The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 1 (archived PDF)

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
flew two missions a day for this purpose over New Guinea and New
Britain and on occasion to the Solomons and the Netherlands East
Indies. Indeed, reconnaissance flights continued to levy heavily upon
the bombers of all classes available for offensive operations; even the
3d Group’s B-25’s flew better than 1 2 0 reconnaissance sorties in the
month of May, when the presence of the enemy’s fleet in the Coral
Sea created a special demand for this type of service.21 The B-26’s
were based in the Townsville area, and for the mission to Rabaul
each plane was fitted with a 25o-gallon bomb bay tank and took on
a bomb load usually of 4 x 500-lb. bombs or 2 0 x Ioo-lb. bombs
prior to the 6oo-mile flight to Port Moresby. Having arrived there,
preferably about dusk, an advance detachment of the group readied
the planes for the next day’s mission under cover of darkness. They
would take off in the early morning, unless the start was delayed for
the purpose of confusing the enemy’s defense, and normally would
follow a route that took them for forty or fifty miles along the New
Guinea coast, then across the Owen Stanley range at approximately
7,000 feet, and through equatorial weather which frequently proved
as dangerous as enemy fighters. Over Rabaul, the Marauders made
their runs at something under 10,000 feet, after which they turned
for the 1,300-mile flight, broken again at Moresby, to their bases.”
Between 6 April and 24 May, the 22d Group completed sixteen
missions for a total of more than eighty sorties against Rabaul. Hits
were claimed on three transports, two merchant vessels, and one air-
craft carrier in addition to the destruction of at least sixteen aircraft
on the ground and ten in the air. The targets provided by the Lakunai
and Vunakanau airfields and the near-by harbor were vital ones, but
the distances were actually too great for the B-26. The last mission
was flown on 24 May-indeed it would be October 1943 before
Rabaul was attacked again by medium bombers-and the job was
turned over entirely to the heavies. During April, May, and June
the 19th Group itself mounted eighteen missions against Rabaul for
a total of approximately sixty sorties. Though unfavorable weather
and darkness often prevented anything like an accurate assessment
of results, gratifying fires and damage to at least two vessels were
r e p ~ r t e d . ~ ~Bombing missions to Rabaul, as to other points, also
served in a highly important way the ends of reconnaissance.
Through these months there had been few antishipping strikes,
except during the Coral Sea action of May and against vessels lying
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