MacArthur's Eagles: The U.S. Air War Over New Guinea, 1943-1944

[marsyao]

I just received this new book from amazon.com:
how about this book I received yesterday ?
"MacArthur's Eagles: The U.S. Air War Over New Guinea, 1943-1944" by Lex McAulay,
# Hardcover: 408 pages
# Publisher: Naval Institute Press (April 1, 2005)
# ISBN: 1591144795
# Price : $23.07 at amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...=UTF8&v=glance

Mr Lex uses both US and Japanese sources to describe this air war which is rare among the books about the pacific war , should be very interesting

[John Beaman]

marsyao:

Have you had a chance to read this book yet, and offer a comment or two on it?

[marsyao]

Yes, it is indeed pretty good, mainly from USAF and RAAF point of view, but also used a lot of JAAF source, describe in very detail about the air raid agians JAAF base at New Guinea, ths so-called "the grave of JAAF", but did not include much information about the JAAF's strike on the Austria. The only shortcome was the organization of this book, I read so many of Christopher shores's book, already get used to the potrait of the air combat in the day-by-day base.

[Jim Oxley]

A book that should be read in conjunction with the above is one titled "MacArthur's Airman, General George Kenney And The War In The Southwest Pacific", by Thomas E Griffith. ISBN 0-7006-0909-1.

Provides an excellent appreciation of the development of the 5th AF, it's humble beginnings and the constant battle with Washington for modern equipment, the command challenges in operating a modern air force in extremely primitive surroundings and, most importantly, the role Kenney played in creating an extremely effective air force.

Given that for most of the campaign in New Guinea the 5th AF's aircraft numbers were matched by the Japanese, it really illustrates how much more effective American use of air power was compared to Japanese.