Okay, another interminable "what if" for you. The timeline is January-February 1942. General MacArthur's USAFFE Airforce on Luzon, Philippine Islands is down to it's last dozen aircraft. The US has promised further military aid and actually makes good on its promise.

While Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher's Task Force is making diversionary hit and run raiding attacks on Japanese island bases throughout the Central Pacific with the Carriers Yorktown and Saratoga, Admiral's Halsey and Newton aboard the Carriers USS Enterprise and Lexington are making a secret resupply run of 40 US Army P-40 fighterplanes to Mindanao, PI via the southerly route and then north from Darwin, Australia. This is done in the same manner that the USS Wasp did while resupplying Malta with Spitfire fighterplanes on two occasions at about the same time.

100 miles south of Mindanao, the US Carriers launch their aircraft that will land at the USAFFE Airbase at Del Monte before being refueled, serviced and sent through to the two USAFFE Airfields on Bataan. With their Army Aircraft launched and on their way, the two carriers get the hell out of Dodge at 30+ knots and with their normal combat air patrols aloft providing security.

What effect would the welcome infusion of 40 fresh fighterplanes and pilots have on the defenders of Bataan? Sure, I know. The end results are inevitable and would only prolong the same, but what say you guys and gals?.

Would Halsey and Newton's Task Force get away scot free?. Remember, the situation throughout the whole Southwest Pacific area was fluid to say the least during this time and the Japanese would not be expecting two US Carriers to be in their back yards either.

Where are they going to get the fighters to send? FTM, Saratoga was torpedoed by an IJN sub early in January, so she is not going to do much "raiding in the Central Pacific."

40 P-40s aren't going to do much good without pilots and gas. I suspect that one reason the US kept up Lend-Lease deliveries "when our own boys needed them" is that the aviation training schemes hadn't kicked in yet and they had no "boys" -- pilots or ground crews -- to use the planes.

Speaking of gas, how much was there on Mindanao to run this shuttle service? How much on Bataan to operate the planes? Did Bataan have radar or would the new planes: A. sit on the ground as targets, or B. burn up gas and wear out the planes flying standing patrols?

Considering that Kido Butai was running around bombing Rabaul, etc, I suspect the the IJN would be just thrilled to tears if the USN sent two CVs into the AO.

There already were alot of unemployed fighter pilots on Oahu after 7 December and alot of P-40's in various stages of transit from the Hawaiian Islands to Australia. The only problem would be getting the two of them together. Mindanao continued to have enough fuel and maintained a rickety "Bamboo Flight" of older aircraft carrying badly needed medical supplies into Bataan until the end of the campaign there. Also, the "Royce Mission" was later mounted out of Del Monte Field, Mindanao after Bataan fell. All of the remaining US B-17's and B-25's were sent from Australia to carry out bombing missions on Luzon and they enjoyed a good deal of success before having to return to the Land Down Under. Cabcaben and Bataan Air Fields on Luzon were good quality air bases with revetments for the fighterplanes that historically never arrived and they were defended by a number of flak gun emplacemets ranging from .50 caliber to 37mm to 3-inch 75mm.

Lastly, the two US carriers wouldn't be loitering around waiting for Japanese retribution. Once they'd flown off all of their P-40's to Mindanao, they'd beat feet and get the hell out of Dodge, like the Doolittle Raid, or the USS Wasp delivering Spitfires to Malta.

1. The US did not know that the IJN would not come back to HI. Stripping what little defense remains seems unwise.

2. Besides PH/HI, the US was building a string of bases across the Pacific to OZ. Those had to be garrisoned and defended as well.

3. Assuming the P-40s somehow fly into Luzon, how do the ground crews get there? How does the ammo and fuel get there?

4. "Beating feet" is problematic when a superior enemy is nearby. Halsey/Doolittle got away with their raid because there was nothing available for the Japanese to intercept them with, Kido Butai being in the south. But if Kido Butai is in the south, there is at least a chance that they will be in position to catch USN CVs going to Mindanao. Or leaving, the course would be easily predicted. And if anything happened to the CVTF, they were a long way from reinforcements or repair facilities. And as for Wasp in the Med, all she had to worry about was the Regia Marina, and she had the RN for backup.

5. The USN would not like to risk CVTFs in uncharted Southern PI/DEI waters. They has already had Boise put out of action on an uncharted rock.

6. If the B-17s and B-25s had "a great deal success," why did they have to return to OZ? Might it be that there was no more avgas and munitions on Mindanao? FTM, what great successes did they achieve? They didn't disrupt the Japanese schedule of conquest by a day.

Not to mention it is a lot easier to get 'lost' in the north central Pacific than in the SW Pacific.

I may have my timing mixed up but if you want more P-40s for the Philippines weren't there 100 with the "Flying Tigers" in China at the time ? With many US ex-military pilot & mechanic "volunteers" ? Wouldn't it have been easier to send them and then make up the China numbers via far less dangerous ferry missions thru the Indian Ocean and up over Burma ?

3. There were plenty of ground crews, and spare pilots for that matter, in Bataan, relatively few were casualties in the operations which mainly knocked out US air power. Fuel and ammo would have been more problematic for a large force though.

4./5. I agree, and the basic difference between Doolittle Raid and this idea goes beyond the position of Japanese carriers. The DR approached Japan along a track with no island bases in the way to detect the force by aerial recon before it got within range (the intended launch range of the B-25's), the problem being an unexpectedly distant Japanese surface picket line (which forced early launch and loss of all the a/c). And the actual carrier plane raids of early '42 only approached the outer line of island bases. The only remotely feasible line of approach to Mindanao in early 1942 is between the northern New Guinea coast (which the Japanese didn't hold yet) and the Carolines/Palaus (where there were Japanese air bases). Through the DEI is obviously impractical for carrier groups, as is passage between Marianas and Carolines, or between Marianas and Iwo Jima, they'd have to get much closer to Japanese bases in either case. But even along the north New Guinea coast the force has to remain within long range recon, or twin engine bomber range, of the Carolines and Palaus for a long time, on the way in and out. It's a definite step up in risk over any operation that actually happened in that period.

Anyway if this to be ca. Jan/Feb '42, coinciding with relatively weak Japanese forces on Luzon, I doubt there were the spare Army fighters at that time. Per the USAAF Official History, by Craven and Cate, a pretty hefty 337 P-40's, 100+ P-400's and 90 P-39's arrived in Australia between Dec 23 '41 and March 18 '42, but a lot were clearly toward the end of that period. With losses in DEI, transfers to RAAF, repair pipeline and 100 awaiting assembly, there were only 92, 52 and 33 of those types operational respectively with the USAAF in Australia March 18. As mentioned other a/c were felt to be needed in HI, and others still had been sent to garrison a number of other island bases on the supply line to Australia.

Three additional P-40's did make it to the Philippines besides the original complement, carried in crates by the blockade runner, Hong Kong registered merchant ship, Anhui, in March. They were recovered when that ship ran aground, and assembled on Mindanao. Two of the three are believed to be the two P-40E's captured intact by the Japanese there, which where later used in trials, wartime propaganda movies, and may have been among the captured P-40's used in combat in Burma in 1943.

Joe