Black Sunday: When Weather Claimed the Us Fifth Air Force

The USAAF mission to Hollandia on 16 April 1944 in New Guinea was known as "Black Sunday" due to weather-related losses, with 37 aircraft missing or destroyed. This major revision includes rare photos, maps, indexes, and colour profiles of participant aircraft, as well as Japanese diaries revealing the fate of unlucky P-38 pilots. The narrative tracks the fate of every aircraft and crew member, including those who rescued them, against the odds over hostile terrain.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 136 pages
Publication date: 15 November 2022
Publisher: Avonmore Books

The USAAF pilot who flew the mission to Hollandia on 16 April 1944 in New Guinea would remember it for the rest of their lives. The weather-related losses that fateful day earned it the eternal epithet "Black Sunday". The way home for more than three hundred bombers and fighters was blocked by a towering weather front whose thunderstorms rose well above any altitude they could reach. Over enemy territory and caught between mountains and the sea, there was no option but to confront nature. By dusk that evening, 37 aircraft were missing or had been destroyed. A handful of survivors somehow made it back to valley and coastal bases in a series of arduous misadventures. It was, and remains, the biggest non-combat loss of any air force of any nation in the world. More than seven decades later, aircraft from the day are still missing somewhere in the New Guinea jungle. This major revision to the original version includes dozens of rare photos, complemented by a suite of maps, indexes, and colour profiles of participant aircraft. Japanese diaries reveal the fate of unlucky P-38 pilots forced to bail out. The text liberally cites veteran interviews, post-war wreck surveys, and official USAAF records. The narrative tracks down the fate of every aircraft and every crew member, including those who rescued them. Put yourself in the cockpit against nature's massive odds over hostile terrain and watch a composite picture evolve. The accelerating narrative from dozens of different perspectives is both fascinating and overwhelming.

Weight: 476g
Dimension: 175 x 250 x 10 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780645246988