Trained as a photo reconnaissance unit, Marine Observation Squadron 251 ended up serving as a fighter squadron for the duration of World War II, shooting down 32 Japanese aircraft. The squadron earned several awards for outstanding performance, including the Presidential Unit Citation. This book is the first to cover the World War II history of VMFA-251, one of the Marine Corps' longest-serving squadrons. The author traces their operations from the unit's activation on December 1, 1941, through Guadalcanal, the reduction of Rabaul and their missions over the Philippines in 1945.

The true story of a young pilot who disappeared on a routine mission, resulting in a rescue attempt on a remote and inhospitable island in the South Pacific. In September 1943, as America began advancing from its foothold on Guadalcanal, a young American airman was lost in heavy weather over the South Pacific on what was expected to be a routine flight. In examining that loss and the events leading up to a rescue attempt on an island in the South Pacific, and bringing together societies utterly alien to each other, Survival in the South Pacific brings together the big themes of the Pacific War. Lieutenant Leonard Richardson and his comrades had been swept from their homes across America, trained at speed for war, and dispatched to one of the remotest places on the globe. American war plans in place when Pearl Harbor was attacked poorly reflected the capabilities of its military, and the limits imposed by America’s far-flung and indefensible territories. The “Germany First” policy had resulted in a deeply uncertain future for forces in the South Pacific and Australia—the United States was unprepared for the global war that came to it in late 1941, even as the pipeline of men and materiel began to fill. Young Allied and Japanese aviators, sailors, and soldiers, were not the only ones thrown into the swirling maelstrom of war that had engulfed the Pacific—the indigenous islanders were also immersed in a new reality. In bringing together individual stories of men at war, this book gives a new perspective on the Pacific War.

Trained as a photo reconnaissance unit, Marine Observation Squadron 251 ended up serving as a fighter squadron for the duration of World War II, shooting down 32 Japanese aircraft. The squadron earned several awards for outstanding performance, including the Presidential Unit Citation. This book is the first to cover the World War II history of VMFA-251, one of the Marine Corps' longest-serving squadrons. The author traces their operations from the unit's activation on December 1, 1941, through Guadalcanal, the reduction of Rabaul and their missions over the Philippines in 1945.