Pacific Counterblow - Air Force Historical Studies Office

settle her damaged bulk on the sea, was blown up by the Fort's tail
gunner. By 30 September the iith had encountered 21 Kawanishi;
5 were destroyed and 7 damaged.
Meantime the enemy prepared his counterblow. On 12 August
Admiral Ghormley had reported naval concentrations at Rabaul and
in the Bougainville region. A week later these concentrations began
to appear in the Buin-Faisi area, and on the 2oth the Admiral warned
Colonel Saunders that the task forces to retake Guadalcanal already
were moving down from Truk and Ponape. The grinding routine
of sea search became of utmost importance. Day after day, the Forts,
taking off from Espiritu at 0300, crossing over Tulagi at sunrise and,
scouring the sea to the northwest, logged i,6oo miles of open-water
flying.
Daily action had taken its toll. From 31 July to 2o August, ii
B-17's were lost, 8 operationally, 2 at sea, only i in combat. Men and
equipment stood up well against the enemy. Japanese gunnery, both
aerial and AAA, was uniformly poor and the supposedly fanatical
enemy pilots showed little eagerness to close with the B-i7's. During
the 8 days of intensive operations preceding the landings, enemy
fighters were engaged on all but two missions to the Guadalcanal-
Tulagi area and other than in the "ramming" incident, no Fort was
lost to the float planes. The few hits scored on the heavies were by
7.7-millimeter fire and not very damaging. Three crew members
were slightly wounded. The pilots learned that the Japanese always
attacked singly, that, if the Forts turned their formation into him, he
would always draw off at the fire of the turret guns. Bad weather,
not the Zero, was the chief antagonist. Lack of homing facilities and
radio direction-finding equipment brought down more B-17's than
enemy pilots did.
Operational Problems
In the Pacific theaters nature and distance are usually as formidable
a foe as the Japanese. When Colonel Saunders and his 98th Squadron
set their ships down on Plaines des Gaiacs on 21 July, they found a
red dust strip hacked out of a swamp. High in iron oxide, this dust,
sifting through the filters, honed out the cylinders, so that shortly the
B-17's were fortunate to fly 6 hours with a full load of oil. Additional
complications were lack of service and maintenance personnel.
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