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

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC
The official United States Army histories of the Second World War, Kent Roberts
Greenfield, general editor, United States Army in World War II (Washington:
Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army), have been of
considerable value for this study. Especially valuable were M. Hamlin Cannon,
Leyte: The Return to the Philippines (1954); John Miller, Jr., Cartwheel: The Reduction
of Rabaul(l959) and Guadalcanal: The First Offensive (1949); Samuel Milner,
Victory in Papua (1953); Robert Ross Smith, The Approach to the Philippines (1953)
and Triumph in the Philippines (1963); and Karl C. Dod, The Corps of Engineers in
the War Against Japan (1966).
These volumes are essential to an understanding of the land campaigns that
provided air bases that, in turn, made air superiority possible. Hamlin’s volume
demonstrates, from the ground force point of view, the troubles encountered in a
ground battle undertaken without air superiority.
Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison’s fifteen-volume History of United States Naval
Operations in World War 11 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1947-1962) is an
important work of literature as well as excellent history, but it must be acknowledged
that Admiral Morison has an understandable tendency to see things from the
Navy point of view. In this respect he differs only in degree from other official service
historians. Eight of the volumes in this series were essential to this study. Most
useful were Vol. V: The Struggle for Guadalcanal, August 1942-February 1943; Vol.
VI: Breaking the Bismarcks Barrier, 22 July 1942-1 May 1944; Vol. XII: Leyte, June
1944-January 194s; and especially Vol. XIII: The Liberation of the Philippines:
Luzon, Mindanao, the Visayas, 1944-194s. Morison reveals, better than any other
source, how the great air strength of the Navy fitted into the air campaign as a
whole. He puts his eloquence to especially good use in describing the ravages of the
kamikazes in Philippine waters and the role of carrier-based air in finally bringing an
end to these attacks.
As might be expected, the seven-volume The Army Air Forces in World War 11
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948-1958; reprint, Office of Air Force History,
1983), edited by Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate, is the most useful
of official histories for the purposes of this study if for no other reason than that it
contains more detail on air operations than other publications. Vol. I: Plans and
Early Operations, January 1939 to August 1942 to July 1944; Vol. V The Pacific:
Matterhorn to Nagasaki, June 1944 to August 1945; and Vol. VI: Men and Planes
are applicable to this subject. All but the last of these volumes follow the traditional
pattern of military history and are geared to the chronological and geographical
movement of Allied and Japanese forces across the air to the vast reaches ofthe
Pacific. The development of air superiority and air supremacy in the South and
Southwest Pacific theaters can be traced through these pages, but this development
is never stressed as a central theme. The accomplishment of air superiority is
described, but it is never proclaimed. The account of the Leyte campaign makes it
clear that air superiority was lost there, and even makes clear why it was lost, but
never directly. Considering the fact that this history was written a generation ago,
however, it is remarkable how well it has stood up to the test of additional knowledge
and new interpretations.
Maj. Charles W. Boggs, Jr.’s Marine Aviation in the Philippines (Washington:
Historical Division, Headquarters U.S. Marine Corps, 1951) is concerned mainly
with the role of Marine aircraft in close support of ground troops, but it describes
also the important role of Marine aircraft in the air defense of Leyte. Maj. John N.
Rentz’s monograph, Marines in the Central Solomons (Washington: Historical
Branch, Headquarters U.S. Marine Corps], 1952) gives due attention to Marine air
in the Bougainville campaign and in the reduction of Rabaul. Vice Adm. George
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