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Under the Southern Cross: The South Pacific Air Campaign Against Rabaul
A vivid narrative history of the Solomons campaign of World War II, one of the key turning points in the U.S. Navy's campaign against the Japanese in the Pacific.
If the Battle of Midway, fought in June 1942, stopped further Japanese expansion in the Pacific, it was the Battle of Guadalcanal and the following Solomons Campaign that broke the back of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Between August 7, 1942 and February 24, 1944 when the Imperial Japanese Navy withdrew its surviving surface and air units from Rabaul, the main Japanese base in the South Pacific, the US Navy fought the most difficult campaign in its history, suffering such high personnel losses during the campaign that for years it refused to publicly release total casualty figures.
Unlike the Central Pacific Campaign, which was fought by 'the new Navy,' the Solomons campaign saw the US Navy at its lowest point, using those ships that had survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and other units of the pre-war navy hastily transferred to the Pacific. After the Battle of Santa Cruz in late October, USS Enterprise was the only pre-war carrier left in the South Pacific and the Navy would not have been able to resist the Imperial Japanese Navy had they sought a third major fleet action in the region. For most of the campaign, the issue of which side would ultimately prevail was in doubt until toward the end when the surge of American industrial production began to make itself felt.
Under the Southern Cross examines the Solomons campaign from land, sea and air, offering a new account of the military offensive that laid the groundwork for Allied success throughout the rest of the Pacific War.
If the Battle of Midway, fought in June 1942, stopped further Japanese expansion in the Pacific, it was the Battle of Guadalcanal and the following Solomons Campaign that broke the back of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Between August 7, 1942 and February 24, 1944 when the Imperial Japanese Navy withdrew its surviving surface and air units from Rabaul, the main Japanese base in the South Pacific, the US Navy fought the most difficult campaign in its history, suffering such high personnel losses during the campaign that for years it refused to publicly release total casualty figures.
Unlike the Central Pacific Campaign, which was fought by 'the new Navy,' the Solomons campaign saw the US Navy at its lowest point, using those ships that had survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and other units of the pre-war navy hastily transferred to the Pacific. After the Battle of Santa Cruz in late October, USS Enterprise was the only pre-war carrier left in the South Pacific and the Navy would not have been able to resist the Imperial Japanese Navy had they sought a third major fleet action in the region. For most of the campaign, the issue of which side would ultimately prevail was in doubt until toward the end when the surge of American industrial production began to make itself felt.
Under the Southern Cross examines the Solomons campaign from land, sea and air, offering a new account of the military offensive that laid the groundwork for Allied success throughout the rest of the Pacific War.
469 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 13, 2021
46 people are currently reading
79 people want to read
About the author
Thomas McKelvey Cleaver
25 books36 followersMost of my non-fiction writing is in the field of aviation, primarily the history of people, units and events, though I am also interested in technological developments and their influence on events.
I first ran across "serious" aviation writing when I was 10 and found William Green's "All The World's Aircraft, 1954" - the first book I read that seriously dealt with aircraft development beyond picture books. Over the years I read many books by Bill (as I came eventually to know him), and 25 years later he was the first editor to professionally publish an article by me about an aviation topic (a feature about people in California who restored, owned and operated antique airplanes). Not only did he publish the article, he used my photograph for the cover of that issue of Air Enthusiast Quarterly! In the years that followed, Bill became a friend through the mail, a source of valuable insight about writing, and an enthusiastic supporter of my efforts. I've had a lot of success that way with fellow authors.
My interest in the field of aviation must be genetic. My mother's favorite tale about me was that my first word, spoken around age 1, was "o-pane!" when we were in a park in Denver, and I pointed up at a P-38 as it flew overhead.
My father was involved in aviation in the 1930s, and knew most of the Major Names of the era, like Jimmy Doolittle, Roscoe Turner, and even Ernst Udet. (As an aside, I met General Doolittle myself in 1976. Upon hearing my name, he looked me up and down, then shook his head and said "Nope, too young and too tall." Taken aback for a moment, I realized he was thinking of my father, also a Tom Cleaver. Once I identified myself, he told me a story about my father I had never heard before. I later discovered he had near-perfect recall of names and events.) I grew up looking at my father's photo albums of the old airplanes he had been around, which is probably why I most enjoy airplanes from those years.
