By the time that the American military realised how important it was to have an effective night-fighter, the attack on Pearl Harbor happened on December 7, 1941. The RAF had been helping the US with this problem in 1940 and early 1941 and it was their expertise that led to the development of the Northrop P-61 Black Widow. However, by the time the Marines landed on Guadalcanal in August 1942, the P-61 was still a long way from being operational so a stop-gap measure had to be taken. That aircraft was the Douglas A-20 Boston/Havoc that was hastily converted over to a night-fighter configuration which would be identified as the P-70 "Night Hawk". The A-20 proved to be a formidable low-level bomber and it was to make its mark in North Africa and in some areas of the Pacific at a later date. However, the P-70 would have sufficient firepower and dependable radar, but it did have two glaring weaknesses that would become evident once it set up night operations on Guadalcanal and New Guinea. These would be its slow speed and the inability to reach the altitudes and speeds that the Japanese Betty bombers were operating from.
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