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

L O S S O F N E T H E R L A N D S E A S T I N D I E S
for defense of the bases, and for the varied machinery and equip-
ment upon which an air force depends. As already noted,” a review
of shipping priorities brought a decision to reduce the size of a convoy
scheduled to sail on I 5 January for Northern Ireland and Iceland with
the result that room was provided for 10,000 ground troops for New
Caledonia, a key point in the defense of sea and air routes through the
South Pacific, and for more than I 1,000 troops to serve as “ground
staffs” for AAF units in Australia. Shipping difficulties were further
eased by arrangements made with the British for use of the Queen
Mary and the newly built Queen Elizabeth as troop transports, their
service from N e w York and San Francisco, respectively, to begin early
in F e b r ~ a r y . ’ ~But such measures could be effective in a defense of
the Netherlands East Indies only if the interim expedients resorted
to proved sufficient to hold the enemy for a while.
Among the efforts to strengthen Allied defenses immediately was
an attempt, in addition to the ferrying operation, to provide air trans-
port from the United States of urgently needed equipment and sup-
plies. A contract on 3 I December with Pan American Airways sought
an extension of its transport services from Khartoum to Darwin. To
accomplish this, it was necessary for Pan American to negotiate
contracts with foreign airlines, particularly with Knilm, a Dutch com-
pany, and with Qantas of Australia; and the organization of an effec-
tive service required time-more time than events allowed. The effort
proved to be more important for its contribution to an extension of
air transport from Africa to India, from where this modern aid to
logistical mobility would play a major role in the later operations of
the China-Burma-India theater, than for the assistance now provided
for the ABDA forces. Within the theater itself an important step
toward overcoming some of the more difficult problems of transporta-
tion and communication was marked by activation on 2 8 January of
the first American air transport unit in Australia. None of its original
complement of fourteen officers and nineteen enlisted men had been
trained for transport operations-they were just the men who hap-
pened to be most readily available. Equally miscellaneous were the
aircraft assigned to the unit: two old B-18’s and one C-39 which had
been flown down from the Philippines and five new C-53’s recently
arrived from the United States. O n 4 February, Capt. Paul I. Gunn,
formerly manager of the Philippine Airlines and as “Pappy” Gunn
See above, p. 243.
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