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
enemy planes appeared overhead, and in the middle of the afternoon
the Pecos also went down. Meanwhile the Edsall with the remaining
pilots had headed for Java, never to be heard from again.Io6
T h e evacuation of Java was already in full swing. Since 2 5 Febru-
ary all aircraft which possessed the necessary range had been pressed
into service for the evacuation of military personnel not required for
the operation of remaining aircraft. At Broome, on the northwestern
coast of Australia, an evacuation center was hastily organized under
the direction of Col. E. S. Perrin.lo7One by one the air bases in Java
were abandoned for demolition by Dutch authorities until on the
evening of I March Jogjakarta alone remained in Allied hands. T o
it had come the surviving personnel of the 17th Pursuit to be flown
out that night to Broome. O n the following night, 260 officers and
men still awaited evacuation and only five B-17’s and three LB-30’s
were available, but each LB-30 took off with thirty-five passengers
and each B-17 carried out thirty-one. As the last plane took off just
before midnight, the Japanese were only eighteen miles away, and
Dutch troops stood ready to explode their demolition charges.*”
T h e eight American bombers reached Broome early in the morning
of 3 A4arch. Broome had been a major port of entry for evacuees from
Java; and transport pilots were straining their endurance in an attempt
to ferry one load of refugees after another down the coast of western
Australia to Perth. In anticipation of an enemy attack (a Japanese
reconnaissance plane had been sighted during the night), all aircraft
had been warned to leave before 1000that morning. At just that hour
a crowded B-24 transport cleared the field. When it had climbed to
only three or four hundred feet, approximately a dozen Japanese
fighters swept in over the harbor. Their fire punctured the gas tanks
of the helpless B-24, which crashed into the sea, broke in two, and
all of its passengers except one enlisted man were drowned. Waiting
for take-off in the harbor were several Dutch flying boats already
loaded with evacuees, mostly Dutch women and children. Other ships
on the airfield stood ready for take-off or were the objects of hurried
preparations by their crews. T h e personnel on the field who reached
the cover of near-by scrub bush watched every plane on the field
explode or burn to the ground, and from the harbor came sounds of
the destruction wrought among the helpless seaplanes. T h e enemy
had destroyed twelve flying boats, two B - I ~ ’ s ,two B-24’~,and two
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