FP-1942Mar.doc

March 1942 Evacuation of Java and Philippines Overview

The Japanese had caused serious damage at Darwin, so planes evacuated to Broome – then Broome came under attack and considerable damage done. A sister ship to the Abbekerk, carrying Dutch refuges was sunk – the Abbekerk unloaded it’s passengers without incident at Freemantle. It was necessary for those personnel to ride across Australia by train – each half of the transcontinental route used a different gage rail, making it necessary to transfer.

March Chronology of Events

03-02-42 last flight from Java

03-02-42 Henry Godman made the first attempt to rescue MacArthur but missed Del Monte and crashed in the near by sea, killing two crew members. Godman later became MacArthur’s pilot.

03-03-42 Enemy raid on Broome

03-12-42 Skiles started an attempt but crash landed in Australia – in the process Skile’s eye was scratched and he never piloted a plane again.

03-13-42 Harl Pease, later awarded the Medal of Honor, made the next attempt – MacArthur had not arrived so stranded airmen were carried out.

03-13-42Reorganization of the 19th BG in Australia announced.

03-16-42 Lewis and Bostrom, in B17E’s from Townsville, using 19^th BG co-pilots as Ed Teats, who knew Del Monte field, went next and brought the MacArthur party out.

03-26-42Spieth-Fields bring out Queson president of PI.

Extracted from 5^th Bomber Command Journal

Java to Broome Australia -- Japanese Attack Broome

March 1 1942: B-17E No. 41-2483 which had been shot up beyond repair was destroyed when the Dutch destroyed the field at Madioen. It had been salvaged.

At 0900 two B-17Es of the 9th Sqd. 7th Group took off from Madioen to attack enemy ships off the North Coast of Java. One plane, Lt Casper pilot, turned back because of engine trouble. Lt McPherson in No, 2417 attached from 30,000 ft with (8) 300 kg bombs in train. He scored a direct hit on one transport and a waterline hit on another. No EA or AA. Small boats were seen around the transports and after the bombs hit warships were seen steaming toward the transports. Landed Madioen at 1440.

Lt. Mathewson in No 2507 took off from Jogja at 1450 when air raid alarm sounded He proceeded to Bali where he sighted two destroyers and six transports. At 1750 he bombed a transport and destroyers from 25,000 ft (four bombs each). He bracketed the transports, which began to smoke and was 150 ft left on the destroyer. Two EA gave chase. One gave up almost immediately and the other left after 50 miles when the tail and side gunners shot at him. No AA. Bomb craters were noted on the airport at Bali. Landed at Jogja at 2000.

Four B-24As and one LB-30 arrived from Broome to ferry personnel.

On the night of Feb. 28 - March 1, one B-17 E and one LB-30 took off from Jogja and five B-17Es took off from Madioen to bomb enemy ships just off the North coast of Java. Each plane went individually. Lt. Bevan in B-17E No. 41-2489 attached at 0230 from 7,000 ft and scored a direct hit on one transport and possible on another. No EA Sight AA. Lt. Barr in B-17E No. 41-2461 attacked at 0245 from 10,000 ft and at 0300 from 13,000 ft. His rear gunners reported two fires which were not observed before the runs. No EA. Heavy AA. Capt. Smeltzer in B-17E No. 41-2449 bombed from 15,000 ft at 0300 and results were uncertain. No EA but intense AA. Lt. Beck in B-17E No. 41-2417 attacked from 8,000 ft at 0335 from 16,000 ft at 0400 and from 18,000 at 0415. Results unknown. No. E.A. but intense A.A. Lt. Vandevanter in B-17E No. 41-2507 attacked at 0400 from 4,000 ft'. Results unknown. No. EA but heavy AA.. Lt. Hughey in LB-30 No. AL-515 brought his bombs back because he couldn't locate the target. Capt. Hardison in a B-17E attacked at 0600 and sank one transport. All planes were carrying (8) 300 kg bombs each. Anti-aircraft fire was generally heavy in the vicinity of the target.

Four B-24A's, one B-17E and one LB-30 took off from Jogja and two B-17Es took off from Madioen for Broome, Australia. They were non-tactical airplanes and carried personnel.

March 2, 1942: Hdqs. 5th Bomber Command moved to Melbourne.

March 3, 1942: In an enemy raid on Broome, Australia today B-17Es No. 41-2449, and 41-2454 were destroyed as well as three B-24As. There were injuries and casualties but at the present full circumstances are not available. Full details will be posted as they become known.

March 4, 1942: These days were spent ferrying personnel of the 5th Bomber Command from Broome to Perth and Melborne.

Extracted from Turn of the Tide by Ed Teats (continued from Java)

Our total air force in Java at the time of the evacuation in late February and early March included the 7th and 19th Bombardment Groups, one squadron of A-24 dive-bomber and, so far as we knew, one squadron of P-40 pursuits.

It is only courtesy to call the two bomber forces “groups.” They were hardly better than provisional squadrons, with few planes; few maintenance personnel and only enough combat. personnel to crew the planes we had.

The gang of P-40 pilots did a wonderful job. They were north of us, in the vicinity of Surabaya, and the Japs couldn't locate the field they operated from until the very last. Even we, knowing where it was; could not detect it from the air.

Maj Charles Sprague, who commanded the pursuit squadron, and Colonel “Buzz" Wagner tossed a coin in Australia to see who would take the P-40s into Java. Sprague won. He is reported missing in action. Buzz stayed in Australia to train new pursuit pilots, and only a few weeks ago (Dec 1942), he was killed on a routine flight in Florida.

My recollection is that Sprague brought his bunch of wildcats into Java in the latter part of January and what a hard-hitting, hard shooting bunch they were! They fought the Japs from water-level to the ceiling; they flew their planes until they literally were shot to pieces around them -- and thumbed their noses at the odds.

At the very last, those boys were strafing landing barges and transports off the coast in the area between Pekalongan and Semarang, where the main Nip invasion force hit in its successful effort, as it turned out very soon, to split the island. The Japs had established a firm beachhead and while advance elements were striking east, and west along the coastal roads, heavy anti-aircraft batteries were employed to protect the main landing operation.

The situation in Java was identical with that which had existed in the Philippines save for geography, so far as we were concerned.

There weren't enough pursuit ships to supply fighter protection for us, so they were used for reconnaissance and interception and, at the last, were thrown in against the Jap landings. They were fighting overwhelming enemy superiority in the air and they were fighting with ships of steadily deteriorating efficiency, due to non-existence of effective maintenance.

The caliber of our pilots is the best indicated by the fact that knowing they faced hopeless odds, knowing that all they could win was a few precious hours of delay, they slashed at the Nip landing operation on the north shore at low altitude in the face of violent anti-aircraft. It has futile, it was suicidal -- but it was magnificent.

One boy -- I can't recall his name -- was shot down a couple of times. On his last trip he was shot down right over the beachhead and landed by parachute just out side the Jap lines. He wriggled out of his ‘chute harness and sprinted across the fields for the highway. Fortunately for him; a native boy was pedaling along the road on his bicycle... but not for long. The pilot dismounted him sort of unceremoniously, jumped on the bicycle and with the Japs in close and hot pursuit,. poured on the coal. Either he was ones on of the fastest bicycle peddlers in the Dutch East Indies or the Japs were lousy shots. He got away without a scratch.

He was one of the group of 20 extra passenger-evacuees we had not counted on but whom we hauled aboard on the last evacuation flight out of Djodjakarta on the night of March 1.

Of the 18 passengers we had aboard our ship, nine were fighter pilots. They had been shot down all over the island and some of them had been beating their way through the brush trying to reach Djodjakarta for hours and even days.

We didn't have enough parachutes for them... we didn't have enough life-vests... we didn't have enough rafts... but they didn’t care, they were hell-bent on getting out of Java, but only in order to re-form, re-equip and go back after the Nips.

The dive-bomber pilots had their big show in the mass air and sea attack on the Jap invasion force off Bali a few days before we began our evacuations. They flew their equipment until it was worn out. One pilot told us that the engines on those A-24s had so little compression that you could turn the prop of a cold motor with one hand. There were no replacements. (Teats continued)

Extracted from Evacuation to Australia by M. Johnson

There were several B-17 airplanes and combat crews plus several maintenance personnel that were left in Java to fly as many combat missions as they could before evacuation to Australia. I was one of the maintenance crew.

We fueled and serviced, removed and replaced, bomb bay tanks and bombs. We replaced one horizontal stabilizer that had been crushed while hiding the airplane in the woods, and removed a stabilizer from a wrecked plane. Planes and crews were in the process of learning and things were getting touchy. there were several shot up and bombed out B-17's on this airport, I don't remember the name, but it could have been near Madium.

In one of the hangers there was a table set up with a can of corn beef with hard tack on it. If you got hungry that is what you would eat. There was one meal that was set up in one hotel and I would estimate a couple hundred American personnel were in attendance and we called it a last supper. I personally knew about a dozen of the people and we were friends.

The bombers were doing some night raids and then keeping out of sight during the day. There were a squadron of World War I, open cockpit, two winged, two and three place, airplanes that landed and I think the English flew them from Malaya or Sumatra. I believe there were around fifteen or more of the planes. They left the next day to attack a Jap aircraft carrier, (hear say) and only one plane came back. I never saw any of the planes again. There also was a P-40 fighter that landed at the base. It was supposed to have come from the north. Any way I was asked to take a Dutch pilot and show him how to start the engine and answer any questions about the plane. He could talk some English, so we started the engine and I explained or answered his few questions. He was very pleased with the plane and said he would fly it in combat as long as he had fuel and ammunition and was alive. He took off and that was the last I saw of him. The Dutch had some old B-10B's 2 engine bombers and their fighters were Curtis Trainers.

A friend of mine, a radio operator on a combat crew, left for Australia and he had an Army Garand rifle he gave to me without a clip. He told me where he had hid the clip in the hanger so I could find it. I never could understand why he kept the rifle and the clip separate from each other, and I never was able to find the clip. While I was looking for it an officer came up to me and asked about the gun. I told him that I had a gun and no ammunition or clip. He said that he had a .45 and he could get ammunition for the rifle because we may have to go to the mountains and fight a guerrilla war along with the Dutch. I could have shot the rifle as a single shot with .30 caliber machine gun ammunition. I never saw the officer again. He must have boarded a plane that night.

The Dutch were applying scorched earth on anything that the Japs could use. They mined the airport runways and blew up the electric power plants so we had to use barrel hand pumps to fuel the bombers. The officers decided that it was time to get out, so we fueled up everything that would fly.

There was one B-17 that no one was working on and I found out that the hydraulic systems were not working and that about half a dozen spark plug adapters to the leads were missing. If we had them the engines would run and the plane could fly at low attitudes with no super chargers or brakes. In a bombed out hanger, on the other side of the air field, was a B-17 that was beyond repair and it had engines on it with spark plug leads. I told the others that I would get some tools and go over and get what we needed from the wrecked plane, but I needed something to stand on to reach the engines. We had a flat bed truck that was used to haul fifty five gallon fuel barrels The driver wouldn't take me over there and the hanger was about a mile away. I finally talked him into letting me drive the truck over there but no one wanted to go with me. I got my tools and a couple of flash lights and headed over to the hanger. I pulled the truck under an engine of the plane, so I could stand on the cab of the truck to get the parts that I needed. It took only a few minutes to retrieve the parts with a wrench, pliers, and a pair of side cutters. I jumped into that right handed Ford, and sped out of the hanger in a hurry.

We went to work on the B-17 that needed the leads. All the engines started up and ran okay. We serviced it with gas and oil, and removed all the extra weight (ammunition, guns, and tools). I can't remember how many people were going to fly on the plane, but the numbers that come to mind are eighteen to twenty two.

