Had the Japanese not attacked in 1941

[johnbryan]

Aug 21, 2009 21:30:04 GMT -5 oklahoma said:

hey john....wouldnt this shipment of planes be the nucleus of what became known as the 5th united states army airforce that began operations flying out of port moresby, new guinea??? since these fighter aircraft were initially supposed to be ferried up to the PI for utilization against the japanese, i would suppose they would operate out of del monte in mindanao and/or cebu. i am not familiar with what facilities were available in cebu. wonder if del monte could support a fighter group?? i know that half of the B-17 force stationed in prewar PI were luckily redeployed to delmonte before the clark field fiasco, therefore there were some repair/armament/overhaul/etc resources in mindanao, but could a fighter group operate effectively from this crude setup?? i say again, "aint conjecture with the aid of hindsight fun?"

The B-17's could also stage out of San Marcelino Field on Luzon. It had the necessary length to fly them in and out. Del Monte actually did have a small number of (4 or 5) P-40E's that were smuggled in by blockade runners, assembled and operated from smaller airstrips on Mindanao. Some of these were later captured intact by the Japanese at the time of the final surrender.

[VeeVee]

Here's one of them captured P-40's

click for bigger

[johnbryan]

Those captured P-40's later ended up in Burma, making up its entire air force until the planes were eventually grounded for lack of spare parts.

[oklahoma]

hey john....good stuff as per usual. i still think that 'ole P-40 was a good looking ship. might have been approaching obsolete status at the beginning of the war, but was still a rugged craft. still very useful in ground support, strafing, or intercepting lumbering japanese bombers. matching up with the zero would prove to be more taxing, of course, except when a very experienced pilot was in the cockpit and then mister zero might have problems.