ACES of the SOUTHWEST PACIFIC

This fine book, well - illustrated with many black and white photographs as well as with colour profiles, is about the U.S.A.A.F. fighter aces and their " Kites " stationed in the Pacific during the Second World War.

August 1945 - Japan's dream of conquest and empire was ended. The vision of an Asian Co - Prosperity Sphere which had seemed so bright in early 1941 now lay buried beneath the twisted rubble of the cities on the Home Islands, it lay rusting on the bottom of the vast Pacific Ocean, and it lay rotting in the unchartered jungles of a hundred scattered islands or the rain forests on the continent of Asia. From the first day of the war, the fighter pilots of the Army Air Force met the enemy in the skies. This book is concerned with a relatively small number of these men, the ones who by downing at list five enemy planes in the air qualified for the title ’ ace ’. It is, however, a tribute to the thousands of other men who served with the Air Force in the Pacific.

Gene B. Stafford is an author specialised in military aviation. He has written a couple of books, such as Aces of the Eighth ( with William N. Hess ), Thunderbolt in Action ( with Don Greer ) and P - 38 Lightning in Action ( with Don Greer ).
( source : amazon )