Rain of Steel
Mitscher's Task Force 58, Ugaki's Thunder Gods, and the Kamikaze War off Okinawa
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $40.99
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- $40.99
Publisher Description
The last Pacific campaign of World War II was the most violent on record. Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher’s Task Force 58 carriers had conducted air strikes on mainland Japan and supported the Iwo Jima landings, but his aviators were sorely tested once the Okinawa campaign commenced on 1 April 1945. Rain of Steel follows Navy and Marine carrier aviators in the desperate air battles to control the kamikazes directed by Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki. The latter would unleash ten different Kikusui aerial suicide operations, one including a naval force built around the world’s most powerful battleship, the 71,000-ton Yamato. These battles are related largely through the words and experiences of some of the last living U.S. fighter aces of World War II. More than 1,900 kamikaze sorties—and thousands more traditional attack aircraft—would be launched against the U.S. Navy’s warships, radar picket ships, and amphibious vessels during the Okinawa campaign. In this time, Navy, Marine, and Army Air Force pilots would claim some 2,326 aerial victories. The most successful four-man fighter division in U.S. Navy history would be crowned during the fight against Ugaki’s kamikazes. The Japanese named the campaign tetsu no ame (“rain of steel”), often referred to in English as “typhoon of steel.”
Customer Reviews
U.S. NAVAL VICTORY REMEMBERED
A factual re-construction of all the events surrounding the Battle of Okinawa are strategically laid out leading up to ultimate VICTORY in the Pacific Theatre of Operations; sums up this literary masterpiece by Stephen L. Moore. This monumental work published by the Naval Institute Press has every detail passionately elaborated upon to give the reader all the realistic emotions of factual human conflict during the last year of World War Two. “RAIN OF STEEL” depicts the reality of the courageous men serving with the UNITED STATES NAVY and UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS on-board warships at sea in the South Pacific and in the air flying one of the greatest fighter aircraft ever produced during the war against the Japanese Empire. The Grumman F6F Hellcat; which dominated the skies and gave our Naval Aviators the means to defeat the aggressor and become victorious in the Okinawa Conflict. Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher leading Task Force 58 is the centerpiece of this heroic naval battle to defeat the enemy at all costs and to complete the mission with the might of the World’s Greatest military force. An incredible true-story epic drama clearly defined for all ages and generations to admire; the heroic exploits of the Greatest Generation at war, in the fight for freedom and democracy!
GO NAVY! GO MARINE!