Chapter 11: Men and Weapons
BECAUSE of the priority of personnel and equipment accorded the war in Europe, SWPA had never had an overabundance of logistical support. “All personnel,” wrote one squadron commander in September 1944, “obviously feel they are in a low priority air force and are resigned to the fact that new equipment gets to us last, if at all.1 Yet logistical difficulties had never been permitted to curtail the tempo of SWPA’s attack. If there were personnel shortages, men had to fight longer; if replacement equipment did not arrive in desirable quantities, existing materiel had to be repaired and modified to fit new situations. While increasing American production and training permitted FEAF to get a little “fat” during 1945, it was never so well supplied with men and materiel as to be free of the necessity for ingenuity.
Despite casualties in the Philippines, FEAF showed an increase in over-all assigned strength from 16,914 officers and 156,684 enlisted men on 31 August 1944 to 21,387 officers and 161,073 enlisted men on 30 June 1945. This total assigned strength, however, counted all military personnel en route to and from the United States, as well as what FEAF called the “Zero Command,” or AAF personnel in units assigned to theater Army Ground Forces and Army Service Forces. In an accounting of its “operating strength,” or personnel assigned to AAF units, on 25 June 1945 FEAF computed a total operating strength of 148,334: 72,463 in the Fifth Air Force, 28,565 in the Thirteenth Air Force, 25,570 in FEASC, 15,416 in FEAF units, and 6,320 unassigned casuals.2
A substantial portion of the increase of FEAF personnel between August 1944 and June 1945 came with the assignment of new tactical units and service organizations. At the end of August 1944 the Fifth Air Force was composed of four heavy bombardment groups (22nd,
43rd, 90th, and 380th), two medium bombardment groups (38th and 345th), three light bombardment groups (3rd, 312th, and 417th), six fighter groups (5th, 35th, 49th, 58th, 348th, and 475th), four troop carrier groups (317th, 374th, 375th, and 433rd), two reconnaissance groups (6th Photo Reconnaissance and 71st Reconnaissance), two night fighter squadrons (418th and 421st), and one emergency rescue squadron (3rd). The smaller Thirteenth Air Force had two heavy bombardment groups (5th and 307th) , one medium bombardment group (42nd), two fighter groups (18th and 347th), one photo group (4th), one troop carrier group (403rd), one low-altitude bombardment squadron (868th), one night fighter squadron (419th), and one emergency rescue squadron (2nd). By June 1945 both air forces had added new tactical units, the Fifth Air Force having gained an air commando group (3rd), a night fighter squadron (547th), a combat cargo group (2nd), and an emergency rescue squadron (6th), while the Thirteenth Air Force received a night fighter squadron (550th).
Replacement and Training
Of all personnel problems, that of maintaining strength and efficiency in a theater of operations characterized by a tropical climate, few evidences of civilization, strenuous fighting, and remoteness from the United States remained difficult throughout the war. Replacement of combat crews, General Kenney wrote Washington in March 1944, was giving him “some bad headaches.” The Fifth Air Force was allotted one crew per aircraft with a 15 per cent reserve for all plane types except B-24’s, which were allotted two crews per airplane. Monthly replacements were supposed to arrive at a rate of 15 per cent of assigned aircrews, and since Arnold had advised against any arbitrary determinants for relief from combat, Kenney had been selecting crewmen for rotation to the U.S. entirely on the basis of combat fatigue. He had observed, however, that most fighter and bomber crewmen were “beginning to look a little foggy” after 300 combat hours. Yet, with a maximum of 15 per cent monthly rotation (a figure which also had to cover casualties), B-24 crews would have to fly 656 hours in a period of 20 months, P-38 pilots a total of 561 hours, and light and medium bomber and P-47 crews a total of 300 to 325 hours before they could expect relief. Kenney consequently asked the AAF to double the monthly replacement rates for B-24 and P-38 crews lest they be taxed beyond their endurance.3 In April the AAF promised to increase fighter pilot allocations to 18 per cent beginning in May, to
30 per cent between July and October, to 35 per cent between November and February, and to 18 per cent thereafter. Heavy bomber crew replacement would continue at 15 per cent until November, when it would be increased and stabilized at 30 per cent.4
This action promised little immediate relief and concerned only two categories of crews. Troop carrier crewmen could hope for only 7½ per cent monthly replacements, a rate not often met; by March 1944 Brig. Gen. Paul H. Prentis’s, commanding the 54th Troop Carrier Wing, noted with alarm that many of his crewmen regarded surgeons’ certificates of combat fatigue as the only way to leave the theater “short of going home in a pine box.5 By July one fighter squadron observed that many of its older pilots had more than 500 combat hours and 14 months in the theater.6 Since the speed-up of the attack during April and May had taxed B-25 crews more severely than other types, by June the 345th Group had only twenty-four out of seventy-six assigned crews available for combat while the 38th Group had only twenty-three of sixty-seven crews able to fly.* The other crews had been grounded by combat fatigue, and Whitehead sympathetically described the crews of both groups as “practically punch drunk.”7 Believing that “a half strength squadron of willing boys is better than a full strength squadron of worn out ones,” Kenney sent nearly 600 aircrewmen home during July.8
Even an enlarged allocation of aircraft and crews by the AAF in August fell short of the promise of full strength for FEAF by the end of 1944, and the actual flow of replacement crews during the latter half of that year’s failed to fulfill the allocations.9 FEAF therefore reduced
* In an effort to alleviate medium bomber crew shortages during the fall of 1944, FEAF received a full group of B-25 pilots fresh from advanced flying schools.
