What do you think?
Rate this book
Fabled Fifteen: The Pacific War Saga of Carrier Air Group 15
The record of Carrier Air Group 15 in World War II is astonishing by any measure: it scored 312 enemy aircraft destroyed, 33 probably destroyed, and 65 damaged in aerial combat, plus 348 destroyed, 161 probably destroyed, and 129 damaged in ground attacks. Twenty-six Fighting 15 pilots became aces, including their leader, Commander David McCampbell, who became the U.S. Navy's "Ace of Aces." Twenty-one squadron pilots were killed in action and one in an operational accident aboard the carrier Essex.
The fighter squadron's partners, Bombing Squadron 15 and Torpedo Squadron 15, scored 174,300 tons of enemy shipping, including 37 cargo vessels sunk, 10 probably sunk, and 39 damaged. As well, Musashi, the world's largest battleship, was sunk, along with a light aircraft carrier, a destroyer, destroyer escort, two minesweepers and other craft--plus the Zuikaku, the last surviving carrier that participated in the Pearl Harbor attack. Incredibly, every pilot of Torpedo 15 was awarded the Navy Cross, the highest award for bravery after the Medal of Honor.
All of this took place between May and November, 1944. No other American combat unit in any service came close to a similar score in such a short time period. Air Group 15 participated in the two greatest naval battles in history, the Philippine Sea--also known as the Marianas Turkey Shoot--and Leyte Gulf, which saw the end of Japanese naval power. On June 19, 1944, Fighting 15 shot down 68.5 attacking Japanese aircraft, a one-day record unmatched by any other U.S. fighter squadron.
In documenting the saga of Air Group 15's momentous six months at war, the author provides an intimate and insightful view of the group's fabled combat tour, including details of daily life and human interactions aboard the fleet carrier USS Essex during the busiest phase of the Pacific War.
The fighter squadron's partners, Bombing Squadron 15 and Torpedo Squadron 15, scored 174,300 tons of enemy shipping, including 37 cargo vessels sunk, 10 probably sunk, and 39 damaged. As well, Musashi, the world's largest battleship, was sunk, along with a light aircraft carrier, a destroyer, destroyer escort, two minesweepers and other craft--plus the Zuikaku, the last surviving carrier that participated in the Pearl Harbor attack. Incredibly, every pilot of Torpedo 15 was awarded the Navy Cross, the highest award for bravery after the Medal of Honor.
All of this took place between May and November, 1944. No other American combat unit in any service came close to a similar score in such a short time period. Air Group 15 participated in the two greatest naval battles in history, the Philippine Sea--also known as the Marianas Turkey Shoot--and Leyte Gulf, which saw the end of Japanese naval power. On June 19, 1944, Fighting 15 shot down 68.5 attacking Japanese aircraft, a one-day record unmatched by any other U.S. fighter squadron.
In documenting the saga of Air Group 15's momentous six months at war, the author provides an intimate and insightful view of the group's fabled combat tour, including details of daily life and human interactions aboard the fleet carrier USS Essex during the busiest phase of the Pacific War.
264 pages, Paperback
First published March 17, 2014
3 people are currently reading
63 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."
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 25, 2016
The benefit of being interested in World War –II history is that that you don’t have to fear about running out of new reading material. More so in case of micro-histories concerning World War – II.
A couple of macro-history books on the subject might be enough to give a reader the general idea about the events that unfolded during that calamitous period. But micro-histories are a different thing altogether. Every time you read one, it offers a different perspective, a whole new experience. It doesn’t matter how many books you might have read before on the subject, it always makes you feel like you are revisiting history from a unique angle.
And that’s why I prefer to read micro-histories about World War-II. They offer a personal touch to the events, where – unlike macro-histories - the soldiers are not reduced to mere statistics.
Fabled Fifteen by Thomas McKelvey Cleaver is one such book. It follows Air group 15 in the Pacific Theatre, mainly aboard aircraft carrier USS Essex in last half of 1944, where the men of Air Group 15 participated in two largest naval battles of World War –II - Marianas Turkey Shoot and Battle of Leyte Gulf – in a period of little more than four months.
