In this the highly illustrated second volume of his history of US naval aviation, Leo Marriott takes the reader through the extraordinary developments in design and capability that transformed American aircraft and aircraft carriers after the Second World War, and he describes the succession of conflicts in which they were deployed. Increasingly, advanced jets replaced propeller-driven aircraft and nuclearpowered carriers allowed the US Navy to project American military power across the world. As the many remarkable photographs in this book show, wherever naval aviation was involved, it played a crucial role, especially in the wars in Korea and Vietnam. The vessels built in the 1940s to fight in the war against Japan gave way to a new generation of super carriers. Supersonic fighters and strike aircraft entered service – the F-8 Crusaders and F-4 Phantoms of the Vietnam era, then the F-14 Tomcat, F/A-18 Hornet and S-3 Viking of more recent times. Carrier-based helicopters became more important, first for search-and-rescue missions, then for anti-submarine warfare and for landing assault forces. Throughout this period of the Cold War the US Navy’s carriers and aviation served to demonstrate American power worldwide and to counter the threat represented by the Soviet Union’s challenge to US mastery of the seas.
In this the highly illustrated second volume of his history of US naval aviation, Leo Marriott takes the reader through the extraordinary developments in design and capability that transformed American aircraft and aircraft carriers after the Second World War, and he describes the succession of conflicts in which they were deployed. Increasingly, advanced jets replaced propeller-driven aircraft and nuclearpowered carriers allowed the US Navy to project American military power across the world. As the many remarkable photographs in this book show, wherever naval aviation was involved, it played a crucial role, especially in the wars in Korea and Vietnam. The vessels built in the 1940s to fight in the war against Japan gave way to a new generation of super carriers. Supersonic fighters and strike aircraft entered service – the F-8 Crusaders and F-4 Phantoms of the Vietnam era, then the F-14 Tomcat, F/A-18 Hornet and S-3 Viking of more recent times. Carrier-based helicopters became more important, first for search-and-rescue missions, then for anti-submarine warfare and for landing assault forces. Throughout this period of the Cold War the US Navy’s carriers and aviation served to demonstrate American power worldwide and to counter the threat represented by the Soviet Union’s challenge to US mastery of the seas.
From critically acclaimed military historian Gerald Astor comes Wings of Gold, the first account of how the airplane transformed the U.S. Navy and paved the way to victory in the Pacific in World War II. Astor tracks that fateful journey from its humble beginnings in 1910 when Eugene Ely flew the very first plane off the deck of a U.S. Navy ship to the unprecedented air combat missions that helped defeat the Japanese. Few naval aviators in World War II realized that when they earned their wings of gold they were about to become test pilots for a whole new kind of combat. In their own words, these courageous fliers describe the life-and-death air battles that defined the revolution in naval strategy that rose from the ashes of Pearl Harbor, when fighter pilots watched in horror as Japanese carrier-launched aircraft bombed their planes and airfields into smoking rubble. While following the pilots’ firsthand reports of air strikes and blazing dogfights across the islands and atolls of the Pacific, Astor explores the ways the U.S. Navy began its momentous transformation before the war. Later, the critical role of aircraft carriers in the stunning U.S. victory at Midway sounded the death knell for conventional naval warfare, yet the public, the press, the Army, and even the president’s advisors refused to recognize the new reality. In fact, only a few in the Navy understood that a new era had begun that would change the face of war forever. The young Americans who fought the deadly duels against Imperial Japanese forces high over the Pacific gave everything they had to the war effort, and many made the supreme sacrifice. Wings of Gold pays tribute to their courage, daring, and selfless dedication. Vividly told, thoroughly researched, and filled with stirring accounts of the Pacific War’s greatest air battles, Wings of Gold is an important addition to the annals of World War II aerial combat.
