General Chennault’s Secret Weapon: The B-24 in China

This book contains the diary of Captain Elmer E. Haynes, who flew low-altitude radar bombing missions against Japanese land targets in China and enemy ships in the South China Sea during World War II. Haynes flew secretly-developed B-24 Liberator bombers equipped with radar that had been integrated with the Norden Bombsight for night missions. These B-24s operated with the 14th Airforce, General Chennault’s Flying Tigers. The bombing attacks using radar-equipped B-24s were so successful that, in a little over a year, Haynes and his fellow pilots, had sunk 2,500,000 tons of Japanese shipping. The war in the Pacific was brought to a quicker end by the devastating destruction of such a tremendous number of Japanese merchant and naval vessels in the South China Sea. The radar-equipped B-24s were also used on night scouting missions, locating enemy convoys for US naval ships and submarines. Military historians and anyone interested in World War II will find this story informative. This same radar technology was used by B-17s during the saturation night bombing raids over Germany.