Volume Five of this series chronicles aerial warfare primarily in the
New Guinea theater in the critical period between September and December
1942. It can be read alone or as a continuation of the previous four
volumes which span the first nine months of the Pacific War.
By early September the strategic picture in the theater had changed
markedly within just six weeks. From their new Buna beachhead, the
Japanese Army commenced a Papuan mountain campaign which threatened the
Allied bastion of Port Moresby. Meanwhile the battle for Guadalcanal was
raging, with the outcome of the wider Pacific War in the balance.
Against this background a strengthened US Fifth Air Force took the fight
to the IJA with direct air support. While this was being conducted by
P-39s, P-40Es, A-20As and B-25s, raids by B-17s against Rabaul aided US
forces in the neighboring Solomons. RAAF Beaufighters, Beauforts,
Bostons, and Hudsons also contributed substantially to these efforts.
At Rabaul, a wide variety of fresh IJN fighter and bomber units poured
in the theater, although these became focused mainly on the Solomons.
Such were the massive losses experienced, by November the IJN undertook
a complete operational and administrative reorganization of its air
power. Then, despite a strong reluctance to become involved, the IJA
sent an advance reconnaissance detachment to Rabaul, the forerunner of
major reinforcements that would arrive in December.
Never before has this campaign been chronicled in such detail, with
Allied and Japanese accounts matched together for a truly factual
account of the conflict.
