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eMonticello -> RE: Having trouble expanding the airfield at Guadacanal (8/23/2009 10:53:59 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: IndyShark
Wow, does that mean I can only base 2 or 3 air groups there? It makes GDL seem pretty weak as an airbase.
So you think you have problems...
From History of Marine Corp Aviation in World War II, Robert Sherrod (p 118-119):
"[Information about the replacement of the 1st MarDiv with the 2nd MarDiv in early Nov 42] Incisive as these changes on land and sea might be, they were equaled if not surpassed by the transformation of Guadalcanal's aerial facilities. Admiral Fitch, ComAirSoPac, designated Henderson Field a Marine Corp air base 15 November. Fighter No. 1 was so vulnerable during rainy weather it had to be abandoned. Fighter No. 2 (Kukum) was used instead from the middle of December 1942 to March 1943.
The base commander, Colonel William J. Fox, began to build up the entire runway system of Henderson and Fighter No. 2 to get proper drainage. For this it was necessary to haul coral: the coral at Lunga Plain was too rotten and slushy. There still were not enough tools - the 2 1/2 ton bundles of Marston mats sometimes had to be broken down before they could be unloaded, for lack of a hoist - and it was still necessary to use the four small Japanese road rollers which had been captured more than three months earlier, but Guadalcanal's air facilities soon took on the appearance of semipermanence. Even the barrage-balloon squadrons were sent up from Noumea, to fend off enemy dive bombers."
"The number of planes available showed a comfortable rise. By 20 November there were 101: 8 TBF's, 1 P-400, 16 P-39's, 17 P-38's, 35 F4F-4's, 24 SBD's. Nine days later there were 188, including 71 F4F's. So many squadrons flew into Guadalcanal the last two months of the year, some of them for only a few days at a time, that it is doubtful that any unimpeachable record exists of all transitions."
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