At the completion of the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign the 72nd FS was transferred to the newly activated 21st Fighter Group to prepare for the job of escorting the Boeing B-29 Superfortresses over Japan.
With the outbreak of World War II in the Pacific, Anderson and the Yorktown were transferred there, where they participated in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, the Salamaua-Lae campaign, and the Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway.
In the Pacific Theater of World War II, the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, from November 1943 through February 1944, were key strategic operations of the United States Pacific Fleet and Marine Corps in the Central Pacific.
From 1942–1945, Thirteenth Air Force staged out of tropical jungles on more than 40 remote islands including the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign; Mariana and Palau Islands campaign and the Philippines campaign (1944–45), thus earning the nickname, "The Jungle Air Force." The command's units participated in a total of five different operation areas and 13 campaigns.
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It engaged in operations primarily in the South Pacific, attacking enemy forces in the Solomon Islands, Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaigns; Mariana and Palau Islands campaigns and the Philippines campaign (1944–45).
Canary Islands | Faroe Islands | Solomon Islands | John Marshall | Channel Islands | Falkland Islands | Marshall Islands | South Shetland Islands | Gilbert and Sullivan | Marshall | Hawaiian Islands | Pacific Islands | Marshall Plan | Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands | Thurgood Marshall | Aleutian Islands | Cook Islands | Marshall Space Flight Center | Balearic Islands | British Virgin Islands | Peninsula Campaign | Cayman Islands | Guadalcanal Campaign | Channel Islands of California | Andaman Islands | Ryukyu Islands | W. S. Gilbert | Marshall McLuhan | Galápagos Islands | Chatham Islands |