RETRIBUTION...Rex Barber and Yamamoto Isoroku meet over Bougainville

L/E of 199 Giclee Prints
S/N by the Artist
Image Size: 23" x 17.5"
Paper Size: 30" x 24"

Plane Type:P-38 Lightning & Mitsubishi G4M1 "BETTY" bombers

Exactly one year, to the day, after Jimmy Doolittle led his group of Army B-25 bombers off of the flight deck of the USS HORNET and into history - Major John W. Mitchell, commanding officer of the 339th Fighter Squadron led a group of sixteen 13th USAAF P-38 Lightnings on a mission from Guadalcanal to Bougainville that has remained the most examined and analyzed fighter mission of the air war in the Pacific. On this day, Mitchell's fighters intercepted a group of two Mitsubishi G4M1 "BETTY" bombers and six "ZERO" fighters just south of the wide mouth of Empress Augusta Bay, on the western side of the island of Bougainville in the Northern Solomons.The story is well known and space prevents its repetition here. The painting depicts the moment, described by Rex Barber to the artist in 1991, when Barber's aircraft overran the bomber carrying Admiral Yamamoto. At this moment, the bomber's left wing dropped, pitching the right wing upward and into Barber's path. His quick evasive action narrowly averted a midair collision with the doomed aircraft carrying the Japanese architect of the infamous sneak attack upon the United States Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941.

PLANE JUNKIE - RETRIBUTION...Rex Barber and Yamamoto Isoroku meet over Bougainville by Jack Fellows (P<-38 Lightning & Mitsubishi G4M1 "BETTY" bombers)