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b'After the devastating Japanese blows of December 1941, the Allies found themselves reeling with defeat everywhere in the Pacific. Although stripped of his battleships and outnumbered 10:3 in carriers, the US Navy commander-in-chief Admiral Ernest J. King decided to hit back at Japan\\u2019s rapidly expanding Pacific empire immediately, in an effort to keep the Japanese off-balance.

On February 1, 1942, Vice Admiral Bill Halsey led the US Pacific Fleet carriers on their first raid, using high-speed hit-and-run tactics to strike at the Japanese, at a time when most of the Japanese carrier fleet was in the Indian Ocean. Halsey\\u2019s aggressive commitment inspired its American participants to invent the mythical \\u201cHaul Ass With Halsey\\u201d club. The last of the 1942 US carrier raids in March 1942 would form a defining moment in the Pacific War, prior to a new phase of high-seas battles between the opposing fleets.

To discuss this overlooked era is Brian Herder, author of \\u201cEarly Pacific Raids 1942: The American Carriers Strike Back.\\u201d'