† Combat crews received by FEAF, July–December 1944:–
| Type | July | Aug. | Sept. | Oct. | Nov. | Dec. | Total |
| B-24 | 76 | 19 | 71 | 69 | 50 | 109 | 394 |
| B-25 | 73 | 53 | 26 | 24 | 20 | 48 | 244 |
| A-20 | 86 | 64 | 22 | 39 | 12 | 56 | 279 |
| P-38 | 42 | 101 | 5 | 0 | 25 | 92 | 265 |
| P-47 | 50 | 97 | 73 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 220 |
| P-51 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 25 | 2 | 27 |
short of combat crew personnel while the Philippine operations brought increased casualties, particularly among light and medium bomber crews. During January 1945, for example, the 417th Bombardment Group lost its group commander, two squadron commanders, and so many of its prospective leaders that there was no pilot in the group to replace these men.10 During the first half of 1945 the AAF increased its allotments to FEAF, but the augmentation ran most heavily to fighter pilots as shown in the following chart.11
Combat Crews received by FEAF, Jan.–June 1945
| Type | Jan. | Feb. | Mar. | Apr. | May | June. | Total |
| B-24 | 95 | 35 | 87 | 64 | 64 | 15 | 360 |
| B-25 | 42 | 64 | 49 | 47 | 41 | 43 | 286 |
| A-20 | 49 | 8 | 28 | 72 | 36 | 36 | 229 |
| P-38 | 56 | 8 | 18 | 12 | 37 | 24 | 165 |
| P-47 | 50 | 97 | 73 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 220 |
| P-51 | 0 | 67 | 145 | 86 | 26 | 73 | 397 |
Reduced casualty rates in most plane types toward the end of the assault phase of the Luzon campaign left FEAF with a surplus of fighter and transport crews. By May 1945 it was deficient only in light and medium bomber crews, by August 1945 only in light bomber (both A-20 and A-26) crews.12
Based upon its expected flow of replacements, FEAF drafted a rotation policy for combat crews during the summer of 1944. Kenney first proposed to send aircrewmen back to the U.S. for 30 to 45 days’ rest after a number of combat hours ranging from 200 for light bombers to 1,000 for troop carriers, but the AAF disagreed, having had experience that temporary rest in the U.S. “merely whetted the desire of the individual for permanent rotation.”13 On 18 September 1944 FEAF announced a standard for rotation: 200 combat hours for A-20’s, 250 for B-25’s, 300 for photo aircraft and reconnaissance B-25’s, 300-350 for fighters, 400 for B-24’s, and 1,000 for transport crews. These were minimum combat flight times, and rotation of a crewman remained contingent upon arrival of replacements and a
flight surgeon’s certificate that the crewman required rehabilitation in the U.S..14
Difficult as was this problem of combat crewmen, who seldom remained in the theater more than fifteen months during the last two years of the war, a greater one was presented by ground personnel: they often witnessed a complete turnover of flying personnel while they “sweated it out’’ without even the hope of relief.15 Skeptics spoke of the “Golden Gate in ‘48,” while cynics contributed “Join Mac and never come back,” Any rotation plan for ground crews was necessarily complicated by the large number of men, the long distance from the U.S., the constant shortage of shipping, and the continued under-manning of the air command. As late as 31 August 1945 FEAF was deficient in its “operating strength” by 2,159 persons.16 Shortages often assumed critical proportions in the skilled ranks; the 65th Bombardment Squadron reported in September 1944 that it was so hard pressed for mechanics that it was using truck drivers for aircraft and engine repair. As of 31 August 1945 FEAF was seriously short in enlisted armament and ordnance (14.7 per cent), transportation (14.2 per cent), and utility and repair (13.8 per cent) specialties.17
The Thirteenth Air Force had inaugurated a system of returning ground personnel to the U.S. in March 1944 while still under the administrative direction of the U.S. Army Forces in South Pacific Area (USAFISPA) .* Quotas for permanent rotation and thirty-day leaves or furloughs were allotted by USAFISPA and allocated by lottery. Since men had to be selected by percentages within each grade according to the total air force strength in each grade, there were inevitable inequalities. Beginning in May 1944 the Thirteenth was permitted to select personnel for rotation based upon dates of departure from the U.S.,the only restriction being that not more than 20 per cent of any organization be returned on a monthly quota. The quotas allotted amounted to approximately 1 per cent of the total ground strength of the air force.18 Based upon a USAFFE directive, the Fifth Air Force announced on 5 April 1944 that ground personnel who had served faithfully and continuously overseas for at least eighteen months might be selected for return to the U.S., with preference to those with six or more months’ service in the islands north of Australia.19
* USAFISPA and USAFFE were the Army administrative headquarters in the SOPAC and SWA theaters, See Vol. IV, pp. 32-33, 648.
