A Stronger ABDA Command

I don't think that the RN would retire a force of 2 captial ships and 2 cruisers back to PH, Aus or Ceylon while there was fighting in Malaya and when this force could be suplemented by Dutch and American forces. i could see hit and run raiding but not complete abandonment.
 
There was a force of US planes that were shipped to Java, and destroyed before they got out of their crates. I'm not sure if this is the 18 P40s and 50ish Dauntlesses(?) referred to above.

Question. What if they were assembled in e.g. Darwin. Could they be flown e.g. Darwin- TimTim - Bali - Java (or something)?
 

Markus

Banned
Question. What if they were assembled in e.g. Darwin. Could they be flown e.g. Darwin- TimTim - Bali - Java (or something)?

The P-40´s could have, their ferry range was between 940 and 1,100 miles. Darwin - Timor is just under 500 and another 830 miles to Sorabaya.

The P-40 you are thinking of are probably the ones that went down with USS Langely, ~50 IIRC.
 
The aircraft had the range. The problem was those aircraft had no pilots or ground crew, who had gone ahead of the aircraft shipment and were already in the Philippines. If/until they could be evacuated and linked up with their aircraft, or the USAAF/the Australians are able to come up with replacements, there won't be any ferrying done. Historically, this actually happened, but not until late January, as the U.S. was able to evacuate the pilots of the 17th Pursuit squadron from the Philippines and link them up with the P-40s from the shipment. They flew on to Java, and performed quite well with a 3:1 kill ratio before running out of aircraft and being forced to retreat to Australia.

As for the Dive Bombers, many of the Dauntlesses needed a great deal of maintainance before they were ready for combat, as they had been improperly stored for shipping. OTL, with their ground crews trapped and forced to fight as infantry in the Philippines, the Dauntlesses were only brought online slowly and piecemeal as the Australians trained replacements.
 
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The P-40 you are thinking of are probably the ones that went down with USS Langely, ~50 IIRC.

It was actually a lot worse than that. The original plan was for the newly arrived reinforcements in Australia from the 49th Pursuit Group and others to follow the same ferry route that the 17th Provisional Pursuit Squadron took to Java. But there was an argument between the USAAF and ABDACOM leading to a last minute order to instead send the aircraft disassembled by sea. Because of the general chaos of the period and the last minute nature of the attempt, aircraft, groundcrews, and pilots were randomly scattered. In the end, 140 P-40 were supposed to be shipped out to Java, with a scattering of pilots and groundcrew, all mismatched from different units and with a great deal of personel stranded in Australia. 27 crated P-40s did reach Java on the freighter Seawitch, and most were indeed destroyed in their crates, but it may have been the Dutch trying to keep them from falling into Japanese hands, and at least some were captured. 32 more went down with the Langley along with 31 pilots and a number of ground crew, though the pilots and groundcrew may not have been from the same units. I don't know what happened to the rest, though some apparently were left behind when the Langley was fully loaded and ended up used by the Australians, and some others ended up replacing losses in the 17th Provisional Pursuit Squadron.
 
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Cook

Banned
There was a force of US planes that were shipped to Java, and destroyed before they got out of their crates. I'm not sure if this is the 18 P40s and 50ish Dauntlesses(?) referred to above.

Question. What if they were assembled in e.g. Darwin. Could they be flown e.g. Darwin- TimTim - Bali - Java (or something)?

P-40s did make the run to the Dutch East Indies via Darwin. It was an extremely hazardous journey that began in Brisbane, and then depending on route flown went via Mount Isa or from Adelaide via Alice Springs. Both routes relied on dead reckoning navigation with multiple crashes caused by aircraft either getting lost or overheating. On several occasions less than half the aircraft made it to Darwin.

From Darwin the situation did not improve. There were no electronic navigational aids and the tropical weather in December to February is appalling. Just prior to the first Japanese attack on Darwin a flight of P-40s flew from Darwin to Kupang, West Timor, none were able to locate the airfield and all crashed, either on Timor or in the sea attempting to return to Darwin.

On 19 February 1942 a flight of ten P-40s from the 33 Pursuit Squadron and a Liberator bomber left Darwin for the Dutch East Indies; the Liberator providing navigation. They were forced to turn back by the bad weather and all but one aircraft was shot down by Japanese Zeros over Darwin. The last P-40, piloted by Lieutenant Bob Oestricher, shot down to D3A Val bombers over Darwin.

Assembly in Darwin was not an option, the port facilities at that time were too small and slow to allow the rapid unloading of the aircraft and assembly at the RAAF airfield in Darwin.
 
P-40s did make the run to the Dutch East Indies via Darwin. It was an extremely hazardous journey that began in Brisbane, and then depending on route flown went via Mount Isa or from Adelaide via Alice Springs. Both routes relied on dead reckoning navigation with multiple crashes caused by aircraft either getting lost or overheating. On several occasions less than half the aircraft made it to Darwin.

The main problem seemed to be the barely trained and entirely unprepared pilots involved. The 17th Provisional Pursuit squadron, mostly made up of veterans from the Philippines, made the entire trip to Darwin and then on to Java via Timor losing only 4 out of 17, and 2 of those were because their pilots got Dengue Fever.

Of course, I don't really see any way to get those pilots better trained in time, but still the journey itself wasn't that hazardous for nongreen units.
 

Cook

Banned
The main problem seemed to be the barely trained and entirely unprepared pilots involved. The 17th Provisional Pursuit squadron, mostly made up of veterans from the Philippines, made the entire trip to Darwin and then on to Java via Timor losing only 4 out of 17, and 2 of those were because their pilots got Dengue Fever.

Of course, I don't really see any way to get those pilots better trained in time, but still the journey itself wasn't that hazardous for nongreen units.

The flights over Australia consisted of several legs of 1000 miles relying entirely on dead reckoning and accounted for a number of experienced pilots. VFR navigation over the desert, where there are no reference points is reduced to bearings and times.

The conditions also resulted in the P-40s overheating and crashing.
 
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