Case Studies in the Achievement of Air Superiority - Air Force ...

AIR SUPERIORITY
sixty-seven B-25s claimed fifteen planes destroyed; the next day fortyeight
B-24s hit the strips. B-24s returned on December 1, but were intercepted
by nearly fifty fighters; escorting P-47~ claimed eleven of the Japanese
planes, but three B-24s were lost. The Japanese at Wewak fought on
through the rest of 1943 and early 1944.52
By early 1944, General MacArthur’s decision to bypass the Japanese
Eighteenth Army at Wewak was firm. Allied forces would instead land at
Hollandia, more than 200 miles farther west along the New Guinea coast.
The persistent Fourth Air Army could not be bypassed, however. It was
imperative that Wewak be rendered helpless insofar as air power was concerned.
Constant blows since August of 1943 had damaged the base, but it
was still operational. By early 1944, however, Allied bases at Nadzab and
Gusap had been developed to handle bombers, and fighters were available
there as well as at Saidor and Finschhafen. Adequate aircraft were available,
including 265 B-24s, 154 B-25s, 172 A-20s, and more than an adequate
number of fighters. By March, the time was ripe to deal the final blow to
Wewak as an air
This final assault began on March 11, 1944, and continued every day
through the 27th except for one day when the weather made sorties impossible.
In the beginning, fighters gave cover while B-24s struck the runways
and antiaircraft installations with 1000-pound and 2000-pound bombs. The
B-25s and A-20s swept over the strips at low altitude, striking at aircraft,
personnel, and any installations that seemed worth bombing and strafing.
Japanese fighter-interceptors were ineffective during the first 4 days; thereafter
the antiaircraft gunners, their fire growing weaker every day, gave the
only resistance encountered. As Japanese antiaircraft fire at Wewak weakened,
the B-24s began making single four-minute bomb runs at medium
altitude-10,000 to 13,000 feet-and under these circumstances the Norden
bombsight was almost as accurate as the claims made for it. All told, B-24s
flew 1,543 sorties, B-25s flew 488, and A-20s flew 555 between March 11
and 27. When they were through, no air base was left; the Japanese Eighteenth
Army had nothing to defend. Runways were cratered and useless.
The equipment used to repair them had been destroyed. Fuel storage facilities
were blasted and burned, and the few buildings the Japanese had
erected were leveled. The commander of the Fourth Air Army flew his
headquarters to Hollandia, more than 200 miles away, ordering the remaining
personnel to make their way by land through jungle and swamp and
over mountains. Most of the pilots who defended Wewak were already
dead; the vast majority of those air crew and ground crew personnel who
attempted the walk to Hollandia died along the way. Those who reached
Hollandia walked into a death trap.54
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