This Fifth Air Force regulation, continued as policy by FEAF, made many eligible for rotation, but the monthly quotas were exceedingly small. The entire June-August quota for the 54th Troop Carrier Wing, for example, was 1 officer and 5 enlisted men; the Thirteenth Air Force received an October quota of 7 officers and 180 enlisted men for its units.20 At the quota rates in effect during 1944, rotation of FEAF ground personnel would have required more than eight years for a complete turnover.21 FEAF would have liked to replace all men at the end of two years’ service in the theater, a time at which it felt that combat efficiency began to deteriorate sharply, but no such plan could be effected in December 1944 when FEAF formally recommended it to USAFFE.22 By July 1945 approximately one of every four nonflying enlisted men in the FEAF had more than twenty-four months in the theater. Even with the announcement of the War Department adjusted service rating score system that month, 65.9 per cent of FEAF’s nonflying personnel with more than two years overseas service still were ineligible for return to the U.S.23 After a special study, the SWPA Air Evaluation Board concluded that “the rotation program as executed in the SWPA had a more adverse effect on morale than any other factor.”24 But, as the war ended, FEAF still had little hope of increasing its efficiency through rotation even with the prospect of liberal redeployment from Europe.
Fitting the replacement personnel into its combat and service units presented another problem for FEAF. Under the optimistic assumption that most nonflying replacements would be qualified in their MOS job assignments, FEAF had no theater training program for ground personnel. The 22nd Replacement Depot simply screened, processed, gave a few orientation lectures, and assigned replacements to units needing them, all within forty-eight hours if there were no complications. When the replacements had been mis-classified at the overseas replacement depot in the U.S. – as was the case with approximately 10 per cent of them-the orderly flow of men in requisitioned specialties was disrupted.”25 After assignment to a unit, the replacements received such on-the-job training as their organizations could provide. This was general policy, but a sharp increase of signal aircraft warning unit fillers preparatory to the Philippines campaign caused an exception. FEAF activated the 5275th Aircraft Warning Replacement Center (P) at Finschhafen on 2 September 1944 to train signal replacements and fillers for new organizations.26
General Kenney desired that as much of the combat crew training as possible be accomplished in the U.S., preferably at training centers staffed by veterans of SWPA.27 Such centers were established in the Third and Fourth Air Forces during the fall of 1944,and by February 1945 Kenney professed satisfaction with the quality of their products.28 During 1944,.however, FEAF received heavy bomber crews which lacked training in formation flying, evasive action over a target, and identification of objectives from aerial photographs. The necessity for the FEAF Combat Replacement Training Center (established at Nadzab shortly after its activation on 15 June 1944*) to teach basic skills reduced the time allotted for its own specialized program of instruction: SWPA air warfare. At times irregularity in monthly arrivals from the U.S. and the urgent needs of combat units caused a sharp curtailment of the scheduled five-week B-24 course and the four-week B-25, A-20, and fighter courses.29
The indoctrination program of the CRTC was nonetheless soundly conceived as an introduction to SWPA. Under the command of Col. Carl A. Brandt until 26 January 1945 and thereafter of Col. John P. Henebry, both experienced combat commanders, the CRTC gave both ground and flight training. Ground instruction was broken down into loran, radar, gunnery, link, bombing, communications, intelligence, jungle, medical, and weather schools. Flying training was divided into bomber, fighter, and troop carrier classifications, each under an experienced officer. The fighter unit taught SWPA combat formations, techniques of dive bombing and strafing, and tactics of proved worth against Japanese aircraft. Bomber crews received transition, formation, instrument, and bombing instruction. During the training period, crews were taken on missions against Wewak as a jungle target, to Rabaul for experience with hostile antiaircraft fire and study of a town and airfield complex, and, after April 1945,on a long-range mission against Vogelkop targets. These missions not only gave the crews an introduction to combat but kept bypassed Japanese forces under constant aerial attack. After a few orientation flights, transport crews were broken in by ferrying replacement pilots to their assigned units in the forward areas.30
In preparation for airborne operations in the Philippines, the 54th Troop Carrier Wing conducted joint training with elements of the 11th Airborne Division between August and November 1944. Because
* It moved to Clark Field on 17 July 1945.
of the heavy demands on transport resources in building up Allied strength in Netherlands New Guinea, the wing could spare only one squadron at a time, but the units were dispatched in turn to Doboduru, where they received refresher training in paradrops and aerial supply. All phases of glider operations were stressed, including loading, rapid take-offs, assembly, multiple simultaneous release, and. unloading.31 While the large-scale employment of airborne troops planned for the Philippines campaign was not affected, the training proved of value at Tagaytay Ridge, on Corregidor, and in the Cagayan valley.
