AMERICAN STALINGRAD - THE USAAF

B-17E and groundcrew at Plaines des Gaiacs airdrome, New Caledonia

The tale of how the Army Air Forces brought B-17s to the South Pacific in July 1942 and managed to operate them is a good example of what all units in the South Pacific faced

The first component of the future Cactus Air Force to reach SoPac was the Seventh Air Force's 11th Heavy Bombardment Group, Colonel Laverne G. “Blondie” Saunders, equipped with the Boeing B-17E Flying Fortress, the first combat-capable version of the famous bomber. They were trained and initially deployed to undertake search-reconnaissance flights and/or maritime long range bombing missions. On June 20, 1942, the day Brigadier General Willis Hale assumed command of the Seventh Air Force, the count of operational, relatively modern B-17Es in the Pacific Theater was 63: 47 on Oahu and 16 on Midway.

On July 4, 1942, 11th Bomb Group was selected to supply an advance force of 107 carefully selected ground crew for duty in Fiji and the New Hebrides. The group’s flight echelon, 35 B-17Es equipped with the new “ball” turret in their belly as replacement for the useless remote-control turret, was to follow after the ground echelon had reached the new stations, with 27 B-17s based on New Caledonia and 8 at Nandi, on Viti Levu, Fiji’s main island and administrative center.

Second from L: 2nd Lt. Gene Roddenberry, co-pilot of “Los Lobos” with ground crew

On July 16, a flight echelon of two squadrons of the 11th Bomb Group departed Oahu’s Hickam Field. On July 21, the 98th Heavy Bombardment Squadron arrived at New Caledonia’s new Plaines des Gaiacs airdrome, followed by the 42nd Bomb Squadron. Completing the group’s redeployment to SoPac, the 431st Bomb Squadron arrived in Fiji on July 24, and the 26th Bomb Squadron arrived at Plaines des Gaiacs on July 25.

Colonel Saunders later described the unloading facilities at Espiritu Santo as “one barge, a sandy beach and a prayer.” A ship unloading heavy equipment could only sling it over the side into a lighter; some of the gear was of such size that the trip to shore was a race to get there before the lighter sank. There were no cranes ashore, while the small finger piers were constructed of coconut logs salted down with coral; they were constantly being rebuilt, since they would wash out to sea and disappear after two or three weeks' use. There was no overall central supply control system to keep track of shipments, which meant the first information the group supply officer seldom had regarding arrival dates of supplies was when he learned a ship had arrived in harbor. This meant that crates and boxes accumulated in the coconut groves since there was no way to anticipate storage needs. On Espiritu Santo, there was no question of living off the country for any unit. All food, clothing, and housing had to be brought in from the States. The one thing Espiritu possessed in abundance was a foot-thick covering of soft black dirt that became a quagmire after the frequent tropical rain storms.

Supplying the B-17 squadrons in SoPac added a whole dimension of challenge. The Navy took on the responsibility to provide aviation gasoline and ammunition. The first shipment was 300,000 gallons of fuel, which was estimated to be enough for two weeks of flying plus a 100-percent overage for emergency use. The entire load lasted just ten days. Realizing they were vulnerable to the vagaries of shipping schedules, the supply sections anticipated a long wait for more fuel, but 3,000 drums miraculously arrived aboard the cargo ship Nira Luckenbach in time to prevent the patrol schedule from going awry.When Nira Luckenbach arrived, the steel drums were dumped over the ship's side and floated ashore in nets, where they were hand-rolled up under the trees, then dispersed in dumps of 20 to 30 drums. They were then loaded on trucks, rolled up on stands, and emptied into the tank wagons which serviced aircraft. There were no gas trucks or trailers.

Loading fuel aboard the bombers was a practical improbability that was nonetheless accomplished, somehow. For the 26th Squadron’s August 7 search missions from Efate, all hands—including Blondie Saunders and Brigadier General William C. Rose, commander of Army troops on Efate and Espiritu Santo—turned out in a heavy rainstorm on August 6 to man a literal bucket brigade that required 20 hours of backbreaking struggle to hand-fill the fuel tanks of the B-17s with 25,000 gallons of avgas.

The 11th Group had no access to field telephones or motor transport, which made operating from any of the group’s bases a real test. Likewise, the distribution of the squadrons to their several bases, compounded by inadequate long-range communications, made it almost impossible to schedule planes from more than one squadron for any given mission. Typically, the group was able to get several planes off for each day’s scheduled search missions as well as maintaining a mobile force of six bomb-laden on-call strike aircraft on the ground.

Working and living conditions throughout SoPac’s front-line holdings were horrific, nothing short of appalling.

Noumea’s Plaines des Gaiacs airdrome had been built in the middle of a swamp parked in the middle of a bowl of red earth that produced storms of iron oxide dust, which played havoc with any metal parts built to rub against other metal parts. Engine lubricants had to be changed out after only six flying hours, which put a major strain on parts and fuel inventories designed to last much longer. Nine maintenance men accompanied the nine 26th Squadron B-17s, and they doubled as groundcrew. The 26th owed a debt of gratitude to the African-American enlisted men of the 24th Infantry Regiment, who helped service the planes and even improvised spare parts in their machine shop. The airmen on Efate messed with artillerymen, while on Espiritu Santo the entire 98th Squadron, including Colonel Saunders, slept under trees or the wings of their bombers, or in the Forts themselves. In addition to their full flying schedule, the combat aircrewmen undertook a large share of maintenance and servicing of their airplanes.

