THE CACTUS AIR FORCE
AIR WAR OVER GUADALCANAL
IN THE DARK DAYS FOLLOWING THE ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR, A SMALL UNIT OF AMERICAN AIRMEN HELD THE FRONTLINE IN THE PACIFIC AGAINST JAPANESE OFFENSIVES
Operation Cactus was the American plan to blunt the Japanese advance south towards Australia and New Zealand by making a stand at Guadalcanal in 1942. It was the first American amphibious counter-offensive of the war, and with the fighting further west on New Guinea the campaign finally stopped the Japanese expansion in the south Pacific. Drawn from US Navy and US Marines units, the ‘Cactus Air Force’ fought in incredibly primitive conditions, short of virtually every resource and battling the environment as well as the enemy. They operated from aircraft carriers and also from Guadalcanal itself, using a captured Japanese airfield (and one of the prime reasons this island was chosen) which was renamed Henderson Field. They would eventually prevail, and from then on the Japanese would know only retreat in the Pacific.
The late Eric Hammel had interviewed over 150 US veterans of this air campaign before his death in 2020, and had been working with his friend Cleaver to produce a definitive work on the subject.
After his death, Cleaver ploughed on alone, and this is the result. As with all of Cleaver’s books, he expertly weaves together the technical, tactical and personal to create a full and rounded account of the air campaign and by necessity the closely related sea campaigns. The books provides a blow-by-blow account which focusses on the American experiences, but also presents the problems and challenges faced by the Japanese, who were also operating with limited resources at the very end of a long supply chain.
“THE ‘CACTUS AIR FORCE’ FOUGHT IN INCREDIBLY PRIMITIVE CONDITIONS, SHORT OF VIRTUALLY EVERY RESOURCE”