In addition to writing about airplanes, I take pictures of them in flight. As a result of both activities, I have flown in everything from a Curtiss Jenny to an Air Force F-4E Phantom (definitely the best rollercoaster ride ever), and have additionally been up in World War II airplanes - the P-51 Mustang, P-40 Warhawk, SBD Dauntless, B-25 Mitchell, and many many many times in a T-6. As a pilot myself, I have about 200 hours in a Stearman biplane trainer as a member of a club back in the 1970s. I am certain my personal knowledge of flying as a pilot has helped me put a reader "in the cockpit" in my writing.
While I have advanced college and university degrees, I consider myself an autodidact, and I see the involvement with airplanes as my key to the world of self-education, as I would ask myself "what was that airplane used for?" which led to such questions as "how did that war happen?" I was also fortunate to grow up in a home with lots of books and a father who enjoyed history; between that and forays to the Denver Public Library (a Saturday spent in the stacks at the Main Library was a day in heaven), my education was very eclectic in subject matter.
My "film school" education came on Saturday afternoons spent at the old Park Theater on South Gaylord Street in Denver, where I went every Saturday from age 7 to age 15 when the theater closed, and watched everything that played on-screen. Somewhere along there, I learned the meaning of "good movie."
I first ran across "serious" aviation writing when I was 10 and found William Green's "All The World's Aircraft, 1954" - the first book I read that seriously dealt with aircraft development beyond picture books. Over the years I read many books by Bill (as I came eventually to know him), and 25 years later he was the first editor to professionally publish an article by me about an aviation topic (a feature about people in California who restored, owned and operated antique airplanes). Not only did he publish the article, he used my photograph for the cover of that issue of Air Enthusiast Quarterly! In the years that followed, Bill became a friend through the mail, a source of valuable insight about writing, and an enthusiastic supporter of my efforts. I've had a lot of success that way with fellow authors.
My interest in the field of aviation must be genetic. My mother's favorite tale about me was that my first word, spoken around age 1, was "o-pane!" when we were in a park in Denver, and I pointed up at a P-38 as it flew overhead.
My father was involved in aviation in the 1930s, and knew most of the Major Names of the era, like Jimmy Doolittle, Roscoe Turner, and even Ernst Udet. (As an aside, I met General Doolittle myself in 1976. Upon hearing my name, he looked me up and down, then shook his head and said "Nope, too young and too tall." Taken aback for a moment, I realized he was thinking of my father, also a Tom Cleaver. Once I identified myself, he told me a story about my father I had never heard before. I later discovered he had near-perfect recall of names and events.) I grew up looking at my father's photo albums of the old airplanes he had been around, which is probably why I most enjoy airplanes from those years.
In addition to writing about airplanes, I take pictures of them in flight. As a result of both activities, I have flown in everything from a Curtiss Jenny to an Air Force F-4E Phantom (definitely the best rollercoaster ride ever), and have additionally been up in World War II airplanes - the P-51 Mustang, P-40 Warhawk, SBD Dauntless, B-25 Mitchell, and many many many times in a T-6. As a pilot myself, I have about 200 hours in a Stearman biplane trainer as a member of a club back in the 1970s. I am certain my personal knowledge of flying as a pilot has helped me put a reader "in the cockpit" in my writing.
While I have advanced college and university degrees, I consider myself an autodidact, and I see the involvement with airplanes as my key to the world of self-education, as I would ask myself "what was that airplane used for?" which led to such questions as "how did that war happen?" I was also fortunate to grow up in a home with lots of books and a father who enjoyed history; between that and forays to the Denver Public Library (a Saturday spent in the stacks at the Main Library was a day in heaven), my education was very eclectic in subject matter.
My "film school" education came on Saturday afternoons spent at the old Park Theater on South Gaylord Street in Denver, where I went every Saturday from age 7 to age 15 when the theater closed, and watched everything that played on-screen. Somewhere along there, I learned the meaning of "good movie."
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 10, 2023
The port of Rabaul in New Guinea was crucial to the war in the Pacific. Japanese possession from January 1942 posed a significant threat to Australia and Allied operations. Both sides knew the stakes and threw everything into a battle that lasted for over two years and controlling the skies over the Solomon Islands in Rabaul’s shadow lay at the heart of that. Thomas McKelvey Cleaver narrates that story in this riveting book.
Cleaver begins with the US on the back foot even after their victory at Midway. The Japanese had better resources and were fighting closer to home, yet the Americans had to take the offensive to stop Japanese expansion in the South Pacific. They began at Guadalcanal in August 1942. Cleaver describes the aerial and naval actions in detail, following individual pilots on both sides into combat while reminding readers of the operational context on land and sea. He maintains this structure through his chapters as the story develops to incorporate many of the iconic battles of the Pacific War: Savo Island, Cape Esperance, Santa Cruz, and the pivotal naval engagements off Guadalcanal in November 1942. Cleaver also devotes a whole chapter to the mission to assassinate Admiral Yamamoto. By summer 1943, the tide had firmly turned against the Japanese; as their fighting capabilities reduced, America’s increased, and the end was all but inevitable, though not without more hard fighting, particularly over Rabaul.
