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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
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 accomplished by bomber effort.’” Beginning that night, Allied naval forces made their bid to break up the invasion effort only to suffer one of the more serious defeats of the war.’02 Enemy landings on the northern coast of Java were under way by the night of 28 February, and early on the following morning, I March, the last air mission of any importance from Java bases was carried out when all available pursuit planes-nine P-~o’s,six Hurricanes, and four Brewsters-were thrown against one of the landings. In the face of heavy antiaircraft fire, the planes attacked at low level to sink several small boats and to strafe AA batteries on shore, but the enemy took his toll. Lt. Morris C. Caldwell crashed into the sea; Lt. Cornelius Reagan was last seen in an apparently vain attempt to land his blazing P-40; another P-40 went down after its pilot had succeeded in bailing out; and of the surviving planes, all sustained varying degrees of damage.Io3 Then, before any of the American planes could be made ready for a return to the air, Japanese fighters swept over the Ngoro field, which here- tofore had escaped the enemy’s attention, and riddled with machine- gun fire all the remaining P-40’s. Thus ended on I March the opera- tions of the 17th Pursuit, whose surviving personnel now joined the hurried and confused effort to evacuate Java while there was yet time.Io4 All of the American pursuit planes which reached Java, except those aboard the Sea Witch, literally had been used up or had been destroyed by the enemy. The twenty-seven crated P-40’s brought in by the Sea Witch had reached Java a t the height of the confusion immediately preceding the invasion, but time did not permit their being assembled. They were finally shoved into the water to prevent their capture by the enemy.Io5 The P-40’s aboard the Langley had gone down with that gallant ship on 2 7 February. As it approached Java, two American destroyers, the Edsall and W h i p p l e , had joined it to serve as escort early in the morning of the 27th. At approxi- mately 0900 an enemy aircraft came over, and before noon nine twin- engine bombers with fighter escort attacked the three vessels. On the third bombing run the Langley received five direct hits and three near misses, and soon sank. Though two of the P-40 pilots were injured, none were killed. T h e survivors having been picked up by the de- stroyers, the wounded pilots were subsequently transferred to the tanker Pecos, which then headed for Fremantle with a total of ap- proximately 670 men. It was hardly under way, however, when 398
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