Although designed in the mid-1930s and in squadron service several years prior to the Pearl Harbor attack, the PBY Catalina proved its soundness in combat throughout the four years that World War II raged across the Pacific. Deadly in its primary role as a submarine hunter, the PBY was the scourge of the Imperial Japanese Navy's submarine force. Its amphibious traits also made the aircraft well suited to air-sea rescue, and thousands of Allied airmen were saved from a watery grave by PBY crews.

Using personal interviews, war diaries and combat reports combined with original Japanese records and books, Louis B Dorny provides a view on the role of the Catalina from both sides of the war. Illustrated with over 80 photographs and color profiles detailing aircraft markings, this is the definitive history of and insight into the PBY's use by the US Navy and Allied forces in the Pacific during World War II (1939-1945).