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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 Wash”17 pages
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 reaching the target area; and with visibility poor, their bombing runs brought only uncertain r e s u l t ~ . ~ By this time the Japanese had begun their southward move. Tarakan fell on I I January, and on the same day enemy forces, including para- troopers, landed a t Manado in upper Celebes. Small Dutch garrisons resisted as best they could, but naval units which might otherwise have helped to provide some semblance of a striking force were on convoy duty to the west, and available air forces were equal only to a token defense. Australian Hudsons, based on Boeroe and Amboina, American PBY’s, and Dutch planes struck at the enemy in Celebes, but such hits as were scored left the enemy force uncrippled, and in the face of stiff resistance serious losses were sustained by the Allies.33 Against Tara- kan on the day of its occupation, Major Combs led a mission of seven B-17’s; but in heavy wind and rain four of the seven were forced to turn back before reaching the target, and the remaining three, after a fight with enemy pursuits in which two Japanese planes were shot down, found the visibility too poor for accurate b ~ m b i n g . ~ ’ The Japanese were now halfway down the Malay Peninsula on their advance to Singapore, and the next mission of the B-17’s was flown on orders from the newly established ABDA Command against the recently captured Sungei Patani airfield on the west coast of the peninsula, a thousand miles west of their latest target at Tarakan. T h e distance from Malang again was 1,500 miles, a factor which required the use of an intermediate field at Palembang in Sumatra. Seven B- I 7’s, once more led by Combs, flew from Malang to Palembang on 14 January. Equipment for service of the planes there proved to be seriously inadequate, and experienced maintenance personnel were lacking. T h e take-off of the planes on 15 January was delayed by difficulty in refueling and in fuzing unfamiliar Dutch bombs, which alone were a~ailable.~’Storms buffeted the planes on the 75o-mile flight from Palembang to Sungei Patani, and two were forced to turn back. The other five proceeded, relatively free of enemy pursuit and antiaircraft interference, to make several bomb runs over the target during which more than twenty hits and several resulting fires were observed. The bombers returned that night to the Lhoknga emer- gency field in northern Sumatra, from which they flew to Malang the following morning. O n this 3,000-mile mission, the only loss was one B- I 7 damaged beyond repair when landing on rain-soaked Sing~sari.~‘ In the absence of Combs and the B-I 7’s, four LB-~o’sand six B-I 7’s 3 79
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