Pacific Counterblow - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Navy turned back in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons. The Japanese
gradually built up strength which they expended at Lunga Ridge
in mid-September. October saw the near-triumph of their tactics;
they all but broke the American forces on Guadalcanal.
On 26 September, when the correspondent Richard Tregaskis
departed Guadalcanal, he first went north to Bougainville in an Army
B-I 7 . The plane probably belonged to Colonel Saunders' i ith Group,
although a new squadron, the 72d of the 5th Group, had recently
arrived in the area. Tregaskis furnished a good description of a
routine B-1 7 search mission.
The Fort he was in left Guadalcanal towards dawn and headed
over Tulagi Bay for the northwest. The navigator, explaining that
no excitement was imminently likely, took off his shirt to acquire a
tan. Not until the plane turned on a Bougainville bearing was the
first enemy aircraft seen. Two Zeros made a tentative pass. Later
an enemy cargo ship went into violent maneuvers as the Fort approached.
A float Zero got too close and the .50-caliber sent her down
for a dead-stick landing. Meanwhile, the navigator counted and
identified the ships below and the bombardier decided that the flak
which thwacked against the fuselage was from naval guns. Another
Zero made a single frontal attack on the Fortress without either aircraft
sustaining damage. The rest of the journey back to Espiritu was
without incident.
Throughout September and October, such missions were the principal
occupation of Colonel Saunders' command, in order to keep
COMSOPAC informed of enemy surface movements. Statistics of
operations for those months reveal twice as many search as bombing
sorties. From Espiritu Santo the sectors fanned northwesterly in
narrow arcs of 6' each and extended approximately 8oo miles
with a xoo-mile width at the extremity. The maximum coverage
included Rekata Bay on Santa Isabel and Gizo Bay in the New
Georgia group. When possible to stage through Henderson, the
range increased-to the Buin-Shortland-Faisi area-where the bombers
could keep an eye on freight moving down from Rabaul or the
Mandates. These were long flights, averaging more than 1,500
miles-12 weary hours for the crews.
Occasionally, the Forts went even farther-to Kieta on Bougainville's
eastern shore and then around to touch the Buka Passage. On
30