Case Studies in the Achievement of Air Superiority - Air Force ...

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC
The Great Sea War, pp 430-31; Kenney Notebooks, Dec 13, 1944-Jan 4, 1945, vols IX
and X, inter alia, Office of Air Force History; Morison, Vol XII: The Liberation of the
Philippines, pp 17-51; Craven and Cate; AAF in WW II, Vol V: Matterhorn to Nagasaki,
pp 396-401; Dod, Corps of Engineers, pp 586-87; Robert Ross Smith, Triumph in the Philippines
[United States Army in World War 11: The War in the Pacific] (Washington, 1963).
pp 43-52.
76. Craven and Cate, AAF in WW II, Vol V: Matterhorn to Nagasaki, pp 306-08; Kenney,
Reports. pp 500-01 ; Morison, Vol X11: Liberation of the Philippines, pp 50-51.
77. Morison, Vol XIII: Liberation of the Philippines, pp 87-92.
78. Ibid., pp 98-102, 104-11, 15-19, 123-52; Air Support of Pacific Amphibious Operations,
pp 12-13; Potter and Nimitz, The Great Sea War, pp 433-34; Charles W. Boggs, Jr.,
Marine Aviation in the Philippines (Washington, 1951). pp 47-48; Sherman, Combat Command,
pp 324-25; Millot, Divine Thunder, p 87; Inoguchi and Nakajima, Divine Wind,
pp 198-99; Craven and Cate, AAF in WW II, Vol V: Matterhorn to Nagasaki. pp 409-10;
Kenney Notebooks, Jan 3-10, 1945, vol X, Office of Air Force History.
79. Seventh Amphibious Force: Command File, World War 11: Operational Archives,
USNHC, no pp; Odgers, Air War, pp 224-25; Potter and Nimitz, The Great Sea War, pp 346-
48; Lindley, Carrier Victory, pp 125-26: Kenney, Reports, pp 404; Sherman, Combat Command.
pp 272-73; Smith, Approach to the Philippines, pp 103-403; Samuel Eliot Morison,
History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol VIII: New Guinea and the
Marianas, March 1944-August 1944 (Boston, 1962), pp 91-145; Craven and Cate, AAF in
WW 11, Vol IV: Guadalcanal to Saipan, pp 615-70; Dod, Corps of Engineers, pp 520-69.
80. Morison, Vol XIII: Liberation of the Philippines, pp 1-152; Millot, Divine Thunder,
pp 1-95; Inoguchi and Nakajima, Divine Wind, p 132; Smith, Triumph in the Philippines,
pp 65-66.
81. Inoguchi and Nakajima, Divine Wind, p 132; “Airdrome Neutralization,” p 56.
Bibliographical Essay
The study of the achievement of air superiority in the Southwest Pacific has its
frustrating aspects, because no treatise, monograph, or report exists that is devoted
directly to the subject. Indeed, no such air superiority study exists for the war
against Japan as a whole. There are, however, three important reports by the Southwest
Pacific Air Evaluation Board, entitled “Airdrome Neutralization” (1946),
“Neutralization of Rabaul” (1946), and “Neutralization of Wewak” (1944). All three
of these documents are located at the U.S. Air Force Historical Research Center,
Maxwell AFB, Alabama, hereafter referred to as USAFHRC. The first applies to the
Philippines, and the applications of the other two are obvious.
Unit histories are less useful in studying air superiority than they are in studying
other aspects of air war in the 1940s. During the early months of the war, when
survival fully occupied the attention of those fighting the Japanese air forces, few
unit histories were kept. Later unit histories were too often maintained by a clerk
who knew nothing of strategy and little more of tactics. Even well kept histories of
squadrons and groups are of limited use in a study such as this because their scope
is too narrow. Histories of higher headquarters are somewhat more useful, but not
much. Special attention is called to three unit histories, from Fifth Air Force and
located at USAFHRC: the 308th Bombardment Wing, 1943-45; the 309th Bombardment
Wing 1943-45; and the 310th Bombardment Wing, 1943-45. These units were
really advanced tactical headquarters for the Fifth Air Force. Activation and History,
Fifth Air Force, 194143; History, Fifth Air Force, 1943-44, 2 vols.; and History,
Thirteenth Air Force, 1943-45 (all at USAFHRC) are all useful. Also of value
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