Explores the air combat that attended the Japanese evacuation of Guadalcanal in early 1943. 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 the Japanese developed a reasonably sound strategy that exploited those methods and tools of war then in use in the South Pacific; to achieve success, they maximized their own strengths while taking advantage of their adversary's limitations.
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