[Event] Pages of History (October): Pacific Ace

In this month’s Pages of History, you’ll be at the center of events that took place in different theaters of war. Belarus, the Philippines, Egypt and Hungary: take part in battles with the vehicles corresponding to these historic battles and receive prizes.

From October 1st until October 31st, you’ll be offered 8 tasks consecutively. Completing each will reward you with a trophy, and completing all of them will earn you a unique player icon.

Richard Bong was the most successful American ace of World War II who shot down 40 enemy aircraft in his P-38 Lightning. Bong himself considered his accuracy to be poor, but he compensated for this with his audacity: he got as close to enemy aircraft as possible to make sure he hit them. At 22, he became a captain, at 23, a major, and at 24 for his heroism in the Battle of Leyte, he was awarded the Medal of Honor.

Richard Bong

You can immediately purchase this profile icon for Golden Eagles until November 3rd, 11:30 GMT without completing tasks. To find it, go to your Nickname → Achievements → Pages of History.

Trophy reward for each task

Completing each individual task will give you a trophy with one of the following rewards:

  • 20-50% RP booster for 3-10 battles;
  • 20-50% SL booster for 3-10 battles;
  • 3-5 universal backups;
  • Premium account for 1 day;
  • A random camouflage for ground vehicles (out of the selection of camouflages currently obtainable in game for completing tasks, or purchasing with Golden Eagles).

Other terms

  • Tasks are available from 11:00 GMT until 11:30 GMT on the final day of each task.
  • Tasks can be completed in random battles except for “Assault” mode.

You can read a detailed description of which task is for which day and your overall progress by going to your Nickname → Achievements → Pages of History.

October 1st — October 4th

Battle of the Scheldt

From October 2nd to November 8th 1944, Canadian troops fought a series of military operations along the Scheldt River on the border between Belgium and the Netherlands to secure Allied supply lines through the port of Antwerp. Due to Allied strategic errors, the battle began too late. The Germans were reinforced and ready to defend themselves, making it become the longest and bloodiest engagement for the Canadian Army in the war.

October 5th — October 8th

Battle of Vella Lavella (naval)

In October 1943, Japan was evacuating its garrisons from the Solomon Islands. On October 6th, 600 Japanese soldiers remained on the northern part of the island of Vella Lavella, boarding barges guarded by 9 destroyers. The Americans sent 6 of their own destroyers to intercept the evacuation, but they were unable to stop it. As a result of the battle, both sides lost one destroyer each.

October 9th — October 12th

Orsha Operation

From October 12th to December 2nd, 1943, the USSR conducted an unsuccessful offensive operation near the city of Orsha in Belarus. The troops, exhausted by the just-completed Smolensk operation, were not ready to overcome the well-organized multi-echelon defense of the Wehrmacht and suffered huge losses of more than 100,000 soldiers, 25,000 of which were killed. Following the operation, the commander of the Western Front, General Vasily Sokolovsky, was removed from his position.

October 13th — October 17th

Gumbinnen Operation

On October 16th, 1944, Soviet troops launched an offensive into East Prussia, where the Wehrmacht held a strong defense. By October 22nd, the Red Army had taken Goldap and Gumbinnen, but within days it had lost both cities and was pushed back. Both sides suffered significant losses.

October 17th — October 20th

Battle of Leyte

At dawn on October 17th 1944, American forces began landing in the Philippines. The Leyte garrison, consisting of tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers, held out until the end of the year, with individual guerrillas continuing to resist until the end of the war.

October 20th — October 23rd

Second Battle of El Alamein

On October 23rd 1942, the decisive battle of the North African campaign of World War II began. In 13 days of intense fighting, Allied forces under the command of Bernard Montgomery defeated the Italo-German group of Erwin Rommel, pushing them out of Egypt and Libya into Tunisia and putting an end to the threat of the Axis reaching the Middle East.

