America's Few: Marine Aces of the South Pacific

Description

In the South Pacific during World War II, the aviators of the US Marine Corps came out of the shadows to establish themselves as an air force second to none. During the war, the number of Marine squadrons mushroomed from 13 to 145. The centerpiece of the action was in the Solomon Islands and adjacent archipelagos, from Guadalcanal to Bougainville and beyond. Marine Corps Aviation began in 1915 under the concept that the USMC, functioning as a self-contained expeditionary force, should carry its own air support element. However, during World War I - in addition to ground attack duties - several Marine aviators saw air-to-air combat action and achieved aerial victories against the Germans over the Western Front. During the interwar period, the support of USMC amphibious operations became a key element of Marine Aviation doctrine, and the small force gradually grew. In December 1941, came the rude awakening. Within hours of Pearl Harbor, heroic Marine aviators were battling the Japanese over Wake Island. In the war in the Pacific, the first half of 1942 belonged to the invincible forces of Japan, who gobbled up Southeast Asia from Thailand to Singapore, as well as the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies. To protect the vital sea lanes to Australia, Allied strategy called for a line in the island coral and jungle to be drawn though the Solomon Islands, and the island of Guadalcanal (code named "Cactus") became the focal point. The key instrument of the Allied Guadalcanal land campaign was the USMC. In the summer of 1942, when Allied airpower was cobbled together into a single unified entity - nicknamed "the Cactus Air Force," Marine Aviation dominated, and a Marine, Major General Roy Geiger, was its commander. Of a dozen Allied fighter squadrons that were part of the Cactus Air Force, eight were USMC squadrons. It was over Guadalcanal that Joe Foss emerged as a symbol of Marine Aviation. As commander of Marine Fighter Squadron VMF-121, he organized a group of fighter pilots, nicknamed "Foss's Flying Circus," that downed 72 enemy aircraft. Foss himself reached a score of 26, matching the score of World War I "Ace of Aces" Eddie Rickenbacker, by February 1943. He became a media hero at home and was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Roosevelt. After about a year stateside, Foss returned to the Pacific to command VFM-115 in February 1944. Pappy Boyington, meanwhile, had become a Marine aviator in 1935, but resigned his commission in 1941 to join the American Volunteer Group, the "Flying Tigers." He quit the AVG in April 1942, rejoined the USMC in September, and became executive officer of VMF-122 in the Solomons. Best known as the commander of VMF-214 (the "Black Sheep Squadron"), Boyington came into his own in late 1943 while Foss was stateside. Boyington eventually matched Foss's aerial victory score. Though the emphasis of this book will be on the two top-scoring aces, Foss and Boyington, the second tier aces will also be discussed. They include Robert Hanson (25 aerial victories), who might have exceeded the scores of Foss and Boyington, but who was killed in action off Bougainville in February 1944, one month to the day after Boyington went down. The others include Ken Walsh (21 victories), Don Aldrich (20), John L. Smith (19), and Wilbur Thomas (18.5), and the first USMC ace of the war, Marion Carl (18.5). Hanson, Walsh, and Smith, like Foss and Boyington, were awarded the Medal of Honor.

Bill Yenne is the author of more than three dozen non-fiction books, as well as ten novels. His work has been selected for the Chief of Staff of the Air Force Reading List. He is the recipient of the Air Force Association's Gill Robb Wilson Award for the 'most outstanding contribution in the field of arts and letters [as an] author whose works have shaped how thousands of Americans understand and appreciate airpower.' He lives in California, USA.

America's Few describes Marine Corps aviation's few: the two dozen 'double digit' aces who gained hard-won air superiority in the first year of the Pacific War, many of whom contributed en route to VJ Day. Bill Yenne not only describes their combat careers but the youthful backgrounds that shaped who they were beyond what they did. * Barrett Tillman, author of 'U.S. Marine Corps Fighter Squadrons of World War II' * Readable and well researched, America's Few chronicles the combat history of the 'double-digit' fighter aces, an elite cohort of Marine Corps aviators who shot down ten or more Japanese warplanes while flying the famed F4F Wildcat and F4U Corsair. An essential addition to the bookshelf of readers interested in the F4U Corsair and the remarkable pilots who flew them. * Steven K. Bailey, author of 'Bold Venture: The American Bombing of Japanese-Occupied Hong Kong, 1942-1945' * Author Bill Yenne captures the true essence of this great generation of young pilots who sacrificed so much. In 1942 the War in the Pacific Theater was not going well for the Allies and, the USMC pilots had an uphill battle to wage. The reader is immediately drawn into each dogfight, as Yenne displays a unique talent for capturing precise details. For the pilots, the obstacles were significant and an enormous psychological weight to bear. Base operations were austere, shoot down the enemy or be shot down, AAA threats, will the aircraft hold up under the stress. Every second in the air were the vivid haunting threats-bailing out over the ocean or crashing in the jungle. Will I be quickly killed or, become a POW of the Japanese? Yenne preserves the legacy of a generation of USMC airmen that deserve lasting respect. * Erik Simonsen, author of 'A Complete History of US Combat Aircraft Fly-Off Competitions' *