Target Hong Kong

TARGET HONG KONG: A true story of U.S. Navy pilots at war

Brought to life by the personal accounts of six Navy pilots and one British POW, this is the history of the U.S. Navy airstrikes on Japanese-held Hong Kong.

Commander John Lamade started the war in 1941 a nervous pilot of an antiquated biplane. Just over three years later he was in the cockpit of a cutting-edge Hellcat about to lead a strike force of 80 aircraft through the turbulent skies above the South China Sea. His target: Hong Kong. As a storm of antiaircraft fire darkened the sky, watching from below was POW Ray Jones. For three long years he and his fellow prisoners had endured near starvation conditions in a Japanese internment camp. Did these American aircraft, he wondered, herald freedom?

Trawling through historic records, Steven K. Bailey discovered that the story of the U.S. Navy airstrikes on Japanese-held Hong Kong during the final year of World War II had never been told. Operation Gratitude involved nearly 100 U.S. Navy warships and close to a thousand planes. Target Hong Kong brings this massive operation down to a human scale by recounting the air raids through the experiences of seven men whose lives intersected at Hong Kong in January 1945: Commander John D. Lamade, five of his fellow U.S. Navy pilots and the POW Ray Jones. Drawing upon oral histories, diary transcripts, and U.S. Navy documents, this book expertly narrates the intertwined experiences of these servicemen to bring the history to life.

Περιεχόμενα:

Acronyms

Place Names

List of Illustrations

Maps

• January 1945
• December 1941
• We Are Now Prisoners of War
• Boxing Day, 1941
• Training Days
• Little Jack and the Big John
• Manila Bay
• Convoy Hi-87
• Crew Two
• Hot, Straight, and Normal
• Shootin' Star
• The Most Frightening Thing
• Blanket Missions
• A Complete Failure
• Target 8
• Fifteen to Twenty Seconds of Flotation
• Intense to Unbelievable
• Three Planes Down
• Triple X
• The Man in the Harris Tweed
• The Bombing of Bungalow C
• The Results Were Not Commensurate with the Losses
• The Navy Department Deeply Regrets to Inform You
• Houseguests
• Eager Beavers
• Courts of Inquiry
• Killed on a Sunday
• Ten Centuries
• The Bombing of Bungalow A
• On the Beach
• Forever and a Day
• Reparations, Reassignments, and Record Jackets
• Ninety-four Pounds
• Hungjao Road
• Unknowns

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Endnotes

Bibliography

Index

Συγγραφέας: Steven K. Bailey

Έκδοση: Osprey publishing

Περιγραφή: Σελ. 368, μαλακό εξώφυλλο, 234 X 153 mm.

Κατάσταση: ΑΜΕΤΑΧΕΙΡΙΣΤΟ

Βάρος κατά την αποστολή: 1.200 γρ.