October 23rd — October 27th

Battle of Henderson Field

On August 7th 1942, the Americans captured the Henderson Field airfield on Guadalcanal. Japanese troops made several attempts to recapture it, the last of which occurred on October 23rd-26th: infantry with air and sea support unsuccessfully attacked Henderson Field. In three days, Japan lost 2-3 thousand soldiers, a cruiser and 14 aircraft.

October 28th — October 31st

Budapest Operation

After Romania went over to the Allies, the USSR turned its attention to their next strategic target: Hungary. Hitler considered its retention to be the most important task and spared no resources for this purpose. Soviet and Romanian troops began their offensive on October 29th, but they reached Budapest itself only two months later, and took it only by mid-February.

3 Likes

Bong.

2 Likes

Respectfully, this profile icon appears to be created in an unacceptable state since it seems AI-generated.

P-38 in the background and Richard Bong’s facial features look out of place to me, and the way it depicted the Medal of Honor and wings with propeller pins is wrong. What’s the point of depicting his Medal of Honor when it got cut off, not entirely visual, below the torso within the square of this profile icon? It looks hideous.

Please see this original photograph of Bong with his P-38 in the background.

richard-bong-with-his-p-38-v0-fpannu06b7yb1

Please note in the photo that he was not wearing the Medal of Honor on his shirt or the wings with propeller pins on his neck collars. Note the proportions of the person and P-38, unlike the unrealistic proportions in the icon.

If you want to depict Bong wearing the Medal of Honor and pins, please see another photo of Bong with his P-38 in the background.

Please note that he wore the garrison cap and Medal of Honor covering the wings pin on his shirt, and wings with propeller pins on his neck collars.

Please consider redoing an appropriate touchup for the profile icon with manual effort using these photographs as your reference. After all, Richard Bong was the highest-scoring US ace! He deserved a well-deserved respect, not with this AI-generated one.

Overall, I am disappointed in the current state of the profile icon. I felt that it was not well made with sufficient effort.

I would be satisfied to unlock this profile icon following the touchup. Otherwise, I refuse to unlock this profile icon in protest of effortless AI-generated icons.

21 Likes

Damn this is awesome! Will be the first profile icon I go for!

2 Likes

I think is to compensate the position, if the profile picture was 1:1 of the photography, the main element, Richard Bong, would be too small.

Same with the aircraft size and everything else. With the facial details also to add more details, the photography looks way too clean.

Hehehe Bong

2 Likes

Yeah that pic might need a bit of a touch up, you’ve given him the laziest eye I’ve seen in my life and made him look 20 years older than he was…

10 Likes

The man himself! Absolutely worth less gooo
(Fix the eyes tho, as nostalgistic said before me)

i hear this on every picture they upload. In my opinnion the picture seems fine.

Might not be AI necessarily but you can’t deny his eyes need a little bit of a fix. Maybe the perspective of the background too but not worth nitpicking for now

3 Likes

It definitely is AI, but that in of itself isnt an issue, the issue is that they havent touched it up after to fix his left eye, and soften the shading on the lines on his face

3 Likes

I want Saburo Sakai.

There are multiple profile icons based on his photos
image
cardicon_24

3 Likes

They’ve been doing this for while now. They have no shame in using ai for these now.

You could use this opportunity to offer his P-38 again in an event.

3 Likes

If you’re ever in the area of Superior, Wisconsin or Duluth, Minnesota you should visit the museum they have for him. Its a neat little place where his MoH is on display. They have a p38 painted just the way he had it too!

1 Like

Its sad that off all the named ace pilots planes, this is the one they never bring back.

Wait, Gaijin have a Saburo Sakai profile icon already? But they said on many occasions that they will not have Axis war hero icons???

Most icons are based off of real people, including Saburo Sakai or Hans-Arnold Stahlschmidt.
There’s a page dedicated to profile icons both at .com and .ru wikis.

I think the difference now is Gaijin are trying not to come across as “promoting” the Axis or their ideals, so there are no events dedicated to such combatants.

1 Like