The air above the Solomon Islands was filled with Zeros, Wildcats, Bettys, Vals, Dauntlesses, Kates, B-25s, Corsairs, Kittyhawks, Hellcats, and P-38s among others. Cleaver describes aerial combat, but also bombing, anti-ship missions, and ground support actions such as those on Guadalcanal by P-400s that were seemingly quite useless in every other function. Cleaver highlights the advantages and deficiencies those planes possessed and also the disparity in pilot losses that affected the Japanese so badly as the war dragged on. In the course of the book, Cleaver stresses the importance of veteran pilots through his recurrent biographies of the top American aces; although he acknowledges that the Japanese had aces too, their numbers certainly thinned in the losing war effort. He also highlights the contributions of other American servicemen to their success.
Cleaver concludes that the South Pacific campaign was the cornerstone of the Allied victory over Japan, and on this evidence, it is difficult to argue with him. His book is full of action in a well-written narrative that offers considerable insight into how the campaign was fought mostly by the US Navy and its air force with a nod to their allies in the region. Readers who are familiar with the campaign might complain about a lack of new material, but I don’t believe that was Cleaver’s purpose in bringing this less heralded campaign to the public. All in all, this is an absorbing story that deserves the wider audience it will undoubtedly receive.
Cleaver begins with the US on the back foot even after their victory at Midway. The Japanese had better resources and were fighting closer to home, yet the Americans had to take the offensive to stop Japanese expansion in the South Pacific. They began at Guadalcanal in August 1942. Cleaver describes the aerial and naval actions in detail, following individual pilots on both sides into combat while reminding readers of the operational context on land and sea. He maintains this structure through his chapters as the story develops to incorporate many of the iconic battles of the Pacific War: Savo Island, Cape Esperance, Santa Cruz, and the pivotal naval engagements off Guadalcanal in November 1942. Cleaver also devotes a whole chapter to the mission to assassinate Admiral Yamamoto. By summer 1943, the tide had firmly turned against the Japanese; as their fighting capabilities reduced, America’s increased, and the end was all but inevitable, though not without more hard fighting, particularly over Rabaul.
The air above the Solomon Islands was filled with Zeros, Wildcats, Bettys, Vals, Dauntlesses, Kates, B-25s, Corsairs, Kittyhawks, Hellcats, and P-38s among others. Cleaver describes aerial combat, but also bombing, anti-ship missions, and ground support actions such as those on Guadalcanal by P-400s that were seemingly quite useless in every other function. Cleaver highlights the advantages and deficiencies those planes possessed and also the disparity in pilot losses that affected the Japanese so badly as the war dragged on. In the course of the book, Cleaver stresses the importance of veteran pilots through his recurrent biographies of the top American aces; although he acknowledges that the Japanese had aces too, their numbers certainly thinned in the losing war effort. He also highlights the contributions of other American servicemen to their success.
Cleaver concludes that the South Pacific campaign was the cornerstone of the Allied victory over Japan, and on this evidence, it is difficult to argue with him. His book is full of action in a well-written narrative that offers considerable insight into how the campaign was fought mostly by the US Navy and its air force with a nod to their allies in the region. Readers who are familiar with the campaign might complain about a lack of new material, but I don’t believe that was Cleaver’s purpose in bringing this less heralded campaign to the public. All in all, this is an absorbing story that deserves the wider audience it will undoubtedly receive.
May 25, 2021
I was excited to see Under the Southern Cross hit the shelves, as books about WWII air campaigns in the Asia-Pacific are precious few and far between. Unfortunately, Thomas McCelvey Cleaver has nothing new to say about the air war in the South Pacific, nor does he attempt to say it in a new way. I found myself confused from the outset as to the scope and purpose of his work; he spends more time describing nighttime naval surface combat than he does the early air campaign for Guadalcanal. He rarely takes a step back to examine the underlying logic of the campaign at an operational or strategic level, connecting strategy to task. In other words, there is a lot of “what,” but very little “why” or “how.” If you do not already know about the Solomon Islands campaign, this book will confuse you. If you do, you will gain nothing new. Much of the book is an accounting of this ace or that scoring a kill here or a kill there. His idea of developing out his subjects is to list our their resumes. Given his stated goal of “describing who these people were” rather than “the simple explication of what they did” I found real exploration of individual personalities rare and largely superficial. He points out that Pappy Boyington is flawed and a liar, but then centers much of the latter part of the book about him. He skims over Pappy Gunn, a fascinating character better and more thoroughly written about in other works. He begins his brief summary of the Yamamoto mission with: “Only two men have ever been specifically targeted as individuals for their roles in events that embarrassed the United States militarily.” What? While the similarities between bin Laden and Yamamoto are not new, I would point out that it is extremely common for the US military to target enemy leadership that has embarrassed them militarily, such as Geronimo, or Datu Ali. In the end, Under the Southern Cross seems to lack real impetus or direction. Cleaver wanders between already well-known stories with little of substance as connective tissue. I recommend John Prados’s Islands of Destiny or Eric M. Bergerud’s Fire in the Sky instead.
