xiv, 322 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates illustrations, map, portraits 24 cm
Type:
Books
Place:
Pacific Ocean
Date:
2019
Contents:
"And then came the war": training for combat, 1943-1944 -- "Kids jerked right out of high school": Air Group 88 takes form, 1944 -- "Moved, always West, toward the combat zone": to the Pacific, February-June 1945 -- "An aircraft carrier is a noble thing": Air group 88 joins the Yorktown, June-July 1945 -- "Today our Group 88 starts raising hell with the Japs": preparation for battle, July 10, 1945 -- "Carrier pilots were the best in the world": the first attack, July 10. 1945 -- "Someboy said we are to hit Hokkaido": North to Hokkaido, July 14-15, 1945 -- "Stay away from Kure": finishing the Imperial Japanese Fleet, July 18-30, 1945 -- "The Navy would be in to get you": the July 1945 air sea rescues -- "Fighting a war that had already been won": August 1-14, 1945 -- "Failed to return with this flight; shot down over target": August 15, 1945 -- "Two only of the six returned": the aftermath
Summary:
"From an expert in the Pacific theater of World War II comes the tragic story of the pilots who fought the last fight of the war during the first hour of peace. When Billy Hobbs and his fellow Hellcat aviators from Air Group 88 lifted off from the venerable Navy carrier USS Yorktown early on the morning of August 15, 1945, they had no idea they were about to carry out the final air mission of World War II. Two hours later, Yorktown received word from Admiral Nimitz that the war had ended and that all offensive operations should cease. As they were turning back, twenty Japanese planes suddenly dove from the sky above them and began a ferocious attack. Four American pilots never returned--men who had lifted off from the carrier in wartime but were shot down during peacetime. Drawing on participant letters, diaries, and interviews, newspaper and radio accounts, and previously untapped archival records, historian and prolific author of acclaimed Pacific theater books, including Tin Can Titans and Hell from the Heavens, John Wukovits tells the story of Air Group 88's pilots and crew through their eyes. Dogfight over Tokyo is written in the same riveting, edge-of-your-seat style that has made Wukovits's previous books so successful. This is a stirring, one-of-a-kind tale of naval encounters and the last dogfight of the war--a story that is both inspirational and tragic."--Jacket flap
Topic:
World War, 1939-1945--Aerial operations, American Search this
