photo: John F. Heyn Collection

HISTORY

90th Squadron’s Mitchell after the emergency landing at Dobodura base in New Guinea.

He calculated that point and requested

the flying boat pickup. General Kenney

of course disproved such an antic. Pappy

did not give up and proposed to fly alone

after removing both the dorsal and rear

gun turrets and instead of the bomb load

keeping only the full incendiary ammunition load for the gun machines.

Thanks to saved weight he would attach

two three hundred gallon drop tanks

under the wings so he would have sufficient fuel for the return flight as well.

end General had to assign him to another

task in Australia just to get rid of him.

“Pappy, from the maintenance unit in

Australia I want you to recruit a special

detachment of some fifty men who can

do anything. They had to be able to shoot,

dig the trenches, build improvised shelters, install steel plates for runways, repair aircraft, engines, live in the wild and

fight even with fists or stones.” On the

12th, eight days before the landings, two

C-47 landed at Hollandia where Kenney’s

heavily damaged by bombing and too

small for the number of aircraft Kenney

wished to allocate there. Pappy’s landing craft was rocking on the mild waves.

Hundreds of ships, boats and vessels of

all sizes around him. It was a force never seen before, a mind-boggling effort

of the massive war economy of a country

with such industrial might which mankind has not experienced before. Instead

of thousands of kilometers he was separated from Polly and kids just by several

“He almost cried when I refused this plan

as well. I tried to explain to him that for

these planned operations I could not

afford to spare a single B-25 for the time

necessary for all these modifications”

recalled General Kenney. Ultimately, he

had to reject Pappy’s third idea in which

he counted on a clandestine landing in the

Philippines, organizing a small army with

which, thanks to his terrain knowledge,

would give the Japanese hell by attacking

from the rear during the landing. Gunn’s

effort to return to the Philippines as soon

as possible was understood and at the

16

INFO Eduard

headquarters was, and fifty armed rough

men disembarked with backpacks full of

tools and spare parts. “These are the men

you wanted, General. What now?” asked

Gunn. Their task was to start establishing

the airbase right after the landing. And

so Pappy and his men were transferred

under the command of Col. David Hutchinson, the Air Task Force commander.

On October 20, after a thorough shelling

and bombing, four American divisions

landed near Tacloban and in Dulag twenty

miles further south. There were airfields

used by the Japanese in both areas but

photo: USAF

Pappy proposed to fly alone after removing both the dorsal and rear

gun turrets and instead of the bomb load keeping only the full incendiary ammunition load for the gun machines. Thanks to saved weight

he would attach two three hundred gallon drop tanks under the wings

so he would have sufficient fuel for the return flight as well.

General George Churchill Kenney, one of the architects of the “Skip Bombing” method.

December 2022