January 19, 2026
The Solomons campaign was a fight of survivors, the US Navy was at it lowest point and the Marines were learning the hard way just how dirty, bloody and hard island fighting was. Guadalcanal was only one of the costly lessons of the South Pacific where all lessons were paid for in blood. The fighting was at the end of every supply line, combatants fought nature and tropical diseases in addition to the Japanese.
Why I started it: On the new CNO Professional Reading list.
Why I finished it: Detailed history of the beginning of WW2 in the Pacific. When Japan and America were more evenly matched, the US Navy and Marines were sorting themselves out... learning combat skills during battles. Lessons in blood. Pretty powerful statement to put this on the reading list and not the full history of the war. Less triumphalism and more dogged fighting.
Why I started it: On the new CNO Professional Reading list.
Why I finished it: Detailed history of the beginning of WW2 in the Pacific. When Japan and America were more evenly matched, the US Navy and Marines were sorting themselves out... learning combat skills during battles. Lessons in blood. Pretty powerful statement to put this on the reading list and not the full history of the war. Less triumphalism and more dogged fighting.
June 23, 2021
Thomas Cleaver's latest book, Under the Southern Cross: The South Pacific Air Campaign Against Rabaul, deals with an extremely important phase of the War in the Pacific, but one that is overlooked by the great battles in the central part of the Pacific. The focus of the book runs from October 1943 to March 1944 with a very vivid description of the actions to render Rabaul inoperative. This was the largest Japanese base in the Solomon Islands and during this period Japanese and Americans fought on land, sea and air. Even with the objective of looking in depth at the air campaign, the other campaigns were not forgotten. In the end it is a good book and reminds us of the efforts of the American armed forces to defeat Japan in World War II. I recommend.
January 13, 2022
I remember in college, if I couldn't write enough about an essay prompt, I would just start spitting out random stories I hoped were somewhat related to the topic to reach the required response length. This is exactly how this book felt. The subtitle "The Southern Pacific Air Campaign Against Rabaul" seems like the idea the author pitched for the book but the one that was published is a messy, incoherent summation of the entire Solomon Islands campaign, devoid of focus. There are so many more cogent, topic-oriented books on the subject. I've rarely been as frustrated by a book as I was with this one; a great disappointment.
October 7, 2022
I wasn’t overly impressed by this book, nor was I completely disappointed. It seems to be a short amalgamation of several books I’ve read on the campaigns. Nothing very new, maybe some interesting anecdotes, but overall, the same information I’ve read in other narratives. I did find the information on Lt. Robert Hanson new and intriguing but that was among the few pieces of new or original information.
March 29, 2025
Historic book on the air campaign in winning the war against the Japanese Army
The book is a must read for anyone interested in learning about the sacrifices that were made during world war two in the South Pacific. These aviation stories and the heroes on both sides are legendary. Knowing that when they went out to seek the enemy, it was a 50/50 chance you were not coming back. I highly recommend this book.
The book is a must read for anyone interested in learning about the sacrifices that were made during world war two in the South Pacific. These aviation stories and the heroes on both sides are legendary. Knowing that when they went out to seek the enemy, it was a 50/50 chance you were not coming back. I highly recommend this book.
October 18, 2025
This book is well researched with sources used from both sides of the battles. Containing both historic statistics and personal reflections of those who were there this book is an easy read with accounts and events examined from multiple sides and sources.
February 11, 2025
Lots of useful information, and detailed accounts of specific squadrons and their pilots. This book covers the often overlooked campaign against Rabaul. Most books tend to skip from Guadalcanal and Bougainville to the campaigns in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands. The chapters detailing the “race of aces” were especially fascinating, detailing the exaggerations and outright lies often told by aviators returning from their missions.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews