A compelling account of the failure of Imperial Japan's Operation
Ro-Go, intended to take the offensive in the Solomons theater of the
Pacific War, but which became Japan's first line of defense against the
Allies' Rabaul raids and Bougainville landings.
By the midpoint of World War II in the Pacific, Japan was on the
defensive. At the end of 1943, after a year of tumultuous air combat
around Rabaul and the Solomons, 173 Japanese aircraft were sent to
Rabaul. The plan was for them to participate in Ro-Go Sakusen (known as
Operation Ro, Ro-Go, or B) to strike Allied air power and shipping
in the Solomons and to slow the American advance by severing Allied
supply chains. However, instead of challenging Allied air and sea power
on their own terms, the operation became unexpectedly embroiled in
defensive combat and counterattacks, first to defend Rabaul from Allied
air raids, and then to challenge the Allied landings at Bougainville. In
one fell swoop, Operation Ro-Go was turned on its head, and
transformed into a defensive battle for the Japanese.
In this book, the first in English to focus on Operation Ro-Go,
Michael John Claringbould uses rare Japanese primary source material to
explain how the Japanese planned and fought the campaign, and corrects
enduring myths often found in books that rely only on Western sources.
He traces the unexpected and tremendous pressures placed on the
operation's units at Rabaul as the Japanese dealt with massive, surprise
raids from Fifth Air Force bombers, and later US Navy carrier aircraft,
concluding with the strategic upset of the Bougainville landings.
Packed with previously unpublished photos, spectacular original
illustrations, 3D recreations of specific missions, maps and explanatory
diagrams, this study tells the previously untold but significant story
of Japan's air war in the Solomons.
