July 26, 1941. Build the Far East Air Force. (3 Viewers)

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When did he return?

When USAFFE was created (July 26, 1941) he should have caught then next flight back to Manila to take charge of the huge airpower expansion.
 
Well I think that's pretty much what he was doing I doubt he was in China very long. It's interesting that around that time (Mid summer) MacArthur asked for present reinforcements of:

1. 10 more pursuit squadrons
2. 7 medium bombardment squadrons
3. 3 heavy bombardment squadrons

In 3 months:

1. 3 more heavy bombardment

In 6 months:

1. 3 Pursuit squadrons
2. 2 medium bombardment squadrons
3. 4 heavy bombardment squadrons

That's about 260 fighters, 16 heavy bombers, and aout 150 medim bombers.

A month later, Clagett himself, apparently requested a total of 27 pursuit squadrons, 30 heavy bombardment squadrons, and 18 light bomber squadrons!

That's about 540 P-40s and P-39s, 600 B-17s and 360 A-24s or A-20s.

That's more than 25% of fighters, about 100% of the heavy bombers production in the next few months, and almost 50% light bombers in the USAAF before December 31, 1941.



I think that's the FEAF you wanted to build. But think of the airfields needed to support it and the logistics train needed to provide it necessary supplies and human resources.
 
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1. 10 more pursuit squadrons
2. 7 medium bombardment squadrons
3. 3 heavy bombardment squadrons
In 3 months:
1. 3 more heavy bombardment
In 6 months:
1. 3 Pursuit squadrons
2. 2 medium bombardment squadrons
3. 4 heavy bombardment squadrons

I think in terms of Air Force Groups.
.....4 heavy bombardment groups.
.....27th Light Bombardment Group. A-24 dive bomber. Convoy 4002.
.....35th Pursuit Group. P-40E. Convoy 4002.
.....Pursuit group equipped with 53 x P-39D. Departed San Francisco 18 Feb 1942.
.....B-24 long range transport group. 15 Dec 1941. Plans made to dispatch 80 B-24 transport aircraft to Philippines.


Plus a steady stream of replacement P-40s. I assume the 125 P-40s on SS President Coolidge and SS President Polk would have upgraded existing fighter units (including PAAC) to the P-40E. They would then receive 35 or 40 new P-40s each month to replace losses.
Pensacola Convoy and other Convoys
Casey to Evatt Washington, 17 December 1941
Cablegram 1163
Most Secret

United States is sending "in the next few days" two fast ships (President Polk and President Cooleridge) [sc. Coolidge] from the Californian coast to Australia, containing 125 P 40 fighter aircraft, 5 transport aircraft D.C. 3 type, together with United States Army Air Corps fourth mobile depot group of about 550 officers and men. Each aircraft will be accompanied by pilot, crew, observer and armourer. Above ships will also carry some ammunition and bombs. The mobile depot group will have hand tools and such other necessary maintenance equipment and machinery as the ships can carry. This depot group is to establish itself at the most appropriate place in Australia (they presume either Brisbane or Townsville) for the assembly of the above-mentioned and subsequent arriving aircraft. Subsequently about 35 or 40 P 40 fighter aircraft with pilots, bombers and ammunition may be expected monthly as reinforcements by subsequent ships.

All of the above fighter aircraft are destined on the present plans to fly to the Philippines via Darwin and appropriate stopping places. ......

IMO an air force expansion of this magnitude requires a senior Army Air Corps General in charge from July 26, 1941 onward. Someone who can stand up to Big Mac and ensure that air groups have all supporting bits and pieces including AA protection for airfields. It appears to me that Clagett and (later) Brereton were overwhelmed by the task and pushed to the sidelines by Gen. MacArthur.
 
The simplest solution would be to take Mac out of the PI, bring in Chennault in April 41, let him build FEAF, then send him back to China in the Fall of 1941 and bring back Mac..That's about as likely as anything else we've been discussing.
 
I don't think its a realistic solution, I just think someone of Chenault's knowledge and organizational ability would be needed to build a FEAF able to do the job...

OK.. If we can't recruit Chennault, how about building a time machine go back and collect some hair from the floor of his barbershop, go forward in time to clone him, and then take our clone back to the PI and set him to task. That might work swell until he read what the chinese were paying Chennault prime. :mad:

Of course if we could just find someone as capable as Chennault that might work too. and involve no pesky paradoxes. :lol:
 
OK.. If we can't recruit Chennault, how about building a time machine go back and collect some hair from the floor of his barbershop, go forward in time to clone him, and then take our clone back to the PI and set him to task. That might work swell until he read what the chinese were paying Chennault prime. :mad:

Of course if we could just find someone as capable as Chennault that might work too. and involve no pesky paradoxes. :lol:
How about his kid who was a Light Colonel USAAF , I believe was CO of a Squadron up in the Aleutians
 
Any candidate has to be as insightful as Chennault in adapting tactics to meet the threat and as knowledgable in awareness of the nature of the threat. He must be able to organize a non-RADAR based early warning system that is less vulnerable than the electronic one. He must be able to manage the arrival of personnel so that pilots and maintenance crew don't sit around idly waiting for planes. How about Eddie Rickenbacker? He's got an origanizational background from running an airline and a military pursuit background. He'd have to be activated as a general officer...
 
