking the island.
It also covers the recapture of other islands defending Manila Bay:
El Fraile/Fort Drum, Caballo, and Carabao.
A new history of the most crucial few months of the Arctic Convoys,
when Germany's air power forced the Allies to retreat to the cover
of winter. Between spring and autumn 1942, Germany was winning the
battle of the Arctic Convoys. Half of PQ-15 was sunk in May, PQ-17
was virtually obliterated in July, and in September 30 percent of
PQ-18 was sunk. The Allies were forced to suspend the convoys until
December, when the long Arctic nights would shield them. Mark
Lardas argues that in 1942, it was Luftwaffe air power that made
the difference. With convoys sailing in endless daylight, German
strike aircraft now equipped and trained for torpedo attacks, and
bases in northern Norway available, the Luftwaffe could wreak
havoc. Three-quarters of the losses of PQ-18 were due to air
attacks. But in November, the Luftwaffe was redeployed south to
challenge the Allied landings in North Africa, and the advantage
was lost. Despite that, the Allies never again sailed an Arctic
convoy in the summer months. Fully illustrated with archive photos,
striking new artwork, maps and diagrams, this is the remarkable
history of the Luftwaffe's last strategic victory of World War II.
An absorbing study of the duels fought between the US Navyâs
escort warships and Hitlerâs U-boats between December 1941 and
May 1945. Although the Battle of the Atlantic lasted several years,
its most critical phase began once the United States entered World
War II. By December 1941, the British had mastered the U-boat
threat in the Eastern Atlantic, only to see the front abruptly
expand to regions the US Navy would patrol, chiefly the Atlantic
Seaboard. Unless the US Navy overcame the U-boat threat, the Allies
would struggle to win. The Battle of the Atlantic was made up of
thousands of individual duels: aircraft against U-boats, aircraft
against aircraft, aircraft against shipsâbut most crucially,
ships against U-boats. The individual clashes between Germanyâs
U-boats and the Allied warships escorting the vital convoys often
comprised one-on-one actions. These stories provide the focus of
this detailed work. The technical details of the U-boats,
destroyers, and destroyer escorts involved are explored in stunning
illustrations, including ship and submarine profiles and weaponry
artworks, and key clashes are brought to life in dramatic
battlescenes. Among the clashes covered are including USS Kearny
vs. U-568, USS Roper (DD-147) vs U-85, USS Eugene E. Elmore
(DE-686) vs U-549, and USS Atherton (DE-169) vs U-853.
An illustrated history of how Japan devised and launched a new kind
of air campaign in late 1944 - the suicidal assaults of the
kamikaze units against the approaching Allied fleets. As summer
changed to autumn in 1944, Japan was losing the war. Still
unwilling to surrender, Japan's last hope was to try to wear down
US resolve enough to reach a negotiated settlement. Extraordinary
measures seemed necessary, and the most extraordinary was the
formation of Special Attack Units - known to the Allies as the
kamikazes. The concept of organized suicide squadrons was first
raised on June 15, 1944. By August, formations were being trained.
These formations were first used in the October 1944 US invasion of
the Philippine Islands, where they offered some tactical success.
The program was expanded into a major campaign over the rest of the
Pacific War, seeing a crescendo during the struggle for Okinawa in
April through May 1945. This highly illustrated history examines
not just the horrific missions themselves, but the decisions behind
the kamikaze campaign, how it developed, and how it became a key
part of Japanese strategy. Although the attacks started on an
almost ad hoc basis, the kamikaze soon became a major Japanese
policy. By the end of the war, Japan was manufacturing aircraft
specifically for kamikaze missions, including a rocket-powered
manned missile. A plan for a massive use of kamikazes to defend the
Japanese Home Islands from invasion was developed, but never
executed because of Japan's surrender in August 1945. Packed with
diagrams, maps and 3D reconstructions of the attacks, this book
also assesses the Allied mitigation techniques and strategies and
the reasons and the degree to which they were successful.
U-505 was the first enemy warship the US Navy captured at sea since
1812. This is a new account of how Captain Gallery planned and
executed the raid on his own initiative, and how his success almost
endangered the war against the U-boats. On June 4, 1944 a US Navy
antisubmarine task group in the Atlantic captured an enemy U-boat
on the high seas. It was not the first time the Allies had taken a
German U-boat as a prize, but the capture of U-505 was different.
Captain Gallery and his Task Group 22.3 devised a risky plan to
capture scuttled U-boats. This book analyses in detail Gallery's
dangerous strategy, using contemporary sources to explore why he
thought the reward was worth the risk: instead of attempting to
sink the next U-boat that surfaced among them, a destroyer escort
would send off its whaleboat. Everyone else was to smother the
U-boat with light gunfire to encourage its crew to abandon quickly.
Unaware that the Allies had already cracked the German's codes and
the capture of a U-boat could endanger that secret, Gallery hoped
to capture the vessel's codes and coding equipment to read U-boat
message traffic. The plan culminated in the capture of U-505 in
early June, which nearly caused the exposure of the Bletchley Park
codebreaking secret. Featuring contemporary photographs, specially
commissioned artwork and 3D maps, this book is a fascinating
exploration of one of the most controversial and dangerous raids,
which could have changed the outcome of World War II as we know it.
A history of the US Navy's remarkable 1945 South China Sea raid
against the Japanese, the first time in history that a carrier
fleet dared to rampage through coastal waters. As 1945 opened,
Japan was fighting defensively everywhere. As the Allies drew
closer to the Home Islands, risks of Japanese air and sea attack on
the US Navy carrier force increased. US forces wanted to take the
island of Luzon which provided a base for Japanese aircraft from
Formosa (Taiwan) and Indochina, and from where attacks could easily
be devastating for the invasion fleet. US Naval Intelligence also
believed Japanese battleships Ise and Hyuga were operating out of
Cam Ranh Bay. A fast carrier sweep through the South China Sea was
a potential answer with the bonus that it would strike the main
nautical highway for cargo from Japan's conquests in Southeast
Asia. Task Force 38 would spend the better part of two weeks
marauding through the South China Sea during Operation Gratitude, a
month-long sweep of the area, which launched air strikes into
harbors in Indochina, the Chinese coast and Formosa, while
targeting shipping in the high-traffic nautical highway. By the
time the Task Force exited the South China Sea, over 300,000 tons
of enemy shipping and dozens of Japanese warships had been sunk.
With follow-up air strikes against Japanese harbors and airfields
in Formosa and the Ryukyu Islands, the success of the sweep was
unprecedented. Using detailed battlescenes, maps, bird's eye views,
and diagrams of air strikes at Luzon, this intriguing account of
Task Force 38's reign in the South China Sea proved that aircraft
carriers could dominate the land-based air power of the fading
Japanese. From the Korean War through to Vietnam, to the campaigns
in Iraq, aircraft carriers could sail safely offshore, knowing
their aircraft would prevail on both sea and land.
An illustrated examination of the role played by the Sunderland as
an antisubmarine aircraft during the Battle of the Atlantic,
focusing on the key battles of the Biscay campaign in 1943â44.
The Sunderland is an iconic British aircraft of World War II, and
the only RAF Coastal Command type to perform frontline service
throughout the conflict. Its prime target â the German U-boat â
was a deadly adversary to Allied warships and other oceangoing
vessels, but proved vulnerable to detection and air attacks from
the radar-equipped Sunderland. This book examines the respective
advantages and drawbacks of these two maritime predators by
providing a vivid analysis of their historic engagement during the
Biscay campaign in 1943â44. Drawing upon first-hand accounts of
this famous duel, Mark Lardas tells the story of how highly skilled
Sunderland crews took the fight to an often elusive enemy and
helped RAF Coastal Command defeat the U-boat threat. Maps, tactical
diagrams, photographs and specially commissioned artwork bring the
action to life as the Sunderlandâs losses â and eventual
victory â in the Bay of Biscay play out in fascinating,
insightful detail.
Throughout the first year of the war in the Pacific during World
War II the USAAF was relatively ineffective against ships. Indeed,
warships in particular proved to be too elusive for conventional
medium-level bombing. High-level attacks wasted bombs, and torpedo
attacks required extensive training. But as 1942 closed, the Fifth
Air Force developed new weapons and new tactics that were not just
effective, they were deadly. A maintenance officer assigned to a
B-25 unit found a way to fill the bombardier's position with four
0.50-cal machine guns and strap an additional four 0.50s to the
sides of the bomber, firing forward. Additionally, skip-bombing was
developed. This called for mast-top height approaches flying the
length of the target ship. If the bombs missed the target, they
exploded in the water close enough to crush the sides. The
technique worked perfectly when paired with "strafe" B-25s. Over
the first two months of 1943, squadrons perfected these tactics.
Then, in early March, Japan tried to reinforce their garrison in
Lae, New Guinea, with a 16-ship convoy - eight transports guarded
by eight destroyers. The Fifth Air Force pounced on the convoy in
the Bismarck Sea. By March 5 all eight transports and four
destroyers had been sunk This volume examines the mechanics of
skip-bombing combined with a strafing B-25, assessing the strengths
and weaknesses of the combatants (B-25 versus destroyer), and
revealing the results of the attacks and the reasons why these
USAAF tactics were so successful.
