The Guadalcanal Landings
As the largest invasion fleet assembled so far in the war approached Guadalcanal to begin the landing operations, the first order of business for VAdm Frank J. Fletcher’s Task Force 61 was to clear the […]
Articles by PE Matt
The Guadalcanal Campaign
Kido Butai’s defeat at the Battle of Midway meant that American positions in the Central Pacific, including Hawaii, were now secure. US Navy Commander in Chief Admiral Ernest J. King now felt that the time […]
Boeing XB-15
By the mid-1930s the US Army Air Corps (USAAC) saw the need for a new type of long-range bomber. The procurement of the Boeing B-9 and the Martin B-10 and B-12 series had filled an […]
11-Go Air Search Radar
A Japanese scientific delegation under Cdr Yoji Ito was sent to Germany in February 1941. Although the professional relationship between the Japanese and the Germans was far less cordial than that of the Americans and […]
Consolidated PB2Y Coronado
With the first versions of the PBY Catalina beginning to be supplied to the Navy in 1935, attention turned to potential successor machines with better performance. Both Sikorsky and Consolidated were solicited for proposals, and […]
Sikorsky XPBS
As the US Navy was beginning to receive the first prototypes of the aircraft that would become the PBY Catalina, it simultaneously began to solicit proposals for the eventual replacement of this flying boat. The […]
The Career of the I-25 – Part Two
When I-25 arrived at her berth in Yokosuka harbour, her pilot, Nobuo Fujita, was surprised to receive orders to report to Naval General Headquarters in Tokyo. At first he feared that he was to be […]
The Career of the I-25 – Part One
Several navies experimented with submarine-launched aircraft, but few embraced the practice as whole-heartedly as the Japanese. Throughout the 1920s several experimental aircraft were developed, and submarines modified with water-tight compartments to carry them, before the […]
Nakajima A6M2-N Type 2 “Rufe”
During the China Incident the Japanese Navy had made extensive use of floatplanes to augment their land-based units. The Japanese faced a lack of suitable airfields around the coastal cities that were conquered between 1937 […]
The Kiska Blitz
For the Japanese, the only bright spot in the disastrous MI-AL Operation was the capture of the tiny Aleutian Islands of Kiska and Attu – the only pieces of American territory to fall into enemy […]