There was another B-17 that was leaving at the same time and it was loaded about the same. I can't remember the identification numbers of the planes, the officers, or the pilots names. there was a Captain McPhearson but I don't recall the plane that he flew when he left Java. I was in the same group when we got to Australia and flew two times with McPherson. One from Melburn to Long Reach to help set up a new base and again to Port Moresby New Guina.

03-03-42: My recollection of leaving Java was about one thirty in the morning on March 3, 1942. There was a lot of moon light with some patches of clouds. We taxied out to the runway and I stayed out of the airplane while the engines were run up for mag and RPM tests. I then pulled the wheel chocks and discarded them. The plane was moving and I ran to the rear access door while two of my friends helped me get inside.

About two or three hours before take off, the Dutch blew up with explosives, the bombed out hanger that I had been in for the spark plug leads. Any way, we circled to get altitude and the Dutch blew up the run ways. As we were circling and climbing, the plane hit an air pocket and we dropped five hundred feet. We climbed up and dropped down at least two more times. There was some injuries but none of them were life threatening. We flew to Broome Australia and landed okay. It was day light and everyone was tired, hungry, and dirty. There was a cooking place set up and we ate breakfast. The people in charge had taken over some vacant houses in town and they assigned several of us to what they called "Japs house". They told us the Japanese had left and moved out before the war. They also gave us a mosquito net and a blanket. We went to the house for some rest and sleep.

The next morning we went back to the airport and checked the plane out. There were about ten people there. They'd found that on the right side of the plane at the junction of the radio compartment and the rear section was a row of rivets with the heads snapped off. We figured that the B-17 almost broke in two, when we had rough air turbulence, as we were taking off at Java.

We heard airplanes and guns firing. There were Jap Zeros making firing runs on Broome Port Harbor where there were several Dutch Flying Boats that had evacuated from Java and were being loaded to fly further south. Several women and children were wounded and killed as airplanes were burning and sinking into the harbor. All together a total of twenty two planes were destroyed.

When we heard and then saw the planes we all ran for the holes and trenches that had already been dug before we arrived. When the Japs were done with the harbor they hit the airport and shot up and set fire to all the planes plus one LB or B-24 that was shot down over the harbor. The harbor patrol went out looking for survivors and they didn't find any.

Around forty eight hours later one American sergeant from a plane made it to shore, and some people living along the coast brought him into Broome. He was sun burnt and had large blisters on his face and lips. Broom Australia has one of the three highest tides in the world. He said that when he was about to reach shore the tide would switch and drag him back out to sea.

After the Japs left, the ranking officer called a meeting of all personnel and said there was a possible chance of an invasion, and we would have to get out the best way we could. We had no guns, no transportation, and could not reach anyone by radio. The ranking officer asked for volunteers to go to the coast to watch for an invasion force. If the enemy was spotted they were to fire shots to warn us.

John W. Kunket, Robert H. Stewart, and I were to stand by the church and ring the bell for five minutes, then run to China town to catch some trucks that were on stand-by to take us to the interior to cross the desert after the raid. The town people all left, but a few old timers stayed. One man that stayed was the owner of a grocery store. He had a slit trench, and a rifle, he said he would kill as many Japs as he could before they killed him. He gave us some caned food and meats. We ate real good there. The police department issued a .45 cal. six shooter to each of the 3 of us at the church. We never had to use them, and they were returned before we left Australia.

A GI operating the telephone switch board was getting fatigued after a couple of days, and I was looking for someone to relieve him for a few hours so he could get some rest. I volunteered because I had some experience with a switch board growing up in rural Kansas.

Around the third day the powers that be in Perth Australia sent a plane to Broome to observe what was happening there. I don't recall any more planes coming in from Java while I was in Broome. There was one more exciting event while we were in Broom. A B-24 or a LB-30, I couldn't tell them apart, came in one evening and loaded up a bunch of GI's to go to Perth. I would guess about twenty-five personnel were on board when the pilot took off down the runway. One of two things could have happened, the left landing wheel tire blew out, or the nose wheel collapsed causing the plane to crash on take off with the nose in the sand, and the tail end up. Everything was pitch black, and someone yelled fire. The right outboard engine caught fire, the pilot set off the extinguisher, and turned off all the electrical switches. In the darkness everyone was rushing to get out of the plane. I was in a bomb bay luggage rack. The walk way between the radio compartment was crowded with fifteen to eighteen men sitting at the front of the plane where they had been placed for take off. The only way out was through the back, and when we reached the door it seemed like a ten foot drop to the ground. We all got out, and the plane did not burn. I think we finally made it to Perth the next day.  (end Johnson)

Extracted from The Broome Attack by M. W. Prime

During the first part of 1942, the Japanese staged a daring long range attack against the small Australian town of Broome – inflicting heavy losses on the many Allied aircraft that had gathered there.  Military and Civilian personnel escaping from Java were arriving at Broome, the nearest point on Australia's north coast

The United States had its Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Australia's Pearl Harbor was to occur jus three months later – at Broome on Australia's remote northwest coast, The similarities between the two attacks a remarkable: Both were surprise raids carried out by Japanese Navy aircraft, both resulted in minimal losses to the attacking force, both inflicted heavy casualties in life and Allied aircraft losses. By further coincidence, pearling was the main industry in Broome, which was situated on the shores of Roebuck Bay – a southern hemisphere “pearl harbor"

Early 1942 was a dark period for the Allied forces, as Japanese troops were advancing on all fronts in the Asian-Pacific theater of war. Toward the end of February, the Allied High Command considered that a Japanese attack on Java could be expected within a week to ten days. As a consequence all Allied personnel and their families were to be evacuated from the island to the relative safety of Australia,

An aerial shuttle service then commenced between Tjilatjap in Java, and Broome in Western Australia, a distance of 900 km across the Timor Sea, using a fleet of whatever aircraft that could be commandeered and made to fly. In the last two weeks of February some 8000 refugees passed through Broome – from the then-Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) – and on some days up to 57 aircraft passed through the town before heading south to Perth or across Australia to Sydney.

All seemed to be proceeding well with the evacuation until about 3 pm on 2 March 1942, when a large Japanese Navy reconnaissance flying boat was sighted circling over Broome at a height of some 12,000 feet. After completing its leisurely observation of the town, the machine headed out to sea, to return to its base.

The appearance of this aircraft alarmed the military personnel in Broome who saw it as a prelude to an almost certain and imminent attack on the town. These fears were heightened, when it was reported that at about 4 am on the morning of 3 March another Japanese flying boat made several low passes over Broome and it was alleged that someone on the jetty flashed signals to it with a torch.

These reconnaissance flights and other intelligence confirmed the existence of a large concentration of Allied military aircraft (both land-based and flying boats) at Broome. As a result, Commander Takeo ,Japanese 3rd Naval Air determined that an attack should be mounted on these tempting targets - without delay.

By coincidence, Shibata had been the Navy's chief test pilot in the mid-1930s, and had been instrumental in developing the special long-range flight tactics employed by the Zero fighter. These tactics would be put into practice on the long flight to Broome.

At 1:05 am on Tuesday 3 March 1942, nine Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero fighters, and a C5M2 Babs reconnaissance aircraft, under the overall command of Lt. Zenziro Miyano, took off from Koepang en route to Broome.

The day was warm and sunny in Broome and Roebuck Bay was a hive of activity as flying boat skippers completed their paperwork, or arranged for the refueling of their machines. The warmth of the tropical sun, and the distance from the war zone, lulled many of, the refugees and crews into believing they were safe in this friendly Australian port. This was to be an illusion that would shortly be shattered.

Miyano's Zeros, arrived overhead of Broome at 9:30 am local time, and immediately jettisoned their long-range belly tanks. Three of the Zeros were detailed to attack the bombers and transports of the town's airstrip, another three were to deal with the flying boats in Roebuck Bay, while the remaining three fighters were required to provide "top cover" against any possible Allied fighters. As it was their were no Allied fighters within hundreds of miles of Broome that day and the "top cover" Zeros soon joined their companions on their strafing runs against the Allied aircraft, leaving the Babs to direct operations from a safe altitude.

Two Allied machines did manage to get airborne. A USAAF Liberator (actually an LB-30, the earlier version of the B-24), of the 435th Bombardment Squadron, under the command of Lt. Edson Kester scrambled into the air. The four-engined bomber was attached to Ferry Command, and was only one of three in the whole Southwest Pacific area – another was on the Broome airstrip, and the third was in Melbourne. The plane had 30 passengers, and a crew of three. The passengers included seven enlisted men from the 17th Pursuit Squadron, with the remainder being wounded US servicemen and their surgeon, Capt. Charles Stafford.

The Liberator was climbing through 600 feet, when three Zeros pounced – it was a sitting duck. Despite Kester's valiant attempts to evade the relentless attack, the bomber could not match the maneuverability of the agile fighters and, not having self-sealing fuel tanks, it was soon ablaze and crashed into the Indian Ocean, seven miles offshore. The impact broke the bomber in two, and Sgts. William Beatty and Melvin Donoho were thrown clear. Others tried to get clear, but were sucked down with the Sinking aircraft. Beatty and Donoho finally managed to reach the shore, having been swept around in the strong currents, and spending 33 hours in the water. Beatty died from exhaustion soon after reaching land, but Donoho survived the ordeal.

The other machine to get airborne was a Curtiss SOC Seagull, flown by Lt. John D. Lamade USN, and his observer Tubbs. Lamade had certainly had an adventurous few days prior to this latest escape. While the cruiser USS Houston was steaming past the island of Lombok, in the Dutch East Indies, he was catapulted off the ship with orders to head for Broome. He was to have rejoined the ship about a week later, but it was to be bombed and sunk in the Sunda Straits by Japanese aircraft soon after he took off.

With little more than a school atlas to guide him (the West Australian coastline was poorly mapped in those days), Lamade struck the coast north of Broome, and then headed south. The gas gauge on his SOC was hovering near empty when he spotted the town after his 6-3/4-hour flight. In fact, the engine spluttered and died on approach as fuel ran out and he had to make a dead stick landing in the Bay.

As the Zeros swept in over Roebuck Bay, he had been preparing to depart for Port Hedland, 400 miles to the south. In the confusion, Lamade got his scout plane into the air and, with so many larger and more tempting targets to attack, the Zeros paid him scant attention - the Seagull was the only Allied plane to escape destruction on this day!

Other Allied planes and personnel were not so lucky. The Zeros continued their devastating strafing runs against the planes on the strip, and the flying boats in the Bay. Within minutes all 15 Allied flying boats Dutch, American, British and Australian were either ablaze or sinking. The carnage was horrific, due to the large numbers of women and children – mainly Dutch refugees - crammed into the aircraft. Most of them had spent the previous night on the machines, due to the limited amount of accommodation available in the town.

Lt. Cdr. H. M. Juta, a navigator on one of the Dutch Catalinas, gave a vivid first hand account of the first few minutes of the raid. He, his wife, and a young boy had been sitting on the wing of the aircraft getting ,some fresh air, and escaping from the crowded quarters in the aircraft where many of the refugees were housed.

"I saw several fighter planes in the distance, and guessed these were Royal Australian Air Force machines," he said. "I was soon proved wrong when they started strafing the flying boats in the harbor. All hell broke loose" As the Japanese fighters headed for his Catalina, Juta pushed his wife and the boy off the wing into the water, yelling to them to swim for their lives. He then jumped in after them, diving under the surface as the enemy fighters made their attacks.

