My work is done! The final page set proof is done and dusted – and it’s all over to my publishers from here on.

It has been quite a task – it’s a massive story, from the genesis of naval aviation to the creation of the ultimate fast carrier striking force – Task Force 58. It has taken some 450 pages and 185,000 words to recount the brutality of naval air power from the Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, through to the creation of Task Force 58 and the famous strikes against Truk, then Palau, the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot off Saipan – on to the complicated and near disastrous Battle of Leyte Gulf, to Iwo Jima, Okinawa and on to strikes against Japan itself.

Publishing this september in the UK with a US version being published by the Naval Institute Press in November.