This book examines the major warships of the Imperial Russian Navy
which participated in the Russo-Japanese War. The focus is on the
battleships, coastal defence warships, and cruisers of the Pacific
Squadron and Baltic Squadron that fought during the war. It
discusses in detail their design and development between the years
of 1885 and 1905, concentrating particularly on battleships and
cruisers. The book explores, in depth, the mutually influential
relationship between Russian and foreign warship design, as Russia
progressed from a reliance on foreign designs and shipyards towards
an ability to produce its own influential ships, such as the Novik.
The title also outlines the gripping operational history of the
Russian warships which participated in the Russo-Japanese war,
tracing their activity before and during the combat, as well as the
post-war fate of those ships which were bombarded, scuttled,
captured, or salvaged. Packed with contemporary photography and
full-colour illustrations, this title offers a detailed and
definitive guide to the design, development, and destiny of the
Russian warships which battled the Japanese in the Eastern seas.
This illustrated study explores, in detail, the climactic events of
the Battle of the Atlantic, and how air power proved to be the
Allies' most important submarine-killer in one of the most bitterly
fought naval campaigns of World War II. As 1942 opened, both Nazi
Germany and the Allies were ready for the climactic battles of the
Atlantic to begin. Germany had 91 operational U-boats, and over 150
in training or trials. Production for 1942-44 was planned to exceed
200 boats annually. Karl Doenitz, running the Kriegsmarine's U-boat
arm, would finally have the numbers needed to run the tonnage war
he wanted against the Allies. Meanwhile, the British had, at last,
assembled the solution to the U-boat peril. Its weapons and
detection systems had improved to the stage that maritime patrol
aircraft could launch deadly attacks on U-boats day and night.
Airborne radar, Leigh lights, Magnetic Anomaly Detection (MAD) and
the Fido homing torpedo all turned the anti-submarine warfare (ASW)
aircraft into a submarine-killer, while shore and ship-based
technologies such as high-frequency direction finding and signals
intelligence could now help aircraft find enemy U-boats. Following
its entry into the war in 1941, the United States had also thrown
its industrial muscle behind the campaign, supplying VLR Liberator
bombers to the RAF and escort carriers to the Royal Navy. The US
Navy also operated anti-submarine patrol blimps and VLR aircraft in
the southern and western Atlantic, and sent its own escort carriers
to guard convoys. This book, the second of two volumes, explores
the climactic events of the Battle of the Atlantic, and reveals how
air power - both maritime patrol aircraft and carrier aircraft -
ultimately proved to be the Allies' most important weapon in one of
the most bitterly fought naval campaigns of World War II.
A fully illustrated history of how the US Navy destroyed Truk, the
greatest Japanese naval and air base in the Pacific, with Operation
Hailstone, and how B-29 units and the carriers of the British
Pacific Fleet kept the base suppressed until VJ-Day. In early 1944,
the island base of Truk was a Japanese Pearl Harbor; a powerful
naval and air base that needed to be neutralized before the Allies
could fight their way any further towards Tokyo. But Truk was also
the most heavily defended naval base outside the Japanese Home
Islands and an Allied invasion would be costly. Long-range bombing
against Truk intact would be a massacre so a plan was conceived to
neutralize it through a series of massive naval raids led by the
growing US carrier fleet. Operation Hailstone was one of the most
famous operations ever undertaken by American carriers in the
Pacific. This book examines the rise and fall of Truk as a Japanese
bastion and explains how in two huge raids, American carrier-based
aircraft reduced it to irrelevance. Also covered is the
little-known story of how the USAAF used the ravaged base as a
live-fire training ground for its new B-29s -- whose bombing raids
ensured Truk could not be reactivated by the Japanese. The pressure
on Truk was kept up right through 1945 when it was also used as a
target for the 509th Composite Squadron to practise dropping atomic
bombs and by the British Pacific Fleet to hone its pilots' combat
skills prior to the invasion of Japan.
This superbly illustrated study explores the epic clashes of
British and German heavy cruisers at the beginning of World War II.
The opposing heavy cruisers of the German Kriegsmarine and the
Royal Navy engaged in a global game of cat and mouse during the
opening years of World War II. This was a period in which the heavy
cruiser still reigned supreme in open waters, with the opposing
sides reluctant to risk their battleships, and aircraft yet to
dominate the seas. These swift vessels fought each other in the
South Atlantic, North Atlantic, the frigid waters of the Denmark
Strait and the Arctic approaches to Russia, capturing the public
imagination in the process. This fascinating and beautifully
illustrated book examines the design, development and technical
performance of these opposing warships, and explores the clashes
between them at the Battle of the River Plate in December 1939, the
Christmas Day Battle 1940 and the Battle of the Denmark Strait in
May 1941. The ships examined include the Deutschland-class
Panzerschiffe and Admiral Hipper-class cruisers, and the Royal Navy
County- and York-class heavy cruisers.
