"Komandorski Air Support?" Topic

I am wanting to run a scenerio for the Battle of the Komandorski Islands. One of the major factors in this battle was that the Japanese force commander feared the arrival of American aircraft if the weather cleared.

I need some help in determining what sorts of aircraft would these have been, had they ever shown up. What US aircraft would have been flying out of US airbases in the Aleutians on March 17, 1943?

P-40s, B-17s, stuff like that. I don't think that the Corps or the Navy had anything in the area.

I've been under the impression it would have been B-25s and P38s and/or some aging P40s but I haven't been able to find anything specific about what was stationed there.

As of June 1, 1942, United States military strength in Alaska stood at 45,000 men, with about 13,000 at Cold Bay (Fort Randall) on the tip of the Alaskan Peninsula and at two Aleutian bases: the naval facility at Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island, 200 miles west of Cold Bay, and the recently built Fort Glenn Army Airfield 70 miles west of the naval station on Umnak Island. Army strength, less air force personnel, at those three bases totaled no more than 2,300, composed mainly of infantry, field and antiaircraft artillery troops, and a large construction engineer contingent, which was used in the construction of bases. The Army Air Force's Eleventh Air Force consisted of 10 B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers and 34 B-18 Bolo medium bombers at Elmendorf Airfield, and 95 P-40 Warhawk fighters divided between Fort Randall AAF at Cold Bay and Fort Glenn AAF on Umnak. The naval commander was Rear Admiral Robert A. Theobald, commanding Task Force 8 afloat, who as Commander North Pacific Force (ComNorPac) reported to Admiral Nimitz in Hawaii. Task Force 8 consisted of five cruisers, thirteen destroyers, three tankers, six submarines, as well as naval aviation elements of Fleet Air Wing Four.[6]

link

This book should be helpful too:

PDF link

This book also mentions a squadron or two of B-24s and some P-38s too.

Looks like Fleet Air Wing Four had 33 PBY-5As:

PDF link

Mike

Have a look at this link Dameon, has as pretty detailed account of the battle and the war in the Aleutians in 1942/3 in general:

link

On page 72/3 it states that:

At 1604, U.S. Army planes, three B-25 bombers and eight P-38 fighters, were sighted in latitude 53º N., longitude 186º40' E. These aircraft, which had left Amchitka at 1330, had been delayed because it had bee necessary to install an extra fuel tank in each of them. While they were en route to the battle area, PBYs made contact with the two enemy merchant vessels some distance to the northwest of our force. These patrol planes carried no bombs, but they maintained contact until 1630, transmitting directions for the Army bombers. Lack of fuel made it impossible for the Army aircraft to act on the information, and they returned to their base.

At 1702, while Task Group Mike was in latitude 52º53' N., longitude 169º53' E., 13 B-24s and 8 B-25s were sighted. These planes had left Adak at 1336 to attack the enemy force. However, shortly after they passed over our ships, a Catalina reported that the Japanese group was more than 100 miles farther east. Again a shortage of gasoline prevented our Army aircraft from striking. The planes flew back to Adak.

Hope that helps.

FWIW we recently ran a game of this battle using GQ 1/2. The USN was hard pressed only having one CA.

KRO

I also ran Komandorski using Naval Thunder. It is a difficult win for the USN.

Well gamers being gamers I know that they tend to turn everything into a straight out fight until one side is sunk, then it will nearly always be a win for the IJN.

So, I give the IJN player the strategic goal of getting his transports across the board, rather than just sinking the US force.

If I add that after a certain number of turns there is an increasing chance of the US aircraft showing up it tends to put something of a time imperative on the game as well.

Dear Daemon,
Webber, Bert(1993) "Aleutian Headache. Deadly World War II Battles on American Soil. (Medford,OR: Webb Research Group) has P 39s, P 38s, B 24s and PBY Catalinas operating out of Adak from September 1942 (pp 83-84) and P 40s, operating out of Amchitka from late Jan-Feb 1943. PBYs operated out of Constantine Harbor, (presumably on Amchika.)
Webber says that "In time P 38s, B 25s and B 26s were based on Amchitka and sometimes carried out hourly raids on Kiska. [So it must have been between Feb and Aug 1943, and]…When the runway was extended the B-24s and B-17s came in." (p 86.)

Cheers,
Bertie

Thank you!