Planes and Weapons
In anticipation of the Philippines campaign, FEAF undertook to replace many of its obsolete and obsolescent planes. By April 1944 the P-39’s of the 82nd and 110th Reconnaissance Squadrons were approaching 400 hours’ flying time and these long-obsolete Airacobras were about worn out. The two units had been so invaluable in close support work that Whitehead asked that they be re-equipped with P-51D’s, but since the P-51 was the favored plane for long-range escort in ETO* there were as yet none available for SWPA.32 Two months later, Whitehead reminded Kenney that the 7th and 8th Fighter Squadrons needed re-equipping: their P-40’s were about “on their last legs.” Kenney, who called the plane “the spearhead of the air advance,”.33 made an unsuccessful effort to obtain more. Since the squadrons must have some replacements by July, Whitehead then suggested P-38’s to make the 49th Group an all-P-38 organization.34 FEAF finally worked out a satisfactory plan when General Giles visited the theater in August to discuss materiel prob1ems.† FEAF was assigned enough P-38’s during September and October to equip the 7th and 8th Fighter Squadrons, permitting Whitehead to transfer their P-40’s to the 82nd and 110th Reconnaissance Squadrons pending such time as the reconnaissance version of the P-51 (F-6D) began to flow to the theater. The 82nd Squadron at Morotai received the first of the F-6D’s during November and became the original Mustang unit in SWPA. The 110th, its P-40’s busy at Leyte and Mindoro in the meantime, received its F-6D’s in February 1945.35
Early in 1945 two Fifth Air Force fighter groups were re-equipped with P-51’s. The 348th Group, squadron by squadron, began exchanging
* See Vol. III, pp. 11-12, Vol. I, pp. 13.
† See above, p. 284.
its P-47’s for the Mustangs, completing the conversion late in March, Beginning in January, the plan had been to permit each squadron twenty to thirty days’ training with the new plane, but operational commitments cut the training period to approximately a week for each squadron. The 35th Group received its first P-51’s early in March, and all three squadrons had checked out by the end of the month. Many pilots were reluctant to part with the “Jug,” as the P-47 was affectionately called and which Whitehead thought “the best fighter which our country possesses,” but its weight required long runways and he feared that it would always be late getting forward. The P-47 nevertheless remained operational in SWPA: the Mexican 201st Fighter Squadron, so equipped, reached Clark Field on 5 April and was attached to the 58th Fighter Group, which kept its P-47’s until the end of the war. The two units gave valuable support to the ground troops on Luzon.36
Suitable conversions were not possible for FEAF’s medium and light bombers. By actual age and combat hours, the B-25’s were the oldest tactical aircraft in the SWPA. Prior to September 1944, the 405th Squadron had received no new B-25’s in over 13 months, and 1 of its planes had over 160 combat missions.37 The A-20 status was less critical and V Bomber Command was well pleased with the new A-20H’s which arrived in September.38 Kenney would have been willing to fight the war to an end with B-25’s and A-20’s because he thought them able to oppose any plane the Japanese could produce, but manufacture of both was scheduled to end in 1944.39 In their place the AAF intended to use the new A-26 Invader, a Douglas plane similar to but larger than the A-20. It was fast (325 m.p.h. at sea level), was armed with 14 forward-firing machine guns, and could carry 2 tons of bombs for a maximum combat radius of 635 miles.40 But when four new A-26’s were test-flown by the 3rd Bombardment Group during July 1944, the pilots reported that the long, broad nose and engines forward of the cockpit reduced visibility so severely that employment of the plane at low levels was impracticable in a theater where jungles and enemy camouflage demanded the best possible view.41 So informed, Kenney flatly told a production representative that he did “not want the A-26 under any circumstances as a replacement for anything”;42 he wrote Arnold that the AAF would do well to admit a mistake and stop producing the “hopeless” A-26’s.43 While Giles was in SWPA, Kenney asked for enough B-25J’s to re-equip the
three Fifth Air Force A-20 groups, a request which the AAF was unable to meet as long as the war continued in Europe, but it did increase the flow rate of these planes to FEAF. The A-20’s released by conversion to A-26’s in ETO permitted FEAF enough A-20 groups to maintain their strength until July 1945, when Kenney was satisfied with a modified A-26 as replacement.44 The 3rd Bombardment Group began conversion to A-26’s in June, but it had not completed the work before the close of the war.45
