P-40 at Clark Field
While the Japanese attacks on Clark Field and Iba on the opening day of hostilities in the Philippines caused tremendous damage, they did not knock the United States Far East Air Force out of the war, as is so commonly believed. The most serious aspect of the raid was the destruction and damage of the eighteen Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses that were on the ground at Clark in the midst of refueling and rearming when the attack came. Most of the Curtis P-40 Kittyhawk fighters of the 20th Pursuit Squadron were lost when ten airplanes were caught in the Japanese bomb pattern as they were preparing to takeoff, while several of the 3rd Pursuit’s fighters ran out of fuel and had to crash-land. The radar facility at the remote airfield at Iba was destroyed. But half of the 35-plane force of B-17s had been deployed to Del Monte Field at Mindanao and more than half of the P-40s in the islands had not been involved in the attacks at all. Although their strength had been greatly reduced, the Army Air Corps was still very much in the war.
After the Japanese bombers and fighters vacated the skies over Clark Field, the defenders began taking stock of the situation and working to return the airstrip and damaged airplanes to operational service. Not all of the B-17s at Clark were destroyed. One of the Clark-based B-17s had been on a reconnaissance mission and one of the airplanes from Mindanao arrived in the midst of the attack. Both landed safely. In addition, three of the damaged B-17s were repairable, Mechanics began working feverishly to return them to operational service. Only two were flown to Mindanao to join the remnants of the 19th Bombardment Group and one of those was lost during a takeoff accident on its first mission. The third – V Bomber Command commander Lt. Colonel Eugene Eubank’s personal airplane –was destroyed when it was struck by an errant P-40 that swerved off the runway while taking off before dawn the morning after the attack. On the afternoon of December 8, the 21st Pursuit Squadron was brought up to Clark from Nichols Field, which had yet to be struck. While Clark was under attack, the squadron had been patrolling over the naval facilities at Cavite and never joined the battle. The 17th Pursuit had also been on patrol away from Clark. The squadron returned to its base at Del Carmen, a fighter strip some 15-20 miles south of Clark.
The repair work was carried out largely by individual initiative. From all indications, large numbers of Air Corps service personnel abandoned their posts and ran into the cane fields in panic during the attack. But while many of the service troops succumbed to temporary panic, most of the combat crews and the engineers remained on the base and pitched in to repair the damage and return the airfield to operational service. Major Emmett C. Lentz, an Air Corps surgeon, rounded up a crew of men and supervised the construction of a dugout infirmary. Master Sergeant George R. Robinet, mess sergeant for the 30th Bombardment Squadron, refused to evacuate his mess equipment and set up facilities by the hangar. Robinet was famous at Clark, then on Bataan and at Mindanao for the quality of his mess. He continued to provide the best food possible, even after he went into a Japanese prison camp. Lieutenant Colonel – later Brigadier General – Eugene Eubank, commander of V Bomber Command, stayed with his troops on the flight line, helping gas airplanes and guiding in fighters during darkness with a flashlight. As thing settled down, the men who had fled the stricken base began returning, although their morale remained low.
Even after the Japanese vacated the skies over Luzon, losses continued among the fighters. A major problem was the dust that covered the airfields, reducing visibility and making flight operations hazardous. The 17th Pursuit lost two airplanes that night when a pilot tried to take off too soon behind the airplane in front of him and collided with another P-40 that was parked nearby. The pilot survived, but his body was covered with serious burns. A similar incident the next morning at Clark claimed two P-40s and a B-17. One P-40 pilot taxied into a bomb crater in the dusty darkness and the other, Lt. Robert D. Clark, became disoriented and hit Colonel Eubank’s personal airplane. Such incidents continued to plague the Interceptor Command; as many or more fighters were lost to accident, engine failure or fuel starvation than to enemy action. By contrast, more than 140 Japanese aircraft would be destroyed by American fighters, bombers and B-17 gunners. The tragedy was that while the Japanese could send more airplanes down from Japan, whenever an American fighter was lost, it couldn’t be replaced. Within a few days, there were few airplanes left to fly and the young fighter pilots and their ground crews were assigned to ground combat duty.
