[Broncazonk]

I've been reading John B. Lundstrom's, The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign : Naval Fighter Combat from August to November 1942 which is superlative. (I read it cover to cover, and then immediately began reading it again.)

Lundstrom mentions an interesting fact: in the after-action reports of the fighter squadrons that fought in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons (24 August, 1942) "several officers commented on the visible deterioration of enemy pilot skills."

Already, in late August, 1942, the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Indian Ocean raid, the Battle of Coral Sea, Midway and Aleutian Island foray had taken a visible toll on the quality of the naval aviators of the Kido Butai.

And the battle was only beginning in the Solomons. I never realized how utterly devastating the attrition in the Solomons was to Japanese naval aviation. By late September, Japanese commanders in Rabaul were worried by the quality of Japanese replacement pilots, and by late October of 1942, they were alarmed.

Bronc