Heaven High Ocean Deep

A stirring account of the Royal Navy’s World War II heroics that “can be thoroughly recommended to anyone interested in the ‘Forgotten Fleet.’ ”—The Aviation Historian In 1944, with the invasion of Europe underway and battles in the Atlantic and Mediterranean all but won, the Royal Navy’s strength could be focused on the Far East and the Pacific where the Japanese were still a long way from defeat. The Allies needed to combine their forces more effectively if they were to bring the war to an end quickly. In response the Royal Navy massed its ships to add weight to the US Navy. With an attack force of four fleet carriers, and two more on the way, a fleet was born for use in the Indian Ocean and, later, the Pacific. This book is about the exceptional group of young men, from Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Holland and South Africa who joined the Fleet Air Arm as pilots. With their American-built Hellcats they were in the thick of the action, providing a hard, professional core to this fighting fleet that few would equal. The author was lucky to meet or correspond with nearly all the survivors, and he follows the young pilots lives from selection, through training to operations. The 5th Wing went to sea in 1944 and were in continuous action, in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, from then until the last days of the war. They participated in strikes on Sumatra with the aim of destroying its highly important oil refineries, then they joined in the battles for Leyte and Okinawa, before moving with the British Fleet to begin the invasion Japan itself.