Several more of the crew and refugees jumped from the Catalina, but before long the aircraft was a burning and sinking hulk, with petrol pouring from its ruptured fuel tanks, setting the sea alight and adding to the horrific scene. Juta, his wife and the small boy tried to swim toward the shore, but found it extremely difficult to battle against the outgoing tide. By a stroke of luck, when they were almost on the point of total exhaustion, all three were pulled from the sea by an American serviceman who had commandeered a small motor boat and was scouring the harbor looking for survivors.

Dutch Donier X-1 escaped the enemy only to be destroyed when they reached safely

The elegant Dutch Dornier Do24 flying boat, serial X-1, was destroyed at Broome along with 14 other multi engined flying boats.

There were to be many other acts of heroism that day. All through the night Capt. Harold Mathieson and his crew of the vessel Nicol Bay had toiled to refuel the many 'flying boats’ in Roebuck Bay, As the raid began he had been refueling the Qantas "Empire-Class" flying boat G-AEUC whose captain was ashore attending to last minute arrangements. Mathieson immediately cast off from the big four engine machine, and with 180 full 50 gallon drums of petrol still sitting on the deck of his boat, set off rescuing survivors from the water. By good fortune, his vessel was not hit and he was instrumental in saving a good many aircrew and refugees.

Capt. Lester Brain of Qantas was ashore attending to paperwork when he heard the gunfire. He rushed down to the beach, grabbed a small rowboat, and headed out to the scene of carnage in Roebuck Bay. About a mile from shore he came across two Dutch aviators supporting a woman refugee. All were thoroughly exhausted, but Brain hauled them aboard the small boat and rowed them to shore, He was to repeat this exercise many times over the course of the next few hours.

Despite all of the rescues, the death toll was still quite high. It is estimated that more than 70 aircrew and refugees perished in the flying boats – the true number will never be known due to the chaotic scenes of departure from Java, no proper passenger manifests had been completed, and many of the victims either went down with the flying boats, were swept out to sea, or were taken by sharks.

The US Navy's Patrol Wing 10 was also decimated as a result of the raid, having two of their last five Catalinas destroyed in Roebuck Bay. The two Catalinas had limped into Broome after a 10 ½ hour flight from Java, each crammed with 30 refugees. One of the Wing's Catalinas that passed through Broome only days before – and thus, escaped destruction – was flown by Lt. Thomas H. Moorer, later to become Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, between 1970 and 1974!

Meanwhile other Zeros had been strafing the Allied bombers and transports on the Broome airstrip and, before long these were burning furiously. By coincidence a Dutch pilot, Flt. Lt. "Wild Bill" Winckel, had taken a machine gun from his Lockheed Lodestar and was servicing it when the Japanese fighters swept down. He grabbed the heavy gun and, firing it "Rambo"-style from the hip, fired several bursts at the lowflying Zeros. One burst hit the aircraft of Osamu Kudo, and his Zero crashed into the sea. Kudo was to be the only Japanese casualty of the raid.

Meanwhile, the Zeros made short work of the machines on the airstrip. Before long two USAAF Boeing B-17s were ablaze, and the remaining Liberator was also destroyed. Two Dutch machines and an Australian Lockheed Hudson were also destroyed.

Within an hour, the eight remaining Zeros were low on fuel, and had almost exhausted their ammunition and so, with the Babs mother plane, left Broome for their long flight back to their base on Timor.

It is interesting to note that the Australian Prime Minister made the following statement the day after the raid: "The rumors to the effect that loss of life in the Broome raid yesterday, was very heavy, is utterly untrue. It is not in the national interest to make any statement giving details of casualties in any particular place, as this would give valuable information to the enemy. I can assure the Australian public however, that while some losses have been incurred – whether they be of life or property – the raid was not of a kind to give that satisfaction to the enemy which he expected"

One would think the loss of 22 multi-engined Allied aircraft, for the loss of just one of their single-engined fighters, would have given the Imperial Japanese Navy a great deal of satisfaction!

The raid of 3 March 1942, was indeed Australia's Pearl Harbor. (end Prime)

ALLIED AIRCRAFT LOST IN THE BROOME RAID

United States Army Air Force

Boeing B-17E Flying Fortress 41-2448 Boeing B-17E Flying Fortress 41-2454 Convair B-24 Liberator 40-2374 (435th Bombardment Squadron) Convair B-24 Liberator (435th Bombardment Squadron)

United States Navy

Convair PBY Catalina (Patrol Wing 10) Convair PBY Catalina (Patrol Wing 10)

Royal Australian Air Force

Lockheed Hudson A16-119 Short Empire-Class Flying Boat A18-10 (on lease from Qantas)

Qantas Airways

Short Empire-Class Flying Boat G-AEUC

KNILM Royal Dutch East Indies Airlines

Douglas DC.3 PK-ALO

Royal Air Force

Convair PBY Catalina (205 Squadron) Convair PBY Catalina (205 Squadron)

Royal Netherlands East Indies Air Force

Lockheed Lodestar LT.9-18

Royal Netherlands Naval Air Force

Dornier Do.24 X,l Dornier Do.24 X.3 Dornier Do.24 X.20 Dornier Do.24 X.23 Dornier Do.24 X.28 Convair PBY Catalina Y59 Convair PBY ('atalina Y.60 Convair PBY Catalina Y.67 Convair PBY, Catalina Y70

USAAF PERSONNEL KNOWN TO BE IN BROOME DURING THE RAID

Col E. S. Perrin *1 Lt Harl Pease *2 Lt Danny Fagan Lt. John A. Rouse Lt Carey L. O'Bryan Jr.Lt. J.W. Norvell Lt. Col. Richard A. Legg *3 Yerington Capt Davis Capt Charles A, Stafford (surgeon) Sgt Melvin O. Donoho Lt. Fdson E. Kester *4 Lt William E. Ragsdale *5

Knudsen Lt John Lamade *6 (USN) Tubbs (USN) Lt. John C. Minahan Lt Clyde Basie

Sgt. Britt Charles Reeves Lt. Frank Kurtz

*1 Col Perin was from General Britts staff in Java, and arrived the day before. *2 Lt Pease was later awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor, an Air Force Base in New Hampshire is named in his honor.

*3 Col Legg was the Commander of the US detachment in Broome. *4 Lt Kester was the pilot of the Liberator which was shot down. *5 Kester's co-pilot. *6 Lamade was the pilot of the only aircraft to escape destruction in the raid.

Extracted from McAuliff's Story by H. McAuliff (continued from Java)

We landed at Broome on the west coast of Australia in the morning. The Japanese had worked the place over, causing a lot of damage. A row of PBYs anchored near the shore had been strafed and sunk, the hangar had been hit, and there was debris scattered about the field. There was also a large mob of people milling around trying to get sorted out under confusing and conflicting directions.

A B-24 taxied in from the runway and we went over to see what that was all about. It turned out to be Ben Funk whom I had known at March Field, who was the pilot. He loaded as many as he could on the airplane - including a very pregnant Dutch woman - and we headed for Perth, 1000 miles to the south. I never dreamed that a B-24 could be so crammed full of people, and, to a man, we were all praying that the Dutch woman could hold out until we reached Perth.

This was the end of our air travel (the Dutch lady made it, thank God), and we were put on a troop train headed east across the Great Australian Desert for Melbourne. The Australian troops seemed young and noisy, very friendly, and curious about us. The cars were old wooden antiques from a by-gone age and as it was extremely hot, all the windows were open and flies, dust, and smoke from the steam locomotive came inside.

The trip took four days and we slept sitting up -- when we could. I don't recall eating anything other than sandwiches provided by some volunteer ladies when the train stopped briefly at small little settlements along the way. Doug Keller and I had invested in a couple bottles of Scotch before leaving Perth and we kept a poker game going to ward off the boredom of the trip.

As we passed through Western Australia and reached the border of South Australia, we had to get off the train and board another, as the rail gauges were of a different size. This happened each time we passed from one territory into another. We eventually reached Melbourne, a large modem city that was cold and gloomy at that time of year (late fall in Australia). The first order of the day was to find a hotel room and get into a shower. We located a supply outfit of sorts and were able to get some badly needed fresh clothing. (McAuliff continued)

Extracted from Radio Operators Story by  T. Adamczyk (continued from Java)

03-__-42: Four days after leaving the port of Tjilatjap, the Abbekerk reached the port of Freemantle, on the southwestern coast of Australia. On disembarking late that evening we Americans boarded a troop train and were transported to an Australian army camp about 70 miles north of Perth (ref Fig 3) near the little town of Northam. I can still recall arriving at the camp at about three in the morning and having a late dinner, or early breakfast, whichever way one looks at it, in the camp mess-hall. We had scrambled eggs and mutton sausage; in fact, during my six week or so stay at Northam I believe we had mutton in one form or another at least twice a days- that is why I still abhor it today.

The following day after our arrival at the Aussie camp we were called into formation. I was still wearing the flying boots I had picked up on the Abbekerk; although I could hobble on it, my knee was still stiff, so that when the formation was given the order to march, I Could not keep up with it. So instead of boarding the train and heading for Melbourne with the rest of the troops I was sent to the Royal Australian Field Hospital on the outskirts of Northam. Here an X-ray revealed that the spine of the tibia bone in my knee had been fractured. Since my knee-joint had healed in a slightly bent position, the knee had to be straightened under an anesthesia of sodium pentothol, and my leg was placed in a cast from ankle to hip.

My approximate six-week stay at the Aussie field hospital was quite pleasant indeed. Northam was a quiet little town in the rolling, sheep-grazing hills of Western Australia. April and May were the fall months of the year down under, quite pleasant - the country-side was much like that around home in western Pennsylvania. Three other Yanks and I were the only Americans at the hospital - we were quite a novelty, and we found the Aussies to be the nicest, friendliest of people - we got along famously once we got on to their accent. (Adamczyk continued)

Extracted from 5th Bomber Command Journal

Gen MacArthur, Family & Staff from Philippines to Australia

March 6, 1942: Two reconnaissance patrols were flown today. Capt Godman covered the area from Laverton to 44 deg S, 143 deg E to Southeast Cape, (Tashmania) to Cape Grim (Tashmania) to Laverton in B-17D No 40-2079. Report Negative. Lt Hillhouse in B-17E No 41-2481 covered the area from Leverton to 43 deg S 151 deg E to Cape Pillar (Tashmania) to Swan Island to Laverton. Report Negative.

March 7, 1942

Captain Smith in No 3097 took off to accompany pursuit planes. Re-organization and maintenance of airplanes. Capt Young in 2464 took off for Townsville ferrying personnel.

March 8, 1942: Re-organization and maintenance of airplanes.

March 9, 1942: Capt Adams in No 2481 took off from Laverton to fly in ant-submarine Patrol for an outgoing convoy. After searching for three hours he was unable to locate the convoy. He landed at Mallacoota, serviced and returned to Laverton.

March 10, 1942: Maintenance

March 11, 1942: Between 0740 and 1015 the following planes and pilots took off for Daly Waters on a special mission to the North: B-17Es No 2507 Godman, No 2486 Adams, No 2453 Pease, No 2452 Casper.

 Extracted from "Supreme Commander" by H. Godman

Being in Australia, away from the war and with many long hours, most of us just sat around the bars drinking beer. Australia had strange bar hours, and during one uneventful day, I was sitting in a hotel waiting for the bar to open, when a military policeman approached me.

He said, "Captain Godman, you're to report immediately to the field (in Melbourne). Round up your crew; they're to report with you“.

That was all the instructions that I had been given. It wasn't long until they had found enough of us to crew four beat-up B-17's. I really don't know whether I was picked by choice or was just one of the first captains that they saw. We were told to fly immediately to Darwin, Australia, as soon as the airplanes were made ready. The planes were really in terrible shape. However, the four planes were ready and would take off the following morning. The trip was to take us across the entire continent of Australia to Darwin.

