Talk:Philippine Department Air Force (United States)

Text transferred from Fifth Air Force

This text below has been transferred from the Fifth Air Force, an organization that was not established before about 1943:

"Throughout the second half of 1941, additional units were deployed to the Philippines, reinforcing the Philippine Department Air Force. These reinforcements aimed to deter Japanese aggression. They were sent in response to the proposal by Chief of the Army Air Forces, Major General Henry H. Arnold, who in July 1941 proposed sending four heavy bombardment groups (340 aircraft) and two pursuit squadrons (260 aircraft) to the Philippines.

An increasing stream of reinforcements now began to arrive from the United States. By October, it had become necessary to move one of the fighter squadrons out of Clark Field to make room for the expected arrival of the 19th Bombardment Group. The 17th Pursuit Squadron was therefore transferred to its old base at Nichols Field, and shortly afterward, on 26 October, the 3d Pursuit Squadron took its place at the new Iba Airfield and began gunnery training. Work on the landing strips at Nichols Field had not been completed, and their poor condition resulted in a high accident rate for the 17th Squadron. However, these two squadrons, and the 20th, which stayed at Clark Field, had now finally reached the fields on which they were still based when the news of the Pearl Harbor Attack came, near dawn of 8 December.

With the arrival of the 19th Bombardment Group, the 4th Composite Group would become an unwieldy organization. On 26 September, therefore, the 24th Pursuit Group was created, including the three squadrons, now at the three separate fields, as well as Headquarters and a Headquarters Squadron, which were based at Clark Field. On 16 November 1941, the 19th Bombardment Group arrived from the United States at Clark Field and the 4th Composite group was disbanded. On 20 November, two more squadrons, the 21st Pursuit Squadron and the 34th Pursuit Squadron, both from the 35th Pursuit Group, arrived from the States and were attached to the 24th Pursuit Group pending the arrival of the rest of the 35th group, which of course never came. These two squadrons were at only half strength. They also arrived without their planes, for they expected to find new ships ready when they disembarked from San Francisco.

Text transferred from Far East Air Force (United States), covering 1912-1941

Army aviation in the Philippines

In August 1907, Brigadier General James Allen, the United States Army's Chief Signal Officer, established the Aeronautical Division as the nation's air service and oversaw the introduction of powered heavier-than-air flight as a military application. Four years later Allen recommended the establishment of an air station in the Philippines. Military aviation began there on 12 March 1912, when 1st Lt. Frank P. Lahm of the 7th Cavalry, detailed to the Division, opened the Philippine Air School on the polo field of Fort William McKinley, using a single Wright B airplane to train pilots. Ultimately attriting four of the Army's first 18 airplanes, aviation went temporarily out of business when the last plane crashed into Corregidor's San Jose Bay on 12 January 1915.

The first U.S. aviation unit stationed overseas was the 1st Company, 2nd Aero Squadron, sent to Corregidor in January 1916. It used four Martin S seaplanes to adjust battery fire for Fort Mills, but was demobilized at the end of World War I. A new 2d Aero Squadron returned in December 1919, and a permanent military aviation presence was established with the organization on 20 March 1920 of the 1st Observation Group of the United States Army's Air Service at Fort Stotsenburg, consisting of the 2nd Squadron on Corregidor and the 3rd Squadron at Fort Stotsenburg. An additional squadron, the 28th, was activated on 1 September 1922 at Nichols Field, and the group, now at Clark Field, was redesignated the 4th Composite Group on 2 December 1922. On 25 January 1923 the three squadrons, all equipped with the Boeing DH-4, were redesignated, respectively, the 2nd Observation, 3rd Pursuit, and 28th Bombardment Squadrons.

O-19 observation aircraft at Nichols Field in 1932

The air forces in the Philippines were a component of the Army's Philippine Department, and like the Army Air Corps in the continental United States, operated under split authority. Their nominal head was the Air Officer, Philippine Department, a staff member who did not exercise command of any operational units. Actual command of the operational forces (the 4th Composite Group) resided with the group commander, who reported through the chief of staff to the commanding general of the Philippine Department, and also through the Air Officer to the Chief of the Air Corps. Installations and airfields were maintained by service forces assigned to the Philippine Department, over which neither officer had any authority.

Maintenance of a defensive status quo of the Philippine Department was mandated by provisions of the 1922 Conference on the Limitation of Armament, although air power was not specifically mentioned in its terms. Between 1924 and 1931, when deliveries of new aircraft ceased because of the Great Depression, the department received first-line equipment including the Martin NBS-1 (1924-1930); Keystone LB-5 (1929-1931); and Keystone B-3A (1931-1937) bombers; and the Boeing PW-9 (1926-1931) and Boeing P-12E (1930-1937) fighters. The primary observation aircraft after the retirement of the DH-4 was the Thomas-Morse O-19 (1931-1937). After 1931 the 4th Composite Group became a "dumping ground" for aircraft that had become obsolete or worn out, discarded by units in both the Continental United States and the Hawaiian Department.

By September 1939 the aggressive threat of Japanese imperial ambitions to the Philippines was recognized by the United States, but the Army and Navy were at odds on a strategic stance for countering it. The Air Board determined in keeping with War Department policy that air defenses of the islands would not be strengthened by modernization or expansion, tacitly accepting that the Philippine Department was a "sacrifice force." On 31 May 1940, Maj. Gen. George C. Grunert, a mustang officer who had entered the Army during the Spanish–American War, took command of the Philippine Department. From the first he was dissatisfied with the staffing, equipment, and level of training of the department, but in particular the air forces, and intensively lobbied the War Department for modernization and reinforcements. Of thirteen fields available for use throughout the islands, only Clark Field was considered a first rate facility, and the small number of total fields made dispersal during wartime impossible.

Grunert's air force in July 1940 consisted of 28 Boeing P-26A "Peashooter" fighters (out of 34 originally shipped to the Philippines in 1937), 17 Martin B-10 bombers, 10 Douglas O-46 observation planes (the newest planes in the department), five 1920s-vintage ZO-19E observation craft (the "Z" modifier indicated they were unfit for front-line duty and could only be used as trainers), and three fabric-covered biplanes used for liaison, transport, and courier duties. The group had only 26 of the 51 pilots authorized it by its table of organization and equipment. In a limited response to Grunert's requests, on 5 August 1940 Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall approved the upgrading of Grunert's antiaircraft defenses, followed by presidential authorization on 18 October for the personnel transfer of two fighter units, the 17th and 20th Pursuit Squadrons, to fly 52 Seversky P-35s to be diverted from a consignment embargoed from a sale to Sweden. These measures were considered by the War Department to be "one-shot operations" and not a shift in its defense policy for the Philippines.

The senior Air Corps officer in the Philippines was Col. Col. Harrison H. C. Richards, the Department Air Officer. Col. Lawrence S. Churchill, commanding the 4th Composite Group, was a year his junior in rank. Cooperation and approval by Richards, a West Pointer, was necessary to accomplish support tasks for the 4th Group, but many officers felt he withheld information from Churchill and deliberately sabotaged group operations. While both colonels were fifty-one years old in 1941, neither had the confidence of Grunert, possibly because of open animosity each displayed against the other. In March 1941, Grunert wrote Marshall requesting that a general officer be transferred to Manila to command the Department's air force.