If Kenney had objected to experimentation with the A-26 so late in the war, he nevertheless entered into plans for an even more remarkable conversion while in Washington in March 1945 – substitution of very heavy B-32’s for the attack bombers of the 312th Group. The B-32 Dominator had been Consolidated Aircraft’s answer to an invitation to construct a very heavy bomber,” but unlike its counterpart, the B-29, the Dominator had not reached mass production. In specification it was, generally speaking, a super-Liberator which could, under optimum conditions, carry a 10-ton bomb load against a target 1,250 miles away. Reversible-pitch propellers, which could be used to decrease the landing roll, and the Davis wing permitted the plane to operate from SWPA heavy bomber fields. Tests of the B-32 had begun in the fall of 1944, but by early 1945 there was a divergence of opinion among AAF agencies as to whether the plane should be purchased in any great numbers. Anxious to secure the range and bomb capacity of the bomber, Kenney persuaded Arnold to give him the B-32’s, which no one else seemed to want, and to test them in combat. Special crews took three of the planes to Clark Field in mid-May, and after a month of minor shakedown flights, the testing period was completed on 17 June; the test crews were pessimistic regarding technical defects of the B-32’s.46 Whitehead, however, thought the B-32 “a fine weapon for our job at Okinawa,” and recommended that the 312th Group be organized as a four-squadron B-32 group.47 Only the 386th Squadron managed conversion before the end of the war, and only fifteen of its B-32’s actually saw service against the enemy.48
Although its men flew extensively over water, FEAF until autumn 1944 remained short of OA-1O’s, the AAF version of the Catalina amphibian rescue ship. Earlier, FEAF had depended heavily upon Navy Catalinas and surface craft for rescue of its downed airmen, but it got its own air-sea rescue organization with the arrival of the 2nd and
* See above, p. 6.
3rd Emergency Rescue (ER) Squadrons from the U.S. in July and September. They were assigned to the Thirteenth and Fifth Air Forces respectively, which established for the direction of their operations the 5230th and the 5276th Rescue Composite Groups, each a provisional organization functioning directly under air force headquarters. Upon Kenney’s urging, the AAF finally permitted the activation of the 5th ER Group and the 13th ER Group in late March 1945. Perfection of a control mechanism which resulted in the rescue of 551 Allied airmen between July 1944 and February 1945, however, did nothing to alleviate a shortage of basic aircraft. In early December 1944 General Streett notified Kenney that only five of twelve OA-10’s assigned to his 2nd ER Squadron were in the hands of the unit and two of them were undergoing engine change. Kenney immediately asked Washington for assignment of 100 per cent reserve aircraft and, pending this, for dispatch of enough OA-10’s and crews to bring FEAF’s two squadrons (which had on hand twenty-two planes) up to their authorized strength of forty-eight planes plus a 25 per cent reserve. But new OA-10’s came in slowly. The heaviest augmentation of strength came in April 1945, when the 6th ER Squadron arrived from the U.S. for assignment to the 5th ER Group, Meanwhile, the emergency rescue groups functioned brilliantly with their OA-10’s, a few new “Flying Dutchmen” B-17’s, and such Catahas as could be borrowed from the Seventh Fleet.49
Since extensive airborne operations were planned for the Philippines, especially for the invasion of Mindanao, FEAF estimated its requirements at 650 C-47’s and 735 gliders, mostly CG-4A’s. It actually had at the end of May 1944 only 511 C-47’s and no gliders, which until that time had not been required. Many of the planes were getting old; one assigned to the 54th Troop Carrier Wing – called “Old Number Two”-reputedly was the tenth C-47 purchased by the AAF and had flown more than 2,000 missions.50 The AAF agreed to meet the over-all glider requirement and promised 12 C-47’s, equipped to pick up gliders, during June and July 1944; for the rest, it would be necessary to rely on the prospect that the Air Transport Command would be operating 100 C-47’s in SWPA’s rear areas by August and the promise that, beginning in October and continuing through January, enough of the new C-46’s would be sent out to reequip 2 groups with this larger-capacity cargo plane. The C-46’s actually began to reach SWPA during September 1944, and in the
following month the 433rd Troop Carrier Group started conversion. By July 1945 two other troop carrier groups had been provided with C-46’s.51 The decision to bypass Mindanao* had resulted in a curtailment of airborne operations, with the result that now there were no serious shortages.