Two of the planes that took off with me, I later found out, were forced to land in the middle of the Australian desert because of engine failure. And one plane was not able to take off at all from Darwin, so I found myself leaving Darwin with a single B-17. I was ordered now to fly to Del Monte in the Philippines on the Island of Mindanao. Rather than having bombs in our bomb bay, we had one bomb bay tank of gas. We were not on a bombing mission, we discovered, but on a rescue mission.

We were also carrying mortars, shells, machine guns, and ammunition of all kinds. I didn't know why they were there; it was not my job to reason why-only to deliver them.

We took off with the intention of landing at Del Monte Air Field at eight or nine o'clock that night. It was going to be about an eight or nine hour flight, over 1,500 miles in distance.

My navigator, Lieutenant Carl Epperson, had given me the course to fly. We were going to Del Monte Air Field where we had previously flown missions against the Japanese. We were told the chances were good that we still had control of the air field there. Later, I found out that the munitions we were taking were to be used by anyone that had remained there for guerrilla action. We really had no forces in Del Monte at the time. But the guerrilla forces were a tremendous and honorable and hard fighting group of men who remained in the Philippines all during the war to harass the Japanese.

It was a beautiful day with cumulus clouds, and certainly none of us had any sense of danger or disaster. I've often wondered if a person stepping into an airplane that was destined to crash had any sense of impending disaster. On this particular flight, I certainly didn't, and if any of my men did, they did not make me aware of it.

Looking out across the sky, I suddenly realized that I didn't have the slightest idea what type of weather we would encounter at Del Monte. We climbed up to about 10,000 feet, set our engines for long-range flight, and enjoyed the beautiful skies. Our visibility was about thirty miles.

It was a perfect day also for us to be intercepted by those seemingly ever-present Japanese fighter planes. In my own estimation it seemed that we in a single B-17 were running the gauntlet because the Japanese had captured the islands on the left, and we didn't know where they were on the right. But we soon passed the island of Timor off to our left and then we threaded through the islands of Buru and Ceram, and I would look down on the ocean and wonder if there were any American submarines down there.

I started wondering, too, what would happen if we lost two engines and had to land. I would look at each island, and I was wondering if I could get the plane down on the beach-and if I did get it down, would anybody ever find us, or would we merely get slaughtered by the Japanese. As I think back now, there was a slight apprehension on that day.

It was a boring flight, and my daydreaming continued with little interruption. I wondered what would happen if.... If became such a large word. However, my speculations weren't too unusual, for when we were flying airplanes it was a general rule, especially when over land, that we would always have in mind a place "just in case" where we could put the airplane down. These were private thoughts, and I never shared them with our crew.

We were heavily loaded, and our guns were ready for action. We didn't know if the islands were Japanese occupied or not. We still did not have very many intelligence reports. Every once in awhile we would look at the oil pressure gauges, check everything, and check the fuel flows to see that it was on target. Our estimated time of arrival over in Mindanao looked real good.

There is a point en route called "the point of no return." If something happens before that point, you'd have enough gasoline to turn and go back. It was also important to know you could transfer the gasoline from the bomb bay tank into the main gas tanks. It was now time to transfer the fuel from the bomb bay tank to the main wing tanks. We had to do that because if the fuel transfer pumps were burned out and wouldn't transfer fuel from our bomb bay tank to the wing tanks, we would not have enough to get back to Australia.

I told the crew chief to start the transfer of fuel, and I didn't think any more about it. In about five minutes I looked at the main fuel tank gauges, and it appeared that instead of being filled UP, they were being emptied.

All of a sudden I knew exactly what had happened. A mistake had been made by the man who transferred the fuel. He had flipped the switch the wrong way! As a result, gasoline was being drained from our main tanks that were half empty. The gasoline was being pumped at a very high rate into the already full bomb bay tanks and was overflowing into the airplane!

My nose confirmed the mistake, and I yelled to the crew chief, "Turn that switch the other way!" By rights, we should have blown up right there, and nobody would ever have known what had happened.

The crew chief then opened the door from the cockpit into the bomb bay, and I saw gasoline cascading in niagara proportions out of the overflow, down the sides of the tanks, and into the bomb bay and out into the atmosphere. I knew then that we were really in trouble. It was a simple mistake. In a moment of carelessness, not thinking, he had flipped the switch the wrong way. We were already at the point of no return, and we had to keep going.

The remaining gas was fed into the wing tanks, but we had lost many precious gallons that had gone into the air. We calculated the amount of fuel we had, and then I set up emergency long-range cruise conditions. We lowered the power on the airplane to get maximum range. It was going to be very close.

I turned to Lieutenant Epperson, my navigator, and said, "Recalculate our ground speed against the gasoline remaining to see what we can do. We are past the point of returning to Australia and maybe past the point of getting anywhere into friendly territory.”

After what seemed an eternity in this crisis situation, Epperson said, "It appears, sir, that we have just enough to reach Mindanao if we reduce power and go down to most economical cruise speed so that we can milk the most miles from every gallon of gasoline we have."

Our estimated time en route then jumped from eight or nine hours to ten hours or more. That would put us over the northern shore of Mindanao about 11:30 that night. As the day wore on, we passed many little dots that were islands. I kept reducing power as our weight reduced to maintain a constant air speed as we kept crawling towards the island.

A gnawing feeling of tension built up in me of impending disaster, and my stomach was in knots. Isn't it funny that in a situation like this there was fear; yet, being attacked by fighters, there was no fear of death. The fear comes before the mission, but when you're in the battle, all fear seems to leave.

I really didn't know if we were ever going to make it. I started to descend lower and lower as we approached Mindanao.

It was dark, pitch black. We were going into unknown weather conditions. I had to keep going lower because the clouds kept lowering. Also, I wanted to get as low as possible to avoid any radar detection from Davao on Mindanao where the Japanese had now landed. There was no moon, just an ugly overcast of clouds. The night was just black, black, black.

During the early part of the night, before the sky was overcast, Lieutenant Epperson had taken star shots on three stars and gotten a star fix. After that it was navigation by what we could see. We were familiar with the outlines of Mindanao because we had flown over it before.

Mindanao is quite large, but the outline is very irregular -- one of the characteristics of the Philippine Islands. Lieutenant Epperson was guiding me and keeping track of our position by dead reckoning and referring to the map he had in his hand. He told us we were only sixty or seventy miles from Mindanao. The gas gauges were then showing about thirty gallons per engine. That meant we had about an hour at minimum cruise.

That is when we should have panicked, but there was no panic. You can't afford to panic. You've got to remain calm.

Here we were, sitting with the gas gauges practically bouncing off zero. Lieutenant R. T. Carlisle, my copilot, and I looked at each other without even saying a word. There was no need for dialogue.

That ugly black feeling in my stomach was getting bigger and bigger. We were now over Illigan Bay and were looking for Cagayan Bay just one more bay down so we could fix our position. From that position over Cagayan Bay we could turn inland. I thought about the possibility of shooting off flares over the air base. However, I knew they wouldn't have turned the lights on for me, for no code had been set up, and they didn't expect us.

I then turned to the men and said, "Well, there's only one thing to do, and that's to let down gradually over the ocean. We'll go down to about 200 feet, turn our landing lights on, and reset our altimeter by judging how high we actually are. Then we'll climb back up and proceed towards the secret airfield."

I had made a circle over the bay and was circling back towards shore and then paralleling the shore, perhaps about two or three miles out. It was not a steep bank, and if I had hit the water in a bank, one wing would have hit first and the plane would have cartwheeled and exploded into little pieces.

Just as I leveled the airplane out and started a descent, we hit the water at 170 miles an hour with the altimeter reading 1,200 feet!

The plane hit twice. The first impact wasn't too strong because the propellers hit first. I threw both arms around the control wheel and pulled back as hard as I could. The plane apparently went up in the air a little bit. Then it hit the second time, nose down. That was the impact that killed two of my crew members and injured all the rest of us.

We hit so hard that the parachute on Lieutenant Carlisle broke open. I ended up in the controls-my head bashed up against the wheel. I settled back in my seat and by that time the water was up to my waist inside the plane and Lieutenant Epperson had disappeared. He later told me his story:

I was thrown on impact into the nose of the airplane and knocked unconscious for a moment. My back was severely strained and ribs were broken. I couldn't move.

Then I believe I heard the voice of God. I know God was in that airplane. God spoke to me in an audible voice. I had been thrown down in the nose of the plane. I felt this warm liquid, and I thought it was blood from Godman. I finally realized that it was sea water and that we had crashed. I could hardly move.

Then a voice spoke to me and said, "Turn left; turn to your left and dive down, and you will come up in the cockpit. " I couldn't believe my ears, and then the voice spoke again and said, "Turn to your left and dive down, and you will come up in the cockpit. " I turned left somehow and dove down, and I came up in the cockpit by your side of the window.

Upon impact I thought to myself, "This is a hell of a way to die.... Me, an olympic type swimmer who was number ten in the U.S. in his college days, a man who has been raised in Honolulu and could swim all day long-to be dragged down in a stinking B-17 in the middle of the ocean."

Then, all of a sudden, I realized that I wasn't dead, and I still could move. I tried the sliding window on the pilot's side and it opened. I climbed out on the wing. I had on my "Mae West," a life preserver that's inflated by compressed gas. I pulled the cord out and jumped off the wing into the water.

I didn't see anybody, so I climbed back up on the wing. Just then Lieutenant Epperson stuck his head out of the window and said, "Godman, please help me. Get me out of here."

I dragged him out onto the wing and into the water. We turned around and saw the airplane slowly getting perpendicular, and then slowly the tail disappeared.

As the plane disappeared, we could see six heads bobbing in the water, so all of us got together. One of them was Lieutenant Carlisle. Later he told me that he had had a terrible time. He thought he was being dragged down by the airplane because his feet got tangled in the shroud lines of the parachute. He had gotten half way out, and he couldn't go any further. So he had to crawl back into the airplane under water, untangle himself, and then get out.

We found that Epperson was partially paralyzed. It was so dark we could barely see each other. Epperson raised his hand up and said, "My hand hurts." As he raised it up, I could see a dark substance coming out of his hand. His palm was split open.

Then panic struck me, for I knew the terror of sharks. I yelled to Epperson, "For God's sakes, put that hand in your mouth and suck! Keep the blood out of the water, or we'll be eaten alive! " not realizing that I, too, was cut and bleeding. His back was torn to pieces, and everybody else had cuts. So there was blood all over the place. Being raised in the tropics, I knew that sharks hung out on the reefs and in the waters off shore. They followed the scent of blood and the signs and the vibrations of struggle.

I knew then that the situation was hopeless. We would be tom and eaten by the sharks. For the first time in my life I knew I needed Divine help.

For a moment I leaned my head back and looked toward the sky. It all seemed so strange and eerie, but I knew for the first time in my life I was going to pray to an unknown God for help-yes, to a God I didn't know. As a matter of fact, I wasn't even certain that He existed or could be reached.

"God," I began haltingly, "if You get me out of this mess and if You’ll get me to the shore line and keep the sharks from us, I'll serve You the rest of my life."

I was saying that prayer for everybody. When I finished, I knew we were going to make it and that God, whom I didn't know, somehow would do something.

I realized we were a good distance from the shore, at least a mile. And if we were going to arrive there, it would take effort.

So I encouraged the men that all would be well and that we should begin swimming towards the island. Epperson could not move, so I grabbed him under the arm and began towing him to the shore. All of us were scared to death. We realized that at any moment the sharks could hit and that our stroking, kicking, and bleeding certainly were not helping.

