Lavishly illustrated, this book studies the role of airpower in the New Guinea battles of 1942–43, as the Allies checked and halted Japan's last significant offensives.
Mark Stille and John Rogers offer a new history of a previously neglected part of the South Pacific air war - the battles over New Guinea and the waters around it. The first of two books on the subject, drawing on Japanese, American and Australian sources, it details operations from March 1942 until May 1943, which saw the Allies stop the last Japanese efforts to expand their faltering empire.
Allied air operations focused on denying the Japanese the use of the sea to send reinforcements to New Guinea, during the battles for Buna and Gona, the unsuccessful and little-known Japanese invasion at Milne Bay, and the Battle of the Bismarck Sea in which a major Japanese effort to move troops to New Guinea was crushed by air power. While the Japanese had over-extended and lost operational focus, the Allies were successful in interdicting sea movement of Japanese forces to New Guinea. However, immature tactics meant air power was largely ineffective supporting their ground campaign.
Packed with photos, superb original battlescenes, 3D diagrams and maps, this book explains the roles of Japanese and Allied air power in the crucial battle of New Guinea.

Fully illustrated, this is a history of airpower in the decisive stage of the New Guinea campaign, when the Allies could finally go on the offensive to shatter Japanese forces.

In mid-1943, the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force (IJAAF) took over responsibility for New Guinea air operations from the Imperial Japanese Navy. In its first large-scale contest against the USAAF, the IJAAF was challenged to defend its bases, defend the sea lanes supporting numerous Japanese outposts along the coast, and influence ground operations.

In this book, the second of two on the New Guinea campaign, Pacific War scholars Mark Stille and John Rogers draw upon years of research and Japanese, American and Australian sources to explain how the New Guinea air war turned against the Japanese between June 1943 and 1944. The over-extended IJAAF gradually lost combat strength in the face of vastly improved Allied airpower, leaving the Japanese unable to contend. One prong of the Allies' air offensive targeted Japanese shipping to isolate its forces, while the other supported the ground offensives and landings that smashed Japanese forces and left most of them isolated for the rest of the war.

Packed with artwork, maps, and archive photos, this book explains how the lessons learned and the forces built up during the harsh struggle for Papua in 1942–43 transformed the Allies' airpower into a decisive element in MacArthur's 1943–44 campaign.