From: peter@adelph

According to my memory, he and, of course, his airplane, were
originally tasked to evacuate MacArthur from the Philippines.
Now, Pease was one of those guys that looked younger than he was, so
after snaking his ridden-hard Fortress into (IIRC) Del Monte
Field in
the dead of night, MacArthur refused to get on "That clapped-out
airplane, flown by that goddamn kid."

Four B-17s had set out from Melbourne, but two aborted with mechanical problems
and a third, piloted by Capt. Henry Godman, crashed on approach to Del Monte
Field, which was not an easy field to get into, certainly never designed with
four-engine aircraft in mind, with mountains coming down closely on three
sides, open only on on side to the sea. (Godman seems to have impressed
MacArthur while talking with him at Del Monte, for he made him his personal
pilot for the trip down, then promoted him to Maj. and made him Gen.
Sutherland's aide. In that position, a few months later, he pushed for a
maximum effort B-17 raid on Rabaul. This resulted in all of 18 bombers making
the daylight attack, including Pease's flying jalopy, which never should have
left Mareeba.)
Capt. Pease got his plane into Del Monte Field okay, but had no brakes and none
of the turbos was working. (For some reason, Mac didn't think much of Pease,
despite the fact Pease got his plane in and Godman crashed his. Godman later
earned a reputation as a brown-noser with the personality of a used car
salesman. Maybe if Pease had made a better impression he wouldn't have died at
the brutal hands of the Japs at Rabaul a few months later thanks to Godman's
bright idea for impressing his boss.)
These four planes were the best functioning B-17s available, mainly because of
the lack of proper repair facilities and spare parts that plagued the Air Corps
in Australia during this period.
Three more B-17s, were sent in to pick up Mac when he refused to get aboard
Pease's plane. They made harrowing night landings at Del Monte, which had no
lighting. Mac at first refused to board any of these either, complaining about
their sad and jury-rigged state of repair. But when made to realize he either
got on these planes or learned to speak Japanese, he and his entourage got
aboard and the planes lifted off headed for Darwin, 10 hours away. When they
arrived at Darwin, it was under attack by Jap planes but the B-17s were
unmolested as they flew down to Batchelor field 40miles south. The planes were
refueld and lifted off for Alice Springs. Ten minutes after they left, the
Japs hit Batchelor field.
The Japs missed a hell of a chance to bag MacArthur.

MacArthur was later extracted by PT Boat.

The nail-biting PT boat journey was from Bataan to the Del Monte plantation on
Mindanao.


Chris Mark