BOEKEN  LIVRES  BOOKS

 

“South China Sea 1945”  


B O E K B E S P R E K I N G by : Frank NEYTS


Osprey Publishing issued a most interesting book “South China Sea 1945. Task Force 38’s bold carrier rampage in Formosa, Luzon, and Indochina”. The book is written by Mark Lardas and illustrated by Irene Cano Rodriguez..

As 1945 began, Admiral Halsey launched a campaign he had longed to conduct: a ten-day sweep through the South China Sea using Third Fleet’s carrier air power to strike Japan’s airfields and sink its warships in port. It would also, more importantly, sever Japan’s main supply line which fed the country’s industries and military. But no carrier force had ever survived in such confined, hostile waters before.

In this book, Mark Lardas explains how ground-breaking Third Fleet’s operation in early 1945 was. By the time the carrier fleet had exited the South China Sea after launching airstrikes into harbors in Indochina, on the Chinese coast and Formosa, over 300,000 tons of Japanese shipping and dozens of warships had been sunk. With follow-up air strikes against Formosa and the Ryukyu Islands, the success of the sweep was unprecedented.

The South China Sea raid proved that aircraft carriers could overwhelm land-based airpower, and was the forerunner of the postwar era of US naval dominance, where carrier groups could strike around the globe with near-impunity.

Like all publications of Osprey Publishing, a most interesting book !

“South China Sea 1945” (ISBN 978 1 4728 5311 0), a softback, counts 96 pages and costs £16.99, USD 25.00 or Can $33.00, P&P exclusive. One can buy the book in the better bookshop or direct with the publishers: Via the Osprey website: www.ospreypublishing.com.

 

 

 

  LMB-BML 2007 Webmaster & designer: Cmdt. André Jehaes - email andre.jehaes@lmb-bml.be