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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 It was now evident that the Japanese were in a position to deny the Americans the use of Kendari as a staging base. Accordingly, the bomber command determined to try next a shuttle mission from Malang to Del Monte and return. Although this would require a 1,500- mile flight in each direction through an unpredictable equatorial front and over strongly held Japanese areas, it would permit a two-way bombing of targets between Java and the Philippines; and an addi- tional argument for the attempt lay in the opportunity it would afford to carry ammunition into Mindanao and to evacuate some of the experienced personnel of the 19th Group waiting at Del Monte. O n 19 January, Lt. John B. Connally, a veteran pilot of the 19th, led nine B-17’s off the field at Malang. Three of the less experienced crews turned back, but the remaining six fought their way through severe thunderstorms to bomb shipping targets near Jolo and arrived safely at Del Monte. T h e weather shut out Jolo and hindered the bombing of other targets on the return trip, but all six planes had returned to Malang by noon of the zoth, bringing 2 3 officers of the 19th Group as evacuees from Mindana~.~’ Punishing as were these long flights over unfamiliar seas and through generally unfavorable weather, the crews between missions were forced to turn their hands to exasperatingly difficult tasks of mainte- nance. There were only a few trained mechanics to help and almost no spare parts, and men had to work with tools both inadequate for the job and insufficient in number. T h e older planes were rapidly wearing out; some of the newer ones arrived, after a I 2,000-mile ferry flight, badly in need of overhaul; and to the mechanics, the unfa- miliar LB-30 presented its own peculiar problems. Spare parts with which the planes left the United States had all too often been used up along the way.4o Especially welcome, therefore, was the evacuation from Del Monte on 2 2 January of thirty-nine enlisted men together with two officers, and news that on the 19th the ground echelon of two squadrons of the 7th Bombardment Group had left Australia for Java. Encouraging, too, was the assionment of approximately IOO men of the zd Battalion of the 1 3 1 s Field Artillery on temporary duty with the bomber command, and the promise that at least some of them would soon display the American’s vaunted aptitude for things m e ~ h a n i c a l . ~ ~ T h e arrival of new planes-fifteen more B - I ~ E ’ sand four LB-jo’s, three of the latter by the Pacific air route, would reach Java by I ? 3 8 1
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