In fact, not all of the resources made available to FEAF for airborne operations would be required. During the summer of 1944 the AAF was organizing, on the basis of experience gained in Burma, t two air commando groups and two combat cargo groups, to which were to be added engineer companies, airdrome squadrons, service groups, an aerial resupply depot, and an air depot group. These units were intended for CBI, but Giles on 18 June wrote Kenney of Arnold’s fear that circumstances there would “deny them the bold and imaginative employment required” and invited Kenney to submit a competitive plan.52 Kenney characteristically replied, with no loss of time, that this was “right down our alley.” He was eager to get the P-51’s as replacement for his P-40’s and recommended only the substitution of additional service groups in place of the air depot group, a change which would assure greater mobility. Kenney, who long had depended upon waterborne supplies, responded enthusiastically to the central idea of the commando group, which was a self-sufficient organization, logistically and otherwise. “Boats are all right in their place,” he concluded, “but the Navy fights a different war and the Air Force here would like nothing better than to rely solely on air transportation.”53
While in the theater during August 1944, both Giles and Hull recommended that all of these groups intended for CBI be assigned to FEAF, but the JCS were unwilling to make a definite decision until OCTAGON. There, in view of the decision to bypass Mindanao, they decided to divide the groups between SWPA and the CBI; a promise that all possible steps would be taken to meet SWPA’s remaining requirements for transports and P-51’s was added.54 The 3rd Air Commando Group, including its ten subordinate units, arrived at Leyte on 1 December and was immediately assigned to V Fighter Command. Though its P-51’s did not arrive until 7 January 1945, it began combat flights next day. A few C-46’s and crews of the 2nd Combat Cargo Group had arrived during November, but the ground echelons did not reach Biak until the next month. Even then, initiation
* See above, p. 307 and below, pp. 341-42.
† See above, pp. 208 n, 284.
of full-scale operations was hindered by a lack of spare parts, engines, and full organizational equipment. The group was assigned to the 54th Troop Carrier Wing, except for one C-46 squadron which was detailed temporarily to the new 5298th Troop Carrier Wing (P) for rear area operations. The 10 glider sections of 340 officers and 490 enlisted men requested for airborne operations in the Philippines arrived at Biak during November, where, organized into the 1st Glider Group (P), they were assigned to the 54th Troop Carrier Wing to await employment. Most of the men and their gliders would be transferred back to the U.S. in the summer of 1945 without having seen any combat.55
Throughout 1944-45 FEAF continued its experiments on extension of the range and augmentation of the firepower of all aircraft received from the U.S. There was now little left to be done to the B-24, frequently modified during 1943, except that FEAF still had to remove all belly turrets from Liberators allocated to V Bomber Command and install them in those destined for the XIII Bomber Command. The former command, usually flying fighter-escorted missions when in critical areas, preferred the lighter weight of manually operated guns; the latter needed the belly turret in its long-range and often unescorted missions. Similarly, the V Bomber Command preferred extra ammunition to protective armor.56 The B-25G, arriving first in late 1943, had had a heavy 75-mm. cannon in its nose; since targets for this awkward piece of ordnance were limited, the weapon was removed and two fixed .50-caliber guns were placed in the cannon hatch. The addition of package guns further increased strafing power, but blast effects caused skin failures and the modification was never satisfactory. B-25H’s came in February 1944 with an improved light 75-mm. cannon, four forward-firing guns in the nose, two package guns on either side of the fuselage, a top turret, a ball turret in the tail, and a flexible gun in each waist window. Pilots still found it impossible to fire more than four rounds from the cannon in one pass over a target, and aiming difficulties made the plane extremely vulnerable to ground fire. This model was first assigned to the 498th Squadron, and then abandoned in August 1944. Later in the spring of 1944, the first B-25J’s reached SWPA, a type similar in armament to the B-25H but with a Plexiglas bombardier nose mustering one flexible and two fixed .50-caliber guns. This model was completely unsuited for a theater where medium bombers attacked at low altitude, and
FEAF had to replace the bombardier nose with eight .50-caliber fixed-gun nose kits dispatched for the purpose by the AAF. Beginning in September 1944 B-25J’s with 8-gun nose strafers arrived and proved suitable for use without armament changes, but FEAF added an additional 150-gallon fuel cell in the radio compartment to augment this range.57
Except for their lack of range, A-20’s continued to give little trouble. FEAF tried installation of bomb-bay tanks in the A-20 models in use during the spring of 1944, but this was hardly under way before A-20G’s appeared with built-in bomb-bay tanks. In October 1944 the A-20H’s included improved bomb-bay tanks and six .50-caliber forward firing guns; they were also capable of slightly increased speeds and greater maneuverability than earlier models. Early in 1945 special wing racks or droppable fuel tanks were added on A-20’s, permitting some extension of range and allowing them to carry napalm. During July 1944 the 312th Group, while at Hollandia, also initiated tactical experiments with the A-20 as a rocket-carrying plane, but the rocket-launcher tubes reduced cruising speed from 200 to 185 m.p.h. and thereby reduced range. Since neither Kenney nor Whitehead approved such a sacrifice, further procurement of the weapon was halted. Late in the war both men favored the new Zero-rail-type rockets which did not need cumbersome launching tubes, but this equipment was mounted on fighters and on the new A-26’s instead of the old A-20’s.58
