This fourth volume of Pacific Adversaries conveys detailed stories of aerial warfare in the Solomons theater, chosen because both Japanese and Allied records can be matched for an accurate accounting. Often the actual outcomes are very different to the exaggerated claims made by both sides as outlined in most traditional histories. In some cases, this factual approach enables long-standing mysteries to be solved. Further, for each chosen story photographic or other evidence enables accurate depictions of the aircraft involved. Through these chosen snapshots, Pacific Adversaries portrays the South Pacific conflict as accurately as possible. This volume focuses exclusively on confrontations between the Japanese Naval Air Force (JNAF) and Allied air power in the Solomons theatre between 1943 and 1944. Following the bloody 1942 Guadalcanal campaign, the JNAF fought a largely defensive war in the Solomons against gathering Allied forces. Perhaps surprisingly, right through to the end of 1943, the JNAF offered significant resistance to the Allies and never ceded air superiority in the vicinity of its key base of Rabaul. Only in 1944, when units were withdrawn to the Central Pacific and the Philippines, was the JNAF presence in the South Pacific finally wound down to just a token force. Never before have detailed accounts matched up adversaries so closely, and in doing so, shine light on key events in Pacific skies so many years ago.

Pacific Adversaries conveys detailed stories of aerial warfare in the South Pacific, chosen because both Japanese and Allied records can be matched for an accurate accounting. This third volume describes confrontations between the air arm of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and the Allies in New Guinea and the Solomons.

Winner of the Northern California Book Award for Nonfiction "Both a serious work of history…and a marvelously readable dramatic narrative." —San Francisco Chronicle On the first Sunday in December 1941, an armada of Japanese warplanes appeared suddenly over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and devastated the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Six months later, in a sea fight north of the tiny atoll of Midway, four Japanese aircraft carriers were sent into the abyss, a blow that destroyed the offensive power of their fleet. Pacific Crucible—through a dramatic narrative relying predominantly on primary sources and eyewitness accounts of heroism and sacrifice from both navies—tells the epic tale of these first searing months of the Pacific war, when the U.S. Navy shook off the worst defeat in American military history to seize the strategic initiative.

“This is the second in a series of three volumes of proceedings of the 23rd Pacific Basin Nuclear Conference (PBNC 2022) which was held by Chinese Nuclear Society. As one in the most important and influential conference series of nuclear science and technology, the 23rd PBNC was held in Beijing and Chengdu, China in 2022 with the theme “Nuclear Innovation for Zero-carbon Future”. For taking solid steps toward the goals of achieving peak carbon emissions and carbon neutrality, future-oriented nuclear energy should be developed in an innovative way for meeting global energy demands and coordinating the deployment mechanism. It brought together outstanding nuclear scientists and technical experts, senior industry executives, senior government officials and international energy organization leaders from all across the world. The proceedings highlight the latest scientific, technological and industrial advances in Nuclear Safety and Security, Operations and Maintenance, New Builds, Waste Management, Spent Fuel, Decommissioning, Supply Capability and Quality Management, Fuel Cycles, Digital Reactor and New Technology, Innovative Reactors and New Applications, Irradiation Effects, Public Acceptance and Education, Economics, Medical and Biological Applications, and also the student program that intends to raise students’ awareness in fully engaging in this career and keep them updated on the current situation and future trends. These proceedings are not only a good summary of the frontiers in nuclear science and technology, but also a useful guideline for the researchers, engineers and graduate students.

In 1942, the massive Japanese naval base and airfield at Rabaul was a fortress standing in the Allies' path to Tokyo. It was impossible to seize Rabaul, or starve the 100,000-strong garrison out. Instead the US began an innovative, hard-fought two-year air campaign to draw its teeth, and allow them to bypass the island completely. The struggle decided more than the fate of Rabaul. If successful, the Allies would demonstrate a new form of warfare, where air power, with a judicious use of naval and land forces, would eliminate the need to occupy a ground objective in order to control it. As it turned out, the Siege of Rabaul proved to be more just than a successful demonstration of air power – it provided the roadmap for the rest of World War II in the Pacific.

A stroke of the pen and history is changed. In 1938, British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, determined to avoid war, signed the Munich Accord, ceding part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler. But the following spring, Hitler snatched the rest of that country, and England, after a fatal act of appeasement, was fighting a war for which it was not prepared. Now, in this thrilling alternate history, another scenario is played out: What if Chamberlain had not signed the accord? In this action-packed chronicle of the war that might have been, Harry Turtledove uses dozens of points of view to tell the story: from American marines serving in Japanese-occupied China and ragtag volunteers fighting in the Abraham Lincoln Battalion in Spain to an American woman desperately trying to escape Nazi-occupied territory—and witnessing the war from within the belly of the beast. A tale of powerful leaders and ordinary people, at once brilliantly imaginative and hugely entertaining, Hitler’s War captures the beginning of a very different World War II—with a very different fate for our world today.