On the outome of the Battle of the Atlantic from 1939 to 1945 depended Britain's survival in the midst of a global war. The need to control the sealanes to Britain was mirrored by a need to control the skies above. Carrier based aircraft and seaplanes would play an important role in defeating the German submarine menace and in combating her surface fleet. However, at the start of World War II Britain possessed neither the training or industrial establishment necessary to develop this arm of warfare. From 1940 onwards the United States provided answers to the problem firstly in the form of American built aircraft, then American built aircraft carriers and finally American trained pilots. Even before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Royal Air Force and Fleet Air Arm pilots were being trained in the United States under a scheme set up by the United States Navy as part of the Lend Lease agreement. In the safer skies over the United States American Navy pilots would train British aviation cadets how to fly and to fight. This process is examined from a variety of different perspectives including the military, diplomatic, educational and cultural. For many young British aviation cadets the journey across the Atlantic and across America was as surprising as it was lengthy. Many would find themselves caught up with issues such as segregation in the American South of which they had little understanding. The book is based on interviews and correspondence with hundreds of former cadets who trained in the United States in the 1940s together with material from the British and American archives.
This is a comprehensive compilation of Navy history material providing extensive information about the role of Naval aviation in World War II. The first part of the compilation is a full chronology of events in Naval aviation during the war. Thirty-nine unique articles comprise part two, and the third section focuses on aspects of the Pacific theater. Part 1: Naval Aviation Chronology in World War II Part 2: World War II Naval Aviation Stories: Ready to Mobilize, Part 1 * Ready to Mobilize, Part 2, Victory Winning Team * Ready or Not...Naval Aviation's Aircraft and Ships on the Eve of Pearl Harbor * The Neutrality Patrol: To Keep Us Out of World War II, Part 1 * The Neutrality Patrol: To Keep Us Out of World War II, Part 2 * Aviation Training and Expansion, Part 1 * Aviation Training and Expansion, Part 2 * Wings of Victory, Prewar Technical Development, Part 1 * Wings of Victory, Technical Development During WW II, Part 2 * Wings of Victory, Part 3 * Organization of Naval Aviation in World War II * Aviation Ordnance 1939-1941 * The Pacific Neutrality Patrol * "This is No Drill." U.S. Naval Aviation and Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941 * Wake Island--A Gallant Defense * The Early Carrier Raids: Proving Japanese Vulnerability * The Battle of Coral Sea * Do the Best We Can with What We have (Battle of Midway) * Patrol Aviation in the Pacific in WW II, Part 1 * Patrol Aviation in the Pacific in WW II, Part 2 * Naval Aviation in Operation Torch * Guadalcanal: Trial by Fire, Part 1 * Guadalcanal: Trial by Fire, Part 2 * Combat Art in WW II * Fighter Tactics in WW II * Fleet Carrier Combat Operations, 1943 to 1944 * Solomon Islands Campaign: The Isolation of Rabaul * Island Hopping in WW II: From the Gilberts to the Marshals * Island Hopping in WW II: The Marianas * Invasion! Fortress Europe--Naval Aviation in France, Summer 1944 * The Kamikazes: Japanese Suicide Units * Victory at Leyte Gulf * Patrol Aviation in the Atlantic in World War II * Back to the Philippines, Part 1 * Back to the Philippines, Part 2 * Technical Development in World War II * From Autos to Aircraft: General Motors' WW II conversion to Wildcats and Avengers * The Largest Invasion...That Never Was * In the Wake of Victory Part 3: This important U.S. Navy history about naval aviation in the Pacific during World War II was published in 1947. Contents * CHAPTER I * Mission and Organization of Naval Aviation * CHAPTER II * Components and Weapons of Naval Aviation * CHAPTER III * Special Aspects of the Air War * CHAPTER IV * The Japanese Offensive-Pearl Harbor to Midway * CHAPTER V * Offensive-Defensive-Guadalcanal to Bougainville * CHAPTER VI * The United States Offensive--Tarawa to Tokyo * CHAPTER VII * Tactical Effectiveness of Naval Aviation * CHAPTER VIII * Lessons Learned
The fateful attack on Pearl Harbor forced the Western world to revise its opinion of Japan's airmen. Before the war, Japanese aviators had been seen as figures of ridicule and disdain; yet the ruthless skill and efficiency of their performance in December 1941 and the months that followed won them a new reputation as a breed of oriental superman. This book explores the world of the Imperial Japanese Naval airman, from the zenith of his wartime career until the turning of the tide, when the skill and experience of the average Japanese airman declined. Cultural and social background, recruitment, training, daily life and combat experience are all covered.