The Destroyer Escort was the smallest ocean- going escort built for
the United States Navy - a downsized destroyer with less speed,
fewer guns, and fewer torpedoes than its big brother, the fleet
destroyer. Destroyer escorts first went into production because the
Royal Navy needed an escort warship which was larger than a
corvette, but which could be built faster than a destroyer. Lacking
the shipyards to build these types of ships in Britain, they
ordered them in the US. Once the US unexpectedly entered World War
II, its navy suddenly also needed more escort warships, even
warships less capable than destroyers, and the destroyer escort was
reluctantly picked to fill the gap. Despite the Navy's initial
reservations, these ships did yeoman service during World War II,
fighting in both the Atlantic and Pacific, taking on both U-boat
and Japanese submarines and serving as the early warning pickets
against kamikazes later in the war. They also participated in such
dramatic actions as the Battle of Samar (where a group of
destroyers and destroyer escorts fought Japanese battleships and
cruisers to protect the escort carriers they were shielding) and
the capture of the U-505 (the only major naval vessel captured at
sea by the US Navy). The destroyer escorts soldiered on after World
War II in both the United States Navy and a large number of navies
throughout the world, with several serving into the twenty-first
century. This book tells the full story of these plucky ships, from
their design and development to their service around the world,
complete with stunning illustrations and contemporary photographs.
Between 1550-1600, Europe witnessed a rapid evolution in the art of
ship design which enabled safer and more efficient transatlantic
travel. This was the pinnacle of the Age of Discovery and
Exploration for the European powers, in which the galleon played a
crucial role. Galleons were both the main vessels in maritime
commerce and the principal warships used by the opposing fleets
throughout the Age of Exploration. This period also saw a large
amount of naval combat, much of it between individual ships
belonging to the competing powers of England and Spain as they
sought to control and exploit the rich mineral, material,
agricultural and human resources of the New World. The conflict
between the English Sea Dogs and the Spanish Adventurers has been a
source of fascination for over four centuries. This exciting
addition to the Duel series explores how the galleons used by Spain
and England were built and armed, and examines the effectiveness of
the cannon they used. It also compares how they were sailed and
manoeuvred, showing the strengths and weaknesses of each design,
and explaining how these played out in several of their most
prominent battles, including the Battle of San Juan de Ulua, the
fight between the Golden Hind and the Nuestra Senora de la
Concepcion, an action from the Spanish Armada, and the last fight
of the Revenge.
In 1908 the most incredible naval arms race in history began. Flush with cash from rubber and coffee, Brazil decided to order three of the latest, greatest category of warship available - the dreadnought battleship. One Brazilian dreadnought by itself could defeat the combined gunnery of every other warship of all the other South American nations. Brazil's decision triggered its neighbour Argentina to order its own brace of dreadnoughts, which in turn forced Chile (which had fought boundary disputes with Argentina) to order some.
In the process, the South American dreadnought mania drove the three participants nearly into insolvency, led to the bankruptcy of a major shipyard, and triggered a chain of events which led Turkey to declare war on Great Britain. It also produced several groundbreaking dreadnought designs and one of the world's first aircraft carriers.
At the start of World War II, few thought the U-boat would be as devastating as it proved to be. But convoys and sonar-equipped escorts proved inadequate to defend the Allies' merchantmen, and the RAF's only offensive weapon was the anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft. For RAF Coastal Command, the first two years of the war were the hardest. Although starved of resources, operating with outdated aircraft and often useless weaponry, they were still the only force that could take the fight to the U-boats.
But in these two years, the RAF learned what it needed to win the Battle of the Atlantic. Gradually developing new tactics and technology, such as airborne radar, signals intelligence, and effective weaponry, the Allies ended 1941 in a position to defeat Dönitz's growing fleet of U-boats. This book, the first of two volumes, explains the fascinating history of how the RAF kept the convoys alive against the odds, and developed the force that would prevail in the climactic battles of 1942 and 1943.
The air campaign that incinerated Japan's cities was the first and only time that independent air power has won a war.
As the United States pushed Imperial Japan back towards Tokyo Bay, the US Army Air Force deployed the first of a new bomber to the theater. The B-29 Superfortress was complex, troubled, and hugely advanced. It was the most expensive weapons system of the war, and formidably capable. But at the time, no strategic bombing campaign had ever brought about a nation's surrender. Not only that, but Japan was half a world away, and the US had no airfields even within the extraordinary range of the B-29.
This analysis explains why the B-29s struggled at first, and how General LeMay devised radical and devastating tactics that began to systematically incinerate Japanese cities and industries and eliminate its maritime trade with aerial mining. It explains how and why this campaign was so uniquely successful, and how gaps in Japan's defences contributed to the B-29s' success.
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