Peleliu, 600 miles east of the Philippines. Three
squadrons of F4U Corsairs landed on the newly
conquered airstrip less than two weeks after the
leathernecks went ashore, and were immediately
put to use.
Peleliu possessed some of the finest defensive
terrain in the Pacific—high, rugged topography
often covered with vegetation that concealed
Japanese caves and dugouts. The best way to deal
with the formidable Bloody Nose Ridge was with
fire. Sweating ground crews mixed napalm and
loaded the tanks on Corsairs within easy sight of
the target. The flight line was perhaps 1,000 yards
from the crest, and some pilots did not bother
raising their wheels after takeoff. They could be
over the target in as little as 15 seconds.
Some pilots spent more time in the pattern
than actually attack, logging missions of three
minutes.
An F4U-1D Corsair of VMF-213
equipped with 175-gallon
"teardrop" external fuel tanks
sits ready for launch on the
starboard bow catapult of the
USS Essex CV- 9 during January
1945. (Photo courtesy of Jack
Cook)
The long haul
Long-range fighter missions in Europe easily
lasted six hours, often stretching beyond seven.
The physical stress was described by Bob Goebel,
a 15th Air Force pilot, in his memoir Mustang
Ace. “On one of those missions I came close to
wetting my pants—and not from fright … Long
before we reached the target, the pressure in my
bladder told me that I was in trouble. A relief tube
was installed beneath the seat, but my previous
attempts to use it had been less tan satisfactory.
Using the tube involved undoing the lap belt and
the leg straps of the parachute, unzipping and
peeling back layers of flight clothing, finding the
plumbing fixture, and tucking into the cone—all
with the left hand while flying with the right. To
maintain formation, however, the throttle had to
be tended almost constantly with the left hand.
Trying to use the tube was like the comedy rou-
tine of the one-armed wallpaper hanger.”
However, the war’s longest missions were nec-
essarily flown in the broad expanses of the Pacif-
ic. In December 1941, Zeros of the Tainan Wing,
based on Formosa (now Taiwan) flew 540 miles
south, escorting Mitsubishi Betty bombers attack-
ing Clark Field, 40 miles northwest of Manila. It
was a stunning achievement — no western intel-
ligence agency guessed that the Imperial Navy
possessed such reach.
