A strategic bombing campaign ravaged Japan, as it continued to fight fiercely despite the inexorable advance of the Americans. In 1944, the US Army Air Force introduced into service in the Pacific theater an ultramodern bomber, the most expensive weapon system of the war: the Boeing B-29 Superfortress. General Curtis LeMay initiated radical and devastating tactics that ruined Japanese cities and industries.
Raids launched initially from China, then from the Marianas, the enormous distances to be traveled to strike the Empire of the Rising Sun diminished with the American advance, the islands conquered at the cost of blood becoming immense air bases. From April 1945, the hundreds of four-engined bombers struck under the protection of the fearsome P-51 Mustang escort fighters, which made it even more difficult for the Japanese fighters. It nevertheless fought to the end with the energy of despair, including sometimes at the cost of the ultimate sacrifice by deliberately crashing into the B-29s. Through the forces involved, the tactics employed, a chronology, figures and assessments, illustrated with numerous maps and photos, this book recounts this titanic confrontation which will end with the nuclear bombardments of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
French version of an Osprey book.