The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 1 (archived PDF)

T H E A R M Y A I R F O R C E S I N W O R L D W A R I 1
and Strauss were allowed to break the routine of reconnaissance by
undertaking the hazardous mission of dive bombing the enemy-held
airfield at Vigan. When they had reached the target area, Wagner
signaled Strauss to remain on patrol, while he and Church proceeded
to bomb the airfield. As they went into a dive, Church's plane was hit
and set afire by AA, but he continued the attack, released his bombs,
and crashed. Wagner meanwhile had dropped six fragmentation
bombs and had strafed a fuel dump and approximately twenty planes
parked on the runway. Other combat activity by pursuit piiots was
incidental to scheduled reconnaissance missions, as when on I 3
December Lieutenant Wagner in approaching Aparri shot down four
enemy fighters and went on to strafe others on the field."
The First W i t h d r a w a l to Australia
Such isolated victories could not conceal the fact that the Japanese
held unchallengeable control of the air over Luzon and, helped by
the possession of such fields as those at Aparri and Vigan, were in a
position to extend this control over all of the Philippines. Though the
heavy bombers had already been forced to move back almost 600 miles
from Clark Field to Del Monte, it was now planned to withdraw them
another 1,500 miles to Darwin, Australia. In addition to the growing
danger that Del Monte would soon be subjected to constant air attack,
there was a general lack of maintenance facilities there which seriously
limited the operations that could be undertaken. War had come at a
time when little more than a beginning had been made in the effort to
convert Del Monte into a major heavy bomber base." Since then per-
sonnel of the 5th Air Base Group had worked day and night to
strengthen defenses and to improve the facilities. Underground shel-
ters had been constructed instead of barracks, and for purposes of
dispersal four outlying fields within a fifteen-mile radius had been
selected. But there was no radar set on Mindanao; no pursuit planes
were available for defensive cover; nor did the base enjoy the protec-
tion of any large-caliber antiaircraft guns. Antiaircraft defenses were
limited to water-cooled .So-cal. machine guns and a few additional air-
cooled .so's removed from B-17's. The air warning system consisted
of lookouts posted on hills north and south of the field with a tele-
phone line to operations headquarters. Until the Del Monte base could
be greatly strengthened and its facilities improved, it seemed advisable
* See above, pp. 187-89.
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