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This is Volume One of The Army Air Forces in World War II, titled Plans and Early Operations, January 1939 to August 1942, edited by Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate. The University of Chicago Press first published it in 1948, and the Office of Air Force History reprinted it in 1983. The front matter explains how the AAF historical program was set up during the war. The index covers Pacific, Atlantic and European operations, and nothing in the text concerns unidentified aerial phenomena.
“Pacific Ocean”16 pages
P E A R L H A R B O R A N D C L A R K F I E L D most successful interception was performed by six pilots of the 47th Pursuit Squadron based on the small field at Haleiwa, the only usable airfield not subjected to serious enemy attack. Though not at their base when the attack commenced, Lts. Harry M. Brown, Robert J. Rogers, Kenneth A. Taylor, John J. Webster, and George S. Welch succeeded in reaching Haleiwa by automobile and, acting without information as to the number and type of enemy planes, carried out a number of sorties in P-40’s and P-36’s between 0815 and 1000. Welch alone claimed four enemy planes shot down. Lt. John L. Dains, another pilot participating in the action, alternately used a P-36 and a P-40 in three sorties, but on the third of these he was shot down over Schofield Barracks, apparently by antiaircraft fire. O n learning of the attack upon Wheeler, crews of the 44th Pursuit Squadron at Bellows Field began arming their P-40’s and by 0855 three were ready. But just as pilots Hans C. Christiansen, George A. Whiteman, and Samuel W. Bishop prepared to take off, Japanese pursuits swept over the field in a strafing attack. Christiansen was killed while getting into his plane; Whiteman was shot down imme- diately after his take-off; and the other P-40, severely damaged, crashed into the ocean. In spite of a wound in the leg, Bishop suc- ceeded in swimming ashore. At about 0850 four P-36’s of the 46th Pursuit Squadron had taken off from Wheeler during a temporary break under orders to proceed to the vicinity of Bellows Field, near which they atracked a formation of nine Japanese planes. In spite of the fact that the P-36’s could not match their opponents in rate of climb, two of the enemy were shot down with the loss of one Amer- ican plane piloted by Lt. Gordon H. Sterling, Jr.lo N o t until I I O O was it possible for Hawaii-based bombers to get off the ground in a search for the enemy’s carriers. But the B-17’~of the 38th and 88th Reconnaissance Squadrons, which had left Hamilton Field the preceding evening on the first leg of a flight from the United States to the Philippines,” arrived over Oahu in the midst of the attack, Unfortunately, the planes had been so heavily loaded with gasoline that ammunition could not be carried, and for purposes of balance the armor plate in the rear had been shifted forward. As a consequence, the pilots on reaching Hawaii could attempt no more than to escape from enemy fire. Of the first of two flights, Maj. Richard H. Carmichael, ranking officer of the 88th Squadron, and * See above, p. 193. ‘99
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