Fighter modification was chiefly concerned with the extension of range. The combat radius of the P-38J’s had been stretched with internal and external wing tanks prior to Hollandia, and cruise-control techniques added further miles to the planes; by the fall of 1944 they carried their maximum fuel load. The P-47’s presented more difficult problems. As first delivered to Port Moresby, these planes had slightly less range than a P-40. To increase the P-47’s combat radius to 625 miles, the V Air Force Service Command had designed a 220-gallon belly tank for production in Australia, and, prodded by experience in ETO, the AAF had added 65 gallons to the internal supply and two 150-gallon jettisohable fuel tanks. Meanwhile, FEASC experimented with a 42-gallon fuel cell mounted in the fuselage directly behind the pilot and with a form-fitting belly tank holding about 70 gallons of fuel. By the summer of 1944 all of these expedients were in use, but V Fighter Command pilots, having seen numerous crashes attributable to tire failure on such heavily loaded planes, were unwilling to carry
more than 505 gallons of fuel. Kenney, realizing that the P-47 had reached its load limit without impractical heavier-ply tires, canceled both the fuel cell and the form-fitting belly, or “scab,” tank. Cruise control, however, increased P-47 range during the fall of 1944. By the spring of 1945 it was being replaced with the P-51, the AAF’s ace long-range fighter.59
While the need for extreme fighter ranges decreased once FEAF units moved into the Philippines, the jettisonable fuel tanks proved excellent for carrying the new incendiary mixture called napalm. This powder, a metallic salt of the naphtha used in soap manufacture mixed with gasoline to form a gelatinous mass, was dropped in a belly tank and fired with a set igniter. The gel clung to any surface and burned with an extremely hot flame. The 12th Fighter Squadron (XIII Fighter Command) flew the first tactical napalm mission in the SWPA on 22 October 1944, dropping 75-gallon belly tanks on Boela oil storage tanks. Although napalm appeared to be an admirable attacking weapon, Whitehead permitted only one tactical demonstration on Leyte, insisting that large stocks be accumulated for massed attacks in support of ground fighting on Luzon. While other planes would attempt napalm missions (a C-47 dropped drums of the mixture on Manila Bay islands), the incendiary remained best suited as a weapon for fighters.60
By the fall of 1944 FEAF had secured the planes and attacking power necessary to initiate a hard-fought campaign in the Philippines, the greatest offensive effort of the SWPA. On 31 August 1944 FEAF had assigned 2,629 first-line combat aircraft – 491 B-24’s, 509 B-25’s, 350 A-20’s, 497 P-38’s, 135 P-40’s, 429 P-47’s, 42 night fighters, and 176 reconnaissance types. Of noncombat planes, FEAF had assigned 633 transports, mostly C-47’s, and 164 communications planes, including liaison and rescue types.61 Once the campaigns for Leyte and Mindoro got under way, however, fierce Japanese resistance coupled with improvised and crowded airstrips brought high operational losses. By the end of December FEAF’s first-line strength was down to 403 B-29’s, 302 B-25’s, and 270 A-20’s. The number of P-38’s declined to 398 at the end of November but rose to 470 in December. The P-47’s, which were being replaced with P-51’s at the end of December, numbered 257 while only 95 P-51’s were assigned. All figures, moreover, counted planes on the way from the U.S. as well as those actually in the theater.62
FEAF was “running a little close to the danger line” at the same
time that Arnold warned of insufficient American production to care for increased attrition in all of the combat theaters. In a letter to Arnold on 28 December, Kenney expressed concern about his lack of single-engine fighters: the AAF had cut back P-47 deliveries and P-51 substitutes were not arriving in sufficient numbers to replace losses and fill reconversion needs. Without emergency allotments FEAF would be short 275 single-engine fighters by mid-February. Kenney could see no chance for improvement of his B-24 shortage (forty-seven on 31 December) from scheduled replacements; P-38 squadrons had to operate at three-quarter strength until replacements caught up in February.63 The AAF promised some relief for the B-24 shortage and forecast that P-51 units would be fully equipped by late February, P-38 groups by late March.64 On 1 February, however, General Giles warned that theater attrition was “becoming more acute every day,” and warned that conservation policies must be far more stringent.65 A shortage of shipping space out of San Francisco further jeopardized movement of such aircraft as were allotted to FEAF. Fighters and light bombers were generally deck-loaded on tankers there, but during February the Pacific Overseas Air Technical Service Command managed delivery of only 239 planes (119 of them on a carrier dispatched as an emergency).66 With 503 FEAF planes on the docks at the end of February, the POATSC asked permission to receive no more until the backlog could be worked off.67
