I was as far south as Sydney.  Never was over to New Zealand.  I spent some time in Melbourne too, then up to Brisbane.  That is where we flew our P-38’s north, up to Townsville, and then to Horn Island, and up to Port Moresby.  Where I flew out of 14-mile drome. I was born in 1918, so I was in my mid twenties when I was in New Guinea during the war. We were based there in Port Moresby, with another Reconnaissance P-38 squadron.  Their planes were P-38’s but they had still cameras in them.  And, a B-25 outfit.

Also, I was sent to Miline Bay for a short time, when we went to relive the Australians in the RAAF P-40’s for a couple days during the battle of Miline Bay.  You know, that is when the Japanese landed there, but were repulsed.  One night when we were there, we had to jump in our slit trenches because the Japanese bombed our strip.  One of our P-38’s got bent up and dented a bit from the dirt being thrown around, but that was it.  Then, we went back to Port Moresby.

We would often fly 500 or 1,000 miles round trip to targets like Rabaul or Wewak.  Up to Wewak, that was 500.  Over to Rabaul, well that was 100 miles over land, 300 over water, and the last 100 over land again – then, back again.  So, compared to those guys who just flew over to Germany and back, our missions were much longer.  I flew a total of 195 mission in about two years when I was over there in New Guinea, and that wasn’t really a lot.  There were other guys from my squadron flew over 200 who went on to do a second tour up in the Philippines.

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