Flying Circus Pacific War--1943--as Seen Through A Bombsight

Baptism of Fire It made sense that Timor should be our first target. We had good reasons, personal as well as strategic, for wanting to put that most forward of Japanese military breastworks, on the southwest corner of the island of Timor, out of commission. On the western edge of a jutting peninsula, at Koepang, was an active airdrome manned with bombers and fighters, while a well-equipped naval base, called Penfoel, covered the eastern side. Short weeks earlier, when the 380th ground forces arrived by ship at Darwin harbor, they were greeted by a swarm of Japanese Zeros. The planes, flaunting the round red symbol of the rising sun on their fuselages, sprayed the ship and dock areas with 30-caliber bulltets in repeated strafing passes and lobbed incendiary projectiles at the Australian lorries sent to pick up the ground personnel and their gear. It had been a frantic, rude awakening for our Group's ground support forces. Aussie pilots in Spitfires rose to engage the enemy in aerial combat, chasing them back across the Timor Sea after dropping two of the Zeros, burning, into the water. The next night, back at base after their movement from Darwin to Fenton, some had listened by short-wave radio to a Japanese newscast beamed nightly to Allied listeners. That evening, the sweet, unctuous voice of the female propagandist welcomed the 380th Heavy Bomb Group by name to the South Pacific. The newscast, in surprisingly good English, reported the raid on Darwin, flamboyantly exaggerating the damage done, and ended with what we were told was its customary signoff: "Tune in this same time tomorrow night--if you are still alive." The Japanese clearly wanted us to know that they knew who and where we were. A few nights later, our base at Fenton was bombed for the first time. From an altitude that looked to me like about 12,000 feet, a late afternoon formation of Japanese bombers dropped explosives and indendiaries, disabling one of our aircraft and causing other property damage in the vicinity of the airfield. Our intelligence people surmised that the bombers, as well as the fighters at the Darwin welcoming party, could have come only from Koepang, the base on Timor. Looking up the business end of their gun barrels, as we were, gave us every incentive we needed to destroy their nest. ...Wright, Jim is the author of 'Flying Circus Pacific War--1943--as Seen Through A Bombsight', published 2005 under ISBN 9781592286560 and ISBN 1592286569.