Night-Fighter Mission to Rabanl

摘要

By the time that the American military realised how important it was to have an effective night-fighter, the attack on Pearl Harbor happened on December 7, 1941. The RAF had been helping the US with this problem in 1940 and early 1941 and it was their expertise that led to the development of the Northrop P-61 Black Widow. However, by the time the Marines landed on Guadalcanal in August 1942, the P-61 was still a long way from being operational so a stop-gap measure had to be taken. That aircraft was the Douglas A-20 Boston/Havoc that was hastily converted over to a night-fighter configuration which would be identified as the P-70 "Night Hawk".