Over 800 group & individual photos and biography of crew members who served aboard the aircraft carrier the USS Hancock (CV-19) during World War II.

A visual journal of Aviation Machinist Mate, Plane Captain, and Bombing Squadron Tail Gunner, Ray Argubright, who served aboard the essex class aircraft carrier from its maiden journey until the end of World War II.

A snapshot in time. After thousands of hours of research and data entry over a 35-year period, the information on the disposition of some 25,000 US Navy, US Marine Corps and US Coast Guard aircraft needs to be published. These aircraft mainly represent those built and lost during World War II - between 7 December 1941 and 15 August 1945 - but this book also contains aircraft built before WWII that were lost during WWII or disposed of after WWII (lost during the Korean War, lost on training exercises, sold to private investors, currently located in museums and even some still proudly sitting as "gate guards" across the US, etc.).

During World War II, the U.S. military lost some 35,000 aircraft to enemy action, training incidents, typhoons, aircraft carrier deck mishaps, mechanical failures or just normal wear-and-tear where aircraft were scrapped and used for parts to keep others flying. Many just failed to return from their missions. To date, the 15,069 aircraft represented in this 3-volume set is information initially transferred from hand-written "Aircraft History Cards" and are the total number of U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard aircraft lost between 7 December 1941 and 15 August 1945, and lost outside the continental United States (CONUS). Volume III represents the total number of aircraft lost by their 176 different types and variants and represents the entire database to date. Given the thousands of hours that went into this effort, the author hopes that, as a 3-volume set of reference books, it provides assistance to others who are researching ship, squadron and aircraft histories.