Kokoda Air Strikes

Allied Air Forces in New Guinea, 1942

Anthony Cooper

• Publisher: NewSouth
• Year: 2014
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781742246796
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

The author of the bestselling Darwin Spitfires casts a forensic eye over the role that Allied air forces played —or failed to play—in crucial World War II campaigns in New Guinea. This is the story of the early battles of the southwest Pacific theatre—the Coral Sea, Kokoda, Milne Bay, Guadalcanal—presented as a single air campaign that began with the Japanese conquest of Rabaul in January 1942. It is a story of both Australian and American airmen who flew and fought in the face of adversity—with incomplete training, inadequate aircraft, and from poorly set up and exposed airfields. And they persisted despite extreme exhaustion, sickness, poor morale, and the near certainty of being murdered by their Japanese captors if they went down in enemy territory.

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• About the Author
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Maps
• The South West Pacific Area Chain of Command
• 1. Australia’s ‘Advanced Striking Force’
• 2. Losing Rabaul
• 3. Losing Lae and Salamaua
• 4. Fighters at Last
• 5. Moresby’s Pre-Invasion‘ Blitz’
• 6. The Yanks Take Over
• 7. Combing the Coral Sea
• 8. Preparing for the Next Push
• 9. Losing Buna
• 10. Losing Kokoda
• 11. Defending the Eastern Flank
• 12. Turning Point at Milne Bay
• 13. The Air Supply Debacle
• 14. Air Supremacy by Default
• Afterword
• Select Bibliography
• Index