World War II Database

Warpath Across the Pacific: The Illustrated History of the 345th Bombardment Group During WWII is the near encyclopedic record of the 345th Bombardment Group during WWII. For anyone still believing the Pacific War was won just by the Navy, this book is for you. The 345th Bombardment Group (Medium) was but one unit of the US Army Air Forces to compile a very productive and quite illustrious record in the Southwest Pacific Area of Operations. Lawrence J. Hickey worked 40 years to gather and sort information to be able to fully tell this story.

The 345th Bomb Group, the "Air Apaches," trained as any other medium bombardment group, four squadrons flying the B-25 Mitchell bomber in medium or high altitude level bombing. When they began flying combat missions in New Guinea, their tactics had been radically altered into very low level straffing and bombing attacks in high speed hit-and-run strikes. These tactics worked equally well in attacks on Japanese air strips partially concealed by jungle and in strikes on Japanese ships hugging the coast. In their attacks on shipping, these pilots became quite skilled in the practice of skip-bombing which they employed to great effect. Straffing attacks were made more lethal with the development of the B-25's nose mounted machine gun packs. The "Air Apaches" entered combat in July 1943 flying from the Jackson Aerodrome complex at Port Moresby, New Guinea and moved to more forward bases as the Allied offensive advanced, finishing the war stationed at Ie Shima Airfield, Okinawa. As they advanced westward and then northward, they amassed a very colorful and extremely commendable combat record.

In order to gauge their mission effectiveness, the "Air Apache" aircraft were fitted with rear facing high definition cameras that had the unintended benefit of creating an abundant photo record of nearly every moment of combat. In preparing this book, Lawrence J. Hickey made a thorough study of this photo record, as well as the accompanying written record, and then gathered the personal stories of the squadron members. He then weaved all of this into this extremely comprehensive book. The book's text chronicles the Air Group's activities on a near daily basis illustrated with the most descriptive images from the Bomb Group's rich photo history.

Warpath Across the Pacific tells a very narrow part of the WWII story, but it tells that story with deep, rich detail and extremely authoritatively. This book became Volume 1 of the Eagles Over the Pacific series by the same author, with collaborators. This series now has two more completed volumes that chronicle two other USAAF Bomb Groups in the Pacific and four other volumes currently (2012) in development.

The book's near "coffee table" size and price tag to match make this a book something for the serious WWII enthusiast, but for those with an interest in this subject there could be no better resource.