The plane had crashed almost exactly at midnight on March 13, 1942. I'll never forget that date. Not only were we aware that sharks could be about, but we did not know the position of the Japanese. They could have heard our crash and were coming to murder us. After hours of swimming, panic swept over me again as I looked up and saw strange things that looked like masts of ships coming toward us. However, I soon realized these were little fishing traps which the Filipinos made by putting sticks out of the water to form a V, and in the darkness I'd imagined this was a fleet of Japanese boats coming to get us.

We struggled, and some of the men just kept saying they couldn't go on. Yet I encouraged them, and we encouraged each other. Now, all of a sudden, I realized the shore line was only four hundred or so yards away. My heart beat fast, and I was excited, for I knew we were going to make it. I couldn't help but think, "Just perhaps, perhaps," I thought, "there is a God, and He has helped us get ashore."

And then there we were. We dragged ourselves onto the beach and lay there almost motionless. It had taken us four hours to swim such a short distance.

How sad it was, for the moment I hit that beach, all thoughts of God disappeared once again from my life. It was obvious that we all needed medical attention-some far worse than others. We couldn't stay on this beach; we had to do something, I thought.

Just then I heard a jeep or a motor vehicle in the distance. I gathered the men together, and we discussed whether we should alert the jeep to our presence or just let it go by and remain silent and hidden. We all decided that whether it was Japanese or friends, we needed help. So I stood up, unstrapped my .45 revolver, and stepped out ready to shoot when I realized it was Filipinos in that jeep.

They had heard the crash and had come to patrol the beach and look to see if there were any survivors. They picked us up and took us to a Filipino house. There we were, sick almost unto death, and they tried to feed us old rotten fertilized chicken eggs -- baloots, as they call them.

It was then that I realized that two of my men had died in that crash, and I was heartsick. We were all as one, that close, and now they were gone.

When daylight came, we asked the Filipinos if they could take us to the Del Monte Air Field, and they did. Oh, how wonderful it was to see the American flag and the American men and to know that we were among friends.

The camp was, of course, surprised at our presence, and the camp commander, Major Ray Elsmore, came, and I told him that we had come to pick up many of them. I had just minor injuries, so it wasn't long until I was walking about the field renewing old acquaintances. I found many of my friends who had been stranded there because their planes had been shot up, and they had no way out nor anywhere to go.

Most of them were very anxious to leave because if they didn't have airplanes soon, they would be forced into the infantry or be taken prisoner, and nobody wanted that. We were pilots. We were the fly boys, and, after all, we weren't equipped, nor were we trained, as combat infantry. We could shoot a rifle and a pistol, but we didn't have any training as far as digging foxholes, using bayonets, or taking cover or surviving in the battlefield.

We would be lost if we were forced into the infantry. And if we would be honest, I don't believe many of us would have had the stamina, the conditioning, to do that type of fighting, especially the type that we heard that was going on in Bataan.

Some of my old friends with the Nineteenth Bomb Group and the Fourteenth Bomb Squadron which had been commanded by Major "Rosey" O'Donnell were there.

It was being much talked about at that time that General Douglas MacArthur would soon be arriving on the island. It was then that I knew that the four B-17's which had started out from Australia were scheduled to pick up General MacArthur and his staff. The general was expected the next day.

Now, communications frequencies and codes were being established, and that was needed so desperately. Little did I know that I had been sent there to pick up the general. His arrival, of course, was top secret, but I was determined in my heart that I was going to see and talk with him.

Getting him to Mindanao had been quite a task. He left Corregidor in a PT boat, and they traveled by night, taking shelter in the daytime.

Commander John Bulkeley was the commander of the PT boat flotilla. He later became an Admiral. The PT boats could travel fairly fast in the dark and went almost unnoticed. He had quite a mission, all right, because not only did he have General MacArthur and his wife and son, but he also had his complete staff. On more than one occasion they spotted a Japanese destroyer patrolling the area, and they had to shut off their motors and coast into the shadow of an island and come to a standstill, hoping the destroyer would go by without seeing them.

When MacArthur did arrive, I was determined more than ever to speak with him. After all, I had gotten out of the Philippines once before and now I had been sent up again and had crashed in the sea, killing two of my crew members. I felt responsible for their loss and thought I should at least know what the future held for me.

I went to Major Elsmore and to the Chief of Staff, Major General Richard K. Sutherland, and asked if I could speak to General MacArthur. I told General Sutherland about my situation and the crash, and I told him that I wanted to see General Mac Arthur. Believe it or not, it was set up, and he assured me that he would do everything in his power to see that I could talk to MacArthur and that he would put in a good word for me.

When General MacArthur drove into the camp, he was put into a tent and later into the clubhouse. After several hours, I was ushered in to see him. It was an awesome moment for me to stand before the Commanding General.

I calmly said to him, "General, I was sent here to bring you off the island in a B-17, but we didn't make it. I crashed. Four B-17's started from Melbourne. Two landed in the desert of Alice Springs, and I almost got here, but my plane crashed and my crew was injured, and yes, General, two of my men were killed. I believe that we deserve to get out of here with you some way. We don't deserve to stay here, and I would like to go out with you. I'd like to work for you."

He looked at me and paused for a moment with this long corncob pipe held securely in his hand, and he said, "Godman, anybody as lucky as you who can crash at night into the sea at 170 miles an hour and live to tell about it can work for me."

So, when the B-17's arrived a few nights later, I was assigned to go with General MacArthur in his particular airplane. My crew was not scheduled to go out with me. It was all determined by General Sutherland that my copilot would not go out. Lieutenant Epperson was injured and was put in the hospital far away from the base. He wanted to go. Lieutenant Carlisle was also not scheduled to go.

General Sutherland was frightened that he would overload MacArthur's plane. He didn't know anything about B-17's; we could have taken out many, many more people by crowding them. Sure, they would have been a little uncomfortable; some would have had to stand up for ten hours in the bomb bay, but they could have gotten out.

Lieutenant Carlisle, my copilot, wanted to leave so badly. So about fifteen minutes before we were scheduled to take off, I approached Carlisle and said, "Carlisle, when all the doors are shut, you open it up again and crawl back into the tail gunner position."

He looked at me and said, "Godman, you mean that?"

I said, "Yes. You crawl back into that tail gunner position; that's an order." Now this position in the airplane was not supposed to have anyone in it during take off or landing because it was at the extreme end of the airplane and would be a very dangerous place to be in case of any accident. But when the plane was loaded, Carlisle opened the door very slowly and went back into the tail gunner's position.

After I knew he was securely positioned, I went into the cockpit and spoke to my friend, Lieutenant Frank P. Bostrom, and I said very quietly to him, "Dick Carlisle is in the tail gunner's position. He was refused passage, and I told him to hide back there as he was leaving. So just roll your trim cap forward a little bit because the tail might be just a little bit heavy." We took off without any incident in flight and started our journey back to Darwin, Australia.

It was a thrill to be able to sit up that night and talk with General MacArthur about what was going on around the world, especially the war and what his intentions were with the air force and what our position was, our morale position and our equipment, etc., etc. I also talked with his wife, Jean, and their five year-old son.

During the night, it was determined that I would be his liaison officer and aide. No thought was given at that time that I would be his Personal pilot. I would just be a member of his staff. It would be my responsibility to know about our airplane capabilities or at least what remained of them.

It was just a beautiful night. It seemed to me it was the night of destinies. The Philippines fell behind us into a beautiful, beautiful night. My heart fluttered inside of me, and I was so thankful and happy that I was returning to Australia alive. In the midst of all this happiness, I had no idea what was in store for me in the months that were ahead.

THE GENERAL'S PLANES

We landed the next morning about ten o'clock at Bachelor Field in Australia. The field had very few, if any, facilities and was surrounded by Australian eucalyptus-type trees, and it was hot! Unless you've been to that part of Australia, you don't know how hot it gets and how the flies stick to you.

After we had all gotten off the airplane, Lieutenant Carlisle disembarked. General Sutherland looked at him and said, "Carlisle, I thought I told you to stay in the Philippines. Why are you here?"

"General, sir," he replied, "I crawled on board, sir, and was in the rear tail gunner's position. I'm here, sir, and I'm not going back."

We stood there tense, wondering what was going to happen next. I didn't say a word; it was up to Carlisle to get himself out of his own jam. If I would have been told to stay, I would have crawled back there myself. The plane could easily have held twenty more people.

The general growled and stomped off, and we all proceeded to the briefing room to hear what General MacArthur's plans were to get to Melbourne. He didn't want anything more to do with airplanes. We learned that he did not like airplanes. He wanted to take a train, but there were no trains from Darwin, only roads and airplanes. So, later in the morning two planes took him and part of his staff to Alice Springs. In the meantime, the Australian government had provided the best train they could provide, and it was waiting there when he landed. (Godman continued)

Extracted from 5^th Bomber Command Journal

March 12,1942: At 1130 Lt Barr in No 2417 took off for Sydney on a special mission with Maj Gen Lincoln.

At 2345 Lt Skiles in B-17D No 3079 took off for Daly Waters on a special mission with Col Hoyt.

March 13, 1942: Lt Fletcher and Hernlund took off in LB-30s No AL-573 and No AL-508 to ferry personnel from Brisbane to Darwin.

Capt Adams returned to Laverton at 1730. He was forced to turn back from a flight to Mindanao because of engine trouble when he was about 50 miles north of Darwin.

March 14, 1942

Lt Pease returned from the Philippines in No 2453. He brought the following men back with him.

2nd Lt. Harry J. Schrieber 0342137

2nd Lt. Arthur F. Sorrell 0426202

2nd Lt. William J. Clapp 0431677

2nd Lt. Edward H. Bechtold 0417680

2nd Lt. Edwon J. Sponable 0398528

2nd Lt. Charles J. Stevers 0409907

2nd Lt. Eugene E. Greeson unknown

T/Sgt W. D. Purtell 6259438

T/Sgt W. E. Manners 6899040

S/Sgt S. C. Jackson 6975489

Sgt. J. A. Carter 6579316

Sgt. A. W. Reimer 6580519

Sgt. M. Levin 6975479

Sgt. E. L. Schmitz 19056837

Pfc. E. W. Czechowki 6915712

Pfc. F. W. Oetell 19048522

Lt Casper returned to Laverton from a special mission . He had mechanical difficulty at Daly Waters and did not complete the mission.

Capt Godman was last seen on the flight to Mindanao in the vicinity of ________ Island. However when Lt Pease landed at Del Monte, Capt Godman who had been ahead of him was not there. Five hours later and Godman was still unreported at Del Monte.

Those who are missing in B-17E No 41-2507 are:

Capt. Henry C. Godman 021664

1st Lt. Richard T. Carlisle 0388886

2nd Lt. Carl E. Epperson 0420872

Sgt Wallace J. Hewston 6977615

S/Sgt Henry S. Pecher 6947468

S/Sgt Frank W. Lytle 6553898

Sgt. Allen G. Whitehead 6557024

Capt Hoevet took off in No 2497 for Townsville. He had Gen Royce, Capt Adars, Capt Teats, Capt Ford and Lt Railing on board.

Capt Skiles in B-17D No 3079 cracked up on landing at Daly Waters this afternoon. The airplane was completely destroyed and several crew members and passengers injured. Sgt W. Collen Long, 35000944 died of injuries. The following were less seriously injured.

