Fighter Combat Tactics in the Southwest Pacific Area

Fighter Combat Tactics in the Southwest Pacific Area
Author: Ray Merriam
Publisher: CreateSpace
Total Pages: 120
Release: 2012-02-11
Genre:
ISBN: 9781470042158
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Merriam Press Military Monograph 400. Ninth Edition (February 2012). The text in this monograph is from a booklet prepared during the war by the Fifth Air Force. It was written by the combat pilots of the Southwest Pacific area who managed to fight-and survive-the best aircraft and pilots that the Japanese Army and Navy Air Forces could throw at them. Their comments were intended to aid the newer pilots just arriving on the scene, so that they would not have to learn from experience-and perhaps save their lives. Twenty-five fighter pilots, including William Giroux, Edwin Doss, Leroy Grosshuesch, Gerald Johnson, Richard Bong, Robert De Haven, Edward Roddy, Charles MacDonald, and Thomas McGuire, provide their rules for dealing with the Japanese in the air and on the ground. Contents: Colonel Earl H. Dunham, Commanding Officer, 8th Fighter Group (P-38); Captain William K. Giroux, 36th Fighter Squadron, 8th Fighter Group (P-38); Captain William A. Gardner, Operations Officer, 8th Fighter Group (P-38); Major Cyril F. Homer, 80th Fighter Squadron, 8th Fighter Group (P-38); Captain Allen E. Hill, 36th Fighter Squadron, 8th Fighter Group (P-38); Colonel Edwin A. Doss, Commanding Officer, 35th Fighter Group (P-47); Major John R. Young, Operations Officer, 35th Fighter Group (P-47); Captain Leroy V. Grosshuesch, 39th Fighter Squadron, 35th Fighter Group (P-47); Captain William H. Strand, 40th Fighter Squadron, 35th Fighter Group (P-47); Major Douglas V. N. Parsons, Deputy Commander, 35th Fighter Group (P-47); Lieutenant Colonel Gerald R. Johnson, Commanding Officer, 49th Fighter Group (P-38); Colonel George A. Walker, former Commanding Officer, 49th Fighter Group (P-38); Major Richard I. Bong, 49th Fighter Group (P-38); Captain Robert M. De Haven, 7th Fighter Squadron, 49th Fighter Group (P-40, P-38); Major Wallace R. Jordan, 9th Fighter Squadron, 49th Fighter Group (P-38); Colonel Gwen G. Atkinson, Commanding Officer, 58th Fighter Group (P-47); Major Edward F. Roddy, Operations Officer, 58th Fighter Group (P-47); Colonel Robert R. Rowland, Commanding Officer, 348th Fighter Group (P-47); Lieutenant Colonel William M. Banks. Deputy Commander, 348th Fighter Group (P-47); Captain Marvin E. Grant, 342nd Fighter Squadron, 348th Fighter Group (P-47); Major William D. Dunham, 460th Fighter Squadron, 348th Fighter Group (P-47); Major Walter G. Benz, Jr., 342nd Fighter Squadron, 348th Fighter Group (P-47); Colonel Charles H. MacDonald, Commanding Officer, 475th Fighter Group (P-38); Major John S. Loisel, Operations Officer, 475th Fighter Group (P-38); Major Thomas B. McGuire, 431st Fighter Squadron, 475th Fighter Group (P-38); Captain Elliot Summer, 432nd Fighter Squadron, 475th Fighter Group (P-38); 17 photos; 9 illustrations.

Multi-Domain Battle in the Southwest Pacific Theater of World War II

Multi-Domain Battle in the Southwest Pacific Theater of World War II
Author: Combat Studies Institute Press
Publisher:
Total Pages: 188
Release: 2019-07-29
Genre:
ISBN: 9781086087291
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"Multi-Domain Battle in the Southwest Pacific Theater of World War II" provides a historical account of how US forces used synchronized operations in the air, maritime, information, and land domains to defeat the Japanese Empire. This work offers a historical case that illuminates current thinking about future campaigns in which coordination among all domains will be critical for success.

Air Wars 1920-1939

Air Wars 1920-1939
Author: Philip MacDougall
Publisher: Fonthill Media
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2017-01-20
Genre: History
ISBN:
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Spain (1936-9), China (1937 onwards), Mongolia (1939), Finland (1939-40) and France (1939-40) were a testing ground for a new approach to air tactics with western democracies and totalitarian states analysing the resulting lessons. Attention in Air Wars 1920-1939: The Development and Evolution of Fighter Tactics is given to the means by which intelligence on aerial tactics was collected and why it was not always fully absorbed, resulting in many nations having to relearn the same lessons at the outset of the Second World War. Finland, during the Winter War, while not involved in Spain or any other air war of the time, better applied the lessons being learned than that of the Soviet Union, which had been directly involved in air wars fought over China, Mongolia and Spain. In the case of Britain, not only were the lessons of Spain ignored, but so too that of its own experimental fighter unit, the AFDE (Air Fighting Development Establishment) that had been formed in 1934 and which was reinforcing the intelligence received from those real air war conflicts.

Black Sheep Ace

Black Sheep Ace
Author: Sammy Anson Pierce
Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
Total Pages: 441
Release: 2022-05-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 163985021X
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Black Sheep Ace is the exciting life story of Sammy Alpheus Pierce, a country boy from rural North Carolina who enlisted in the Army as a private first class and was accepted to pilot training as a young, enlisted man. Upon graduation, he was promoted to the newly created rank of flying sergeant and assigned to fly fighter airplanes. During World War II, over 2,500 enlisted Army men graduated from pilot training and became flying sergeants. Sammy was one of only eighteen who shot down five or more enemy airplanes and achieved the status of ace. His memoirs recount his highs and lows during pilot training and his experiences in the 8th Fighter Squadron, one of three fighter squadrons in the 49th Fighter Group in the Pacific Theater. Sammy was forced to bail out of a P-40 Warhawk behind Japanese lines in October 1943. He was seriously injured and had to evade two thousand Japanese soldiers as well as native cannibals and headhunters to reach an Australian beachhead on the northeast coast of New Guinea. Following surgery in Sydney, Australia, Sammy returned to the United States for rehabilitation. When he returned to flying status, he became an instructor and test pilot in P-51 Mustangs, where he came closer to dying in an airplane incident than at any time in combat. Sammy was recalled to the 49th Fighter Group in October 1944 for a second tour and was again assigned to the 8th Fighter Squadron. He arrived when his squadron was converting to P-38 Lightnings in preparation for General Douglas MacArthur's return to the Philippines. Sammy recounts hell on earth at Tacloban Airfield on Leyte Island, the most difficult and dangerous days of the entire war for the pilots and personnel of the 49th Fighter Group. His memoirs take the reader through the Philippines campaign to Okinawa and, finally, the surrender of Japan.

The Jagged Edge of Duty

The Jagged Edge of Duty
Author: Robert L. Richardson
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 409
Release: 2017-04-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 0811765725
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The World War II fighter-pilot story On the very first day of the invasion of Sicily, three months into his combat career, Allan Knepper flew his P-38 Lightning fighter in a squadron sent out to sweep the island and interdict German ground targets. Retreating German infantry unexpectedly pounded the American flyers. Knepper was one of two shot down; he was never found. Knepper’s story is the story-in-microcosm of thousands of American fighter pilots in World War II. Richardson recounts Knepper’s experiences from training through combat and uses them to discuss the aircraft, tactics and doctrine, training, base life, and aerial combat of the war. This is the intimate account of one pilot at war, but also the anatomy of the fighter-pilot experience in World War II.