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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 fectly drawn; a unit and its equipment might arrive separately and with a considerable time interval to add a further complication. Vital parts and tools might be missing or else it would require time to locate them, and once found, they might prove defective or damaged in transit with no nearer source of resupply than America.54 T o assemble the planes, reliance perforce was placed in large part upon inexperienced and untrained personnel; ground crews of the 7th Group, a heavy bomber unit, erected I 38 P-40’s between 2 3 December and 4 Febru- ary.55A shortage of Prestone continued to be a delaying factor, for the Australian supply was limited and it took time to transport an adequate supply from the United state^.^' T h e pilots sent out, more- over, were considered insufficiently trained for the operations they would be required to undertake, and veteran pilots evacuated from the Philippines took over the task of whipping them into shape through an improvised training program that was marked by a high rate of Under the War Department’s policy of shipping out men and planes as they became available, it was necessary to provide for them a provisional organization in the theater. Five provisional pur- suit squadrons-the 17th, zoth, 3d, 33d, and 13th, respectively com- manded by Maj. Charles A. Sprague, Capt. William Lane, Jr., Capt. Grant Mahoney, Maj. Floyd Pell, and Lt. Boyd D. Wagner-were organized and manned by casual pilots.58 Activation of the 17th Squadron (Prov.) was authorized on 10 January, when Major Sprague received directions to select in addition to the pilots three radio men and one mechanic, one armorer, and one crew chief for each plane from those available in Brisbane. O n 16 January, the flying echelon of the newly organized unit, headed by Major Sprague and composed of twelve other pilots who had fought in the Philippines and four second lieutenants recently arrived from the United States, left Brisbane for Darwin on the way to Java. Guided by two Australian planes, they flew the 2,000-mile route overland by way of Rockhampton, Townsville, Cloncurry, and Daly Waters. Accidents delayed three planes en route, and one of the P-40’s was completely “washed out” in a landing, but all save this one had come in at Darwin by the 18th.~’From Darwin they took off on the 22d for the fi4o-mile hop across the Timor Sea to Koepang, escorted by an Australian two-engine Beechcraft. The next leg carried them to Waingapoe on Soemba Island, whence, no longer united in one flight and some of them without escort, they flew the 500 miles across 3 85
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