September-October - Air Defense Artillery

FRO~l THE FIGHTING FRONTS
ndence on Air Forces facilities. However, radio nets
anating from the net control stations give adequate
arning to all U. S. and British AA units, fifty minutes
w as compared to fourteen minutes in the earlier days of
'fefense. Very close liaison is maintained with fighter in-
'allations.
~
The area of operations of the Tenth Air Force is divided
10 air defense, iones. For each of these .zones, Signal
,orpsAircraft \Varning Battalions operate a filter room,
m which the fighter controller can direct the interceptors.
neach room an AA officer and one enlisted man are always
~ duty, the man being placed on a dais overlooking the
~rd where all hostile or unidentified plane movements
pre plotted. He has telephone lines to such AA units as
prewithin a few miles of the filter room, and an SCR-543
r SCR-188, over which the plotted positions are transitted
simultaneously direct to each battery in the air defensezone.
Each battery is also provided with an SCR-543, and
withtelephone lines from 'the location of this receiver to
each gun position. These radios are also used for adminisative
purposes, permission first being obtained from the
net control station to leave the net temporarily. Such
messagesare transmitted, of course, only during daylight
hours when the threat of an air attack is practically nil.
As mentioned before, radi? communication is definitely
(reakish. Quite good service has been obtained with the
CR-543 over airline distances (includi.ng mountain
ranges)up to 450 miles. However, it is of interest to note
that in one location, communication between two batteries
withSCR-543 was limited to fourteen miles, while by contrastanother
battery about three miles beyond one of these
just mentioned was able to communicate with units in
China some 270 miles distant. Once a contact was made
between an airborne battalion headquarters with an SCR-
284 and Group headquarters with an SCR-543 over a distanceof
388 miles.
SUPPLY
Supply conditions have been variable, ranging from fair
tobad. Short of supplies of every kind and description, the
Assam installations were at first hard pressed to keep up
maintenance of planes and rolling stock. In 1943 ~upplies
from the Zone of the Interior began to come up in larger
quantities. Current conditions in the various classes are
improved, though Class II supplies are always scarce and
difficult to get.
Airborne units under limited T /E's are most seriously
handicapped, though all units suffer from lack of automotive
and ordnance replacement parts. Gun parts for
MG's are scarce, and for 40mm nonexistent. Each 40mm
battalion was sent over with one extra gun which could
be cannibalized, but that was the end of spare parts.
Organizational personnel must perform all echelons of
maintenance possible with such facilities as are at hand, for
lack of flaintenance units. Sandbags were generally available
in desired quantities, but other Class IV supplies were
hardly to be had. Ammunition supply was satisfactory,
though storage was difficult. Great care must be taken to
keep caliber .50 ammunition chests dry; 40mm was kept in
Navy chests which could be sealed with screwed locks.
The supply problem will always be critical in the CBI. It
must be remembered that Burma is 13,000 airline miles
from New York. Most supplies must come more than halfway
around the world by. boat, be freighted up the
Brahmaputra River on barges or come up by rail from Calcutta
to Ledo, and from there be trucked or Bown to the
using units. Otherwise it's air transport all the way.
\ .
HISTORY To DATE
Recent events in the CBI are too well known to require
detailed repetition here. The fighting for the Ledo-Burma,
or Stilwell Road system is actually over. In January the first
wheeled traffic in two and one-half years began moving
overland from Assam through to China.
Now the British have taken Mandalay and are driving
on south, and the Allied air forces (who have had complete
air superiority for more than a year) are making life exceedingly
uncomfortable for the enemy all the way to Rangoon.
Rangoon will be taken by the time this article is published.
In any case, it is certain that the Jap "",ill never again be
able to mount any sort of offensive in Burma.
Weather us. Supply lines.
'This is the ONE island in the Aleutians where the
\rind blows harder, the weather is colder, roads worse, soldiering
is tougher, the snow drifts higher, and the sleet
lashes more viciously than anywhere in the world." Every
soldier who has served in the Alaskan Command, out in
those bleak and barren Aleutian Islands, windswept and
lonely, treeless and fog-soaked, will invariably claim that
the island on which he was stationed was the toughest spot
along the "Chain."
Although you hesitate to argue with men who have lived
that lonely life for months and months without seeing any
....Prepared by G-2 Section, AA Command.
trace of civilization-each island is as bad as the next one.
The "\Villiwaw," that sudden wind of hurricane intensity
which is caused by the hot winds of the Japanese current
meeting the cold blasts from the Bering Sea, stuns a man
at first, and it never becomes an accepted condition. Sometimes
this wind reaches a sustained velocity of 100 miles
per hour, and many storms have tom away wind indicators
which stopped registering at 150 miles per hour! Snow and
sleet are accepted as a matter of course; but if the sun appears,
men blink and rub their eyes and look in wonder at
sun-cast shadows.
Probably the loneliest men in the Aleutians were the
searchlight sections, scattered in out-of-the-way locations,
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