Operation KE : The Cactus Air Force and the Japanese Withdrawal from Guadalcanal

Operation KE explores the air combat that attended the Japanese evacuation of Guadalcanal in early 1943 -a topic which has hitherto received very little attention. Operation KE was successful largely because Japanese strategic planning and tactical execution was basically sound. The traditional view holds that the Japanese got away with the initiative largely because the Americans let them; the US Pacific high command felt it was not worth the effort to try and stop them. Letourneau contends that this was not entirely the case. He argues that the Cactus Air Force and Guadalcanal-based naval units did their best to disrupt the evacuation, still believing that the Tokyo Express was bringing reinforcements and supplies to the 17th Army. Other US forces in the South Pacific did make a half-hearted and questionably-executed attempt to stop the Japanese, but were bluffed into adopting a wait-and-see posture. Operation KE focuses on the air war fought between the Cactus and US 13th Air Forces on the one hand and the Japanese Navy and Army Air Forces on the other, from mid-December, 1942 to mid-February, 1943. The book scrutinizes the US air strikes against the six KE-related Tokyo Express destroyer runs, plus related air strikes against the Japanese merchant marine, as well as air and naval base-suppression missions undertaken by both sides, to determine what actually happened in order to analyze why the Japanese evacuation succeeded and why Cactus failed to stop it. Background chapters attempt to assess the respective states of readiness of the Japanese and US air arms in the South Pacific to support on the one hand and counter on the other the execution of Operation KE. The central portion of the book narrates in some detail what actually occurred in the air and at sea --including air strikes, fighter sweeps, base suppression missions, and naval sorties --during the crucial prelude to and the actual playing out of the interrelated events that comprised the evacuation ope