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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 D E F E N S E O F A U S T R A L I A immediately assembled and put into pera at ion.^ For all practical pur- poses, therefore, the American air forces on Luzon continued to be the remnant of the 24th Pursuit Group, which had survived the enemy’s initial assault-a handful of planes and fifteen pilots, who all too aptly came to be described as the Bataan Field Flying Detach- ment. Brig. Gen. Harold H. George of the interceptor command directed its varied operations, supervised the maintenance of its dwin- dling number of planes, and attended to the training of personnel in the elementary problems existent in the field; and as the planes one by one were shot down or worn out, he selected the air and ground personnel that would be reassigned to infantry units whose rosters already included many representatives of the 27th, 24th, and 19th groups. There were problems of adjustment to unfamiliar assignments as the pilot led his ground crew against some enemy strongpoint or rallied soldiers trained primarily as mechanics to defend a bit of land that for the moment was American, but there was nothing unfamiliar about the odds to be f a ~ e d . ~ T h e missions undertaken by the American pilots from Bataan fields were described by General George as “the hardest and the most dangerous.” T h e primary task was that of reconnaissance, and of occasional patrol of the forward areas. Important, too, was the attempted defense of our own area against enemy attack. N o w and again it proved possible to strafe enemy communications, and on one occasion in February even to mount a mission against Nichols and Nielson fields by seven P-401s, which in addition to strafing dropped fragmentation bombs. Filipino agents later reported loss to the enemy of fourteen planes destroyed on the ground and the killing of many Japanese. Once again, on 2 March, four P-qO’S, equipped with an attachment for a goo-lb. bomb designed by Warrant Officer Jack E. Bay, were led by Capt. William E. Dyess, Jr., in an attack on ship- ping in Subic Bay. Although one P-40 was shot down and the remain- ing three crashed on landing, apparently two transports had been sunk and other small boats damaged.6 As the Japanese blockade tightened, even P-40’s were pressed into service as transport planes. In addition to an occasional mission for the transportation of medical supplies from Mindanao to Bataan, they dropped supplies to isolated units on the ground and sometimes carried passengers crowded into the bag- gage compartment. As malnutrition, dysentery, and malaria wore down the American soldiers, a few aircraft that were useless for com- 405
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