Capt Skiles

2nd Lt Robert L. Perry

Pfc Harold S. Depeel

Pvt Kenneth L. House

Skiles Navigator_____ at the 19^th BG Reunion in Atlanta 2000, told me that Skiles scratched his eye impairing his vision such that he never served as a pilot after that. DL

Harl Pease: Pease who was having engine problems had arrived 3-13-42, before MacArthur. All knew the very high risk of being exposed on the ground during daylight. Once Pease airplane was able to fly it was decided it would be best for him to fly out with personnel rather than just wait for MacArthur. MacArthur was not happy when he heard that the plane for him had returned. It’s reported that he requested that they send some new B-17s rather than the war weary ones from the 19^th. Thus newer B-17s that had come over with the 7^th BG were dispatched to Mindanao from Townsvile. Louis was in charge and each plane sent had a 19^th BG co-pilot who knew about getting in and out of Del Monte. Later Harl was shot down on raid on Rabaul, taken prisoner, then killed – he was awarded the Medal of Honor

Tense Flight Evacuating MacArthurs Staff by Westover Utah News

A Westover colonel took a prominent part in a heroic mission back in the dark days of March 16-17, 1942 when the Japanese were overrunning Asia and the Pacific islands.  Col. William Lewis, Jr., who assumed command of the 1600th Air Base Group in October, piloted one of the two planes which carried Gen. Douglas MacArthur and his staff from the Philippines to Australia, three weeks before the fall of Bataan to the Japanese.

(W. Lewis Jr left)The colonel piloted the plane which carried MacArthur's staff. Gen. MacArthur had been ordered by President Roosevelt to leave the Philippines before the inevitable surrender of American forces there. He had wanted to stay in the islands and carry on the fight with the guerrillas in the hills, but the President thought it best to have MacArthur direct the Pacific war from headquarters in Australia.

Two other missions to bring out MacArthur had failed and the planes had crashed. Four B-17, Flying Fortresses were sent on this last attempt. Two had engine trouble and were grounded at Darwin, Australia and no the so the other two went on to the rendezvous to .pick up MacArthur at Del Monte, an air base on Mindanao.

Col. Lewis was a captain at that time, flying reconnaissance missions with the 19th Bombardment Group. His group had only 11 B-17s with which they bombed the such Japanese bases such as Robaul, Buna and Lae. His group was the first to get B-17's with the tail gun, much-needed armament because they flew their missions without aid of fighter escort.

CLOUD COVER: “We didn't have very much to combat the Japanese offensive with. We had nothing like pursuit escort on missions,” says Col. Lewis, “but we got pretty foxy. We used cloud cover to the maximum. We figured out how long it took for a Jap pursuit to get to us. Flying at 25,000 to 30,000 feet it took 12 minutes for a Zero to reach us.”

First word of the mission was given the flyers at Darwin, Australia after the four planes bad flown from Townsville, their home base. After refueling, the crews were briefed on the meager information available concerning the mission.

Communications in that area were poor. The. planes dared not use radios on the flight for fear of Japanese interception. Weather information was scanty. "We had to gamble an the weather whether it was good or not. It was typical tropical weather. Clouds were scattered cumulus clouds - the fluffy kind. I had had no equatorial weather front experience," said Col. Lewis.

Navigation was a real hazard. They depended solely on the stars for navigation and fair weather was an absolute necessity.

Col. Lewis had never flown ever that area of the Pacific before. His co-pilot had recently flown out of the Philippines. The area from Darwin on the North east tip of Australia to Mindanao, the largest southern most island of the Philippines was not accurately mapped.

The risks were enormous. If the flyers missed their destination there was not enough gas to get back! If they were not killed they risked capture by the Japanese.

The trip was 1425 nautical miles. They had to fly 100 miles east of a straight line in order to avoid a Jap base at Davro on Mindanao. Thus they approached their destination at angle in stead of taking the shortest route. They had to run between two Jap bases only 30 miles apart.

"We went out confident, but our minds were very active," says Col. Lewis. "We had heard so much of the horrors of being prisoners of the Japs."

Carrying combat crews of 10 men in each Flying Fort, they took off from Darwin at 3 p.m. and reached the destination, Del Monte, at midnight. In that few hours was packed all the tension.

(end of available story segment)

Extracted from Turn of the Tide by E. Teats

Weary Pilots Battled Sleep on Mission to Bring Out MacArthur

During the week of March 7 to 14, we were in Melbourne and the last two days of that week, some of us were on 30-minute alert, didn't get any sleep. A bunch of the fellows next door were celebrating a promotion or something. We had to turn out at 2 A.M., to fly up to a northern base. We knew what we were there for.  We were to fly up to Del Monte, on the north coast of Mindanao, and bring out MacArthur.

Frank Bostrom was pilot of that plane. I was co-pilot. The four of us making the trip as co-pilots had operated from the field at Del Monte on many missions the crews and pilots had never been there. It was a tricky place to find and safely approach. even in good weather, without knowledge of the surrounding terrain. Bostrom was a member of the squadron which came out from Hawaii under command of Maj (now Col) Carmichael in late January and early February.

We left Australia at 2 o'clock on the afternoon of the 16th and got into the field at Del Monte, south of Cagayan, at 11:30 that night.

The night before, when we had briefed the trip, we had been told that the American side of Mindanao -- generally the northern side -- was completely blacked out. It was a perfectly clear, black night and we flew on instruments about a third of the way. There were a few whispy clouds up around Davao on the south coast of Mindanao and as we passed to the north we could see the lights of the Jap-occupied city shining in the distance.

The American side of the island was not blacked-out. There were brush fired all over the place. When we thought that we were at the northern coast-line, we let down to a medium altitude just above the mountain height. When we knew definitely that we were over the water, we let down, picked up the coast and followed it to a little island just north of Cagayan Bay, one of the small indentations of Macajalar Bay. We knew exactly where we were then. We turned in and flew right up the valley until we approached the vicinity of the field and signaled with our landing lights. The third time we blinked, they caught our signal and flipped on the field lights right under our right wing.

We wanted to leave the minute we could re-fuel and get the personnel and cargo aboard. The island was swarming with Japs, and there was always the possibility that some Jap patrol had spotted us. Furthermore, we rather anticipated that we were going to run into some rough weather going back.

The last time I had seen General MacArthur had been at Clark Field several months before. It didn't seem to me that the hell he had gone through in the meantime had changed him much. A man with his hawk-like features can absorb a tremendous amount of punishment before it is reflected in his face. Mrs. MacArthur looked very well and someone in the party which came down to the plane remarked that it didn't seem possible that she had stepped off, Corregidor only a short time before. Their son was hugging his favorite little rag doll and I don't think that he was more than half awake.

We had rigged a mattress on the floor of the radio compartment where Mrs. MacArthur, the youngster and the old Chinese amah could sit down, at least. The General sat in the radio operator's chair.

There were ten in the party. One was Maj/Gen Richard Sutherland, General MacArthur's chief of staff. Another was Brigadier General Harold H. George, his air officer, later killed in an accident in Australia. The others I didn’t know at that time. Maj Henry “Hank” Godman, then a captain, was one of our passengers. He was designated as one of the first pilots to go in after the MacArthur party, but landed in the water off Mindanao and lost two members of the crew. Hank came out on our plane, and his co-pilot came out in the other.

We had gone without sleep for two nights, and we weren’t thinking too much about individuals. Our main interest was to get going and get the plane back to Australia with everyone safe on board.

As it happened, the trip was completely uneventful. We flew on instruments until daylight, leaving at 2:30 A.M., March 17, Australian time, and arriving at our northern Australia base at 10:30.

Bostrom and I took turns at the controls at 30 minute intervals. We had to do it to give each other a little chance to rest his eyes. The strain of flying by instruments at night is bad enough, and we were fagged. My eyes felt like two red hot coals, & if I closed them, the lids felt as though they were lined with sand paper. I thought they would pop out of my head.

We were getting to the stage where we had to concentrate every ounce of our energy to keep our minds clear. We just had to relieve each other.

When we slid smoothly into our Australian base, Brigadier General Ralph Royce was there to welcome General MacArthur and his party. They had lunch, then piled into a transport which flew them down to Alice Springs, the head of rail where a train was waiting to take them to Melborne.

In the preceding ten days, all available bomber personnel were reorganized into the 19th Bombardment Group. We considered that the reorganization was completed on March 14, and on that day, the 7th Group ceased to exist in our theater.

Starting with the first of April, our squadron was given priority, ahead of the others in the group to build up to it’s full plane strength.

It was not yet the turning of the tide, but it had reached it’s flood.

We almost dare to hope that the black days were behind us. (Teats continued)

Extracted from "Supreme Commander" by H. Godman

President Manuel L. Quezon of the Philippines was scheduled on another B-17 to carry him south to Melbourne also. When a radio message was picked up, we became gravely concerned that this particular plane was going down somewhere in the desert. Of course, there were no bearings, and they did not know where the plane had landed, or if indeed it had landed or simply crashed. However, when it did not arrive at the next refueling stop, I was asked as an operations officer to organize a search.

I set up several search patterns over the desert where I thought possibly the plane had gone down. Our own B-17's that were available and Australian airplanes began to search. After about thirty-five hours the plane was spotted in a remote area of the Australian desert. A plane landed some mechanics near the distressed airplane and made the necessary repairs, and the plane took off. You can imagine the concern of General MacArthur, especially because of his own dislike for flying, listening to the stories the president of the Philippines was telling about his forced landing in the Australian desert.

It wasn't common knowledge that MacArthur disliked airplanes until after he took the train from Alice Springs to Melbourne. At that particular time, MacArthur had little confidence in airplanes, but later on, as they were used more and more, he had the greatest confidence in them -- their safety and their capability to wage war and transport troops.

I arrived in Melbourne, even though I had left a day later, long before the general. I was assigned to quarters in a hotel where the general would be quartered and would set up his base of operations from there.

When the general arrived a few days later, I knew that I had a job to do, finding out what his staff was doing and what work had already been done. It would be my duty to establish good communications and relations with General Lewis H. Brereton who was in command of what remained of the air force of the United States. Brereton was a major general.

I researched to find out how many B-17's were still in operation and the number of fighter planes that were in commission. I had to know for MacArthur what we had and what was their status of operation. He needed to know the instant capabilities of the forces we had remaining. It was an interesting and powerful job because the staff I was working with had no knowledge of the airplanes and what to do.

Here I was now, flying General MacArthur in an old Dutch KLM DC-3 airliner to meet the prime minister of Australia at Canberra, the capital. When we landed, a Rolls Royce was there to meet him and drive him to the capitol. He was only there for a short time and was returned to the airplane for our flight back to Melbourne. The flights going and coming were both uneventful.

Just as I was getting ready to begin my descent into Melbourne, a devilish thought came in my mind, and I thought, "This general doesn't know how tough it is in airplanes. He doesn't know all that it takes to fly one of these things, so I'll just give him a little scare." And I descended at a very fast rate from an altitude of about 8,000 feet.

And as I was letting down, the general got a nosebleed. Someone came to the cockpit and told me about it, and, needless to say, I felt very ashamed of myself. After we had landed, Lieutenant Colonel Charles H. Morehouse, MacArthur's staff doctor, came to me and said, "Godman, you didn't have to do that. When you've got the Commanding General of the Southwest Pacific on board, you ought to maneuver this airplane in a more gentle manner. I didn't appreciate that a bit."

And, to my amazement, if the general realized what I had done, he never said a word about it. What an idiot I was; I could have lost my job over that. Needless to say, I never did that again. As a matter of fact, the next time I got him in the airplane, I made the ride feel like we were floating on a cloud of cotton.

MacArthur was a robust, strong man. He was healthy, but he knew how to rest. He came to work in the morning about ten, and he worked until one. He took a nap in the afternoon and came back to work at four and then perhaps worked until eight or nine at night. This was his usual schedule. The only time you saw him very early was on special occasions.

