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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.
“The Invaders”15 pages
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. 2 2 0
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