In New Guinea, on 16 April 1944, the U.S Fifth Air Force lost thirty-seven airplanes to a late-afternoon frontal system which cut them off from their home bases of Gusap, Nadzab and Saidor. Another nine airplanes were seriously damaged. As a result, the Fifth suffered its biggest operational weather loss of the war, and the incident marked the largest loss of aircraft to weather in modern history.  The results of the freak frontal system remained obscure for five decades, simply because they occurred in the remote Pacific theatre. Click here to download an index of all airplanes written off that day.

Our 54,000-word depiction of this epic mission, including six appendices, a detailed index, and rare photographs, documents every loss and incident, including quotes from survival reports. It also describes post-war discoveries of several of the missing aircraft. The narrative was assembled from more than two hundred original sources, including declassified Army Air Corps, Japanese and Australian records, private records, interviews with survivors, and even field trips to New Guinea made by the author.

Those interested in flying will find the magnitude and nature of this mission's losses absorbing, whilst historians will recognize that the minutiae and detail contained in the book is unsurpassed in this specialized field.  Fifth Air Force veterans, and their surviving relatives, will understand for the first time the full extent of the day’s misfortune.

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