Tom Burkhalter

A Snowball's Chance Tom Burkhalter

The Japanese attacked the Philippines and Malaysia without a declaration of war. America and Great Britain are now at war with Japan. The Japanese think of the American and British colonies and, further south, the Dutch possessions in the Netherlands East Indies, as the "Southern Resource Area." Possession of the rubber and tin of the Malay Peninsula, and the oil of the Netherlands East Indies, are the major war aims of the Empire of Japan. The Japanese attack in the air with overwhelming numbers, and the US Army Air Forces must evacuate its surviving heavy bombers and whatever personnel it can to Australia. When the Japanese reach south to the islands of Borneo, Sumatra and Java, the only thing any American airman in the Southwest Pacific - including Jack and Charlie Davis, survivors of the air fighting in the Philippines - can really do for the Allied war effort is buy time and kill the soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Empire of Japan. Even if it means their own lives.