If we want something besides a historical result then we need to think outside the box.

IMO Robert Stanford Tuck was one of the best fighter pilots produced by any nation. He did good work for RAF Fighter Command during the BoB. Then Britain squandered him (and many other experienced Spitfire pilots) strafing minor targets in France.
Robert Stanford Tuck: World War II RAF Ace Pilot
The Duxford Wing was led by Tuck over France until October 1941, when he was taken off operations. Along with fellow ace Adolf 'Sailor' Malan, Group Capt. Harry Broadhurst, leader of the Hornchurch Wing, and three highly decorated Bomber Command pilots, Tuck was sent to the United States to share his expertise with Britain's allies.

Tuck returned to England in December 1941
Wing Commander Tuck was sent to the USA during 1941 to share his expertise. Let's accept the British offer. From August 1941 onward the Philippines had top priority. The U.S. Army Air Corps will request him by name to assume command of 5th Interceptor Command in the Philippines. That gives him control over all fighter aircraft in the Philippines. I suspect Wing Commander Tuck would be thrilled to have this assignment rather then strafing targets in France.

Among other things Wing Commander Tuck knows from actual combat experience how to intercept enemy air raids using data from ground based radar. When IJN bombers appear over Clark airfield they will be bounced out of the sun by 24th Pursuit Group P-40s. Talley Ho! 8)
 
Yes, it appears to be a possible solution, but would Tuck with his RAF and Eurpoean war experience repeat the Darwin Spitfire V experience? Knowing about European fighter direction may not translate well to the Far East. Would he be victim of the same european-ethnocentrism that hampered American, British Dutch preparation for the inevitable conflict? Would he share the belief that the greatest threat to USAAF P-40s were IJAAF and IJN flown Bf-109s? The thinking in that conclusion escapes me. Where did these Bf-109s come from? Did they materielize out of thin air? was there suddenly an IJN carrier based version shared by the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine? It appears rumors were sustained and confirmed by observation. The USAAF pilots apparently believed so strongly that they couldn't have been beaten by anything but Bf-109s that when they flew and encountered A6M's they 'saw' and reported Bf-109s. How do commanders who don't know what they are facing; or worse assume an enemy possessing a far more inferior capability, properly prepare forces to face the real threat? In other words, we are back to a Channault-like surrogate. It is just possible Chennault was unique in terms of capability, position and knowledge. If you want to think out of the box... How about recruiting a high ranking officer of the Chinese Air Force who had worked with Chennault enough to know the business? I don't know of such a person, but that doesn't mean they didn't exist. It just may be an indication of my lack of exposure to historical accounts written in Chinese. No a CAF officer wouldn't work. Americans wouldn't listen to or believe in such an officer...

Is there a free agent clause that would allow us to hire an IJN officer? same problem... :(
 
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Wing Commander Tuck would be in the FEAF fighter control center giving orders to his P-40 squadrons. He may screw up but I tend to think he knew what he was doing. He certainly couldn't do much worse then what happened historically.
 
Wing Commander Tuck would be in the FEAF fighter control center giving orders to his P-40 squadrons. He may screw up but I tend to think he knew what he was doing. He certainly couldn't do much worse then what happened historically.

I may be selling him short based on the confusion and terror that suffused that day, but it seems to me that would be a most difficult feat to accomplish with even a modicum of professional savy! :(

I worry there was a second player pulling the strings behind (on the telephone with) Grover during the first day's battle, doing some back seat driving. My guess would be his buddy Southerland.
 
Werner Baumbach - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
220px-Werner_Baumbach.jpg

He received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords (Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Eichenlaub und Schwertern) for the destruction of over 300,000 gross register tons (GRT) of allied shipping

This is the guy I want commanding FEAF bombers. After a couple months of his training we shouldn't have any problem sinking anchored IJA troop transports.
 
The Pearl Harbor attack had a huge impact on the public consciousness and especially on that of the military. My first military watch, when first asigned to my squadron was attended by the comment of the more senior person I was relieving who said to me in parting:"No Pearl Harbors while you are on duty." That moment stands vivid in my memory because, as my first active duty watch, it summarized the potential responsibility of the position I had assumed. This comment to me was made in 1971 some 30 years after the event!.

Even so, I think there are more lessons in human nature and the response of leadership in times of crisis, that may be learned from the PI FEAF debacle than from PH. The problem is the lessons from the PI experiences are difficult to confront and absorb without wanting to turn away from the effort. While there are certainly many instances of legitimate heroism and grace under pressure, there are also instances of shear panic and terror when faced with incomprehensible threats. I suspect only effective and visibly interactive leadership can prevent fear from becoming the overwhelming defining characteristic of forces in combat. Chennault prepared his pilots with both a grounded realistic assessment of what they faced but also fortified them with the knowledge and skill in how to overcome it. I don't believe Mac Arthur did that from what I've read. It seems to me he remained a remote figure to his forces throughout his compaigns but then I am not qualified to judge because I have only the hollywood deptiction upon which to base that opinion. However such characteristics suggest a leader who may perform well when circumstances favor victory but who may perform more poorly when at a significant disadvantage. It's difficult to factor in the uncertainty of the Inchon landings into that overly simplistic picture...
 
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Think that Chennault never encountered Zeroes, let alone before 1942?
Chennault, as special representative of Chiang Kai-shek and sort of quasi-leader of the Chinese Nationalist AF, knew of Japanese use of the Zero over China from July 1940, at first small trial quantities of Model 11's, then eventually a couple of small 'air groups' (much smaller than the early Pac War ones of 45 or so a/c) equipped with Model 21's in 1941. But all JNAF fighters were withdrawn from China just before the Pac War. And, Chennault's idea of combating Japanese fighters with diving hit and run tactics was mainly a product of observing some (though limited) success in such tactics by Chinese and Soviet piloted I-16's in China v JNAF Type 96's in the late 30's. When the Zero was used over China, it was faster than its opponents and preferred hit and run tactics itself; in fact this was standard IJN fighter doctrine as of December 1941. And the Zero totally dominated its opposition over China in 1940-41, total real losses on Chinese side not clear (v 100+ claimed by the Japanese), but there's no documented case where Chinese fighters downed any Zeroes at all in that period. They mainly quit coming up in 1941. So nobody had learned to deal with the Zero prior to December 1941.

The *AVG* never encountered the Zero, by any reliable evidence; it's contradicted pretty clearly by known Japanese force dispositions. The AVG encountered Army Type 1 Fighters in a couple of early missions in Dec 1941 as the units being used in the Malaya campaign (including the first two Type 1 units, 59th and 64th Fighter Regiments, just then introducing the type to combat) flew some missions v Rangoon in Burma. In the middle of its career the AVG encountered exclusively Type 97 Fighters of regiments commited to the invasion of Burma. But then eventually the 64th was also posted to this theater (where it remained almost the rest of the war) and this resulted in several more AVG P-40 v Type 1 combats, with the AVG successful more than not.

The Type 1 OTOH was not met by US fighters anywhere outside China/Burma until a year after the AVG first had: Dec 25 1942 the 11th Regiment's Type 1's appeared over New Guinea. The 11th along with the 1st Regiment first showed their Type 1's over Guadalcanal in January 1943. In both New Guinea and the Solomons, there were still Zeroes around and/or the Allied units there had often seen real Zeroes, as had the 22nd BG whose B-26's were intercepted by 59th Regiment Type 1's in a few unescorted missions over the eastern DEI (where that unit was posted after the initial campaigns) at same time the 22nd was encountering Zeroes over New Guinea. It seems that the same units encountering Type 1's and real Zeroes helped to firmly nail down the realization that they were two different types (although to the end of the war, individual Allied pilot reports of encountering 'Oscars and Zeroes' were often a mistake on one count or the other...or both).

Joe
 
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Britain and/or Australia may have bomber pilots able to sink ships. Tough to determine as Allied maritime attack pilots operated in an environment where targets were few and far between.

German, Italian and Japanese bomber pilots had the opposite problem. Enemy merchant ships were more numerous then sand on the seashore. You will get plenty of target practise if you survive awhile.
 
Yes, it appears to be a possible solution, but would Tuck with his RAF and Eurpoean war experience repeat the Darwin Spitfire V experience? Knowing about European fighter direction may not translate well to the Far East. Would he be victim of the same european-ethnocentrism that hampered American, British Dutch preparation for the inevitable conflict? Would he share the belief that the greatest threat to USAAF P-40s were IJAAF and IJN flown Bf-109s? The thinking in that conclusion escapes me. Where did these Bf-109s come from? Did they materielize out of thin air? was there suddenly an IJN carrier based version shared by the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine? It appears rumors were sustained and confirmed by observation. The USAAF pilots apparently believed so strongly that they couldn't have been beaten by anything but Bf-109s that when they flew and encountered A6M's they 'saw' and reported Bf-109s. How do commanders who don't know what they are facing; or worse assume an enemy possessing a far more inferior capability, properly prepare forces to face the real threat? In other words, we are back to a Channault-like surrogate. It is just possible Chennault was unique in terms of capability, position and knowledge. If you want to think out of the box... How about recruiting a high ranking officer of the Chinese Air Force who had worked with Chennault enough to know the business? I don't know of such a person, but that doesn't mean they didn't exist. It just may be an indication of my lack of exposure to historical accounts written in Chinese. No a CAF officer wouldn't work. Americans wouldn't listen to or believe in such an officer...

Is there a free agent clause that would allow us to hire an IJN officer? same problem... :(

The Bf-109 story was by and large a propaganda ruse thought up to deflect the racist question of how we could have been so soundly defeated by an "inferior" race. It was easy for pilots to belive the stories that on Dec. 8th Bf-109s were shot down and "blonde, white pilots" were captured.

Duane
 

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