The Navigation Case

The Navigation Case: Training, Flying and Fighting the 1942 to 1945 New Guinea War by John E. Happ

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I'm not sure how I heard of this unjustly obscure book, but I did, and I'm glad I did. It was a great read.

The author, John E. Happ, is a Chicago native, as was his father, Leonard "Len" Happ. John knew Len had served as a pilot in WWII, but like many veterans of that era, Len never talked about the war. In fact, John did not even know that his father had served in the Pacific, fighting against the Japanese.

That is, until his father died, and in the family house John found an Army-issue navigation case which Len had used to store correspondence from the war. John then undertook a decades-long effort to research his father's military service, which started when Len, a private pilot, volunteered for the US Army Air Corp in January 1942. It wasn't until mid-1943 that Len saw action, flying ground attack missions in New Guinea.

As it happens, I have a personal connection to this theater as well - a great uncle served there. All he ever said about his service was that the place was hot and wet and the natives ran around naked. Len never said even that much.

The book is a mixture of Len's personal story of training and combat, interspersed with a solid layman's history of a slog of a campaign, conducted by under-supplied US and Australian forces fighting in what was then literally an uncharted land. Len's service in New Guinea was exemplarily, and Len was rotated back to the US after over 60 combat missions. There he flew medical transport planes, until an unexplained medical issue grounded Len. A few months later, Len was discharged, and he returned to civilian life.

Overall, I found the book a very good read and an interesting story. It will shed a light on an underappreciated theater of WWII. My only complaint was that the maps in this book were hard to read, but that's a quibble. Overall, I recommend this book.



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