Later on, when the supplies started coming to Australia, we got a brand new airplane, a C-47. We turned it over to the Australian Air Force, and they refurbished it. They took the insides out and made it very posh with just a few seats. And there was an area where the general could sit by himself with only one other chair by him. Lieutenant Colonel Morehouse usually sat there. If anybody wanted to talk to him after that, they had to get up and stand beside him. It was a shame that the army always tried to isolate MacArthur.

The times were interesting. I was proud to be flying the general, and those back home such as my grandmother and my aunt also were well aware that I was flying General MacArthur. There were cartoons in the Australian press portraying me running around after the general.

Let me tell you, our new airplane was really fixed up. It had pullman bunks and an electric stove and refrigerator, the whole thing. It was a terrific staff airplane for inside Australia. We flew this plane for over six months.

We also received a B-25 that had been in combat, and we rehabed" it. As time passed, we had to make faster trips for MacArthur's staff. MacArthur never flew in this airplane. It would go almost 300 miles an hour and was also equipped with some machine guns and could put up at least a token resistance if it were needed.

General MacArthur had an outstanding staff. One man I remember well was General Akin. He was the type of man who never sent people -- he went himself to set up communications, telegraph, and TWX lines, the teletype lines in New Guinea. I flew him on many, many missions in that plane.

One day I was instructed to get on a transport plane and go to Wright-Patterson Field in "the good ole U.S.A." and pick up a specifically prepared B-17 that would be for MacArthur's use. Later on that evening, before I left, the general called me to his quarters and told me about a B-17 waiting for him at Wright-Patterson Air Base in Dayton, Ohio.

He said, "Godman, I want the plane named Bataan, and the artist is to paint a map of the Philippines on the side of the nose and then to have the word Bataan printed across it. That's an order. "

(end Godman)

Extracted from 5th Bomber Command Journal

March 15, 1942: Lt Tarter off for Daily Waters from Laverton at 1204 to bring members of Capt Skiles crew and passengers back in LB-30 No AL-515.

Lt Bridges in B-17E No 2472 off from Laverton for Alice Springs at 1315. He is to report to Gen Royce at Batchelor Field at 1000.

Capt Young in No 2464 returned to Laverton in the later afternoon.

March 16, 1942: Lt Tartar returned to Laverton from Daly Waters in AL-515 at 1350.

Notification was received of the merger of personnel and equipment of the 7th and 19th Groups into the 19th Group, consisting of Hq, and Hdq Sqd, 28th , 30th and 93 Bombardment Squadrons, and 14th Reconnaissance Squadron. Word of this was received on March 13, 1942, and Lt Col K. B. Hobson was appointed Commanding Officer of the 19th Group. Capt J. W. Hughes is Commanding Officer of Hqs and Hqs Sq., Capt E. Hilton is C.O. of the 28th Squadron, Major R. V. Schwanbeck is C. O. of the 30th Squadron and Major J. T. Connelly is C. O. of the 93rd Squadron, and Major R. H. Carmichael is C. O. of the 14th Squadron. [The 14th Recon would later be designated the 435th Sqd]

Lt Beck in No 2462 off for Canberra at 1035. Returned in afternoon.

March 17, 1942: Capt Beran in No 2458 and Lt Beck in No 2462 took off for Alice Springs at 1115. They are to perform a mission up north.

Lt Fletcher returned to Laverton in AL-573 at 1440.

Capt Smith returned to Laverton in No 3079 at 1350. The engines of the plane were in poor shape and it was placed in the depot for work.

Capt Hughes in No 2460 landed at Point Cook when he failed to locate Laverton. The plane, which had been seriously damaged in a bombing raid at Andir and reported as destroyed, was repaired by the Dutch and some of our mechanics and flown to Australia by a Dutch pilot.

Capt Godman reported in today. He had crashed in the water at Illigan, Mindanao in B-17E No 2507 on the night of March 12, 1942. Sgts Lytle and Whitehead are missing. Lt Epperson, Sgt Howston and Sgt Pecher were injured. Lt Carlisle and Capt Godman were unhurt.

March 18, 1942: Capt. Hoevet in No. 2497 in from Daly Waters at 0130. Capt. Godman came back with him.

Lt. Bridges and crew in from Alice Springs at 1520.

March 19, 1942: Capt. Adams returned today. He was accompanied by the following officers and men from Mindanao.

1st Lt.. Dorwood C. Stephens 0395365

2nd Lt. Hugh T. Halbert 0401166

2nd Lt. William T. Chesser 0423468

2nd Lt. William K. Culy 0423469

2nd Lt. Victor J. Howard 0427131

2nd Lt. Everett Davis 0380521

2nd Lt. Charles E. Rogers 0412853

2nd Lt. Melvin R. Hunt Unknown

Cpl. Henry A. Butler 6914091

Sgt. Joseph J. McElroy 6866141

Sgt. James H. Holcomb 6931879

Pvt. William A. Porter 19046256

Lt. Carlisle, who was co-pilot for Capt. Godman when they crashed in the Philippines, reported in also.

Orders were received today temporarily disbanding the 5th Bomber Command. Consequently the Journal of the 5th Bomber Command will be discontinued for the time being. A further record of operations will be kept by the 19th Bombardment Group (H). When Gen Kenney arrived, and replaced Gen Brett, the designation 5th Bomber Command was changed to 5th AF.

Petrick W. McIntrye, Captain, Air Corps, Custodian of Journal.

(end Journal)

19^th BG Reorganized in Australia 1942

Forces returning from Java in March 1942 were restructured by the FEAF headquarters in Melborne.

On 3-13-42 notification was issued of the merger of personnel and equipment of the 7th and 19th Groups into the 19th Group, consisting of Hq, and Hdq Sqd, 28th , 30th and 93 Bombardment Squadrons, and 14th Reconnaissance Squadron. Lt Col K. B. Hobson was appointed Commanding Officer of the 19th Group. Capt J. W. Hughes was Commanding Officer of Hqs and Hqs Sq., Capt E. Hilton was CO of the 28th Squadron, Major R. V. Schwanbeck was CO of the 30th Squadron, Major J. T. Connelly was CO of the 93rd Squadron, and Major R. H. Carmichael was CO of the 14th Squadron.

The 28^th and 93rd sqds were assigned to a field in Longreach,

The 30^th sqd to a field in Cloncurry.

The 435^th sqd at the field at Townsville. The 14^th Sqd from Java & 88^th recon sqd of the 7th BG at Townsville, were merged and renamed the 435th sqd of the 19th BG.

Mid April all but the 435th moved north to Mareeba, closer to where the action was in New Guinea.

Personnel rosters were still being resorted in mid April.

J Connelly

CO 19^th BG CO HdqSqd CO 28^th Sqd, CO 30^th Sqd CO 93^rd Sqd CO 435^th Sqd

Carmichael was CO of the 7^th BG 88^th Recon stationed at Townsville. He later became CO of the 19^th BG. After return to the US he became part of B-29 operations and flew with the 58^th Wing out of China. He was shot down over China and was a POW – enduring considerable mistreatment. He returned to AF duties when released.

Extracted from "Wallace Fields Oral Interview" by son Ken 

Fields was with the 435th sqd , recently made part of the 19th BG, stationed at Townsville Australia. DL

Q When was your next mission, Dad?

A Well, the next mission was on the 22nd of March. Morrie Horgan led that flight; in fact, I went with him as his co-pilot. Something must have happened to Harry Spieth that prevented his flying that mission. We went to Lae.

Q Lae was where a Japanese airbase was located?

A Yes it was. It was a stronghold on the Northeastern side of the mountains of New Guinea.

Q Do you remember anything particular about that mission?

A Well, I noted in my diary that we destroyed 17 aircraft on the ground. We were then dispersed at Charter's Towers. On March 24th I had gone to a theater to see a movie. We were called out of the theater to come back to Townsville, and the rumor was that we were going to the Philippines. We got back to Townsville on the 25th of March, and sure, enough, we had orders to go to the Philippines on an evacuation flight. We left Townsville on March 26th for the field of Del Monte on the island of Mindanao.

Q At that time the island of Mindanao was more or less in Japanese hands?

A It was in Japanese hands with the exception of the Del Monte airstrip: they had captured three sides of the island of Mindanao around the airstrip.

Q This was the old Del Monte pineapple plantation on Mindanao?

A It was a field at Del Monte, named by virtue of its location, which was adjacent to the Del Monte pineapple plantation.

Q Am I correct in thinking that there were two or three flights into Del Monte for the purpose of evacuating General MacArthur and later Manuel Quezon, President of the Philippines?

A There were three individual aircraft on the flight that I was on, and the purpose of that particular group of planes was to bring out Manuel Quezon, President of the Philippines, and Generals Valdez and Romulo, and some of MacArthur's staff. MacArthur had been evacuated out by Frank P. Bostrum approximately a week previously.

Q Can you tell me what you remember about that mission?

A Well, it was long and it was tiring. We took off from Batchelor Field at Darwin, in the middle of the afternoon. We were scheduled to land during the hours of darkness at Del Monte, which we did. They had no lights on the runway, with the exception of smudge pots which they lit for us to line up on, on the grass field in the direction that we were supposed to land. These were old highway markers that looked like a bomb, a black smudge pot that burned diesel fuel. We landed beside them, and the smudge pots as we landed were lined up on the pilot's side of the aircraft.

Q There was just one row of them?

A Yes, just one row, and they extinguished them just as soon as we landed, because of the proximity of the Japanese.

Q You landed in otherwise complete darkness?

A We landed in darkness.

Q What did you do after you got there?

A Well, we serviced our plane and ate. We ate wonderful pineapple and plenty of beef, but they didn't have any bread. They then began to assign to us people that were scheduled to go back with us. The people that had priority were General MacArthur's staff, of which there were not very many; President Quezon's family and nurse, and his chief of staff, who was General Romulo, and one of his advisors, a General Valdez. A small staff went with the Philippine generals, and the next priority were aircraft mechanics. We filled our planes up with people that were placed in these priorities and for whom we had parachutes.

Q Do you remember who actually flew on your particular aircraft?

A I don't remember any individuals, except for General Carlos Romulo and General Valdez. We had 17 persons besides our nine man crew.

Q What was the atmosphere at Del Monte Field?

A Well, it was pretty disconsolate. They thought they were just about gone, and they were. People were crying, wanting to be smuggled aboard, and we told them we couldn't take them; that we didn't have parachutes for them. They would say, "Well, don't worry about a parachute; I don't need one; I won't use one." Anything to get on that plane and get off that island. We flew 32 hours out of 36 on that flight. We flew back to Darwin, or Batchelor Field, gassed up, and then went on to Alice Springs. Alice Springs is a town that would be almost geographically in the middle of Australia. On the way in to Alice Springs, Dubose ran out of gas. He had President Quezon's nurse on his ship. Luckily, he was able to land safely out in the middle of the country. We searched for him for five hours before we ever located him. The other plane in our flight located him, and they landed beside him and pumped some fuel over into his plane. Both of them then came on into Alice Springs.

Q There were three planes on that flight then, Dubose flew one, Harry Spieth and you flew another, and a man named Faulkner flew the third?

A Yes.

Q What group were you flying as at that time?

A The 435th Armed Reconnaissance Squadron. We had been melded into 19th Group, and at that time we became the 435th.

Q You finished up the Philippine rescue flight back in Melbourne, Australia?

A That's right We landed at Melbourne. We took our people on down there and let them out. We had had engine trouble and we had blown two cylinders, so they told us to stay there and change all 4 engines before we went back to Townsville. We spent 26 days there getting those engines changed out.

Q Back to the flight itself, looking at the notation you made in your diary, what was your actual flight time?

