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.
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INTRODUCTION
CHRONOLOGY
ATTACKER'S CAPABILITIES
Long-range air power in 1944
DEFENDER'S CAPABILITIES
The ‘Gibraltar of the Pacific’
CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVES
Keystone of the Pacific War
Allied objectives and plans
Japanese objectives and plans
THE CAMPAIGN
From feared bastion to the Allies’ punchbag
Background: 1939-January 1944
Operation Hailstone: February 1944
April Showers: April 1944
Truk Besieged: March 1944–June 1945
Operation Inmate: June 14-15, 1945
AFTERMATH AND ANALYSIS
Surviving Aircraft
FURTHER READING
INDEX
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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.
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Truk was a major campaign that involved not just the huge carrier raids of Operation Hailstone but the follow-up campaigns in which B-29 units used the damaged base as a live-fire training target. Royal Navy carriers also used the base to hone British aviators' skills before the war turned to the Japanese Home Islands.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781472845856
Publisert
2021-12-23
Utgiver
Vendor
Osprey Publishing
Vekt
316 gr
Høyde
248 mm
Bredde
184 mm
Aldersnivå
G, P, 01, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
96
Forfatter
Illustratør