| Location |
RHC |
| Item Call Number |
D 790.253 27th M37 2008 |
| Status |
Available |
| Barcode |
17931 |
| International Standard Book Number |
- International Standard Book Number - 9781603441841 (softbound)
- International Standard Book Number - 9781603440196 (hardbound)
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| Language Code |
- Language code of text/sound track or separate title - eng
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| Library Of Congress Call Number |
- Classification number - D 790.253 27th
- Item number - M37 2008
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| Main Entry |
- Personal name - Martin, Adrian R. (Adrian Robert),
- Dates associated with a name - 1944-
|
| Title Statement |
- Title - Operation Plum :
- Remainder of title - the ill-fated 27th Bombardment Group and the fight for the Western Pacific /
- Statement of responsibility, etc. - Adrian R. Martin and Larry W. Stephenson.
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| Edition Statement |
- Edition statement - 1st ed.
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| Publication, Distribution, Etc. (imprint) |
- Place of publication, distribution, etc. - College Station :
- Name of publisher, distributor, etc. - Texas A & M University Press,
- Date of publication, distribution, etc. - c2008.
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| Physical Description |
- Extent - xv, 364 p. :
- Other physical details - illustrations, maps ;
- Dimensions - 25 cm.
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| Content Type |
|
| Media Type |
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| Carrier Type |
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| Bibliography, Etc. Note |
- Bibliography, etc - With bibliography, index and appendices
|
| Formatted Contents Note |
- Formatted contents note - Nearing the brink of world conflict -- "This rumor has gone too far!" -- War begins -- Fighting on Bataan -- Escape to Java -- March and command changes -- Royce's raid--Overshadowed by Doolittle -- "No mama, no Papa, no Uncle Sam" -- Air missions over the Coral Sea beyond -- The changing tides of war -- POW camps and hell ships -- "When Johnny comes marching home again" -- Epilogue : lesson learned -- Appendix 1: Twenty-seventh bomb group pilots flown from the Philippines to Australia, December 17-18, 1941 -- Appendix 2: Royce's raid crews -- Appendix 3: Commentary on the mission of B-25 #41-12455 by two former 27th/3rd pilots -- Appendix 4: Followup of 27th Bomb Group pilots -- Appendix 5: The 27th's wartime legacy -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- MAPS: Philippine islands -- Japanese plan and disposition of armies, November 1941 -- Airfields on Luzon -- Japanese landings on Luzon, December 1941 -- Situation on Bataan, January 8, 1942 -- Southwest Pacific -- Java -- Airfields used by U.S. Army Air Corps in Southwest Pacific, 1941-42 -- PHOTOGRAPHS: James McAfee, Glenwood Stephenson, Warren Stirling, and Julius Summers -- Gus Heiss and Tom Gerrity with A-20s, summer 1941 -- Douglas A-24 -- Bob Wolfersberger and A-24 in Louisiana, August 1941 -- Officers of the 16th Squadron aboard the President Coolidge, November 1941 -- Drs. Elack Schultz, Carl Mango, William Marrocco, and David Hochman, 1941 -- Curtiss P-40 -- B-17 Flying Fortresses -- Brig. Gen. Harold H. George -- Air Chief Marshal Sir Robert Brooke-Popham and Gen. Sir Archibald Wavell, 1941-- Rear Adm. William R. Purnell, Adm. Thomas C. Hart, Lt. Gen. George A. Brett, and Maj. Gen. Louis H. Brereton, January 1942 -- Dick Launder, William Beck, Fred Klatt, and Finley MacGillivray -- "Lounge-Lizard" and crew -- Davies and four crewmen of a Royce's Raid B-25 -- Davies and Doolittle, 1956 or 1957 -- Burial detail at Camp O'Donnell -- Crewmembers of B-25 #41-12455 -- Maj. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright broadcasting surrender instructions, May 7, 1942 -- Third Bomb Group pilots from the 27th Bomb Group -- Sgt. Ralph Harrell, 1942 -- Alex Evanoff, 13th Squadron, 1942 -- Third Bomb Group senior officers, Brig. Gen. Kenneth Walker, and Maj. Gen. Ralph Royce, July 1942 -- Douglas A-20 -- Parafrag bombs exploding on a Japanese airfield -- William Lloyd Osborne and "Rocky" Gause -- Prisoner in Zero Ward, Cabanatuan -- Sixteenth Squadron men, Mukden POW Camp, Manchuria, August 1945 -- POWs at Hanawa, Japan, September 1945 -- Japanese destroyer being strafed, battle of the Bismarck sea -- Third Bomb Group B-25 leaving Simpson Harbor, Rabaul, November 2, 1943
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| Summary, Etc. |
- Summary, etc. - "The Army Air Corps' 27th Bombardment Group arrived in the Philippines in November 1941 with 1,209 men; one year later, only 20 returned to the United States.
The Japanese attacked the Philippines on the same morning as Pearl Harbor and invaded soon after. About half of the 27th's pilots were sent to retrieve their planes, which had been diverted to Australia. The comrades they left behind fought the bitter retreat to the Bataan Peninsula. Allied air routes back to the Philippines were soon cut, isolating the troops there and forcing the pilots who had gotten out to fight their air war from bases in Java, Australia, and New Guinea. The men on Bataan were eventually taken prisoner and forced into the infamous Death March. Those who survived were placed in POW camps, where the death rate was high.
The 27th and other such units were pivotal in delaying the Japanese timetable for conquest while the U.S. ramped up military production and troop training. If not for these units and others like them, some have suggested that the Allied offensive in the Pacific might have started in Hawaii or even California, instead of New Guinea and the surrounding islands.
Glenwood Stephenson became a squadron leader after the unit's deployment and was one of the pilots evacuated by General MacArthur before the fall of Bataan. Stephenson continued to participate in the war, including two raids into enemy territory. While returning from a reconnaissance mission over the Coral sea in April 1942, he died, along with his crew, when their aircraft crashed on the slopes of Australia's Mount Bartle Frere.
Based largely on primary materials, including a fifty-nine-page report written by the surviving unit members in September 1942, Operation PLUM (from the code name for the U.S. Army in the Philippines) gives an account of the 27th Bombardment Group and, through it, the opening months of the Pacific theater.
Military historians and World War II enthusiasts will appreciate the rich, soldier's-eye-view presented in Operation PLUM."
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| Language Note |
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| Subject Topical Term |
- Topical term or geographic name as entry element - World War, 1939-1945
- General subdivision - Aerial operations, American.
- Topical term or geographic name as entry element - World War, 1939-1945
- General subdivision - Campaigns
- Geographic subdivision - Pacific area.
- Topical term or geographic name as entry element - World War, 1939-1945
- General subdivision - Regimental histories
- Geographic subdivision - United States.
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| Personal Name |
- Personal name - Stephenson, Larry W.
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