Page:A Concise History of the U.S. Air Force.djvu/42

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Hard-won victory. Top to bottom: USAAF airmen of the Fifth, Seventh, Thirteenth, and Twentieth Air Forces helped American soldiers and seamen achieve a stunning Allied triumph in World War II's Asian theaters. Facing the vastness of the Pacific, they fought grueling and costly island-hopping battles to gain forward bases from which they could launch aerial attacks against a seemingly implacable enemy, and time and again they sought out jungle-shrouded coastal and mountain strongholds, airfields, and well-armed, heavily escorted ship convoys. Atomic bombs over Nagasaki and Hiroshima finally ended the war and saved the lives of thousands of Americans who would have perished invading the Japanese home islands.