Pacific Powerhouse

Edition: Limited to 199 and 10 AP's & 10 Canvas Prints (Message us to let us know what surface you'd like. Prints come Rolled)

Signed and Numbered by the Artist 

Image Size: 17” X 26”

Overall Size: 24” X 32”

Support: Epson archival media, Epson K3 pigment-based ink

Plane Type: B-25 Mitchell

In less than a year, the Fifth USAAF went from providing Japanese pilots with target practice and humorous material for Japanese radio broadcasters to an overwhelming and merciless adversary – proven beyond dispute during the Allied air action against the Japanese naval supply and troop convoy that sought to reinforce the Japanese Imperial Army garrison at Lae, New Guinea.

  On 2 – 4 March 1943, in the strategically important Battle of the Bismarck Sea, the Fifth USAAF fielded heavy and medium bombers with fighter cover to attack the IJN convoy.  As the last bombs fell from 7,000 feet, 13 Australian Bristol Beaufighters strafed at deck level and 12 B-25C Mitchells led a skip-bombing attack.  One RAAF Beaufighter from the Thirteenth Squadron strafed the destroyer Arashio as the Third Attack Group’s Captain Robert Chatt, his B-25 Chatterbox, newly modified with eight .50-caliber machine guns in the nose and fuselage sides, skipped a 500-pound bomb into the Arashio’s bridge fatally damaging the Japanese destroyer, and causing it to veer out of control into the ship in the immediate background, the IJN transport Nojima, causing its loss, as well. After this overwhelming defeat, the Japanese navy no longer attempted to re-supply the garrisons they maintained in the SWPA by daylight convoy missions.

PLANEJUNKIE - Pacific Powerhouse by Jack Fellows - B-25 Mitchell