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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.
“Churchill”21 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 good target, and the bombardier, Sgt. Meyer S. Levin, released in train the entire load of three 6oo-lb. bombs from ZZ,OOO feet. Although the Japanese assert that no hits were made, the bombs scored near misses and to Kelly’s crew it appeared that one of them had struck squarely amidship. When the B-17 turned back toward its base, the warship appeared to have been stopped with black smoke pouring from it. All gunners held their stations during the return flight except the radio operator, who served also as lower-turret gunner, and who left that post to receive landing instructions from Clark Field. Suddenly, as the plane neared the field, two enemy fighters attacked from the rear of and below the plane in an approach which probably would have been observed sooner had the lower turret been manned. Bullets riddled the big bomber. “The commander’s dome flew off,” the instru- ment panel seemed to disintegrate, a machine-gun burst penetrated the left rear gunner’s post killing T/Sgt. William J. Delehanty, the low- pressure oxygen tanks in the radio compartment exploded, and the empty bomb bay burst into flames. When the flames spread, Kelly ordered the crew to bail out. S/Sgt. James E. Hokyard, Pfc Robert A. Altman, and Pfc Williard L. Money dropped out of the rear com- partment; Bean and Levin tumbled out of the escape hatch; and Kelly and co-pilot Lt. Donald D. Robins prepared to follow. T h e latter succeeded in pulling the rip cord of his parachute after being thrown clear of the plane by a tremendous explosion, and all those who pre- viously had bailed out of the plane reached ground safely. But Kelly’s body was later found near the wreckage of his plane.6* The employment of heavy bombers on 10 December bore little resemblance to prescribed AAF practice, which called for their use against shipping targets in flights of sufficient size to assure a pattern of bombing large enough to cover any possible move of the target in the interval between release and impact i f the N o t only was there an inadequate number of planes available, but unsatisfactory communications with outlying fields, insufficient protection of air- fields, and the consequent necessity of putting planes into the air for their security added to the difficulty of maintaining anything ap- proaching standard operations. N o experience could have emphasized more forcefully the fundamental importance to an air force of its ability to assert and maintain control of the air over its own bases. And with the rapid depletion of our interceptor forces and with Japanese landings promising the early establishment on Luzon of 2’7
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