The 34th Pursuit Squadron had seen action on December 8. No orders had been sent to their headquarters at Del Carmen and they didn’t get off the ground until after the attack. When they did, they headed for Clark. Although none of their kills were confirmed, the P-35 pilots claimed several Japanese airplanes shot down during a fierce battle near Clark. The squadron joined the 17th Pursuit in combat patrols over Luzon on December 9, then ended up at the satellite field at San Marcelino for the night. There they found no quarters, food or potable water. They were joined by some of the B-17s that came up from Mindanao. Two squadrons of B-17s had been sent to Del Monte Field in early December and they escaped the carnage that befell their peers at Clark on December 8. Part of the flight landed at Clark and part at San Marcelino, where they faced miserable conditions. There was no mess and little food to be had. What water they could find had to be boiled, and it remained tepid in the heat and humidity of the islands. The men of the 21st Pursuit were more fortunate – when they landed at Clark, they were directed to a camp that had been set up by the 20th Pursuit in the foothills of the Zambales Mountains a few miles from the airfield. There they found some bamboo huts, a few cots, mess facilities and a flowing stream of fresh water.
The B-17s were brought up from Mindanao in preparation for an attack on the Japanese airfields in Southern Formosa. But reconnaissance patrols detected large Japanese convoys approaching Vigan and Aparii in Northern Luzon. V Bomber Command was instructed to cancel the Formosa mission and direct its efforts against the Japanese invasion forces instead. The plan called for a strike by fifteen B-17s, with P-40s and P-35s from the 17th and 34th Pursuit Squadrons to provide fighter cover before going in to make their own attacks when the bombers departed. A few B-18s that had been given to the recently arrived 27th Bombardment Group also joined the attack.
During the night of December 10, Lieutenant Grant Mahoney went out on a reconnaissance mission in a P-40 and came back with detailed information on the convoy. Only five B-17s were able to make the flight; Major Cecil Combs, commander of the 93rd Bombardment Squadron, led the flight off of Clark for the flight up the island to the target. Each of the five airplanes carried twenty 100-pound bombs, weapons that were really too light to do much damage to ships. The attackers came over the beach where the Japanese were preparing to land at 12,000 feet. They dropped part of their bombs, then came back around from the opposite direction and dropped the rest. After the attack the bombers turned south toward Clark. They observed some hits and thought one transport was sinking. Combs wanted to rearm and go back for another mission, but the people at Clark were fearful of another Japanese attack and ordered him to take his airplanes back to Mindanao. Immediately after the bombers turned to depart the area, the escorting P-40s dropped down to strafe the landing barges and drop fragmentation bombs. Two fighters were lost to engine failure, but the pilots bailed out and made their way to safety.
A flight of sixteen P-35s took off from Del Carmen, but their worn-out engines began giving problems and eleven of the pilots had to turn back. The other five arrived over Vigan to discover that the P-40 attack had disrupted the landings and that several of the barges had been sunk. Lt. Samuel H. Marrett led his wingman in a daring strafing attack that sank several additional barges and started fires on three transports. Marrett concentrated his attack on a 10,000-ton transport. During his final pass, which he made right down on the deck through gunfire from several ships, his bullets apparently hit the transport’s magazine and set off an explosive cargo. Marrett’s P-35 caught the full force of the explosion and shed a wing, then dove into the sea and sank. All of the P-35s that turned back returned to Del Carmen and were parked side-by-side. Just after the others returned from the mission to Vigan, a flight of twelve Japanese fighters swooped down on the field. They hit the gasoline trucks and all of the P-35s, destroying twelve and damaging the other six. Within minutes, the 34th Pursuit Squadron was out of the war.
Early in the morning of December 10, Major Emmett O’Donnell, commander of the 14th Bombardment Squadron, took off from San Marcelino for Clark. Upon arrival he sent word back to his men to follow him at dawn. The B-17s arrived in a pouring rain. Only three were allowed to land; the authorities at Clark were expecting another attack and didn’t want to risk having six bombers caught on the ground. Three others returned to San Marcelino, then were ordered to Mindanao later in the day. O’Donnell took off alone with eight 600-pound bombs and set a course for Vigan. He attacked a cruiser and destroyer escort but had problems with his bomb release mechanism. Intent on the target, O’Donnell and his crew made five passes on the two ships and managed to drop all of their bombs but observed no hits.
Iba Airfield
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