Early on April 18, 1943, at 7:45 AM, Japanese Admiral Yamamoto's plane was approaching Ballale for a scheduled 8 o'clock inspection of units on that island. Suddenly, from 20,000 feet, high above his six fighter plane escort, a sortie of 18 P-38 fighters attacked. One P-38, in the first group of four, shot the wing off the bomber in which Yamamoto was riding. Before his escorts could even react, Yamamoto's aircraft went spiralling down and crashed into the sea. The Japanese had lost the naval officer that had planned and led the attack on Pearl Harbor just 16 months before. Many historians believe that his loss ended any hopes by the Japanese of winning the war.
But it was the heroic acts of 1942 that made the heroic P-38 flight launched in 1943 from Guadalcanal possible...