A
s time passed the crews grew fonder
of their old warplanes, if not their
Wright engines, and between searches
found time to paint names on them.
Schoggen’s 630 was Oklahoma Sooner, Ivey’s 642
naturally became Poison Ivey and Turner’s 668 was
Chosef, with a painting of the boxing kangaroo from
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644 was named Los Lobos.
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moted and transferred to 5th Group headquar-
ters, and McLyle Zumwalt took over the 394th
Bomb Squadron.
On April 25 the air echelon was ordered to
proceed to Guadalcanal for another few weeks of
strike missions. Guadalcanal had been declared
secure since February, although Japanese aircraft
continued to carry out small but sometimes deadly
night raids.
A series of bombing missions that began on
April 28 was continually hampered by weather.The B-17s attempted a Bougainville strike on
May 3, but were beaten back by a massive weather
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it, but had to give up when the altimeter neared
20,000 feet.
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B-17s managed to break through to hit various
Bougainville targets. Zumwalt reported that most
of the planes were over the target for more than
an hour, bombing through the broken cloud. He
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found suitable targets for all his bombs” and re-
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received absolutely no sleep on that night.”
Zumwalt led a nine-plane strike force to Kahili
and Ballale on the night of May 13. This time
each B-17 was carrying six 800,000-candlepower
M-26 flares in addition to the bombload. The
carefully timed plan was for each B-17 to bomb
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way for the following B-17. The searchlights and
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ers were seen but did not engage.
The run of bad weather continued as missions
were repeatedly planned and then cancelled.
The Navy was determined to blockade southern
Bougainville by mining Shortland Harbor, but it
was a dangerous mission against a well-defended
target, so they called on the Army Air Forces to
provide a diversion. On May 20 four 394th B-17s
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rying a load of fragmentation bombs; the fourth
Fortress was loaded with 14 300-pounders. The
B-17s concentrated on the searchlight and anti-
aircraft positions while Navy TBF Avengers
slipped in at 1,500 feet and completed their task
without loss. The mission was successfully repeated
three nights later with eight B-17s distracting the
enemy defenses.
The 394th was relieved on June 5 and returned
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that it was leaving Fiji for good, and the last search
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A third series of strike missions from Carney
Field, a new airstrip on Guadalcanal about 20 miles
east of Henderson, began with a successful attack
on Bairoko Harbor on New Georgia on July 4.
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sion as an aircraft commander in old Crock O’ Crap
on July 8. The target was again Kahili, and Major
Zumwalt led the nine B-17s in 41-9217, The Globe
Trotter. The Fortresses were only about 60 miles
short of the target when they encountered an
enormous weather front that began about 500 feet
above the ocean and stretched all the way up toROLL CALL
Top: B-17E 41-2467
San Antonio Rose
was assigned to
394th Captain John
Hunter Pitts. Above:
Roddenberry flew
most of his 89 missions
as Los Lobos’ copilot.42 AH September 2019