Not Often Told Story Dec 41 Pt1

"......After a two week stay at Clark, I found myself on a sixteen day trip
back to Australia and New Guinea as a navigator and back up pilot on Colonel
Eubank's B-17. He and Major General Brereton, commander of the Far East Air
Forces, were making the trip to evaluate Australian Air Force facilities for
our use in time of war. By the time we arrived back at Clark on December
2nd, life had changed completely. We were on 24-hour alert while the
Japanese made daily high altitude reconnaissance flights over the
Philippines. The air raid warning system consisted of a half-dozen radars
supported by ground observers using telephones. The system was too slow and
inaccurate to enable our fighters to intercept the Japanese while in
Philippine airspace. The few P-40 squadrons we had were operating from "bare
bones" airstrips with only fuel, oil, ammo, bombs and tents. Even if an
intercept had been successful, no shots could be fired, as the U.S. desired
that Japan commit the first "overt act" of war. Meanwhile, brazen Japanese
nationals living in Manila openly boasted that they would soon rule the
Philippines.

On December 7th, Philippine time, sixteen of our B-17s were flown to a grass
airstrip at the Del Monte pineapple plantation on Mindanao, the southernmost
island of the Philippines. This move was made to disperse our aircraft and
make room at Clark Field for additional B-17s from the 7th Bombardment
Group, which were expected to arrive in a matter of days. As it turned out,
those aircraft only made it as far as Hawaii, where they arrived in the
middle of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The evening of December 7th
in the Philippines, which was December 6th in Hawaii, I was assigned as the
night shift Duty Officer at Clark Field. Little did I know that sunset
marked the end of the last day of peace for the Philippines.

At 2 o'clock in the morning on December 8th, Philippine time, I received a
radio message reporting the attack on Pearl Harbor. Immediately thereafter,
Colonel Eubank alerted the squadrons at Clark to prepare to bomb
Japanese-controlled Formosa (now known as Taiwan). However, General
MacArthur's staff would only permit reconnaissance flights around the
Philippines because there had been no formal declaration of war.

It was not until after 10 a.m. that permission was finally given for
offensive action, over eight hours after the initial alert. With plans for
a morning raid on Formosa now overcome by events, General Brereton and
Colonel Eubank planned to launch a strike in the late afternoon, to coincide
with dusk on Formosa. Again, the Japanese had other plans. Little did we
know that morning fog on Formosa had delayed a planned Japanese attack on
Clark, which was now on the way......."