Fortunately, the threatened reduction of air strength was curtailed before it became critical. General Kenney requested and received some forty-seven late-model P-38J’s and L’s released by the Seventh Air Force in its conversion to P-51’s.68’ The AAF shipped P-38 models without tail warning devices, thereby speeding delivery by 20 days;.69 it also scheduled 200 fighters over and above FEAF’s normal allocation to give a margin of reserve for unanticipated losses.70 During January, moreover, the FEASC reclaimed 17 P-47’s and 20 B-24’s from second-line status, a major undertaking since the command estimated that renovation of a P-47 and a B-24 required an average of 4,000 and 8,750 man-hours of labor, respectively.71 When P-51’s remained in short supply, Kenney, in Washington during March 1945, agreed to retain the 58th Fighter Group as a Thunderbolt organization, at least until he could test combat suitability of new P-47N’s offered him as replacements.72 After February waterborne movement of planes to FEAF improved: total deliveries of new aircraft,
including B-24’s, B-25’s, and transports which could be flown overseas, increased from 430 in February to 459 in March, 506 in April, and 713 in May.73 Losses in FEAF’s tactical units declined during these same four months, and beginning in May the number of aircraft in combat units began to jump upward strongly. What had threatened to become a crisis had been checked, but the flood of new airplanes – the 713 received during May was an all-time high – placed a severe burden upon FEASC erection and modification depots.74
Established on 15 June 1944 at the reorganization resulting in the formation of FEAF, the Far East Air Service Command had assumed direction of aircraft erection and modification, fourth echelon maintenance, and supply common to the Fifth and Thirteenth Air Forces. It continued as a provisional organization until 18 August and for its first several months remained chiefly an administrative redesignation of the logistical organization which had grown up during two years of combat. After two years of effort, Kenney finally secured Maj. Gen. Clements McMullen, an officer whom he described as “tops in the supply and maintenance field and a personal friend of twenty-five years’ standing,” and made him commander of FEASC on 24 October. McMullen had long experience in the AAF Air Service Command, which he had commanded for a short time during 1944 prior to its merger into the Air Technical Service Command.75
Within two months McMullen determined that no “completely cohesive Headquarters FEASC entity” had never existed. Personnel were poorly utilized throughout the command, which had been in continuous competition with FEAF and the Fifth Air Force for control of its own materiel agencies. Intent on providing for anticipated emergencies, commanders had “permitted pilfering which in some cases degenerated down to plain stealing.” On 23 December McMullen accordingly asked Kenney to begin transfers of competent, combat experienced flying officers to FEASC, to limit tactical units to a strict ten-day supply on hand, to assign the 54th Troop Carrier Wing and the 5298th Troop Carrier Wing (P) to FEASC, and to give FEASC control of all rear-area bases not occupied by tactical units.76 McMullen also believed that FEASC’s mission required it to control all oceangoing shipping allocated to the air forces by the Services of Supply.77
At FEAF McMullen’s recommendations met the conservative reaction of men who had long subordinated administrative efficiency to success in combat;78 nevertheless, General Kenney instituted remedial
action to secure combat personnel for FEASC and agreed that existing conservation policies must be tightened. But he was unwilling to limit combat organizations rigidly even to the fifteen-day supply level supposedly in practice. The 5298th Troop Carrier Wing (P),* having been disbanded and reactivated as the 322nd Troop Carrier Wing on 30 December, was assigned to FEASC by Kenney on 3 January 1945. Although FEASC’s wing controlled little more than the 374th Troop Carrier Group and despite the fact that the 54th Troop Carrier Wing remained under Fifth Air Force command, Kenney considered that his action met McMullen’s demand for air transport.79 Although the Fifth Air Force protested that it had little faith in FEASC’s promises of orderly resupply, supply levels for combat units and their associated service units were set at a thirty-day level.80 The FEAF A-4 continued to manage allocation of shipping despite reminders that FEASC could better assume the duty.81
Though given only a part of his desired reforms, General McMullen reorganized his own establishment for more efficient operations. Headquarters, FEASC, was organized into six functional divisions on 13 January 1945. The management control division, a consolidation of the existing scattered accounting and fact-finding offices, had as one of its most important functions maintenance of an effective stock-balance report of all units of FEAF. In order to keep better accounts, McMullen had already stopped the two air service area commands from requisitioning directly from the U.S. The new organization conformed closely to that of the AAF’s Air Technical Service Command and facilitated dealings between the two. McMullen also ordered an active interchange of officers between FEASC and the ATSC. He dispatched classification inspectors to the operating units of his command in order to bring personnel accounting up to date.82 The new efficiency in FEASC contributed to the success of the Philippines campaign, and would have been of greatly increased significance had redeployment from Europe required FEASC to take command of a vastly expanded logistical establishment.
* The 5298th Troop Carrier Wing had been activated with American units released from the Directorate of Air Transport, AAFSWPA, at the dissolution of the latter unit on 3 Oct. 1944.