A pictorial account of the changing role of US naval aircraft since the end of World War II - from protector of the United States forces and symbol of American power throughout the world to international avenger and peacekeeper. Focusing on the aircraft and the personnel who fly and service them, the book features a range of different aircraft types - from the FD-2 Phantom (the first US pure jet to land aboard an aircraft carrier) to the F-14 Tomcat and F/A-18 Hornet heavy carrier-based fighters of the 1990s. US maritime power has its beginnings in the Pacific between 1941 and 1945, when carrier-borne aircraft won overwhelming victories against the Imperial Japanese Navy at Guadalcanal, the Marianas, and Okinawa - all but erasing the black memory of Pearl Harbour. Post-war, America benefited greatly from German wartime aeronautical research and British developments in jet engine and carrier technology. As the Cold War intensified, America could not afford to lag behind, especially when the uneasy peace in Korea was shattered in 1950 and American aircraft were confronted with the MiG-15 for the first time. This gave rise to the development of supersonic fighter planes, such as the A-4 Skyhawk, used in the controversial bombing campaigns against North Vietnam in the late '60s and early '70s. By the mid-1980s, US naval carrier-based aircraft proved a very efficient avenger - and deterrent - in the fight against international terrorism. Most recently, during the Gulf War of 1991, naval units at sea joined forces with the land-based strike aircraft in Operation Desert Storm, when the US Navy averaged 125-150 sorties per day per carrier. This text contains more than 200 photographs from official US Navy archives and private collections - many of which are previously unpublished.