The American dive bomber force launched with the torpedo bombers, but each of the three squadrons involved took paths to the target the diverged greatly from the torpedo squadrons, and from each other. The contingent […]
Task Force 16 – Enterprise and Hornet, under RAdm Raymond Spruance – sailed for Midway on the 29th of May, just two days after Kido Butai departed from Japan. RAdm Frank Fletcher’s Task Force 17, […]
As the Japanese were pounding Midway, the motley collection of bombers that had cleared the airfield headed in the opposite direction, determined to attack the carrier fleet spotted earlier that morning. In the weeks preceding […]
As American search planes criss-crossed the skies around Midway, the Japanese Mobile Striking Force, the Kido Butai, approached undetected from the north west. A weather front had concealed the fleet, curtailing flight operations and giving […]
Due to the vast distances between the islands of the Central Pacific, both the Americans and the Japanese used long range patrol aircraft extensively to keep an eye on the vast expanse of ocean separating […]
Often described as a diversionary attack to draw American forces away from Midway, the Japanese attack on Dutch Harbor on the 3rd and 4th of June, 1942, was in fact a distinct operation. The Japanese […]
By March 1942 the Japanese had accomplished their pre-war goals of capturing the Netherlands East Indies and Malaya, together with the rich oil fields which they hoped would supply their economy. Burma was on the […]
In 1937 the Osaka Mercantile Steamship line ordered three fast ocean liners for its routes to Africa. The Imperial Japanese Navy, cognizant of the worsening political situation and in the expectation of future wars, insisted […]
One of the lesser known aspects of the air war in the Pacific is the extent to which the Japanese made use of submarine-launched aircraft. Although several navies had experimented with submarine aircraft carriers between […]
Plans to take the Vichy French island of Madagascar, codenamed Operation Ironclad, had been laid even before the Japanese fleet made their incursion into the Indian Ocean in April 1942. The fear was that the […]
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