An interactive map showing mission targets from from each airbase that hosted the 345th Bomb Group during WW2. Zooming in will bring up place names for the airbases.
I’ve made several interactive maps that show all of the WW2 combat missions flown by the 345th Bomb Group. Those maps do a good job of displaying the breadth of their involvement in the war. This map uses the same database, but with the data presented in a different way.
After watching a brief video about using the XY to Line geoprocessing tool for ArcGIS mapping software, I decided that it could be used to display the mission targets of the 345th Bomb Group attacked from each of the airfields they operated from.
I sorted the combined mission data for all four squadrons of the 345th by APO (Army Post Office) number and then winnowed down the data to leave one example of each target per APO.
The resulting map surprised me with how well it shows the flow of the war and the unrelenting drive toward Japan. The early missions, flown from Port Moresby, were flown in nearly all directions, reflecting the pervasive encroachment of the Japanese forces in the southwest Pacific area. As enemy threats were neutralized, the 345th began moving, first north and then to the west and north along the islands of the Pacific, always pushing toward Japan.