This major revision to the original version includes dozens of rare
photos, complemented by a suite of maps, indexes, and color profiles of
participant aircraft.
Any USAAF pilot who flew the mission to Hollandia on the fateful
afternoon of 16 April 1944 in New Guinea would remember it for the rest
of their lives. So would anyone else in the theater, for the
weather-related losses that fateful day earned it the eternal epithet
"Black Sunday". The way home for more than three hundred bombers and
fighters was blocked by a towering weather front whose thunderstorms
rose well above any altitude they could reach. Over enemy territory and
caught between mountains and the sea, there was no option but to
confront nature.
By dusk that evening 37 aircraft were missing or had been destroyed. A
handful of survivors somehow made it back to valley and coastal bases in
a series of arduous misadventures. It was, and remains, the biggest
non-combat loss of any air force of any nation in the world. More than
seven decades later, aircraft from the day are still missing somewhere
in the New Guinea jungle.
This major revision to the original version includes dozens of rare
photos, complemented by a suite of maps, indexes, and color profiles of
participant aircraft. Japanese diaries reveal the fate of unlucky P-38
pilots forced to bail out. The text liberally cites veteran interviews,
post-war wreck surveys and official USAAF records. The narrative tracks
down the fate of every aircraft and every crew member, including those
who rescued them. Put yourself in the cockpit against nature's massive
odds over hostile terrain and watch a composite picture evolve. The
accelerating narrative from dozens of different perspectives is both
fascinating and overwhelming.
