I knew about the mission for quite some time but I really started researching it in depth in 2017.
https://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4351444#Post4351444This book by Dan Hampton was my latest read on the subject.
by Dan Hampton (2020)
About the Author
Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Dan Hampton flew 151 combat missions during his twenty years (1986–2006) in the United States Air Force. For his service in the Iraq War, Kosovo conflict, and first Gulf War, Col. Hampton received four Distinguished Flying Crosses with Valor, a Purple Heart, eight Air Medals with Valor, five Meritorious Service medals, and numerous other citations. He is a graduate of the USAF Fighter Weapons School, USN Top Gun School (TOGS), and USAF Special Operations School.
Even with all the other articles I have read regarding this mission and even though there was nothing Earth shatteringly new I still found this book to be an enjoyable read. There was some conflicting information regarding the A6M Types protecting Yamamoto when compared to other sources I have read over the years, and even those sources never seem to know for certain. He also mentioned something about Ray Hine having been seen much later, with a feathered engine and a badly damaged cowling, by a Navy pilot flying a PBY than I had read in any of my other research, or at least I do not remember this detail in that research. The Navy pilot gave him a heading to Henderson and Hine and the Navy pilot went their separate ways. Every other source I had seen to date only mentions that Hine’s P-38 was damaged near Bougainville and he was never seen again.
Page 349
The pilot, Lieutenant (j.g.) Harry Metke from Navy Patrol Squadron (VP) 44, had spotted Mitchell’s P-38s as they were inbound for Bougainville and heard the chatter on the radio later, so when a damaged Lightning showed up off his right wing South of New Georgia, he wasn’t overly surprised. The fighter’s left engine was feathered and holes were visible in the cowling, but after Metke contacted the Army pilot on the common emergency frequency, Hine told him he had the fuel to make it back. He also asked for a compass bearing to Guadalcanal, which the Navy pilot provided. The Lightning waggled its wings, banked up gently on its one engine, and pulled away southeast for Guadalcanal. Lieutenant Ray Hine was never seen again.
Other articles:Killing a Peacock: A Case Study of the Targeted Killing of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA623450
13th Air Force
11th Air Fleet
Operation Vengeance was the American military operation to kill Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto of the Imperial Japanese Navy on 18 April 1943 during the Solomon Islands campaign in the Pacific Theater of World War II. Yamamoto, commander of the Combined Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy, was killed near Bougainville Island when his G4M1 transport aircraft was shot down by United States Army Air Forces fighter aircraft operating from Kukum Field on Guadalcanal.
The mis...
The Evolution of Tactics: A Moral Look at the Decision to Target Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander in Chief of Japan’s Combined Fleet
Wheels
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