The first team and the Guadalcanal campaign

This long-awaited sequel to the critically acclaimed First Team completes a fascinating chronicle of the carrier-based air battles that turned the tide of the war in the Pacific. Justly renowned for their heroic feats, these fighter pilots amassed a remarkable combat record in the face of desperate odds. Alongside their Marine and Army Air Force compatriots, U.S. Navy aviators inflicted a decisive defeat on their counterparts in the Imperial Japanese Navy. Victory in the Pacific depended upon superior tactics and doctrine, and the lessons learned at Guadalcanal paid great dividends later in the war. As in his earlier work, which has been hailed as "one of the finest examples of aviation research," Lundstrom draws from a decade of research to present a thoroughly detailed and scrupulously accurate account of naval air combat in the arduous Guadalcanal campaign. Picking up the story after Midway, this book describes in rich detail the actual planes and pilots pitted in battles of rarely matched ferocity. Based on correspondence with 150 American and Japanese veterans, or their families, Lundstrom reveals the thoughts, pressures, and fears of these airmen and their crews. Here too are the stories of the Wildcat and Zero fighters along with the Dauntless, Avenger, Betty, Kate, and Val bombers. A resolute historian, the author has tapped new American and Japanese sources to fully reconstruct every significant action in which these fighters were involved, placing them within the context of carrier operations. Lavishly illustrated with drawings, maps, and photographs, some never before published, this fresh new look at the Guadalcanal campaign joins The First Team in setting the standard for published aviation history.