The thesis of this research is that the U.S. Army aviation engineer units played a crucial role in the success of General Douglas MacArthur’s island hopping campaign in the Southwest Pacific Theater at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels. Allied victory depended on seizing lightly defended enemy territory and neutralizing enemy strongpoints from Australia to the Philippines through the following pattern: conduct air and naval bombardment, land the assault forces, defeat any Japanese units in the area, and construct airfields and base facilities. This research demonstrates that aviation engineer units rapidly constructed these airbases and provided the necessary facilities for land-based aircraft so that carrier-based aircraft could focus on protecting the navy’s fleet.

The author of the bestselling Darwin Spitfires casts a forensic eye over the role that Allied air forces played – or failed to play – in crucial World War II campaigns in New Guinea. This is the story of the early battles of the South West Pacific theatre – the Coral Sea, Kokoda, Milne Bay, Guadalcanal – presented as a single air campaign that began with the Japanese conquest of Rabaul in January 1942. It is a story of both Australian and American airmen who flew and fought in the face of adversity – with incomplete training, inadequate aircraft, and from poorly set up and exposed airfields. And they persisted despite extreme exhaustion, sickness, poor morale and the near certainty of being murdered by their Japanese captors if they went down in enemy territory.

Index to selected publications of the Combined Arms Center.

"Multi-Domain Battle in the Southwest Pacific Theater of World War II" provides a historical account of how US forces used synchronized operations in the air, maritime, information, and land domains to defeat the Japanese Empire. This work offers a historical case that illuminates current thinking about future campaigns in which coordination among all domains will be critical for success.