Gearing up for War
Part 4
December 7, 1941 - March 17, 1942
Many soldiers posted throughout the Pacific scoffed at MacArthur's plans. The Japanese were sure to go after Indonesia and areas closer to their home islands. The attack at Pearl Harbor had been a warning shot to the Americans to stay out of the war. Why else would they attack an empty harbor?
On December 25 a Japanese fleet was spotted in Agana Bay off the coast of Guam. Two days later on the 27th, Japanese forces landed in strength at Midway and Wake.
Wake Island
Letter home dated 5 December, 1941
An excerpt from Davidson's journal
Dec 27, '41
They started at night, trying to quietly land before the Marines could react. Our radar operators didn't pick up the fleet before the landing craft were spotted, but we scrambled and got in the air. The dive bombers and torpedo bombers from the Marine Air Squadron that arrived a few days ago went out to try to sink the fleet while we fly air cover for them. I managed to get one Zero, but my plane got shot to hell. Thank god for that armor plating. She may not be as nimble as the Zero, but that cobra can take some hits. Those Japanese pilots, they know exactly what their doing in that plane. I felt like an amateur up there. I hope the navy gets here soon - there were a lot of landing ships heading towards the island.
Dec 29, '41
The carrier is still out there, we keep running into Japanese planes in the air. Fewer now than at the start, but they are still up there. Still no Navy. Still no other kills.
Jan 2, '41
The navy finally arrived today. The Marine pilots were sure to let us know that now that the Navy was here, us Army aviators could get in our planes and leave. They would take care of it from here. I'm not sure the fellas on the ground agree though. They are holding, but there's at least 2 Japanese marines for every one of ours. The Japanese have started sending their planes on bombing runs. I got a bomber yesterday. Now we are flying air cover for the carrier based planes from Intrepid, Franklin and Ticonderoga. I've seen a few big explosions, but nothing has gone down. The Marine pilots tell me it won't be long now before those Japanese ships hit the bottom of the sea. Although, I did hear some of them talking about some faulty torpedoes. I guess it'll have to be the dive bombers...
Jan 6, '41
Well they finally managed to send them back to sea. We saw Japanese Marines heading back out to their transports from the air today. Japanese air power is non-existent. Too bad I had drop tanks and not a bomb or two on the Airacobra. I would have tried to hit a ship or two. The carriers are headed back to Pearl, I guess they need to get some damage fixed up. But they tell me that there's some battleships on the way. Those I want to see...
Speaking of, the Navy stationed some converted B-24 here last week. They came with a wing of escort fighters, Airacudas. Some hotshot in one of those fighters sunk a Japanese battleship this morning. The fellas in the bombers were pretty angry - most of them say that he swooped in after their bombing run and dropped a little 500 pounder onto an already sinking ship. Regardless, he gets the credit. I saw him trying to get the mechanics to fab him up a little battleship silhouette to paint one below the window on his cockpit.
I heard that the boys on Midway managed to fend off the attack as well. Hopefully that's the last we will see of them around here. I hear we are supposed to be getting some new planes next month. Something their calling the Mustang. I wonder if it'll fly better than my Airacobra?
Excerpt from interview
I was just out of the academy, just got my butterbars and they sent me to San Diego to learn how to fly. I was halfway through training when they put us on the ship, right after the 7th. "You'll finish training at sea," is what they told me. And so we went out and learned how to land those bombers on a moving aircraft. It was quite a trip from Orford to Pearl. But we made and soon enough we got word from Midway that the Japs were off the island, putting men ashore. So off we went. Luckily for us, Sara and her sisters had been through before we got there and caused a hell of a mess for them. They didn't have too many planes left. The hardest part was finding the ships. But we did, and we dropped more than a few bombs on them, always gunning for the flat tops.
It was something I'll tell ya. Midway was
easy. So was Wake. We showed up after the Army fighters had shot down most of their fighters, after the Marine pilots had been bombing them for a few days. After the other carriers had been through.
Attu was something else. We steamed our way up there after the brass was sure that Midway and Wake were safe and we could send in the Battleships to clean up. The Navy knew that a battleship was no match for planes, so they didn't send those big ladies in until there were no planes left. But Attu - no else was ready for Attu. Sara was in dock, getting fixed up after Guam. Franklin was in getting fixed up after Wake. It was just us. So, up we went.
You ever been to Alaska in January? Its damn cold. A terrible place to try to fly a plane. Grey ships in a grey ocean, a hell of a place to try to dive bomb a floating ship. We got torn to shreds up there. Lots of fellas went in the drink. It weren't like the south Pacific. You went down there, if you were more than a few miles off shore or away from the carriers, you had no chance. When I ditched off Wake, all I had to do was wait for the float plane from Wake to come and find me. In Alaska? You'd be frozen to death before they could even get over you.
Their planes found our ships more than a few times too. Got so bad that we had to put to dock and base our planes off the dirt strip. I tell you, there weren't that many soldiers left fighting for us. Maybe a company of guys or two, dug in around the harbor and the airstrip. They managed to plug the biggest of the holes and the ships took off. We stayed and flew cover for them then stuck around on that ship, trying to put those Jap ships onto the bottom of the sea. Franklin showed up later, I guess they did the same to her, plugged up the biggest holes and sent her up. I'll tell ya, those planes that weren't all full of holes and the pilots that hadn't been flying for 2 weeks straight, they did a number on those Jap ships. Finally, a few went down and they must have called back their troops, because soon we saw them wading back out into the sea. Must have been some cold.
We headed back to Pearl and rested up some while Hornet and her sisters got fixed up. They were putting back to sea and I asked if could go with them, even though it wasn't my wing basing off there. Told them Hornet just felt like home and I didn't want her heading off to a fight without me. I got moved over to her and off we went to Agana Bay. I didn't even know we still had troops on Guam.
I'm damn proud of what we got done on Hornet in those opening months of the war though.
Alright, the battle for Guam is still raging on. I've beat them a few times, but much harder to do with their land based planes around as well and they keep coming back. It's not ours to keep just yet, I'm thinking of abandoning it, its costing us a lot of planes. But, we'll see. For now, that's what's been going on. Except for the Langley up by Norway, not sure what the AI was trying to accomplish with 5 of the oldest destroyers on the planet and one light carrier, but they almost got trashed.
I'll add some about Guam once I decide what to do with it, but it's been a big battle so far, or multiple big battles so far.