The aircraft revetments were hacked out of the jungle, and were barely deep enough to keep a B-17's nose off the runway. They were so narrow a crewman had to stand at each wing tip to guide the pilots out to the short taxiway, then stay on the wing to keep the bomber from hitting the trees that bordered the taxiway while moving toward the runway. The runway had no lights; for pre-dawn takeoffs, bottles of oil with paper wicks were placed along the runway so their flickering light could mark the runway boundary, while parked jeeps with their headlights on marked the runway’s end.

Nandi, most rearward of the 11th group’s bases, was clean and quiet when compared to the forward bases and thus served as a rest area and the only convenient place for engine changes. Conditions at the forward bases were so primitive that Colonel Saunders regularly relieved his units after only one week in the forward area.

The machine shop on Admiral McCain’s flagship, the seaplane tender USS Curtiss, was enlisted to build an array of replacement parts and devices for the bombers, but complicated tools such as navigation aids had to come from sources outside the combat region, often with long delays and scheduling headaches. Engine changes and other heavy maintenance had to be handled at Nandi, where the port and airfield facilities were reasonably modern and mud free. But there was no way to build new spare engines in-theater, and resupply of new engines from outside SoPac was difficult to contemplate, much less schedule. Improvisation only got the 11th so far; more and more of its B-17s had to be sidelined to await critical replacement parts, or cannibalized to keep others flying.

By August 18, the group’s supply situation was critical: six ball turret hatches had broken off and there were no spares. There was trouble with turbosupercharger regulators as well as flight and engine instruments. Engine changes were constantly necessary due to the dusty fields, but the twelve spares at Nandi were already in service and the next change at Plaines des Gaiacs would exhaust the entire engine supply in New Caledonia.

There were no trained Army personnel or Army photographic equipment available for aerial reconnaissance photographic work. Thus, cameras came from the Navy, while photographers were Marines from newly-arrived Marine Observation Squadron VMO-251. The only AAF participation in the aerial reconnaissance of the Solomons was the provision of the B-17s that carried the cameras and photographers. The Navy unit at Espiritu Santo responsible for aerial reconnaissance was known as "Quackenbush's Gypsies," for their leader, Lt. Commander Robert Quackenbush.

“Quackenbush’s Gypsies” flew their first mission on July 23, when two 11th Group B-17s manned by several Marine photographers from VMO-251 flew to Guadalcanal and Tulagi islands to get photos for invasion planning. The B-17s were attacked by Tulagi-based A6M2-N floatplane fighters, but they failed to even damage any of the Flying Fortresses.

On July 28, the crude but functional advance airstrip on Espiritu Santo was declared operational only twenty-eight days after its construction was ordered. On July 30, several 11th Bomb Group B-17s undertook the first search missions out of the new advance airfield, from which they were able to conduct air search and bombing missions in support of the upcoming landings.

On July 31, 11th Bomb Group B-17s based in the New Hebrides opened a seven-day bombing campaign against targets in the invasion area. Though his group’s search aircraft had been using the Espiritu Santo airstrip for several days, Colonel Saunders had not yet seen the facility, so, for the first bombing mission, nine B-17s from various squadrons were selected to take part because a radio-compartment auxiliary fuel tank and a bomb-bay tank used for the flight from Hawaii were still installed in each of them. The bomb-bay tanks severely restricted the bomb loads, but a list of alternatives provided no good answers.

With Saunders leading, the nine strike bombers took off from Vila Field and flew 710 miles to Guadalcanal through bad weather that helped prevent discovery by Japanese ships and planes. The three lead B-17s dropped 500-pound bombs on the Japanese airfield on Guadalcanal while the remaining six dropped 100-pound bombs on supply dumps around Kukum. Antiaircraft fire was negligible and inaccurate, and the A6M2-Ns based at Tulagi failed to take off while the bombers were over Guadalcanal.

Colonel Saunders had an opportunity to inspect the Espiritu Santo forward airstrip after landing there on the return flight to Vila Field. He was understandably taken aback by how small and crude the air base looked, the lack of taxiways, roads, docks, dispersal areas, and the minimal presence of ground personnel or adequate supplies or basic standard equipment such as fueler trucks. Nevertheless, given that the advance strip was only 555 miles from Guadalcanal, Saunders allowed as six strike bombers and two search bombers could be accommodated there each day.

On a separate July 31 mission, several B-17s from the Fifth Air Force’s 19th Heavy Bombardment Group, based in New Guinea, attacked the under-construction airstrip at Lunga Point and beach defenses at Kukum on Guadalcanal.

With the field at Espiritu Santo now operational, after August 1 the B-17s could discard their bomb-bay fuel thanks and carry full bomb loads on Guadalcanal missions, filling their radio tanks at Efate, and refueling at Espiritu on the return leg. On August 1, the heavies thus attacked the Tulagi seaplane base, shooting down two A6M2-Ns.

The August 3 mission was routine; there was no aerial opposition. On August 4, three 11th Bomb Group B-17s based at Vila Field attacked the Tulagi seaplane base. One B-17 was lost when a flaming A6M2-N rammed it. On August 5, several 11th group B-17s attacked port facilities at Tulagi and Kukum. One B-17 was shot down by an A6M2-N, demonstrating that while the floatplane might look clumsy, it was dangerous.

The 11th Bomb Group was given August 6 off. The air and ground crews used the time to prepare for a protracted bombing and long-range reconnaissance campaign beginning as soon as the amphibious landings scheduled for the next day were underway.

Meanwhile, even though Navy Catalina patrol bombers had been flying daily search missions over Guadalcanal since July 31 from an advance seaplane base at Ndeni, in the Santa Cruz Islands, there was no evidence the Japanese in the Eastern Solomons were on alert for the imminent Operation Watchtower landings.

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