Cleaver’s book is laden with technical details about the ships and warplanes from both sides. I don’t know, it could be only me, but I really like to read about the weight of ships and the top-speed of fighter planes. What engines they were using, how many horsepower they increased in the new ones and things like that. Some historians think providing this sort of information as trivial, and in the big scheme of things, that may be so, but for example, when someone writes that one air group sank two battleships and the other sank one, it doesn’t give you the correct picture.
Take Air Group 15’s case. They sank one battleship. Woohoo, well done. But so did so many others, you say. But when you are told that they sank the biggest battleship ever constructed, the Japanese Imperial Navy’s Musashi – which was over 70,000 tons – that information doesn’t seem so trivial after all.
Anyway, back to the actual review.
Cleaver also interviewed two surviving members of the Air Group 15, which I think, saves this book from becoming too academic (I don't have a problem reading academic type books, though).
In all, Air Group 15 destroyed 312 enemy aircrafts, probably destroyed 33 others, and damaged 65 in air combat, and I am not even mentioning the planes destroyed by the Fifteen in ground attacks.
As I said earlier, Air Group 15 (from USS Essex) sank battleship Musashi in the Battle of Leyte Gulf (other US Navy aircraft carriers were also involved in the attack). The fifteen sank a total of 37 cargo ships in the last months of the war, and oh, they also sank the aircraft carrier, Zuikaku.
But as is always the case in a war, not everybody survived. Out of 100 men in the group, only 45 came back.
For a casual reader, the writing might seem too technical to follow, but for any World War-II buff, this book is a treat to read.
My only gripe is that my ARC didn’t contain any photographs.
***Disclosure: - I requested and received an ARC from the publisher/ author through Netgalley for an honest review.***
January 12, 2015
Everyone who's studied the history of aviation or WWII for even a short while will know the name David McCampbell. He was the U.S. Navy's Ace of Aces during WWII, and the third highest-scoring ace of all services, with 34 victories. Less well known is the story of the squadron he flew with, and the air group he commanded. This is their story. Air Group 15 flew off the aircraft carrier Essex, earning most of its fame during the battles of the Philippine Sea, and Leyte Gulf.
The author takes you right down to the deck of the Essex, and into the cockpit with this heroic group of men. My only criticism would be that for a reader not as familiar with aviation writing it might contain too much technical detail about the planes themselves.
A must read for anyone interested in air combat!
The author takes you right down to the deck of the Essex, and into the cockpit with this heroic group of men. My only criticism would be that for a reader not as familiar with aviation writing it might contain too much technical detail about the planes themselves.
A must read for anyone interested in air combat!
November 14, 2018
As a detailed catalog of a long list of pilots, gunmen and radiomen and where they were, when and what they did, this book excels - as a detailed catalog. Unfortunately there isn't much of a story, so a lot of the book feels like you are reading a list.
A few tidbits about the war I was unaware of before were enlightening - i.e. the "Purple Code" the US broke before the war was no longer in use by the Japanese after 1942, so we were not privy to all of their communications after that.
The contrast/corroboration of different battle results using Japanese records was a good element as well.
A few tidbits about the war I was unaware of before were enlightening - i.e. the "Purple Code" the US broke before the war was no longer in use by the Japanese after 1942, so we were not privy to all of their communications after that.
The contrast/corroboration of different battle results using Japanese records was a good element as well.
October 19, 2022
Nice, brief history of Carrier Air Group 15 which was based on the Essex and fought in both the Battle of the Philippine Sea and the Battle of Leyte Gulf. It was also notable because its leader was David McCampbell, the US Navy's Ace of Aces of WW2. A nice history of the unit.
April 3, 2021
Interesting and highly technical account of the Pacific front. Parts dragged for me, hit I did appreciate the research and firsthand accounts from pilots' journals.
March 2, 2022
An awesome, human look at one of the most successful Air Groups in Naval Aviation history.
December 29, 2014
The writing is a bit too technical, but a must-read for anyone interested in the Word War II history.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 23, 2015
Where heroism was a daily occurance
This book takes you right into the cockpit from training thru a fierce 6 month deployment in very hostel enemy waters. Absolutely excellent book.
This book takes you right into the cockpit from training thru a fierce 6 month deployment in very hostel enemy waters. Absolutely excellent book.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews