Folks: Here is a little memory my son put together after a family gathering when a son in law got me going with coffee. A flight of forked tailed Devils! My first combat! In February of 1945, I had just been assigned to the Philippines to join a Squadron. I had been awarded my wings at the end of December, 1944 and with fewer than 100 hours in the P-38 and a total of less than 600 hours flight time, I was assigned to the Pacific theater to the 8th Fighter Group. When I arrived, I was attached to the 35th Fighter Squadron who was assigned to fly in to Cataison Point runway on Leyte and support American Infantry near Cebu City on the Island of Cebu some 100 air miles to the southwest. Cataison Point runway was a dirt runway just over 1,800 feet long covered by PSP matting (Pierce Steel Plate). The end of the runway was the Samar Sea and the runway ran almost parallel to the water. Not much room for error. And as I later learned, slick as grease in the rain! There were actually a number of scheduled air strikes in support of the ground troops - Air Corps flew at mid morning, noon and mid afternoon, with Navy dive bombers at odd times in between. Our Fighter Squadron was assigned to the Air Corps strikes. Carrier based Navy dive bombers took the flights in between. Flying time to Cebu was just about 20 minutes from Leyte. In the 8th Fighter Group, the 34th and 35th Fighter Squadrons were used more for ground support, while the 80th was used for air to air missions to destroy enemy aircraft. The 80th already had a score of nearly 200 Japanese aircraft shot down and there were still more out there. The whole group was losing experienced pilots to home, while we new guys were brought in to replace them. They had eight aces still with them this late in the Pacific campaign. After we formed up on my first mission, we "stooged" along around 15,000 feet at about 300 Mph IAS (Indicated Air Speed) in order to arrive over the target just at the appointed time. Upon arriving over Cebu City, we dropped to 4,500 feet and saw the strait from the Camote Sea loaded with Navy supply ships and some escort ships for sea protection. We caught a lot of Japanese vehicles and infantry heading toward our troops who had been advancing since daylight. What an array of targets! Our Squadron had put up four flights of two pairs and we separated into eight separate attack teams. I was assigned as wing man to a pilot who had a number of missions under his belt and I was to follow him, do what he did and to protect him, if attacked from the air. I think if he crashed, I would have too, because I wanted to follow orders and learn! I was sweating like a sinner in Church although we had just dropped down from ambient air temperatures around 40°. I didn't want to express or show my nervousness (and probable fear), and I'm sure my voice on the Receiver Transmitter gave away more than I wanted to. We were to attack personnel since I didn't have our armorors load armor piercing bullets as the others did. (I assumed they were provided a menu for our mission and would arm our aircraft appropriately). Wrong! We did have 100 pound anti-personnel bombs under the wings and the nose fully loaded with 500 rounds of .50 cal ammunition for each of the four machine guns, and 125 rounds of 20 mm cannon ammunition. We didn't need drop fuel tanks because we would only be in the air about two hours with about an hour at combat power settings. I had been told that all passes would be made at top speed. We enriched our mixture and punched it up to 400 Mph and began our runs, dropping our bombs on larger concentrations of troops and strafing the rest to kill or disperse as many as possible. We did pretty well at that, too. One would strafe after the other dropped his bombs, or at any target of opportunity. Other than small arms fire, I noticed little return fire or opposition. Later, when we returned to Leyte, some aircraft had taken hits, but I hadn't. I found out I had a lot to learn about seeing what was coming at us. Once flying low over the enemy, I found that I could see some things I never expected to see. I hit a small camouflaged revetment, where I had seen the shadows of human torsos, with cannon fire and my wingman said there was nothing there. I learned that my eyesight was not only pretty good, but due to a slight problem with green/brown color combinations, I could sometime seem to penetrate camouflage. The Army found a shot up group of Japanese Army artillery spotters in the revetment that I attacked. I had apparently "blinded" their artillery for the time being. We remained over the enemy rear until the Navy could be seen coming in from the south and then we returned to Leyte. By the time we disengaged, I had no ammunition for machine guns and only a little cannon supply left - and no bombs. We had tracer ammunition every fifth shell and the last ten of each belt were also tracer, so we would know when we had about expended our supply, without learning the hard way. Only then did I realize I now needed top cover in the worst way, because I was nearly defenseless from expending all my munitions. Upon arrival back at our runway, I found my aircraft was covered with oily smoke residue but no indication of any enemy hits on my aircraft. Since it belonged to one of the other pilots, I didn't dare screw his plane up. (My assigned aircraft was being serviced and painted with the green spinners and stripes of the 80th FS). I was now no longer a green kid pilot, but a kid who had taken risks and survived. It was believed on that mission alone, we had killed or wounded more than a thousand enemy troops and destroyed a dozen or more vehicles. Our efforts had slowed the enemy in their attempt to reinforce their frontline troops who were overwhelmed by our Army. We all were out or nearly out of ammunition when we landed at Leyte. We were to rearm and refuel and leave for the next mission within an hour or so. This time, I was properly armed with armor piercing ammunition as well as anti-personnel bombs. We got off all three missions and didn't lose an aircraft! There were more days like this, but none with the mixed feelings I had in my first combat mission against the enemy! I'm having trouble finding all the old posts from my time on the Prodigy Veterans board, but I'm trying.
so if I understand you right FP this was a maximum effort by both the 34/35th fs P-38 squads _ 40 aircraft or more do you suppose ? thank you for sharing ........... you first mission with all of us. E ~
Hello FighterPilot. Does this look familiar? It seems to fit your description of the airfield as far as I can tell.
I think that may be the airfield. It's next door to Toclaban, Leyte, PI. Here's the Google Earth image from almost the same perspective....note they added land fill to give a little more comfort in those cross wind landings to the south!
You guys are terrific! If that isn't the runway, my mind has gone further down hill! Thanks for both views, gentlemen, now I have to study those a while. I was thinking the runway was 270° but this looks like it's more like 350° or so. GREAT!
Erich: Most flights over enemy runways and troops were with entire squadrons and in this case the whole group. As stated, the 34th, 35th and 36th were usually involved in ground missions with the 80th high cover. When I arrived, each squadron had twenty or more pilots with at least sixteen assigned aircraft and some rotation of pilots. A group max-effort usually involved 64 aircraft minus aborts. When I arrived, they were rotating pilots who had been there two or more years and as they reduced the real veterans, we all pretty much had our own bird or shared with one other pilot.
Interesting FP, 4 squadrons, the 8th Air Force in the ETO, their fighter groups had 3 squads each..... thanks E ~
