April 7th, 1945. 217 p.m. East China Sea. USS New Jersey fires. Two shells scream across 12 mi of ocean. They slam into the Japanese…

At on the morning of October 12th, 1944, Captain Toshikazu Omeay stood in the operations room of the second airfleet headquarters on Formosa and studied…

Eighty young airmen. Sixteen medium bombers. One aircraft carrier. And a mission so audacious it sounded impossible: bomb Japan—then escape to China, where no one…

The Arden Forest lay under a thick blanket of snow, silent except for the occasional whistle of a cold wind cutting through the skeletal trees.…

June 3rd, 1944, Philippine Sea. Lieutenant Commander Robert Bobby Nash gripped the stick of his TBF Avenger torpedo bomber and pushed the nose down until…

Torpedo Sent Her Straight Down There is a specific kind of arrogance that comes with experience. If you survive enough battles, if you dodge enough…

March 15th, 1944. 20,000 ft over the Solomon Islands, Lieutenant Walter pulled his A6M0 into a gentle banking turn, scanning the sky through sections. 8…

That’s how many enemy aircraft these five American pilots shot out of the sky between 1941 and 1945. Not damaged, not probable, confirmed, destroyed. Over…

At 0512 on March 6th, 1944, Captain John Jack Reynolds tightens the chin strap of his flight helmet and climbs into the cockpit of his…

October 1944. The Pacific Ocean, 23 miles. That is the distance from downtown Manhattan to the far edge of Long Island. That is how far…