A We flew 32 hours out of 36. At one point Harry took a nap. We had some air mattresses that you could pump up, and they thought that some of these people might be ready to be hospitalized and might need a little more comfort. These things weren't very comfortable, but he took one of them out on the catwalk in the bomb bay and took about a three hour nap while we were coming back.

Q How did the rest of your passengers make it?

A They were very tired, I am sure, but they were glad to get out of there, so they didn't complain.

Q How long did Del Monte field hold out after you got out of there, Dad?

A Approximately 10 days. There was only one successful flight, after our flight, that went in and picked up a few people. Then Al Meatier went in with a B-24, or LB-30, and the field had fallen, so he had to turn around and come back. He ran out of fuel and landed on a beach. A submarine came in and picked him up off the beach later.

Q Were you acquainted with Harl Pease?

A Yes I was.

Q Wasn't there a story that Pease was originally sent to pick up MacArthur, and that MacArthur didn't like his airplane and sent him back out of there?

A Oh, I heard that story, but I don't know how much credence it has.

Q Pease was later killed over Rabaul?

A. Yes, in fact, he received the Medal of Honor for the bombing run he was killed on. Frank Bostrum was in that same flight over Rabaul, and I believe Neuschaffin was the pilot of the third plane in their flight. Anyway, as it happened, Frank Bostrum was the pilot who flew MacArthur out. MacArthur didn't particularly go for the Air Force. When MacArthur got to Darwin, he had sent word ahead that he wanted an airliner to meet him, so he transferred from a B-17 to an airliner and went to Alice Springs. From Alice Springs he got on a train and went on to Melbourne. It took him 4 days to get there, when we could have had him there in 8 hours. (Fields continued)

From Perth to Cloncurry from H Murdoc story

Perth Cloncurry

From Fremantle, which is the port for Perth, we were transported to an Australian military training camp in Northam, a small town a short distance east of Perth. There we were assigned to barracks, and supplied with a wonderful military blanket of Australian wool. They were far better than U. S. Army issue blankets, and were gray, instead of brown. Trying to sleep in the camp at night was usually interrupted by an Aussie soldier returning from a beer drinking session at a pub. He would invariably be singing some bawdy song loud enough to wake the dead. We stayed in this camp about ten days before moving on. Some of us visited Northam to sample their social life. We started first with a pub, which is a bar in a hotel; actually three bars, public bar for all patrons (no stools), a lounge with tables and chairs for the ladies, and a private bar for patrons with a room at the hotel.

A large group of British soldiers, evacuated from Singapore, were in the public bar living it up, and sang a song for our pleasure. It was about British soldiers doing duty while serving in India in the time of the Raj. It became familiar in the U.S. with different words. In the U.S. version the refrain started with "Bless 'em all", but the British retained their own words, substituting an obscene word for "Bless". The “word" drove the nice ladies occupying the lounge from the building, as the Tommies sang lustily at the top of their lungs.

Anglo-Saxon Down Under

That evening, and for some evenings thereafter, we took in the Shire hall, where the young ladies gathered for dancing. My first night I found a great difference between the American idiom and the Australian. The young ladies all sat on a bench that lined the walls of the Shire hall, awaiting an invitation to dance. I approached one nice‑looking prospect, and asked if she would care to dance. She replied, "I'm all knocked up, why don't you have a go at my sister?", indicating a girl sitting next to her. Translated, I found later, she meant that she was very tired, and for me to ask her sister to dance, not that she was pregnant. In America a type of dance called " the Shag" had invaded the jitter‑bug scene, and my usual invitation to dance was, "Let's shag", while I held out my hand to the girl. In British slang, "shag" has the same meaning as the word in the British song, and amounts to asking the girl to have sexual intercourse in a most blunt way. I embarrassed myself a number of times, before I broke the habit. We took a trip into Perth one evening, but didn't find much to do, as everything closed early. We met an Aussie soldier, who kept asking, "Where's the sheilas?". He finally explained that "shei‑la" was Aussie slang "for "girl".

At one time some of the young ladies of Northam invited a number of us soldiers over to one of the girl's home, where we were fed onion and tomato sandwiches. The bread was cut thin, as were the slices of tomato and onion. I found the sandwiches to be delicious, especially when washed down with good old Aussie beer. We discussed life in America with the ladies, and they explained life in Australia. It was a pleasant afternoon well spent.

After our ten days vacation from the war, we were loaded onto a troop train, and headed east, destination Melbourne. At most: stops there were patriotic ladies waiting on the railroad platforms beside long tables heaped with sandwiches, cake, and other goodies. The soldiers lined up and partook of the hospitality with gusto. I believe we all gained a few pounds in weight by the time we arrived in Melbourne. Once, while rolling along the tracks, we spotted beautiful white ibis standing in what appeared to be marshy ground. Each soldier drew his piece and began firing at the ibis from the moving train. Luckily ‑ for the ibis, they were out of range, and I am happy to say, none were disturbed by our effort, much less, hit.

In a few days we arrived in Melbourne, and were assigned to tents in the local zoo. Among the animals displayed in the zoo, were some howling apes, that whooped and howled at any hour, making our stay unpleasant. Fortunately, just outside the gate was a pub, where we repaired for refreshment to relieve the tension built up by the noise from the apes. In this pub I discovered my most favorite beer, Melbourne Bitter Ale. The first day in the pub, after being served beer in vessels the size of milkshake glasses, we were warned by the bar -- keep to be careful, and drink slowly. He said Yanks apparently were not used to the high alcoholic content of Aussie beer. He told us of another Yank, who a day or so previously, drank a couple of his huge glasses of beer, then walked out into the sun and keeled over.

Some days later we were taken to an airfield and assigned to an aircraft for 30th. Squadron, and told to fly to Cloncurryl Queensland, about 500 miles west of Townsville, Australia. Our pilot was a Capt. Armstrong, who requested a. one‑night stop over in Sydney, that was refused, which made our Captain very angry. Still grumbling, Capt. Armstrong and our crew took off in a B-17E, accompanied by another B-17 and crew. We developed some kind of engine trouble, so were forced to land at Wagga Wagga, west of Canberra. This was a training facility of the . Royal Australian Air Force, and included pilots, crew members and Women’s Auxiliary Air Force trainees. We were given a very hospitable welcome. The next day Capt. Armstrong declared that our plane required further repairs. The other plane, not being so lucky, took off for its destination. It took four days to repair that engine, during which time we exuberantly enjoyed further the hospitality of Wagga Wagga.

When the four days had passed, Capt. Armstrong must have decided that the engine needed no further work. All crew members said their goodbyes with reluctance, and boarded the plane. We circled the airport, then our pilot came in low over the field heading straight for the hangar line. I swear that we couldn't have been over ten feet from the ground, which indicated that with six‑foot props we must have been clearing the ground by only four feet. Dust filled the airplane, and gravel drummed against the fuselage. I held my breath in case we crashed. Shortly before plowing into the crowd before the hangars, Capt. Armstrong pulled the plane up and over the hangars, while all personnel on the ground ducked. With one pass over the field, we waggled our wings "goodbye", and began climbing for altitude. We were escorted by two AT‑6 Harvards as the Aussies sendoff. A crewman at the AT‑6 gun position behind the pilot, swung his gun pointing it at us, simulating an attack. One of our crew members unlimbered our .50 caliber through the open waist gun window, and returned the favor. They gave us the double thumbs up, peeled off, and turned back for home.

After flying for a few hours we landed at the new base for the 30th. Squadron in Cloncurry. It was located on the edge of the great Australian outback. The earth was eroded and dusty. Spindly gum trees struggled to grow here and there. Small cattle flies, starved for moisture, would head for a person's eyes. We tried using a net over our light pith helmets, but this cut off too much air, so we soon abandoned that. Something we named the "Cloncurry Salute" took its place. This consisted of frequently waving a hand in front of one's face to shoo the flies away. Occasionally, a fly would penetrate our defense, and creep up to an eye. The first notice of the fly's presence was a hot sting on the eyelid. When traveling in the back of a truck, flies covered our backs, attracted by the perspiration seeping through our shirts. To our good fortune the wind from the truck's motion forced the flies away from our fronts and eyes. We became acquainted with another oddity of Australia, the kookaburra, or laughing jackass. The nickname was prompted by the bird's call, which sounded like crazy laughter. Large flights of other birds, that we took to be pigeons, turned out to be Australian parrots.

Since facilities hadn't arrived at the air field for personnel, we were assigned beds and fed at a hotel in the small town of Cloncurry. Quarters at the hotel being limited, some of us had our beds on the second floor veranda, which left us open to the breeze and any onlooker passing by in the street. My bunk was at the end of the veranda and was next to an open‑air theater. The first night in my bed I was awakened by gunfire and the sound of screaming aircraft engines. I awoke with a start and had one leg over the railing of the veranda, facing a drop of close to fifteen feet to the street, before I realized the sound was coming from the movie house, not that the Japs had caught up with me. An American movie titled "Hell Divers" was playing. The sound was from Navy aircraft diving and shooting at a practice target in the film.

Cloncurry had the appearance of an old time Western U.S. town. Hitching racks for horses were in front of the pubs and shops. Buildings of one or two stories lined dirt streets. There was an adequate number of pubs. Sweeney's became my favorite, run by a young red‑headed girl and her brother. other than the dining halls of the hotels, there were at least two small restaurants. The usual shire hall was also present, where we went after the pubs closed, and danced with the local ladies.

Within a short time our personnel facilities consisting of two‑man tents, cots, mess hall and latrine arrived and were erected for our use. my semi‑civilian sojourn at the Oasis Hotel came to an end, and I moved into a tent along with the flies in the daytime and the mosquitoes at night. A small shack was used for a ground radio station for contact with the planes, and a smaller one for our infirmary. Support units such as Quartermaster and Ordnance were set up around the field to supply us with our needs. I particularly liked our Ordnance, a company of black soldiers. When we wanted to go into Cloncurry, or return to base from town, it was necessary to hitch a ride in an Army truck. Many truck drivers passed us up, but a truck from Ordnance always stopped for us. One time, when I was a lone hitchhiker, a truck from Ordnance with two or three black GI’s on board stopped for me. One asked me if it would be OK to stop by their mess‑hall, and I had no objections. Waiting in the truck at the mess‑hall some mighty delicious odors came drifting my way. When the guys returned they had hamburgers, and I was invited to join them in the feast. It was the best meal I had had since arriving in Australia. Our meals in the mess‑hall were eaten from our mess‑kits. After eating we lined up in back of the mess‑hall and cleaned our mess gear by dunking it in a drum of hot, soapy water, then rinsing it in a drum of hot, clear water.

The war began again for us from almost the first day of arrival. When things settled down, combat crews were divided into "A" flight and "B" flight and took turns going on missions, one day off, one day on, except for emergencies. A flight would take off, each aircraft circling the field and joining the formation, until all aircraft were aloft. Then we would head for Port Moresby, where we spent the night sleeping in hammocks with mosquito nets, while our aircraft were refueled and loaded with bombs. Very early the next morning, before we had a visit from Japanese fighters, we would take off, form up and head for our target. Rabaul on New Britain and the straits between New Britain and New Ireland became our primary targets. Rabaul soon surrounded its area with airfields, and had shipping in the harbor, or in the straits. Other targets were Lae in Papua, and Gasmata in New Britain.

Longreach home of 28^th & 93^rd Sqd

93^rd Sqd Engineering Section at Longreach

Local Support

Fleming-Wilson-Logan-Brown-Whipp Brown Logan

Exposed Relief Station Fringe Benefits

Aborigines House, in the Normanton Area

An outing with locals