U.S. Army
The Pacific War was decided largely by aircraft. One of the first acts of the Pacific War was the surprise attack by carrier aircraft on Pearl Harbor, while the final decisive acts were the nuclear attacks by B-29 Superfortresses on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The former was possible only because aircraft carriers, which are essentially floating airfields, were able to get close enough to Oahu to launch strike aircraft; the latter attacks were possible because the seizure of the Mariana Islands gave the United States airfields within bombing range of Japan.
Much of the strategy of the war revolved around control
of airfields in strategic locations. The decisive Guadalcanal campaign was fought
for control of Henderson Field. The U.S. Navy raised units called
Acorns to rapidly develop advanced airfields or rehabilitate captured
enemy airfields.
Combat aircraft required well-developed airfields for four reasons.
Runways. Combat aircraft landed at speeds in excess of fifty miles per hour. Takeoff speeds were even higher. This required a minimum of a few hundred feet of level ground in the direction of the prevailing wind with good traction and a surface that could bear prolonged heavy traffic. Such surfaces rarely occur naturally.
The ideal was for a runway to be constructed of
concrete, but this was a
time-consuming process. The Allies
made extensive use of Marston mat
to quickly lay down
new runways. Marston mat could be used on almost any kind of level
surface except swamp, but it was
best laid on 12 to 18 inches (30 to 45 cm) of crushed coral. Whatever
material was used, the runway was
subject to cratering by enemy bombs,
and materials and equipment needed to be on hand to quickly repair such
damage.
Where the prevailing wind was variable with the season of the year, or was unreliable, it was necessary to lay out multiple runways at angles to each other to ensure that at least one runway was directed into the wind.
U.S. Air Force regulations in
1941 called for an airfield to have an area 1000’ (305 m) wide (with a
300’
or 90 m paved
strip) and
3000’ to 5000’ (900 to 1500 m) long.
By 1943, the Seabees began construction of a new jungle airfield by
clearing and grading an area of 250' by 3500' (76m by 1070m), covering
an area of 100' by 2500' (30m by 760m) with crushed coral, and laying
down a 75' by 2500' (23m by 760m) runway with Marston mat. This was
just adequate for fighters. The
runway would then be expanded as opportunity permitted to the 300' by
5000' (90m by 1500m) area required for heavy bombers.
An airfield needed somewhere for
aircraft to park when not in flight. The 1941 Air Force regulations
seemed to assume that this would be an area at the edge of a wide
runway (the flight line), but this left the aircraft far too vulnerable
to air attack. Wherever possible, the runway was supplemented by
taxiways and hardstands (parking areas, so called because they required
a surface hard enough for the aircraft to stand on for long periods of
time.)
A grass strip was a hastily improvised
runway constructed by cutting down the vegetation and filling in
depressions. Grass strips were adequate only for occasional use by very
light aircraft or as emergency strips for heavier aircraft. They had
the advantage that they were difficult for the enemy to spot from the
air.
Logistics. Combat aircraft had high logistical requirements. A single sortie consumed from a few tens to a few hundreds of gallons of high-octane aviation fuel. Sustained flight operations thus required extensive fuel dumps and fuel delivery systems. In addition, bunkers were required for ammunition and living facilities were required for aircrew.
Fuel tank farms were a superb target. As a result, aviation gasoline was best stored in underground tanks or, if this was not possible, in dispersed and heavily camouflaged surface tanks. Fuel in barrels was easily dispersed and camouflaged, but refueling aircraft from barrels was a time-consuming process.
An Allied airfield typically required
unloading facilities capable of handling 1000 tons per day.
Defense.
However deadly they may be in the air, aircraft are sitting ducks on
the ground. In addition to radar to
direct its own fighters, an
airfield required the protection of antiaircraft guns and needed
hardened shelters for
grounded aircraft, fuel dumps, munitions bunkers,
and personnel. As previously mentioned, equipment needed to be on hand
to repair damage to runways and other vital equipment as quickly as
possible.
U.S. Air Force. Via Wikipedia
Commons
The usual shelter for an aircraft was a hardstand
surrounded on three sides by revetments, which were walls of earth
intended to protect the aircraft from strafing and bomb fragments.
Ideally, these shelters were widely separated and provided with some
concealment. More sophisticated shelters providing a measure of
overhead protection were rarely feasible, except at major bases such as
Hickam Field on Oahu.
The Americans had a definite edge in runway repair
following bomb damage. A Marston mat runway could be completely
repaired in about 40 minutes, while Allied intelligence estimated that
Japanese repair crews took about three hours to make inadequate repairs
at their forward air bases. Part of the difference was the availability
of construction machinery: A carry-all could move as much earth as 180 service troops.
Maintenance.
Aircraft require frequent maintenance, and this is best carried out as
close to the front line as possible. Maintenance requires stores of
spare parts and skilled mechanics. While minor repairs could take place
outdoors, more substantial repairs required overhead pulleys for
lifting large parts, and these pulleys were usually mounted in a repair
hangar.
When the Allies began their counteroffensive, surviving
Japanese pilots were able to escape from occupied or isolated islands,
but their skilled maintenance crews were usually left behind. As a
result, quality of Japanese aircraft maintenance dropped steadily.
In a pinch, an airfield could do with improvised
versions of any of these
features. However, airfields lacking adequate runways could
not support large or numerous aircraft, particularly in bad weather;
lack of logistical support reduced the number of sorties that could be
flown; lack of defenses made an airfield vulnerable to attack; and lack
of maintenance facilities meant that badly damaged aircraft could not
be repaired, while less damaged aircraft or those in need of routine
maintenance had to be flown back to a rear-area base. The Japanese, in
particular, were so short of skilled mechanics that damaged aircraft in
the South Pacific were often abandoned, while other repairs and
maintenance required that the aircraft be flown as far back as Formosa, where there was a major
aircraft maintenance facility.
References
Bergerud
(2000)
Huie (1944)
Morison
(1958)
The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia © 2007-2009 by Kent G. Budge. Index
