Air Apaches
The True Story of the 345th Bomb Group and Its Low, Fast, and Deadly Missions in World War II
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- USD 29.99
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- USD 29.99
Descripción editorial
The American 345th Bomb Group--the Air Apaches--was legendary in the war against Japan. The first fully trained and fully equipped group sent to the South Pacific, the 345th racked up a devastating score against the enemy. Armed to the teeth with machine guns and fragmentation bombs, and flying their B-25s at impossibly low altitudes--often below fifty feet--the pilots and air crews strafed and bombed enemy installations and shipping with a fury that helped cripple Japan. One of the sharpest tools in the U.S. arsenal, the 345th performed essential missions during Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s campaigns in New Guinea and the Philippines, earning an impressive four Distinguished Unit Citations.
This was punishingly dangerous work, and the 345th lost 177 aircraft and 712 men--young men doing their duty in the spirit of the Greatest Generation. Neither was this the more gentlemanly war of Europe, with its more temperate climate, resistance networks aiding downed crews, and POW camps. Airmen shot down in the Pacific theater faced drowning in the ocean, disappearing in the jungle, or torturing and beheading by the Japanese in a war of no quarter expected, no quarter given.
A compelling follow-up to Jay A. Stout’s Hell’s Angels, Air Apaches reconstructs the missions of the 345th Bomb Group in striking detail, with laser focus on the men who manned the cockpits, navigated the B-25s, dropped the bombs, serviced the planes, and helped win the war. To tell this remarkable story, Stout worked closely with the group’s surviving veterans and dug deep into firsthand accounts. The result is a compelling narrative of men at war that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.
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In this well-written combat history, Stout (Vanished Hero), a retired U.S. Marine Corps fighter pilot, methodically chronicles the WWII experiences of a U.S. Air Force unit in the Pacific theater. Drawing extensively on official records, mission logs, and wartime letters home, Stout begins with the 345th Bomber Group's deployment to Australia in 1943 and ends with the pilots' last mission escorting the Japanese surrender delegation in August 1945. Stout makes clear how different it was to fight and fly in the southwest Pacific from doing so in Europe. The aviators of the 345th flew over some of the most inhospitable jungles in the world, as well as thousands of miles of shark-infested ocean. Their tactics were also unlike those of any other aviation unit in history: they conducted attacks at top speed, flying at treetop level or just above the waves and using machine guns and parachute bombs. A small mistake by the pilot or a hit by the enemy resulted in a quick and fiery death or capture by the Japanese army, which had a policy of torturing and executing downed aviators. This fast-paced account captures the danger, stresses, and excitement of the air war in the Pacific in captivating fashion.
